A Faerie's Secret (Creepy Hollow Book 4) (30 page)

“Um, I don’t feel so good,” Gemma says.

“Chase?” Elizabeth hurries toward us. She frowns at Gemma, currently bending over and breathing deeply while Perry rubs her arm. Elizabeth steps closer to Chase and lowers her voice to say, “Something’s gone wrong. I didn’t get to Saber in time. I saw him grab Lucien’s wife and pull her into another room through the door behind the ice pond. No one else seemed to notice.”

“Damn. What does he want with her?”

“I don’t know, but I’m not sticking around to find out.” She touches Chase’s arm, then backs away. “I’m leaving. I can’t afford to get caught here if things go south and security locks this place down.”

Chase gives her a quick nod and says, “I understand.”

“Coward,” I mutter under my breath.

“Calla, we should really get Gemma home,” Perry says.

“Yes. Can you take her? I need to help Chase with something here.”

Perry frowns. “Uh, okay. I’ll message Gemma’s sister. She helped her sneak out, so hopefully she’s still around to distract the parents while I sneak her back in.” He drapes Gemma’s arm over his shoulders and helps her across the room toward the elevator. He’ll have to get her down to the lawn before he’ll be able to open a doorway to the paths.

“You should go too,” Chase says, looking around for the ice pond. He spots the skaters and starts heading for them.

I hurry after him. “I can help you.”

“I know, but I don’t think your help is necessary tonight. I just need to get in there, stun Saber, and get him out of here before he hurts anyone or accomplishes whatever it is he’s here for.”

“And you don’t think you could possibly use an illusion master to make your little rescue mission go more smoothly?”

Chase hesitates a moment, appearing to weigh up the options as he stares at the door on the other side of the frozen pond. “Okay. But you need to do whatever I say.”

“I think I can probably manage that.”

We move through the crowd of laughing, drinking, dancing guests as quickly as we can without looking conspicuous. When we reach the other side of the ice pond, near the door Saber took Lucien’s wife through, I get to work. I picture the door with no one standing in front of it and project the image as far as I can. At least, I think that’s what I’m doing. I’ve never really thought about distance or how many people my projections could influence at one time. I don’t know if everyone in this room will automatically see what I want them to see, or if I have to imagine forcing the image further and further out. It seems strange that I don’t know the limits of my own ability. Why have I never tested this before?

“Are you doing it?” Chase asks. I nod, and he moves in front of the door. He’s gathered enough power to stun someone—which took him all of about four seconds—in case Saber attacks him the moment he opens the door. He tries the handle, but it’s locked. “Just give me a minute to get this open.” He kneels down and does some kind of spell on the keyhole with his stylus.

“Sure. I’ll just be over here, imagining a blank door.”

“Great. This shouldn’t take too—Ah, there we go. Just a simple locking spell, as I suspected.” He returns his stylus to an inside jacket pocket, stands, and takes hold of the handle. “Get ready to be creative if necessary.”

I nod. He opens the door and steps quickly inside, both hands raised and ready to release magic. When nothing exciting happens, I peer past him and see an empty corridor with the same polished floor as the vast living area the party is happening in. I follow him and close the door behind me, finally letting go of the blank door image. We advance along the corridor. No doors lead off it, but not too far ahead, I can see it turns to the left.

A dull thud. The sound of running feet. My heart quickens, and I raise my hands to place a shield of protective magic in front of me. A second later, Saber comes sprinting around the corner. Chase sends his stunner spell shooting through the air. Saber ducks, skids to the side across the polished floor, and throws his hands out toward us. Sparks fly from his fingertips, morphing into a flurry of leaves that attack my shield and swirl around Chase’s head before I extend the shield in front of him.

“Drop the shield,” he tells me, so I do. He sweeps his hand out, and the leaves fall away. With the air clear now, I see Saber down on one knee, tossing a metallic ball across the floor toward us.

“What is—”

I don’t have time to finish my question before Chase throws himself against me and pins me to the wall. An explosion deafens me, shuddering the ground and walls and filling the corridor with billows of thick grey smoke. Above the ringing in my ears I hear Saber shouting, “I’ve already got what I came for.”

Chase pushes away from me and disappears into the smoke. My eyes sting and I can’t stop coughing, so I form a bubble of protection around me while the smoke dissipates. After about a minute, it’s gone. Chase comes running back into the corridor, shaking his head and looking grim. “I couldn’t find him. He’s gone.”

“Lucien’s wife?” I say. I turn and run in the other direction down the corridor. We find her in a sitting room around the corner, lying on the floor. She sits up as we reach her, rubbing her head and looking confused. “Are you okay?” I ask, helping her up onto a chair. Her arms are barely more than skin and bone, and her short hair is so thin, I can see her scalp though it. I remember bits of what I’ve read in the news about this woman’s strange illness that her body’s magic can’t heal and no one can cure.

Still looking rather dazed, she says, “I think so.”

“The man who brought you in here,” Chase prompts. “What did he want?”

Her eyes are wide with bewilderment. “What man? What happened? I don’t remember coming in here.”

I notice a small glass vial on the floor. “He made her forget,” I say quietly to Chase. “She doesn’t know anything.”

Running footsteps sound in the corridor. “Security,” Chase says. “Can you make them think we’re not here?”

I nod, already picturing the room without us in it. Just the polished floor, the square furniture, the overly fluffy rug, and the recovering woman. When several guards run into the room, they hurry straight past us. We walk slowly, quietly back to the corridor, then pick up our pace. Two more guards are stationed at the doorway, holding back the questioning crowd. I have to hold an image of the empty corridor in my mind as we walk toward everyone. It’s scary, knowing I might lose focus at any moment and allow the two of us to become visible. Halfway down the corridor, I grab onto Chase’s arm and close my eyes so I can focus on the illusion I’m projecting. “Don’t let me walk into anyone,” I whisper.

We make it out safely, quickly moving through the crowd after I accidentally brush against one of the guards. “I have to admit,” Chase says once we’re a safe distance from the corridor and the barrier is back up around my mind, “your ability was rather useful in getting us in and out of there.”

I shrug. “You’re welcome.”

“I just wish I knew what Saber came here for.” Chase clenches his fist and presses it against the pillar we’re standing beside. “He’s several steps ahead of me, and I don’t like it. The fact that I know who he’s working for makes it even worse.”

Undoubtedly the most dangerous man we know
. That’s what Chase said earlier.

“Who? What makes this person so dangerous? It’s not …” I feel so stupid saying the name Draven. It can’t be him.

Chase shakes his head. “I don’t want to involve you.”

“Right, like I’m not involved already.” When he shows no sign of answering me, I say, “Does the Guild know anything about this … situation? Guardians are the ones who should be dealing with this.”

“The Guild is aware of some of this.”

I raise my eyebrows. “And? You’re going to make them aware of the rest of it?”

“And … I think this is the end of our conversation.”

I groan loudly and grab a skewer of strawberries from a passing tray. “You’re infuriating. This is why we aren’t going to be working together.”

“Yes. This is one of the reasons.”

“But, you know, we can still be friends. I’ll help you pick out designs for your tattoo clients, and you can teach me the best way to stab an enemy without killing him.”

Chase allows himself a smile. “Sounds like the basis for a lifelong friendship.”

I nod and finish chewing my strawberries. I drop the skewer onto another passing tray and say, “Well, good night. I guess I’ll see you around.”

“For a stabbing lesson.”

“Right.”

I turn to leave, but he grabs my arm. “Calla?” His gaze drops to the ground in a moment of hesitation. “When I said ‘older—’” his eyes, beautiful and intense, rise to meet mine “—I didn’t mean ‘old.’”

I press my lips together as I try to hold my smile in. “I know.”

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SIX

I wake the next morning and allow myself a few minutes to lie there smiling before getting up. I might have a mother in hospital and a mentor who hates me, but I’m finally doing what I’ve always wanted to do, I have actual, real friends who are doing the same thing, and I get to occasionally hang out with a cool Underground tattoo artist who thinks I look good in evening wear.

I get to the Guild dining hall in time for breakfast, but the only other person sitting at our usual table is Ned. Gemma is apparently ‘not feeling well,’ and then Ned receives a message from Perry saying he overslept and only just woke up.

“Must have been quite a party, huh?” Ned mumbles.

“It was. I think it’s safe to say Gemma won’t be eating any chocolate bonbons for a while.”

Ned nods. He then shovels food into his mouth with alarming speed before excusing himself to go finish some homework. I’m pretty sure we had no homework yesterday, which means Ned is simply making an escape. I suppose he’s still too shy around me to consider sticking around for a conversation without the safety net of his other two friends.

Since classes aren’t due to begin for another twenty-five minutes, and—fortunately—I have no meeting with Olive this morning, I decide to go to the healing wing and visit Mom. The woman behind the desk in the waiting area makes a comment about me not observing visiting hours, but, with a conspiratorial smile, she lets me through anyway.

I sit on the stool that appears beside Mom’s bed and watch her for a while. I try to find the anger I felt when I learned her secret, but it’s mostly gone. I’m relieved. Hanging onto that anger would have been exhausting. When I look at her now, I just feel … sad. I feel as though I don’t know nearly enough about her, and, to be honest, she doesn’t know me that well either. “We haven’t had the healthiest mother-daughter relationship, have we?” I say as I place my hand over Mom’s. “We smile at each other and skim the surface of our lives with pleasantries, but neither of us ever trusted the other enough to go deeper than that. There are things, so many things I could have shared with you. The nasty comments that left me in tears, my fear that I’d waste my life as an artist and never help anyone, the thrill I felt the first time I did a back flip, my crush on Zed, the truth about what really happened to … that boy who committed suicide.” I squeeze Mom’s hand, wondering if she’ll remember any of this when she wakes up. “Neither of us had to be so alone, Mom, but we chose to keep our secrets to ourselves. I guess we’ll see if we can change that when you wake up.”

I stand, then turn back as I remember something. “Ryn and Vi are finally having a proper wedding. Union ceremony, I mean.” If Mom were awake, I know she’d correct me. “It’s happening next weekend. I know that’s barely any time to organize anything, but a friend of theirs has some time off so she offered to plan the whole thing. So, you know, if there’s a wake-up date you’re aiming for, any time before next Saturday would be—”

From the corner of my eye, I see the curtain sway. I look up as two male healers walk in. They’re surprised to see me here, but not as surprised as I am to see them. Because despite the uniforms these two men are wearing, I know they’re not healers. One is the scarred man who fought me and attacked my parents, and the other is Saber.

* * *

They stunned me.

I’m lost in a groggy no man’s land of semiconsciousness when I become aware of this. I remember flinging sparks at them and grasping the air for a throwing star. I threw one—and that must have been the moment I was stunned because I don’t remember anything after that.

I feel a rocking motion, but I can’t tell if it’s real or if it’s part of my confused half-dreaming state. I swim in slow motion through water thick like syrup. My arms are weak. So weak I can barely pull myself through the thick water. I try to kick against it with my legs, but they’re even more sluggish than my arms.

A cold breeze. It drifts across my face, smelling like salt. The rocking motion continues, and a sloshing sounds joins it. I drag one eyelid open for a moment and see dark clouds moving above me before darkness descends over my vision once more.

Mom. What did they do with Mom?

Over the next few minutes, I catch glimpses of the turbulent sky above, someone moving next to me, and then a dark shape blotting out the sky. By that point, I’m conscious enough to know I’m in a boat and that my wrists and ankles are bound. With a great effort, I manage to keep my eyes open longer than a second or two, and that’s when I realize what the dark shape is: a floating island.