The Gatekeeper's Curse- The Complete Trilogy

by Emma L. Adams

  “At least turn on the light if you’re going to interrupt my evening,” I said to the intruder.

  The house obliged, the kitchen lights flickering on and illuminating a tall, lean faerie, clad in green attire that marked him as a Seelie messenger. His eyes glimmered with a greenish-blue sheen as he ducked his head, allowing locks of pale silver hair to fall over his sculpted cheekbones.

  Don’t let their pretty faces fool you. Sidhe magic was designed to draw humans into their orbit and ensnare their senses until by the time the claws came out, it was already too late.

  The same curse that bound my family to serve the Sidhe gave me some degree of immunity to their charms, enough to tell me this dude was half-human. Sidhe magic caused human senses to short-circuit from sheer overwhelm and all descriptions to slide through my fingers like sand. Half-Sidhe didn’t have quite the same dazzling effect on the senses, and my annoyance at this rude arsehole who’d broken into my house won out over the primal terror inspired by the sight of an otherworldly visitor.

  I propped my free hand on my hip. “You could have come through the gate instead of sneaking in here and lurking around in the dark, you know. I was standing right there.”

  Not that it was really a surprise. The Sidhe, as a rule, did not pass up an opportunity to make a dramatic entrance. Besides, I was glad nobody had witnessed the DJ’s attempted escape into the grove. Nobody outside of my family was supposed to know the Inner Garden existed.

  “Did you hear me?” he said. “Tomorrow, you’ll be inducted as Gatekeeper.”

  I returned his scowl with a smile. “Heard you loud and clear. Might you elaborate on the time? I was hoping to enjoy the rest of this.”

  I lifted the wine glass and took a measured sip, gaining some measure of satisfaction out of winding up the dickhead who’d kept me waiting in limbo for months and then decided to wreck what was left of my evening.

  A muscle ticked in his jaw, as though he found me as irritating as I found him. To most fae, my very existence was an inconvenience.

  “Nine in the morning by your time,” he said. “If you’re late, you will find yourself transported directly into the Summer Court no matter where you happen to be, if you’re thinking of shirking your duty. If you’re asleep, or in the mortal realm, the same rule will apply.”

  “Really.” I lowered the glass. “What if I was in the middle of a threesome? Would the other people be transported into Faerie, too? Because that would get kind of awkward for all of us.”

  His eyes narrowed. “If you are with another person or persons when the hour strikes, you will all be transported to Faerie. Unlike you, no other humans will be protected against harm. If you would like to begin your Gatekeeper’s training with innocent deaths on your conscience, by all means, do as you like.”

  “No need for that,” I said. “I’m impressed you know what a conscience is. I assumed the Sidhe thought it was just another name for a weapon.”

  “Is it not just that?” he said. “Feeling pain for others is as damaging as any wound inflicted with a blade and may prove equally fatal.”

  “Remind me not to hire you to write my wedding speech.” I gave him an eye-roll. “Relax. I won’t be late, and I won’t bring any friends. Faerie’s not on anyone’s bucket list as a tourist destination.”

  Including mine, for that matter, but I hadn’t exactly had a choice. And now my short-lived freedom had come to an end.

  “See to it that you keep your word, human.”

  He turned on his heel and left, vanishing into thin air.

  “Great to meet you, too,” I said to the space where he’d vanished. Sidhe. For beings who prided themselves on impeccable manners, they seemed to take pleasure in making an exception for me. I didn’t blame Dad for leaving when I was a kid, because being around the Sidhe was a lot to handle when you were human.

  I glanced at my half-full glass, tempted to switch it for a bottle, but I needed to be in top shape for my induction. Besides, Mum was going to be thrilled to know one of them had slipped by the house’s defences.

  Putting down the glass, I turned off the lights and then crossed the kitchen to the back door. Judging by the steady thumping noise from the shed adjacent to the house, Mum was still up. I’d more or less forced her to build the place after her violent workout sessions kept waking me up in the middle of the night. The joys of living with a retired Gatekeeper with a shit-ton of pent-up rage.

  I pushed open the shed door and stepped in, careful to stay out of striking range. Gatekeeper powers or none, Mum could still kick the crap out of me with little effort. Her blond-tinted hair was twisted into a topknot to keep it out her face, her forehead slick with sweat. We shared the same figure—strong and curvy, not skinny or fragile—and expressive eyes. Mine had turned bright green when I’d got my magic, while hers had reverted to their original brown colour after her retirement. Her fists struck the punching bag again and again, as though she was imagining pounding a Sidhe’s pretty face to a pulp.

  “I thought you were in Edinburgh,” she said, without turning around.

  “A fae was bewitching humans at a nightclub and I had to haul him over to the Court,” I said. “Also, the Sidhe’s messenger showed up in our kitchen. The Trials start tomorrow.”

  She dropped her hands. “They came inside the house?”

  “Didn’t even knock.” I walked to the punching bag next to hers and gave it a whack with my knuckles. “Guess this is it.”

  “I should have checked the date.” She picked up a discarded towel and wiped the sweat from her forehead—unmarked, though she’d once worn the same silver symbol as I did. “I assumed they’d wait until the solstice, but tomorrow’s May the first. Beltane.”

  “It is?” I hit the punching bag again, imagining it resembled the face of the half-Sidhe who’d ambushed me in the kitchen. “They couldn’t just show up on a regular Tuesday or whatever, huh.”

  The Lynn house sat in a liminal space between the two worlds, but time here matched Earth, not Faerie. Beltane was the first day of summer, though most mortals thought summer began on the solstice in June—a fitting day for the Seelie Court to formalise their claim on me.

  “Are you prepared?” Mum said. “You know what this means.”

  Did I ever. Once I was Gatekeeper, anonymity would be a thing of the past. No more sneaking around arresting fae criminals without causing a scene. “Sure. I know what to expect from them.”

  Her expression softened a little. “I know you do.”

  Mum had kept a deliberate emotional distance from myself and my siblings for most of my life. She could never guarantee that she wouldn’t die on the job, or that the Sidhe wouldn’t break their own rules and order us all to be slaughtered. For that reason, we’d never been close, but she and I had bonded over fighting classes and weaponry even before I’d developed my Gatekeeper powers at twelve. Ilsa preferred to bury her head in a book, while Morgan had wanted to spend as little time in the Lynn House as possible. Considering I’d grown up more or less alone with a mother who spent half her life in Faerie, you might be surprised I hadn’t turned out more dysfunctional than I had.

  “Guess I should text Ilsa. I just had to wreck her big day.”

  “I’ll tell her,” said Mum. “You get some sleep.”

  What she wanted to say was I’ll keep you safe. But just because the Sidhe were honour-bound not to harm the Gatekeeper didn’t mean the rest of the Faerie would do the same. Once I stepped foot in the Summer Court, it was on me to stay alive by any means necessary. Mum had told me the initiation tests for new Gatekeepers were different for each of us, just to keep us on our toes. It wasn’t in their interest to fail us, but if we couldn’t cut it in the Trials, we’d never survive out there in Faerie.

  My hands curled into fists. By taking on the Gatekeeper’s Trials, I’d ensure the faeries left the rest of my family alone, and I’d protect the humans in my life from being a part of their twisted games. As long as I lived, I would honour th
at promise.

  Whatever I had to do to keep it.

  ***

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  Thank you for reading!

  In addition to Hazel’s trilogy, the Lynns return in the Hemlock Chronicles, which follows Jas and the necromancers. To find out more, click here: smarturl.it/HemlockChronicles.

  You can also find out how Ivy became involved with Faerie in the Changeling Chronicles series.

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  I hope you enjoyed the Gatekeeper’s Curse trilogy. If you have a minute to spare, then I’d really appreciate a short review. Reviews tell me which stories readers want more of, so if you’d like to see more of the Lynn family, let me know what you think!

  About the Author

  Emma is the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author of the Changeling Chronicles urban fantasy series.

  Emma spent her childhood creating imaginary worlds to compensate for a disappointingly average reality, so it was probably inevitable that she ended up writing fantasy novels. When she's not immersed in her own fictional universes, Emma can be found with her head in a book or wandering around the world in search of adventure.

  Find out more about Emma’s books at www.emmaladams.com.