creepy hollow 05 - a faerie's revenge (31 page)

“As we should be,” he mutters.

I grab his notebook and push it against his chest. “Read this.”

“Calla—”

“Read it! Then tell me you’re a monster, after all the good you’ve—”

“This will never make up for everything I’ve done!” he yells, tossing the book onto the floor. “I can never go back to all the people I’ve wronged and apologize to them. I can never ask for their forgiveness.”

“No, you can’t. And you can never change what you did either. So I’m going to remind you what you told me not too long ago when I was the one who needed to be pulled from the darkness:
The only thing you have control over now is your future.
So are you going to wallow in self-pity, or are you going to make a difference?” I bend and pick up the notebook. I push it into his hands. “And you really shouldn’t just chuck this around,” I add quietly. “It seems like something you probably want to keep.” And then, since I can’t think of anything else to say, I turn around and leave.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-NINE

Chase is gone when I wake the next morning. I go hunting for some food in the kitchen, and that’s where Gaius finds me to tell me the news that Chase has recovered and is out on another mission already. “I’m sorry you didn’t have a chance to speak to him before he left,” he says to me. “I know you’ve been waiting anxiously for him to wake up.”

“That’s okay. I actually spoke to him during the night.”

“Ah, wonderful. Did he seem all right to you? He was very quiet this morning. I couldn’t get much out of him.”

“Um …” I pick up an apple from the bowl on the kitchen table and roll it around in my hands, wondering how much Chase would want me to reveal. “Well, he did just spend a week trapped inside nightmares of the past. He probably needs a little time to get his head back in the right place. Did he say where he was going?”

“To find the lighthouse outside Kagan City.”

“Oh. I thought—I mean, I assumed—we’d go there together. But …” I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. He did tell me I should leave the mountain because he doesn’t want me anywhere near him, so I suppose that includes this little mission to find the Seers. Too bad he didn’t stick around long enough for me to tell him I still want to be involved until we’re certain we’ve stopped Amon’s plan. I continue rolling the apple between my palms. “Um, anyway, do you know Kagan City? Have you heard of it before?”

“I haven’t, but we managed to find it in one of my books this morning. Have you seen this convenient little device for peeling apples?” He puts a ring down on the table, takes the apple from me, and places the apple in the air above the ring. Before I can tell him that I don’t usually peel my apples, the glossy red fruit begins spinning faster than my eye can follow. When it wobbles to a halt, the peel is gone.

I pick up the apple and examine it with a frown, wondering where the peel went. And wondering why Gaius changed the subject so abruptly. I lower the apple and look at him. “Did Chase tell you not to let me follow him to wherever this lighthouse is?”

Looking cornered, Gaius says, “Well, uh, we don’t think you should be getting too involved, seeing as how you’re leaving soon.”

“So that’s a yes?”

“Have you chosen where to go yet?” he asks innocently.

With a groan and a roll of my eyes, I walk out of the kitchen.

Two days later, Chase still hasn’t returned. Gaius tells me not to worry about him, so I try to ignore the insidious voice that says,
What if he never comes back?
I choose some art schools and start getting a portfolio organized. We’re two months into the school year, but hopefully arty people aren’t as strict about those sorts of things as guardians are. I’ll show them what I can do, and hopefully one of the schools will accept me. I ignore the teeny, tiny part of me that hopes I don’t get into any of them.

In the afternoon, I go into the human realm for some exercise. I jog around a park alongside the humans, comfortable in the knowledge that they can’t see me. When I pass someone eating a bagel, I start laughing and almost trip over my own feet. Then I wish I had human money so I could buy one for Gaius. After my warm-up, I stand in the middle of the park and practice fighting using a stick I’ve transformed into a long, straight staff. I spin it in front of me and behind my back and over my head. I sweep it through the air and then lunge forward to smack it down against the ground. I repeat every single move I know. It feels so good to be active that I can barely stand the thought of spending the rest of my life in front of a canvas or bent over drawing paper. I wanted art to be a hobby, not a career, and now everything is going to end up the wrong way around.

I console myself with the thought that at least I’m not in prison. At least I don’t have a Griffin List tag embedded magically beneath my skin so the Guild can track my whereabouts for the rest of my life. At least I have the chance to start over.

* * *

I wake up and reach clumsily for the two ambers beside my bed. My hand finds the new one first, and I look at it through one blurry, half-open eye. It’s blank. No surprise there. Zed’s the only one who has the ID so far, and he and I aren’t in the habit of sending too many messages to each other. The noise that woke me must have come from the older, heavier amber. I pick it up and squint at the words on its surface as they swim into focus.

Congratulations, you’re an aunt!

I blink. “What?” Then I sit up straight. “
What?
” I jump out of bed and grab my stylus, which rolls off the bedside table and disappears beneath the bed. After scrambling underneath it to retrieve the stylus and muttering about how this would all be a lot easier if I could just mirror-call him, I reply to Ryn’s message. Then I hastily change out of my pajamas and into some clothes. I drag my fingers through my hair and dash into the bathing room to brush my teeth. When I come back out, there’s another message from Ryn. I slide my amber into my back pocket and run to the door, then run back because I’ve forgotten to put shoes on.

Through the door, I hear a familiar voice. I pause in the middle of pulling on a sock, just to make sure I’ve heard correctly. Yes, that’s Chase, speaking with Gaius—something about confirming that the Seers are indeed imprisoned at the lighthouse. Relief floods me.
He’s okay!
He probably won’t be pleased to find that I’m still here, but we can have that discussion later. Shoes on, I jump up and hurry out of my room. I run along the passage and reach the top of the stairs as Chase turns at the bottom and walks back up.

“Hi, good morning, goodbye,” I say as I rush past him.

“Hey, hang on. Where are you going?”

I stop at the bottom and look up. “Creepy Hollow. Vi had her baby!”

“What? That’s impossible. She’s barely pregnant.”

“No, no, she spent some time on Kaleidos. It’s all fine. A little bit early, but Ryn says Vi and the baby are both fine.”

“Oh, that’s good.” When I turn away, he adds, “Wait, can we just—” He jogs down and stops beside me. I notice now that he’s wearing the coat I finally returned to him. “Can we talk for a moment, or are you needed there urgently?”

“Well, no, it isn’t
urgent
. I’m excited to get there, that’s all.”

“This won’t take long. I just wanted to apologize for—” He cuts himself off as Lumethon walks out of the living room while flicking through messages on her amber. She heads for the stairs without a glance in our direction. Chase clears his throat. “I’m really sorry that I—” The faerie door swings open and a bald man I’m almost certain is a drakoni walks through it. He locks the door with a gold key, nods to us, then greets the spiky-haired elf who walks out of the living room. The same elf who worked as Chase’s assistant at his tattoo shop and then showed up in the healing wing after I woke from my Velazar Prison ordeal.

The two of them begin chatting. Chase sighs, takes my arm, and opens one of the doors leading off the entrance hall. He pulls me into the room, which turns out to be piled high with old furniture as well as broken gadgets and half-constructed weapons that probably began their life in Gaius’s laboratory. Chase closes the door, leaving a small circle of light in the ceiling as the only source of illumination.

“Sorry,” he says. “I forgot this was the storage room.”

“You were saying something about not taking long?”

“Yes. I’m sorry about the other night. I shouldn’t have spoken to you so soon after I woke up. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind, and everything felt a bit … hopeless.”

“Well, to be fair, I was the one who fell asleep in your bedroom. You wouldn’t have had to speak to me if I hadn’t been there.”

“True.” After a pause, he asks, “Did you sit next to me a lot while I was asleep?”

I shrug, grateful for the gloomy light that hides the heat rising to my face. “Every now and then.”

“Well, thank you. My dreams were … horrendous. It was a great comfort to wake up and find I wasn’t alone. And thanks for throwing my book at me. It helped.”

“I didn’t really
throw
it at you.”

“You should have. It might have knocked some sense into me while you were still in the room instead of a day or two later.”

“Well, you know, I guess you needed a little more time to remember that you’re not a monster after all.”

“Yeah. Being out in the light of day helped as well. Oh, and I’m glad to see you didn’t listen to me when I told you to leave. I’ve checked out Brigham Lighthouse, and it looks like a rescue attempt will go more smoothly if we have your illusions to help get us in and out.”

“Of course.” With a smile, I add, “I never planned to listen to you when you told me to leave, by the way.”

“Good. Because it’s also …” He takes a deep breath and rubs the back of his neck. “Well, it’s nice to have you around.”

“It’s, um, nice to be around.” Fantastic. Now my face is definitely heating up.

“Anyway, I’ll let you go now.” He opens the door, and the bright light that streams in is jarring. His hand brushes my arm briefly as he adds, “Please pass on my congratulations to Vi and Ryn.”

Somewhere behind him, sparks shoot from a watering can spout and cartwheel through the air. I hurry away before he notices.

* * *

I sneak into the curtained healing wing cubicle where Vi is in bed with a little bundle in her arms. She looks up at me with shining eyes, and the first words out of her mouth are, “Isn’t she the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?”

I manage to contain my squealing as I fling my arms around Ryn and squeeze him tight. “Congratulations, big brother.” Then I hurry to the side of the bed and gaze at the little wrapped-up bundle. I brush my finger gently against her soft cheek. I look at her tiny eyelashes and sweet rosebud mouth. “She’s perfect,” I breathe. “What’s her name?”

“Victoria Rose,” Ryn says, standing beside me and putting an arm around my shoulders.

“So pretty,” I murmur. “Are they family names, Vi?”

“Rose was my mother’s name,” she says. “And Victoria …” A sad smile crosses her face. “She was my mentor, but she was like family. She died in The Destruction. I only ever heard people call her Tora, but her full name was Victoria. I’m not sure what we’ll end up calling this little one. Victoria, Tora, Tori …”

“Vicky? Vix?” I suggest.

“Well, she’ll be Victoria when she’s in trouble,” Ryn says, “which is bound to be often, if she’s anything like me.”

“Victoria Rose,” Vi corrects with a laugh. “Didn’t your parents always use at least two names when you were in trouble?”

“So Victoria Rose when she’s in trouble,” Ryn says, “and perhaps Tori the rest of the time.”

“And maybe she’ll be Ria to her friends,” I add, “because that sounds cool and exotic. What do you think her color will be?”

“It’s too early to tell,” Vi says, stroking her hand over Victoria’s fine, dark hair. “It usually takes a few weeks to settle, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Ryn says. “But I have no doubt she’ll be just as beautiful as her mother, no matter what her color.”

Vi shakes her head as she smiles at him. “Always trying to be Mr. Charming.”

“Hey, it’s true,” he tells her, his smile matching hers. Then he sits on the edge of the bed and looks at me. “I’m sorry I didn’t message you sooner. Don’t hate me, but … she was actually born yesterday afternoon.”

“What?” I give him my best glare. “And you waited until this morning to tell me?”

“I knew you would have wanted to come here immediately, but the healers first needed to check that she was healthy—which she is; plenty of strong faerie magic pumping through that tiny body of hers, despite her early arrival—and then all the visitors started arriving, and it seemed easier to wait until after the initial rush. I knew it would be safer for you if there were fewer people coming and going.”

“And safer for you,” I add. “I definitely don’t want you to wind up in trouble, which we both know you would be if someone saw me in here. Speaking of which,” I add, throwing a glance over my shoulder as footsteps approach the curtain. I quickly project the illusion that I’m not here.