Emily dropped back to walk alongside Corbbmacc at the rear of their little group. He looked pale and dazed. For the first time, she noticed the dark circles beneath his eyes that marred his handsome face, making it seem skull-like as they passed beneath the lanterns. He looked like a man struggling to come to terms with a terrible truth that has only just dawned on him. She wasn’t exactly fond of Corbbmacc, but she couldn’t help but feel for him now.
She reached out and touched his arm. He looked up, breaking free of some internal reverie.
“Who is that?” she whispered, nodding toward the figure now climbing a set of stairs ahead of them to the upper floors. Perhaps a small distraction would do him some good.
Corbbmacc looked at her blankly for a minute, then laughed. It was an ugly, shaky sound, but it was a start.
“Questions,” he muttered with a sigh. “That’s the Wraith.”
“The Wraith?”
“Yeah. Wraiths don’t reveal their names—the ones they had in life, I mean—because if a living person knows it, they can control them and force them to do whatever they want.”
Emily looked back at the cloaked figure as it turned down another long passage.
“You mean it’s a ghost?”
“Not exactly. It’s just…well, a wraith. Only we call him the Wraith, because he’s the only one here. You’ll see.”
The Wraith led them at last into a study of sorts, dominated by a large, square table. Behind it, an ornate marble fireplace filled the far wall, though no fire burned at the hearth just now.
Hanging over the mantlepiece in a gilded frame was an oil painting of a dragon staring majestically out of a cave nestled between the rocks of a high cliff. Below, ocean waves lapped over the smooth stones at the cliff’s base, and a beautiful mermaid lay with one arm around a boulder. A sword was clutched in her other hand, and she held it high over her head, almost seeming to salute the dragon with it.
As Emily looked at it, there was a queer doubling of the world around her. The floor seemed to tilt, and she felt Corbbmacc’s hand close around her elbow to steady her.
“Are you okay?”
She shook her head, trying to clear it. Her surroundings came back into focus again, and she looked away from the dragon and the mermaid.
“Yeah,” she muttered. “Just tired.”
A wrought iron chandelier filled with burning candles hung over the table, and beneath its light sat a woman who must be Paige.
She was hunched over a large leather-bound tome open on the table before her, a finger sliding down the lines of text as she read. She didn’t look up as they came in, but motioned absently for everyone to come to the table. She wore a tan-colored fedora on her dark brown hair, which almost, but not quite, hid the two antennae that grew from the back of her neck and curled around the tops of her ears. A pair of delicate gossamer wings, folded over the back of her chair, caught and refracted the light into a thousand different hues. The contrast between these and the plain gray blouse she wore was striking.
Garrett moved to sit at her right as though this was the place he had taken many times before. The Wraith stood just behind her, outside the circle of light thrown by the chandelier. Emily couldn’t be sure, it was difficult to tell in the shadows, but she thought perhaps there was simply nothing more to see of the Wraith than its cloak. She shuddered and moved around the table to sit beside Garrett. The others dropped into chairs around her. All eyes turned to stare at Paige expectantly.
At last, she closed the volume and leaned back in her chair, surveying them each in turn.
“Well,” she said at last, her gaze coming to rest on Corbbmacc, “there are more of you than I was expecting.”
Her voice was low and slightly husky, and the barest hint of a southern twang colored her words.
Corbbmacc straightened in his seat and took a deep breath.
“Yes,” he said. “I believe Emily,” he indicated her across the table, “was the apprentice you sent me after, but she brought the other girl with her. You didn’t give me any instructions for what to do in such a situation, so I just brought them both.” He paused for a moment, then added, “And the boy.”
Paige considered him.
“Reasonable,” she drawled at last, then shifted in her seat to peer for a long moment at Emily.
Emily stared back into Paige’s dark eyes. She saw no malice there, only a sad weariness that seemed to have aged this girl beyond her years. In a way, it reminded her of how Marianne had looked up in her tower room at Seven Skies. Only there was nothing otherworldly about Paige. How far had she come that she could sit here and think a girl who seemed at least one-quarter dragonfly was anything but otherworldly.
The realization brought another thought home on its heels: even if she could go back now, how could she ever resume her old life, knowing that creatures like Garrett and Paige not only could exist, but actually did. Would she spend the rest of her life looking into locker room mirrors and wondering if she could step through them into another world? Maybe she should change her name to Alice.
The thought made her smile, and Paige raised her brows in surprise.
“Something funny?” she asked. She didn’t sound angry, simply curious.
“No,” Emily said hastily. “Not really. Just my mind wandering. It’s been a long couple of days.”
Paige nodded as though this made sense to her.
“You rescued the boy?” she asked, her eyes flicking down the table toward where Michael sat beside Celine. He was paying no attention to the others, but only staring avidly at the painting of the dragon and the mermaid.
“Yes. I mean, we did,” Emily said, laying her hand on Celine’s arm.
“Why?”
For a moment, Emily stared at Paige, surprised. If she had seen—if she had any idea what had been done to that man in the square…
But there was more to it than that, wasn’t there? There was seeing the boy in the mirror of her locker room, in the window at Starbucks, and in the photos from the House of Horrors. And it was those things that Paige was asking about, really.
She took a deep breath and looked at Celine. Celine’s face was serious as she looked back. On her shoulder, Rascal stared at Emily, too, seeming to mimic his mistress’s expression. Emily did not ask the question. There was no need. Celine understood.
“Yeah,” Celine said softly to Emily, “I think yeh should tell.”
And so Emily told. She told of seeing the boy in the mirror after the hockey game. She explained about seeing him again a few minutes later in the window of the Starbucks. She left out anything about the knowing or Celine’s healing powers, and she skirted the truth of her trip home and its aftermath, but otherwise, she told it all. She explained about meeting Marcom, the tournament, her summons to Marianne’s rooms, and her discovery of the boy in the dungeon below.
No one interrupted her, and when at last she had finished, her final words seemed to hang in the air like tiny particles of dust.
“That is a very strange story,” the Wraith whispered from the shadows behind Paige. “And a highly suspect one, I dare say.”
“Perhaps,” Paige said thoughtfully. She turned her gaze on Garrett.
“I believe her,” he said at once. “If nothing else, she believes her own story, so whether it’s true or not, she can’t be faulted for telling it.”
Paige nodded, though whether in agreement or simple acknowledgement of Garrett’s opinion, Emily wasn’t sure. She was already finding it easy to look past his queer appearance. It was hard not to like him.
“And what about you, Corbbmacc?” Paige asked. “Do you concur with the parts of her story in which you played a part, or that you, mayhap, witnessed at Seven Skies?”
“Yes, Paige, I do.”
Paige studied Emily again, lost in her own thoughts. Emily felt her face going hot beneath the scrutiny, and when the discomfort became too much for her to bear, she broke the silence herself.
“Who is Micha
el? What’s wrong with him? Why did the sorceress have him locked up like that?”
“Here we go,” muttered Corbbmacc to the table, and there was a note of amusement in his voice. “Her questions are your problem now, Paige.”
One of Paige’s antennae twitched in Corbbmacc’s direction, but she didn’t shift her gaze from Emily’s.
“Well now,” she said, “you do have a lot of questions. He said you would.”
Emily frowned. “Who? Corbbmacc?”
But of course that couldn’t be right. She’d been with Corbbmacc ever since they’d arrived at the safe house. He wouldn’t have had a chance to tell Paige anything about her.
“The wizard.”
Of course, the goddamn wizard. She’d forgotten all about him. She’d been so focussed on just getting to Paige and having some of her questions answered that she’d paid no attention to the man behind the fucking curtain. What had Corbbmacc said? “He calls the shots.”
“And who is this wizard person?” Emily asked, resigned.
Paige didn’t answer right away. Instead, a line appeared between her brows, and she glanced over her shoulder at the Wraith. He—it?—offered no opinion.
“Now that’s awfully interesting,” Paige said. “You don’t know the wizard, do you? And yet he most certainly knows you. Seems to know you very well, in fact. He said you’d have lots of questions, but that I wasn’t to answer any of them until you showed me a sign.”
A sign? Emily racked her brain, trying to think what on earth that could be. A sign of what? She had nothing to show where she was from. Her backpack was lying in tatters at the foot of the tree in the grove at Seven Skies, and all she’d had from her old life was gone. In fact, all she had was the sword and armor Matthew had given her, her clothes from the apprentices’ tower, and her friends. What could she possibly have that would prove any part of her story?
The sound of pounding footsteps echoed down the corridor outside, and a girl about Emily’s age came bursting into the room. She looked frantic and terrified.
“Garrett!” she said, panting and clutching her side. “Come quick! It’s Mona.”
Garrett was first to the door, but the entire company was on its feet and following behind as the girl ran back the way she’d come. From below, there were the sounds of activity where moments before there had been only silence.
Garrett’s feet seemed not to touch the stairs as he all but flew down them with a speed that belied his massive frame. Rascal took wing and sped ahead of them all, yowling a piteous, screeching cry that drove daggers of pain through Emily’s skull.
When they reached Mona’s room, there were two other women at Mona’s bedside. One held the baby in her arms, rocking and trying to sooth him as he wailed.
The coverlet pulled up over Mona was soaked with blood at her middle. It spread in a wide fan over her legs, staining the white linen a brilliant crimson. Mona’s breaths were heavy and labored, punctuated by whimpers of pain.
Emily fell back, horrified. Celine stood beside her, wide-eyed. Rascal fluttered down to perch on his mistress’s shoulder again, mewing.
The other woman was wiping Mona’s sweaty face with a damp cloth. She turned to Garrett as they came in, a grim expression on her lined face.
“We’ve called for the healer, but I don’t think he’ll make it in time. She’s lost so much blood…so much blood. We were afraid this would happen. She was the first human to give birth to a Karikis child and…”
Garrett shoved her out of the way, falling to his knees by Mona’s bed. He took her hands gently from where they lay upon the sheet and clasped them in his own. Her eyelids fluttered open.
“Garrett,” she said weakly, breathing heavily. Sweat ran down her pale face.
“I’m here,” he said. “You’re going to be fine. They’ve summoned the healer. He’s coming.”
“No time,” she whispered. “I think…I think I’m dying, Garrett.”
There was no fear in her voice, only a sad resignation.
“You’re not going to die,” Garrett said fiercely, but the tears that glistened on his strange scaly face betrayed him.
“Shush,” Mona said, and Emily was surprised to see a tiny smile curve her lips. “Let’s name him. I know it’s too soon, but I want to know his name before…”
Corbbmacc, who had stood paralyzed and staring at his sister, suddenly wheeled around toward Emily and Celine.
He reached out toward Emily, and she brought her arms up instinctively to fend him off. It seemed he would grab her, but he didn’t. He reached past her and grabbed Celine’s arms above her elbows. He lifted the small girl easily off her feet and carried her across the room. With a hiss, Rascal took flight again, circling overhead.
Corbbmacc pushed Garrett roughly aside and slammed Celine down on her feet beside the bed.
“Do it,” he hissed at her.
The room went abruptly silent. Celine looked terrified.
“Do it,” Corbbmacc said again, and suddenly there was none of the old authority in his voice. It quavered, and Emily saw that he was on the verge of tears. The words held only a simple, quiet plea that entwined with bitter desperation.
She moved forward, pushing through the others to get to Celine. No one stopped her. She reached out to the girl, but Celine shook her head, not taking her gaze from Corbbmacc.
“No, Em,” she said.
For a long moment, Celine and Corbbmacc only stared at one another. Time stood still, and then Celine turned to look at the baby in the nurse’s arms.
“He needs ’is mother,” she said, almost to herself. “Kid shouldn’t grow up without ’is family.”
“But Cel…”
“Em, I said, no.”
Emily let her arms fall to her sides, feeling helpless.
Rascal fluttered down onto the bed beside the dying woman, folded his wings, and stared at her, waiting.
“Okay,” Celine said, taking a slow, shuddering breath. “Okay.”
She sank down beside the bed and reached out across the blood-soaked sheet. She placed her hands on Mona’s belly, laid her own head upon the coverlet, and closed her eyes.
“What’s going on?” Garrett growled at Corbbmacc.
“Trust me,” Corbbmacc murmured softly, and then there was silence.
When Mona’s screams began, Corbbmacc was ready. Garrett lunged forward, clearly intending to tear Celine away from his wife, but Corbbmacc grabbed him around the waist, and the two men grappled with one another. No one even looked at them. All eyes were on the woman amidst the pillows and the sheets—and the blood.
A dim, white light radiated from Mona’s form as she writhed on the bed, her muscles convulsing and her body vibrating like a live wire. Scream after scream peeled away from her lips, until her throat, worn raw, could only emit hoarse cries of agony. They mingled and blended with the cries of the baby, until all the world seemed to be made up of nothing but those terrible shrieks. She tore at Celine’s hands, scratching deep gashes in them with her fingernails as she fought to pull them away. Celine’s blood ran and mixed with that which had already soaked the sheet.
Emily tore her gaze from Mona, and knelt beside Celine. She trembled with indecision, afraid of doing nothing, but more terrified of touching her friend. The girl’s face was coated with a thin film of tears, and even as she watched, Emily could see more of her hair fading from gold to a pale and wispy white. The sight of it made tears come to her own eyes. How many times could Celine do this? Not many more. Maybe not any more.
When Mona’s cries had faded away at last, and her breathing had begun to slow, Celine let go of her and fell backward, away from the bed and into Emily’s arms. No one spoke. Only the infant’s cries went on, and eventually, even those faded as the nurse rocked him.
Corbbmacc let go of Garrett, and with a venomous look at his brother-in-law, Garrett knelt beside his wife’s bed.
Her breathing was easy. The sweat was drying on her face, and color was returning to
her cheeks. He reached out and touched one gloved finger to her face, and she smiled.
She woke a little and opened her eyes, staring drowsily up at her husband. Her gaze was no longer clouded by pain.
“Need to sleep,” she murmured dreamily and closed her eyes again.
For a long time, Emily held Celine, and Garrett stared down at his wife.
He stood at last, turned away from the bed, then helped Emily and Celine to their feet. He put a hand on each of their shoulders, and turned them to face Paige where she stood, silently watching by the door. Her face was impassive, but Emily would have sworn she saw the woman hurriedly blink away a tear.
“Well, Paige,” Garrett said, his voice choked and thick with tears. “I think you have your sign.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Paige had told the others to get some rest, instructing one of Mona’s nurses to find a room suitable for Emily and Celine to share, then had asked Emily to come back with her to the study alone. A servant girl had brought a tray with a teapot and cups and had withdrawn again, as silent as a phantom. The rest of the house was still.
Emily sat alone across the table from Paige, holding the steaming teacup between her hands. It was a delicate china thing, entirely incongruous with the nightmarish events she’d witnessed that night. Its warmth was comforting, and the hot liquid had breathed some life back into her weary body. The brew was strong and bitter, a far cry from what she’d drunk at Seven Skies, and she was grateful for the difference. It seemed to be calming her jangled nerves.
She found her gaze drawn back to the painting on the wall behind Paige. Its detail and artistry was a source of fascination for her, and she found herself wondering why it had given her such a strange feeling when she’d first seen it. Had it been vertigo? From certain angles, she’d almost swear it was a photograph, so exquisitely intricate was the detail. Probably, it was just exhaustion. She needed sleep, but far more than rest, she wanted answers.
“I’m sorry for my rudeness earlier,” Paige said at last, setting her cup down and leaning back in her chair. “These are,” she paused, searching for the right word, “difficult times.”
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