Reflection Pond (2 page)

Ass.

She lifted her arms to shove the guys away and make a run for it—to where, she didn’t know—but Rowan caught her wrists.

“Don’t bother. Ash—
get the rope.”

Callie couldn’t tell if he was joking. Fear stabbed at her throat.

“For the love—. Row, shut up.” Ash tried to pry Rowan’s hands off, but he held tight.

“Let me go.” Callie jabbed her elbow at his face and missed by a lot. Being a foster for most of her life had given her street smarts, but Callie didn’t know the first thing about fighting, unless she counted evading Nate’s advances, which she didn’t. Callie didn’t count on Nate for much. Rowan’s fingers tightened on the soft inside of her wrist and she flinched, not because it hurt, but because it tingled, as if it’d fallen asleep.

“Be nice,” Ash said, knocking Rowan’s hand away. “It’s okay.” He smiled and presented his arm again like a father waiting to accompany his daughter down the aisle.

The gesture made Callie slightly nauseous. She rubbed her wrist. Her fear gave way to annoyance. Maybe this Hazel person could get her back…
up?
She had to get out of this room. If there was one thing Callie couldn’t stand, it was being trapped, caged in like an animal, held down. She needed doors. She needed windows. She needed a sky above her.

“And I can’t leave until I meet Hazel?” she asked. Her instincts said to humor them until she could escape.

“You can’t leave,” Rowan said.
“Ever.”
A slow, irritating smile spread across his mouth.

“If you don’t shut up, I’m going to set you on fire,” Ash said, but he was smiling at the other boy. Maybe here, under the pond, setting people on fire was a normal thing to do.

“Hazel will help you,” Ash said to Callie. “Besides, it’s not like we can just throw you up through the pond.” He made a dismissive gesture as if it was a ridiculous notion.

“You can leave if you die,” Rowan said thoughtfully.

“Fire,”
Ash reminded.

Rowan made a gesture that said
lead the way.

“Fine,” Callie conceded, looping her arm through Ash’s, cringing once again at the strange sensation she got when they touched her. “Take me to Hazel.”
Get me out of this room.

Ash beamed and pulled her toward the wall. Rowan trailed behind, muttering something about the “
idiocy of mere mortals.”

“Wait,” she said as Ash tried to drag her into the stone
, “that’s a
rock
wall.” The room had no exits, no doors, not even a hole large enough to crawl through.

Rowan snickered. “Well, of course it is.” He gave her a hard shove and she shut her eyes as her face careened toward the stone, knowing that she’d made a terrible mistake.

***

Rowan watched the girl disappear and tried to ignore the tightness in his chest.

It wasn’t because she was pretty—of course she was, beauty was a given in
Eirensae.
Sometimes he longed for the diversity of the human world, where no one was glamoured to perfection. He wanted scars to map out a history that actually meant
something. Flawlessness turned his stomach.

The humid, overheated air shifted as he stepped through the portal and into the common space of the tunnels, turning cooler, though the suffocating scent of flowers remained. He supposed he should enjoy the scent, associate it with home, but
home
was an elusive word.

The city was beautiful. Rowan had never gotten used to it. He’d thought that over time the magnificence would grow on him and one day he’d wake up and think,
Oh, I fit here.

In a couple months, it’d be two years since he’d crossed the portal into the city, and it still felt just as foreign as the first day. Besides, beauty was fragile. Take the blooms that dripped from every surface here, easily plucked. Rowan was fire and
Eirensae
was a flower. No good could come of that combination.

The girl’s arched mouth fell into a gasp as she looked up at the glamoured ceiling. A blond cascade of hair skimmed over her shoulders as she leaned farther backwards, trying to take it all in.

Rowan didn’t believe a single word that came out of her mouth.
He
couldn’t lie, but he didn’t think she was like him. It didn’t matter if she looked like Sapphire. Lots of girls had blond hair and blue eyes. Lots of girls were beautiful. It didn’t mean she belonged here. No one
fell
through the pond by accident.

Tearing his gaze from the curve of her throat, Rowan tried to scrape away the cynicism and see the room through new eyes. The walls were similar to those in the antechamber, made of solid, knobby gray rock. Deep green vines snaked across them, weaving in and out of each other, sometimes creating great leaves as long as his legs. Flowers of every shape and color dripped in a kaleidoscope, their petals huge,
each color brighter and more impossible than the last. Rowan curled his toes against the cool, compressed dirt floor and glanced up.

Millions of stars dotted what should’ve been a stone ceiling. It was vast and velvet, the sky over an ocean, away from lights and people, and as magical as it was fake. The glamour was lovely but not as impressive to those who knew its true form. Rowan focused on the sky until it dissolved into the rock ceiling underneath. The presence of the ordinary stone satisfied him for some reason and he let the glamoured night sky slide back into place.

Ash tugged on the girl’s arm.

“That’s impossible,” she murmured transfixed, eyes wide.

A cluster of shooting stars flashed across the darkness, brightening the room for a few seconds. They fizzled on the opposite end, just above the tunnel that lead to the library, Rowan’s favorite place in
Eirensae.
Even now—
especially
now—Rowan longed to hide in the books, devour the information, immerse himself in the one thing that had never let him down.

“Stop showing off,” he said, fighting the urge to scowl at Ash. He pushed around them and entered the far passageway that led to Hazel’s hideaway, anxious to get rid of the girl and spend the afternoon with his quarterstaff, beating the hell out of something.

“You’ll soon learn that nothing is impossible here,” Ash said, voice skipping through the tunnels.

Rowan quickened his steps, not caring whether they followed or not.

***

“What have you brought me?” Hazel asked Rowan, turning her violet gaze on the girl, who fidgeted from one foot to the other and crossed her arms.

Though she was the leader of the city, Hazel was a small, compact woman, with long, wavy hair the color of copper. Her arms and legs were bare and milky pale as though she’d never seen the sun. She lazed on a mound of turquoise pillows suspended on a lush dais over a small koi pond. Hazel trailed her fingers through the water and lifted one eyebrow.

“She fell through the pond,” Rowan said, bored. He picked at his fingernails and evaded Hazel’s eyes. He’d never trusted her much and she’d never done anything to make him feel otherwise. If anything, she went out of her way to avoid him.

“Fell?” Hazel’s eyebrow rose higher, interested now.

“She’s one of us, isn’t she?” Ash said, excited. “She couldn’t have come through the—”

Hazel held up a hand and Ash’s mouth snapped shut.

“Why are you here?” Hazel’s words weren’t angry, but commanding, as though choosing silence could never be an option.

The girl spoke immediately. “I don’t know.”

“Hmm,” Hazel said, swirling her index finger through the water again. “Come here.”

She seemed to move on autopilot, stumbling toward Hazel with an unwilling gait. She glanced over her shoulder at Rowan and Ash, gaze pleading, before turning back to Hazel.

When Hazel sat up, long strands of her hair slid off the dais and fell into the water. They floated like fiery snakes. Rowan liked the comparison; Hazel was a bit like Medusa. He tilted his head, considering.

“Give me your hands,” Hazel ordered.

A test, to see if the girl was one of them.
Rowan didn’t want to think it possible.

Heavy stillness settled over the room—even Rowan held his breath. The girl pushed her hands, palms up, toward Hazel; her fingers shook. Hazel lifted her hands, contemplating, before lowering them.

The room dimmed when their skin touched, the orbs losing power. Rowan cursed. He knew what the girl was experiencing, the heightened senses, a sizzling rush of pure power.

Hazel pulled her hands away, and as though a switch had flipped, the orbs brightened.

The girl was breathing hard and pressed her hands to her chest. “What
was
that?”

“That’s what I’d like to know,” Rowan said, reexamining her. She looked ordinary, like any other human, but the display of power said otherwise. The knowledge was bitter on his tongue and felt like betrayal. How many more would return? How many more would prove Rowan a failure?

“Take her to the city. Prepare her for the welcome ceremony.” With that, Hazel settled back on the pillows and shut her eyes, as though bored with the new girl.

“What? No. I’m not staying here,” the girl protested.

Hazel remained silent, feigning sleep.

The girl’s voice gathered strength with every word. “Who are you? Where are we?” Then belatedly, when no one answered, “What’s a welcome ceremony?”

Rowan almost respected her courage. He’d known he was coming to the city, and he’d still been terrified.

Hazel lifted a dismissive hand and flicked it in their direction. She covered her face with her arm. Rowan wasted no time. He clamped a hand
on the girl’s shoulder and steered her away from Hazel. If she was staying, fine, he didn’t want to spend another second looking at her.

She yanked out of his grasp. “I’m not going with you. What
was
that? What’s happening? Who are you?” Her small hands curled into fists.

He hoped she would try to hit him. He liked a challenge.

Rowan narrowed his eyes until they were nothing more than furious slashes. “We already explained this to you. I’m Rowan. That’s Ash. What more do you need to know?”

“Um, I have a list of questions. Where should I start? How about take me back?” she demanded.

“No.”

“Take.
Me. Back.”

“No.” Rowan gritted his teeth.

“Rowan,” Ash chastised. He held out his arm again. “It’ll be easier for everyone if you just do what Hazel wants.”
Trust me,
he mouthed.

“Screw you!” The tiny ball of her right fist barreled toward Ash but Rowan stepped forward and took the weak brunt of her punch in his shoulder.

“That’s all you got? Oh, come on!” Rowan encircled her upper arm with his fingers. “My grandmother hits harder than you.”

Ash chuckled.
“Your grandmother?”

“Figure of speech,” Rowan said, wrenching the girl toward the door.

“Let me go,” she screeched again, dragging her feet. Her heels skidded across the floor.

Rowan smiled, glad that she was angry. He didn’t want her here. She didn’t want to be here. Maybe if she were lucky, he’d help her back to the human world where she belonged. He pulled harder.

“Oh, Ash,” Hazel called, “make sure she chooses a suitable name as well.”

“What does that mean?” she demanded as they left the room, speaking through her teeth. She kept tossing angry glances at Rowan.

Her entire body vibrated beneath his fingers sending hot spikes of energy up his arm. He refused to believe she was fae, but damn, she was strong.

Ash led the way toward the portal to the city. “I’m sure your name is lovely, but we all choose other names here. It protects us.”

She stopped. Rowan crashed into her and swore.

“Us?
What do you mean by
us?”
she asked.

“What do you mean by us?”
Rowan mocked, feeling resentment burn in his gut.

She whirled out of his grasp and stuck her face close to his. He took a surprised step back. Their bodies were inches apart. Her fingers quaked like leaves in a windstorm.

Go ahead, hit me,
he thought.

“I don’t like this any more than you do,” she said. Her sweet scented breath clouded Rowan’s face. “I have no idea what’s going on here, and frankly, I’m kind of freaking out. So if you’re going to be an ass, why don’t you just shut up?”

Rowan’s eyes widened and his mouth opened and shut like a fish. “Fine.” Without looking at Ash, Rowan stalked off in the direction they’d come, seething.

***

“Good riddance,” Callie muttered, relieved now that he was gone. If Ash and Hazel unnerved her with their cryptic speeches, Rowan downright unraveled her. She didn’t think she’d ever met someone who she disliked so much so immediately.