The woman snarled but relaxed her grip a fraction, eyeing Hilo in warning. Noa fought the urge to gag as a small snake slithered out of the woman’s knot of hair and then back in, its skin clear too, showing its knobby spine.
The woman didn’t notice or didn’t care. She looked at Noa. “The name found you, so to you I will listen.”
Noa swallowed, tried to speak carefully. “You’re … her? The Attendant from the temple?”
The woman nodded once.
“H-how come no one’s found you?”
“I’ve killed the others.”
Noa shivered; she couldn’t help it.
“What about the others helping you?” Hilo interjected. “You couldn’t have laid all those little traps on your own. You bamboozle an army of Fae too, make them your guards?”
The Seer’s tone was ice as she turned slowly to Hilo. “I have no Guards.”
Noa and Hilo looked at each other. Hilo tried to scoff. “But Blues had to make that avalanche and the white guiding light—”
“And Greens made me see my friends—”
“And Reds tried to make us drink the water! It would take two of each at least to do all those skills,” Hilo accused. “You’re trading on an old legend, and we don’t have time to waste. Bring out the minions and let’s get real.”
The Seer’s upper lip curled in Hilo’s direction. “You did not have the name. I do not have to tolerate you.”
“She doesn’t mean to be rude,” Noa said quickly, as Hilo’s eyes narrowed dangerously, so like Judah’s. “We’ve just been searching, hoping—”
“If you’re the Seer, and not just some old hag,” Hilo interrupted, overemphasizing the word Seer, “tell us why you left the Temple. You could have been the Mystic.”
The Seer’s lip curled again. “Knowledge comes with a price.”
“What price?” Hilo snorted.
Harmony hissed, and Noa put a hand on Hilo’s shoulder. “Hilo, I believe her. Who else set all those traps? She must have learned it from studying Fae magic.”
“The girl who ran from the Temple was young, Noa! Look at her, this crone’s thousands of years old!”
“Silence!” the Seer boomed, flinging her voice and hand at Hilo. Hilo’s entire mouth vanished with a little pop. Her eyes looked so surprised Noa could have laughed, if it had not been so repulsive.
The Seer looked at Noa. “You wept when you thought she was lost?”
“You get used to her,” Noa admitted. “And besides, I couldn’t have gotten here without her. Your traps were pretty impressive.”
“They usually suffice. But two together have a greater chance.”
“I guess.”
“Not guess. Fact.” The Seer nodded back toward Hilo’s lipless, furious face. “She helped you with the Green trap because you do not know your heart. You freed her from the Red one, because she does not know her mind. Be careful of that—one who does not know her mind makes for a shifty ally.”
Hilo’s eyes bugged with a retort she could not give voice.
Noa bit her lip. “I trust her.”
“So be it.”
“Do you mind … telling her why you are so…” Noa trailed off, not sure how to put it. “Much older, I guess, than she thinks you should be?”
“Bodies wear for many reasons. She is lucky not to have learned that yet.”
Noa turned to Hilo. “Okay? Please Hilo, this is our chance. It’s her. Who else would be down here? Believe with me. Forward, right?”
Hilo’s eyes flared, but then she nodded. The Seer flicked her wrist at Hilo, and her mouth returned with a pop. She rubbed it with her hand and looked at the Seer sideways, as if suspicious Harmony had given her back an inferior smile.
The Seer’s lizard eyes held Hilo icily. “You will not speak unless I invite you to. I will help the one who knew my name because someone died to give it to her. I will tolerate you only until I no longer wish to do so.”
Hilo looked down, an angry child, but nodded. The loss of her mouth had allayed her doubts, but it had badly hurt her pride.
“Ahhh!” Noa groaned, suddenly falling to her knees and pressing her palms against her temples. She’d been feeling the spasms in her head while they were climbing down before the avalanche and crossing the river, but the adrenaline of falling and then fleeing and nearly drowning had helped her to push the headaches away. Now that things were somewhat calmer, the pain knifed through her brain as if her neurons were on fire, and she realized the headaches had never actually stopped.
“What’s wrong with her?” the Seer demanded as Hilo flew to kneel by Noa. Hilo looked up, hesitated. “I allow you to speak! Tell me!”
“She’s been getting headaches, it’s part of why we came to seek your help—”
“I thought I sensed something, magic out of order—”
“Ahhhh!”
“She’s not magic! She’s mortal!”
The Seer’s lizard eyes widened, her entire body completely still.
“Are you going to help her or not?” Hilo demanded.
Noa fell to all fours, panting, but the worst had passed. “I-I’m okay now.”
The Seer flicked Hilo away and yanked Noa to her knees so she could look into her eyes. “Mortal. From the mortal realm. Of course.”
“We thought…,” Hilo began tentatively. “We worried Aurora might…”
“Be killing me,” Noa croaked.
The Seer raked her eyes over Noa, laid her hands on her cheeks. They now felt rough and sure.
“What else?” she demanded tersely.
“M-my memories here. Some of them, they’re changing, or fading, I can’t really explain it—”
“Any in particular?”
Noa swallowed. “Callum.”
“Blue Fae,” Hilo supplied quietly.
The Seer blinked, just once. “He’s the reason you’re here, is he.”
Noa looked at Hilo. “Sort of. We used to … be together. In the mortal world. It’s a long, weird story.”
The Seer’s face betrayed nothing. “It will be faster if I read it in your mind. Lean forward.”
Hilo sprang into action. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, who said you could just go in there and poke around?”
“You want my help or not?” the Seer replied stonily.
Hilo faltered, turned to Noa. “Think about it first, Noa. She’ll see everything. Everything.”
Noa bit her lip. “Forward, right?” she whispered, not at all certain, and absolutely afraid. “For the boys and Sasha.”
Hilo clenched her jaw; Noa saw the muscles pulse in her cheeks. “It’s a risk. For everyone.”
Noa took Hilo’s hand. “We’ve come this far….”
Hilo looked unhappy, but squeezed Noa’s hand and nodded. “Forward.”
“Good,” the Seer said tersely. “Step back.”
Hilo obliged, not breaking Noa’s eye line. Noa nodded at her, then leaned her forehead into the Seer’s claws.
It was unlike anything Noa had ever experienced. She had thought it was going to be like the prison interrogation, when Captain Lia had Channeled a Red to look into her mind. Then, Noa had walked the memories with Lia, had seen what she’d seen, had even been able to propel the intrusion out. But this time it was a blur; it was everything moving lightning-fast and white, all at the same time. No way to hold back, no way to shut a door, no way to even see or hear, just lie exposed, open, raw—
And then it was over.
Noa fell forward with the force of it, breathless and strangely bereft. The Seer stumbled back a few steps, scrambling a little for her own balance.
Hilo was instantly at Noa’s side, holding her up.
The Seer’s voice was uncharacteristically shaky. “Many secrets, Noa. Many.”
Noa looked nervously at Hilo. She
squeezed Noa’s shoulders.
The Seer mastered herself and looked at Noa, terse again. “Your headaches and your memory shifts are the results of two very different things, both equally dangerous. A Mindworm and a curse.”
Noa lost her footing against Hilo; roaring shook inside her ears. Somewhere next to her, Hilo asked, “What’s a Mindworm?”
The Seer looked at Noa. Of course she knew that Noa already knew the answer, because she now knew everything.
Noa found her thready voice. “Combination magic. In the mortal realm, a Red Fae and a Green pixie put a Mindworm into my friend Miles to change his feelings, erase his memories…” She couldn’t go on. It was too terrible to remember what the twins, Fabian and Pearl, had done to her best friend, how, despite the fantasy of the Portal world, in real life he had not recovered and probably never would.
“It works even after the Fae are not present. It takes on a life of its own. A magic that’s alive,” the Seer finished for Noa. A sick bit of awe had crept into her guarded voice.
“The twins got me too?” Noa asked. “Is that what happened?”
For the first time, the Seer looked surprised—and something slipped in and softened her features, just for a moment. Something like … sympathy.
That made Noa’s heart beat even faster. “Not the twins? Someone else?”
The Seer actually hesitated. “Callum,” she finally said. “Callum gave you the Mindworm.”
Noa clutched her stomach, fell forward; Hilo caught her before she hit the ground. Noa turned to the side, thought she might be sick except there was nothing inside her to vomit up. Nothing inside but the bile of selves exploding into pieces she never knew—
“How is that possible?” Hilo demanded, trying to keep Noa from disintegrating in her hands. “He would never hurt her! And you said it was combination magic! He’s one Fae! Blue! Who helped him?”
Noa curled on her side, fireworks razing her beneath her skin.
“Lily, his sister,” the Seer answered.
The name rang absurdly through the room; Noa breathed it in; its tang forced her back up, and fighting.
“Never,” she cried angrily. “My sister would never hurt me! And her name is Sasha. You’re a liar.”
“They didn’t do it to hurt you,” the Seer replied patiently, “or even on purpose. Callum told you how he and Lily—”
“Sasha!”
The Seer bowed her head minutely. “Fine. Callum told you how he and Sasha worked together to insinuate her into your world, edit her into the timeline, specifically into your family and their love.”
“But now we really love her, no magic needed,” Noa insisted.
“I believe you. And I feel that. Cleanly.”
Noa wanted to lunge at her but didn’t.
The Seer raised a brow.
“Go on,” Noa allowed, through gritted teeth. “Tell me.”
The Seer sighed. “But the magic Callum used, the Mindworm of that scale and breadth, was far beyond what he could handle or do with precision. And Lily—Sasha—was so young then, she of course had no control. Her love for Callum, her relief at his rescue, her understanding of him as her protector, her hero—all that went into the Mindworm that went into you.”
“Only me?”
“You, Noa, are Sasha’s protector now. You are bound most tightly to her, and she to you. The way she was bound to Callum before. So she shared those feelings, that love for him, with you.”
Noa felt her anger going out of her, hollowing her out, filling her with tears. She couldn’t look at Hilo, couldn’t look at the Seer, couldn’t speak.
The Seer tilted her head; again—so lightly—her face grew softer, almost maternal. “I know it’s hard to hear, Noa. But do you remember? How instant your attraction to him was? How deeply connected you felt immediately? I felt it with you, in your memories—”
“So none of it was true?” Noa asked, wiping angrily at a tear. “It was all a lie? My own heart … my own feelings… never mine and never true?”
As if unable to stop herself, the Seer crouched at Noa’s other side, stroked her back with gentle, scaly fingers. “It started that way, but Noa”—the Seer broke off, overcome by some emotion—“who’s to say what happened next? Love is tricky, and love is strong. Not some flower but a warrior weed, growing in any condition, through any obstacle, surviving frozen tundras, pushing up through cracks in stone! Who’s to say now what came from you and what from him? Your love for Sasha—it began as a Worm too.”
“But I know that’s real—”
“Because it’s a different kind of bond,” Hilo whispered. “Romantic love … is always more confusing.”
“Now who can tell?” the Seer offered. “All the feelings—yours, the illusion’s—are too intertwined, growing up together…”
Noa wiped harshly at her cheeks. “How could he do that to me?”
“I doubt he knows,” the Seer said. “Just as Sasha certainly did not.”
Noa bit her salty lip until she tasted metal. “So my memories of him, how they feel as if they’re changing…”
The Seer got to her gnarled feet, hunching inward, her motherly moment evidently ended. “The Mindworm was made in the mortal world and is unstable here. As the Worm changes in this atmosphere, it is affecting what and how you remember.”
“Well, good,” Hilo said. “So the Worm will die off here, and then she’ll know for sure exactly how she feels.”
“No,” the Seer said bluntly. “Eventually the magic will reacclimatize to these surroundings.”
“So take it out!” Noa cried. “I want it out!”
The Seer frowned. “I could do that. But the magic is complex, and if I kill the Worm in you, it dies everywhere, taking everything it created with it.”
“So?” Hilo cried in exasperation.
“Sasha’s life at home, her history, her place…,” Noa murmured.
“Shall I do it, Noa?” the Seer asked evenly, emotionless, reptilian again. Noa knew she would do it if Noa asked.
“Of course not,” Noa said, a tear falling down her cheek. “I could never do that to my sister.”
The Seer nodded.
Hilo touched Noa’s arm. “You can still figure it out for yourself. What’s yours and what isn’t.”
“There is love for him in you, real love,” the Seer added. “I do know that.”
“How can it be?” Noa asked, to no one. “He set me free, he gave me wings, and gills, he helped me breathe … and yet he has taken me from me?”
“Not on purpose,” Hilo reminded her. “And he loves you, with no Worm in his mind at all.” Noa didn’t really hear her, couldn’t. Maybe didn’t even want to.
The Seer cleared her throat. “There is more, when you are ready.”
“Hasn’t she had enough?” Hilo snarled.
The Seer didn’t flicker. “I told you at the outset there are two problems. The Mindworm is one, and explains Noa’s changing memories. The other problem was her headaches, and the cause is the true-love curse.”
Hilo frowned. “You just said the love with Callum’s not real—”
Noa looked at the Seer. “The true-love curse? You mean that thing Judah was talking about, that makes his powers not work with me? That’s not real! Callum said it was because Judah never trained, his gifts were weak. That’s why his gift doesn’t work on me. That love thing is just some excuse!”
“I’m afraid not.”
“So what, I love Judah?” Noa demanded, suddenly angry for some reason. “Is that what’s been decided?”
“It may be so,” the Seer replied icily, “but not necessarily. He loves you, however, truly and deeply, and so he shares the curse with you.”
“Hello! What is everyone talking about? What curse?” Hilo interrupted.
Noa sighed in irritation. “Som
ething like when a Fae loves a mortal, his gifts stop working on her—”
“Close,” the Seer sneered, “but incomplete. The curse was put in place to stop Fae and mortals from intermingling, mostly because the mortal realm is meant to be a prison, not a place of happiness.”
“But the curse actually makes things simpler, since it protects the mortal from Fae magic, including being drained of Light,” Noa pointed out. “It would have made things a whole lot easier with Callum.”
“In the immediate effect, yes,” the Seer said, “but what’s actually happening is not that the Faeness—the magic—is being blocked; it’s being transferred, Fae to mortal.”
“Transferred to Noa?” Hilo said in disbelief.
“You tell me, Noa.” The Seer eyed her levelly. “Have you noticed anything odd? I did, in your mind.”
Noa wanted to spit some rude retort, but then her eyes widened, a hundred moments coming suddenly into focus:
When she’d been with Marena, hiding in the closet—the Red alarm in the house had gone off, even though Marena was Green. And it had happened after she’d seemed to read Amarine’s thoughts.
The way Noa, so many times, had felt she could read what Marena, or Callum, or even Hilo was thinking, even though they didn’t speak aloud: when Marena had told her to run when she’d been captured in the square, or later, when Noa had heard Marena call her name from the jail cell, when Marena swore she hadn’t said anything at all.
And the interrogation, when she’d fought off Captain Lia, seen the Red attack and pushed it back on her interrogator, even knocked her out, in the way Callum had said would be impossible—
“You Dreamwalked,” Hilo added, remembering things of her own. “I told you that was a Red skill. You’ve … you’ve taken Judah’s power.”
“But that’s not true. He still has his power—” Noa protested, but even as she said it, she could see how she was wrong. “Except … except it’s fading,” she realized. “He got lost sometimes in the Tunnels, like he couldn’t see them in his mind anymore; he didn’t recover as quickly when we were flushed out; and his blood, it wasn’t Red, it was black…”
“Black?” the Seer asked sharply. “I must have skimmed over that detail.”
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