by D P Rowell
The faes and Uncle Marcus swapped terrified stares. “Y—Yes, Your Majesty,” Marcus said.
“Take them to the dungeon with the others and let the Chosen know what’s about to happen. He will be pleased to hear he can continue his quest through the four borders without returning to Breen to take care of this disturbance.” Aunt Kaitlyn said.
Rio’s not here. Rio’s not coming! Ace thought.
“You won’t get away with this!” Cameron shouted.
Aunt Kaitlyn chuckled. “When will you two and your father learn?” She moved her eyes between Ace and Cameron. “The Halders will never beat the Peppercorns in anything . . . even life and death.”
The guards grabbed them, holding the crystal tipped spears at their necks, and nudged them down one of the paths to the dungeon. Ace glanced behind at Uncle Marcus, who had just turned the other way to gather the press conference as Aunt Kaitlyn had imagined.
The guards took them to a path underground at the other end of the residencies. It felt like they traveled at least four stories down. When they reached the bottom, they went through an arched entryway to a hall of cells on either side. One fae guard stood at the mouth of the hallway. The other fae guards threw them each in a cell of their own, locked the doors, and made for the exit. When they reached the mouth of the hall, they told the one guard. “If there is any disturbance, and especially any practice of the elyr as a weapon, take whatever means necessary to stop them.”
“This is the Queen’s orders?”
“Yes,” the other fae guards lied. They marched away back up the winding staircase.
Ace went to his cell door and saw others in the cells across from him.
“Ace! Cameron!” Father said in the cell across from him.
“Dad!” Ace said.
Sebastian was in the cell next to father, and in the cell next to Sebastian, Kareena. For a moment they all exchanged welcomes; and while Ace was distraught that everyone was trapped in a cell five stories under the Crystal Palace, he at least was happy everyone was safe. For now, anyway.
“What happened? How did you end up here?” Father said.
“We came here to get the Emerson Stone back,” Ace said. “Aunt Kaitlyn captured us. She told Uncle Marcus to get a press conference together, so she can hang us all in front of Yutara.”
“It’s okay, Ace,” Father said. “Everything will be okay.”
Ace couldn’t see Cameron or Trilo in the cells next to his, but he heard Cameron say, “How will everything be okay? We’re trapped here about to be hanged in front of the world!”
“We’ll figure something out, Cameron,” Ace said. He knew they still had a chance. Tharauch was somewhere in the palace still. He didn’t want to say it out loud, lest the fae guard hear him and do something about it. Maybe Tharuach could find the Emerson Stone or come down and break them out of the dungeon. Nevertheless, the likelihood of such an event was small. Ace sighed and leaned against one of the walls. “Kareena, I’m sorry,” Ace shouted to be sure she could hear him. He glanced out his door and saw her fingers gripping her bar doors and her eyes peering at him from the darkness in her cell. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I’m so sorry. It’s my fault you’re in here.”
“Ace, it’s not your fault,” Kareena said. “It—
“Prince Marcus, what are you doing here?” The fae guard said outside the hall. Ace jolted upright and pressed his face against the bars, but he couldn’t see them conversing.
“You are dismissed, I have a private matter to discuss with the prisoners,” Uncle Marcus said. Ace looked across from him, Sebastian and Father both looked puzzled and frightened, their eyes shifting between Ace and the guard at the end of the hall.
“But, Prince Marcus, the Queen—”
“I’m sorry, guard; but have you forgotten your place? The Queen and the Queen alone is above my authority. If I give an order, you follow it. Unless you want to answer to the Queen yourself.”
The guard coughed and said. “My apologies. I beg your forgiveness, Prince Marcus. As you wish.” The sound of clanging armor bled into silence as the guard’s footsteps gradually took him up the stairs.
Uncle Marcus’ footsteps paled in comparison. Ace couldn’t tell how far away he was. No matter how many times his uncle’s feet tapped the dirt surface, it never grew louder or quieter. So, when Uncle Marcus jumped in front of his cell, staring at him with wicked, dark eyes, he frightened Ace. The boy screamed and leapt back, staring at his evil uncle.
“If you and your friends want to survive,” Uncle Marcus said. “You’re going to do exactly as I say.”
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
The Face of a Wtich
"Whatever you’re up to, Marcus, you’ll never get away with it!” Father said from the other cell.
Uncle Marcus stared at Ace with wicked, determined eyes. Ace grinned. Uncle Marcus didn’t know the boy had his elyr back, and with it, he could remove the witch and get the information he’d been wanting.
“What do you want, Marcus?” Ace said.
“I’ve already told you,” Uncle Marcus said. He opened his mouth as if he were about to say something else but couldn’t. He fell to his knees and gripped his hair, groaning and twitching and fussing. As if it burst from him, he finally lifted his head and shouted. “I want the Emerson Stone!”
“What’s wrong with you, Marcus?” Father asked.
Ace squinted at his evil uncle. He noticed his eyes looked different. Wicked and scared and confused all at once. They zipped back and forth, as if the man couldn’t settle what he wanted to stare at. He white-knuckled the bars of Ace’s cell.
“Give it to me!” Marcus shouted, seething through his teeth.
“What are you talking about, Marcus?” Cameron said. “The stone is he—”
“Shh!” Kareena cut him off. The young fae had been swapping eyes with Ace as he inched towards his uncle. He could tell she knew what his plan was.
“Give it to me, give it to me,” Uncle Marcus kept repeating himself.
Ace remembered the day in Uncle Marcus' office. He pictured his uncle mouthing the words help me as Ace was being dragged away. “Okay,” Ace replied quietly. He glanced left and right. “I’ll do whatever you say, Uncle Marcus; but I need you to open my cell first.”
“Ace! What are you—” Trilo had begun to say, but Kareena cut him off as well with a piercing stare and a slice of her hand through the air in front of her neck.
The Uncle reached in his robe frantically. It took him a moment to do it, for it seemed as if he was fighting his own hand to reach in and grab the cell key from his robe. Once he did, he quickly unlocked the cell, the sound of the tumblers clanked through the hall, and the door slowly swung open. Uncle Marcus fell to the ground and started crawling and pulling at his hair. At first, Ace hadn’t quite believed what he was seeing. Could it really have been so easy as this? He soon realized, if he pondered it much longer, the opportunity to strike would pass him.
Ace bolted through his cell door, staring at his sick uncle on the floor.
Trilo chuckled from the cell beside him. “Weird. What’s going on with this dude?”
“The real Marcus Peppercorn is still inside somewhere and he’s trying to get free,” Ace said. “He didn’t come here for the Emerson Stone. He came here for my help, he just had to make the witch controlling him believe it.”
Marcus jerked his head back at Ace from the ground, dark circles now swallowing his eyes. “I am Marcus! I am Marcus!”
Ace shook his head with a sly smile. “No, witch, you’re not. And now I have my light back.” He snapped a pale flame to his palms and terror came over Uncle Marcus' face. He wriggled, cried, and pushed himself back, but Ace stepped on one of his legs to keep him from moving further. “It’s time I cast out this witch and figure out where the Emerson Stone is. Flee now, and I won’t let the Light torture you.”
“I am Marcus!”
Ace sighed. “Very well.” He thrust the Light forth in a
powerful flame consuming his uncle’s body. The witch cried and heaved and moaned and whined. Uncle Marcus rolled around in the blanket of white fire. “Come out now or I won’t stop!”
Uncle Marcus rolled to his back. His body went stiff as a board. Where the flames allowed enough transparency, a dark shadow emerged. Ace ceased the stream of elyr as the witch fled his uncle’s body, covered in white flames. She fell to the dirt ground and rolled around, attempting to pat away the flames. The witch yelped as sparks of the elyr remained burning her black robes. She slowly quit her squirming and curled into a ball and faced Sebastian’s cell. The elite jumped away from his cell door at the sight of the witch. Uncle Marcus coughed and rolled over on his hands and knees. The witch’s skin sizzled and she groaned quietly. Ace walked to her. She remained curled up and facing the bars in front of her. Something grave passed through his mind. Through her emissions of black smoke, even the back of this witch looked familiar somehow. Her dark hair sprawled out on the dirt floor sent a flash of horror through him. He walked closer. She cried timidly with defeat as the smoke rose from the burns of the elyr on her arms and back. He knelt behind her. His hand shook violently from nerves as he touched the burn on her arm. He slowly turned the witch over to face him.
“No,” he whispered. Tears gushed from his eyes. He fought the urge to gag as his stomach churned and knees trembled. He knew this face since birth. The face of a family rival he’d been trying so hard to save. The face of the witch was the face of—
“Tamara!” screamed Cameron. “No!”
“Wait, wait,” Ace said in desperation. A memory rushed through his head.
The Light will guide you, Jakka had said. Ace could free her from this if she was willing to be freed!
“Tamara, listen to me,” Ace said.
The burns on her face grew less intense and she began to snarl at him. Her rotten teeth seeped with black smoke. She smacked her lips.
Halder, Halder, Halder, Tamara said in his thoughts.
“Tamara!” Ace yelled, “Listen to me! I—I can save you from this! I can free you.”
To defy the council—
“No.”
Is to bring death—
“Don’t do this! D—d—don’t give in to this!” His voice croaked.
And destruction.
The witch’s face grew dark. With a heave of her right hand, she thrust a wave of magic and sent Ace, Cameron and Trilo flying backwards. Ace smacked against the cell door, and Trilo and Cameron smacked against the walls inside their cells.
The Elyrian grunted. His back throbbed as he fell to the ground. Tamara yelped witch’s shrill cry and leapt after them in a blinding speed. Ace did nothing to combat her. He had not the strength to fight his own cousin. The cousin he’d been risking his life to save. An anti-magic sun popped her in her side mid-air and she hit the ground, tumbling as the anti-magic straight jacket consumed her. Ace turned to his left to find Uncle Marcus laying there with an AMR rifle, panting and sweating.
“Ahh!” Tamara screamed. “The anti-magic!” She tried to crawl away, but the blanket of glowing orange crawled on her. “Ace,” she said. “It hurts, Ace.” Her voice had darkness in it. He words cut like a blade. He faced the other way, feeling the sting of her cries from behind, for he couldn’t look her in the eyes. “Acce. Acce. Make it sstop.”
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Last Hope
Ace stared blankly at Tamara convulsing. His mind went blank. Hope fled him. His body clenched as waves of dread crashed over him. She shrieked like any other witch. The great evil inside her didn't hide behind her eyes. The council was right about the curse after all. About the Peppercorns being witches. How could he save her if she wouldn’t accept it? How could he help her?
The only way to save a witch, is to die for one. The words the council spoke to him the day in the witch cellar came to memory. The more he thought of it, the more he worried they had been telling him the truth. What if it truly was the only way to save them?
Uncle Marcus had walked away and come back with everyone's AMRs and AMHBs. He freed the prisoners one by one. He opened Cameron’s cell last, and when he did, Cameron jumped on him, tackled him to the ground, and landed a right fist in his jaw.
Colton ran after him. “Cameron, stop!” Cameron threw more fists.
Father eventually reached him and yanked him away.
“Traitor! You ruined this family!” Cameron screamed. Dad pulled him further away and fell to the ground with him in his arms. “Let me go, Dad, he’s a traitor! He’s a member of the council!” But Dad pulled him closer and tighter. Cameron eventually gave in and collapsed in his father’s arms. Dad held him close. Cameron’s face flushed hot red.
Ace clenched his fist and marched to Uncle Marcus, who now sat with his back against the stone wall, rubbing the side of his face where Cameron landed his first strike.
“You see that?” Ace said, pointing at Tamara, wrapped in anti-magic.
Uncle Marcus nodded, and a tear spilled out of his eye. “I didn’t do it.”
“You have a whole lot of explaining to do, you know that? The only way Tamara could be a witch is by a generational curse. Typically, those come from parcels.”
Uncle Marcus sat straight and leaned close. “I would never do anything like that to my own daughter.”
Ace chuckled. He bent closer and stuck his nose in his uncle’s face. He spoke the next thing with grit in his voice. “You want to save her?”
“Of course!”
Ace brought a thick, white flame to his palm and held it before the uncle. “Then you better start talking right now.” He noticed the flame didn’t burn Marcus, but it hadn’t burned Aunt Kaitlyn either. What good did it do?
Uncle Marcus sighed and sat back. “I first knew something was weird with Kaitlyn the day your mother died.” Everyone circled around him and leaned in. “She had been coming home late more often. Constantly taking Julie and Tamara away from the house to go shopping or see a movie, or whatever excuse she could come up with. One day, she took Julie and Tamara and didn’t come back until the next morning. I thought she was thinking of leaving me, so I confronted her about it. She tried to reassure me it was nothing; that she just wanted to be spending more time with her daughters. But they started acting strange too. They started talking back to me; disrespecting me more. I found out soon, when she was taking them away, she’d begun filling their heads with nonsense. I always hated the ridiculous rivalry she had with her brother . . . with you, Colton . . . It consumed her. I told her to stop acting so childish and leave our kids out of it. She went sneaking around with them to tell them lies about you Halders. Encouraging them to prank you two. Behaving like a child. And the night before your mother died, she had convinced Julie to pull a ‘harmless’ prank on her.
“However, after I’d learned my wife was doing this with my children, it still didn’t explain why she’d been coming home late. One day I skipped practice and snuck back home to see what she was up to. She was preparing the meal for your family to visit us that night. At one point, she left the house. I followed her to a strange wooded area. The way she snuck around worried me. Eventually, she met a green drake in the woods, cloaked in black robes, a staff of skulls in his right hand. He handed her a vial wrapped in a copper serpent; there was blue liquid inside. I didn’t realize it was Rio at the time.
“‘Are you sure this’ll do it?’ Kaitlyn said.
“The drake nodded, ‘Just one drop anywhere on her skin will do the trick. I cast the spell on it myself.’”
Ace’s heart turned to ice. He flashed back to his recurring memory. Aunt Kaitlyn had had her hand on Mom’s neck and nodded at Julie. It was Aunt Kaitlyn, she was the one who killed his mom. Julie had nothing to do with it, and neither did Uncle Marcus.
Marcus continued. “‘I just don’t get it,’ Kaitlyn had said to the drake, ‘why are we doing this to his mom?’
“Rio sighed, ‘She and the old man are the only ones who stand in the
way of their hearts. If you’ve pinned them against each other as well as you’ve said, the boy will never forgive his cousins for it. When the time comes for him to take the stone, his hatred will prevent him from his gift and he’ll be more likely to trust me. As far as the old man is concerned, you leave him to me.’”
Grandpa! Ace thought, anger bursting inside him. Rio was the one who killed Grandpa and Grandma! The fire was obeying Rio’s spell! He had been outside the cabin in New Eathelyn when it happened!
Marcus continued. “‘Why not just take the stone from my dad right now?’ Kaitlyn had said.
“‘The stone cannot be taken, it must be given. Marty knows this too well. He’s far too intelligent to fall for anything like it. The only way I could build trust with Marty is by pretending I have no knowledge of the stone. If the prophecy is correct, the boy will receive the stone at a very young age. With all the hatred you’ve birthed in him, he’ll be a much easier target. He will trust me more than Marty does, and he’ll be ignorant of the stone’s power. I will get it from him.’
“‘Then?’
“We’ve been through it all before.’
“‘Say it. I need to hear your end of the bargain out loud.’
“The drake stared her down wickedly and snarled. He clacked his tongue a few times before he said, ‘Then, with the stone in my grasp, I will have the power to grant you anything you desire. You will be named Supreme Witch of the council and rule by my side. Your daughters will fall under you and you will rule them.’
“‘And the Halders?’
“‘The Halders will, in the end, become our servants.’ Rio had said.” Marcus sat rubbing his head as he explained what happened. Everyone else stared at him wordlessly. “I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” Marcus continued, “at first, I thought it was some sort of practical joke or something. I mean, witches? Warlocks? I didn’t believe that. I just thought she was insane. But, then the drake noticed me.
