A Faerie's Curse (Creepy Hollow #6) (16 page)

“What do you want?”

With a jolt, I realize Ryn is sitting on one of the couches. So still and silent, I hadn't noticed him there. I clasp my hands together as the pounding of my headache intensifies. “I—I know you probably don't want to see me, but I need to warn you about something. The Guild has set up a spell across their entrance that detects those with Griffin Abilities.”

He says nothing, his eyes remaining trained on the floor.

“I know you might not be going back to work for a while, but when you do, you'll need to figure out how to get in without setting off their detector.”

Still, he says nothing.

“Well, I'm not saying
you
have to figure it out,” I add quickly. “I have a friend who can probably come up with a way around this. As soon as he does, I'll let you know.”

Nothing.

“Ryn …” I swallow. “I—I know I'm responsible for this. I'm not denying that. But the magic—the spell that did this—came from a pair of witches. I know who they are, and I swear I'm going to find them. They … they must be stopped. They mustn't be allowed to do this to anyone else.”

I expect some form of reaction from Ryn, but it's like speaking to an empty room. I can no longer stand the one-sided conversation, or the darkness or the stuffiness. The desperate desire to
make things right
grips me as I walk into the kitchen. I cast about for something to do. Something that will help. The center of the kitchen table is piled with envelopes and folded notes. That's the spot where mail materializes when it reaches this house, which means Ryn hasn't touched any of it. I gather everything and sort it as best I can into two piles, one for business mail and one for personal. The personal pile is much larger. Condolences, no doubt. I leave them on the counter where Ryn will see them when he next comes into the kitchen.

A few dirty dishes sit in the sink, so I get a spell going to clean them while I prepare a hot drink for Ryn. Despite the fact that it's his favorite, he probably won't drink it. He might throw it at me in an outburst of anger—which, now that I consider it, would be preferable to the deathly silence he's directed at me so far. I return to the living room and leave the mug on the coffee table within his reach, but still he doesn't move. If it weren't for the occasional blink and the slow rise and fall of his chest, he could pass for a statue.

Next, I go upstairs. Quietly, so I don't disturb Violet. The bedroom door is open. I expect to see her asleep on the bed, or perhaps staring at nothing, but the room is empty. After looking briefly into the other rooms upstairs, it becomes clear she isn't here. I tidy up wherever I can, but there isn't much mess to begin with, so it doesn't take long before I'm walking back downstairs.

Ryn hasn't moved. Steam curls lazily into the air from the mug on the coffee table. I wrap my arms around my chest and swallow. “Where's Vi?”

He doesn't say anything for so long that I assume he's still ignoring me, but then, in a hoarse voice he says, “She left.”

“Okay. Um …” I cast about for something else to say. “When will she be back?”

The breath he breathes in is more of a gasp, and it shudders on the way out. “I don't know if she's ever coming back.”

Somehow, the silence seems to intensify as I come to understand what he means by ‘left.' “You mean … like …”

“Yes. Like she didn't just leave home, she left me too.”

“Ryn …”

“Go,” he says quietly.

I press my eyelids closed, and a tear drips down my cheek. When I've managed to swallow down the guilt and pain enough to speak, I whisper, “I love you and I'm sorry.”

Then I turn to leave. My gaze lingers on the bottle of alcohol—should I take it with me?—and I notice again the books lying beside it. Books with pictures, one of them with Vi's handwriting scribbled in the margin. I pause, squinting down through the darkness, and this time I see something I recognize: a pyramid with a second, smaller pyramid on top of the first. My heart stills a moment before jumping into action. I lift the book, looking back at Ryn to see if he might be about to object. His staring gaze is pointed elsewhere, though, so I close the book and take it with me as I leave with renewed determination.

I finally know where the witches are.

C
HAPTER

E
IGHTEEN

The guilt-beast circles my thoughts as I enter the mountain with Vi's book tucked beneath my arm. Food is the furthest thing from my mind, but Gaius comes out of the living room and points toward the kitchen. “I kept some dinner for you,” he says with a smile. “You need to keep your strength up for tomorrow night.”

My strength. His words remind me of the weariness tugging at my body and the ache pounding my head. I don't need food. I need some of that tonic sitting beside my bed. But Gaius is already taking my arm and leading me toward the kitchen, so I decide it's easier not to fight. “You said you managed to get that pouch from your old mentor's office?” he asks as I sit at the kitchen table.

“Hmm? Oh, yes.” I remove the pouch from my pocket and hand it to Gaius. After waving his hand briefly at the stove to heat up whatever's in the pot, he takes the pouch.

“Very interesting,” he murmurs, looking inside.

“Gaius,” I say, opening Vi's book to the page with the pyramids. I cover her handwriting with one hand as I point to the pictures. “Do you know this place?”

He turns his attention away from the contents of Olive's pouch. “Uh … Mitallahn Desert.” He reads the name out slowly, as if unsure how to pronounce it correctly. “Yes, I've heard of it.”

The name is familiar, but I can't remember why. “Do you know anything about it?”

“Yes, I remember Chase saying something about it several months back. It was … oh, yes, it came up in his research on Amon. That's where Amon grew up.”

Of course. That's why the name is familiar. I read it in Chase's notes. I close the book and place it on my lap.

“More research on Amon?” Elizabeth asks from the doorway.

I look up to find her watching me closely. “Um, yeah. Oh, thanks, Gaius,” I add as he places a plate of food in front of me. “I'm going to eat upstairs, okay?”

“Oh, all right. Yes, I suppose we should all get an early night.”

“Yes, we should,” Elizabeth says, still watching me. Her gaze remains upon me the whole way up the stairs.

I shut my bedroom door and sit on the bed. I push the plate to one side, place the book in front of me, and turn to the Mitallahn Desert page. I lean forward for a closer look. I've definitely seen this pyramid construction before, in the background of the mirror when I spoke to the witch. Could she and the other witch and Angelica still be there now? Is that where they're staying? Possibly, if they're working for Amon and this is where Amon used to live. I guess he doesn't know yet that Angelica's decided to leave him in prison.

I turn the book sideways and read Vi's notes.
V spell placed by Z. Spells belongs to Z. Follow spell, find Z. Pyramids. BUT HE WASN'T THERE!

I assume V is Victoria and Z is Zed. So Vi has obviously been looking for Zed. With her Griffin Ability that allows her to find anyone as long as she's touching something that belongs to that person, it shouldn't be too difficult—except that she doesn't have anything that belongs to Zed.

Oh. The spell. The magic that slowly killed Victoria. That's the only thing Vi would have access to that belonged to Zed. I cringe away from the image of Vi touching the lifeless body of her child in the hopes of finding the man who killed her.

BUT HE WASN'T THERE!

Her words glare up at me, screaming silently. Of course he wasn't there, I realize. Because the spell or curse or whatever it was that he placed on Victoria didn't belong to him. The witches made it. It would belong far more to them than it would to Zed. So when Vi touched Victoria and saw images of pyramids in a desert, she was seeing the location of the witches.

Which lines up with what I saw in Elizabeth's mirror.

I snap the book shut and head to my bathing room to fetch a glass of water. After mixing a spoonful of Elizabeth's tonic into the water, I drink it slowly, listening to Gaius walking down the passage to his bedroom.
We should all get an early night.
Hopefully he's taking his own advice. I, however, am not.

I tie my hair back, strap weapons to my body, zip my jacket up, and listen at the door for a minute or so. When I hear no further sound, I slip out and head downstairs. The guilt-beast, that ever-present shadow of dark and terrible truth, follows me. Hopefully, when tonight is done, that foul, stinking creature will plague me no more.

I stop in front of the faerie door. As my hand reaches for the doorknob, I hear footsteps behind me. “Look at you,” Elizabeth says in a sing-song voice, walking past me and placing herself between me and the faerie door, “making me go against my selfish nature in order to do the right thing.”

My words are almost a growl. “Get out of my way.”

“No. I know where you're going, Calla, which unfortunately means I'm the one who has to stop you.”

“You don't know anything.”

“Don't I? ‘I'll search every desert in the world if I have to.' Isn't that what you said about the witch?”

My glare intensifies. “Bravo. So you know where I'm going. How clever of you.”

“You're not going,” she says.

“Look, if you're worried about the mission, don't be. I'll be back in time for that.”

“I'm not worried about the mission. Well, I am a little bit, but mainly—believe it or not—I'm worried about you.”

“Move,” I tell her.

She shakes her head. “You know you're not going to do this.”

“Elizabeth—”

“You won't. You might plan to. You might think you will. But in the end, you will not kill those witches. It isn't you.”

“You don't know anything about who I am.”

“Oh, but I do. Chase has told me plenty about you. And don't—don't be mad at him for that. He and I are … kind of like family. We tell each other everything, and we've kept each other's secrets for years. So that's how I know that you're so much stronger than either of us ever was. We were both new to this world and didn't know what to do with the power we found ourselves with. I was weak and let others control me; Chase was scared and angry and broken, and that led him down a terrible path.”

I ball my fist and press it against my chest. Emotion makes my voice quaver. “What if I'm scared and angry and broken too?”

“You might be, but you're also brave and honest and optimistic. You endured things no one should ever have to endure, and you came out on the right side at the end of it, unlike some of us.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head. “Stop. I can't be any of those things right now. I don't
want
to be any of those things. I have to do this.”

“Why?”

“Because my brother will never forgive me!”

Opening my eyes, I see confusion on her face for the first time. “What do you mean?”

“I let this happen! And he … what if he never …” My throat constricts and I can barely breathe. All I can see is Ryn sitting alone in the dark, refusing to look at me, his heart turned forever cold toward me. “You don't understand how … how he's always been there for me …
always
. And now …”

Elizabeth touches my shoulder. “Whether your brother holds you responsible or not, do you really think killing the witches whose magic brought this about will make everything right?”

I can barely force a sound out as I whisper, “I just want to hate someone other than myself.”

“Calla,” she says gently, kinder than I've ever heard her. “If you do this, it will only make you hate yourself more.”

I cover my eyes with my hands as tears fall. Perhaps she's right, but I can't do nothing. I can't leave Ryn sitting in perpetual darkness and do
nothing
. I sniff and wipe my tears away. “Fine,” I say. “Fine. I won't kill them. But I'll capture them and leave them tied up outside the Guild. And I'll get them to tell me where Zed is so I can capture him too. I'll leave a note pinned to the witches explaining that they're the ones responsible for the dragon disease. The Guild will question them with truth potion, and they'll—”

“Calla,” Elizabeth interrupts. “It isn't the right time for this. You know how important tomorrow night—”

“Of course I know,” I snap. “But I can do
both
. I can surprise the witches, tie them up, and take them to the Guild. And then Ryn will know that the people responsible for Victoria's death will be properly punished.”

“Calla! This is our one chance to rescue Chase. You need to sleep tonight instead of fighting witches, and you need to be ready to leave with the rest of us tomorrow afternoon. You can't risk not being here when we depart.” She grasps both my hands and squeezes them. “I know you want to do this for your brother so he'll stop blaming you. And I know you want to rescue Chase. But you can't. Do. Both.”

I can't do both. The realization leaves me feeling weak. “I can't do both,” I whisper. At least, not tonight. And not tomorrow night. The night after that, the witches might be gone, but I'll search for them anyway. I'll search forever if I have to. One day I'll make them pay.