A Faerie's Curse (Creepy Hollow #6) (8 page)

At least you still have the ring.

Yes. If she saw it, she thought nothing of it.

I wonder why she came to you now. I wonder if she's …
Visions of all the terrible things the queen might have in store for Chase race through my mind. I try to stop my thoughts before he can hear them, but they're at the surface already.
What if we're too late? What if she's planning to do something to you now before the party, and we—Stop. No. I'm sorry.
I shake my head and press my hands against my forehead.
I'm sorry. I should be filling your head with positive thoughts, not negative ones. We'll make this work. We'll get you out of there. There is no alternative because you mean far too much to me and I can't consider a future without you.
I take a deep breath and force my thoughts to STOP before they can run any further. Before I can overwhelm Chase with just how much I feel for him. We can talk about all that once he's safely back home. We can speak about those final moments in the golden river. Those moments when I bared my heart to him beneath a shower of magic-infused droplets before a whirlpool plunged us into a cold reality where everything went wrong.

How?
Chase asks after several moments of silence.
How did you manage to look past every horrific thing I've ever done and see the person I wish I could be?

Or we could talk about it now instead. My heart squeezes and jumps a little faster, preparing to share its innermost thoughts.
Because you are that person now
, I tell him.
It isn't just a wish. Your past has made you what you are, and my heart chose that person. My heart chose all of you.

Miss Goldilocks
… His voice is a whisper in my mind.
My dreams should be filled with the horror of this place. The perpetual darkness, the echoing screams, the metallic scrape of chains on stone. But instead I dream of kissing you.

A shiver runs down my arms, and I wish so badly to have him next to me that it hurts. I feel my face scrunch up as I force the ache away and choose positive thoughts instead.
I have to say, that sounds like the more pleasant option, as far as dreams go.

It is
, he says.
I keep reminding myself that they won't have to be dreams for much longer.

Warmth spreads up my neck toward my face.
I like the sound of that.

I sleepily restart my painting, making the sky orange this time, before Chase says,
Has Gaius done anything more with regards to keeping the prophecy from taking place?

The orange drifts away, mingling with the rain before disappearing.
Not much. Our focus is on getting you out of the Seelie Palace at the moment.

While I'm grateful for that, you should probably be putting more energy into finding out what Angelica is up to. She won't be wasting her time now that she's free.

Probably not.
A chill breeze lifts my hair. I huddle further down into the blanket.
I keep coming back to
why
, though. Why does she want the veil to come down? What would be the point in having no barrier between the magic and non-magic worlds? I still can't even imagine what that looks like. I know there are several places in the world where there are … openings of some kind. Where fae can cross over from our realm into theirs and back again. But this is different, right? If the veil is gone … will we be left with only one realm?

I don't know what will happen
, Chase says,
but I think I understand Angelica's motivation. Ignored since the day she was born, the youngest child of a queen with no time for anyone but her heir, Angelica has always wanted power and attention. She was told she was a waste of royal blood, and she's been trying to prove everyone wrong ever since. She began hunting down griffin discs while she was still a guardian trainee. She was the one who eventually found the chest containing Tharros Mizreth's power. I consumed that power in the end, and she pretended to be satisfied when I ruled over everything, but she wasn't. She would rather it have been her in the position of power than her son. Now, with her mother back on the Seelie throne, she has the opportunity to tear through to another world and rule that one instead. I believe that's her plan.

I lean my head back against the door.
And Amon? Why would he want this to happen? He seemed so quiet and unassuming. If he had ambitions of power, why did he spend so many years as a librarian?

Amon … That's a more difficult one to answer. I'm not sure I've figured it out yet. I started gathering notes on him after I realized what kind of visitors he was receiving at Velazar. That information is all at the mountain now, if you'd like to read through it. Look in my room in one of the desk drawers. You'll find a stack of papers tied together. My notes on both Amon and Angelica.

Thanks, I'll definitely
—My thoughts screech to a halt as I feel the thud of footsteps moving through the house. I straighten.

Calla?
Chase asks.

Hang on.
I imagine myself as empty space as I climb quickly to my feet and move to one of the windows. Peeking through, I see a figure by the faerie door. A figure turning slightly, reaching into his pocket … I breathe a sigh of relief as I recognize him.
It's just Kobe
, I tell Chase as I let go of my illusion and open the door. “Kobe?”

He tenses as he spins around. “Oh, it's you, Calla.” His shoulders relax.

“What are you doing here so early? Is something wrong?”

“Yes,” he says gravely. “I just heard from our mer contact. The Monument to the First Mer King is gone.”

C
HAPTER

E
IGHT

“How the hell did somebody steal that thing?” Darius asks. “It was protected by both magic and merpeople.”

“No doubt it was stolen with magic too,” Gaius mutters as he paces the living room. It's early Thursday morning and the rest of the team—several of whom appear to be half-asleep still—is now present after being alerted to the situation by Kobe.

“Angelica's obviously behind this,” I say, crossing the room to the fireplace and holding my hands toward its warmth. “She's probably aiming for the next full moon.”

“Which is a week and a half away,” Gaius says, “giving us little time after rescuing Chase to stop her.”

“We need to inform the Guild,” Lumethon says. “An anonymous message. I can send it now.”

“The Guild already knows,” Kobe says. “My contact mentioned that several of their guardians were involved in protecting the statue.”

“That makes sense,” I say. “The Guild knows all about the prophecy now because of my mother. They also know that the reason she was abducted was because someone wanted to find out exactly what she Saw. She told them she believed it to be Amon, since he was the one who witnessed my mother and the other two Seer trainees when the visions struck them all those years ago. I don't know if they believe her about that, but at least they know that
someone
is trying to tear through the veil.”

“Do we even need to do anything about this then?” Ana asks through another yawn. “There are hundreds, if not thousands, of guardians who can hunt down the person doing this—Angelica, obviously—and stop her. They don't need us to get involved. In fact, we probably shouldn't. We're criminals in the eyes of the Guild.”

Darius points a skeptical look in her direction. “Do you really think those guardians are smart enough to figure out where Angelica has taken this statue?”

“Hey, guardians are not useless,” I tell him. “Most of them are actually very good at what they do.”

“Uh huh. Is that why we end up dumping law-breaking fae on their doorstep? Because
they're
the ones doing their job?”

“Don't exaggerate,” Lumethon says. “We hardly ever need to do that.”

“Our priority is still to rescue Chase,” Gaius says, “given that the party is happening before the full moon. As Ana pointed out, we may not even need to get involved in this prophecy thing. We can reevaluate once we've got Chase back.”

“Which will leave us only two days before the full moon,” Kobe reminds him.

“Yes, but we've prepared for missions in far less time than that. It'll be fine.”

“So … can we have breakfast now?” Ana asks. “Or do I need to return home to get some food before I go to work?”

“No, no, there's plenty of food here,” Gaius says, waving everyone toward the door. “Let's cook something up.”

As the rest of the team traipses out of the living room, Gaius motions for me to stay behind. “Next time you sneak into the Guild,” he says, “or perhaps tomorrow night when you're at your brother's home, see if you can find out what the Guild knows about the monument. If they manage to locate its whereabouts, that would be useful for us to know, just in case we need to act.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Oh, and I almost forgot,” he adds brightly. “I found that faerie paths spell.”

* * *

The spell that will allow me to follow Vi's father Kale through the faerie paths without touching him is a tongue twister of note. I understand now why they don't teach it in schools, since getting it wrong means potentially wandering the darkness of the faerie paths for days, weeks or even more. People have come out crazy on the other side, Gaius tells me, while others have never come out at all.

Wonderful. And now I have less than two days to perfect it.

After trying for almost three hours to memorize the spell perfectly, I decide it's time for a break. Remembering what Chase told me about his notes on Amon, I leave my room and walk to Chase's to find the stack of papers. After retrieving them from a drawer, I climb the stairs up to the greenhouse on the next level. It's raining at the lake house, so this giant room with its enchanted sunlight filtering through the enchanted glass ceiling is the next best option.

I find a rusted old chair and table on the far side of the greenhouse and transform one of the dirty, flat cushions Gaius likes to kneel on into something cleaner and puffier. Then I sit, raise my legs onto the table, and lean back to read about the guy who seems so intent on somehow joining our world with the human one.

According to Chase's notes—which I spend a few moments running my fingers across, memorizing his handwriting before reading the actual words—Amon grew up in the Mitallahn Desert. He was studious, enjoyed reading and learning, and his family was very wealthy. His father owned vast amounts of desert land and kept—
human
slaves? I bring the page closer to my face to make sure I'm deciphering Chase's handwriting properly. Yes, that definitely says ‘human slaves.' Wow, I thought many centuries had passed since anyone did that. Amon lived an easy, comfortable life with his family in the desert until his abrupt, unplanned departure some time in his twenties. Beside this note, Chase has written ‘WHY' followed by numerous question marks. I lower the page as I think. Perhaps Amon was opposed to the idea of enslaving humans, which is why he ended up working at a Guild, an institution that protects them. But why did he then become a spy for Zell, an Unseelie Prince who didn't care about humans in the least?

I continue reading. The next few pages are filled with Amon's travels and activities before he began working at a Guild—before he ran out of money, essentially. He started out as a library assistant and advanced to the position of Head Librarian after three years. Chase mentions the unexplained death of the previous Head Librarian with the note, ‘Suspicious.' Clearly no one in Creepy Hollow suspected Amon, though, since they promoted him and even sent him to other Guilds on occasion to share his knowledge and skills. One such work transfer took place at the Estra Guild. I check the date, count back to the year Mom must have been a first-year Seer trainee, and find that the years match. That must have been where Amon witnessed Mom Seeing her horrible vision.

The next pages contain answers based on Elizabeth's questioning of several Unseelie Court faeries. Presumably Chase didn't question them because they would have recognized him. They were able to tell Elizabeth the approximate year Amon began working for Prince Zell, and the kinds of information Amon passed on to him. Turns out Amon had some kind of helper spy within the Guild. A creeping vine of magical intelligence named Nigel. I squint at the page. “Seriously?” I murmur. “He named a
vine
?”

I move to the last page about Amon, where Chase's final note reads, ‘Happy to follow others. Never shown much inclination for power. Why now?' Why now, indeed. Perhaps Amon simply got tired of never being at the top.

The next page begins Chase's notes on Angelica. I've just begun skimming through the details, most of which I know already, when Gaius enters the greenhouse. He walks over and hands me a piece of paper with the words to a short spell written on it. “Do me a favor, would you? Write these words somewhere on your body—anywhere, it doesn't matter—and let me know if you can hear me speaking while I'm in another room.”

“Uh, sure.” I find my stylus amongst the pages on the table and write the words on my arm. Gaius then takes his own stylus and adds a small mark next to the last word. “What's that for?” I ask.

“That tells the spell to listen for my voice as opposed to anyone else's.” He writes the same spell the back of his hand, then asks me to add a mark at the end with my own stylus.

“Perfect.” He hurries away. I stand and stretch my arms above my head, then lean down to touch my toes. I need to make use of the gym room downstairs. With my illusion training and phobia desensitization, I've been spending less time on physical training than I—

“Calla, can you hear me?”

I startle at the sound of Gaius's words in my ears. I was expecting to hear him in the same way I hear Chase—silent thoughts inside my own mind—but his words are somehow audible. “Yes, I can,” I say out loud. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes. Wonderful. Okay, experiment over.” He hurries back into the greenhouse and shows me how to remove the spell from my arm. “You can get back to work now.”

I read the remaining notes—which detail just how ambitious Angelica's always been in her search for power—before returning my efforts to memorizing the faerie paths spell. I repeat it over and over as I walk in and out of the various parts of the mountain. The kitchen and the living room, the storage room full of old furniture, broken weapons and other bits and pieces, the meeting room downstairs, Gaius's laboratory upstairs.

After another few hours, as afternoon draws to a close, I walk into Gaius's study, hold the book behind my back, and recite it for him. “Very good,” he says when I'm done. “Almost perfect. There was some hesitation here and there, which you should try to avoid, and a few words that you didn't pronounce correctly.” He takes the book from me and points out the words I mispronounced. He enunciates them slowly, making me repeat each one until I've got them right.

“Have you used the spell before?” I ask.

“A handful of times, long ago. That's how I know the pronunciation.”

“Did you ever get stuck inside the paths?”

“Fortunately not. And you won't either.” He gives me an encouraging smile.

“Why do I have to memorize it? Since I'll be invisible, can't I simply read it quietly as I follow Vi's dad into the paths?”

“Hmm.” Gaius looks thoughtful, as though he hadn't considered this before. “Yes, I suppose you could just read it. But if you're invisible, won't the book be invisible too? And if you're ever in a situation where you don't have the words with you, then it would, of course, be helpful if you've already memorized them.”

“I suppose so.”

“Either way,” he says as he returns his attention to the scroll he was writing on when I entered, “it will be good for your young brain to practice a memory exercise.”

I raise an eyebrow. “My young brain?”

He looks up again. “Sorry, that sounded a little patronizing, didn't it?”

“Just a little bit. But I guess my brain is a lot younger than yours. And most of the time you treat me like an adult, so … thanks for that. My parents and brother still think of me as a child most of the time, so it's refreshing to be treated differently.”

Gaius raises both eyebrows. “Like a child? But your parents and brother know better than anyone the things you've been through since you were taken by Prince Marzell. And the burden of your Griffin Ability and having to start over again after every … what did you say your mother called them? Incidents?” I nod. “Given all that,” Gaius continues, “I would have thought your family would understand that … well, you probably stopped being a child a long time ago.”

I nod slowly. “Yeah. It has always felt a bit like that.” But since there's no point in dwelling on the fact that I missed out on a normal childhood, I push my momentary sadness aside and get back to practicing the words of the spell.

Ana joins us for dinner again, and after we've eaten, Gaius reminds me that I've done no illusion training today. We work on distance first, pushing the limits of how far I can send out a projection. When Gaius and I tried it the first time, I was able to stand in the living room and project all the way up to the greenhouse and down to the gargoyle cave. Since then, I've managed to push a little further each time.

We leave the mountain and go to the lake house. The rain has ceased, but it's utterly dark now, with clouds blotting out the starlight. Gaius and Ana walk around the lake, using magic to light their way. Once they become tiny dots in the distance, I force my thoughts out toward them. Images of snowflakes falling and ice-skating humans twirling upon a frozen lake.

When I begin to feel drained, we head home. I assume I'm done for the night, but Gaius suggests I try simultaneous illusions again. I sit in the living room and try with every particle of my concentration to direct one imaginary picture at Gaius and another at Ana, but it's like splitting my mind in half. I just
can't
imagine two separate scenes at the same time. Either Gaius and Ana end up seeing the same thing, or they see something different, but the images are so unclear that neither of them can figure out what I'm trying to show them.