by Wendi Wilson
“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” Mom said. “I’m sure she’ll get over it quickly.”
Shaela and I looked at each other before turning back to her.
“Sorry to break it to you, but that was only the calm before the storm,” Shaela said. “Tiana never lets anything go, and this was much more than just some small insult.”
“She’ll be planning her revenge,” I added, “so we need to stay on our toes and always be prepared.”
“You’re serious,” Mom said, her eyes wide.
“Tiana doesn’t play around,” Shaela replied.
“Maybe I should talk to her—”
“No!” Shaela and I shouted in unison.
“Please, Mom, you’ll only make it worse,” I said, silently adding “on yourself” to the end of the statement.
“Yeah, we can handle her and whatever she dishes out,” Shaela said. “We have lots of practice. Besides, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but your daughter is a badass.”
“I’ve noticed,” Mom said, smiling. Growing serious, she added, “Just be careful. Both of you.”
“We will, Aunt Ellie,” Shaela said, making me grin.
I loved it when she called Mom that, reminding me of our familial bonds.
We said our goodbyes and headed out to our next classes, keeping watchful eyes on each other’s backs. Tiana wasn’t going to take this lying down. It was not a matter of if, but when she’d get her revenge.
My lips curled up as I left Shaela at her class and headed to math. Adrenaline coursed through me as I imagined facing off with Tiana. I had stress to burn and she’d be the perfect outlet.
My smile dropped as I remembered what was causing all my stress. We had a common enemy and we needed to keep a strong, united front. Petty infighting could be the cause of our downfall.
My beef with Tiana would have to wait. Hopefully, she felt the same way and wouldn’t try to kill me in my sleep.
Hopefully.
Chapter One Hundred Sixteen
18
Days passed without incident, but that didn’t mean it was a good thing. Nothing bad happened, but nothing good happened, either.
Finn wasn’t getting any better. He was still comatose and wasn’t showing any signs of waking. Magical healers visited him daily, pumping golden healing magic into him with the hopes that he’d come out of it.
The magic kept him alive, but that was all.
Easton’s appearance became more and more haggard as the days wore on, his father constantly whispering in his ear. I overheard him once, telling Easton he should prepare for the inevitable. That Finn would die and he needed to be prepared for taking over the kingdom permanently.
I had opened my mouth to berate him for such blasphemy, but Easton had whisked me away from his asshole of a father before I could get a word out. He convinced me it wasn’t worth it, that Alwyn was just trying to get a rise out of him and we should ignore him.
Easier said than done.
We also hadn’t heard a peep from Puck. He assured us when he left that he’d be in touch as soon as it was feasible to do so without getting caught by the Zephyrs. With each day that passed, my worry for him grew. The anxiety formed a ball in my gut that never really went away.
After more than a week had passed with no word, Easton called a meeting to discuss it and figure out what we should do next. By the time my last class finished, I’d showered and changed and made my way to Finn’s office, everyone else had arrived.
“Now that everyone is here,” Easton said as I took an empty chair between Shaela and my dad, “has anyone heard from Puck today?”
After everyone responded in the negative, silence fell between us all. The chairs were arranged in a circle, so I could see the worried expressions on every face. Dad reached over to take Mom’s hand as deep grooves of anxiety creased their way across her forehead. Shaela and Charles sat to my other side, their chairs close together and their fingers laced tightly. Easton sat directly across from me, his aura glowing blue with worry as he studied my face.
Whatever he was about to say, I wasn’t going to like it.
“I think we have to entertain the possibility that Puck has betrayed us,” he said.
Shouted denials burst from my mom and Shaela. They insisted that he just hadn’t had the opportunity to reach out to us. That Sebille was keeping him on a short leash and he couldn’t blow his cover.
I remained silent, my gaze locked on Easton as he watched only me. My emotions were all over the place, but I held my tongue, deciding to hear what everyone else thought.
“He has a phone,” Easton pointed out. “He can’t possibly be with Sebille every hour of the day. She has to sleep. He’s had to have had some opportunity to reach out to us.”
“Maybe Sebille took his phone from him,” Shaela offered.
“Or maybe she put up a shield that blocks his signal,” Charles added.
“She could have put a listening spell on his room,” Dad said.
“She can do that?” I asked, never having heard of such a thing.
Dad nodded, saying, “And if he even suspected she did, he couldn’t risk contacting us and blowing his cover.”
“All of that could be true,” Easton said, but he sounded unsure.
“Puck has hated the Sylphs since he was banished all those years ago,” Dad conceded. “No matter how much we want to deny it, it’s not completely outside the realm of possibility that he tricked us. That this whole thing was some elaborate plan to get info from us and report it back to Sebille. The ultimate betrayal—the ultimate revenge.”
“No, I don’t believe it,” Mom uttered. “I can’t.”
The discussion carried on around me, words whizzing back and forth as everyone debated just what my grandfather was capable of. And what he wasn’t.
My unfocused eyes stared toward the floor as Dad’s last words cycled through my mind over and over again, triggering a memory. The ultimate betrayal. The ultimate revenge.
What was it Grandfather said the day he left?
My eyes widened as his words came to me in a rush. My blood roared through my ears as tears stung at the corners of my eyes.
“Because I am the notorious Puck. No one bests me and I always get my revenge.”
That’s what he’d said. Revenge. But who was the target of that vengeance? Sebille? Or the Sylph council? Or the king, who lay trapped in an unexplainable coma?
It was too much. I jumped from my chair and ran for the door. I heard shouting voices but couldn’t make out the words over my heartbeat pounding against my eardrums. I threw the door open and ran.
I sprinted with no destination in mind, through the halls and up the stairs. I didn’t stop until I found myself in front of Easton’s bedroom door. I tried the knob and it was unlocked, so I cracked it open and slipped inside, shutting the door behind me.
I threw myself upon his bed and cried. I wept for my mom and Shaela, and what Puck’s possible deception would do to them if it were true. I wept for Finn, who remained unconscious through all of this turmoil.
And I wept for myself. For believing the worst of a man I’d come to admire and hating myself for it, yet not being able to shake my doubts. Either he was a liar and I was a fool, or he was in trouble and I was the asshole granddaughter who doubted his integrity.
Either way, I felt awful.
Sometime later, as sleep came to claim me from my agony, the bed dipped and warm arms circled around me. I burrowed into the warm embrace as Easton’s soft voice whispered comforting words into my ear.
Everything was going to be okay.
We were going to figure it out.
He would always be there for me.
I drifted off then, but my mind continued to spin even in sleep. Nightmares plagued me, filled with images of my grandfather, standing arm-in-arm with the Zephyr queen.
And laughing at us all.
Chapter One Hundred Seventeen
19
I spent the who
le next day in a fog. With sore, puffy eyes and a serious lack of sleep, I shuffled from class to class out of habit alone. I was there, but not really present.
Instead, I was trapped in a mental prison, my mind waffling back and forth between believing in Puck and believing the worst of him. And when those moments of doubt hit, I felt wretched.
He’d proven himself to be trustworthy, hadn’t he? He’d thrown himself in Sebille’s path to help us. To help the whole damned planet. He explained all of his actions, why he did what he did, and was working his way down the path of redemption.
He brought my mother to me.
I knew, logically, that there had to be some reason he wasn’t contacting anyone. He could be under tight surveillance. He could have lost his phone and not had access to any other means of communication. He could be hurt. Or worse.
By the time classes ended for the day, I was a total wreck. I stumbled to my room and threw myself on the bed, praying that sleep would come and release me from the hell of not knowing what to believe.
The door swung open and I cracked my eyes open, blinking against the light shining in from the hall. Shaela shuffled in and pushed the door closed behind her. Her blonde hair was a mess and her eyes were swollen.
I swallowed against the lump of shame in my throat. I was so wrapped up in my own muddied fears, I hadn’t even talked to her about how she was feeling. Puck was her grandfather, too.
I opened my arms and beckoned her with a wave of my hands. She stumbled forward, tumbling into my bed. We held onto each other, only the sounds of our sniffling breaking the silence.
“Do you really think he’s betrayed us?” she whispered after a while, her voice weak and broken.
“I don’t know, Shae. I don’t want it to be true. I want to believe in him.”
“Me, too,” she said. “But if he hasn’t turned against us, that means he…he could be in trouble.”
I brushed a hand over her hair, smoothing it as I stared into her bright green eyes. I didn’t know what to say to make her feel better. I didn’t know what to think to make myself feel better. So, I hugged her close to me and closed my eyes, willing us both to fall into a deep, dreamless sleep where we could find some peace, even if only for a little while.
It must have worked, because the next thing I knew, a deep, rumbling sound pulled me from sleep and Shaela was still cuddled in my arms. I lay there for a moment, blinking my eyes open and closed as I tried to figure out what I was hearing.
The sound abruptly ceased, leaving only the soft whisper of Shaela’s breathing. Still feeling drowsy, my eyes drifted shut as sleep came to claim me once more.
A loud boom accompanied by a wild shaking jerked me fully awake and I sat up with a jolt. Shaela flew up, too, looking around with wild, wide eyes.
“What was that?” she asked.
I shook my head and climbed over her to get out of bed. I sprinted to the door, then cracked it open to peer out into the hall. The other doors in the corridor were open and students were milling around with confused expressions.
Another explosion rocked the building, causing several of the students to drop to the floor. I heard Shaela yip behind me, and turned to make sure she was okay while I used the door jamb for balance.
That was when the shouting started.
I stumbled out into the hall as chaos reigned around me. Grabbing Shaela’s hand so I wouldn’t lose her in the crowd, I headed toward the staircase. We leaned against the rail and peered over, but all we could see was a thick cloud of dust drifting up toward us.
“Come on,” I said, pulling Shaela behind me.
As we ran down the stairs, the sounds of scuffling and shouting grew louder. Another boom rocked the building and my foot slipped off the step, but Shaela’s grip on my hand tightened and kept me from tumbling down the remaining stairs.
I could only describe the main level as pure pandemonium. Students and staff ran around in all directions, and I wasn’t sure if they were running from or toward something. I tried to make sense of what was happening while balls of fire and gusts of wind flew around me.
A screeching voice, wild with panic and fear, brought everything around me to a screeching halt.
“It’s Sebille! She’s taken Easton!”
My head turned toward the voice as the rest of my body went numb. Having seemed to come out of nowhere, Freya stood there, her hair wild and a streak of black soot across one cheek. Her eyes rolled back and forth like they had a mind of their own, not really focusing on anything.
“My son!” she shouted. “She took my son.”
With that last word, she sank to her knees and dropped her dirty face into her hands. I pulled my hand from Shaela’s grip and ran. Without a thought, I called for fire as I moved and a ball of blue-green flames formed in my upturned palm.
Through the cloud of dust and debris, I saw a large hole in the wall of the great hall. I veered toward it, never slowing my step as my pulse pounded in my ears. I needed to find Sebille. I needed to stop her.
A flutter of black wings caught my attention, and I popped my own wings out to propel myself toward the Zephyr flying through the hole. When I reached the opening, I froze, shock making it impossible to move.
The sky was streaked with oranges and pinks, telling me it wasn’t as late as I’d thought. The sun was still setting. But that’s not what held me immobile. It was the sight of several hundred Zephyrs, their black wings filling the sky as they flew away from the academy.
My eyes searched frantically for a familiar blonde head, my fireball ready to be thrown at the Zephyr who dared to take Easton from me. My breathing grew more and more erratic as I searched, seeing nothing but black—black wings, black hair, even black clothes.
A flutter of color caught my eyes and I focused on it, expecting to see the ice-blue of Easton’s wings. But they weren’t blue.
They were teal.
I met my grandfather’s eyes for one brief moment before he turned and flew away. I watched him go, my heart plummeting as all hope for his innocence drained from me.
He didn’t look hurt. He wasn’t chained, or gagged, or locked away.
He was here, with the Zephyrs, attacking us and kidnapping his granddaughter’s true love. Destroying the academy from the outside in and the inside out.
Devastation dropped me to my knees as my weeping eyes searched the sky for Easton once more. I couldn’t find him anywhere, and soon the Zephyrs disappeared as the sky darkened from dusk to night.
I pulled myself together and prepared to fly after them, but a hand on my shoulder stopped me. I turned to see my father, who looked at me with pity in his eyes. I tried to jerk away, but he held tight, pulling me into his embrace.
“You can’t go after them alone,” he said. “You’ll be killed.”
But Easton was gone, and nothing else registered in my brain as I struggled against him.
“December, stop,” he begged. “We’ll get him back. I promise. But we need to come up with a solid plan first.”
“No,” I argued. “I need to go. Now.”
“He wouldn’t want you to risk yourself,” he murmured.
I fought to pull away until the fight drained out of me, and I slumped in his arms. He led me back inside, but my mind was elsewhere.
It was too much. Easton being taken. Puck being in on it. The school in a shambles while Finn remained unconscious.
My brain and body couldn’t take it anymore and all the strength drained out of me. I felt my father swing me up into his arms, and one thought played on repeat in my head as everything went black around the edges and I passed out.
Easton was gone.
Chapter One Hundred Eighteen
20
The room was dark, the only sounds coming from my bunny Blossom shuffling around in her cage. I stretched, and wondering what time it was, fumbled for my tablet that I usually left resting on my bedside table. My hand brushed across its smooth surface and froze.
Memories cr
ashed in, making my blood run cold. The loud booms, the dust and the screaming. Freya yelling something about Easton. Me, rushing out to go after him and Cris stopping me.
My grandfather, floating in the air, surrounded by Zephyrs.
I flew from my bed and flicked on the light. Shaela’s bed was empty, still neatly made with its purple pillows artfully arranged. I was still dressed in my uniform, which was wrinkled and damp with sweat.
I bounced from foot to foot, feeling the need to do something, but not sure what. I felt like screaming—shouting my anger and disappointment at the universe, but I knew it would solve nothing.
I needed information. I needed a plan.
I rushed from the room and headed for Finn’s office. I assumed everyone would be there, planning Easton’s rescue. Without me.
I chastised myself for passing out. I wasn’t the weak human girl who fainted whenever anything shocking happened anymore. I was December Thorne, daughter of two powerful Fae families and wielder of fantastic magic.
I should not have been sleeping.
I swung through the open door to Finn’s office and skidded to a halt. The room was empty. My eyes skimmed over the fire burning in the hearth and the chairs, still arranged in a circle from our meeting about Puck’s lack of communication.
“I guess we know the answer to that, now,” I mumbled under my breath, resentment flooding through me.
Where was everyone? Why weren’t they here, planning an ambush to get Easton back?
My feet shuffled across the floor toward Finn’s desk. A single sheet of paper lay there, a single sentence scrawled across it in big, loopy handwriting. I picked it up and read it.
If you ever want to see Easton Oberon again, bring me December Thorne.
The note slipped from my fingers and drifted lazily to the floor as my legs gave out. I dropped to my knees and pressed a hand to my chest, where it felt like a vise was gripping my heart.