A Faerie's Secret (Creepy Hollow Book 4) (10 page)

“Do you have a death wish?” The owner of the intrusive voice slides onto the stool beside mine and into my personal space. “What are you doing in a club owned by the number one guardian hater in Creepy Hollow?” he demands.

I lean away from him, my eyes traveling up tattooed arms to the same face and eyes I was admiring not ten minutes ago. Eyes that are now narrowed in anger. I shrink further away from him, my right hand gripping the bangle on my left arm. “What do you—Wait, how did you find me?”

“Word travels quickly when silly young guardians decide to risk their lives Underground.”

“I’m not a silly—”

“No, you’re a thief.”

“
I’m
a thief? You’re the one who stole the bangle in the first place.” I raise my bejeweled arm and wave it at him. “I’ll be returning this to the Guild, and there’s nothing you can do to—

“You
put it on
?” He slips off the stool and takes a step back. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

I look from him to the bangle and back again, wondering if I should be alarmed. I haven’t felt any different since I pushed the bangle onto my arm, though. Perhaps this is a trick to get me to take it off. “There’s nothing wrong with me,” I tell him as I stand. “And since this club is apparently owned by someone with an intense hatred for guardians, I think I should go.”

“Wait.” He steps closer, and I bring my hand up fast, sending sparks dancing through the air toward him. He ducks out of the way, then raises his hands, gesturing surrender. “Just give me the bangle,” he says, “and I’ll let you go.”

“
You’ll
let
me
go?” I say with a confidence I don’t feel. “Have you forgotten the dragon already?”

“Have you forgotten the power that knocked out your shield in an instant and swept you to the ground?”

I haven’t. That’s the problem.
Don’t show fear, don’t show fear.
I just need to keep talking long enough to come up with a projection that can get me out of here. “That was hardly power,” I say casually. “Why don’t we have a second go, and you can show me if you’ve got any power left after—”

“This isn’t a game, little guardian.” He closes the distance between us and grabs my arm. “Someone is coming for that bangle, and you don’t want to be here when he arrives.” Up close, I see that his eyes are a very light grey-green that doesn’t seem to quite match the color highlighting his brown hair. They’re beautiful eyes. I could stare at them for ages if I wasn’t currently trying to get away from this guy.

I try to wrench my arm from his grip, but he’s far too strong. “If you want it so badly,
old man
,” I say to him through gritted teeth, “then why haven’t you taken it already?”

“Because, silly girl,” he says, leaning even closer, “I’d have to cut off your arm.”

A chill runs through me, but I do my best to forget his words and focus instead on the projection I’ve decided on. I don’t have enough energy for anything as detailed as the dragon, and he probably wouldn’t fall for something like that a second time. Instead I imagine myself slowly raising my left arm. “Fine,” the imaginary version of me says. “You can have it.” In my mind, I see myself slipping the bangle off my arm. I hold it between us, waiting for the moment when he releases me.

“Thank you,” he says, somewhat warily. He lets go of my arm and reaches for the bangle. The bangle that isn’t there. Imaginary me throws it with all her might over his shoulder. With an angry groan, the artist spins around and dashes after it.

I turn and run in the other direction—but a large bald man is moving toward me. “You!” he bellows. “You are the one. The gold they told me about. The
guardian
.”

What?
I glance around, seeking the best escape route. But before I can move another step, I’m surrounded. An elf on each side, and another behind me. They grab my arms and tug me roughly after the bald man, who’s heading through a door behind the bar.

“I will not have guardians in my club,” he calls over his shoulder.

“But I’m not a guardian,” I protest.

The man stops and looks over his shoulder. His eyes—fiery orange with narrow vertical pupils—glare at me. “They said you’d say that,” he snarls, revealing a forked tongue.
Drakoni
, my mind whispers to me.

“Look,” I say to him, struggling against the elves until I manage to raise my arms just enough to show my bare wrists. “No guardian markings.”

“Trainee,” the drakoni man spits. “Same thing.”

How does he know that?

He strides along a passageway, and I’m dragged after him into a dim, smoky room where two men are sitting at a round table, drinking amber-colored drinks and playing cards. They’re laughing about something, but they look up as the elves push me roughly into the room. One of them leers at me, while the other—

“Zed?” Relief and confusion collide, making me light-headed. For an odd moment, the room seems to vibrate. “What … what are you doing here?”
In the company of Creepy Hollow’s biggest guardian hater?

The room vibrates again.

“TAKE IT OFF!” a voice yells from somewhere behind me. At the sound of running footsteps, I look over my shoulder past the elves. I see the artist, but he blurs as the vibration around me intensifies. A shock wave ripples through the air, and with a loud
whoosh
, everything around me vanishes.

And then reappears with a jolt.

I blink.

This isn’t the room I was in a second ago. This is my bedroom at Ryn’s house. All my things are here, despite the fact that I moved everything out this afternoon. Aside from a faint green tinge overlaying the scene, everything looks the same as it was when I lived here. My clothes peek out of a half-open drawer. My work is spread across the desk. My trainee pendant hangs on the closet doorknob.

I turn slowly on the spot as my heart pounds heavily in my chest. Then I see the person sitting on the bed—and I completely freak out.

The person is me.

PART II

CHAPTER

NINE

I stumble backward and flatten myself against the wall, but the me on the bed doesn’t seem to notice. How is this happening? How am I
looking at myself
? For a moment I wonder if I’m projecting this entire scene, but that can’t be right. I’m not imagining this. I’m not controlling it. This is
real
.

Footsteps sound in the corridor, and Vi pokes her head into the room. “I know you’re studying,” she says, “but feel free to join us whenever you want.”

The other me groans and covers her face with a textbook. “The food smells so good,” she says from behind the pages. “I wish I could come down now.”

“Not much longer to go, and you’ll be done with all this extra work,” she says with a smile. “I’ll shout when dinner’s ready. You can join us then.”

She disappears, leaving me with a sense of déjà vu so strong it almost knocks me over. This conversation has already happened. Last week sometime, while I was studying for a written exam. Which means I’m currently standing in … the past?

How the freaking heck did I get to the past?

The bangle.

I grab the decorated band of bronze and try to tug it off, but it won’t move. “Come on,” I mutter, pulling harder. Realizing I’ve spoken out loud, I freeze and look at the girl on the bed. She shows no sign of having heard me. I get back to my attempts at prying the bangle off my arm, but it’s no use. It won’t budge.

With a groan of despair, I hurry out of the room and downstairs. I don’t know how to get myself back to the present, but standing in my bedroom tugging at my arm clearly isn’t helping. I arrive in the living room as Ryn opens a doorway on the wall and welcomes his friends, Jamon and Natesa. This is the night they came for dinner along with Raven and Flint, who are already sitting on a couch playing with their three-month-old son. I remember making fun of Ryn when he told me he and Vi were hosting a dinner party. “You’re so not the type to host
dinner parties
,” I told him.

As Jamon and Natesa’s five-year-old daughter skips across the room to play with the baby, I move closer to everyone. “Hello?” I say loudly, knowing before I open my mouth that it’s unlikely anyone will hear me. As I expected, not a single person in the room pays attention to me. The adults sit, and Vi walks out of the kitchen, directing a line of drinks through the air. I raise my arm in front of her as she passes. She walks right through it.

A chill rises across my skin. I’m nothing more than an observer here, unable to influence my surroundings or communicate with anyone around me. Wait, what about my amber? Perhaps I can communicate with someone in the present. I slip my fingers into the top of my left boot and draw my amber out. I swipe my finger across its surface, but nothing happens. I remove my stylus and use it to write on the amber, but no words form there.

Dammit.

And the faerie paths? Where would they take me if I opened a doorway now? To somewhere else in the past? I walk to the nearest wall to write on it, but my hand simply passes through when I lean my wrist against it.

Frightened, I snatch my hand back. I try to write a doorway spell into the air, but I have as much success as if I’m writing with an ordinary stick.

I’m trapped. Trapped within this green-tinted world in the past. I clutch my head in my hands and try not to panic.

“Hey, I heard you’re on the Guild Council now,” Jamon says, obviously to Ryn. “Condolences, man.”

Ryn groans. “I know. I wanted to turn down the offer, but Vi convinced me not to.”

I raise my head at that, puzzled by Ryn’s words. I thought becoming a member of the Council was a
good
thing.

“Well,” Violet says, sitting beside Ryn and tucking her legs beneath her, “since we decided you’d be the one to stay with the Guild, it makes sense for you to accept a position on the Council. We want to know as much as possible about what’s going on there, and we’ll only know that if you’re working near the top.”

“I know.” Ryn lets out a dramatic sigh. “I’m happy to take one for the team.”

Take one for the team? I thought my brother
liked
working at the Guild.

“Oh, I need to take this,” Ryn says, reaching forward as a small mirror lying on the coffee table lights up. “It’s probably about the protest.”

“Protest?” Raven asks as Ryn heads to the kitchen. Before he disappears through the door, I catch a glimpse of my father’s face on the mirror’s surface.

“Another Griffin List protest,” Vi says. “The Guild’s managed to keep it quiet so far. They don’t want it getting out of hand like last time.”

“Oh, is it to do with that man who’s on trial at the moment for attempting to blackmail a Council member to keep his wife’s name off the list?”

Vi nods. With my distress replaced by curiosity for a moment, I follow Ryn to the kitchen. Dad doesn’t work for the Guild anymore, so why is he talking to Ryn about a protest the Guild is trying to keep quiet?

“You’re putting me in an awkward position here, Dad,” Ryn says as I walk into the kitchen. The mirror is on the kitchen table, and Ryn’s leaning over it.

“I know,” Dad says. “I hate involving you, but I’m worried that with this trial going on, and the Guild looking into any hint of corruption, it won’t be long before someone starts wondering about Calla.”

What?

“All I’m asking is that you make sure there’s no record of the bribes anywhere.”

Bribes? What bribes?

“There was more than one?” Ryn says after a pause.

No, no, no. What has Dad done? What kind of bribes did he have to make in order to keep my incidents quiet? What if he gets caught? What if he has to go to prison just because he tried to keep me safe? I couldn’t live with that kind of guilt. I couldn’t—

Vibrations. A shock wave. Ripples and a whoosh and—

I’m standing in the back room of Club Deviant again, breathless and nauseous. Zed looks horrified, the elves are backing away from me, and running footsteps are still coming down the passage. A hand grabs my arm. “Close your eyes,” the artist says.