4 Tiddly Jinx

by Liz Schulte

  His hand darted toward her and Frost whirled around, catching his wrist and brandishing a silver dagger aimed for his heart. He deflected the blade and grabbed her by the throat, picking her petite body off ground. I raced toward them.

  “No. Stop. Corbin stop!”

  He turned his black eyes toward me. “Why?”

  “She saved me and my child.” He didn’t look moved. “I need her to find the Pole.”

  He released Frost back to the floor and her fist immediately connected with his jaw. Her eyes began to roll back in her head and I knew what was coming next. “No. Please.” I stepped between them. “What happened in the crypt?”

  Her eyes righted themselves, though she still glared at Corbin, fists dropping to her side. “This isn’t over.”

  “Not by a long shot,” he sneered.

  “Stop it.” I elbowed him in the ribs and kept my gaze on her. “I need to know where you went and where the Pole is.”

  “I’m not your servant or subject, Queen. You don’t need to know anything about me.”

  “Please.” I wasn’t above begging.

  She barely shook her head.

  Heaviness filled me that was lined with rage. “I was afraid you’d say that.” I flicked my fingers and released a binding spell on Frost. It wouldn’t hold long, but long enough. “Meet me at the castle,” I said to Corbin as I grabbed Frost by the shirt and transported to the castle grounds.

  I had two guards help me get her inside, careful not to touch her skin, and straight to the dungeon because I didn’t know what else to do with her. She had to answer my questions. She wasn’t going to get a choice in the matter. The book strapped to my shoulder probably had a spell that would assist in that…I pushed the thought away.

  “I really don’t want to do this. It’d be much easier if we could be friends,” I said.

  She struggled against the magical bond, fury filling her eyes. Maybe friendship was off the table now, but I didn’t have time to waste—none of us did. When the guards and I had her properly restrained, I dismissed them, asking them to find Cheney or Sebastian. I released the final threads of the bond and faced her.

  “I’m sorry it had to come to this.”

  “Oh, not nearly as sorry as you are going to be, Queen,” she said, struggling and snarling like a feral animal trying to frighten me.

  I took a step forward and lowered my voice. “You think you can scare me? I’ve walked through purgatory, I’ve killed men with my own hands, and you’re nothing more than an obstacle to my future happiness that I’ll remove by whatever means necessary. If you don’t want to be friends, that’s fine, but you will tell me where the Pole is or I’ll make you wish you were never born. I’ll destroy everything and everyone you have ever loved if necessary. Do not doubt my resolve.” My hand made its way inside my bag. The book surely had a way to make her talk.

  A throat cleared behind me, but I held her angry gaze for a moment longer. “I see you found the necromancer,” Cheney said.

  I forced the anger that bubbled inside of me down and smiled at Cheney, pulling my hand out of the bag. “She isn’t feeling very cooperative.”

  “Ah.” He tilted his head back. He started speaking and stopped, taking in the situation before he finally settled on, “Lily’s here.”

  I had forgotten all about inviting her to dinner. Frost was red-faced with rage and her anger fed mine in a very palpable way. I hated her. I hated just looking at her. “I’ll be there in just a moment,” I said to Cheney.

  He nodded slowly and left me in the room alone with her again.

  “Once last chance to shorten your time here.”

  She leaned toward me the best she could in the chains. “The elves might not be able to sense it, but I can feel the darkness on you. You are the last person I’ll ever tell. Never should have brought you back. You’ve been corrupted.”

  I had the simultaneous urge to strike out and back away. Forcing my legs to move, I backed out of the room. “I’m trying to save everyone.”

  Her cold eyes met mine. “Sometimes you just have to let people die.”

  I couldn’t prevent my lips from turning downwards in a frown as I shut the iron door and the sound echoed through the long corridors with finality.

  “Did she attack you?” Cheney’s voice behind me made me jump.

  “No.” He looked from me to the door, then back to me. Guilt crept in along the seams of my determination. “She won’t help. I’m encouraging her to reconsider.”

  “You thought locking her in the dungeon was the best way to do that?”

  I sighed. “She’s dangerous. We have to find out what happened. I took precautions.”

  “I’m not criticizing, but this may have been overkill.” He offered me his arm, and together we went back upstairs after giving the guards strict instructions not to enter the cell for any reason. “You could have asked Sy to help you. He at least knows her. Maybe there was a better approach to getting her to work with us.”

  I pressed my lips together tightly and rolled my shoulders back to ease the ache that had formed in the center of my spine. Things had gotten out of hand so fast. He didn’t understand. I needed all of this to be over. I was tired of fighting, of rushing around trying to save my own ass, of being the one who caused every crisis we had to face. It needed to end.

  “Do you want to change for dinner?”

  I glanced down at my jeans and black t-shirt. I looked a bit grubby—okay, a lot grubby for me. “Is it formal?”

  “No. Nothing like that. You just don’t seem very…you.”

  “Maybe this is the new me.”

  “Well, you look lovely,” he said without missing a beat, which made me laugh.

  “Someday, when I die—”

  “A very long time from now.”

  “Agreed. I would like to not have to go through the underworld in a dress. Seriously, heels and a mini-skirt are no way to climb a mountain and fight demons. There’s going to be lot more pants in my future.” I shrugged.

  Cheney laughed. “At least you could leave the purse.” He plucked at the strap of my bag, but I caught him by the wrist, a flash of anger coursing through me again.

  “Don’t touch that.” My voice was hardly recognizable, but I was too angry to care. Everything unfair about life flooded me while the contents of the bag promised to give me the power to set it all right.

  Cheney didn’t try to pull away. “Selene,” he said in a soft, measured voice. “Take off the bag.” He held my gaze with his swirling golden eyes that had no sense of malice in them.

  Speck by speck, the anger chipped away until I felt more like me again. I swallowed, and with a shaking hand I eased the strap off my shoulders and dropped the bag to the floor. Cheney pulled me to him and away from the purse as if his embrace alone could protect me from its call.

  “You can’t use that book,” he said quietly. “I thought you might be strong enough to resist, but…”

  “I haven’t even opened it,” I said, still flabbergasted how quickly and silently it affected me. The book found weakness in me, and that was all the invitation it needed. If I used the book, I would destroy the world with good intentions.

  SELENE WAS PALE AND distracted through most of dinner. We stashed the book in the safe in the office until a better solution could be found. When we sat at the table she tried to interact, but eventually slipped into long periods of silence as she pushed food around her plate. If Lily noticed, she covered it well. She talked and joked with Selene’s coven and Sy used his natural charms to their fullest, assuring that at least two of the women would be desperately in love with him by the end of the dinner.

  Sebastian cleared his throat to my right and spoke under his breath. “What happened?”

  I raised my eyebrow and he shifted his eyes to Selene, who had abandoned her fork altogether and now sat with her hands folded in her lap, a blank expression on her face. “If she does the spell, she’ll turn. There’s no question anymore.�
��

  Sebastian nodded. “What’s the new plan?”

  “We’ll talk about it later.” I forced a smile then reached over to my left and took Selene’s hand, jolting her back to the present.

  She blinked a few times, glancing around the table. “I have a headache. I’m going to lie down.”

  Before I could respond, an irritated looking guard came through the door. I struggled to remember his name. “The queen has a visitor.” His words were clipped and lips thin.

  After confusion passed over her face, she took a deep breath and nodded. “Corbin,” she said to me then looked to the guard. “I’ll be right out.”

  “No need. I’m here,” Corbin said as he slipped through the two guards who were attempting to block the door.

  I waved the guard who had spoken off, his name finally popping into my mind. “Thank you, Gudaer.” He left, shooting the vampire a hateful look. “Corbin. What a pleasant surprise. Would you like to sit?” I offered him my chair. I had no idea what he was doing here, but obviously Selene expected him. She’d told me he loved her, and while that was irritating, I would rather him be in love with her and help us than work against us, so any jealousy would have to take a backseat to survival.

  Selene stood as well. “No. We should…” she tilted her head toward the door, her eyes saying what her mouth didn’t. She wanted to go back down to the dungeon.

  I nodded. “I’ll join you shortly.”

  After a few minutes of mindless chatter, I couldn’t take any more. Not voicing my jealousy was one thing, but leaving her alone with him was another. I stood up and addressed the others. “Please stay as long as you like. I apologize, but another matter has come up.” I started for the door.

  “You know we’re all just going to follow you, right?” Jessica said. “You might as well tell us what’s happening.”

  I turned back to see that they were all standing and looking at me. No use hiding it from them, then. “We located the necromancer and the vampire is here to help us find out what we need to know about the location of the Pole.”

  “I could help,” Jessica offered. “I have that whole lie-detection thing.”

  Each of Selene’s friends had their talents. Jessica could tell if someone was lying, which definitely had its uses. I shook my head. “You can’t touch her skin or you’ll die. The vampire is the only one of us immune because he’s already dead.”

  Sy snorted. “He might be able to touch her, but he’s dead. That’s her wheelhouse. He certainly isn’t immune.”

  I once again silently cursed my complete lack of interest in other races and cultures before I became the Erlking. “Nevertheless, I don’t think we’re ready for the coven’s help.” I turned to Lily. “Sorry to cut dinner short.”

  She smiled. “Do what you have to do. If you need anything, you know where to find me.” She linked her arm through Sy’s. “I’ll be chatting with this one.”

  Sy grinned at her and nodded to me that he would stay with the women.

  “What’s really happening?” Sebastian asked as we walked toward the dungeon.

  I gave him a rundown on recent events and he listened quietly until I was finished. “There has to be another way.”

  “No one has given up. I took the book from her. Frost is the best lead we have, but she isn’t talking.”

  “There has to be some way to appeal to her,” Sebastian said.

  “As far as I know, the only thing that motivates someone like Frost is money.”

  Selene and Corbin’s heated voices carried down the hallway before I could see them.

  “You aren’t going to hurt her,” Selene said. “That’s not going to help. We have to fix what I have already done, not make it worse.”

  “You’re wasting precious time, pet. If you want to find the bloody Pole, then leave me alone with her. She’ll talk. Part of you agrees with me. I can see it.”

  They came into view. Corbin was leaning against the iron door with one knee bent and the sole of his foot resting against the door. Selene paced the hallway with her hands clenched into fists at her side, shooting him angry looks.

  “Selene’s right. I don’t think you can beat it out of her,” I said.

  Corbin didn’t bother looking at me. “Should we try hugs and cakes?”

  “First thing we need to do is unchain her,” Selene said with a grimace.

  “You chained her?” Sebastian asked at the same time Corbin said, “And she’ll promptly kill you.”

  “Let me talk to her,” I said. “Before we do anything, let me go in there and speak with her.”

  Corbin pushed off the door and went to stand—too close, I thought—to Selene. I bit back a comment and went inside the cell. She waited in the darkness, her white hair almost glowing and a smirk playing around the edges of her mouth. “What have you come to threaten me with, Erlking?”

  “Nothing.” I pulled a key from my pocket and undid the cuffs around her wrists.

  She rubbed her small, ghostly white wrists and looked at me with narrow eyes. “So I’m free to go?”

  I nodded. Either my gamble would work or it wouldn’t. “Yes. Thank you for saving Selene and our daughter yesterday. It isn’t fair to expect you to do it twice in as many days. We have no quarrel with you.”

  When she was nearly at the door, I spoke again. “She’s going to use dark magic to find the Pole.” Her steps faltered. “We both know what that will do…you saw what just carrying a dark spell book did to her, but there’s no choice. We can’t allow the Abyss to be destroyed, even if it means sacrificing two lives.”

  She turned to me. “Two lives?”

  “When Selene turns, she’ll have to be killed. She’ll be too powerful to contain for long.”

  Understanding blanketed her face. She took the bait. Frost went out of her way to make sure our child lived yesterday, and there was no money involved. It was a gamble, but the baby seemed to be a soft spot for her. Technically what I said was true, two people would die: me and Selene. “She has a dark spell book?”

  I nodded. “A powerful one.”

  “This isn’t my problem,” she said to herself. She sighed. “Where did she get it? They aren’t exactly easy to find. Most dark witches absorb their spells, so they don’t tend to have need of spell books.”

  I slipped my hands in my pockets. “Helping us wasn’t your problem yesterday, either. I’m sorry to have gotten you involved and for bringing you here today. Have a good night.”

  She didn’t move, an internal war clearly raging within her. Her face twisted in a pained expression. “How are you going to kill her if she’s as powerful as you say?”

  “We know a jinni who’s willing.”

  “It isn’t easy to kill a dark witch. Especially one who has been trained.”

  “Isn’t it?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No. Regardless of whether or not the jinni succeeds, she’ll die as soon as she has the child.” Her eyes were huge and haunted, making her look very young and fragile.

  My heart stilled, all the worst possible scenarios drifting through my mind. “Why do you say that?”

  “Dark witches always die in childbirth. Always.” She rubbed her hands together. “A magical child born of darkness can only be one thing.” She held her hands out. “A necromancer. And we can’t be touched.”

  Elves may not be particularly expressive with their feelings, but we still had family and friends and connections. Frost didn’t have any of that. She never had any of that. If Selene did this and we kept her alive long enough to have the baby, we would be cursing our daughter to a life of solitude—to the life of a necromancer.

  “No child should grow up like that. I’ll help. In return, I want the dark magic book.”

  “It’s not mine to give.”

  “Oh, I imagine you could find a way to get it for me. That’s the deal, Erlking. Take it or leave it. The safety of your family for a book you have no business possessing.”

  “What will y
ou do with it?”

  Her dark eyes met mine. “Whatever I please.”

  I didn’t really have to think about it. It was no contest. “Fine.”

  She smiled. “I’d shake your hand, but that’d be counterproductive.” She moved to open the door.

  “Better let me go first,” I said and she stepped back. Everyone looked up when I stepped out. “She’ll help. Let’s go up to my office.”

  Selene’s smile lit the dreary corridor and she pressed her soft lips to mine. “You’re amazing,” she breathed.

  “For what?” Corbin asked, eyes narrowed. “No necromancer works for free.”

  “Like you do?” Frost shot back.

  “As I said.” Corbin gestured to her. “What does she want? We could still force her to talk.”

  I shook my head. “The arrangement is between us, not you. Let’s go upstairs.”

  Selene bit her lip, though a frown still tugged at her mouth. Her eyes darted to Frost before she took my arm. Sebastian led the way up and I followed behind the group to make sure we didn’t lose anyone in the castle. I gave Selene my chair and stood behind her. Corbin positioned himself between her and Frost, which was both appreciated and annoying. When everyone was settled, all eyes turned to Frost.

  “What happened when you took the Pole into the crypt?” Selene asked.

  “The door closed, then everything went dark. I remember the sensation of falling; tumbling end over end, only I never hit the ground. I heard voices and something pulled at the Pole as if trying to take it, but I held on.” She sat on her hands to keep them from fidgeting. “I couldn’t hold on. Next thing I knew, I hit water.”

  Judging by the expression on Selene’s face she was thinking the exact same thing as me. This, while informative, wasn’t helpful at all.

  “So basically, you have no idea where they took the Pole. Could have been a much shorter story,” Corbin said.