The Faerie Guardian

by Rachel Morgan

  “Darling, I’m so sorry,” says Ryn, coming toward me. “Let’s not fight anymore.” He places a hand on my waist and lightly kisses my cheek. I fight the urge to wriggle away from him, because Ryn kissing me is just plain weird. He links my arm through his as we walk up the stairway to the entrance, and it’s at that point that I realize just what we’re getting ourselves into. We’re willingly surrounding ourselves with enemies of both the Guild and the Seelie Court. If someone finds out who we really are, we may not come out of here.

  “Don’t you dare panic,” mutters Ryn, as though sensing my nerves through my skin. “This is what you’re training to become. This is what real guardians do.”

  I plaster a smile onto my face as we near the doorway. The faerie standing behind the lectern is chatting with a couple dressed all in black. “And don’t forget the no-magic rule, Mrs Hawthorne,” he says.

  The woman laughs. “There’s no way I could forget that rule. I was more than a little embarrassed last time when I tried to conjure up a glass of wine and that dreadful alarm went off.”

  I squeeze Ryn’s arm and he nods. A magic alarm. Good thing I brought some real knives with. We step forward as the faerie holds his hand out for our invitation. “Mr and Mrs de Rossi, good evening.” He makes a mark with his stylus on the page in front of him, then fake-smiles at us. “I see you’ve dyed your hair in honor of the occasion.” He winks as Ryn’s arm tenses ever so slightly. “You’ll fit right in here.”

  Crap. Our hair. I didn’t even think of that.

  Before I can give the matter any further thought, we’re ushered through an entrance hall and into a crowded ballroom. My senses are immediately assaulted. Colors, feathers, sparkles. Masks of all shapes and sizes. Dresses made of flames, smoke, water. A hundred perfumes fill the air. Couples twirl in perfect unison about the dance floor. A string quartet, raised on a platform on one side of the room, plays a melody so irresistible that even I feel an instinctive urge to dance.

  “Focus,” says Ryn. He touches the bracelet on my wrist. “Is Calla still in the same place?”

  We casually wander around the edge of the room while I send my mind out to find the little girl. When I look through her eyes, I see the same room. She’s leaning against the door though. Listening. She can hear the music downstairs. “Yes. And she’s alone still. She’s alone every time I search for her.”

  Ryn nods. “Makes sense.”

  “What do you—” I stop. I stare. About ten people away from me, standing slightly taller than everyone else, and with no mask covering his face, is Nate.

  The sudden flood of emotions that bombards me condenses into a physical pain. My heart, my lungs, my stomach. It all hurts.

  Ryn turns back to me, pressing a hand to his chest. “What happened?” I can’t answer. I can’t breathe. All I can do is stare over his shoulder at the person I’d like to simultaneously hit, scream at, and wrap my arms around. Ryn follows my gaze. “Ah. I see.”

  Nate’s expression is sullen. His arms are crossed over his chest as he surveys the ballroom. I watch as a girl walks up to him. She traces a finger down his arm. When she whispers in his ear, his expression softens. As she turns away from him, a sultry smile upon her lips, I recognize her. Scarlett.

  Something boils inside me. How dare he? Is he with her? Without another thought, I set off in his direction. But I’ve barely taken two steps when Ryn grabs my hand and pulls me into his arms. “Not so fast, Pixie Sticks,” he says, gracefully spinning us into the crowd of dancers. “Can’t have you rushing off after halfing boy. That would ruin the plan.”

  Ryn’s right, of course. Which infuriates me even more. Dammit. Why does Nate have to be here? I was supposed to be able to forget about him tonight. And if he’s here, does that mean Zell’s here too?

  “Did you love him?” asks Ryn.

  My feet almost stop dancing. “What?”

  “Did you love him? I mean, you didn’t know him for very long, but your reaction just now was pretty intense.”

  I force my eyes over Ryn’s shoulder and decide not to answer. Maybe he’ll get the message and shut up.

  “If I had to guess, I’d say no.” continues Ryn. “You’re not the kind of person to just randomly fall in love. You’re way too . . .”

  My eyes shoot to his. “Too what?”

  “Well, you know, emotionally closed off.”

  “I will emotionally close off every orifice in your face if you don’t shut up about this right now.”

  He laughs. “That doesn’t even make sense, V.”

  I intentionally step on his foot. “Aren’t you meant to be focusing on something, Oryn?”

  “I am focusing, V. I’ve been focusing this entire time. It’s called multitasking. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?” I roll my eyes. “For instance, I’ve noticed that there are guards standing by certain doors leading out of this room. I’ve noticed that no one goes in or out of those doors. I’ve noticed that some of those guards become extremely distracted when a pretty girl dances past them. And . . . I’m currently noticing that someone important is coming down that large staircase. Must be the birthday boy himself.” Ryn spins me around so I can see who he’s talking about. My eyes lock onto the crimson-streaked hair, and my heart stops cold. I stumble over my own feet.

  “Zell,” I whisper in horror.

  Ryn says something, but I don’t hear it. The music fades and the dancers come to a halt. Zell starts speaking. Something about celebrations and special friends and a whole lot of blah, blah, blah that I can’t focus on because I’m still trying to wrap my head around this. Zell is an Unseelie Prince? Seriously? I nearly died trying to escape this guy, and now I’ve walked right into his home? I look down at the floor in an attempt to conceal the lower half of my face. Thank goodness I’m short.

  The music starts up, people begin moving again, and Ryn pulls me toward the edge of the room. He trips and bumps into a dancing couple, sending the girl flying. The nearest guard springs into action to catch her. While everyone’s attention is on the girl, Ryn and I slip through the now unguarded door.

  We hurry along the corridor and out of sight before Ryn stops and faces me. He pulls his mask off. “You know that guy? The Unseelie Prince?”

  “Yeah. He’s after me.” I remove my own mask. “You know, because I can find people. At least, I think that’s why he wants me.” I look down at the floor and add quietly, “He’s the one Nate handed me over to inside the mountain.”

  “How does he even know what you can do?”

  “I don’t know. He somehow knew there was someone at the Guild who could find people. I think Nate told him it’s me.”

  Ryn sighs. “Okay, let’s just find Calla and get out of here.”

  I swivel the bracelet around my wrist and send my mind out. Nothing. I swallow, take a deep breath, and try again. Still nothing. No no no. Come on, there has to be something. But there isn’t. “I . . . I’m not sensing anything.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t sense her. I’m getting nothing.”

  I can see the panic in Ryn’s eyes. “So what does that mean? Is she asleep?”

  “No. I can still sense people when they’re sleeping.”

  “So?” He grabs my shoulders. “What, Violet? Tell me.”

  “Um . . . I think it might mean . . .” I can’t say it. I can’t tell Ryn that I think his sister is dead. I don’t even know how to get the words out.

  I don’t have to though, because he figures it out. “No.” He shakes his head. “They wouldn’t kill her. They wouldn’t. It makes no sense.” He steps away from me. “Try it again.”

  I try, but it’s still no use. I can’t feel her at all. It’s just like when I lost Nate in the labyrinth. Except . . . it turned out Nate was still alive. “Perhaps she isn’t dead,” I say. “Perhaps she’s being magically concealed or something.”

  “Magically concealed? Is that even possible?”

  “I don’t know. I—”


  “She isn’t dead. She can’t be.” He turns on his heel and heads down the corridor.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To find that room you saw her in.”

  “Wait, Ryn, you don’t even know which way to go.” I hurry after him, trying not to trip over my skirt.

  He stops. “Do you? Can you find the room even if she isn’t in it anymore?”

  “I—I think so. I’ve searched for Calla so many times today that I could probably find that room just by the memory of what it feels like.”

  “Okay, so do it.”

  I lift the bottom of my skirt and start walking. It’s a strange thing, following the scent of a thought. A memory. A feeling. It’s like a pull. Like gravity, in a way. You can close your eyes and spin yourself every which way you please, but when you stop you can still feel which way is up and which is down.

  We travel along passageways, up staircases, through rooms, and into more passageways. We have to hide twice. First behind a wall hanging, and then behind a couch in a small library. Ryn doesn’t say a word, but I can tell he’s close to desperate. He’s holding a knife that must have been hidden on his body somewhere, and I know he won’t hesitate to use it on anyone who tries to stop him.

  “I think it’s down here,” I say as we enter a wider corridor. “Um . . . this one. No—” I move to the next door “—this one.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, it’s definitely this one.”

  Ryn tries the handle; the door opens easily. Not a good sign. Slowly, he pushes the door all the way back to reveal the room. There is no light other than the gleam of the moon through the window, so I smell it before I see it. Blood. A pool of it on the wooden floor, smeared by tiny handprints. And on the bed, a small, rumpled jersey.

  There’s no Calla.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Ryn’s hands start to shake. He makes a strangled noise that sounds like ‘no’. His knife clatters onto the floor, and his hands tug at his hair.

  My brain takes in the evidence and searches desperately for a different conclusion. Perhaps it isn’t her blood. Or if it is, perhaps she’s wounded and not dead. But that’s a whole lot more blood than a small child can afford to lose, and coupled with the fact that I can no longer sense her . . . Well, I’m struggling to come to any conclusion other than the one Ryn has clearly arrived at. He picks up the jersey from the bed and presses it to his face. His shoulders begin to shake.

  I saw my father cry once, after we received the news that Reed had died. There was something terrifying about his tears. I had only ever known him as strong and fearless, and it scared me to realize that some things existed that could break him.

  That’s what it’s like to see Ryn cry. It’s wrong. He’s supposed to be the mean guy. The guy who’s easy to hate. The guy I casually throw insults at because I know nothing I say or do can penetrate the armor he’s built up around himself. Witnessing his heartbreak just doesn’t feel right.

  He stumbles around to the other side of the bed and slides down with his back against it. His shoulders continue to shake as he buries his face in his hands. I squeeze my eyelids shut over the tears threatening to form. Part of me wants to leave Ryn alone with his grief, but another part of me feels a sudden and unexpected urge to comfort him. I want to say something, but for the life of me I can’t think what. What could I possibly say that will make this any better?

  I quietly close the door behind me before walking toward him. I go slowly, as though approaching a dangerous animal. I touch his shoulder, expecting him to throw me off and begin yelling at me. Tell me this is all my fault somehow. But he doesn’t move. I sit down on the floor beside him—a challenging task, given the size of my skirt—and slide my arm around his shoulders. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. To my great surprise, he leans into me, burying his face in my neck as the shuddering of his shoulders continues. I tense for a moment, then relax and put my other arm around him.

  *

  Around about the time one of my legs starts falling asleep, Ryn pulls away from me, as though suddenly realizing exactly who it is he’s leaning against. He tilts his head back against the bed. I wait for him to say something, but he remains silent. Has he fallen asleep? I can’t tell if his eyes are closed without looking at him, and I don’t want to look at him because I feel awkward enough as it is without adding eye contact into the mix.

  So I wait. And while I wait, my thoughts find their way back to Nate. Nate, Zell and Scarlett. Nate knows Zell, and Nate knows Scarlett. But now it appears Zell and Scarlett also know each other. Perhaps the ‘boss’ Scarlett referred to was Zell, and he was the one watching Nate. Or it could just be that Scarlett is the date Nate brought along to the ball tonight. The thought makes me want to break something.

  Ryn’s breathing has settled into a steady rhythm, suggesting he’s fallen asleep. I shake my head. Did it not cross his mind that perhaps we should get out of here first and then take a nap? I idly twist Calla’s bracelet around my arm and wonder how long I should wait before I wake him up. I need to get him out of here quickly so he can’t do something insane like publicly confront Zell about Calla’s death. Which leads me to another thought: Why did Zell kidnap Ryn’s little sister in the first place? Was it even Zell? Maybe he doesn’t know what’s going underneath his own—

  In a flash, I’m seeing through Calla’s eyes. She’s running down a dark, stone passageway. Someone is chasing her. She rounds a corner and runs smack into a large man.

  “What the hell?” He grabs her. “How did she get out?”

  “She tricked me!” someone yells from behind Calla as she wriggles and screams.

  “You idiot, I told you not to believe anything you see around her. Get her back to the dungeon, and get one of those bands on her ankle.”

  Calla is handed over to someone else. He carries her quickly back the way she came, down the passage, through a doorway and—

  She’s gone. I sit up straight, my heart racing. What just happened? “Ryn.” I tug his arm. “Ryn, wake up.”

  “Mm?”

  “She’s not dead. I saw her.”

  “What?” He stares at me, confused.

  “I was just sitting here playing with the bracelet and all of a sudden I saw her. She escaped, but someone caught her and took her back to the dungeon.”

  “Dungeon?”

  “Yeah, I heard someone say ‘dungeon’.”

  Ryn is on his feet in an instant. “Do you think it’s here? Underneath this place?”

  “Yes.” The word is barely out of my mouth, and Ryn is across the room, pulling the door open and running out. Too bad he has to run right into two guards. He jumps back just as I reach the door, then swings his fist into the closest guard’s face. Guard One cries out and clutches his nose just as Guard Two receives a kick to the stomach. But these guards are not as useless as they first appear, and a moment later Ryn is tackled onto the floor.

  Right. Time to lose the dress. I grab hold of the black and silver fabric and tear as hard as I can. The skirt falls away, revealing my shorts, knives and boots. Aside from the top part of my outfit, I almost feel normal again.

  Remembering the no-magic alarm, I run to the corner of the room and grab a tall floor lamp. “Get down,” I shout to Ryn, currently wrestling with both guards on the floor. He ducks as I swing the lamp and whack Guard One over the head, then thrust the end into Guard Two’s chest, knocking him out of the doorway and into the passage.

  The guards lie motionless on the floor. Ryn stares at me with both eyebrows lifted in an expression I can’t quite identify. “What?” I ask.

  “So much for returning the dress,” he says.

  “It was getting in the way.”

  With a knife in one hand and the pull of Calla’s location still fresh in my mind, I lead the way downstairs. The corridors we find ourselves in are narrow and winding; we must be taking the servants’ route through the house. When I feel like we must be nearly there, we reach the kitchen. We
walk straight past several cooks, trying to pretend we have every right to be down here, and continue running the moment the kitchen doors swing shut behind us. Past the pantries full of food. Past several storage rooms. And finally, we find a staircase made of stone that leads downward.

  I take the narrow stairs slowly, trying not to let the pointy heels of my boots make any noise on the stone. Sensing Ryn’s agitation, I step to one side. “I’d rather you didn’t push me down the stairs,” I whisper.

  “Good call,” he says as he passes me. “You probably wouldn’t believe me if I said it was an accident.” He jumps down the stairs two at a time and disappears around a corner.

  Stupid heels. Stupid no-magic rule.

  I reach the bottom as quickly as my tiptoes will allow me. I round the corner—the same one Calla ran around before crashing into someone—and find Ryn beating his fists against a door made of a single stone slab.“Dammit, we just missed getting in.”

  “What do you mean?” I place my hand against the stone. “Was this open?”

  “Yeah, someone was going in just as I came around that corner. The stone moved across before I could get in.”

  I reach for a handle, but there isn’t one. Looking closer, I see a narrow strip of metal running around the edge of the door, sealing the crack between the wall and the stone slab. “I think I recognize this metal,” I say, feeling a shiver course down my spine. I hold up my right hand and point to the scar encircling my wrist. “Do you know how I got this?”

  “I heard you had some kind of altercation with an Unseelie faerie when you tried to take halfling boy back home.”

  “You heard correct. That Unseelie faerie and his partner put a metal band around my wrist that was supposed to prevent me from accessing my magic. And that Unseelie faerie was Zell.”