A Faerie's Secret (Creepy Hollow Book 4) (32 page)

Gaius continues to shake his head as he backs away from me.

Amon sighs, as if this little drama is keeping him from something more important. “You’ll be saving her life by doing this. I promised Saber he would have his revenge, and the way we’re doing that is by removing all her magic. So if you can’t do that, I’m afraid we’ll have to kill her.”

Gaius grows still, but his wide eyes never leave me. I see his resignation, and I know what decision he’s come to. “Don’t do this, don’t do this,” I beg. “Please don’t do this.” I don’t want to die, but I don’t want to wind up magic-less either. There
must
be another way out of this.

“I—I have to,” Gaius says, tugging uselessly at the ring on his finger. “I can’t let them kill you.”

“You. Guard,” Marlin says. “Come over here and remove this man’s ring.”

The guard hesitates, then puffs out his chest and places his hands on his hips. “No. I can’t let you do this. It’s all gone too far now.”

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Marlin says. “This is not your moment to be a hero. Do you really want to watch your own life—your family’s life—go up in flames because you tried to save someone you don’t even know? Do you really think that’s worth it?”

The man looks tortured, but in the end, with a cry of anger, he crosses the room and removes Gaius’s ring. Then, before I can think to fight back with magic, he grabs my hand and pushes the ring onto it.

“No!” I shriek. I run for the door, but Saber and Marlin catch me before I’m halfway there. I kick and scratch and hit, but they pin me to the floor. Gaius advances on me, guilt and fear written across his face.

“Please forgive me,” he says. “I’m only trying to save you.” He catches my flailing hand and hangs onto it. He closes his eyes, and I make one last desperate attempt to get away. I scream and kick and thrash, but Gaius never lets go of my hand.

I don’t know the moment when I finally lose my Griffin Ability, but I feel it when he begins to draw my core magic out of me. It’s my essence, my energy, the thing that distinguishes me from other magical beings and beings with no magic at all. I slowly grow weaker. Weaker and colder. My vision dims, and I wonder if this will kill me anyway. Is magic what keeps me alive, or can I survive without it?

Weaker … colder … darker …

Blackness clouds the edges of my vision as the last of my magic is sucked from me.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-SEVEN

I have nothing. No illusions, no guardian weapons, no magic at all. But I’m not dead. I lie on the cold stone floor feeling weak and sick and … different. As if a hum I was never aware of is gone. Like a background noise you don’t notice until it’s no longer there.

You have no magic.

I don’t know how long I’ve been lying here, the tears drying on my face and the chill creeping through my clothes. I’m vaguely aware of the others in the room: the guard pacing in the corner, dealing with his own personal demons; Saber and Marlin conversing with Amon; Gaius hovering near me, almost protectively.

You have no magic.

I blink a few times and see the ring back on Gaius’s hand. Is he extra powerful now that he has both his magic and mine? What would he be capable of if he wasn’t constrained by that ring? I want to hate him for taking what should always have been mine, but I can’t muster the strength. Besides, I know none of this was his fault. He was only trying to save me. If only he knew that life as an empty shell isn’t a life worth saving.

You have no magic.

The realization hits me again, reminding me of all the things I’ll never do or have. I want to crumple in on myself and cry until there are no tears left inside me. What am I supposed to do now? Who am I without magic? Where can I go? Where will I ever belong?

I’ve never felt such despair before. I expect it to consume me, to finish me off, but I’m still lying here, very much alive. If anything, I feel more awake than I did just now. Perhaps I’m slowly recovering from the shock of losing everything. At first that makes no sense to me, but then I remember that beings without magic are also capable of healing. Humans get sick and wounded, and their bodies manage to fix themselves.

“Keep him somewhere secure,” Amon says, nodding toward Gaius. “Somewhere he can’t harm himself or hope to escape. Collecting Griffin Abilities certainly isn’t our focus, but since the opportunity has presented itself, we can make use of it.”

“Yes, sir,” Marlin says. “We’ve got the Seers at the mulberry house. It’s never been compromised, so—”

“No. Not there. Keep him at one of the other locations. I don’t want all my assets in one place.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Take the first two Seers somewhere else as well. They don’t all need to be together.”

I’m distracted from my own misery as I listen to Amon’s instructions. He’s going to use Gaius to steal Griffin Abilities. No more army of special soldiers, like Draven used. He won’t have to keep hundreds of Gifted people under control. Now he can store the abilities in jewelry or other objects until he decides to make use of them. And it doesn’t matter that he’s locked behind bars. Not when he has followers so clearly willing to do his bidding.

For a moment, I’m reminded of why I’ve always wanted so badly to be a guardian: to protect others. To stop the kind of evil that locked me and hundreds of others in cages and then proceeded to lay waste to our world. The kind of evil that sees the unique magic in others and wants to steal it away. I want to stop that. And now I never can.

You know you can do all that without being a guardian, right?
The memory of Chase’s voice brings color to the dismal grey painted across my mind.
You don’t need guardian weapons. You don’t even need magic.

Don’t need magic? What an unimaginable concept.

“That will be all for now,” Amon says. “Let me know when the Seer wakes up. It could be a long time still, but I’m a patient man.”

Through my half-open eyelids, I see Marlin nod and take hold of Gaius. “Get ready to start using your new ability. You’ll be getting us out of here with an illusion.”

“But … I’ve never used it before. I don’t know how to make illusions.” As Gaius says this, images of guards dragging us away flicker across the walls. “What? How did I …”

What Gaius doesn’t know is that creating illusions won’t be his problem. Figuring out how to keep them to himself will be.

“You’ve got about half a minute,” Marlin says, “so you’d better figure it out. And don’t even think about revealing us all so the guards can catch us. We know about your grandmother.”

Gaius’s fear-filled eyes grow even wider.

“What must we do with the girl?” Saber asks, walking to my side and nudging my arm with his shoe. Anger burns inside me, sparking life in my limbs. I almost feel strong enough to kick him.

“Throw her into the ocean,” Amon says.

My anger freezes as fear takes its place.

“You can’t do that,” Gaius protests. “You said you wouldn’t kill her if I took her magic.”

“I know, but I was lying,” Amon explains. “Come now, be reasonable. She knows too much. I can’t let her go back home and tell everyone what happened. Besides, what kind of life can she have without magic? It will be kinder to throw her into the ocean.”

Kinder? Kinder, my ass! A few minutes ago, sinking into hopelessness, I would have agreed with Amon. And I still can’t begin to fathom how I might live without magic, but the only thing I know now is that
I don’t want to die
.

“I look forward to pushing her out the boat,” Saber says, grasping my arm and pulling me up. “Preferably from a great height.”

I waver on my feet as dizziness spins my head, but I manage to stay upright. I’m still far weaker than normal, and I have no idea how I’m going to fight my way out of this, only that I must. First, we need to get past as many guards as possible. “Gaius.” I wave my hand feebly toward him. Even my voice is unsteady. I hate the sound of it, but the weaker everyone thinks I am, the better. “Picture what you want them to see,” I say, keeping my voice at a croaky whisper. “Hold that image in your mind. Focus. That’s all it takes.”

The guard and Saber head out, Gaius follows them, and Marlin pulls me along at the back of the procession. “All this trickery getting in and out of here just so he could see two Gifted,” Saber mutters. “They’re not even part of the main plan. If we get caught doing this—”

“Then we’ll face the consequences,” Marlin says. “Or doesn’t your loyalty extend that far?”

“Of course it does,” Saber grumbles.

None of the guards stop us, so I assume Gaius is managing to maintain the illusion. Nevertheless, I tell myself to be prepared to run at any stage. I don’t know how fast I can go in my current state, but the element of surprise could help me. I wiggle my right leg around a bit to see if I can feel Dad’s knife in the sheath inside my boot, but I can’t tell if it’s there. Would Saber and Marlin have thought to check there for a weapon?

We eventually arrive back at the first corridor. We pass the waiting room, and I see another guard sitting at the desk there. He must have come in after we left to take the first guard’s place. With the waiting room behind us, Gaius sighs in relief, and I know he’s let go of the illusion. We don’t need it anymore. Only one more gate to get through, and the guard there knows that four of us came in together. On the other side of the gate, the blackmailed guard escorts us back to our boat.

My move is coming soon.

Adrenaline pumps through my system, readying me for what’s to come. The stairs appear, Saber goes down first, and I’m pushed after him. I make sure to wobble more than necessary as I step into the boat. I collapse onto a pile of blankets and let my eyelids flutter half-closed. I hate the pathetic act, but it’s necessary if I don’t want them watching my every move.

The men remove their rings. The stairs vanish, and the boat starts moving with the current. The guard watches us with folded arms and a grim expression. We’re heading toward a kind of whirlpool, which I assume will pull us down and drop us out the underside of the floating island. The boat moves faster. My breath quickens. My fingers wrap around the edge of the boat and tighten.

We hit the whirlpool. The water draws away from us, and the boat drops down. With spray spinning around us, the underside of the island comes into view.

And this is where my brilliant plan kicks into action.

I leap up and launch myself out of the boat, aiming for one of the many hanging vines. I snatch hold of it as I begin to fall. It tears into my palms, burning my skin as I slip down it. The vine swings forward with my momentum, and I let go and grab hold of another one. My stinging palms scream out at me, but I
will not let go
. I’m only one more vine away from my target: a rope ladder. I leap again—and this is the vine that breaks.

I fall, scrabbling at the air, my momentum carrying me just close enough to grab onto one side of the ladder. The rope burns more skin from my hands, but I hang onto it tighter than I’ve ever held onto anything. I hear an angry shout somewhere behind me, but I don’t look back. As the swinging of the rope ladder slows, I find a foothold on a lower rung and begin climbing. “Ignore the pain,” I tell myself through gritted teeth. “Ignore the pain, ignore the pain.”

I’m climbing toward a narrow, vertical hole in the ground. Through it, I see dull, grey light. I’m almost at the base of the hole when the rope ladder jerks abruptly below me. I look down and see Saber at the bottom. A trail of swinging vines tells me he took the same route I did. “Dammit. Climb faster,” I instruct myself. “Climb faster, climb faster.”

I reach the bottom of the hole—and it’s narrower than anything I’ve ever climbed through. Panic chokes me. Saber is below, catching up quickly, and ahead is the one thing I never want to face.

I freeze.

Saber will kill you!
I scream at myself.
MOVE!
I take a great gulp of air and continue climbing. The earthy walls of the vertical tunnel are so close to me, I can almost feel the sand brushing against my back. I shrink away from it, a scream building in my throat. I climb faster. “Keep going, keep going, keep going,” I chant through my sobs. I can see the clouds above me, and I can feel the tunnel pressing closer, feel the phantom grasp of Saber’s hand around my ankle, and I climb and climb and climb—and then I’m through! I dig my fingers into the grass, pull myself out of the hole, and climb onto shaking legs. The prison rises up on my left, a dark, imposing fortress of stone. On my right, a wall encircles the edge of the floating island.

I run.

I don’t know where I’m going or how this is supposed to help me get home, but I know I can’t let Saber catch me. I leap over a stream of water that flows out from the base of the prison. Sparks shoot over my shoulder, and I duck to the side in fright. I stumble as I avoid a hole like the one I climbed up, but manage to steady myself before I fall. Another spark shoots past me. It morphs into a leafy vine and snakes back toward me. It wraps around my ankle and tugs me to the ground.