After their discussion on the beach, Avery wasn’t entirely sure that Adalyn wouldn’t let her get caught either.
“This is setting off the magic detector like an alarm. I can hold it.” He said and then tapped the amulet resting on his own chest. Avery caught on. The amulet he wore detected magic and specifically the magic radiating off her. He’d assumed it was the glass since the red hue hadn’t dissipated.
“Was that really necessary?” Adalyn complained but based on her tone, she’d probably expected it.
“You’re kidding.” He shook his head and then said, “Get it on your way out, Adalyn.”
He shifted to the side, fake amulet still cradled in his hand, and motioned for them to pass. Coldness crawled through Avery’s veins. She realized the detector would stop with its angry red hue once she left, even if the fake glass amulet remained. The second she cleared the area, he’d know in an instant that the fake amulet hadn’t been setting the magic detector off. She glanced at Adalyn’s face only to see the that female harpie had figured that too. Regardless, Adalyn nodded and with her painful grasp on Avery, pushed them up the last step. The second guard pulled the wooden door open on its squealing hinges and ushered them in.
The uniqueness of the inside registered with Avery immediately but it took her a full minute to figure out why. Then it sunk in. Instead of individual floors for the three stories, the inside lobby sat three stories tall without stairs anywhere in sight. Worse, the lobby branched out into open hallways on the top levels but had no path to get to them. The hallways were like holes in the wall. Everything was designed for wings here.
Caught between a mix of shock and amazement, Avery barely realized Adalyn had steered them down the first hallway. Here, the building looked normal. Normal white walls with normal paintings crookedly affixed. Normal red carpet beneath their feet led the way past normal wooden doors. They finally turned another corner that put them out of eyesight of the main hallway. The second they were out of sight, Adalyn gave Avery a powerful shove and they took off running. The carpet dampened the loud clacks of their shoes as they dashed down the hallway, frantic to disappear before the guard was onto them. Adalyn slid left and finally stopped abruptly at the last set of double doors.
“Go.” She hissed urgently as she jigged the door open with a bronze skeleton key. “Find it, and hurry.”
Avery slid past her, inside, and stopped in her tracks. Adalyn told her to hurry and by doing so had drastically underestimated the time it’d take Avery to dig through Samuel’s study. The big room had at least eight towering bookshelves pressed against every available wall. Worse, books had also been set out in leaning stacks everywhere.
She glimpsed back toward Adalyn, ready to recruit help, but just as Avery turned to look, the door slammed shut. Adalyn’s loud voice just barely made it through the heavy wood.
“Father, what are you doing back so soon?”
Heart skipping a beat, Avery whirled back to look around the room. She hadn’t even had a real moment to search. Shaking with panic now, Avery’s eyes desperately sought out any good place to start. She found it. Samuel’s desk sat in the middle of the shelves. Sprinting up to it, Avery searched the disgustingly tidy space. The short search turned up a dead end.
The door creaked and Avery froze. The door hovered but didn’t open. Adalyn had stepped in front of it again. Only thanks to her superior height did Samuel not get a clear look inside the room.
“Adalyn, I don’t have time for this. The counsel head and I have urgent business we must attend to.”
She heard the murmur of a third person, no doubt the counsel head in question. Avery knew she definitely wasn’t leaving out that door.
“You never have time for this.” If Adalyn was acting, she did it well. Her voice spiked with the snootiness of a bitter teenager and she slammed her boot heel on the carpet floor. The door shut, presumably Adalyn’s doing.
“Please. Not now.” Samuel said loud enough, Avery could hear it through the wood.
“I’m so tired of hearing that excuse. Is this what I need to do to get you to talk to me?” Adalyn said.
Grateful for the extra moment bought by their escalating argument, Avery skirted the room’s boundaries again. There weren’t any doors or windows she could escape through. There wasn’t even a curtain she could hide behind, and Avery needed to get out of there now.
“I’m going to ask you to move Adalyn. If you don’t, I’ll have them move you for me. Please don’t have it come to that.” Samuel’s tired voice set a final ultimatum.
Something drew Avery’s eyes to the corner. There was another oak varnished bookshelf. On the third shelf, one book lay askew in a tight pile. Driven by hope, she raced over and snatched it from its high shelf. Avery didn’t need to open it to know for sure. The memorable insignia of a silver crescent moon confirmed it as Jericho’s journal.
Adalyn’s undignified scream shot through the doorway. Avery knew that they must have shoved Adalyn aside. In the next second, the knob rattled. The noise made Avery glance up toward the door and that’s where she saw her Plan B. There a silver vent grate that opened into the bottom of the wall. She dove for it. Avery pried at the sharp metal with her fingers. It didn’t budge.
“Come on, I can’t be this unlucky!” Avery cried to herself. The hollering voices outside wafted into the room and grew louder by the microsecond. The knob had been turned but whoever held it had hesitated. Adalyn must have been struggling.
Knowing her seconds were precious, Avery forced herself to breathe and to think. Mason had told her not to use the magic, but if Avery ever had a good excuse, this was it. She dropped the book and put both her palms dead center on the two screws that held the grate in place. She then tried to conjure the stirring feeling in her finger tips to the hot palpable magic she’d managed before.
It took a moment for the fizzle in her blood to manifest into a vibration. With the vibration came a sort of burning in her veins. The metal obediently shivered with the energy and just as the hotness threatened to be unbearable, Avery yanked her hands away. She’d melted the surrounding grate metal until the screws sat askew. Breaking her fingernails, she dug the screws out and opened the grate.
The inside was just big enough for Avery to squeeze through. Struggling inside, Avery pulled the metal shut just as the wooden door in the room swung open.
Eighteen
Avery had never been the claustrophobic one. She had never fought over the window seat with her classmates or particularity cared about messy and crowded dorm rooms. Now she could, for the first time in her life, honestly describe the sensation of being boxed in. It just so happened to be brought on by crawling through an air duct where the cold metal pressed in on all sides. She didn’t have enough room to turn around but rather wormed her way around the tight corners.
Sliding on her belly as quietly as she could, Avery kept moving. The ducts thus far were dark and loud from blowing air. Far ahead there was always a hint of promising light, but she felt like she’d made no progress on reaching it. To think that somehow the movies made this look cool.
Trying to redirect her increasingly panicking thought pattern, she focused on what she knew. Jericho’s journal, currently wedged between her chin and her chest, held every detail there was about the amulet’s creation. Between her and Mason, they’d probably figure out fairly quickly how to get the Willow magic out of her. The magic would, with their best efforts, then be in another friendly glass amulet which Mason could take home to have his banishment revoked. He’d get married, she’d go home, and the rest would be history.
The devil remained in the details. She’d have to meet back up with Adalyn to get off the island and that was assuming the guards wouldn’t already be onto them. Wedging herself around another corner, Avery heard something and froze in place. On the side of the vent ahead was another metal grate, but this one was far too small for her to crawl through. The sound she’d heard turned out to be voices coming through that
tiny grate. Avery held a breath to keep quiet and squirmed up another inch. Light poured in through the grate and combined with the thick metal netting, the room was invisible.
“You will regret this. They will come for me!” A girl screamed. It took a second but Avery recognized the voice.
“Eva.” She gasped to herself.
Mason’s sister was in the room, screaming and thrashing by the sound of metal clattering and clanging. They must have caught her in the Hatcher Pass raid and took her as a prisoner straight back here. Knowing Avery’s luck, she crawled herself straight into the police station.
“Haha.” A male that she didn’t recognize mocked Eva. “The last I heard you were on the outs with the Band. Probably why they threw you at us.”
Intrigued, Avery turned her ear to the grate and listened.
“The Band doesn’t work like that. We’re not traitorous, murderous banishing bastards!” Eva packed so many nasty adjectives in one sentence that she almost lost her breath at the end.
If the male harpie was impressed, he didn’t let on verbally.
“Now Eva, I’m hardly the enemy here. What you’ve done to the Prince, even if he was your father, is very much a hanging offense. But if you help me, I’ll help you.”
“You can’t make me any promises though right? I’ve heard it before.” She spit at him. “And I hate the good cop routine. Why would you want to help me?”
“For information.” The male harpie didn’t sugar coat it.
“I’m not turning in my colleagues.”
“This isn’t about your colleagues. This isn’t about the Band. So don’t jump the gun. This is just information.” The guy interrupted, clearly growing frustrated with Eva’s whining.
“And why would I give you this information?” Eva didn’t stop the verbal roulette. Her voice was light and carefree but Avery knew that she was testing her limits and learning her options. The girl may have been insane but she had yet to strike Avery as stupid.
“Let me remind you, the case against you is a bad one. If you give us any information, I’ll make sure the prosecutor is aware of your cooperation and you may get a lesser sentence.”
“How bad?” Eva questioned.
“Well, how about I tell you what evidence we’ve already gathered. Then we’ll see how cocky you are about turning me down.”
Avery could hear the distinct sound of paper shuffling and a chair being pulled along a hard tiled floor. She squinted through the grates but could only spot distinctive moving shadows. One, probably Eva, sat localized in the center of the room. Another shadow maneuvered in front of her before settling there.
“We’ve linked you red handed to the death of Prince Jericho. The motive was to steal the amulet of Willow-- an intention which was unsuccessfully fulfilled.”
“Open and shut case huh. What exactly do you want me to help you with then pops? What information, if not about the Band, could you possibly want?” Eva asked with sarcasm dripping.
“We need information on our favorite murder suspect. Your own brother, Mason.”
“Ohh, fun subject.” Eva snapped.
Papers rustled more and a chair creaked.
“There are two incidents we need clarification on and don’t act innocent. First up, Prince Jericho’s death. We have a recorded call from Mason to Jericho at ten forty five at night asking for him to come out to the California coast line. Eleven thirty three, the Band had found his position and killed him. Now we’re not dumb enough to think it’s a coincidence. It’s no coincidence that Mason called Jericho out in such a rush that Jericho would leave without personal protection. He’d do anything for his children and it...” The male harpie slowed when his voice wavered.
Whoever he was, he certainly had some affiliation with Jericho. In fact, that odd thought brought a picture of a harpie to Avery’s mind. Short for a harpie, he was heavy set like most guards. Older, he had a square wrinkled face and large brown eyes. The image in her mind struck her with such certainty that she knew the memory had to come from the part of Jericho infused in her.
“It’s no coincidence that the entire Band knew exactly where Jericho would be down to the exact time. They set him up to walk into an ambush.”The male said.
“What do you want me to say? So far you’re just talking at me man, I don’t think its working.”
Avery could hear a crash and could see the shadows shift. It appeared that the guard, the bigger figure, boxed Eva in threateningly.
“You were there the night Jericho died, I need you to confirm or deny that Mason had any part in it. I need you to confirm or deny our suspicion that he did it as a trade off for Adalyn’s fiancé being put in the ground.” He said.
Avery went cold when she heard it. The male harpie had it almost down to the detail. Now whether or not he’d have agreed that it was an accident was a different matter. Her heart sunk as she listened. Eva would rat Mason out and then he’d have no chance of ever coming back from his banishment.
“Don’t you think we could have just tortured Mason until he did call Jericho out?” She said so smoothly, Avery’s jaw dropped.
The guard also stuttered and shot up from his chair.
“Are you saying that’s what happened?” He frantically demanded to know.
“Maybe.”
Avery could hear the guard gasping and sputtering, apparently just as shocked as she was. Avery didn’t know Eva very well, but it just didn’t seem like something that the girl would do.
“Well...what happened to Adalyn’s fiancé then? Who killed him?”
“No idea.” Eva quipped.
Avery’s head floated. Unbelieving, she squinted out the netted grate and searched for any more detail.
“I didn’t think Mason could have done it. Not Mason.” The male harpie confessed. Avery could picture the pale shaking guard in her mind but couldn’t put a name to him. Rather, she listened to the relief rip through his voice.
“Haha! I’m not saying that’s what happened. I’m just saying that it’s a theory. I’ll never confess a word to you bastard. My friends are coming for me and then I’ll kill you on my way out of this joint.” Eva said then. In a flurry of movement, she tore at the bonds that kept her pinned. Chains screeched in protest and she kicked her feet out. Knocking the male’s chair back, the wood flew and crashed into the wall with a deafening smash.
“You will regret this! I swear you will regret this!” Eva screamed with a maniacal voice.
The male harpie’s shadow suddenly moved and disappeared from the room. Eva’s screaming followed him all the way out. Only in the wake of his presence, did Eva calm her thrashing and let her screaming become silence. Avery sent a last glance through the grate before readjusting Jericho’s book and quietly pushing forward. The chilly air rushing through the vents had practically frozen her. The amulet continued to protect her from the cold but it didn’t prevent the tips of her fingers from turning blue. She was ready to move on when Eva’s voice stopped her.
“You know, it’s funny how you always find things when you’re not looking for them.” Eva’s voice floated into the vents. Avery stilled. “I’m surprised though. The island was the last place we’d look for you. I bet this was Mason’s idea.”
Avery paled, knowing that Eva was officially talking to her. Still, Avery kept quiet while she thought about her next move.
“I know exactly what that magic feels like now. I can sense it from a thousand miles away so naturally ten feet is nothing. And it was great timing on your part too. You just got to hear exactly what they had in mind for us.” Eva’s tone showed she enjoyed this. Avery only listened.
“So I’ll make you a deal. My brethren are coming to rescue me. And if you officially cooperate then we’ll let you live, if possible.” Eva said.
Avery drew her nerves together.
“No way.” Avery whispered, just loud enough that Eva could hear and just quiet enough that her voice wouldn’t attract outside attention. “I’ve heard you sa
y that before.”
The Band had made no bones about wanting her dead when this was done. Why start now?
“So tell me then. What are your other options? The harpie government knows about you now and if that magic can’t be removed then you’re going to become a danger to them. Let me tell you something. There is nothing in harpie law that prevents a harpie from killing humans. So if you think for a second that you’re safe with them, you’re out of your mind.”
Avery swallowed hard.
“I’m not worried about it.” Avery said.
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