Hereditary Power

by Emma L. Adams

  Some events shook up the world. You felt the shift. I’d felt it when I’d opened the window in Edinburgh and Arden had flown in, bringing the scent of magic. I’d felt it when I’d picked up the book and its power had roared through my veins, changing me.

  “You have to want this power for you,” he said. “Not because you think the book wants you to use it. I might not know that type of talisman, but I know that if you’re constantly fighting against it, it’s no part of you. It’s a separate entity.”

  A sour taste filled my mouth. “Why can’t it be both? Your sword clearly isn’t physically attached to you.”

  He lifted the blade and put it down. Then he stepped away, magic flowing to his hands. The blade didn’t glow at all, but the magic dancing over the palms of his hands was undiminished.

  “The magic is inside me as well,” he said. “I keep the talisman with me in the interests of safety, but it doesn’t bother me when I’m not touching it. I control the talisman. Not the other way around.” He stepped forwards, lightly tapped the blade’s hilt with his foot, and it leapt into his hand.

  “You’ve made your point,” I said. “I don’t know why my talisman is like this. I can’t give it up, though. It’s not an option. Do you really trust something so powerful in Morgan’s hands instead?”

  “It should be sealed away where it can’t control anyone.”

  I gave a bitter laugh. “You want me to be a helpless human?”

  “You’re the opposite of helpless, Ilsa. You were before the book claimed you.”

  Before the book claimed you. Not before I’d claimed the book. Maybe that was my problem, but ditching it wasn’t an option. And I wouldn’t put up with its side effects to prove a point to River.

  I rose to my feet and stepped up to him. His eyes glowed faintly green in the dawn light, and his mouth was curved down at the corners. I wrapped my arms around the back of his head and kissed him. “Chill. I’m not about to take a permanent dive through the gates anytime soon. There are a lot of things I want to do here on earth.”

  He exhaled and kissed me back, holding onto me like I was made of glass. “Don’t go where I can’t follow you,” he murmured. “Please.”

  Oh, River. “I’ll try not to.”

  His hand trailed through my hair, sparking a current of warmth in my blood.

  “Hey, Ilsa!” shouted Morgan from the hallway. “You alive?”

  “She’s fine.” Hazel peered around the door. “She wants to be left alone with River.”

  “No, we need a plan,” I said, taking a step back from River as she and Morgan entered the room. “It’s time to get to Edinburgh and find Ivy. Unless… I don’t suppose you managed to find Holly’s house?”

  Hazel shook her head. “No. I don’t know if the Ley Line moved, or if it’s because my magic is fading, but I couldn’t find her. I was sure she was on our side this time.”

  “She might be,” I said. “She turned on her mother in the end, you know she did.” And she’d given me the books. But how long had the Winter Gatekeeper been lurking out of sight behind the gates?

  “Maybe,” said Hazel. “Doesn’t mean she won’t be manipulated.”

  “I’ve never met her,” said Morgan, leaning on the door frame. “So I’m assuming everyone connected to Death or Faerie is an enemy until further notice.”

  “Good idea,” said Hazel. “At least we have Agnes and Everett on our side.”

  “And Ivy Lane,” I put in. “If she’s there, I reckon she can threaten the Seelie Queen. Maybe. Her talisman’s on the same level as theirs, and she might have some tips about handling this situation.”

  Maybe she could explain the dichotomy between what I wanted and what the book wanted me to do. But I wouldn’t stop using its power. That wasn’t an option.

  For the Sidhe, power was enough. But power didn’t mean truth, and besides, I couldn’t outdo the Sidhe through sheer brute force. They could break me in a thousand ways. But for all their pomp and ceremony, they had the same vices as humans did. They weren’t infallible, and they had gaping holes in their knowledge, especially concerning humans.

  The person who’d created the book hadn’t wanted the Sidhe to know. If the Seelie Queen did, she hadn’t said so.

  Hazel gave an unsteady laugh. “You know I’m fucked if we all actually make it out of this alive and Mum expects me to interact with the Sidhe as though they deserve respect. They tried to kill us.”

  “I knew what they were the instant I first saw one,” Morgan said. “Maybe that’s why the curse skipped me over.”

  I shook my head. “Well, Mum apparently had an invitation to meet with this council in Edinburgh, but I guess it came after she went to Faerie. Seems a good time to crash their party.”

  15

  Before going to Agnes’s place, I stopped at the Lynn family mausoleum and checked the spirit realm to see if Ivy was around. If she hadn’t told the council we were coming, we’d have a much harder job explaining ourselves. Then again, there was someone else I could send to pass on a message.

  This time, the others all came with me to the mausoleum, where River and I set the candles up again.

  “It’s fine,” I told River. “I stayed too long last time, but I’ll only be five minutes this time. If time’s up, both you and Morgan have my permission to zap me awake. Deal?”

  River nodded. His scowl betrayed his belief that I wasn’t taking the danger seriously.

  “Come on, I have to warn them we’re coming,” I told him. “I don’t even know what day it is, or if the council is still there.” I stepped into the circle. Then I drifted into the spirit world, and looked around the endless grey smoke. “Graves?”

  No sign of him. The local necromancers had been quiet since the half-faerie ghosts’ attack, probably recovering from the humiliation of not being able to do a thing about them. I rotated on the spot and made for the closest key point. Then the next. The silvery line beneath my feet disappeared in a blur. How much ground had I covered in the mortal realm? Miles, probably. I kept moving, from one point to the next, until the land beneath the line grew familiar. Edinburgh, and the Ley Line, were close by. Maybe I’d find Ivy on the line itself—

  I stopped, hovering in the air. Someone else floated close by, an old man in a suit with grey hair.

  “Hey, Graves. What are you doing out here?”

  The man turned around. “Graves? The name is Lord Sydney, and you must be one of these infamous Lynns.”

  Oh, crap. Easy mistake to make, considering he and Greaves looked like they might be related. His accent was English, though.

  “How do you know my name?” I asked.

  He looked at the glowing silver light at my feet as though to confirm I was actually there. “I have an unfortunate partnership of sorts with your distant relation, Ivy Lane.”

  “Wait, you’re Frank the necromancer?”

  “The name is Lord—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Have you seen Ivy? Tell her I’m on my way, and I have epically bad news.”

  There was the slightest chance Lady Montgomery would lock me in jail again, or the mages would, if I told the entire council about the Seelie Queen being evil. Or worse, I’d be hauled into Faerie and put on trial for lying. There was no way to prove I told the truth, not when the Sidhe were the masters of trickery and glamour. All I had were words—but I of all people knew how powerful words could be.

  “Bad news?” said Frank the necromancer. “Is it to do with the downright alarming stories I’ve heard about you from the necromancers at Edinburgh’s guild?”

  “Yes, but worse. Is the council still there? I’m coming to speak to them, now. In person. But I need someone to warn the council that the Summer Gatekeeper needs to talk to them without the Sidhe knowing.”

  “The Sidhe have no interest in our affairs,” said Frank. “And not just anyone is allowed into council meetings.”

  “Then tell Ivy. Please. I’m not even kidding when I say shit’s about to go down acro
ss three realms at once.”

  And all of them might be counting on me.

  A flash of light enveloped me, and the next thing I knew, I sat in the circle of candles. Morgan and River stood in front of me, though Hazel had disappeared.

  “That wasn’t five minutes,” I protested.

  “Seven, actually,” said Morgan. “According to your pedantic boyfriend, anyway.”

  I glanced at River, who had his arms folded across his chest, one foot resting on the candle.

  “All right. If Ivy Lane’s necromancer friend tells her and the council we’re coming, then we’re good.” I climbed out of the circle. My skin was a little cold, but not freezing like last time. Travelling along the spirit lines didn’t drain me the way crossing realms did.

  The mausoleum door opened and Hazel walked back in. “I’ve asked the necromancers to help the villagers set up defences in case any more ghosts come back while we’re gone.”

  “Good thinking,” I said. “I reckon we’re the more likely targets… though there’s a whole council of magical powerhouses gathering in Edinburgh right now.”

  “And we’re joining them,” said Hazel.

  We walked through the village via Agnes’s shop. To my surprise, it was open, and didn’t look any worse for wear after the fire. Witch spells could fix anything… except other witch spells. The shelves inside were barer than before, and the faint smell of burning still lingered in the air. Which wasn’t that unusual for a witch establishment, really.

  “Hey, Agnes,” I said, spotting her behind the counter.

  “I thought you’d be back sooner,” she said.

  “Yeah, we got diverted,” I said. “We need to get to Edinburgh. Urgently. There’s a council meeting there and we need to report someone important from Faerie for treachery before people get killed.”

  “Come through here.” She beckoned through the curtain at the side of the counter, hidden in shadow. Inside was a spacious room that looked like a cross between a sitting room and a laboratory. Everett occupied one corner, surrounded by herbs and ingredients. From the smell, he was making replacement illusion spells for the ones lost in the fire.

  I watched for a moment as the small outline of a dragon materialised over the chalk circle he’d etched on the floor, flew in a circle, then disappeared into the illusion charm lying in the centre. Everett caught my eye and grinned. He didn’t have his wife’s overwhelming personality and it was easy to forget that most of the dangerous and useful spells we used were hand-crafted by him.

  “You all look terrible,” Agnes commented. “How long did the faeries keep you for?”

  “Believe it or not, it was only a day.” I climbed over boxes of ingredients to the seating area, and told her a summary of our recent events. I didn’t know what shocked her more, the Seelie Queen’s treachery or the Winter Gatekeeper sticking around after death. Mostly because she didn’t react to either of those revelations with anything other than her usual calm detachment. I wished I could bring her to Faerie. Her aura of absolute calm and confidence would be a blessed contrast to the Sidhe’s ridiculous dramatics.

  “I can’t find Graves,” I said. “He wouldn’t be able to stop the Winter Gatekeeper even if he was still alive, and if she could get through the gates, she would have already. She’s just hanging there.”

  Agnes nodded. “You’re right. It’d take a vast amount of power to bring her back.”

  “I don’t get this,” I said. “Is the Seelie Queen working with her? I guess they could theoretically communicate through the Grey Vale, and the Queen can walk into this realm if she wanted to. But I don’t see why she’d want to. Undermining her own Court isn’t wise.”

  “Mum doesn’t have anything on her,” added Hazel. “Tons of speculation on the Erlking, not so much on his wife. Pretty sure she isn’t even his first wife. No idea whether they have children… apparently they don’t do family trees there. Guess because nobody dies, they don’t see the need to keep a record of who’s related to whom. But it’s a pain, because we have nothing to go by. If we could speak to the Erlking himself… but none of this explains how our family wound up tied to them. It’s not her who’s in control of the curse.”

  “The Erlking?” I asked. “No… all the stories say Thomas Lynn met a faerie queen, right?”

  “You know stories,” said Hazel. “If even our family doesn’t know the full truth, nobody else will.”

  Agnes turned to me. “You said you’d come to a conclusion about that book?”

  “Yeah, you might say that. Its magic isn’t Sidhe, but from one of their exiled gods. The Ancients. I don’t suppose you’ve heard of them? Even Mum didn’t mention them.”

  Agnes went very still. “Who told you this? The Ancients’ magic shouldn’t exist in its original form.”

  “You met one?” said Morgan.

  “I’m not that old, you ingrate,” she said to Morgan. “There are stories of Ancients visiting this realm at least as old as the Sidhe, if not older. I’d be more inclined to think of the Ancients as the Sidhe’s powerful predecessors rather than gods in the omnipotent sense.”

  “Obviously they’re not all-powerful if they got kicked out and exiled,” said Hazel. “Why did Mum not tell me this? For that matter, how do you know?”

  “Over the years, I’ve met a great many people whose magical talents fall outside of the usual boundaries,” said Agnes. “This village was one of many places of safety for supernaturals in the old world, but some were intended as places to hide from each other as much as from humans. They say the gods were shapeshifters with immense power, including an unconventional relationship with the divides between realms.”

  My mouth dropped open. “Does that mean they might still be out there somewhere?”

  In the Vale? Or—between the Vale and earth, or the liminal spaces? Anything was possible.

  “You’re saying our family dealt directly with one of these gods?” Hazel asked.

  Agnes shook her head. “By all accounts, the gods are dead. But their magic lives on.”

  “Because the Sidhe didn’t just kill their gods,” I said. “They stole their power.”

  “Precisely.”

  Chills raced down my back. Maybe that wasn’t all they’d stolen. Ivy’s voice replayed in my head: a cauldron full of blood. Whose blood? Perhaps the Sidhe had manufactured their own immortality, and they’d stolen from the gods to do so. And the power of one of those gods rested in my hands.

  “So—I’m supposed to use the book against the enemy? Banishing the Winter Gatekeeper didn’t work the first time. And I don’t know if I can even use it on the Sidhe. But I can use it in their realm, even in the Vale.”

  “It nearly killed her,” River said to Agnes. “The book’s power… is there any way for Ilsa to protect herself? It’s more powerful than a human.”

  “Most of us with power struggle to find that balance,” she said. “I could erase all the memories of every person in this room, at a great cost. I’ve lost friends over it… people who claimed to want their memories erased but didn’t understand what they were really asking for. It’s a personal choice, and unfortunately not one I can help with.”

  I thought not.

  “Why tell her?” said Morgan, jerking his head at Agnes. “She might be an enemy, right?”

  “No, she isn’t,” I said. “Also, unlike someone, she won’t stride into Faerie and get into a fight.”

  “I’m tempted to,” Agnes muttered. “Of all the skills I could have had, I was always glad to have one which did not drag me into a position of diplomatic conflict. My sister got involved in supernatural disputes and paid dearly for it. But staying here hasn’t done me any favours. The village, however, needs protection in any form I can give it. If you want to reach Edinburgh before the meeting, I’d suggest leaving now.”

  “Leaving where?” said Morgan, looking around the room.

  “Here.” Everett indicated a mirror of clear glass, which didn’t bear so much as a sco
rch mark from the fire. If anything it looked brighter than most mirrors did, as though sunlight was trapped inside it.

  “What’s that?” I asked, getting to my feet.

  “A very rare transportation device,” Agnes said. “There are two. The second is in Edinburgh, in the mages’ headquarters. I must ask you to tell nobody else about this mirror. I’m looking after it for a friend of mine, and she won’t be happy if anything happens to it.”

  I walked up to the mirror, examining its shimmering surface. My own reflection stared back, my forehead still glowing. Damn. Lucky I hadn’t seen anyone else on the way here.

  Morgan looked sceptically at the mirror. “So we just dive through?”

  “If you want to land on your face, yes,” said Agnes. “Most of our spells were damaged in the fire, but you might find these helpful.” She held out a handful of bracelets, and a familiar pendant.

  “Illusion,” I said. “Er, why not tell me my forehead was glowing?”

  “Honestly?” said Agnes, looking me in the eyes. “You’re more yourself with that mark, if it makes sense.”

  I guessed it did. Kind of. “Thanks,” I said, taking the spells and passing them to the others. “And for all your help. Good allies are in short supply lately.”

  “That they are. Best of luck to all of you.”

  Everett beckoned to the mirror, and Morgan put one foot through, wobbled, then disappeared into the shiny surface.

  “Whoa,” Hazel said. “You’re full of no end of surprises, Agnes.”

  She jumped through after him, leaving River and me behind.

  “Thanks,” I said to Agnes and Everett. “So… I don’t know if we’ll be coming back this way, but if you need our help, let us know.”

  The mirror’s surface shimmered. River and I stepped through, emerging in a long corridor. A gargoyle statue sat at the far end. Otherwise, nobody was around. The corridor was panelled in dark wood with deep blue carpets, but unlike the necromancers’ place, it seemed to at least have central heating.