creepy hollow 05 - a faerie's revenge (16 page)

Voices surround me, hollow and distant. “It was never witchcraft or Unseelie magic. It was a Griffin Ability.”

“Why didn’t we figure this out sooner?”

“Her parents have obviously hidden it well.”

“And she hid it too, making this number one on her list of crimes against the Guild.”

“Miss Larkenwood.” Councilor Merrydale’s booming voice stands out amongst the rest. He rises to his feet, quickly hiding his confusion and disappointment beneath a hard exterior. “You’ve left us with no choice.” He meets the gazes of his fellow Councilors, who nod to him in confirmation. He looks at me once more, and where there was once warmth in his eyes, I see only a cold detachment. “You are expelled from the Guild of Guardians. And for the suspected murder of Saskia Starkweather, for aiding in the escape of a criminal, and for knowingly deceiving the Guild with regard to your Gifted status and Griffin Ability, you are placed under arrest.”

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

Before my brain has had time to properly comprehend Councilor Merrydale’s words, the guards are back in the room tugging me to my feet. They drag me out to the corridor because apparently my slow, stumbling footsteps aren’t fast enough for them. Or perhaps my feet aren’t moving at all. It’s hard to tell when my brain seems stuck in that room listening to Councilor Merrydale’s words on repeat.

There’s shouting all around me as people emerge from offices and lesson rooms and wherever else they’ve been hiding. Some of the shouting is about the cure and some of it’s about me, and I hear the words ‘Griffin Ability’ thrown around several times. I’m starting to regain my senses by the time we reach the bottom of the stairs and the foyer. The guards, with their arms hooked tightly and painfully beneath my arms, lead me across the foyer toward the corridor that will take us to the detainment area. That’s when I start struggling. I have no hope of fighting off all these guards—or every guardian inside this Guild—but I know I can’t go down there. I’ll be locked inside another cage, and this time my brother won’t be able to save me. Not without breaking the laws he works every day to uphold.

I wriggle and kick and even try biting, but every time I break one guard’s hold on me, someone else is there to take his or her place. I scream out in frustration and continue fighting back. I end up tossed over someone’s shoulder again, tasting blood on the inside of my lip. Amongst the people streaming into the foyer, I see Perry and Ned. I go limp for a moment, wondering why Gemma isn’t with them. Was I too late? Did I take too long getting the cure to Perry?

The world spins around and, with a painful thud and an “
Oof
,” I find myself on the floor. Arms pin me down. Enchanted guardian ropes wrap around my arms and legs. I look up at the domed ceiling with the swirling enchantments I may never see again after today and realize there’s only one way out of this. And since most people know my secret already …

My mental walls are down in an instant as my imagination sets to work doing what it does best—creating a scene that doesn’t actually exist. High above me, the domed glass appears to shatter as a dragon dives through it, plunging down toward the crowd on the foyer floor. The shrieks and screams around me become deafening. The dragon pulls out of its dive seconds before hitting the ground, and I add in the rush of wind from its wings as it swoops by. The guards jump up, already shooting arrows into the air. Mentors and other guardians add their weapons to the mix, and the great foyer becomes a melee of sparkling weapons, shouting guardians, running trainees, and scorching dragon breath.

I struggle against my bonds as part of my mind remains focused on the dragon illusion. Unfortunately, these are the kind of ropes that aren’t broken by simple magic. A guardian blade would do the job, though. I squirm out of the way before I’m trampled by a guard, then twist my hands as far apart as they’ll go while still being bound at the wrist. Then I think of one of my knives and pull it from the air—just as someone else’s glittering knife sweeps toward me. I jerk away, but not before the knife swipes at the rope around my ankles, cutting it loose. The person moves around me and slices cleanly through the rope binding my wrists before pressing something small into my hand. In the tangle of people above me, I can’t see who my liberator is. The rope falls away. I roll over and push myself up in time to see Perry running off with a knife in his hand.

I close my palm around the tiny key he gave me, then turn and push through the crowd toward the entrance room. Maybe I’ll get the chance to thank Perry one day, but now isn’t the time. Or maybe he’ll never want to speak to me again once he discovers I’m Gifted and have essentially been lying to him, Gemma and Ned all along. I make sure to keep the illusion going as I head in the opposite direction. In my mind, I see the dragon letting loose a stream of fire. I add some smoke into the mix to decrease visibility and help me get away without being stopped. When I finally reach the entrance room, I find there’s only one guard left there. I imagine the dragon reaching around the doorway with a clawed foot. The guard rushes at it with a glowing sword.

I turn to the wall and open a doorway there with a shaking hand and stylus. Then I freeze as I try to figure out where to go. I can’t go home. I can’t go to Ryn’s. I can’t go to Raven’s or the old Guild ruins or anywhere else I might normally hang out. A sob rises in my throat as I wonder if I’ll
ever
be able to safely visit these places again. Everything has changed. Everything is ruined. I’m a criminal on the loose and the Guild will never let me—

“Hey! Stop her!”

I whip my head around and look beyond the imaginary dragon claw. A small group of guards has abandoned the assault on the dragon and is coming for me instead. The guard fighting the dragon claw swings around and lunges at me. I twist out of the way, picture a place no one in the Guild knows about, and dive into the darkness.

Seconds later, I stumble to a halt in the Underground tunnel outside Chase’s old house. I spin around quickly, but there’s no one else here. It’s empty, dim, and quiet except for the sound of my gasping breaths. I sit down immediately and pull up the bottom of my right pant leg. I’m not sure exactly where the line is that Councilor Merrydale drew around my ankle, so I hold the tiny key just above my skin, hoping that will help. When nothing happens, I move it around a bit. Slowly, the thick line becomes visible. I find the point where the two ends of the line overlap. Feeling stupid, I place the end of the key on my skin and turn it, just as Councilor Merrydale did. The ends of the line spring apart, like an animated tattoo, before the entire line quickly fades away.

I drop the key and stand. I can’t bare to keep still, so I pace the paved tunnel floor, walking back and forth past the front door that once belonged to Chase.

I don’t know what to do.

I don’t know where to go.

I press my hands to my face as tears well up. This is such a mess. Almost every guardian in Creepy Hollow thinks I’m an enemy now when all I’ve ever wanted is to be one of them. How did everything go wrong so quickly?

Somewhere behind me, in a nearby tunnel, I hear footsteps. Lots of them. I drop my hands and turn around, listening carefully. “… must be here somewhere,” a voice says. “Split up and find her.”

Oh crap. Oh CRAP! How did they find me?

My amber.

I don’t have the best anti-tracking spells on it. It’s not as though being tracked is something I’ve had to worry about since Draven’s reign ended. I slip my hand into my back pocket and pull out the amber. I toss it onto the tunnel floor, and then, just in case there’s anything on it that might give away how much my family knows about me, I bring my heel down on it, smashing it in half.

Then I run.

Blindly, from one tunnel to the next, with no thought for which direction I’m going in. The tunnels must be teeming with guardians, though, because no matter where I turn, I still hear their voices, their footsteps. And if these tunnels are all connected, then pretty soon I’m bound to run right into a group of them.

“Oh!” I turn a corner and slam into somebody. I push backward against him, slashing the air with a knife the moment there’s space between us.

“It’s me!” a familiar voice says, backing up with raised hands. “It’s just me,” Chase says.

My shoulders droop with relief, although I can’t help wondering if I might be safer locked up at the Guild than in the company of the man once known as Lord Draven.

“Why haven’t you opened a doorway instead of running mindlessly around the tunnels?” he asks.

“I didn’t think I had time to stop and—”

“Come on.” He takes my hand in one of his while writing a doorway spell onto the tunnel wall.

“No.” I pull my hand away and step back as a doorway to the faerie paths materializes. “I … I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”

“Are you serious? You don’t have time to stop and open a doorway, but you have time to stop and consider whether it’s safer to come with me or wait here until whoever’s chasing you catches up?”

“I don’t trust you,” I whisper fiercely as footsteps grow louder and then softer; a group of guardians running along a nearby tunnel. “I know who you are and what you’ve done. I’d be crazy to go anywhere with you.”

“Did I ever hurt you when you didn’t know who I was? No. How many times have I saved your life?”

“Um …”

“Exactly. You
know
I’m not that guy anymore. If you thought I was, you’d have set the Guild on my trail the day you found out who I am. Or you’d have told your mentor after I turned up at your assignment, or shouted it out at the Liberation Day Ball. But you’ve kept quiet. You’re angry with me—and I don’t deny that you have the right to be—but you can’t honestly tell me you think I’m a danger to you.”

“Stop telling me what I should and shouldn’t be thinking and where I should be going!” I whisper-yell. I swipe at the moisture beneath my eyes, looking behind me as footsteps and shouts grow louder once more. As mad as I am at Chase, I have to admit that he’s right. There’s a reason I’ve kept quiet every time I could have told the Guild about him, and he knows exactly what it is: I don’t believe he’s that person anymore. But he
was
that person, and he
did
kill countless people, and just because I choose to go with him now doesn’t mean I can ever forget that.

I see the first guardian run around the corner and I make my decision. “Fine. Let’s go.” I put my hand into Chase’s and hurry through the doorway with him. As darkness fills the space around us, I keep my mind blank. Dim light appears ahead: another Underground tunnel, but, judging from the silence that greets us as we step into it, it’s far from the one we were just in.

“Are you sure they have no other way of tracking you?” Chase asks, walking out of the paths and turning to face me.

“I’m sure.”

“Okay.” He turns and opens another doorway. “Let’s get—”

“There!” comes a shout from nearby. Noise fills the tunnel suddenly, as though every guardian chasing me has just arrived. Arrows whizz past us. I flatten myself against the tunnel wall as Chase holds his hand up, raising an invisible shield. “How are they tracking you?” he demands.

“I don’t know!”

“You’d better figure it out quickly,” he says, his voice strained. “I may have a lot of power, but I can’t hold off this many people forever. And if we jump through the paths they’ll simply keep following us. They shouldn’t be able to track you once you’re inside the mountain, but I’d rather not risk—”

“Oh.” My hand flies to my neck. “My trainee pendant. They must be tracking that.” My fingers feel for the chain. I lift it over my head, my heart clenching as I silently whisper goodbye to this one last part of my guardian life. Then I throw it down the tunnel.

My hand is in Chase’s and we’re in utter darkness once more. Then another tunnel, silent again. “Give it a minute,” Chase says, holding his hand up and listening carefully. A quiet pair of footsteps moves toward us, but it turns out to be a reptiscillan girl wandering along with her nose in a book. She looks startled when she glances up and realizes she isn’t alone. Her gaze turns suspicious as she passes us, quickening her pace.

Chase lifts his hand and his stylus moves quickly across the wall, writing the words for yet another doorway. I follow him, forcing my mind back to that blessedly blank state where all I think of is the darkness of the faerie paths surrounding me. But the blank state can’t last, and the moment we step into the quiet living room of the lakeside house, every weight of the past few days drops on top of me again. All the people who’ve died, my biggest secret out in the open, my guardian future ripped away from me, losing my friends, leaving my family to be interrogated by the Guild.

With a barely stifled sob, I walk to the front door, unlock it, and step out onto the porch. The moon is higher now than when we ran through this house earlier. Wisps of cloud drift slowly across it, growing blurry as tears gather in my eyes. I wonder if my guardian weapons are gone, or if I still have access to that one piece of the life I’ve now lost. The weapons are tied to guardian markings, but I don’t have those yet, which means they’re probably linked to my pendant in some way. So if the Guild destroys my pendant … I reach slowly into the air and try to grasp a knife.