by Lainy Lane
"Who said it was Kailen?" His face seemed skeptical of her information, and his eyes blazed jade momentarily.
"Was it?" She suddenly wasn’t so sure of her assumption.
"Technically speaking it was Kailen's message, but he didn't come to me personally to deliver it."
Calandra felt confident she didn’t want him to elaborate that response further.
Calandra stared at him in disbelief. More secrets, which shouldn't really surprise her, but it did. Jarreth was supposed to have been the one person she could trust and the reality that she couldn’t hit harder than she expected it to. She had convinced herself that, despite everything he had done to keep Kailen from revealing his secret, she would be able to move on. She had persuaded herself that they would be able to go forward on the same path they had been on before the drama. Maybe she had only been fooling herself.
Drake had been so kind as to place all of the doubt back in her mind with his words, and she realized that no matter how much she wanted to believe she could recover from what Jarreth had done, it would always be lurking in the back of her mind. Like an unwelcome guest that wouldn’t take the hint and leave. But the reality of it was that it would always be toying with her emotions. She would always have the picture of Jarreth burning down her sanctuary haunting her day in and day out.
"Tell me everything, for once." Calandra gained enough confidence from deep down to tell him to do the one thing she didn’t really want, but she knew she needed to hear it all laid out in front of her. Fear coursed through her as she wondered what might come out of his mouth.
"Calandra, what are you trying to accomplish?" His eyes were clouded with uncertainty as he cautiously approached the topic.
"I'm trying to make a decision on my own for once. I'm trying to figure things out by myself, but I need to know the whole story." For once she couldn't have made a statement with more truth.
Jarreth sighed and his body tensed. "It was through a dream. Kailen can't actually dream walk to my knowledge, and even so, the gift isn't something that can’t be used on other Faeries, not in my experience at least, you, of course, being the exception."
"So you don't even know if it was real? This could have all been some figment of your imagination?" Her breathing picked up, and she took several more gulps of her drink.
Drake was right, it had been for nothing other than completely selfish reasons. Jarreth had stolen away her safe haven to protect himself from a threat that could have been nothing more than his own imagination playing tricks on him while he slept.
"I couldn't take the chance." He shrugged.
"It was that important to you? You destroyed the field, put me through hell, all to protect yourself against a threat that may not have actually existed in the first place?" She glared at him, daring him to lie to her.
"Calandra, what would you have done if you'd found out?"
"Newsflash Jarreth, I did find out. Did you know that Drake knew about your little agreement with Kailen?"
"Obviously I didn't. Do you really think I would’ve trusted him to keep it? I screwed myself in the end."
"No Jarreth, you screwed me, from the very beginning. You were so worried about yourself that you tore me down to protect you." Her eyes observed him carefully, waiting for cues on his sincerity. She wanted them to tell her something that would help them get back to where they were before.
"I was protecting you, Cal." He instantly defended himself without even attempting to apologize.
"No! You wanted to believe you were protecting me only to make yourself feel better because you knew what you were doing was wrong." The anger was building inside of her and pulsing through her veins. The hurt overrode her ability to think through anything before she spoke, not that she was known for her ability to use her words well. For once, she felt good that the raw truth was coming out without being filtered through all of the reasoning and excuses she typically laced over what she really wanted to say with. "You're no better than him, Jarreth."
Jarreth's eyes turned black for a moment, and he stared at her, surprised by her sudden audacity. Calandra for once felt relieved, she was actually speaking her mind for the first time in quite a while. The Phoenix had risen, and she was a new person now, one that finally seemed to know better than to fall for the games of this world and its inhabitants.
"I can do one thing to make it better for you, Calandra." Jarreth smiled as if nothing had happened. As if all her truth and raw emotions had meant nothing to him. In one ear and out the other.
"Not sure what you could do for me to make this go away."
"It may not go away, but it could compensate for the wrong I've done." He smiled, and she wasn’t sure if she was wise for trusting it.
"I'm listening." Calandra knew she was, once again, playing a dangerous game, but she had been playing it since she arrived and it showed no signs of ending anytime soon. She wasn’t even sure at this point she was a willing participant.
"You need to speak to Ankou." He left the explanation off as if she should already know who Ankou was.
"And that would be who exactly?"
"The Faerie of death. Not a very nice guy obviously, but if you get on his good side, he might allow you to speak to your mother, and you can get your answers once and for all."
Of course, it couldn't have been a simple solution. That would have been too much to ask. No, the answer was to go talk to death itself and get on his good side? Nice and Calandra had once again managed to find herself on the road less traveled. She was beginning to realize that there was a darn good reason people didn’t travel down that path.
"And just how would I go about doing that?" The question scared her, and she already knew she didn’t want to hear the answer, but apparently, Jarreth wasn't going to explain anything further unless she pushed it.
"First, we need to find Drake." Jarreth ended his explanation there as if it was just a simple as that.
"And second?" Calandra gulped hard once the question was out of her mouth.
"Then, you have to die."
Well, good thing it was no big deal or anything.
"I'm sorry, I have to die?" Calandra was still breathless at the second half of the task, and Jarreth's face remained expressionless as if it wasn’t that big of a deal. She wondered if he would be as calm discussing it if it were his life on the line.
"Well, Ankou is death, so you have to be dead to see him."
While the logic made sense to her, his nonchalant attitude about it didn’t. Maybe this had been his plan all along, maybe he wanted her to die? No, that couldn’t be right. "So, what good do the answers do me if I'm not alive to do anything with them afterward?" There was a ginormous hole in this plan, and Jarreth surprisingly didn’t seem to care much about filling that hole. Calandra, on the other hand, needed it filled ASAP.
"I bring you back." His voice came from behind her, and the look on Jarreth's face informed her of exactly who it was.
Drake stalked over, looking smug, as usual, and pushed her further into the booth to make room for himself as he took a seat. He placed his arms, one on top of the other, on the table and began glaring at Jarreth on the opposite side of the booth. No one said anything, there was just an odd stare off going on while Calandra's death hung in the balance. Apparently, they weren’t quite as concerned about the whole she had to die issue as she was.
"Um, while I'd love to watch you two, you know— do whatever this is all day," Calandra waved her hand in between their glares to pull them out of the death stare game and back to her. "The slight issue of how I'm supposed to come back to life seems a bit more important to me personally, so if you wouldn't mind explaining exactly how that works?" She snapped her fingers in the air, demanding another drink from Glyda.
"There's a reason I'm a dark Faerie, Calandra, a reason I need blood to take my emotions versus the way Jarreth does it." Drake gave her a serious look, one she had never seen on him before, and she realized that he was, for once being serio
us, no mind games, no sarcasm, just truth. This was new. She didn’t want to admit that she liked the way it looked on him. "I am connected to Ankou, connected to death."
Calandra tossed the straw out of her drink and gulped down the remaining liquid in one large gulp. She held the empty glass in the air, signaling for Glyda to hurry with her next one. "I'm sorry, connected to death?"
"There's a reason Kailen wants me on his side." He wiggled his eyebrows as if to lighten the blow of the comment.
"I thought you didn't have a side." Jarreth decided to jump in as Glyda appears with Calandra's new drink.
Glyda leaned into Drake and practically laid her chest right against his face. Calandra gave her the best evil glare she could muster, which had gotten pretty good after being screwed over so many times now. Glyda slowly lifted herself off of Drake and slunk away from the booth looking truly injured. Calandra was proud of herself, but it only lasted for a moment when she noticed the look on Jarreth's face after her display of jealousy. Way to not give it away, she scolded herself.
"I don't have a side," Drake continued as if nothing happened. "Doesn't mean I'm not desired on both sides. Think about it Jarreth, you obviously want me on your side or you wouldn’t want me here and in on this scheme in the first place." He smirked, proud of the truth in his statement.
"It’s not a want," Jarreth countered.
"Maybe not, but you do need me." Being able to make that statement had Drake practically glowing with pride.
"Can we continue on the making me come back alive issue please?" Calandra started in on her new drink as her curiosity and nerves built inside of her.
"I can bring you back." Drake made it sound so simple.
"So what? I kill myself, buddy up to Ankou while I'm dead, then you bring me back? Simple as that?" She didn’t like how lightly of a matter her mortality seemed to be during the conversation.
"Not simple." Jarreth looked at Calandra as he spoke, his eyes were laced over with worry. "Nothing is simple when you deal with death, and this will not come without a consequence of course. I'm sure you've learned by now that dealing with Faeries, especially Dark Faeries, always requires a price."
That was becoming more apparent by the day. "So what's the catch?"
"The catch is what happens to your soul once you do die and stay dead," Jarreth explained.
Calandra looked at him puzzled. "Meaning what exactly?"
"When you die, your soul has a few options normally. One is to stay as you were and roam as a spirit, or as what is referred to in the mortal world as a ghost. The other option is to be reincarnated and return as something new. Then, for the less fortunate, there are the damned souls who get to stay with Ankou."
Well, that sounded promising. Be a ghost, be reincarnated, or stay with a dark Fae and be condemned for eternity. Calandra took several long drinks as she ran over this new information and the possibilities she was being placed with. Did that mean her mom's soul had been damned? Why would that be? "Wait, how do we know that my mom is with Ankou?"
"Because Calandra, she made a deal with Akiye, she sacrificed her life as the price of the deal she made with her. She may have sacrificed it in the name of Akiye to pay her debt, but Ankou is the one who keeps watch over those souls," Drake explained while Jarreth watched her concerned, he was probably waiting for her to snap completely.
"So what good is it to Akiye if she doesn't actually get the soul in the end?"
"She may not physically have the soul, but she is in charge of the type of eternity she spends with Akiye, she is still eternally tied to Akiye, Ankou is just the guardian since Akiye can't be in the underworld." For once Drake was more than happy to give answers, which wasn't like him at all.
"So I'd have to sacrifice my soul to Ankou?"
"I will go with you since I am connected to death I am allowed to roam freely back and forth. But in order to bring you back, you will have to promise your soul to him after your next death, the permanent one." Drake looked at Jarreth as if he was expecting him to somehow counter the situation, but he simply stared on as Calandra discussed the simplicity of the eternity of her soul.
"Ok." Calandra finally breathed out. What choice did she really have? She needed answers and her mom had them. She would give her the answers that Drake had destroyed. That was when it hit her. Drake had destroyed the diary because he didn't want her to discover the secret that Echo knew about Kailen, yet he was willing to help her get it now.
"Why are you helping now, Drake? Won't this out whatever it is that Kailen has on you that you destroyed the diary over to keep covered up?"
"I'll be there to be sure that Hollyn only discloses what is necessary." He smiled confidently.
"And if she doesn't?" Calandra had never met her mother before, but she hoped that being her daughter would give her an edge to be able to get any information she wanted from her.
"Simple. If you don't grant me immunity based on what is told and promise to not use it against me, then I don't bring you back." His expression was blank, Calandra wanted to be able to read more into his response, but there was nothing readable displayed.
There was the catch, another one. This one was more complicated. At least promising her soul to Ankou for eternity was one she didn’t have to worry about for a long time, hopefully. However, promising to not use whatever dark secret Drake had against him was one she would have to deal with in the here and now. Calandra wondered if it was something that could benefit her in her fight against Kailen. Once again she didn’t have much of a choice. There were answers that had died with her mother that she needed now. The price she had to pay for those answers were bridges she would have to cross as she came to them.
"So how do I die exactly?" There was a question she never saw herself asking.
"I'll do it," Jarreth said all too quickly. Yeah, because that's exactly what you want to hear the man you love, or maybe loved, say.
"You know that won't work." Drake rolled his eyes. "Since it’s not a death owed from a Fae deal, it has to be a human to do it, or she won't actually go to the Underworld."
Calandra looked at Drake confused.
"Faeries kill each other all the time Calandra, remember, we're not exactly good. So, a Fae killing a Fae isn't enough to get the deceased to the underworld to choose what they want for their soul. It's kind of an incentive for us to keep enough control to not go offing each other all the time."
"So what happens to their souls if they're killed by another Fae?"
"They're considered lost souls. Either they are assigned to become a Banshee, or they simply wander for eternity in the in between darkness, unable to return to this world or pass on to the underworld."
Well, that sounded like a fun way to spend eternity. Calandra wasn't exactly keen on the idea of Jarreth being the one to kill her anyway, so she was more than just a little relieved at the dismissal of that idea.
"We need a human, and luckily, I know just where to find one," Drake said slyly.
That was when it hit Calandra that maybe Jarreth doing it hadn’t been such a bad idea. There was only one human in Faerie at the moment, and the thought of him killing her would haunt her more than Jarreth doing it would have. Her heart squeezed at the thought. Although after everything she had put him through, he was liable to jump all over the chance to kill her.
"Calandra," Drake practically sang it, "let's pay Tristan a little visit."
Well, this should be fun, Calandra thought as she downed the last of her drink.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Kill Me?
"He's not like you," Calandra walked next to Drake through the town, they were headed to Drake’s house to talk to Tristan. "I don't think he's going to be as willing as you think to do this." At least that was what Calandra was trying to convince herself of as she sought to swallow the large lump slowly forming in her throat.
Jarreth had been less than pleased when they had suggested he stay behind for the trip. Not that Calandra had been
exactly happy with the idea of being alone with Drake already, she was still feeling somewhat light headed from their earlier encounter. Being this close to him was putting her on edge, and she was doing her best to not convey those emotions to Drake. She knew she needed to play nice one way or another. He was, after all, her only chance of being brought back to life. Even if she successfully made a deal with Ankou regarding her soul. In order to actually come back from the Underworld, she would still need a Faerie capable of escorting her. Someone that was able to freely transport from one realm to the next, and as luck would have it, that someone was Drake. The last thing Calandra could have ever wanted was to need Drake for something, and now not only did she need him, but she would quite literally owe him her life. Which probably explained why he was in such a good mood all of a sudden.
"So, you don't think Tristan will do it?" Drake pulled her back from her train wreck of thoughts.
"I think he'll do it, I just don't think he'll be particularly happy about it like say, you would be." She really wished they could talk about something else, she would almost rather discuss the kiss from earlier in the day than casually discussing her murder.
"What would make you think I would be happy about that, Calandra?" Drake actually sounded surprised, which wasn't normal for him. "If that were the case why would I volunteer to bring you back from the Underworld? I'm offended."
"Is that even possible? I mean, don't you have to have emotions to get offended?" She beamed at her ability to have a comeback for Drake.
"No dear, just an ego!" He smiled.
"Well, luckily you have plenty of that to go around," Calandra scoffed and fought hard to combat the smile that was aching to break through. Just before she lost the battle and the smile broke through anyway, she remembered where they were going, and her mind was flooded with memories of the earlier experience. "Why do we have to go to your house for this?" Calandra stopped dead in her tracks afraid of the temptation coming back upon being back at Drake’s house.