by Sarra Cannon
Silas, why are you doing this?
It was obvious he was trying to help Rend and the others. If he wanted them dead, he would have voted against them. But why send Rend to do such an impossible task? And why try to free Solomon’s spirit?
It didn’t make sense.
But without Silas here to answer for his actions, all we could do was guess at his intentions.
Reluctantly, I left my friend’s side and headed downstairs to let the others know of our plans. Azure wanted to get back to Venom to make sure nothing else had happened while we were gone, but Connery agreed to stay and watch over Katy as she slept.
I waited for Rend as I sat on the top step, the truth of his situation sinking in as the minutes passed.
If he lost and didn’t get to the Mother Crow first, he would certainly be condemned to death.
But if he won, he would take his seat as a ruler of the Brotherhood of Darkness.
What, exactly, would that mean for him?
For us?
Why Now?
Rend
I let the hot water run over my skin, washing the blood from the ritual off my arm as I went back through the events of the evening.
So, the Mother Crow had finally decided to make a move toward Franki, after all this time.
Why now?
Was it just a coincidence? Or was there something here I wasn't seeing yet? Some piece of the puzzle that had yet to reveal itself?
I had the distinct feeling I was being played, and I hated it.
I just wished I had gotten the chance to talk to Silas after the Council meeting. Was he still there at the Brotherhood’s castle? Or would he come here to talk to me?
Knowing exactly what was on his mind would have put my own at ease, but he had more up his sleeve than I could see from here.
I showered quickly and got dressed in jeans and a black t-shirt before meeting Franki out in the hallway. She wore a worried expression on her beautiful face, and I wished more than anything that the events of the evening had gone differently. It was obvious she blamed herself for what happened to her friend, but I hope she understood that there was nothing she could have done to help her.
I had expected an attack on the club or on Franki herself, but I’d never considered the fact that the crows would go after Franki’s closest friend.
Katy had only been to Venom a handful of times, so that meant whoever had glamoured herself as Katy had been following Franki at school.
“Hey,” she said as I met her at the top of the stairs. “Are you ready to go?”
“Yeah, do you want to take the door in the abandoned crow village?” I asked.
She shrugged. “It’s the fastest way to get to Harper’s castle ever since Brighton Manor burned down,” she said. “So unless you have a better idea, I think we should go. Otherwise, we’ll be traveling all the way to Cypress and flying the rest of the way.”
I shook my head. “That will burn hours,” I said. “I’d rather get there as quickly as possible.”
She started walking toward the elevator, but I reached for her hand.
“When you were there the other day, did you see anyone?” I asked. “Did you sense anyone else there or see anything out of place?”
She frowned. “Maybe,” she said as we stepped into the elevator. “At the time, I just chalked it up to nerves. Being in that town with all those empty houses is kind of creepy, you know?”
“Yeah, it really is,” I said. “Did you see someone? Or was it just a feeling you had?”
“More of a feeling, I guess,” she said. “When I was leaving, I could have sworn I saw something move in the shadows between two of the houses, but when I went to go check it out, there was no one there. Don’t you think that if they had wanted to attack me, they would have done it there? Or maybe at school? I take it Marco already told you about the crow that was following me on campus?”
“He told me,” I said.
We got out of the elevator on the top floor and walked out into the Hall of Doorways.
“I’m sorry I didn’t mention it to you before, but I really didn’t think it was a big deal,” she said. “Whoever it is, she never approaches me or wants to talk. I’ve never even seen her take human form. But I can feel it when she’s watching me. Usually, when I notice her, she flies off.”
“And you had the same feeling the other day in the crow village?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” she said. “It’s hard to explain, but for some reason, I haven’t been scared or worried when the crow appears on campus. But at the village, it felt different. Like the energy was darker, somehow.”
I shook my head. Maybe going through the crow’s door was not the best idea. They could have traps set up anywhere at this point.
“To be honest, I was hoping it was my mother who’s been watching me,” Franki said, a sad smile on her face. “I just don’t know why she hasn’t taken any opportunity to talk to me. But it’s been nice to pretend that she’s out there, looking out for me in some way.”
“It might be her,” I said. “But whoever came to the club the other night was definitely not looking out for you.”
“And I have to face the fact that the crows know about Katy and decided to use that to their advantage,” she said. “They know how close we are, but more importantly, they must have been listening in on our conversation. They knew she was planning to come to the club Saturday night, so that means whoever was watching us on campus last week when I asked Katy to come to the club was also sending information to the Mother Crow.”
I squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I know how much you wish it was your mother, but it must have been some other crow who was watching you.”
“I hope so,” she said. “Because I don’t know if I can handle it if it turns out my real mother has been helping the Mother Crow this whole time. I mean, I thought she sent me to Venom to keep me safe, but maybe she only wanted to make sure I didn’t die at the Devil’s hands so that she could make sure I was alive when the Mother Crow decided to kill me or use me in whatever way she plans to use me.”
I cringed. Damn.
Franki had a point there. We’d always assumed her real mother had drawn her to me for all the right reasons, but what if her motivation for keeping Franki safe was more about loyalty to the Mother Crow than love for Franki?
This was getting more complicated by the minute.
We walked up to the crow’s door, and I nodded. I couldn’t open it myself, but Franki’s crow blood worked as a key on the door.
“Just be sure that it’s leading to the right place before you go inside,” I said. “If they’ve shifted the door, we need to be careful.”
She nodded and pushed open the crow door.
There were no lights on in the room beyond, and she quickly conjured an orb of white light and sent it into the room.
She sighed in relief and stepped into the room.
“It’s the right place,” she said. “Hopefully that means no one else has been here besides us.”
I followed her inside, and we quickly made our way up to the altar above. Getting to the Shadow World from here would be easy, but I wanted to make sure we weren’t being followed.
“Let’s take a quick look around, first,” I said. “Tell me if you sense anyone around or if you see anything out of place.”
She nodded, and together, we made our way through the village, checking each house and all the backyards and alleyways. After a thorough check, though, Franki declared that the place was empty.
“That’s good news, at least,” I said. “If someone had been here, we wouldn’t be able to use this door in the future.”
“Maybe what I thought I felt the other day was just nerves after being watched on campus,” she said. “Come on. Let’s get to the castle and find Angela. If she can heal Katy’s curse, we’ll be one step closer to being through this mess and getting on with our lives.”
I followed her out into the treetops. Franki eas
ily shifted into her crow form, and I followed her in my shadow form. We flew down to a small patch of white roses near Brighton Lake, and when we reformed, we clasped hands and walked into the roses.
A moment later, we stepped out into a beautiful garden and stared up at a huge castle made of stone.
On Edge
Franki
Harper’s castle in the Shadow World felt like a second home these days.
As soon as we arrived, the captain of her guards—a demon named Gregory—approached to ask what was going on. He had a strange look about him, as if he was worried about something. It seemed everyone was on edge these days after recent events.
We explained to him that we had come to find Angela, and he seemed to relax immediately.
He led us to the dining room where Harper and the others had all gathered for breakfast.
Mary Anne stood as we walked in the room and threw her arms around Rend’s neck.
“You’re home,” she said, giving him a rare bright smile. “I thought it might be days before we heard from you.”
“I wish I could say I was here with good news,” he said. “But we have trouble.”
Everyone gathered around us as we told them everything that had happened since the Council summoned Rend.
“So, Katy’s in some kind of sleeping curse?” Harper asked. She turned to her sister, Angela. “Is there anything you can do to help her?”
“I can try,” Angela said. “Let me grab a few things first, and I’ll go back to the house with you to see if I can get her to wake up.”
“Thank you,” I said. “Mary Anne, have you ever seen the crows cast a spell like this before? Do you know a way to break it?”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. They kept most of the darker magic out of sight of the children.”
I wrapped my arms around my body, hoping Angela would be able to help and that this would be the end of at least one nightmare. Then we could focus on finding the Mother Crow and finally putting an end to both her and this whole ordeal with the Brotherhood.
“It’s never a dull moment around here,” Jackson said. “It’s like the minute we get through one battle, five more present themselves.”
“Is something else going on that we don’t know about?” Rend asked.
Jackson shook his head. “We’re just worried about Lea and Aerden,” he said, speaking of his twin brother and the princess of the Northern Kingdom. They were both trapped in the King’s City over the border, and we hadn’t heard much from them in several months.
“I thought Andros was going to rescue them,” I said.
Andros was the leader of the Resistance Army here in the Shadow World, and the last we’d heard from him, he was on his way to the King’s City to help them.
“We haven’t heard a word from Andros, which isn’t like him,” Jackson said. “But you both have enough on your plate right now.”
“Let us know if there’s anything we can do to help,” Rend said. “We’ll do what we can, you know that.”
“You guys have already done so much for us,” Harper said, putting her hand in Jackson’s. “If we can help you now, we will. Just keep us updated on what’s going on.”
“I want to come with you,” Mary Anne said.
Her boyfriend, Essex, stood. “I will be coming with you, then,” he said. “If that is okay?”
Harper nodded. “It’s fine,” she said. “Just be back by tomorrow. We have another Emerald Gate to set free.”
“We’ll be back,” Mary Anne said. “But if Rend is going after the Mother Crow, I want to be a part of that fight, too. I still don’t know where my own mother is and if she’s trapped in the Mother Crow’s new village or if she was able to get away and go into hiding. If she’s there, though, I want to help however I can. A lot of people I care about are still being held prisoner by the Mother Crow.”
“I don’t suppose you have any idea where the Mother Crow has been hiding?” Rend asked.
Mary Anne shook her head and pushed a strand of her black hair behind her ear. “I wish I could say that I did, but I’ve been following every clue I can get my hands on for the past year. I haven’t found anything promising. Wherever she is, she’s hidden her new village really well. She could be anywhere.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” Rend frowned and glanced at me.
Anxiety tightened my chest. We had to find her, or everything was going to come crashing down around us.
Angela came back into the room, a leather bag across her shoulder. “I’m ready,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“You guys be careful,” Harper said, giving me a hug. “Take this communication stone. Reach out to us if anything happens that we can help with. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
“Thank you,” I said, taking the small ruby stone and putting it in my pocket.
Our small group made our way back out through the rose portal to Brighton Lake. Less than fifteen minutes later, we were back at Rend’s house in the Alps.
“Give me a few minutes alone with her,” Angela said, setting up a bunch of herbs and crystals on the bed. “I’ll let you know if there’s any change.”
Rend took my hand and led me back down to the living room where we waited to see if Katy’s curse could be healed or if the Mother Crow would have to die to release it.
An Endless Supply Of Power
Rend
I paced the area in front of the fireplace as we waited, but when news came, it wasn’t good.
“I’m sorry,” Angela said, her face drained of color. “I did everything I could do, but there’s been no change.”
She wobbled on her feet, and I took her arm and steered her toward the couch.
“Rest here,” I said. “I can get you a few potions from my lab that might help you regain your strength.”
“I’ll be fine in a little while,” she said. “I just wish I could have helped her, but the magic that holds her in that curse is dark magic. It’s too much for my power to cure. If I’m being honest, I would say this is a curse that can only be cured by the person who cast the spell in the first place.”
“Dammit,” Franki said, tears filling her eyes. “What are we going to do?”
“We’re going to kill the Mother Crow,” I said. “All we have to do is figure out where she’s hiding, and I promise I will put an end to her.”
“And how are we supposed to find her in less than a week?” she asked.
“That stone is our first clue,” I said. “If it really is a portal stone, whenever they activate it, we’ll have a chance to go through and surprise them.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Franki said. “The Mother Crow may be evil, but she’s also smart. She’s not going to send us a stone that would allow us to bring an entire army through to battle against her. That stone was designed to bring me through to her, and me alone. I can promise you that.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes. She was probably right, but there had to be something we could do. There had to be some way to find this witch and the rest of her family.
“We also have no idea when she plans to activate that stone,” Franki said. “It could be more than a week before it’s activated, and that’s going to be too late. We can’t just sit around and wait for that to happen. We need to be actively searching for her in the meantime.”
“So, where do we start?” Mary Anne asked. “I’ve already searched every place that I could think of looking for my own mother, but there’s been no sign of another crow village anywhere.”
“I might be able to help with that,” a voice said from the top of the stairs.
I froze and stared up at Silas as he descended the steps.
“Silas?” Franki asked. Her eyes dipped to the black stone on a chain around his neck.
“Where have you been?” I asked, my fists tightening at my side. “And why didn’t you tell us what you were up to?”
He reached the bottom of the stairs, and a corner of his mouth curled
into a secret smile. “I knew you would be angry, even though I just saved your ass back there.”
“You saved your own ass, too,” I said. “Honestly, I don’t know whether to be angry or grateful. Right now, I’m feeling a little of both.”
“Well, that’s good for a start,” he said, clasping the stone in his hand. “I’m sorry I couldn’t come to you first, but I needed to know that the Council was going to honor the rules of the Enchiridion before I told you about my plan. Then, once I had them convinced, they made me promise that I wouldn’t come to any of you. They didn’t want me giving you any kind of peace or unfair advantage. Of course, I already knew by that point that you and the others were campaigning to get as many members of the Brotherhood on your side as possible. That worked well for all of us last night.”
I let out a breath and ran a hand through my hair. I didn’t even know where to start with him, but I was glad he was here. I had a million questions, and I wanted answers.
“We have a lot to talk about,” I said.
“You said you could help us find the Mother Crow?” Franki asked. “What did you mean by that? Do you know where she is?”
“Not exactly,” Silas said. “But I have a few suspicions about where to start looking. I’ve been very busy over the past six months or so.”
“I’ll say,” I muttered. “I think it’s time you started talking.”
“In private,” Silas said, glancing at Franki. “I know you all want to be there to hear what’s going on, but I need to talk to Rend alone for a few minutes.”
“If it has to do with the Mother Crow, I want to be there,” Franki said. “I have a right to know what’s going on. Silas, she’s placed a curse on my best friend. She’s upstairs right now, trapped in a sleeping curse, and if we don’t find the Mother Crow, she’s going to die.”
Silas raised an eyebrow. “She attacked your friend?” he asked. He brought a hand up to his chin. “And this happened while Rend was at the Council meeting?”