by Emery Belle
Cole. My savior, again.
I tried calling out to him, but my words were swept away by the wind rushing all around us, whipping into a frenzy as we bypassed the forest completely and headed back toward the center of town. People, houses, and magi-cabs were pinpricks below us, and the Pacific Ocean was a vast expanse of shimmering green-blue water that stretched so far into the distance I imagined, for a moment, that the island was all that was left of this world.
All too soon, the man in black began his descent, slowing as we soared over the hospital, the courthouse, the academy, until finally we landed with a soft thud on the grass outside the dormitories. I fell to my knees and pressed my cheek against the cool ground, knowing how close I’d come to never feeling dewdrops on my skin again.
I looked up at the man standing before me, his face still cloaked in shadow. “Thank you,” I croaked, my throat parched from the wind. “You saved my life, again. I don’t know how I can ever repay you.”
The man slid his hood from his face, and, like a punch to the gut, I saw that it wasn’t Cole but his friend, the gargoyle with the silver eyes who’d warned me to stay away from their lands. “What were you thinking?” he said, his eyes narrowed in disbelief. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to have your throat torn open by a manticore’s fangs?”
“By a what?” a familiar voice shrieked, and I turned to find Garnet standing behind me, the color drained from her face. She was holding Calvin’s hand and looking at me like I’d lost all my marbles. Then her gaze met the gargoyle’s and she shuddered and drew closer to Calvin. “What is this man saying, Wren? You didn’t actually try to speak with the manticores, did you?”
I bowed my head in defeat, and Garnet dropped Calvin’s hand and rushed toward me. Instead of hugging me, as I’d expected, she shoved my shoulders. Hard. I caught myself before tumbling backward, cowering under the fury blazing in her green eyes. “You told me you weren’t in danger,” she snapped. “You lied to me, Wren. Right to my face.”
“I did not,” I said in a feeble voice, avoiding her gaze. “I said Orion’s killer wasn’t after me, which is true. I think.”
The gargoyle gave Garnet the once-over with his cold, appraising eyes. “If your friend knows what’s good for her, she’ll stay away from places she has no business being. I won’t always be there to rescue her, and neither will Cole.” Then he drew his cloak and hood around himself once more and bent his legs before shooting off into the sky like a rocket.
Garnet looked at me, and then Calvin. “Who’s Cole?”
Calvin shrugged, and I made a big show of trying to wipe the grass stains from my knees as I climbed shakily to my feet, gripping Garnet’s arm for support. By now her face had softened a fraction, and she smoothed back my ruffled hair and stared hard into my eyes. “Stop, Wren,” she whispered, so only I could hear her. “Just stop. One of these days you’re going to get yourself killed, and for what?”
Before I could come up with an answer, she shook her head sadly and turned from me. She linked her arm through Calvin’s, and together they walked across the grass, away from me, neither bothering to look back.
I spent the rest of the afternoon in bed, stroking Pierre’s soft fur and gazing at the ceiling. Even Monty couldn’t come up with any wisecracks once he’d heard what had happened, merely staring sorrowfully at me from his chain, which hung limply from the ceiling.
Eventually he said, into the silence, “You know, Wren Winters, in my day, bravery like yours would have been memorialized in song, a tale passed down through the generations. I was acquainted with many knights and soldiers of the realm, and all would have chopped off their own hands rather than face down a manticore. And try to reason with one.” He gave a little snort, then quickly covered it up with a hacking cough.
I didn’t answer, instead turning onto my side and closing my eyes, willing sleep to come. My body was drained, and fatigue had clouded my mind and dulled my senses. I had confronted several murderers in my brief time on the island, but never had I been forced to stare death in the eyes quite like I had today. It was… exhausting.
I must have drifted off eventually, for some time later a sharp knock at the door jerked me out of a deep, dreamless sleep. “Who is it?” I called, rubbing my eyes and forcing my legs out of bed. They nearly buckled as I took my first step, but I steadied myself on the bedpost before crossing the room toward the door.
“Oh,” I said in surprise when I opened it. “I’m afraid Garnet isn’t here, but you’re welcome to come in and wait for her to return.”
Opie Moon hesitated on the other side of the door, raising one hand to tuck her auburn hair behind her ear. The other hand, I noticed, was clutching a book to her chest. “Actually, Wren, if you don’t mind… I came to see you.”
She ducked past me into the room, and I closed the door behind us. Her gaze swept over my face, and I could see that she was nervous. “I’m afraid we got off on the wrong foot the other day. I’m terribly sorry for the way I behaved.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, gesturing for her to sit down on the small couch tucked into one corner of the room. I pulled out my desk chair and sat across from her, folding my hands across my lap. “I’m a little surprised to see you, though. Is there something I can help you with?”
Opie tapped her fingers anxiously on the book, which was now lying facedown on her lap. “I’m glad you and my daughter have become such good friends. This island can sometimes be a difficult world to navigate, and Garnet speaks very highly of you.”
“Thank you.” I gave Garnet’s mother a polite smile, though I didn’t have the faintest idea where she was going with this. “I’m happy Garnet and I have become friends, too. She’s really helped me learn a lot about life on the island. It’s not easy starting over at the age of thirty… as you can imagine, I was pretty shocked to find out that magic even existed, let alone that I was a witch.”
“Yes. About that.” Opie fiddled with the cover of the book, then took a deep breath before opening it to the first page and turning it toward me. The page was filled with photographs of two little girls—one with brown hair and eyes, and the other with auburn hair and green eyes that matched Opie’s. In every picture the girls were laughing, arms thrown around each other, heads bent together.
I flipped to the next page, and then the next—it was more of the same, the girls progressing through childhood and entering their awkward teenage years, and though their hairstyles changed and their faces matured, they remained arm-in-arm throughout the years.
Puzzled, I glanced up at Opie and was startled to see that her eyes were shining with tears. “This was my best friend, Elevia,” she said. “We were inseparable, practically from birth.”
Elevia. That name struck a distant chord within me, but I couldn’t remember where I’d heard it before. I did, however, note Opie’s use of the past tense. “Was?” I asked softly, studying the teenage girl on the page before me. She looked so happy, so carefree, so positively alive in every photo that it was hard to imagine that her life had been cut short.
Opie gave a curt nod and swiped at her eyes, then gently took the photo album from me and flipped forward a few pages. When she handed it to me again, I reared back, nearly dropping the album. On the page was… me. Everywhere. The eyes, the lips, the nose, the hair… I was looking at an exact replica of myself in the adult version of Elevia.
“I don’t understand,” I said, my hands beginning to tremble. I stared at Opie, trying to see behind the pain in her eyes. “What is this?”
“You look so much like her,” she breathed, reaching forward to caress the photo nearest her before tracing her finger along my cheek. “When I first saw you at the door, I… I thought she had come back from the dead. But that’s impossible, of course. What’s not impossible”—she grasped my hand—“is that she had a daughter. You.” She shook her head. “But I had no idea. I assumed she was executed long before that would have even been a possibility.”
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nbsp; I felt my lungs constrict, and suddenly the room was far too small, and spinning far too fast. “Executed?” I could barely get the word out.
Opie nodded, though the motion seemed to cause her considerable effort. “Elvie—that’s what I called her—could have had her choice of any boy on the island. But she met a human man—a lovely, kind man—during one of our excursions to the mainland, and it was truly love at first sight. You could practically hear the fireworks going off above their heads. When I saw what was happening, I tried to talk her out of it…”
Opie stared off into the distance, then she laughed. “But when Elvie got something in her head, it stuck. She knew the consequences, she knew what was at stake. I remember asking her, why? Why risk your life when you could settle down with a nice island boy, like I did. Sure, there weren’t fireworks, but I was happy enough. And she looked at me and said, what kind of a life would that be?”
Opie pressed her fingers against her mouth and blinked back fresh tears. “That was the last time I saw her. The next day, she was gone, and it wasn’t long before the High Court caught up with her. Marrying a human is forbidden—the law was written by the International Association of Magical Beings many centuries ago to protect the magical community. The penalty of breaking that law is death.” She let the tears flow freely now, spilling down her cheeks and splattering the photos.
I barely noticed, though, because I was too busy recalling the words Lady Winthrop had said to me months ago, when I first arrived on the island and wondered whether my parents had both been magical. “Mixing magical and non-magical genes has proven to be very unstable,” she’d said. “The witches and wizards created from such an unnatural bond were unable to gain control over their magic, and so they became an immeasurable danger to themselves and to those around them.”
The pieces were falling into place.
My useless wand. My rogue magic. The parents I’d never known. They hadn’t abandoned me… they’d never lived to see me grow up.
I couldn’t breathe.
“I’m so sorry, Wren.” Garnet’s mother was now kneeling beside me, though I’d never noticed her move. “I know this is a shock, but when I saw you… when I heard your story… I couldn’t conceal the truth from you. It wouldn’t have been right. It wouldn’t have been what Elevia wanted. I’m sure she…” She paused, giving my leg a soft squeeze. “I’m sure she loved you very much.”
I closed my eyes. I felt like I was drowning. This was too much to process. It was too much…
“There’s something else.” Opie’s voice was hesitant.
With difficulty, I opened my eyes and tried to focus on her face.
“Elevia’s family was quite… well-known. Like the Moon family, they were among the island’s first settlers, and they rose to a position of considerable power over the years. What I’m trying to tell you, Wren”—she took a deep breath—“is that Elevia’s last name was Macon. Her father was Augustus Macon. Lord Macon. And you… you are his granddaughter.”
Chapter 17
I don’t know how I managed to make it through the next few days. They were a blur, and I was a zombie, stumbling through each hour with barely a thought spared for the outside world. I was lost in the hell of my own mind, which was racing at warp-speed, trying to make sense of everything I’d just learned, everything I thought I knew about myself but didn’t. I was the stranger in the mirror, the imposter walking the streets of an island where I was unwelcome, the death-row prisoner awaiting the creak of the cell doors as they opened so I could begin my final march toward the inevitable.
But somehow I was able to keep moving forward, to conceal the turmoil hidden beneath the serene mask I wore as I waded through the mundane details of each day. School. Work. Friends. Boyfriend. Rinse and repeat.
I spent every waking second agonizing over whether I should approach Lord Macon—my grandfather—and tell him what I knew. But what would that gain me? He hated me, and now the reason was obvious. I was the living representation of the daughter he’d lost. Of the man who’d stolen her heart, who’d marched with her straight into the arms of death, all in the name of love.
Had it been worth it, for either of them? My mother had at least lived long enough to bring me into this world. As she took her final breath, did she think of me? Did she wonder what would become of me, or fear that I’d meet the same end? Because Lyra’s vision had hit the nail on the head—I was an abomination, at least in the eyes of the islanders. Would they execute me when my true identity was revealed?
So many questions, with answers forever dancing out of reach. I would never know. And I would never be okay with not knowing. A vicious circle, an endless merry-go-round from which there was no escape. Such was life now.
My investigation into Orion’s murder was put on hold, perhaps indefinitely, or at least until I could get my head on straight… and there was a distinct possibility that would never happen. In the meantime, I felt I owed Lyra some sort of explanation for dropping her father’s case out of the blue, so a week after my near-deadly encounter with the manticores, I dropped by her office before spellcasting class.
When I arrived, I was surprised to see that her gaudy fortune-telling sign had been replaced with a simple black and white one that said Lyra, Renowned Seer. Stepping into the waiting area, I saw that the tiki masks and stuffed tiger had been removed, along with the rows of crystal balls and the tarot cards and books for sale. In their place were a few tasteful straight-back chairs, a sleek black table, and a few floor cushions for Lyra’s four-legged visitors. The gauzy curtain separating her office from the waiting area had been traded for a regular wooden door.
From behind the door, I could hear voices—three distinct ones, two women and a man, and they sounded like they were engaged in a heated discussion. I could identify one of the voices as belonging to Lyra, though the other two also sounded vaguely familiar. Words like lawsuit, and High Court, and horse floated out of the room, followed by a cry of outrage. Finally, I heard Lyra shout, “Get out, now!” before the door was flung open and a small man with auburn hair strode out, his face flaming.
“Finn?” I said in surprise, staring at the leprechaun. “What are you doing here?”
He narrowed his eyes at me as his lip curled into a sneer. “Who are you?” he said, looking me up and down, and I realized that he didn’t recognize me outside of my fake valet uniform and beard. “Mind your own business,” he snarled, and stomped out of the waiting area, but not before purposely knocking over two of Lyra’s chairs. The front door slammed shut, and I got to my feet and righted the chairs before poking my head timidly into Lyra’s office. She was sitting on a floor pillow alongside her mother, Vega.
“Is everything okay in here?” I asked, and the centaurs swung their heads toward me in unison. Vega’s face was pale and drawn, and her eyes were rimmed with dark shadows, as if she hadn’t slept in weeks. Lyra merely looked sad.
“That pathetic little man is threatening to sue us,” Vega said, her voice shaking with barely contained anger. “He’s claiming that my husband lost him hundreds of pounds of gold by scaring off his investors.” She drew her arms around herself and began rocking back and forth. “Orion isn’t even cold in the ground yet and the vultures are circling.”
A tear trickled down her cheek, and Lyra reached over to comfort her mother, but Vega shook her off, looking annoyed. “Don’t,” she said, arranging her beautiful sky-blue robes around herself and adjusting her diamond necklace. “You were working in that blasted garden all morning and I don’t want you getting filth on me.”
She raised herself off the ground and smoothed her blonde hair. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a splitting headache. I’m going to the club for an elderberry martini.” Then, after a quick nod to me, she trotted out of the room.
Lyra watched her go, then turned to me with a tight smile. “I hope you have good news about my father, Wren. It’s been an awful morning, and I could use a little pick-me-up.” She gestured f
or me to take the pillow across from her, and I lowered myself into it, feeling awful for the news I was about to break to her.
But she looked so eager, so hopeful, that I couldn’t bring myself to say it. Instead, stalling for time, I swept my arm around the room and said, “I like the new décor. And I noticed the sign out front—renowned seer? Are congratulations in order?”
I could still hear Orion’s voice in my head, telling me that neither of his children had inherited his gift of sight. Perhaps he had been wrong, or perhaps he’d never given his daughter the credit she deserved. She had, after all, foretold my true identity the last time I’d paid her a visit.
“They are.” Lyra drew herself up proudly. “I always had a talent for fortune-telling, but recently my sight has become much clearer. The International Seer’s Association, the governing body for seers around the world, arrived yesterday to test my sight.” She ducked her head and smiled. “I passed with flying colors.”
“That’s wonderful news!” I said, grinning at her. “Your father would be so thrilled.”
The smile dropped from her face. “Yes. He would have been.” A heavy silence fell between us as she gazed out the window with a faraway look in her eyes and I picked nervously at a hangnail, debating whether or not to break the news to her another day that I was giving up on finding her father’s killer. Why spoil her happiness, when she had so few things to celebrate lately?
A nightswallow squawked in a nearby tree, and the noise seemed to jolt her back to the present. “So.” She faced me once more, folding her arms on the table between us. “You have news?” She leaned toward me, looking hopeful.
I took a deep breath. “Yes. Lyra, I—”
Something clattered to the ground, interrupting my train of thought, and both Lyra and I looked around for the source of the sound. There, underneath the table, was a silver pen, gleaming in the overhead lights. Something about it looked awfully familiar…