“I know.” I swallow. “And I just wanted to say that I understand.” With that, I turn and walk back into the darkness.
Fourteen
“There you are,” Calla says the moment I show up on the pavement in front of Val’s house. Imperia’s wing sweeps past the edge of my vision, and I realize as I look up that she’s hovering just above the houses with Aurora on her back. “Where’s Val?” Calla asks.
“She’s … she’s the one who called Ada.”
Calla pulls her head back. “What?”
“She’s fine. Let’s go.” I look up again, my gaze focusing on the section of Imperia’s back behind Aurora. “Are we using the faerie paths to get up there?”
“Em, what do you—”
“Let’s just go, okay? I’m sorry. I thought I could trust Val. But apparently Ada got to her years ago before she and I were even friends. So, you know … I can’t really blame her. And I don’t want to talk about it.” I spin around. “Where is Ada anyway?”
Calla looks beyond me, her eyes focusing somewhere in the distance. “Ada and her glass weapons are following my illusion to the edge of town. I can’t project the illusion much further, though, so it’ll soon disappear and she’ll realize we’ve tricked her. So if you’re sure you’re ready to go, then—”
“I’m ready.”
“We can leave on our own,” Calla adds, her voice lower now. Looking down, I see that her stylus is already gripped in her hand. “We don’t need to go with this Unseelie princess. You and I are safer on our own, and we have things to deal with that she doesn’t need to be involved in.”
I catch Calla’s hand before she can write a doorway spell. “Aurora said she was waiting here for me. I don’t want to just leave without—”
“What if she was waiting here to take you back to the Unseelies?” Calla hisses in a frustrated whisper. “You’ve already had one friend show you this evening that she can’t be trusted. What if Aurora can’t be trusted either?”
Her words sting, but I can’t deny them. Especially since Aurora’s lied to me before. She gave me a nonsense story about being a witch slave and tried to get me to run away from Chevalier House with her. But that was before I shared a home with her. That was before we became friends. Would she really try to trick me again now?
“Hey!” Aurora shouts down to us. “What’s that at the end of the street?”
I twist around and see a figure at the other end of the road stepping out of the faerie paths. Glittering glass shards race ahead of her, splitting the road into chunks of tar as they go.
“Crap, crap, crap,” I mutter. Of course Ada would come here to look for me. She saw us with Val on the field, and she knows exactly where Val lives.
Calla wraps her hand around mine. “I’m opening a door—”
“Grab onto Imperia!” Aurora shouts just as the dragon’s tail slams into me, knocking the breath from my lungs and sweeping me off my feet. I gasp for air and cling tightly to the slippery scales, one arm wrapped beneath Imperia’s tail and the other wedged between two reddish pink spikes. It’s more than a little awkward, and I wonder how long I can hang on before the sweeping motion of her tail causes me to lose my grip.
“Use the spikes to climb up!” Aurora shouts as Imperia’s wings beat the air and the ground recedes beneath us. “Just—Oh, crap, watch out!”
Imperia swerves to the side to avoid a spray of glass pieces shooting directly into the air. Her tail swings around, causing me to shriek and shut my eyes and hope I’m not about to plummet to my death.
“Try to climb up now,” Calla shouts above the sound of wind and rain rushing past us. I open my eyes and twist my head to the side until I can see her. She doesn’t look nearly as terrified as I feel. Then again, she’s probably used to doing crazy life-threatening things like hanging onto dragon tails. “If you fall, I’ll catch you with magic,” she adds. “Go on. Get to the saddle.”
“Okay,” I answer, the word sounding more like a breathless grunt. As I wrap my hands around spike after spike, dragging myself along the side of Imperia’s tail and up her back, I’m thankful for every wall I’ve ever pulled myself up. Looking back, I see Calla following me.
Finally, with rain stinging my skin and cold wind tearing at my hair, I manage to pull myself onto the top of Imperia’s back. I cling to the raised edge of the saddle Aurora’s sitting in, shut my eyes, and breathe out. Exhilaration battles its way through my fear as we soar through the sky, leaving Stanmeade, Val and Ada far behind.
When Imperia’s flown a good distance away from Stanmeade, she circles around and lands on an open field. I expect we’re about to climb down, but instead, I watch as Aurora’s stylus leaves her hand and flies through the air on its own. I wonder how her magic will flow out of her and into the stylus until I notice the glowing thread of magic linking the stylus to her hand. She speaks the spell, and after waiting a little longer than we normally would, an extra-large doorway to the faerie paths opens. “I’m directing,” Aurora says as she flicks her hand and her stylus shoots back toward her. “So don’t think of anything.”
Imperia lumbers forward into the darkness. I cling more tightly to the back of the saddle and try to think only of the blackness that surrounds us. Slowly, an opening materializes up ahead, and Imperia carries us into a misty valley bathed in a pinky purple hue. Hills and mountains surround us, and the faintest hint of magic drifts across my skin on the breeze.
“Nobody will find us here,” Aurora says. She removes the straps securing her to the saddle and slides down Imperia’s side. She lands on the dragon’s bent knee, then jumps to the ground. I wipe the moisture from my face and follow her, despite the fact that I sense Calla’s about to say something. The moment my feet strike the ground, Aurora rushes at me and swings her arms around my shoulders. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” Then she steps back, her smile vanishing. “You idiot!”
I blink, confused by her rapid shift in mood. “Excuse me?”
“You were supposed to come to me for help, not run off on your own and wind up with half the palace guards chasing after you.”
My eyebrows rise a little higher. “Oh, is that what I was supposed to do? Because you didn’t exactly give me instructions. In fact, you couldn’t have been more cryptic if you’d tried.”
“I wrote out the translation for the whole spell!” she exclaims, throwing her hands up as Calla strides past us and stops a few paces away, making intricate movements in the air with her fingers. “It explained exactly what Roarke was planning to do.”
“True, but …” I trail off for a moment, distracted by Calla digging in the backpack. She’s been so insistent that we head off on our own, but it seems she’s given up on that idea for now. She removes the mirror from her backpack and holds it up. I turn back to Aurora, trying to remember what I was saying. “But … but you didn’t tell me about Roarke’s plan. You didn’t even write a proper note and give it to me. You handed me a pile of books and expected me to open the right one and turn to the right page. That was a serious shot in the dark. I almost missed it. I definitely would have missed it if it hadn’t been for the tiny corner of your I-swear-I-didn’t-know-about-this note that was sticking out.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be a tiny corner,” she answers, frowning at me as if this is my fault. “There was supposed to be at least an inch of that note sticking out.”
I roll my eyes. “Aside from the fact that I might never have seen the note, I still didn’t know if I could trust you after that. It might have been some kind of test. Another game you and Roarke were playing with me.”
Her purple eyes widen. “Are you kidding? A game? Do you know what I risked in order to give you that information? My life, Em! Roarke wanted to kill me when he found out what I’d done.”
“He—really?”
“YES REALLY! Holy flip, Em. I had NO idea what he was planning to do with your magic. Oh, and the whole Clarina thing? What the hell? A spy in my service, and I had no idea!”
She’s pacing by now, literally spitting angry sparks of magic. “So I ran for my life, straight to Imperia’s enclosure, and got both of us out of there.”
I fold my arms across my chest. “But … when Roarke caught up to me by the portal in his room, he seemed confused that I knew all about his plan. He couldn’t have known that you’d told me.”
“Well of course he didn’t know then. He hadn’t had time yet to figure it out. He’d only just discovered that you were missing and had freed two of his prisoners. It was only after that—after you got away through the shadow world—that he put the pieces together. And he didn’t have proof, of course, but I was unprepared when he confronted me, and I guess I’m not as good a liar as he is.”
“I don’t know about that,” I mutter. “You seemed pretty convincing when I first met you.”
Aurora stops pacing and looks at me. Mist shifts lazily around her as her angry expression softens. “Please believe me, Em. I know I lied to you in the beginning, back at Chevalier House, but that was just to get you on our side. Ever since then, I’ve only ever told you what I believed to be the truth. I had no idea my own brother was lying to me. I didn’t know he made a secret agreement with that glass woman. I didn’t know he locked Dash away in our prison. In fact, I never would have suspected a thing if you hadn’t mentioned some of the vows you were memorizing.”
“The vows? But you weren’t supposed to know …” A memory of Aurora asking me how my pronunciation practice was going comes suddenly to mind. “Oh yes. I did tell you some of the words.”
She nods. “They were supposed to be words from the old faerie language, but they most certainly were not. I recognized them from … well, from long ago. From the witch. That in itself would have been suspicious enough, but the actual words you told me … something about giving up your magic …” She shivers. “I had to check it out. I had to look for the spell. Which is why I said we needed to go to the library after that. And then Roarke was there when I finally found the right spell! I was too damn terrified to say anything about it. And the next day, even if we’d had a moment alone, I wouldn’t have dared say anything. I know Roarke and my father can hear what’s going on in most of the rooms if they choose to listen. The only thing I could think of was writing a note and giving you the book itself. And I’m sorry the note was so …” She waves her hand as she searches for the right words.
“Lacking in instructions and additional information?” I ask.
“Yes. It took me a while to translate the whole spell—I wanted to be sure of what it all meant—and I had to keep hiding what I was doing. I was so flustered. By the time I’d finished the translation, I just wanted to get the book out of my hands and into yours.”
“I assume you didn’t even let your handmaids see what you were doing? If Clarina had figured out you were translating Roarke’s spell, she would have gone straight to him.”
“Clarina. Ugh!” Aurora clenches her fists and begins pacing again. “That conniving little snake.”
“How did you find out about her?”
Aurora lets out a dramatic sigh. “So let me fill you in on everything that went down after you ran away.”
I glance at Calla again, now deep in conversation with Chase via the mirror. “Okay,” I say, returning my attention to Aurora. Then I let the last remaining bit of my Griffin power leak into my voice and say the thing I should have said the moment we got here: “Don’t lie to me.”
Aurora opens her mouth, then blinks, clearly taking a few seconds to realize what I’ve done. Then: “You just commanded me. You used your power on me.”
I give her a half-smile laced with guilt. “Don’t be mad. You know I had to. I have to be sure you’re not trying to trick me again.”
She glares at me for another few moments before sighing. “I suppose I understand. And in case you were wondering,” she adds, “nothing I’ve said so far was a lie.”
“Good to know.”
“So, can I carry on now?”
I nod and lean back against Imperia’s side, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Okay, so Roarke returned from the shadow world late that night. He told us—Mom and Dad and me—that it was that woman with the glass Griffin Ability who’d found him in the shadow world and freed him from the bonds he’d been tied up with.” Aurora frowns, looking past me. “It sounded as though he’d been working with her for a while. Like they had some kind of prearranged way for him to signal her to come to his aid. He didn’t go into detail about it, though, so I couldn’t tell if Dad already knew about that arrangement. Anyway, Roarke said he’d sent her to look for you and not to return to his side until she had you.”
“So that’s how she found the shadow world,” I say. “She told me she accidentally discovered it the same way you and Roarke did, which seemed like a weird coincidence to me. But it must have been Roarke who showed her that world. And I guess it wasn’t too hard for her to find me after Roarke told her too. She probably searched the castle first, and that’s where I was.”
“Wait, you were still there? Why didn’t you get out? And if she found you, then how come you’re—”
I hold up my hand to silence her questions. “How about you finish your story first?”
She lowers her shoulders. “Fine. Okay, so Dad and Roarke went off together to have a private meeting that apparently Mom and I didn’t need to be a part of—presumably so Roarke could tell Dad more lies and Dad would never know that Roarke was planning to, like, ruin the whole human world. I was kinda freaking out, wondering if I’d wake up to find you being dragged back into our palace. And I was also terrified Roarke would discover I was the one who tipped you off about the spell.
“The next morning, he summoned me to his room and told me to bring Clarina with me. I thought perhaps he just wanted to question her about you, since she’d been serving you for the duration of your stay with us. But then I got to his room, and the very first thing he said to me was, ‘So, you went sneaking around behind my back, discovered I planned to take Emerson’s magic, and told her all about it.’ I was too shocked to say anything for a few moments, and I’m sure the truth must have been obvious on my face. I didn’t even get to deny it before he carried on, saying that he wasn’t the only one keeping secrets from me. That Clarina had a secret too, and now was the time to share it. And then she walked over to his side and he put his arm around her.” Aurora stares at me with wide eyes. “I swear, a sprite could have knocked me over I was so shocked.”
“Did he explain what that was all about? The only thing he said to me was something about her being a spy and of noble birth.”
“Roarke didn’t seem interested in sharing the story, but Clarina obviously wanted to tell me.” Aurora walks over to Imperia and sits on her bent knee before continuing. “Several years ago, Roarke was pledged to marry someone. A girl from a noble family far away. It was part of some kind of agreement that was obviously beneficial to both parties. But then someone broke the alliance. I never did find out if it was my father or the other family. Anyway, that ended the engagement. But Roarke had already met this girl and fallen for her. Not that I can imagine him ever falling for anyone,” she adds, rolling her eyes. “And this girl—Clarina—loved him too.”
“I’ll bet the idea of possibly being queen one day didn’t hurt either,” I mutter.
“I’m sure. And Roarke wanted to be king but didn’t want to wait centuries for Dad to give up the throne or die. So Roarke and Clarina decided she would come to the palace. Nobody knew her there, so she could easily masquerade as the princess’s handmaid and learn whatever she could from the royal family members. Eventually, she and Roarke would figure out a way to rule together.”
“And then you guys discovered the shadow world, and Roarke obviously thought that was the perfect opportunity.”
“Yes. But what I couldn’t figure out when they were telling me this was why they’d kept it secret from me. I knew about Roarke’s plan to make the shadow world his be
hind our father’s back. He trusted me with that information. So why didn’t he tell me about Clarina as well? So I asked him, and he said …” She trails off as she looks away, her eyes focusing on distant, hazy mountains.
“What did he say?”
“He said … ‘You’ve never been my real sister.’”
The hurt is evident in her voice. “Rora …” I say gently, though I have no idea what to add that might possibly comfort her.
“He reminded me that it was a witch who left me at the palace years ago. That I might be part of some elaborate long-term plan for a witch to gain access to the Unseelie crown. Which is completely ludicrous, and I told him that, but clearly that didn’t matter to him because at that moment he told his men to seize me and—and get rid of me.”
“Jeez,” I murmur. “How did you escape? It’s a long way from your room to the dragon enclosure.”
“Noraya was there too,” Aurora says, referring to her other handmaid, “so she helped me. She struck someone with her magic—which clearly no one expected—so we were both able to get out of the room. Then we used the hidden passages within the walls. I know them well. I played in them for hours when I was a child. I knew if I could just get to my father, he’d protect me. I could tell him everything Roarke was planning, and he’d make sure my brother never got his hands on me.
“But Roarke knows the passages too. He cut me off, and I couldn’t get to Dad, and Noraya and I ended up separated. I found myself near the kitchen, and I knew my only escape would be to get outside to the dragon enclosures. And Noraya …” She brushes one hand over her face. “I don’t know what happened to her. I know I’m the most awful person in the world for not going back to look for her, but I couldn’t! Roarke’s men would have caught me. And in those dark passages …” She shakes her head. “No one would have known what happened. They could have hidden my body, pretended I ran away or something. So I—I left Noraya. I ran all the way to the dragon enclosure and flew away on Imperia.”
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