Atone: A Fairytale (Fairytale Trilogy) (13 page)

He’d told her, briefly, about his relationship with his parents. He’d confided in her, and Becca felt suddenly like she should reciprocate. That she wanted to share that piece of herself with him. That maybe he would understand, or at least he’d know that she kind of understood. But for some reason uncertainty flooded her.

“It’s almost morning,” she said.

He nodded.

“Do you ever sleep?”

“Not much.”

“I’ve been having a hard time sleeping too,” she admitted. “Weird dreams.”

She turned back to the window again. Somewhere—actually several somewheres—out in that mass of lights was her family. Parents and brothers and grandparents and a whole collection of aunts, uncles, and cousins. Even a few ex-stepfamilies that still sent Christmas cards.

“My parents got divorced when I was seven.” She could feel Nicholas turn his head to look at her, but she kept her eyes trained on the mass of lights below them. It felt like they were inside a bubble, floating above the city—like no one could touch them or see them—and they could just observe the world, separate and apart from it.

“My dad married his secretary something like four weeks after the divorce was final. I was a flower girl. For his next wedding I was old enough to decline being a bridesmaid. I still had to wear a dress, though.” She smiled to herself as she remembered describing the dress-wearing experience as “horrifying” to Alex. “My mom, she married my youngest brother’s dad, but that didn’t last very long. After that she stopped marrying them.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I mean, both of the stepmoms have been really nice. The boyfriends, maybe not so much. The thing is, families are hard. It’s not always how you want it to be, or how it should be.” She finally looked over at him. He was staring at her with serious eyes. It was weird how comfortable she’d gotten with his size and features. It didn’t even startle her anymore.

“Yeah, families are hard.” he agreed. “But I’ve let mine be an excuse.” He turned back to the window.

Becca knew what she should say. She should tell him she accepted his apology, that she forgave him. But she wasn’t sure she knew how to say it. Every time her mind replayed his roughly whispered words, she felt like she was standing on the edge of something and she was afraid of the fall. Afraid of the hurt waiting at the bottom. So she’d said as much as she could manage and hoped he understood.

She got back up to her feet. “Goodnight, Nicholas,” she said softly.

“Goodnight.” It came out almost on a sigh.

Becca walked back toward her room, pausing to turn and look back at him silhouetted against the window and the outline of the city. She was glad she’d told him about her parents. She was always afraid that talking about it would open up all the old hurt, which is why she never did. But talking to him hadn’t hurt.

“Goodnight,” she said again. She wasn’t sure if she was talking to him, to the city, or to her family.

~ Chapter Nine ~

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
Becca went back to the mirror room. Nicholas wasn’t there, but she hadn’t expected him to be. She had made a promise to herself that she was going to stop worrying about Nicholas’s feelings and concern herself with the actual magic holding him as a beast. Of course, then she’d gone and spent more than twenty-four hours straight worrying about his feelings.

And feeling things she didn’t want to.

Becca shook her head.
Focus on the magic.

She stared at the mirror. The only explanation was that the curse was coming from the mirror itself. It wasn’t like Lilia’s bed, where the physical object had been made as part of the curse, or to hold the curse. In this case, whatever the spell was that was affecting Nicholas hadn’t been designed for him. It had already been housed in the mirror before he found it.

But why? What could the mirror’s purpose be? Did it have something to do with the reflections?

Standing in front of the mirror with Nicholas and seeing their reflection had made her distinctly uncomfortable. On multiple levels. She wasn’t sure if the mirror was showing things how they really were, how they could be, or if she and Nicholas had just seen what they believed to be true.

He believed he was a horrible beast doomed forever and growing more wretched by the minute.

She believed he still retained the essence of his humanity, maybe was even more human than he had been as a man.

She saw herself as a smart and resourceful, but otherwise pretty typical, twenty-year old who happened to have some access to fae magic.

He saw her as a magical goddess bathed in fiery purple magic.

You know, “to-may-to, to-mah-to,” and all that.

Becca narrowed her eyes at the mirror. It reflected the room, which looked completely normal. She could see just the edge of her reflection in one corner. She hadn’t turned its face back toward the window after the incident with the reflections.

Maybe they were just seeing what they wanted to see. He wanted to see her as some kind of savior, and she wanted to see him as savable.

Somehow that didn’t seem right either. Nicholas hadn’t seemed to even want to be saved. And if he’d had to pick a savior, she doubted it would have been her. Becca didn’t want to examine her wish to see him as savable too closely.

Maybe the mirror was showing them possibilities. Nicholas could be restored, or he could be condemned forever. She could access her magic further, or remain how she was.

Becca blew out a frustrated breath. But if that was it, why not just show them both the same possibilities? It was maddening. She supposed she could just ask it—wrap her hands around the golden claws and let her magic communicate with it. Alex had been able to do that with the enchantment that had held her and Luke, although she’d been in the Fae Realm at the time.

But there was no one here to help pull her out if things went wrong. The magic could prove to be too powerful for her to handle, like it had been that first time she’d tried to see an enchantment, and she’d almost gotten sucked into God knows where by Lilia’s mother’s crown.
That was years ago. I’m more in control of my power now.

Becca walked toward the mirror with determined steps. She was growing tired of all the non-action. What was it Lilia had said once? The best way to learn about magic was to challenge it? It was probably also the best way to get oneself killed by said magic, but why worry about minor details?

She stopped in front of the smooth glass, ignoring her reflection and concentrating instead on the shimmering spell she could see pulsing in and around the metal of the frame. She reached up and tentatively ran a finger over a golden claw. She could feel the low hum of the metal and the higher, more intense vibration of the spell.

Becca frowned.
Wait. Not just one spell.

She took a step back and examined the magic flowing through the frame. She could see now that there were two distinct spells, Yet they worked in concert with each other, twining and twisting together so tightly that she at first had seen it only as one.

Becca raised her hands again and tentatively laid them against the glass surface. It wasn’t cool and firm to her touch like she expected, but warm and oddly not solid feeling, almost like rubber or putty. She pushed a little and felt the glass begin to give way. Becca snatched back her hands, balling them into fists at her side as she stared into the mirror. Her own image stared back at her, the magic haze around her teeming with darker purple tinges.

The only way to master the magic was to challenge it.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

There had to be a million more clichés just like it, but as Becca walked slowly back to the doorway leading out to the hall, she couldn’t think of any. She turned and faced the mirror, taking a moment to let her mind go as blank as possible. She wanted to be open to the magic.

She let her thumb rest on the uneven surface of the gold in her ring, letting its power course through her mind and body. Then she took a deep breath and ran headlong toward the mirror.

She could see herself in the mirror as she ran toward it. Suddenly she could see Nicholas reflected in the mirror as well. His face—his human face—showed shock and surprise as he came through the door and saw her running toward the mirror. Her mind stuttered for a moment. Then she realized he was human only in the reflection only she could see. If she turned her head, he’d still be a beast.

He started forward, shouting something that sounded like her name, arms reaching toward her.

But it was too late, she was almost to the mirror. At the last moment she launched herself up toward it with as much force as she could muster. She hit the glass dead center.

It gave way.

As she went through the mirror she felt a pulling sensation against her skin. It felt cold—colder even then the air conditioned house. Suddenly the sensation ceased and she tumbled to the ground, rolling onto her knees on soft grass.

Her power flared to life in her chest, sparking with purple and gold fire. She fought for control over it, eventually pushing it back down to a manageable size. Everything around her was bright, so bright that she had to blink several times before her eyes could focus.

She was in a field that sloped gently down in front of her to a wood of mostly fir trees. The sun was high in a brilliant, cloudless sky. Becca struggled to her feet, wondering at the strange resistance her legs met. She stifled a laugh as she looked down. She’d forgotten that Alex had said that every time she went into the Fae Realm, she’d found herself wearing a long dress and no shoes.

Becca dug her bare toes into the warm grass of the field. She must have come through the mirror and into the Fae Realm. What did that make the mirror? A portal of some kind?

The whole no-shoes thing seems really stupid. Maybe fae just don’t wear them?

She’d hadn’t bothered to look at the three sisters’ feet when they’d appeared two years ago at the museum. But even more ridiculous than the bare feet was the dress. It was long, reaching almost to her ankles, and made of a soft wool. It wasn’t white, like Alex’s had been, but lilac. Becca realized she’d seen this color before on Lilia’s aunt Violet’s cloak. It made sense; they did share an emblem flower.

Becca could feel the magic pulsing underneath her feet. Alex had said it ran through the very dirt in the Fae Realm, as if the ground itself contained veins of magic. The field in front her was a lot like Alex had described as well; could she have gotten to the same place? Becca turned to look behind her and gasped.

No. Not the same place.

Directly behind her she could see the mirror; except it wasn’t really the mirror. It was the same size and even the same shape; she could see the oval face and the frame with its curving claws. But it wasn’t substantial. Instead of glass and gold, it was constructed entirely out of magic. She could see the spells more clearly because that was all there was to see. She was able to trace their lines as they intersected and wove together. And she could see that one spell created the body of the mirror—the portal, she reminded herself—and the other pulsed with a deep, firm magic which protected the first.

Becca saw and understood the spells in mere seconds. It was as if being here had opened her mind to the magic. But her attention wasn’t caught by the mirror spell but by the landscape behind it. On this side the field didn’t slope gently down to a forest. Instead it became rocky and hilly, slanting up into a sheer wall of rock. There were openings in the grayish-brown rock which must lead into caves. A steep line was cut into the surface of the rock, winding up to the top. A path.

Becca’s stomach tightened in apprehension. Who might be coming down a path like that? It didn’t look like anything a normal person could handle. But then she was in the Fae Realm, normal didn’t really apply here.

The other thing that unsettled her was that as she stood there in the field, she could feel the pulse of the magic changing as it ran under her bare feet. Closer to the woods it felt much like her own magic, just stronger and more raw. But if she took a step closer to the rock cliff in front of her the tenor of the magic changed. It was heavier, and yet somehow faster. It felt less like a steady stream and more like the quick, frantic heartbeat of a wild animal.

“You are not supposed to be here.”

Becca wanted to jump half a foot in the air in response to the disembodied male voice that floated out over the field from the rocky crags. She fought against the impulse, stiffening her back and remaining as still as possible.

“But I
am
here,” she called. “I just have a few questions; then I’ll leave.” She glanced at the mirror spell…at least she assumed she could leave when she wanted.

There was a flicker in the air a few feet in front of her. The air shimmered with golden energy and then resolved. A young man stood in front of her with his arms crossed over his broad chest and a disapproving look on his face.

Becca gasped in a breath. She’d seen the three sisters, and Briar Rose, and of course Lilia, even being only demi-fae was beautiful beyond mortal standards, so she should have been prepared for how attractive the owner of the voice would be. But she hadn’t been. While all of the women fae she’d seen had delicate features, this fae’s features were strong and overtly masculine. He had a broad forehead, partially obscured by the tawny colored hair that waved around his face and down almost to his shoulders. His deep set eyes were bright, almost the same color as his hair, but they had a sharp look that reminded Becca of something she couldn’t quite place. His full lips almost softened the squareness of his jaw. Almost, but not quite.