“That’s the norm for her.”
“She told me she would have killed me, but she still had a use for me. And then she explained what she’d done with my sister.”
“So you’ll keep bringing her dragons forever?”
Raking her fingers through her hair, she snarled. “I don’t have a choice. I won’t let her hurt Sheera.”
“There has to be a way out.”
A sneer rose in her voice. “Nice of you to think that, but I’ve tried everything. There is no way out. I’m a puppet and Bixby controls me.”
I shook my head. “You’ve given up.”
“I’m realistic.”
“You gave up,” I said again, anger lifting my voice. “I’m not giving up.”
Her lips curled. “You will. Everyone does.”
It was stupid to argue with her. I should be using this opportunity to gain information from her.
“Did you have time to look around the campus the last time you were here?” I asked. Could we discover any clues from her?
“Nope. A flash, and I was back at the prison in my nymph form, with my new instructions.”
“Find a new group and bring dragons.”
“Yeah,” she said in a sour voice.
“You weren’t expected to complete more tests here at the Reformatory, and you didn’t meet the guy in the cottage?”
“Your uncle.” Her spine tightened. “Maybe I should be questioning you. You seem to have connections here. How do we know you’re not involved in this? You could be one of Bixby’s tools, too.”
“I guess you don’t know, do you?” I snapped. If she suggested this to the others, would they believe her or me? I didn’t like doubting the support of my friends, but I wondered if they’d hesitate before putting their trust behind me after I messed things up during one of the catacomb tests.
Brodin’s arm dropped along my shoulders. “Tria’s as new to this place as me. She didn’t know her uncle was here.”
Kylie’s chin lifted but her lips trembled. “How do you know that? She could be playing you, too.”
“Because I know her. She’s not part of this, so ditch that idea now.” Steel grated through his voice.
“My father—or someone who said he’s my father—is also here,” I said. If I hid the information, someone would discover it and assume I was lying about everything else. Let Kylie do whatever she wanted with the information.
Her breath sucked in. “You saw him?”
Frowning, I stepped toward her. “You said you didn’t have a chance to explore here, and as far as I can tell, he’s always been here. What do you know about him?”
“Nothing.” She skirted around me, darting behind my dragon to join Jacey and Rohnan where they gathered in the center of the room. Sunlight sparkled on the weathered floorboards, and they dropped down onto it to sit.
I started after Kylie, because I was determined to grill her about my father, but Brodin held me back.
“Don’t,” he said softly.
“Why not?”
“Let me question her.”
“You think I won’t be subtle enough?” I asked.
He lifted his eyebrows, and that was all he needed to do.
My shoulders loosened, and my lips thinned. “Let me know what you discover?”
“Of course.”
“What does she know about my father?” I asked. I hated calling him that. For so long, I’ve waited for the chance to confront my dad, to make him give back my core magical essence. Sadly, I’d been granted my big confrontation, and I was no further ahead than before. I couldn’t drag myself from the dream of finding vindication.
“Let’s see what the others discovered,” Brodin said, and we walked over and settled on the floor near them, forming a circle.
“The first thing I want to talk about is Bixby and the first dragon Kylie brought here,” Brodin said.
“I didn’t exactly bring it to her,” Kylie grumbled. “I went through the Challenge like anyone else and ended up here with the dragon, like we did.”
“There was a rookery,” Rohnan said, watching Kylie’s face. Good luck with that. I doubt she’d give anything away. Look how well she fooled us already, making us think she was solely a tree nymph, Akimi.
“There wasn’t a rookery back then,” Kylie said, her glance taking in the room. “But she built one fast. One second I stood on the lawn outside with my dragon, the next we were here.”
“Why bother, if she was going to steal your dragon right away?” I asked.
“For the others, naturally,” she said. And while the words sounded flip, pain came through in her voice. “She set things up for more.”
“You don’t know what she did to the first dragon,” Brodin said.
“She killed it. She used it,” Kylie ground out. “Come on. We’re not stupid. We know she ground up its bones.”
I winced, remembering one of the heads in the library.
“The pattern is different this time,” Rohnan said. “Kylie was sent back immediately last time.”
“Maybe because she was alone?” Jacey said.
“Why is Bixby letting us explore the campus?” Brodin said. “And from what I can tell, we’re about to compete in more trials. Why is she letting this happen?”
“She wants something,” Kylie said after darting a quick look at the dragons. “She has four, so she’s set for some time.”
“What does she want?” I asked.
Brodin leaned forward. “Speculation will get us nowhere, but I know one thing, I’m not going along with her plan.”
“Assuming we know what that is,” I said bitterly. “Does she know we met my uncle or that we collected stones?”
Everyone shrugged.
“She wants something new from us,” Kylie said. “Otherwise, she’d send me back and ask for a repeat performance.”
“Like what?” Jacey asked, leaning against Rohnan, who had his arm braced behind her back.
Kylie scowled. “She’s not exactly sharing.”
“Have you seen her since we arrived?” Brodin asked, frowning.
“No,” Kylie said. “Don’t really want to, either.”
“So, we’ll do the first test?” I asked.
“I’m game if it gets us out of here,” Jacey said.
I couldn’t shake off my sense of doom. Again, we were being manipulated, but what choice did we have?
“Do you think there is an endless amount of dragons inside the catacombs?” Brodin asked Kylie.
“How can there be?” she said.
“We hatched them and then took them,” I said. “If the tests aren’t repeated, not all of them, that is, there must be more.”
“Are the dragons real or an illusion?” Rohnan said. “We flew on them but so many things have turned out to be something other than what they seem.”
“Like you?” Kylie asked.
Jacey learned into Rohnan and snarled. “He’s real.”
“I guess you’d know.” Kylie shrugged. “In my opinion, the dragons are real but the tests in the catacombs are…Well, I don’t really know what they are.”
“I assume they create or recreate new catacomb tests for each contestant, but that’s just speculation on my part because you completed some of the challenges I faced,” Rohnan said, seeming to brush aside her comment about his existence. But his eyes flashed fire, and I had a feeling he’d remember what she said.
What she suggested couldn’t be true. Jacey would be able to tell if Rohnan was a magical substitute.
“How many were duplicates?” I asked Kylie, watching her face. I wasn’t sure if I dared trust her to answer without fabrication.
“All but one of them,” she said.
We all shared heavy looks.
“Which?” I asked.
“The first with the islands we hopped across.”
“But the others followed the same pattern?” I asked.
She nodded. “Here’s the thing…” Her gaze lit on me th
en fled.
“What?” I grated out. “Say it.”
“I made sure you followed the pattern needed to get you to that last challenge.”
“Your tears that formed the vine,” I snarled. “You said our only way out was up.”
“If we hadn’t climbed, we would have gone on to a different challenge,” Jacey said, her voice growing in volume. “Right?”
Kylie nodded.
“And the dragons wouldn’t have hatched, and we would been sent to a different test,” I said. My gaze met Brodin’s; I wondered if he was thinking the same thing I was. Was it possible to emerge in the alternate world with my supposed father, instead of here?
“We’ve been manipulated from the moment we arrived on Darkwater. By Bixby…” My gaze pinned Kylie. “And her.”
“I’m sorry,” Kylie said, her hands knotting on her lap.
Was she? I couldn’t trust even this.
“For all I know, you’re an extension of Bixby, like Titan,” Jacey said. She poked Kylie in the arm, and the other girl flinched but didn’t move away. Tears shimmered in her eyes, but I had no sympathy for her.
“She essentially is,” I said. “Because she does Bixby’s bidding.”
“You know why,” Kylie shouted, her hands fisting her pants. “I only brought her dragons to save my sister.”
“Killing others to preserve one life,” Brodin said. “And you can live with that.”
“You think I have a choice? I tried to end it.” Her pleading gaze met mine. “You know I did. In the other world. You should have left me there. Then we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“With you directing the whole thing, there was no other outcome,” I said.
“Well, except…” Kylie smirked. “And then you would have been the ones to bring her dragons, not me. I’m not solely to blame here. There are four dragons this time, not one.”
“Nope, this is all on you,” I said.
After shooting me a sullen glare, Kylie got up and stalked over to a window opening and stared out.
Snarling and arguing was getting us nowhere. Knowing the extent of her manipulation wouldn’t make a difference.
“So, what’s up with all this? You made it through with a dragon…” Brodin called out to her. “Alone, right? You didn’t run into anyone else in the catacombs?”
“Nope. There was no one else there,” she said, not turning.
“But in the challenge with the pools that sucked us down…” I said.
“I didn’t fall in. I grabbed the pool I was able to see, threw it into the cage, and locked it up.”
“Using one sense, not four.”
“It was my only option.”
“Why hasn’t Bixby taken the dragons?” Jacey asked. Pain made her voice croak. “I don’t want her to kill them, but this is torture.”
“Maybe she doesn’t need them,” Kylie said.
Yet was the word unspoken. It hung between us in a toxic cloud.
“She could have enough bone powder left from the first,” Rohnan said.
“Or she’ll be stopping by soon to take one or all of them,” Kylie said.
I wanted to growl at her, but bit it back. It was time for a solution, not an argument that would get us nowhere.
“So, what are we going to do?” Jacey said. “We need to come up with a plan to get us out of here and save the dragons.”
“I’m going to take the tests,” I said. “I want to leave Darkwater, and that seems to be the only chance I have to make it happen.”
“I’m in,” Jacey said. “You know why.”
She wanted to kill the fae king.
“Me, too,” Rohnan said.
Brodin nodded.
We all looked to Kylie, who sighed and nodded.
“Well,” I said. “We’re no longer a quad. What’s a group of five called?”
“A quint, I guess,” Jacey said. “Sounds cute.”
It wasn’t. Nothing was cute about going through more challenges.
“There hasn’t been a quint that I know of,” Kylie said.
“Then let’s prove a quint is the best team possible and get us the hell out of Darkwater,” I said, striving to sound positive. “We’re not crazy to consider doing this, are we?”
“Do we have another choice?” Brodin said.
“As far as I could tell, there’s no other way to escape the Reformatory,” Rohnan said. “If we hang around and do nothing, I bet Bixby will find a use for us.”
I was not going to play Kylie and repeat the Reformatory Challenge, only to bring Bixby more dragons.
“What role do you think the stones play in all this?” Brodin asked, and we all pulled ours out.
We shared our experiences with my uncle, discovering that he told them the same things as Brodin and I.
“Maybe we’ll use them in the tests?” Jacey said. “Five paths, five tests, and five of us with five stones.”
“That sounds too easy,” Kylie said. “We need to remember all of this could be a trick.”
I don’t think we’ll ever forget that.
“No idea if we’ll need the stones or what they mean,” Brodin said, almost boyishly. “But there was no harm in taking one, right?”
I loved that Brodin had somehow found a way to hold onto a trace of innocence that had been burned from my soul, despite the hardship he suffered and the people he lost. His mother, murdered. His father, the murderer who wanted to kill Brodin. How did my friend do it? I wished I knew. I wished I could steal a little bit of that hope, because mine had been burned away before I arrived on Darkwater Island.
I hoped he was able to hold onto that feeling, that it wasn’t ripped away from him like everything else.
Leaving my friends, I rose and walked over to my dragon. It lay on the floor but lifted its head when I approached. I sat down beside it and stroked its face.
Brodin joined me, sitting with a dragon next to mine. “Ideas?” he said softly.
“One.”
A spark of excitement lit up his eyes.
“What if you took them one by one to the other Reformatory?” I said. “Would she be able to find them there?”
“I don’t know.”
“The problem is the chains. If we could break them, we could fly them out onto the lawn, and I could shift and…”
“Take them to the other realm and release them.” My gaze fell on the chains. “How do we break them?” But another idea was occurring to me.
I closed my eyes and sought out the ancient magic my stepfather had taught me. It was the only power I’d been able to access at the prison and inside the catacombs. Bixby was either unaware of it or, more likely, it was something even she couldn’t control.
There. It existed at the Reformatory, too. Could I tap it to break the chains?
Probably not by myself, but I wasn’t the only one with power here.
“Jacey,” I called out, and she and Rohnan came over to join us. I lowered my voice. Kylie could listen in all she wanted but no need to shout my idea to the entire world. “If we combine my sketar and your fae skeitse magic, could we break the chains?”
“It’s worth a try,” Jacey said.
“Yes.” Brodin stood. An eagerness I hadn’t heard for a very long time shone in his voice. “Do it.”
Jacey nodded, her eyes shimmering with hope. “We’ll pull it in and direct it at the chains.”
“Break them and then what?” Rohnan asked.
“Brodin can take them where they might be able to hide.”
The minute I said hide, the building shook.
“I think we’ll need to be quick,” Brodin said. “She’s coming.”
Fear spiked through me, but I pushed it aside. I needed to focus, and I couldn’t if I was worried I’d be ripped apart while working magic.
I stood and took Jacey’s hand. “When you’re ready, let me know.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. I did the same.
Magic! Sketar mist floated nearby,
a bigger variety of colors than what I found at the prison and in the catacombs. I gathered it inside me, much like I used to do with thread magic before it was suppressed with my tenna bracelets.
I opened my eyes and nodded to Brodin.
In a flash, he became his Eerie. No matter how many times I saw his sabre toothed tiger form, I was still struck speechless with awe. I buried my face in his fur and tried to hug him, but my arms couldn’t do more than glide partway around his neck.
He huffed softly, into my hair.
Stepping back, I nodded. Our time was limited.
His dragon looked up with interest as Brodin placed his paw on the creature. The others, as if sensing something different, inched as close to him as their chains would allow.
“One at a time, Jace,” I said. “Start with Brodin’s.” My gaze met his. “Take yours then come back for the others.”
Did we have time to do this before Bixby stormed into the room? No clue, but I wasn’t giving up before trying.
“Jace? Three…two…one.”
We shot our magic at the dragon’s chain, and it melted. Yes!
Brodin grabbed his dragon carefully in his teeth. Running to the window openings, he leapt out.
We followed in a rush, in time to see him disappear before he hit the ground.
“What happened?” Jacey asked.
I explained about the mirror and the parallel world.
“You think Brodin is there with his dragon?”
“We’ll know in a second.”
Thuds on the stairs announced someone’s arrival, and the Eerie reappeared. He roared, and I read joy in the sound.
“Ready for another, Jace?” I asked, and she nodded. We sent our magic to Kylie’s dragon, and the chain also melted.
The process was repeated until only one dragon remained: mine.
A sound behind me sent me spinning to the door.
It banged open, and Bixby stormed into the room.
Chapter Eleven
“Where are my dragons?” Bixby shrieked as her slimy brother, Duvoe, slunk into the room behind her. He leaned against the wall and watched, an evil smile on his face. He was always with her, probably providing her back-up. Just because he didn’t involve himself in her actions didn’t mean he wasn’t complicit. He knew what she did, how she savored hurting others. He condoned her behavior every time he chose not to step forward and tell her to stop.
Wicked Rebellion (Darkwater Reformatory Book 3) Page 8