The Seeker's Revenge

by Isadora Brown

  “I heard about Sabrina Charming,” he said. He took a seat on the bench next to me, but sat on the edge, his back straight. He wouldn’t even look at me, and considering he was on the complete opposite side of the bench and I could still feel the tension in his body, I could tell just how angry he was.

  “Okay,” I said. I wasn’t sure how to answer that. My knee started bouncing up and down. I didn’t like waiting. If he was going to say something, I wish he would just do it.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” he demanded. He angled his torso in my direction, wrinkling his nose as he glared at me. His pelvis stayed where he had it. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

  “What?” I asked. “Why are you getting on my case about this? It wasn’t like I asked for her to be arrested.”

  “Oh, really? What did you think was going to happen?”

  My eyebrows raised and he snarled.

  “Don’t give me that look,” he snapped. “Of course I heard. I know Shane Wolf was the person responsible for running the test that proved Sabrina’s DNA was on the body. I’m not an idiot.”

  “I never said you were,” I snapped back. “How did you know it was Shane?”

  “There are only three people who work there,” Jack said. “And he’s the only one with ties to the police department. I don’t think I need to spell that out for you. And considering his girl is your best friend…I’m pretty good at putting things together, you know.”

  “Actually, this time, I didn’t flip that first domino,” I said.

  “Sure, Aly.” He shook his head, still not looking at me. “Whatever you want to tell yourself to make yourself feel better. Except, it isn’t going to feel so good when you’re dead, is it?”

  “Excuse me?” My voice dropped low and I turned in my seat so I could actually face him. I furrowed my brow, narrowing my eyes at his sharp profile, at that jawline he could cut glass on. I didn’t appreciate his words. “Are you threatening me?”

  Jack snapped his head in my direction. “What?” He leaned forward in order to shift, nose wrinkled. “Do you think - “ He scoffed, shaking his head. “Really, Aly? So, now, I’m threatening you? I’m telling you the truth. That’s it. If you want to galivant around and not care about the repercussions of your actions, that’s on you. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  “My actions? What are you even talking about?” I dropped my voice even lower, giving the area surrounding me a long look before continuing. The last thing I needed was someone overhearing our conversation. “Mary Stone was killed by Sabrina Charming. Sabrina’s DNA was found on her body. How is that my fault?”

  “It’s your fault that your father arrested her,” he said in a low voice. “See, you think he’s doing the “right” thing because he’s arresting the “right” person, but when someone else’s life hangs in the balance...well, is it still the right thing?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” I said. “You’re...you’re this private investigator. You know what it feels like when the right person is arrested. You know this. So, why are you -”

  “Because there are things in this world that are bigger than you and me, Aly,” he snapped. “And you don’t get that. Look around you, for crissake! There’s a war going on between the Fae and Wonderland and no one is even talking about it. The wolves who live in the Blood Forest snatch a sacrifice every month and that’s just supposed to be okay? It doesn’t matter if there’s an organized group trying to combat the whole thing. It doesn’t matter if the Scarlet Hood exists. What matters is -”

  “What is a White Rabbit?”

  Jack blinked, surprised by my abrupt change in demeanor. “What?”

  “What is a White Rabbit?” I asked. “You told me the night you saved me from Tom Charming that that was what you were. You said you would tell me what it mean, but you haven’t yet. You haven’t said anything to me about it, and I want you to tell me right now what that means.”

  “Aly -”

  “No.” I held my hand up. “I’m done. You have magic, Jack. How is that even possible? You save me from Tom Charming. You save me from wolves in the Blood Forest. I remember who you were in high school, college - goofy party boy Royal with the same old sob story about hating his dad. But there’s more to you, isn’t there. I mean, you can’t seem to find a damn cat for MaryBeth. Hell, you’re helping MaryBeth around her New Age bookstore. Who are you, Jack Lupine? And don’t lie to me.”

  He held my stare for a beat, then another. Finally, he looked away. “I’m supposed to protect you, Aly,” he said in a low voice.

  “I don’t need -”

  “I’ve been ordered to protect you,” he corrected, locking eyes with me. “And don’t you dare ask me by whom because I’m sure you’re smart enough to know I can’t say anything. But that’s what I mean by White Rabbit. I protect you, the Seeker.”

  “Wait,” I said. “How-how long have you been protecting me?” Thoughts continued to race in my mind. Part of me didn’t want to believe it. It had to be some kind of joke. The White Rabbit protected the Seeker? What did that even mean?

  “Aly,” Jack said. “I answered your question. I’m a White Rabbit. I protect you no matter what. That’s my job. I always have. The Imp has made things difficult, but even I have to admit that he’s protecting you too. In his own way. I still don’t trust him. I still think he’s only going to hurt you in the end. But you making a big stink about Mary Stone and Sabrina Charming? You’ve just put a big target on your back.”

  “No one knows it was me,” I said. I stood up from the park bench, needing some sort of way to release the energy I had building up inside of me. The last thing I needed was to be buzzing with energy without some sort of outlet for it. “No one knows I was behind this.”

  “Maybe not random people, but I’m sure Russell Charming has an idea,” Jack pointed out. He fixed his sharp blue eyes on me as I began to pace in front of him. I wasn’t sure if he was watching me this carefully because he didn’t trust me, or if it was because he thought I was going to bolt when he clearly wasn’t finished talking to me. “You did have a conversation with him a few weeks back about this, didn’t you?”

  I wrinkled my nose and paused, angling my shoulders in his direction. “How would you even know that?” I asked. “The only person who knows…” I let my voice trail off. There was no way I was going to tell him about Rumple, even though Jack was brilliant enough to infer it. And I knew there was no way Rumple would ever tell Jack. In fact, Rumple warned me away from Jack after he found out that Jack called himself a White Rabbit. I cleared my throat and looked at Jack again. “I don’t need your protection, especially if you’ve been ordered by someone to give it. I don’t want it.”

  “You don’t get to make that choice, Aly,” he said. “And maybe you should look long and hard in the mirror, hmm? Because you’re attracting attention that’s not going to be good for you or the people around you. This whole thing with Sabrina is idiotic at best. People have seen you with The Imp. They know you’re working together.”

  “For Anna.”

  “Maybe,” Jack said. “Or maybe he has his own agenda. Maybe this isn’t about Anna at all for him, but about Sadie Skaarsgard and where the hell she went after he broke her heart.”

  “You don’t even know what actually happened between him and Sadie, so it’s not fair for you to point that out,” I said. “No one knows what happened to Sadie. You don’t, I don’t, Anna didn’t. All we know is, she left. She left, and we don’t know why.”

  “Why are you in such denial over this?” Jack asked. “She was with Rumple. They were seen together constantly. And then, she left. It’s clear what happened. He used her. He broke her heart. The end. Luckily, her magic is still intact. You know she -”

  “I know,” I snapped.

  “The Red Queen allowed her to take some of her magic so she could create a barrier between the Fae realm and Wonderland, to protect us from the Fae,” he sai
d. “And it works, even though she’s gone.”

  “Does that mean she’s still alive?” I asked before I could stop myself.

  I didn’t want to have this conversation with Jack, but at the same time, I was curious. Maybe I should ask Rumple directly, but from what he had already told me, I knew he hadn’t been with her before - romantically, anyway - and I didn’t think that he knew why she left. Maybe figuring out what happened to Anna would help him with Sadie, and Anna was just a means to an end for him, but I wasn’t bothered by it. I didn’t take it personally.

  “What do you mean?” Jack asked.

  “I...I was never really taught that much about magic,” I said, dropping my gaze to my lap. I shifted in my seat, the bench hard underneath me. “I don’t know if death causes magic to just...disappear, like breaking a curse, or something.”

  “It doesn’t,” he said flatly. “It doesn’t work like that.”

  I wanted to ask him how it worked in the first place. But then, I didn’t want to linger. I didn’t want to stick around when Rumple clearly and explicitly said not to be around Jack without Rumple there. And while it annoyed me that Rumple wouldn’t go into detail, I trusted him. I trusted him more than I trusted anyone else, and I didn’t like going behind his back.

  “You shouldn’t have gotten involved in all of this, Aly,” he said. “You stripping away the facade surrounding Mart Stone has put you in greater danger than you realize. And what’s worse, you don’t even care.”

  “And what danger is that?” I asked. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him. Rumple said something similar. But there was more to it, and I needed answers. “Rumple already said something could happen because my father and Rumple both consider me their weakness, and that that was a bargain conjured with Sabrina and -”

  “It’s bigger than that,” Jack said. “It’s more than any of that.” He glanced away before returning his gaze back to me. “The Mad Mage is going to return, Aly. He’s coming back. This, right here, is enough for him to reclaim Wonderland before taking out the Fae realm and taking his throne back.”

  “Throne? Reclaiming?” I shook my head. “What do you mean?”

  “You just started a war, Aly. You just started a war, and you don’t even know it.”

  18

  Rumple

  “You know, darling,” I said as I eased into the luxurious office without even knocking on the door, “it would behoove you to recall that I am not a dog to be summoned when you please.” I paused so I could look at the Red Queen directly, gently closing the door behind me. “I don’t take kindly to such disrespect, Caroline.”

  “That’s Your Majesty,” the Red Queen said, not even bothering to look up from whatever it was she was scrawling on the thick, off-white paper.

  “Since you’re keen on playing the royal reminder game, I’d like to remind you that I am heir to the Fae realm and we are not quite so pleased with the fact that some of your cohorts have cracked our Never Glass,” I said. Personally, I didn’t mind this as much. My parents needed to be humbled, and I was delighted a band of thieves who possessed no magic whatsoever was able to do just that. Since the Red Queen was perched on her high horse, however, I felt compelled to knock her down too. “So far, I have seen no repercussions for a blatant act of war.”

  The Red Queen chuckled. Finally, she tilted her face upward so she could look me in the eyes. Her painted red lips curved into a smile that sliced across her pale face. Her blue eyes fixed themselves on me like I was a target and she was a marksman. Her red hair was pulled from her face and bound at the back of her head into a tight ball. Everything about her was in perfect place, save for a couple of curls that would not be tamed.

  “An act of war?” she asked slowly, leaning into her leather chair. “Is that what you think that was?” She leaned forward, lacing her fingers together on the surface of her desk. Not a chip on the red paint, either. “You know, maybe I should consider you and your brother walking around my town, still with full use of your ShadowMagic as an act of war. As a threat to the peaceful lives of my citizens.”

  I snorted, the sound unbecoming and unfamiliar. Even she arched a brow at it, though amusement danced across her pretty, round face.

  “I see the rumors are true,” she said. Her voice was tantalizingly low, almost seductive. There was a sensuality about the Red Queen that could not be replicated. “You have been hanging with the unmagicked, haven’t you?”

  “Everyone in this town is unmagicked,” I said, fiddling with a cufflink. I kept my face blank; I knew exactly whom she was referring to, but I would not allow her to use Alice to get under my skin. I would also not let her even know that I felt anything for Alice at all. The Red Queen was a cunning bitch, and she would not hesitate to do harm to Alice if she knew it would control me. I could not risk either thing occurring. “I’m not sure whom you are referring to.”

  “Oh, I think we both know who it is I’m referring to,” she said. “It’s not like you’re going out of your way to hide it.”

  I gave her a long look. “I’m tiring of this conversation, Caroline,” I drawled, dropping my hands to my sides. “What do you want?”

  “You know what I want.” Her eyes were glaciers, trying to pull me in, to sink me down. She must believe she was intimidating when she glared like that, but the softness of her face made her come across as almost maternal. I doubted she would want to hear that. I doubted that would delight her in any way. “The investigation of Mary Stone’s murder has just been reopened. I’m sure you’ve heard?”

  “I did,” I said. I glanced down at my chest and brushed away a loose piece of string just underneath the collar of the shirt. “What I don’t understand is why you’ve called me here.”

  “You’re involved in this,” she said. She sat back so she could tilt her chin up and give me a long look. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you? You’re in this. What’s going to happen when people start demanding the truth about the Mad Mage? If they find out that he wasn’t the person responsible for killing Mary Stone…”

  “Byrrah is starting to look less and less Mad, isn’t he?” I asked. The corners of my lips quirked up and I locked eyes with her. “Your people will start to question you, start to question everything you’ve told them, including why you needed to take away their magic, especially since no one here can use it save for a select few.”

  “How is it that Tom Charming was able to use ShadowMagic?” the Red Queen asked. “And Sadie Skaarsgard? They come from regular families. As far as I know, they don’t have Fae in their bloodline.” She tilted her head to the side. “And yet, they possess use of such powers. Like him.” Her eyes narrowed. “What’s going on over in your realm, Rumple? I’ve heard the rumors, you know. Innocent children are plucked by sprites and taken to the Fae realm for experimentation.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Experimentation?” I repeated. “Do you hear yourself? Tom Charming was given ShadowMagic. Someone who possessed it gave it to him. But it faded. It’s gone now. You know that. You know how it works. I could give you ShadowMagic and it would last for a few hours at most. You’d be able to use the magic, certainly, but you wouldn’t be able to keep it.”

  Caroline’s painted lips quirked up as she flipped open her spiral-bound planner. “Maybe you’re just a really good pretender,” she said. “Maybe you really don’t know. But I’ve heard the rumors, Rumple. And I don’t appreciate you talking to me like I’m some sort of idiot who doesn’t know anything. I’ve heard of The Tower. I’ve heard it’s so deep in the Blood Forest, finding it guarantees no escape from the Forest itself. I’ve heard poor girls are plucked from their beds and locked away. I’ve heard them being given doses of ShadowMagic, just to see how long they can handle it.”

  “And why would the Fae give humans access to ShadowMagic?” I asked. It was hard to discern what she was trying to do here, what she was trying to imply. “Why would we give them our greatest weapon in the first place?”

  “To turn them into w
eapons, of course,” the Red Queen said. I didn’t like the way the corners of her lips turned up, like she was amused by some secret joke only she understood. I didn’t like that one bit. “Your people, as you say, are preparing for war. Why risk the Fae when they can take our people, infuse them with ShadowMagic, and control them?”

  “Control them?” I tilted my head to the side, not bothering to mask the amusement from my tone. I strode over to one of her fancy office chairs and slid down into it, leaning back and resting my elbows on the arms of the chair. I elegantly rested one ankle on one knee and shifted until I was comfortable. “And how do you think you can control them, hmm?” He perked his brow. “Tell me, darling. Let’s say we took Person A from Wonderland, and this transfer of magic you claim can actually work - despite the dangers, of course, and the possibility that the human body cannot accept the foreign magic because it’s too powerful - how can the Fae force Person A to use that magic to their benefit, hmm?”

  “How can anyone make anyone do anything?” She rested her chin in her palm and looked at him with a knowing gaze. “How can Sabrina Charming keep her secret for a long, long time until someone finally forced Winter’s hand, hmm? Exploit a weakness. Tell me, Rumple, how does it feel knowing just how exposed you are, thanks to Alice Winter, hmm? Out of everyone in this fucking little town, how does it feel to have fallen for someone like her?”