Reflection Pond (24 page)

Her anger faded, little by little, replaced with bone-chilling dread. Aside from Rowan, everyone she cared about was inside the palace.
Sapphire, Ash, Willow, Jack. The ache to go back overwhelmed her insides and grew until she couldn’t swallow around it. She knew Rowan would never let her go. Maybe his intentions were purely for her protection, but it didn’t matter. She felt insignificant and useless trapped in Ash’s apartment.

She dozed for a while, dreaming of things she’d never seen. Dark places where faeries tormented humans and tricked their lives away. She saw Hazel, limbs torn from their sockets, bleeding on the palace floor. She saw Elm with hollow, soulless eyes, lapping at Hazel’s blood with greedy, red stained lips curled from teeth sharpened to daggers.

When she woke, Rowan sat across from her, elbows balanced on his knees. A great rumble shook the apartment and Rowan went still. Callie sat up and stretched her legs. Their eyes met. Rowan’s expression was dark and unreadable. They’d never lit any candles, but the storm illuminated his face as he looked away.

He stood and went to the window, silhouetted there, shoulders taut.

“What is it?” she said, panic unfurling in her chest.

“I don’t like waiting.”
             

Callie joined him at the window. It was impossible to see through the rain pelting the glass. Rowan continued to stand there, staring outside. Humidity made the hair as the base of his neck curl. In the dim light, his eyes were black. She imagined them as steel doors, keeping all his secrets inside. She knew he had many things that shaped him into the sarcastic, distant boy he was now. She’d felt close to him that night in the hospital, as if she could actually touch him. Now, he seemed far away, despite the promise to protect her.

Suddenly Rowan was in front of her, hands on her face. For a second she thought he would kiss her, and she couldn’t decide if she was terrified or thrilled. His thumb stroked her cheekbone. She worried he could hear her heart beating.

“I promised that I wouldn’t let anything happen to you. I’m trying so hard to keep that promise. Maybe I’m not what you want, but I keep my word, Callie.”

Her hands were on top of his, holding them to her face, even though she hadn’t told them to do that. And she thought maybe she would kiss him, instead. He exhaled; sweet breath across her face, it smelled green and she wanted to know if it would taste the same. He leaned in, she leaned in.

She waited.

Then she was inside of him, settling into his mind as she’d done with Ash. Their energy collided, sparks flying as they tried to consume each other.

His mind was shadowed, much darker than Ash’s. She felt small there, as though she could never produce enough light to brighten the space.

“What are you doing?” Rowan said and the sound came from inside her head—
his
head.

She didn’t have an answer.

Everything was unfamiliar, like tasting the wrong flavor in something you’d eaten many times before. His thoughts cowered in darkness, surrounded by black energy that battered against Callie’s. All the channels to thought and memory were heavily guarded. Numb, creeping coldness stole through her.

“I can feel you,” he whispered.

Callie came back to herself, slipping from Rowan like fog burned off by the sun. She rubbed her forehead where a headache pounded between her eyes. When she looked up, Rowan was staring at her.

“What?” she
said, annoyed. She couldn’t decide if it bothered her more that it’d happened or that Rowan hadn’t stopped her. She wasn’t a malicious mind snatcher, and she hated that she even had the capability.

Rowan licked his lips and a sudden clap of thunder brought them closer together. “You felt…warm.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, heat spreading across her cheeks. “I didn’t mean—”

“Want to try again?” he asked, eager.

“No!” The word leapt from her mouth much too fast. “I mean, it was an accident.” She kept talking, some horrible, projectile word vomit. “I don’t want to hurt you. We don’t know what I’m capable of and I almost exploded your brain and I’d never forgive myself—”

“I’m not afraid,” Rowan said, interrupting her monologue.

Callie stilled. “I know.” She pressed her thumbs into her eyes, surprised to find them wet. She caught the tears with her palms and hoped Rowan didn’t notice. When his hands settled over hers, she couldn’t hold it back anymore. Her shoulders quaked with a sob. It all came pouring out
of her eyes, her grief for Sapphire, the confusion over her newfound powers, what she felt for Ash and Rowan, anger at her own powerlessness. The emotion spilled from her hands only to fall into Rowan’s. “This isn’t me,” she said when he pulled her against him. Callie buried her face in his tunic, inhaling the scent that was purely his. Rowan’s arms went around her and he whispered things that mixed with the thunder and rain, words she couldn’t hear.

She stayed there for a long time, much longer than she thought possible. Callie wasn’t scared of Rowan’s body against hers; his hands on her back didn’t make her run, even his lips close to her ear made her shiver instead of shudder.

“I wish you’d try again,” he said. They were still pressed together and his breath fluttered strands of her hair and tickled her neck. “No matter what you decide, I need you to be able to protect yourself.”

Callie swallowed and removed herself from his arms.

“I’m just—I know I’m going to leave…become Fallen,” he said. “And if you choose to stay here, then you have to be strong. You have to understand what you can and can’t do.”

A lump rose in Callie’s throat. Though her powers frightened her, she said, “I’ll try again.” If Rowan knew he’d become Fallen and he still found the courage to go on, she could at least master her gifts. She hesitated for a moment before bringing her palms to his. He smiled and laced their fingers.

Callie closed her eyes and tamped down on the anxiety in her chest. She exhaled.
Rowan.
She swept away all thoughts except for his name.

Sliding into Rowan felt like stepping into icy water. Inky blackness swirled around her, pulsating against her energy, threatening to devour it. It pressed against Callie, and finding no resistance, mingled li
ke oil and water, together, but separate. The second they mixed, she was transported into his memory.

An angry man stood over her, so tall that she had to crane her neck to see him. Greasy blond hair fell across his face and his lips twisted into a snarl. Spittle flew from his mouth as he screamed. She doubled over, covering her ears. Her stomach ached empty. Ached and ached and ached.

The scene shifted and she stood on the edge of a small stream with a net in her tiny, pudgy hand. Then she was in the stream, soaking wet and freezing as the net drifted away. Two boys stood on the riverbank, howling with laughter.

Another jump and she held her bleeding knees to her chest, sobbing. In the distance, someone yelled at her to get up.

She was older now, in a gym with a red padded mat worn thin with use. A large boy stalked a circle around her, quarterstaff held ready. When he swung, he knocked the wind from her lungs and her feet from underneath her. She hit the mat with stars spinning behind her eyes.

She stared into a mirror, disgusted by the reflection with its bleeding lip and swollen eye. She pulled her fist back and slammed it into the mirror. The glass exploded around her like shrapnel.

She lay bleeding, her skin shredded to ribbons. A woman filled Callie’s vision, her skin gray with death, her eyes wide.

Then, she was standing outside a cottage, the entrance nearly hidden by vines and flowers. The door opened and Sapphire stood smiling on the other side.

Callie flew from Rowan’s mind as one might jump from a sinking ship. Her vision blurred with fresh tears and she buried her face in her hands to avoid his gaze. He touched her back, gently and first and then firmer when she didn’t pull away. She could still feel the glass slicing her fist.

Someone banged on the door and they both jumped. The knob rattled. “Open up,” Ash called. “It’s over.”

Rowan removed the chair and let Ash in. He stood just inside the apartment, gasping. His clothes created a puddle on the wood floor and his hair plastered his forehead. “Hazel,” he said between breaths, “she won.”

Callie caught the look of dread that passed over Rowan’s features. Then his
face hardened. “And the others?” he asked.

Ash’s lips flattened. “The palace is in ruins. We need all the healers.”

“Sapphire?” Callie breathed, feeling her throat close.

“She’s okay,” Ash said.

***

Smoke slithered from holes in the palace walls. The porch sunk into itself as though it’d taken on one too many burdens. The jeweled doors lay thirty feet away, broken in half. Callie couldn’t reconcile the scene before her. She blinked, willing the destruction to disappear. Once a grand, four-story structure, the palace
was reduced to crumbling rubble.

Injured fae lay strewn in the grass, too weak to maintain glamours. For the first time, Callie saw scars and imperfection, a missing finger, a jagged, scarred cheek.

She searched for Sapphire, but found Cypress instead. The older woman crouched next to a man, healing the nasty gash on his forehead. She stood and wiped her face, smearing grime and blood. The dampness of her clothes chilled Callie’s skin when they embraced. She smelled of smoke and sweat and despair.

“I was so worried.”

“Sapphire?” Callie said.

“She’s fine. She fought beautifully. You should’ve seen it.”

“But she’s okay?”

Cypress nodded. “This isn’t anything we can’t handle.”

Callie went weak with relief. “Can I see her?”

Cypress glanced at Rowan and they shared a
significant look. Cypress
knew
about her situation
,
Callie realized.

“I’m sorry, Callie. Hazel won’t allow it,” she said. Cypress hugged Ash and then Rowan, keeping a hand on Rowan’s arm. “Walk with me a moment,” she said, leading him away with an apologetic smile.

Callie assumed he was needed to heal the others. Their moans rose over the fading thunder and the random rumbles from the building settling into its new form. Her gaze went to the place that had been her prison for the past few weeks. When had she started to think of it as home? She’d miss the echoing emptiness of the corridors, the opulence she didn’t deserve. She’d even miss Willow’s intrusions and knowing Jack stood guard outside her door.

Then a worse thought—
where would she go?
Back to Sapphire’s cottage, where the absence of her sister felt too full to withstand? To the apartments where Willow lived?

Ash’s arm slid around her waist. “It’s awful,” he said, words laced with regret. Callie leaned into him. Though it’d stopped raining, the storm left the air damp and cold. Ash’s clothes were wet, but heat from his body seeped through, warming her. “Hazel wants to see you.”

Callie found herself searching for Rowan. He’d disappeared with Cypress into the chaos. Nausea filled her stomach. “Shouldn’t we wait?”

She caught the darkness that traveled across Ash’s face. “He can take care of himself,” Ash said, misinterpreting her meaning. He used his arm to steer her away.

Callie hesitated.

“Or we can wait, but Hazel had a hard fight, we shouldn’t—”

“Let’s go then,” she interrupted. She thought of sliding into Rowan’s mind, how easy it was to see his memories. Maybe she could do the same to Hazel, actually see the truth for herself.

A hard little ball of fear lodged itself in her chest as they neared the portal to the caves. Callie felt responsible for the discord in
Eirensae.
Everything seemed so peaceful when she arrived, and despite her attempts to remain under the radar, every move she made seemed magnified—blown up until it affected every fae in the city.

What if Hazel knew Callie had found her amulet?
What if she was waiting with it right now?

Callie almost asked Ash to turn back.

She bit her lip. She could be strong. She was more powerful than Hazel, wasn’t that what everyone was telling her?

They stepped through the stone and Callie inhaled the heavy scent, comforted. She glanced at the library where she’d spent so much time with Rowan and Ash, longing for the familiarity and indifference of the books. Of all the beautiful things she’d seen here, the library was her favorite. She turned away with a sigh.

The blue orbs brightened when they entered the passageway to Hazel’s pond. Hazel sprawled on her dais, eyes closed, head laid back. The coppery length of her hair was singed and hung in ragged chunks from her scalp. Her once gold gown was torn and bloody, showing pale, mangled skin through the rips. She opened her eyes, slowly, and gestured Callie closer.

“Leave us,” she ordered Ash, her voice hoarse.

He dipped his head and backed through the mouth of the room, giving Callie an imploring look before he disappeared. She knew he wanted to stay, and if she were honest, she wished he could.