Then I wait. For a moment, I’m convinced it isn’t going to work. I’m going to disappoint my team before we’ve even begun. But then the shield ripples and vanishes with a faint pop. And the dull roar of the rain reaches us.
“Nice,” Kobe says as Elizabeth quickly raises her hand, forming an invisible umbrella over us.
“Awesome,” Carter adds.
I manage a smile. “Thanks.” This successful first step gives me a tiny boost in confidence. I can do this.
We head forward through the storm. The wind pummels us, but not a single drop of rain strikes my body. We reach the imposing main gate outside Noxsom, and unlocking it proves to be just as easy as removing the shield. Telling the Griffin Ability-detecting charm that it no longer works goes smoothly as well. Next, I unlock the door into the building itself, and finally—we’re inside.
Chase quietly shuts the door behind us, and as I face the bright, sterile interior, my next command is for any surveillance bugs in this corridor. I can’t see them, but I don’t doubt they’re here. “Surveillance bugs,” I say, imagining tiny enchanted insects, “you can’t see us.” After a pause, I add in my normal voice, “I hope that worked if I can’t actually see them and don’t know where to direct my intentions.”
“Well, let’s move quickly,” Chase says. “The sooner we get to the control room, the better. This way.” He walks ahead of us, and we follow as quietly and quickly as we can along the bare and brightly lit corridors. With no visible hint of magic, this building is the closest I’ve seen to something that looks like it could belong in the human world.
Every few steps, I look around and repeat my command to the surveillance bugs I can’t see. “Be careful not to use up all your magic,” Calla says.
“I know, I’m just trying to keep us out of sight until we reach the control room.”
“Almost there,” Chase says. We turn a corner into the next corridor, where we have only two doors to choose from.
We come to a stop outside the first door, and Carter whispers, “Inmate records? In the room next door, right?”
Chase nods. “Yes, you can take a look at those. Make sure you find all ten of our people. Calla and Em, we’re going into the control room. Kobe, Krystal, Elizabeth, you’re out here to stop anyone from coming into either room.” He reaches for the first door.
“Wait,” Calla whispers. “Sorry, just let me focus. We’re opening the door, but I need them to see a door that stays closed. And wherever we’re standing, they need to see empty space.” She pauses. “Okay, got it.”
“Em?” Chase asks. I nod, but my heart patters painfully fast as he reaches for the door handle. The door barely makes a sound as he opens it. We step silently into the room. The four guards—two men and two women—seated in the center of the room watching at least a dozen orbs floating in rows in front of them don’t turn their heads. If they did, they wouldn’t see us. Calla’s making sure of that with her illusion. My job now is to make sure they won’t see us in their orbs as we steal along every corridor from here down to the bottom of this facility.
“Don’t panic” is the first command I give them. Then, as they all look around at the sound of my voice, I add, “Stay seated. When you look at your orbs again, you won’t be able to see any of us, no matter where we are inside The Noxsom Facility.” I follow that command with another one that names us each individually, just in case the first command wasn’t explicit enough. Finally, I add, “Forget that someone was in this room speaking to you.”
The guards’ faces take on blank expressions for a moment, then confusion. One man looks at the other. “What?” the second man asks.
“Nothing. Just … looking around.”
They return to watching the orbs then. Calla raises a finger to her lips, and we quietly back away. The moment the door is closed behind us, giddy exhilaration rushes through me. “This is working,” I whisper to Calla. “This is actually working.”
“Well done,” she answers. “Just don’t get cocky now. We still have a lot to get through.”
“I know, I know. This is just really cool, that’s all.”
Carter slips out of the room next door. “Found them,” he says. “They’re all on the third floor down.”
“Good,” Elizabeth says. “Not too far to go.”
“All fine in there?” Carter asks, pointing to the control room door.
Chase gives him a thumbs up, then says, “Okay, let’s get moving. Cal, you’re still projecting that invisibility illusion?”
“Yes. In case we pass other people out here.”
“Great.”
The seven of us slip silently along the corridors with Chase leading the way. We’re nearing the gate that separates this level from the next one down when we begin passing rooms with glass windows that allow us to look in. Calla and I pause briefly beside an occupied room to take a better look. A narrow bed stands in the center of the room. Its occupant, dressed in white overalls, is asleep. A funnel hangs from the ceiling, and from its open end, faint sparkling wisps of something drift down over the prisoner’s head.
“That’s so weird,” I murmur. “What’s coming out of the funnel?”
Calla shakes her head. “I don’t know.”
“I thought you said people are tortured in this prison.”
“They are.” She pauses before adding, “From what I’ve heard, the torture takes place inside their minds.”
A chill creeps over me. My thoughts can’t help turning to the kinds of nightmares this seemingly peaceful prisoner might be enduring right now.
“Calla, Emerson, come on,” Elizabeth says. “We don’t have time to waste staring at sleeping prisoners.”
We hurry after the rest of our team. “Vi and Ryn and the others must be asleep too,” I say. “Do you think we’ll be able to wake them?”
“If we can’t,” Elizabeth says, “we’re going to have to direct ten sleeping bodies through the air all the way out of this facility. That’s going to take some coordination.”
“Yeah,” Chase says grimly. “Not an ideal situation, but we can make it work. Calla needs to focus on her ability, and so does Em. That leaves five of us to direct ten bodies. We should easily be able to manage two each.”
Cartner nods. “Cool. I like it when you use the word ‘easy.’”
“Or,” I say to them, “I can tell our people to wake up and hope it works.”
“Even better,” Carter says.
We continue on, soon reaching the gate that blocks our access to the stairway leading down. But all I have to do is tell the gate to unlock itself, and it does. With each command I’m able to successfully give, my confidence rises. The next two gates open easily, and by the time we get to the correct level, I’m starting to think we might actually pull this off without anything going wrong. But I tell myself not to get too excited yet. We still need to get everyone out of here, and if for some reason I can’t wake them, we’ll have to levitate them. And directing ten sleeping bodies through the air doesn’t sound like it’s going to be as easy as everyone believes it will be.
“Okay, this is it,” Chase says, stopping as we turn into a long passageway lined with doors. Instead of being closed, each one is slightly ajar.
“Weird,” Calla says. “But I guess the doors don’t need to be locked when the prisoners on the other side of them are unconscious.”
“Were any of the rooms we passed on previous levels also open?” Krystal asks. “I can’t remember now.”
“Yes, I think some of them were,” Elizabeth answers.
“So we’re hoping this is normal?” I ask. At that moment, something crawls up the top of my arm. In fright, I inhale sharply and smack at my shoulder. But the crawling insect has morphed into a bird and narrowly misses my hand as it flits away. “Holy crap,” I breathe. “Bandit, you have got to stop following me everywhere.”
“You brought your shapeshifter pet with?” Elizabeth asks, arching one unimpressed eyebrow.
“O
f course not,” I hiss. “He likes to shift into tiny forms and hide in my pockets without my knowledge.” Bandit lands on my shoulder and becomes a lizard. I grab hold of him and push him into my jacket pocket. Then I bend my head forward and whisper, “Please stay there.”
“Ready, Em?” Chase asks. “Are you going to try to wake them?”
“Yes.”
He looks behind us, then ahead once more. “I’ll stay here at the end of the passage in case I need to keep anyone away while the rest of you are freeing our people. Calla and Em, check the first room.” He looks at the other four. “You can move on to the next rooms.”
As I walk toward the first door, my heart begins to race again. Who will I find in this room? Will it be Violet or Ryn? Then, as I reach out and push the door open, a sense of déjà vu overwhelms me. I remember being at Tranquil Hills Psychiatric Hospital several weeks ago, pushing open a door to see Dani. I remember the alarm that suddenly screamed through the quiet.
I cross the threshold into this room—and no alarm goes off. Calla follows quickly. I can’t see the occupant of this bed because a thin grey blanket covers him or her completely. Which seems … strange? Calla must be thinking the same thing because she’s now frowning at the bed. She edges closer, slowly takes hold of a section of the blanket, and yanks it back.
The bed is empty. Whatever formed the shape of a person beneath the blanket is gone.
“Crap!” Calla gasps as something darts out of the wall and catches hold of her arm. I jump backward as another something—a metal arm?—extends in my direction. Behind us, the door bangs shut. She shouts, “Don’t go into the—” But her words are abruptly cut off as something like an electric current flashes across the room, burning into us. For a moment, intense pain paralyzes me. Then everything goes dark.
Seven
I have no idea how much time has passed when I peel my eyelids apart and blink into the darkness. I give myself a few moments to recall what happened before I fell asleep. No, before I passed out. Before magic knocked me unconscious.
Before I became a prisoner.
I try to sit up, and that’s when I realize my arms are bound behind my back and that something—dark fabric of some sort—covers my face. I start to panic then. It’s too close—way too close—right up against my mouth, suffocating me—
The fabric is tugged upward, revealing an unfamiliar bearded man standing in front of me. He steps back, dropping the blue-black material—a pillowcase, judging by its shape—onto the floor. A hurried glance around me as I suck in a few deep breaths reveals a nondescript room. Fairly dark. No windows. Several plain chairs around an equally plain table, all pushed to one side of the room.
And five or six guardians.
Beside me, Calla jumps to her feet faster than should be possible for someone whose hands are tied together behind her back. “My magic may be blocked,” she says, “but that won’t stop me from fighting my way past all six of you.”
Blocked magic? My eyes dart across Calla’s body until they fall on the metal band clamped tightly around her right wrist. Is that was flashed out of the wall earlier? I don’t know if my Griffin Ability can remove it, but I’m sure I can help with the ropes. As Calla takes a few menacing steps toward the guardians, I tell both her ropes and mine to break apart.
“Thanks,” she says as her bonds drop to the floor. As she raises her fists, she adds. “Maybe you could try that with the—”
“Hey, there’s no need for violence,” the bearded man says. He holds one hand up as he takes a step back. “We’re trying to help you.”
Calla lets out a bitter laugh. “Is that so? Forgive me. I must be imagining the guardian markings I can see on every single one of you. Em?” Without looking away from the guardians, she shakes her right hand in my direction.
“That metal band is no longer attached to your wrist,” I say quickly, letting some of my power flood into my voice. Everyone stares as the metal band expands and slips off Calla’s hand. One or two guardians even flinch as it strikes the ground.
After another moment’s pause, the bearded man speaks again. “Yes, we’re guardians. That doesn’t mean we agree with the Guild’s policies regarding Griffin Gifted. We just want to set you free, that’s all.”
“Uh huh,” Calla says. “That’s why there are six of you all looking like you’re ready to attack the moment I move.”
“We’re ready to defend ourselves,” a redheaded woman says, “because we figured you wouldn’t trust us. And there’s a lot more than six of us, by the way.”
“That sounds like a threat, not help.”
The bearded man frowns at the redhead before turning back to us. “She didn’t mean that as a threat. She means there are plenty more guardians who don’t think it’s right the way the Guild handles Griffin Abilities. You don’t really believe every single guardian is against you, do you?”
“Kinda seems like it to me,” I say.
“Look, I don’t know exactly who you both are or what the Guild—whichever one you’ve had the misfortune of coming into contact with—has done to you,” he says, “but I promise we’re not all like that. Now there’s a door back there—” he gestures with his thumb over his shoulder “—and you’re welcome to leave through it. But we first need to tell you a few things so you don’t get yourselves into more trouble.”
Calla’s still standing with her fists up, ready to fight. If I had the first clue what I was doing in the fighting department, I would have assumed the same stance by now. “A whole bunch of guardians ready to help us?” she says. “Sounds too good to be true. And that door you just pointed out sounds like a convenient trap.”
“Why would we need to trap you?” the woman asks, throwing both hands up in exasperation. “You were already trapped inside a cell back at Noxsom. Every room in that corridor was a trap for you and the rest of your rebel friends. We could have left you there if we weren’t on your side. Or, if we’d known about the trap sooner, we could have done something about it. Instead, Harryd risked everything to get you both out. And he opened the staff elevator so your friends could get back up to ground level and escape. They would have been trapped otherwise when every level went into complete lockdown.”
“There was no elevator,” Calla says immediately.
“It was hidden, of course. The door can’t be accessed by anyone but a Noxsom guard.”
I watch Calla’s gaze dart toward the door before returning to the bearded man, Harryd. “If this isn’t some kind of trap,” she says, “then your fellow guards would have stopped you before you got out of Noxsom with us. You would have had to get us all the way back up to the entrance. No way could you have done that undetected.”
“Those of us who work there have other ways of getting in and out of the facility. We know where the faerie paths can be opened. But yes, someone will have seen me by now in one of the surveillance orbs.” He takes a deep breath. “I guess I’ll be going into hiding now like you guys. Either that or turn myself in.”
“We’ll make sure you and your family are well hidden,” someone else says.
I’m already shaking my head, still highly suspicious of these people. “So you gave up your job—your safety, your everything—just to get the two of us out of Noxsom?”
Harryd looks around at his fellow guardians. Then he laughs. It sounds the tiniest bit hysterical. “Yeah. It seems I did.” He scratches his ear. “It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Hopefully my wife doesn’t kill me. But we’ve been talking about taking action for a long time, so it’s not as though I’ve never considered doing something like this before.”
Two or three guardians behind him nod. One says, “Nah, Lucilla will understand.”
Harryd smiles, then adds, “We still don’t know if we have the numbers to make a stand against the Guild’s current leadership. We were trying to figure out if it might be possible to free the other rebels without revealing ourselves, but we hadn’t made a concrete plan yet before the Head Counci
lor herself arrived at Noxsom earlier today and took the other rebels away. I’ve been working there for years, and nothing like that’s happened before. She just showed up—no prior notification whatsoever—spoke to the warden, and then took the rebels. And after that, all the news reports kept saying the rebels were still at Noxsom. By the time I figured out the Councilor was setting a trap for you, it was too late to do anything about it. And then the two of you appeared in that cell after the spark stunned you, and at that point, it seemed like rescuing you was the only thing I could do, seeing as how we failed to get the other rebels out.”
Calla doesn’t move. “You’re very convincing,” she says. “I wish I could believe you.”
The redhead turns away from us. “Just stun them and dump them out in the forest somewhere. We’ve done what we can for them. They’re on their own now anyway, whether they trust us or not.”
Magic ignites around Calla’s fingertips. “Em, get ready to—”
“Whoa, hey!” Harryd raises his hands again. “Nobody’s stunning anyone. Let’s all just step back and let the two ladies leave the room.”
“So you can stun us while our backs are turned?” I ask.
Harryd shows us his empty palms. “Look, no magic.”
“And yet,” Calla says, “I still don’t believe you.”
The redhead groans. “Is this what Perry meant when he spoke about the major challenges involved in helping the Griffin Gifted?”
Harryd sighs. Calla tilts her head ever so slightly. “Wait, who did you just mention?”
A small frown creases Harryd’s brow. “Perry. You know him?”
This could also be a trick, I want to say to her. Maybe they suspect Perry. They want us to confirm his involvement with the Griffin rebels.
Instead of giving him away, Calla asks, “Perry who?”
“I don’t know,” Harryd answers. “He only used his first name. He’s the one who wrote the original letter that’s been circulating in secret, passed along by those of us who don’t agree with the Guild’s policies. It talks about all the things so many of us have been thinking but have been too afraid to put into action. Forming a united front. Going public with our beliefs and concerns. Challenging the Guild’s policies and calling for new leadership. But it all depends on how many are willing to take the risk and stand up for what we know is right. This guy—Perry—has been gathering names. Well, numbers really, since none of us have added our full names to the letter. He just wants to know if we have enough people to make a difference.”
Rebel Faerie Page 8