Teal Temptress

by Ellie Margot

  “What do you mean?” asked Cassian. He looked stiff and pale. He looked at Riette, and she knew what he was thinking. They shouldn’t go in. It wasn’t worth any risk to them, mentally or otherwise.

  Trinity shook her head. “They looked tired. Scared. Changed. I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t go in,” said Corin. Mekhi touched her head.

  “We have to go,” said Riette. “I can go. You all stay outside.”

  Samantha wrangled. “We all go, or we don’t go.”

  “I’ll be out here,” said Zeke. “I have too much in here to let out.” He pointed to his head.

  “That’s fine,” said Samantha quickly.

  “How do we know he’ll stay?” asked Riette. She turned toward Zeke. “You could run as soon as we walk in.”

  Zeke gave her a look. “You have my word to see this leg of it through.”

  “But—”

  “He gave his word,” said Samantha. “Leave it.”

  Riette ran through scenarios in her head. How hard would it be to get him back if he were to run away? Could she find someone else to help her if she couldn’t convince him to return? What was he trying to find, and why was he hanging around to wait for them?

  She nodded her head, choosing silence instead of revealing her fears.

  “How will we know what to find?” asked Cassian.

  “She said to go inside, hear the Hall, and the first trinket would be at the heart of it,” said Riette.

  “Hear the hall?” asked Corin.

  “It’s an expression,” said Trinity. “The Hall works in mirrors. They could show what you want to see, but far more often, it shows something else.”

  “Can the mirrors hurt you, steal your soul, and all that terrible shit?” asked Mekhi.

  Trinity’s face pinched. “No, I’ve never heard that.”

  “Then fuck it, let’s get ourselves a trinket,” said Mekhi. He gestured toward Riette. She bent down, spoke with Bark and Barry quickly, and stood back up.

  She looked at Zeke. “They’re staying with you.”

  “You trust me with them?” asked Zeke. He sounded more curious than anything else.

  “No, I’m warning you that they’re staying with you. They can hold their own.” And at Riette’s words, Barry bared all of his teeth in a crooked smile that altered his face.

  They went inside. Every square inch was covered in mirrors. All of the people Riette saw coming and going outside weren’t present within.

  “Where did everyone go?” she asked. She didn’t expect an answer.

  “It’s singular,” explained Trinity. “A girl talked to me about it once. You go in alone. No matter who else is already inside, you won’t see them.”

  “But we’re all together,” said Cassian.

  “Then the mirror has something to show all of us,” said Trinity. She shrugged. “The girl didn’t say that, but doesn’t it make sense? It would have splintered us otherwise.”

  “Let’s look around,” said Riette. “Say if you see something. Stay in sight of everyone else.”

  It didn’t seem like a hard request. The room, while large, was contained. They could still see the door behind them, but every angle had a different mirror.

  Riette walked closer to one and only saw herself in it. It had been some time since she had really studied the planes of her own face. She could still see the broken and swirling fire of her eyes. Her hair was long, run through with braids she had done absentmindedly when she couldn’t sleep. Her clothes had seen better days, but they were clean.

  She turned to watch the others looking into one mirror and then the next. She followed suit and saw more of the same, but then she heard a gasp behind her.

  Trinity.

  Riette turned quickly and rushed to where she stood with her hand over her mouth. She turned to try to block the image, but they were all around her now.

  Every mirror. Every plane repeated the same images. They were broadcasted everywhere. They were of Trinity at her grandmother’s hotel. The still images turned to moving film.

  She could hear Trinity crying.

  The film showed Trinity’s grandmother yelling at a young Trinity. She was young then. Small, scared, but still beautiful.

  The grandmother was instructing her to go into a room, over and over. One man came out, and Trinity gasped. Then another. The days were different. Riette could tell by the light.

  “She made me—” Trinity said, and her voice sounded broken. She turned on everyone. “Happy? She made me do it.” Then she slammed her hand over her mouth.

  Riette ran to her and grabbed her in a hug. Trinity put her head on Riette’s shoulder.

  Riette looked at Cassian, but he stood there in shock. His jaw tensed, and his hands were in fists.

  She almost scolded him. He should be holding her. He should be the one looking as wrecked as Guy did as he watched Trinity’s head buried in Riette’s neck.

  The vision shifted. Mehki cursed, and Corin cried.

  It was Guy. He was pushing the hair out of Corin’s face. She looked scared. He made her laugh. He leaned in. He kissed Corin.

  It looked innocent. The kiss barely touched her lips, but they shared a look afterward.

  “It wasn’t like that,” said Guy.

  “I will personally fuck you up,” said Mekhi, and he looked it. Cassian jumped in front of him. He grabbed his arm and pushed him back.

  “He’s telling the truth,” barked Corin. Her voice was cracked. “It was before you all got to me. Right before Samantha grabbed me and hauled me off like trash.” She turned toward Mekhi, ignoring the glares Samantha and Damian gave her. She grabbed Mekhi’s hand. “He. Meant. Nothing.”

  Mekhi tried to slow his breathing. When he seemed more in control, Cassian released him. Trinity had stopped crying, but she still shook in Riette’s arms.

  “Fucking shit show,” said Samantha bitterly.

  The images shifted again. This time, it was Cassian. He stood next to Riette. They were in Vitan. They were both so much younger.

  Riette frowned. She didn’t remember this moment, but there had been so many like this. Cassian was her best friend. It had always been that way.

  The images continued. Riette turned away, and Cassian kept looking at her. There was something on his face, an expression.

  Trinity stood up. She had been watching the images over Riette’s shoulder. Her spine was painfully straight.

  Riette knew not to be worried. She had never, not once, done anything with Cassian. She had never even been tempted. It wasn’t like that between them. No matter what others had always tried to think.

  But the way Cassian was looking at her. The images closed in on his face. There was something there that Riette wasn’t comfortable with.

  Cassian was looking at her like she had seen him look at Trinity.

  Riette found his eyes in the room. He shook his head once. Denying it without saying a word. But it was there. Everyone saw it.

  They didn’t have time for this. Riette hoped she would never have to talk to Cassian about it. They weren’t like that. They couldn’t be.

  Her mind flitted to Zeke. Some part of her wanted to know what he was doing. If he would ever look at her that way. She shook the thoughts loose.

  The images shifted again. They were fast moving now. It was Riette. Then it was Zeke. Every smile she had given him in their short time together. Her expression after he had looked at her. Him shirtless letting her in his room.

  Riette felt exposed. She hated it. She walked to the closest mirror and saw her own smiling face looking back at her.

  Cassian wasn’t lying. She looked smitten. Riette did not look like herself.

  She took a look at the girl in front of her. The one smiling and silly and looking at something she didn’t think she could have.

  Riette thought that Zeke was attracted to her. He had said as much in their little time spent together. But she had a mission, and these vision
s were going to get in the way.

  She walked to the largest mirror, touched her own face in the glass, and felt the pressure build behind her eyes. She went quiet and still.

  Then Riette closed her eyes.

  “No,” said Cassian, but it was too late. Her fist connected with the glass, and it shattered around her hand.

  The hand was still sore from the travel down the tree when she’d left the prison, so it didn’t take much to cause the blood to surface.

  Mekhi ran to her and grabbed her hand. He flipped it over and picked out a larger chunk of the glass. But Riette didn’t look at him. She was looking at what sat behind the mirror.

  It looked like a small key with a rock on its end. It was green and glowed of its own accord.

  “The trinket,” Riette whispered.

  She reached forward with her good hand and touched the cool metal of the key. The stone glowed in her hand. There was a light emanating from it.

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

  And then the world went black.

  Chapter 35

  The world was cold.

  Riette wanted to shiver. Her bones ached to move, but she found she couldn’t. Her eyes were shut. Or at least, she thought they were. She could not open them.

  There were others around her. There was fighting. They yelled. Part of her felt like she was being pulled. Someone was trying to shake her back to life, but it wasn’t reaching her. Not really.

  The chill was shocking in its fierceness.

  She was stupid. It was stupid. Touching the artifact without a plan. Storming in without a plan. Riette wondered if her grandmother had bet on her recklessness. How else would she have found it?

  But charging in could have gotten them killed. She might be on her way to death. Riette couldn’t feel her powers. She couldn’t feel her own body. She wondered if she’d ever feel again.

  Then Riette felt something. The metallic taste of blood touched her lips. She felt it. The acidic tang of something foreign to her entered her body.

  She felt like her soul was being touched. It burned her. She gasped, and the air rushed into her lungs. Riette tried to open her eyes. She pushed. Her limbs were present. She could feel that much, and she clung to that feeling. She needed to feel something.

  Then her eyes began to open. It was like cracking a seal. It started slowly, and when they fully opened, she saw the eyes she had just seen in the mirror looking back at her. They were green and seemed to glow, just like before.

  Zekariah.

  Her head felt heavy. Riette touched it with her hand.

  “Easy,” he said softly.

  “What happened?” she asked, and her voice sounded like an abandoned and broken thing.

  “You’re blood bonded now,” said Guy, and he sounded like he was at a funeral.

  Riette sat up some to look at Guy, but Zeke watched her moves carefully. He sat back, giving her space.

  “What?”

  “You’ll feel weird at first,” Zeke said. “Or so I’ve been told.” His last words were colder than anything he had said before.

  He sounded like he had been tricked. Riette wondered if he truly felt that way. He’d saved her life. He must have. She wouldn’t have asked him to. That was a debt she didn’t want to have to repay.

  “Leave us,” Zeke said. He kept his eyes on Riette, but the authority she had practiced for was clear in his tone.

  Riette looked toward the others. Cassian looked angrier than she had ever seen him. Trinity held his hand and looked sorry for her. Mekhi looked worried, but Corin dragged him away. Guy watched her with hooded eyes. He tried to smile at her, but it didn’t reach them.

  Then Samantha and Damian left last. They barely looked at her at all.

  The mirror room was empty, save for the two of them.

  Riette waited for Zeke to speak. She didn’t know what to say. She wanted to thank him, to say something worthy of the moment, but she was at a loss to know what it was.

  “You’ll be stronger now,” he started.

  “I didn’t do this on purpose. I never wanted to trick you.” The walls around them were plain mirrors yet again.

  Zeke nodded, but his eyes continued to search her face.

  “We’re linked,” he said gruffly. “I’ll be stronger too.”

  Now it was Riette’s turn to nod.

  “But I want to be clear,” Zeke started. “We can never be partners in the carnal sense.”

  Riette felt her face burn, but she didn’t have time to say anything before he continued.

  “Now that we’re locked together, we can never be joined in that way.” He leaned in. “We can never be true partners like that.” He blinked and then leaned back.

  “I don’t mix business with pleasure,” Zeke said, and then she watched his eyes look her over. He muttered something under his breath that Riette couldn’t work out.

  “You said you were looking for something,” Riette said, needing to break the tension. Her heart was beating too fast in her chest. She needed to focus on something else.

  “There are seven things I search for that I need,” said Zeke.

  “I thought you didn’t need anything,” she said, thinking back to their first encounter.

  “It’s hard to want the impossible.”

  “Why do you need them? What are they?”

  Zeke stopped. He looked at her like he was wondering whether or not to trust her.

  “My power was stolen from me. I want it back. The seven pieces are the only way to make that happen.” Zeke lifted part of his clothing up, revealing jagged scars across his stomach. “They did this to keep me from being able to fully access my powers.” He looked at Riette. “They stole from me.”

  “But you still have power. You were able to read my grandmother’s pages.”

  Zeke shook his head. “It’s nothing like the levels I had before. They didn’t take everything, but they took what they could, and I can’t be who I am, can’t be free, without having all of it back.”

  Riette considered this. She looked at the ground around them. The trinket now lay next to her feet. She had found one of them, but at what cost? She was bound to this man, this stranger, forever.

  “Then we’re in this together,” Riette said softly.

  Zeke looked at her again. He said a small curse and shook his head. “I knew you were trouble.”

  The End

  Author Note

  Dear Reader,

  Wow, I’m writing this in early 2019, and this has been my favorite book so far.

  You know when you read a book and you feel like the world needs to stop for a bit for you to get to the next part?

  That’s how I felt writing this. I just wanted to keep going. I needed to see what Riette was going to do next. Despite work obligations, needing to be with family, and sleep calling my name, Riette and Zeke spoke louder.

  I have been waiting for you all to meet Zeke since we started on this crazy journey.

  He’s trouble.

  Zeke is this mystery that Riette can’t solve, and she’s not sure what she’ll lose in the process if she does.

  I’m also dying to know what you all you thought of the Hall of Remembrance and your reactions to Zeke.

  Would you go there?

  Is there anything you’d risk be exposed for to figure out?

  I remember when I was in third grade. I had a friend. I won’t name her here, but she and I were school yard friends. In third grade, at my small school, kids played together. We went to each other’s birthday parties. We were just beginning to have “circles,” but everyone pretty much still played with everyone else.

  She confided in me. One day at the playground, she told me that her family was moving. She was sad about the move, and I was sad to hear it.

  Sure, there were other children I was closer to, but I would miss her.

  The girl didn’t cry. She wasn’t exciting, but she told me something, and then we continued to play.

&nb
sp; While I was playing with the other girls, I mentioned that the other girl was moving. We continued playing, and I didn’t give it all too much thought. There was tag to play. We had to defend the playground fort. The boys were coming. It was about to be war.

  We went inside and I was so thirsty. Each of us waited in line after recess for our turn at the water fountain, and I remember wishing I could drink all of the gallons of water. I was going to drink until I was full and keep drinking.

  I would float away from it I would drink so much. I had my turn. I drank some water. Never to the amount that I always thought I needed in my head.

  Then we went in. We moved on with our lessons.

  All of the sudden the girl who was moving started crying.

  She was bawling.

  The class stopped. Everyone stared. I looked at her worried, and the teacher went over to her to see what was wrong.

  She explained that she had to move. It was a secret and I had told someone. The girl had been instructed to not say anything and now everyone knew.

  I felt terrible. She felt worse. Everyone looked at me. I started to cry with her.

  Why am I telling you this?

  To be honest, when I think of secrets and their consequences, I think of this moment. Was it the only moment in my life with a secret. Uh, no, but this was my first lesson into the power of secrets. How much they matter. How much they can hurt someone if revealed.

  It made an impression on me.

  Secrets affected this book.

  Zeke has a closet full.

  I can’t wait for you to read them.

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