Traitor (Creepy Hollow, #3) (2 page)

I’ve just stuffed my amber back into my pocket when the air nearby ripples and a doorway appears. Thorton, a tall faerie with purple and black hair very similar to my own, steps out. “Hey,” he says. “Tough evening?”

“
I’ve had better.” I stand up and brush bits of leaves off the back of my pants. “Thanks for getting here so quickly.”

He nods. “So where’s this goblin?” I point behind him. He turns to look at the large, hairy body with the glittering sword protruding from its chest. “Okay. Well, I’ll take care of it from here.” He looks back at me. “You can go and, uh, clean up.”

I look down at myself.
My black top is wet with goblin’s blood.

Great.

*

An hour later I
step out of the air and onto Nate’s window seat. I went home, cleaned up, and thought about trying to sleep, but the dead goblin I kept seeing every time I closed my eyes put an end to that plan. A distraction is what I need.

The television is
turned down low, and Nate is sitting on one of his couches. He has a notebook on his lap and a textbook open on the cushion beside him. He doesn’t seem to be looking at either, though. He’s staring straight ahead, but not really
at
the TV. More like through it. Almost like the way the goblin’s eyes stared through me after it took its last breath. A shiver raises the hairs on my arms.

I
lift my hand and knock on the wooden frame of Nate’s window. He blinks and turns toward the sound. “Hey,” he says, a smile stretching almost to his eyes. “I thought you were busy tonight.”

I hesitate. When I left here yesterday we’d had a big argument about the eye-shaped tattoo that appeared on Nate’s lower back during his disappearance in the labyrinth.
Apparently he isn’t interested in finding out how it got there, despite the fact that malicious magic could be involved. I wonder now if I should bring it up. Should I apologize for snapping at him? Ask if the tattoo is still there?

No. One fight is enough for tonight.

“
All done,” I say, walking over to the couch. I sit down and tuck my legs beneath me. For a moment I consider telling Nate that I killed someone tonight, but I’d rather forget about it. “It was a goblin. I got rid of him.”

Nate smiles
and puts an arm around my shoulder, drawing me closer. “Of course you did. Did you knock him out, like that troll in the labyrinth?”

“No, we don’t stun while fighting, remember? Takes too much time to draw all that power.”

“
I’ve been thinking about
that, actually,” says Nate, leaning forward to reach the TV remote. He clicks a button, and the low hum of voices turns to silence. “If you usually arrive before whatever creature is coming, then why don’t you use that time to gather enough power to stun the creature the moment it appears?”

“
Because I might miss. Then I’ll have depleted a whole lot of my power and I’ll still have to fight the creature off.”

“
You? Miss a target?” asks Nate, and for a moment the twinkle is back in his eyes. “Never.”

“
It’s been known to happen,” I admit. “On the very rare occasion.” I push the notebook off his lap so I can snuggle closer to him without getting poked in the side.

Nate is silent for so long that I begin to feel awkward. Then he says, “You haven’t told your mentor what I am, have you? That I’m . . . a halfling.”

I
slip my fingers between his and shake my head. “That would mean admitting that I lied to her and continued breaking Guild Law by seeing you. I mean, technically I
wasn’t
breaking the Law, but I didn’t know that at the time.” Nate says nothing. I draw back, searching his face, trying to figure out if he’s upset that I haven’t told anyone about him. “And aside from that,” I add, feeling the need to explain further, “it’s not really in your best interests for the Guild to know what you are. They’re wary of halflings, so they’d be monitoring you closely if they knew you’re one.”

Nate looks down at our intertwined hands.
“Even though I have no magic?”

I nod.
“Yup.” I wait for him to say something, but he continues staring at our hands. Well, this is fantastic. What happened to the carefree, talkative guy I met only a few weeks ago? Now I’m stuck being the one trying to keep the conversation rolling, which is probably number two on the list of things I’m not good at.

I grasp at the only other thing I can think of.
“So . . . the tattoo of the eye—”

“
Is still there,” Nate says, his tone indicating that the strange mark still isn’t up for discussion.

“
Okay.” I remind myself that I don’t want another argument. “Then have you remembered anything from when you disappeared?”

He releases my hand and looks toward the window. “No, nothing.”

But there’s something strange about the way he says it. “Nate?” I reach out and turn his face toward me. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“
Nothing,” he says quickly. “It’s just . . .” He traces a zigzag pattern up the laces of my boot. “I’ve been having nightmares. It’s stupid. Embarrassing. I can’t even really remember what happens in them. Just a lot of running, I think.”

“
Well, you’re good at running.” I nod my head toward the running shoes by the door. Nate tries to smile at my pathetic attempt to introduce humor into the conversation. I know he’s faking it.

Ugh, I am
so
bad at this
.

“
Okay, look. I feel like I should apologize for agreeing to find your mother for you. I mean, I know you
really wanted to, but I should have said no. Then we wouldn’t have had to go through that horrible labyrinth, you’d never have disappeared, the tattoo thing wouldn’t have happened, and there’d be none of this weirdness between—” I stop. Nate is shaking his head, his eyes wide. “What? Nate, what’s wrong?”

“
You don’t need to say anything, Vi, you just—” He closes his eyes, sighs, and hangs his head. “You don’t need to be sorry,” he whispers.

“
Hey, are you okay?” He seems strangely upset considering all I did was apologize.

“
Yeah, I’m fine.” He pulls me into a hug and kisses the top of my head. “Let’s just forget about everything that happened and move on, okay?”

“But—”

“
And Vi?” He pulls away so that he can look me in the eye. “You know I’d do anything for you, right?”

“Um, yeah.” I’m starting to get a little freaked out now.

“
I mean, no matter what happens, you won’t forget that I lo—that I really care about you?”

Whoa, hang on. HANG ON. Did he almost just use the L-word?
“Um—I—what do you mean ‘no matter what happens’?” I try to distract myself from the scary, half-spoken word that now hangs in the air between us. My heart pounds out a nervous rhythm. “What are you talking about?”

“
I don’t know.” Nate pushes his hair off his forehead. “Like . . . what if my mother found a way out of that labyrinth and came after us?”

“
She seemed pretty trapped to me.”
And what does that have to do with you thinking you
love
me?

Nate wraps his arms around me once more. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“I’m always—” I stop, sensing something unexpected. A surge of power that isn’t my own. I tear free of Nate’s embrace and jump to my feet.

“Vi, what—”

“Who’s there?” I demand, my head whipping around as I search the room. Nothing moves aside from the silent figures on the television screen. I stride over to the bathroom and push the door open. Nothing in there either.

“Did you hear something?” Nate asks.

“
No, I
felt
something. A power of some kind.” I kneel down and look under the bed. It’s surprisingly clean, but there’s no one there.

Nate stands.
“The house is protected, isn’t it? Didn’t Flint put spells around it?”

“
Yes.” Slowly, I wander back to Nate’s side. “Maybe it’s . . .” I look down to where I know the eye tattoo is hidden beneath Nate’s T-shirt. Well, if that’s the source of the power, he certainly won’t want to know about it.

“Can you feel where it’s coming from?” asks Nate.

I shake my head. “It’s gone. It was suddenly there, and now . . . it’s not.”

“That’s weird.” He runs both hands through his hair, avoiding my gaze. Perhaps he knows what I’m thinking.

“
Yeah.” I’m not sure what else to say. “Well, I should go. I’m really tired.” And if we get back on that couch he might start flinging the L-word around again, which, at this point, seems a whole lot scarier to me than a mysterious presence in Nate’s bedroom.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

I
draw my legs closer to my body, pulling my feet out of the way of the two dwarves rushing down the corridor. I don’t know what’s got them in such a hurry so early in the morning—the dwarves around here generally like to take their time—but it’s obviously important. I stretch my legs out again once they’ve passed and lean my head back against Tora’s office door. So much for counseling and a report back. I’ve been waiting here at least twenty minutes and Tora hasn’t shown up yet.

I stand
and pull my bag onto my shoulder. I may as well get down to the Training Center instead of wasting time on a cold, hard floor. I jump over the stray vine busy sneaking its way toward the other end of the corridor and head downstairs. As always, I glance up at the domed ceiling as I cross the foyer. The swirling cloud of protective enchantments is still of the purple-grey-blue family. Ever since Flint told me they would change color if the Guild were under attack, I’ve felt the need to keep checking them. Just in case.

I’ve
almost reached the other side of the foyer when I hear an all-too-familiar voice whining nearby. “But you
know
me. You see me every day.” I slow down and look over at the entrance. Ryn is arguing with Basil, the day guard.

“
You know the rules,” says
Basil. He crosses his arms and looks down at Ryn. As one of the few people taller than my obnoxious classmate, Basil manages this quite effectively. “Find your trainee pendant. Then I’ll let you in.”

I turn and continue on my way, not bothering to suppress a smile as Ryn groans in frustration. I pass the dining hall—which smells so good I want to stop and have another breakfast—and several empty lesson rooms before I reach my favorite place in the Guild: the Training Center. It’s a massive hall with various areas set up for different kinds of training. Target practice includes shooting arrows, throwing knives and aiming blasts of magic. Trees, ropes, nets, a rock wall and a brick wall are clustered together in the section for climbing practice. Bars of different levels are set up in another area, and large mats meant for anything from stretching to sword fighting are strewn around the place.

I wander over to the trainee notice boards
to check my schedule for the day. Finding the list of fifth years, I scan down it until I spot my name. Whoever organized the schedules has divided my morning into Running, Fish Bowl (Opponent: Honey), Target, and Climbing. I look up at the enchanted clock face painted onto the ceiling. Ten minutes early, but I may as well get started.

I head toward the running
rectangles, passing two fellow fifth years sitting on a mat. They reach forward to touch their toes. I quicken my step. Aria and Jasmine have perfected the combined art of stretching and gossiping, and I’d rather not hear anything they have to say. Especially if it’s about me.

I dump my bag
beside the nearest running rectangle, sit down, and change my shoes. I’m already wearing clothes suitable for training. I remove my sound drops—circular shapes smaller than a coin—from a side pocket and stick one to each temple. With a wave of my hand, music blasts through my ears, drowning out all other sound. I step onto the darkened rectangle of floor, barely concentrating as I whisper the spell in my head. The floor slides away beneath my feet. I settle into a comfortable jog, matching my pace to the beat of the music.