by E. E. Holmes
Thousands of years of Durupinen history. One set of twins destined to destroy or save the world. One guess which twins they were talking about.
Jackpot.
I didn’t like reliving that traumatic experience, so suffice it to say, we managed to prevent the rise of the Necromancers and the destruction of the Durupinen way of life. However, our role in the Prophecy left many Durupinen extraordinarily wary of us. Our time here at Fairhaven would likely feel more like a return to the scene of the crime than a happy little reunion.
Hannah had certainly handled the news better than I had that we would be returning to Fairhaven again so soon. It was only about two months ago that we had been summoned back by the Council to face an ultimatum: either we cease our systematic dismantling of scam artists masquerading as psychic mediums, or we join the ranks of the Durupinen Trackers, where we would continue to take down the scam artists, but in an official (and supervised) capacity. We had agreed to become Trackers, and our first case had ended a little over six weeks ago, leaving us no reason to believe that we would have to set foot here again so soon. Unfortunately, the Council, and the intricacies of its political system, had other plans for us.
Two weeks previously, our Aunt Karen had arrived at our apartment, armed with a box of cannolis and a sheepish smile.
“Hi, Karen!” Hannah had cried, flinging her arms around her.
“Karen! What are you doing here?” I’d asked, snatching the box with a whoop of glee.
“Just wanted to see my favorite girls!” she answered, but her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“A lawyer really should have a better poker face,” I told her. “What’s up? Just come out with it already.”
“Okay, well, I came over because I have something kind of important that I have to ask you to do,” she began, tossing her purse on the coffee table and taking a seat on the sofa. “And I brought the cannolis because I thought they might soften the blow.”
“I knew it!” I said, my mouth full of ricotta. “I knew these tasted like guilt!”
“What is it, Karen?” Hannah asked.
“Well, every five years the Northern Clans have a huge meeting. It’s called the Airechtas, and every clan sends a representative to speak for them. They have votes on important issues, hold elections for vacant positions, and so forth. It is essential that every clan be accounted for. And I can’t go.”
I swallowed before I was quite ready and started sputtering. “Why not?” I managed to choke out.
“It’s the case I’m working on for the firm. I’ve been told, in no uncertain terms, that if I can win this case, I’ll be made a partner.”
“What?! Karen, you never said anything! That’s amazing!” Hannah cried.
Karen smiled. “I didn’t want to jinx it. And it’s by no means in the bag yet. It’s going to be a struggle to the bitter end. But the first major hearing has been scheduled for the week of the Airechtas.”
I felt a pit of anxiety open up in my stomach, making me instantly regret the cannoli. I knew exactly where this was going. “Can’t they just move the hearing?” I asked.
Hannah gave me a very stern look. “You can’t just rearrange a trial to fit your schedule, Jess!”
I flushed a little. “I’m just asking.”
“I’ve been able to move things around before, but this judge is particularly inflexible when it comes to court dates,” Karen said. “He’s got a reputation for it. I can’t risk alienating him so early in the process. Too much is riding on this case.”
“So, you want us to go to the Airechtas?” Hannah said, asking the question for her.
“I hate to ask you,” Karen said, “but I don’t know what else to do. It’s quite simply not an option for any clan to miss it.”
“You’re the Clan Elder, though. Are we even allowed to go in your place?” Hannah asked.
“As long as I inform the Council that I am bestowing all of our voting rights upon you, and that you have permission to speak for our clan, there’s no problem,” Karen answered.
“What will we have to do?” I asked.
“That’s the good news!” Karen said eagerly, obviously pleased that I was even entertaining the idea. “All you would be required to do is show up, sit through the meeting sessions, and vote.”
“Vote on what?” I asked.
“On whatever issues are brought to the table,” Karen said. “Members will make propositions and suggest changes. They’ll be discussed—usually ad nauseam—and then the assembly will vote. That’s it, really.”
“Are we even informed enough to vote? Will we understand the issues that are being voted on?” I asked.
“You know much more about what’s going on in the Durupinen world than many of the other clan representatives who will be attending. Some of them haven’t had contact with the Council since the last Airechtas,” Karen said.
“Lucky them,” I muttered.
“Anyway, the Council will explain each issue in great detail. They will provide you with all of the information you need to make an informed decision. And I know that you will vote wisely. I have complete confidence in both of you,” Karen added with a smile.
“Okay, now you’re just buttering us up,” I said.
“Who, me? Never!” Karen said, handing me another cannoli and flashing an innocent smile. “So, what do you say, girls?”
I hesitated. On the one hand, it really didn’t sound that bad. On the other, nothing in the Durupinen world had ever turned out to be easy or painless, in our experience. Hannah didn’t give me a chance to hesitate any longer, though.
“Of course we’ll go,” she told Karen. “You concentrate on winning that case and getting your name on the letterhead.”
Karen reached across the coffee table and squeezed Hannah’s hand. “Thank you so much. I knew I could count on you girls. And I know it’s a big deal, asking you to go back there again. I didn’t do it lightly. If there were any way I could have done it myself—”
“It’s fine, Karen,” I said, trying really hard to mean it. “We’ll take care of it.”
§
And so here we were. I slid off the bed and walked over to the window. The grounds outside were thickly blanketed with snow, transforming the woods, gardens, and fountains into a vast collection of indistinguishable white mounds. I had never been here in winter before; it felt more isolated and otherworldly than ever.
“Ugh, I just don’t understand why we had to be here in person,” I grumbled. “It’s the 21st century, for heaven’s sake! Why couldn’t we just have called or Skyped or something?”
“You know the Council,” Hannah said. “They’ve been doing things the same way for centuries. They don’t exactly embrace change. Celeste told me the last official change to the voting process was ratified in 1882.”
I rolled my eyes. “And I bet they’d been trying to get that change through since the invention of the wheel.”
At that moment, Milo sailed clear through the wall, in full strut like a runway model. He reached the fireplace, turned and beveled, and struck a dramatic pose. “The Spirit Guide has arrived,” he announced in a low sultry voice.
“Milo, we really need to work on your self-confidence,” I said, shaking my head sadly. “Seriously, don’t be afraid to get noticed.”
Hannah giggled. “Hello, Spirit Guide. What’s with the catwalk?”
“Life is a catwalk, sweetness!” Milo said. “Well, in my case, the afterlife is a catwalk, I guess. Anyway, I have an announcement. I’ve had some time to think about it and I love being back here.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said.
“Nope, not kidding. Totally serious. We can stay forever, as far as I’m concerned,” Milo insisted, perching himself on the edge of the fireplace mantle and crossing his arms imperiously.
“And why exactly do we want to stay where we’re treated like the social equivalent of leprosy?” I asked.
“You two might be lepers,” Milo sai
d. “I, however, am queen of the castle around here, and I am loving it!”
“Explain,” I ordered.
“It’s the other ghosts,” Milo said. “They’re all in awe of me because I’m Bound to the two of you. It’s like I’m some sort of celebrity on the deadside because I was involved with the Prophecy. They’re literally following me around everywhere, bombarding me with questions.”
“Like the ghost version of the paparazzi?” Hannah asked, smirking a little.
“Exactly!” Milo said. “And basically, it’s just confirming what I always knew about myself, which is that I was born to be famous.”
“Well, then, I’m so glad you’re getting your time in the spotlight. In the meantime, the two of us would like a little less attention,” I said. “It’s going to be a nightmare, especially when all the other families arrive. Most of them have only ever heard of us until now. We’re going to be on display like some kind of sideshow attraction.”
Over the next twenty-four hours, the castle would be flooded with Durupinen from all over the world whose families had roots in the Northern Clans. They would all be staying for the duration of the Airechtas. Many of them, like us, had only first seen Fairhaven when they arrived for their training, and many hadn’t set foot here since. These were Durupinen who had successfully made their lives far from the shadow of this castle and all of its machinations. They had escaped the vortex; tales of Prophecies and Necromancers were just stories to them.
And now here Hannah and I were, the storybook monsters come to life. Step right up, folks.
“You’ve just got to learn to use your mystique to your advantage,” Milo said. “Let them believe the rumors. Encourage them. If they stare at you, stare right back. No one’s going to bother you; they’ll be too terrified of what you might do to them.”
“That’s not really the kind of reputation we want to have, Milo,” I said.
“Well, it’s the reputation you’ve got, so you might as well roll with it,” Milo said with a shrug. “I certainly am. The new spirits here are so gullible.”
“Yeah, and let’s not forget why all the spirits here are new spirits,” I said, with a bite of impatience in my voice. Milo’s face, alight with mischief a moment before, fell into lines of misery.
“Oh, yeah. Right. I… sorry,” he said quietly.
“Hey, speaking of new spirits,” Hannah said, perking up. “Have you seen this one among your admirers?” and she pointed to the portrait I’d just made.
Milo’s eyes widened as he looked at me. “Already? We just got here!”
“I know, I know,” I said. “But she was insistent. Have you seen her?”
Milo drifted over, examining it closely. “No, she doesn’t look familiar,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “She didn’t give you any information?”
“Just the image. That’s all I’ve got.” I dropped my face into my hands and started rubbing my eyes. I was so tired they were beginning to ache from the forcible act of keeping them open.
“Well, it’s like you said,” Hannah said. “She’ll probably be back again. They usually are, if they need something.”
“Yeah, I guess we’ll see.” As if I didn’t have enough to be nervous about, being in this castle again. Now this strange girl’s face would keep cropping up in my head, tying my life and her death together with a string of vague images until I could discover who she was and what she wanted from me. Her eyes bore into me as I stared down into them. There was a plea deep inside of them, but I could not interpret it. With a shiver, I pulled the picture from the wall and shoved it under my bed, knowing that her eyes were upon me still.
27
Friends and Foes
I MANAGED TO AVOID the main floor of the castle for the rest of that afternoon by claiming I had a headache from my psychic drawing episode. I fell into an uneasy sleep after an hour or two of tossing and turning, trying to ignore the slivers of bright sunlight slipping between the drapes and the sounds of conversation and footsteps reverberating throughout the castle, which, for all its beauty and history, was basically a giant stone echo chamber. Three hours later, when Hannah nudged me awake to see if I wanted to go down to dinner, I felt barely more rested than before I’d fallen asleep.
“I’m not hungry,” I grumbled. A cartoonishly loud growl from the region of my stomach immediately called my bluff.
Hannah giggled. “Liar. Come on. It’ll be fine. We’ll grab some food, find a table, and terrify onlookers from a distance. It’ll be great.”
“No. I want to stay here and sulk.”
Hannah trotted back over to our door with a mischievous smile on her face. “I knew you’d say that, so I brought a couple of people by to help convince you.”
She pulled the door open to reveal two grinning faces.
“Get out of bed, you lazy tosser!” roared Savannah Todd, striding across the room, leaping onto my bed, and knocking me flat.
“She can hardly get up if you crush her, Sav,” said Mackenzie Miller, choosing instead to just take a couple of steps into the room and wave at me. “Alright, Jess?”
“Mackie! I didn’t realize you were going to be here!” I gasped. “Okay, Sav, seriously, get off me!”
“Shhhhh, I’m looking into your eyes,” Savvy whispered, stroking my hair.
With a laugh and an almighty grunt, I heaved her off me. She fell to the floor with a thud and a cry of “Bloody hell!” I slid off the bed and crossed the room to throw my arms around Mackie.
“It’s so good to see you!” I told her. I hadn’t seen her in almost two years, not since my last visit to London to visit Savvy, when the three of us had met for a drink in a pub. She looked exactly the same. She was still tall and lanky, her hair still cropped short into a pixie cut, her smile broad and her eyes warm. She had been the first-year Head Girl when we’d started at Fairhaven, and had also been one of the only Apprentices not to treat us like total outcasts. She’d been one of the many driven out of Fairhaven by a fire Hannah accidentally caused while enabling our escape, and then she had been imprisoned along with the rest of the Apprentices when the Necromancers invaded the castle. We’d kept in touch by email and social media over the last few years, but seeing her in person made me feel like she had transcended the theoretical to the actual.
“So, how are you? What have you been up to?” I asked Mackie.
“I got accepted into that graduate program. I’m going for my teaching license. Women’s Studies,” she said, smiling broadly. “I guess I enjoyed my days of bossing you all around as Head Girl so much that I’m looking to make a career of it.”
“That’s so exciting, Mack! You’ll be a great teacher,” Hannah said, beaming at her.
Mackie shrugged. “I think I’d rather be a perpetual student, but I’ll give it a go.”
“Why are you here, then?” I asked. “You don’t have to vote, do you? Isn’t Celeste going to handle all that?”
“Yeah, I’ve managed to steer clear of the voting. But I got guilted into coming back to help with wrangling all the guests. Celeste has me running around giving tours and helping clans to mingle. I’ve only just managed to slip away; I’ve been at it since seven o’clock this morning!”
“That’s because you’re a prat, aren’t you? Should have said no, shouldn’t you?” Savvy said. She was still lying on the floor, as though she had decided, having found herself there, that she was quite comfortable.
“That’s enough out of you! Aren’t you the one who said you’d never set foot here again? And here you are, a mentor,” Mackie said, laughing. “Whose brilliant idea was that, then?”
Savvy shrugged. “I’m a natural, what can I say?” She rolled over and jumped to her feet. “Shall we go down, then? I’m starving!”
Seeing a pair of friendly faces was exactly the boost of confidence I needed—a reminder that I’d had a few real friends at Fairhaven, despite the disastrous end to my time there. “Yeah, alright. Let’s get this over with.”
&nbs
p; §
If the sight of two old friends hadn’t tempted me out of my room, the mouthwatering smells wafting out into the lobby would certainly have done the trick. The castle may have masqueraded as a college, but the food was anything but campus dining hall fare. Several dozen women were milling around the room when we entered. All of them were wearing name tags, like we had just walked into the weirdest high school reunion ever.
“Oh yeah, Celeste gave me some of those name tags. I think I’ve got them here in my…” Hannah’s voice trailed away when she saw the look on my face. The last thing we needed were labels.
Sure enough, as we crossed the room to the buffet line, several people were nudging each other and nodding in our direction. By the time we had filled our plates, the outright pointing and staring had begun. I felt the eyes on us all the way over to our favorite isolated table in the corner.
“Wow, they’re really not subtle about it, are they?” I muttered, tucking into a dinner roll.
“Ah, don’t pay them any mind,” Savvy said. “They’re just a load of nosy old cows. Ignore them, and they’ll soon find something else to gossip about.”
I stared at her. “Really? That’s your response? To be mature?”
Savvy swallowed a mouthful of steak and ale pie. “Sure? Why not?”
I laughed. “I just thought, seeing as it’s you, you’d have some different advice for us. Something involving profanity, or crude hand gestures, or mooning.”
“Well, that’s jolly good fun too, if you like,” Savvy replied. And without warning she dropped her fork onto her plate with a clatter and pushed her chair back from the table as she stood up. She had her belt half-undone and one foot up on the seat of her chair before any of us realized what she was doing.
“No!” we all shouted in unison. All three of us reached up and grabbed her by the sweater, pulling her back down into her seat.