The Faerie Guardian

by Rachel Morgan

  What you asked of me is very complicated. I have tried my best to concoct a potion that will allow you to forget your feelings for a specific person, but I have never done this before, and obviously have no way of testing the final potion. I strongly suggest that you do not take it. Please consider my advice.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I fill the pool in my bathing room with multicolored bubbles. The orange ones smell like peach, the pink ones like raspberry, and the green ones like lime. The green bubbles are my least favorite, the ones I pop first while soaking in the water and mulling over Uri’s note.

  I want to forget the hurt Nate has caused me. Of course I do. But if Uri isn’t sure of what he’s created, then it’s probably a bad idea to take the potion. I certainly don’t want to wind up with some nasty side effect, like a third arm or a heart of stone. But . . .

  Ugh, I hate this!

  I slap at a few bubbles that have drifted into the air, wishing I could slap Nate instead. Every time I think of him, every time I remember Scarlett whispering into his ear, I feel a physical pain tightening my insides. It was easy enough to forget while I was fighting for my life in Zell’s dungeon, but that’s over. There’s nothing now but training, our final assignment, graduation, and whatever comes after that.

  I cross my arms on the edge of the pool and rest my chin on them. I stare at the tiny vial balanced on the stone a short distance from my head. I should just take the potion and deal with whatever the consequences may be. Perhaps if I’m lucky, I won’t even wake up after taking it.

  “No,” I tell myself out loud. I lean out of the water, grab the vial, and toss it into the emergency kit sitting open by the doorway. “Stop being utterly pathetic. You’ve killed monsters. You’ve fought evil faeries. You can certainly handle a few hurt feelings.”

  Filigree, curled up in snow leopard form in the grass at the edge of the room, raises his head and gives me a quizzical look.

  “Never mind me,” I mutter as I slide back into the water. “Just talking to myself again.”

  I climb out of the pool once I’ve popped most of the large bubbles. The rest disappear with a flick of my hand and a few whispered words. After putting some clothes on, I sit on one of the rocks and conjure up some hot air. As I run my fingers through my damp hair, I wonder if Tora is back yet and whether I can convince her to give me an extra assignment tomorrow. I need to make up for whatever I missed in the past week.

  I wander back into my room while sifting through my emergency kit. Nothing seems to be broken from the vial I threw in just now. I close it up and leave it on my dresser.

  “I was right.”

  In shock, I swivel around. Ryn is lying on my bed, one hand behind his head, the other holding one of my poetry books open. “‘The colors and the lights that glow, the music and the masks. The people swaying to and fro in the enchanted dance’. By A. R. Thorntree.” He snaps the book shut and lets out a contented sigh. “I love it when you’re wrong.”

  “How did you get in here?” I demand.

  He flexes his fingers and grins. “I have skills.”

  I cross my arms. “You have skills that outweigh centuries-old protective magic?”

  “Fine. My skills aren’t that good.” He puts both hands behind his head. “You gave me access, remember?”

  “Uh, no. I certainly don’t remember giving you, of all people, access to my home.”

  “It was a long time ago. You got tired of always having to come down the stairs to let me in. And after you gave me access we never spoke about it again, because it was, after all, against the rules, and your dad would have flipped if he found out.” I stare at him. That does ring a very tiny bell in the back of my mind. “Didn’t you notice you didn’t have to let me in yesterday when I came back with your ‘borrowed’ dress?”

  Crap, how did I miss that? I’m a guardian, I’m supposed to notice everything. Speaking of which . . . I abruptly become aware of the fact that I’m wearing nothing but an oversized T-shirt. I grab the nearest object—my empty training bag—and hold it in front of my legs.

  “Oh, relax,” says Ryn. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

  I chuck the bag at him and lengthen the T-shirt with a bit of magic. “Yeah, but in case you haven’t noticed, Ryn, I’ve changed a little since we were five years old.”

  Ryn clears his throat. “Actually, it was far more recent than that, and yes, I did notice that you’ve—”

  “Excuse me?” He had so better be making that up. “What exactly do you mean by ‘far more recent’?”

  “Well, most would consider last week far more recent than twelve years ago.”

  “Last week?” He is definitely making this up.

  “Yeah.” I can see laughter in his eyes. “You fell out of a mountain and wound up in desperate need of healing. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that already.”

  “But—I—” My face is on fire. “Your mom healed me.” Oh, please dear Seelie Queen, let that be true. If it turns out Ryn was the one who had to put his hands on my skin to heal me, I may actually pass out from embarrassment.

  “You assumed my mother healed you. She would have, had she been around. Unfortunately, she wasn’t.”

  Okay, here it comes. The passing out. Surely one person can’t handle this much embarrassment and remain standing?

  “Relax, Pixie Sticks. You still had your underwear on. Very cute, by the way. I would have guessed boring and black, just like the rest of your clothes, so it was somewhat of a surprise to see little pink hearts.”

  Oh. My. Freak.

  Of all the people in the world to catch me in my underwear, why did it have to be Ryn? And, sadly, he’s right about the boring and black. I only created that pattern on my underwear because I was trying out the color spells Raven taught me that night.

  “Would it help if I told you that you make quite an attractive half-naked unconscious person?”

  “No!” I press my hands to my overheated face while Ryn continues to stare at me with an innocent expression. I decide to pretend it never happened. I walk over to the bed. “Move.” I push him to the other side so I can lift the covers. “You’re in trouble, by the way. Councilor Starkweather would like to see you next week.”

  “Ooh, another one-on-one with the Silver Starky. What did I do this time?”

  I raise my voice and try to mimic the head Council member. “We can’t have trainees and guardians conducting their own missions.” I consider adding an ‘I told you so’, but considering how unconcerned Ryn looks, it wouldn’t really have the desired effect.

  “Not a problem,” he says. “I’ll get her to see things my way.” He watches as I smooth the bed covers over my legs. “That is so not your T-shirt.”

  I look down at the There’s no place like 127.0.0.1 printed on the T-shirt I’m wearing. “Yeah, I have no idea what it means. My own shirt got ripped up during one of my assignments, so I just helped myself to this one. I figured the guy wouldn’t mind if he knew I’d just saved him from a nascryl.”

  Ryn nods.

  Things start to feel weird.

  “Um, I wanted to ask you something,” I say as I wrap my arms around myself. I’m pretty sure the T-shirt isn’t see-through, but I feel awkward in it nonetheless. “How did you get away from Zell? You didn’t kill him, did you?”

  “No.” Ryn punches one of my extra pillows and lies on it. “These disc things fell out of his pocket, and he looked really worried about it. So . . . I took them.”

  I sit up straight. “You took the discs? Did you use them?”

  “Use them? I didn’t even know what they were. No, they seemed really valuable to him, so I threw them into that big pool beneath the cages. He was furious. Looked like he wanted to murder me. But I guess rescuing his precious discs was more important than finishing our fight.” Ryn looks thoughtful. “He did manage to embed some poisonous glass in my back as I ran out though, so he’s probably hoping I didn’t make it.”

  I le
t out a breath. “You got lucky, Ryn. I honestly didn’t think you’d get out of there.”

  “Normally I’d be offended by a comment like that, but, to be honest, I thought the same thing a few times.”

  We sit in silence for a few moments before I draw my knees up and wrap my arms around them. “Okay, spit it out. What are you really doing here?”

  He lets out a long sigh and sits up. He bites his lip, then presses his hands together. “Uh . . . so, I’m a real jerk,” he says. “I know that. And it’s intentional, and I do have a reason for acting that way, but not when it comes to you. With you, I have no excuse. We were really good friends, and I never should have blamed you for what happened to Reed.” He looks down at his lap. “I always knew deep down that I was being irrational, but it’s like you said. I wanted to blame someone, because if there was no one to blame, if it was just a silly accident, then it all seemed so horribly pointless. So—” he takes a deep breath and looks me in the eye “—I’m really sorry.”

  It’s a while before I find my voice. “Wow. I’m impressed.”

  “You should be. I practiced that out loud at least ten times before I came over here.” He hesitates, probably waiting for a response, but I can’t think what to say. Part of me is still trying to figure out whether he’s being sincere or if this is some big joke I’m about to find myself the butt of. “What?” he asks. “You look like you don’t entirely believe me.”

  I sigh. “I just . . . don’t get it. Two days ago you still hated me, and now this?” I narrow my eyes. “Do you need another favor? Is that what this is about?”

  He shakes his head and his shoulders slump ever so slightly. “I guess I can’t blame you for jumping to that conclusion.” He stares up at my skylight for a while before looking back at me. “I’m just really grateful for what you did for Calla, even after everything I’ve said and done to you over the years. It kind of . . . made me look at you differently.”

  For some reason, I feel a flush rising in my cheeks. “And then you came over here, pinched one of my poetry books, and proceeded to take great delight in proving me wrong.”

  Light sparkles in his eyes. “Ah, yes. Well, I couldn’t resist that part.”

  “Enjoy the feeling while it lasts.” I poke him with my toe from under the covers. “You won’t be proving me wrong again any time soon.”

  He leans forward, his grin widening. “Challenge accepted.”

  I whack him on the side of the head with the nearest pillow. “How about you leave now so I can sleep?”

  “One last thing.” He sits back. “What do you think about, I don’t know, maybe being . . . sort of friends?” He raises an eyebrow and extends a hand toward me.

  “Sort of friends?” I eye his outstretched hand for a moment, then reach forward and grasp it. “I guess we could try that.”

  BONUS MATERIAL

  NATE

  “You’ll come back, Nathaniel!” Angelica’s scream echoed down the tunnel. “When you’re all alone and you realize you don’t fully belong in the human world, you’ll come crawling back to your mother!”

  Nate pressed his hands over his ears as he ran, trying to block out his mother’s voice. He didn’t want to hear her desperate screams. He didn’t want to feel sorry for her. She’d attacked Violet! She was probably psycho, so how could he believe anything she said? But that look on her face when she’d begged him not to leave her . . . It tore at his heart.

  He could see Violet just ahead of him, her dark hair streaming behind her as she zigzagged through the tunnel. He tried to keep up, but he felt sick and dizzy. Disoriented. He stumbled and threw out a hand against the tunnel wall to keep himself from falling. He staggered forward—and then there was darkness.

  The darkness became light, and he lurched toward it, gasping for air. His chest felt tight, as though his body had been squeezed through a narrow opening. His arms hurt. His head hurt. Everything hurt, actually. And then . . . the pain faded. Something felt different, like a weird kind of humming deep inside him. He’d felt it in Angelica’s chamber, and he might have felt it on other occasions, but he couldn’t remember now. It seemed a strangely familiar feeling.

  Breathing heavily, he looked around. He was in a circular room, its floor covered in stone paving and its walls concealed by hundreds of pieces of paper. A fancy chandelier with candles blazing in its holders hung from the high ceiling.

  “I did it!”

  Nate flinched at the sound of a girl’s voice. His eyes darted about and found her on his left. She had been leaning against the wall, but now she clapped her gloved hands together and jumped up and down in delight. Then she stopped and took another look at him. “Ooh, he’s cute. Can we keep him?”

  “I certainly hope so.”

  Nate recognized that voice. With an involuntary shudder, he looked across the large round table that occupied the center of the room—and found Zell. The faerie stalked toward him, crimson eyes glittering in the candlelight. When he was several feet away, he stopped. He blinked in surprise, then turned his gaze to the girl. “Can you feel that?”

  She stared at Nate, and her brow crinkled. “Yes. But I thought you said he had no magic?”

  Zell’s eyes were on him again. “I did indeed.”

  The girl inclined her head, as though listening to something. “Well, that’s a heck of a lot of power that just came out of nowhere, then.”

  Power? Nate’s gaze bounced back and forth between Zell and the girl. What power were they talking about? Was that the weird feeling coming from the depths of his being?

  Zell’s lips turned up slightly. “Looks like this meeting just got a whole lot more interesting.”

  Nate clenched his shaking fingers into fists. Interesting? Interesting? This meeting was messed up! Where the hell was he? How did he get here? He took a step back, searching the room for a way out.

  “Please don’t think about running anywhere, Nathaniel,” said Zell. “There is nowhere for you to go down here.” He gestured toward the table. “Why don’t you sit down and listen to what I have to say? You may find my proposition somewhat appealing.”

  Figuring he didn’t really have a choice, Nate walked slowly toward the table. He couldn’t see any chairs, but by the time he got there, three had materialized. He sat in the middle, with Zell and the girl on either side of him.

  “This is Scarlett,” said Zell. “She is a halfling, like you, though her displays of power began at a much younger age.” So that explained why her hair was a single color. Faeries were supposed to have multicolored hair, right? Like Zell with his black and crimson strands.

  “But it started the same way as you,” said Scarlett, crossing one leg over the other and swinging it. “Some days I’d feel this weird power inside of me, and other days there would be nothing at all. It took a while before it settled.” She wound a strand of dark brown hair around her finger and looked at Zell. “You know what they always say about halfling magic.”

  Without removing his eyes from Nate, Zell said, “Unpredictable.”

  Nate looked down at the table and tried not to feel entirely overwhelmed. His mother was a faerie. He was a halfling. He had magic inside of him. He could feel it right now! Movement caught his attention, and he looked up to see a stream of snowflakes floating down from beneath the chandelier. They drifted onto the table and melted. Was he doing that? Had he created the snow inside Angelica’s chamber? His heart pounded at the thought.

  “Of course,” Zell whispered. “You were the one who created the storm on the edge of the cliff. How silly of me not to have suspected you. It should be obvious that you’d have some kind of extra ability; your mother has several of the discs, after all.”

  “Several? I thought there was only—”

  “No, no.” Zell held up a hand. “No questions until you’ve agreed to my terms.”

  His terms? That didn’t sound good.

  Zell leaned back and placed his fingertips together. “There are certain things I need, Nat
haniel. I need the griffin discs your mother has, and I need the guardian who has the ability to find others. The reason you are here is because you are connected to both of these things. Your mother may very well attempt to contact you, at which point you will find out where she is and tell me. In addition to this, you have formed some kind of relationship with the faerie girl who saved your life. I would like you to use this girl to find out who the special guardian is.”

  Nate clenched his jaw as he continued to stare determinedly at the table. So Zell didn’t know that it was Violet who could find people. Well, he certainly wasn’t about to tell him. “And if I say no?” he said, sounding a lot braver than he felt.

  Zell shrugged. “Well, I was going to threaten the life of your family members and friends, and I may still do that if need be, but since your arrival here I have thought of a far more compelling reason why should work with us.”

  Nate swallowed. “And what is that?”

  Zell leaned forward once more. “We can help you, Nathaniel. Now that this power of yours has surfaced, it will not go away. You need to learn how to control and make use of it. Try as you might, you will never fit into the human world, and in the fae realm . . .” He lifted a shoulder. “Well, the majority of faerie kind doesn’t take well to halflings. Scarlett here can tell you that. There aren’t many places you will find yourself welcome, but here, in my home, you will always have a place.”

  Nate balled his fists against his thighs. He didn’t want to listen to this. Maybe Zell was right and most of faerie kind would reject him, but Violet wasn’t like that. She wouldn’t care that he was a halfling. And surely she could help him to control the magic he possessed? As long as he had her he could get through this.

  “Scarlett would be happy to teach you how to use your power,” said Zell. From the corner of his eye, Nate saw the girl nodding. “And I think you’ll find she is most likeable.”