Grace shook her head. “I sent them to speak with the yowies, there were none outside so they went in to find them. Now the yowies won’t let them leave.”
“What do they want?”
“They want a banishment cast placed on the fey, preventing us from going near the caves from any direction.” Max replied.
“Are you seriously tied as to what to do here?”
“They claim they will release them, but how do we know they haven’t killed them already?” Maddie asked, her dark brown eyes welling with tears.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“My brother is one of the fey captured by the yowies,” she replied, swiping away a fallen tear with her finger. It was only then I noticed her hands and the life they showed. Deep creases sat at her joints, surrounded by crosshatches and a few faint scars gleamed in the light. She didn’t shy away from hard work. Why wasn’t she pushing for the rescue now?
“What is the point of a banishment cast done by a fey when it can just be undone by a fey? They have no idea what they are even asking for,” Gerard said, clearly ignoring Maddie’s distress.
I leaned forward and turned my head to look at him directly. “No, they know what they want, and they have been very clear in that matter. They want us out of their home and you don’t listen.”
I stood up behind my chair and the others followed.
“What are we voting on?” I asked, completely over it all. “Come on, I have demons to hunt.”
Max cleared his throat. “We vote to send in a search party for the taken fey, along with the requested cast for a banishment of the fey from the caves. How say you all?”
Grace took her seat. “I say they are already dead. No party should be sent in after them.”
Three others joined her seated.
“Great,” I said. “I get to break the tie, and I say we send in a search party and you will agree to stay out of their caves.”
“The vote is done,” Max said smiling at me. “We will gather a party to go to the caves with the cast.”
“Wait,” I said before he took his seat. “The old banishment cast, it can be undone by a fey right?” I asked as Grace’s words repeated in my mind.
“Yes, Desmoree. A cast by a fey can be undone by a fey, usually one with a blood connection, but not always.”
“Then we won’t give them a cast by just one fey. You all have your magic, your power. We are the leaders of the fey. We all will bind the cast so that only with all of us can it be undone.”
Jax leaned back on his chair, placing his hands behind his head with his fingers interlaced. He beamed up at me. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re brilliant?” he asked, winking at me. I couldn’t help but smile.
“A vote?” Max called, and the others retook their places behind their chairs. “The council bind the cast of banishment, keeping the fey from the opal caves. I say yes.” He took his seat. I followed, as did three others. Grace then followed. The vote had passed. I called for a piece of parchment, and Max scrawled on it the banishment cast then passed the scroll to me. I held my hand over the parchment. I needed to add something about the council’s binding of the cast. I held my hand over the page and willed the words to flow from my magic to the page. When I was done, nine circles sat at the bottom, awaiting the addition of the council’s magic to bind it.
I explained how the council could draw out their magic, sending it to the tip of their finger, before piercing their skin with a needle to drop a single ball of magic onto the bottom of the scroll. I went first. The others all followed.
“Great now go, have them get our fey out of there,” I said before standing and walking out. I knew Jax was behind me without even looking. My energy was connected to his like a magnet. It pulled on us both, trying to keep us together.
“So, where to now?” he asked, slipping his hand under my top and around my waist. “Home?”
“Yes, but not for that. Ava will be back soon.”
He pulled his hand away and phased. “Come on then, let’s go see our girl.” Then he was off, lifted into the sky by his magnificent pale blue wings. I phased and went after him. It didn’t take me long to catch him. I was still faster than both him and Ava, though Ava was gaining up. Flying through the air together was unbelievable. It made my heart sing to see him so happy.
We landed on our bedroom balcony and stepped through the open doors, phasing back as we did.
“Time to get you out of those clothes I think,” Jax teased as his hand again made its way under my top and his fingers ran up my back.
“Seriously, Ava will be back soon, we don’t have time...” I looked down and caught sight of my clothes. “Crap, okay, so maybe I do need to change. And by the looks of your shirt you definitely need to change.”
“Then we can change together. Come on, Des, you know you want me.”
I bit my bottom lip as he stepped backwards towards the bathroom. He lifted his shirt slowly over his head, revealing his perfectly sculpted abs and golden glistening skin.
There is always time for this.
I used the magic to change clothes like Ava had shown me, except this time, I used it on Jax and his pants disappeared. He lowered his eyes to his bare legs then back to me, raising his brows suggestively.
“So, are you coming?” he asked. I followed him into the bathroom. The shower steam filled the room quickly and as the hot water washed away the grime from the hunt, his lips brushed my ear lightly, and my body trembled. I could spend forever in his arms. With his hands on my body, fingers through my hair. Lips on my skin. When we were together, I wanted to be nowhere else. It took every inch of control to separate from him as the sound of the door downstairs echoed through the house.
“Was that Ava?” Jax asked, his concern matching my own. The front door was large, but the only way it would be heard up here was if someone forced it shut.
“Something is wrong, come on.” I dried off quickly, leaving my hair to hang wet against my dress as I ran down the stairs. The hallway was empty.
Clanging and banging echoed from the kitchen. I rushed through the doors and saw Ava pulling things out of the fridge and tossing them behind her.
“Ava, what are you doing?”
She turned to me, her eyes completely white. “The berries are gone!”
“Ava,” I said ,taking slow steps around the counter towards her. Jax approached on the other side. “Maylea is probably out picking some now. I’m sure she will be back soon. Come now, let’s see if there is something else you can have while you wait?”
“I don’t want something else, I want berries. She said there would always be berries, but there isn’t. She lied. SHE LIED!” Ava grabbed a plate of garvius melon slices and flung it across the room like a frisbee. It smashed against the side wall of the kitchen and sent melon bits and ceramic pieces everywhere.
“Ava, you need to calm down,” Jax said and her eyes became slits as she maniacally turned to him.
What the hell is wrong with her?
“What did you say?” she asked, slowly bringing one hand behind her back.
“Ava, it’s only berries,” he continued and a ball of rainbow energy formed in her hidden hand.
“Ava, NO!” I wrapped my arms around her. I pushed my energy into my shield and wrapped both of us in it. She released the energy and it swam inside the shield for a moment before being absorbed.
“Ava, what is happening?” I asked as I struggled to hold her thrashing limbs. I brought her down to the ground and wrapped my legs around her waist to try to keep her still, but she writhed and bucked, trying to get free.
“Jax, what do I do?”
“I don’t know, I’ll get Maylea, keep her here. Ava, just hold on, we will help you.” He took off from the room.
“Ava, please, what is happening to you?” I cried. The shield began to falter as my grip on her slipped. I clung tighter, and closed my eyes. I began to hum the tune to my song, to her song. The melody coming easy. It was
all I could think to do to steady myself and keep the shield around us. It worked to calm my magic and strengthen my resolve. I used the moment of control to look for her magic.
It was there, it was the right colors, and it wasn’t shooting around her. It swirled inside her like it always had, except it was three times larger. It encircled her whole body.
I tried to shield her from some of it but my shield wouldn’t separate the two. Her magic was a part of her. I sat there humming the tune, and watching the rainbow swirl around her, waiting for Jax to come. Suddenly Ava stopped thrashing. She began to hum the tune too. And then her magic started to shrink.
“Ava,” I said, releasing my grip on her a little.
“Mum, what happened?”
I let go of her completely and turned her to face me on the floor of the kitchen. “You tell me. You were throwing things, screaming about berries.”
“I was?”
“Ava, did something happen on the field trip?”
“The field trip... no. We went and I saw the firebirds. The outer reaches is so different now, Mum you have to see it. More creatures have returned there, and there are so many new plants and...” She looked off into space, frowning for a moment.
“Ava?”
“The class came back and we worked on some casts.”
“Ava, did you do the cast?”
“The whole class did, we worked on it together.”
“What was the cast for?”
“I think it was supposed to enlighten us, like make us understand the magic better or something.”
“Then what happened?”
“Then the class was dismissed, and I walked home. I went to my room to put the things I collected away, the teacher let us take some stuff home. Nothing dangerous, just some flakers leaf, and a few granules of fire dust. Then...”
“Then what?”
“I felt really good. Like, really strong. And you know I love your clothes, so I did a few casts to try some stuff on. It was working really well too. Everything just came to me in an instant, like without even really trying, and as I did each cast I felt stronger and stronger, my magic was growing. Mum, that must be it. I was growing my magic too big. I was doing so much it made me really hungry, so I thought I could practice my portals and go get something to eat.”
“So, where did you go?”
“Nowhere really. I mean, I portalled to the hallway, then I saw I was still in that gold dress, so I cast this on,” she said, gesturing to her black tights and long white tee. “Then I portalled outside... I was going to go find Tai. But my stomach growled and I changed my mind. I... I think I came back inside. I was going to get something to eat but...”
“You decided to throw everything in the fridge out into the room instead?”
“I guess...” she said looking around at the debris. “Grandma is going to kill me.”
“No, she won’t. Come on, before she gets here, your father went to collect her. I’ll take care of this.” We stood up and I was about to cast the mess away, but Maylea and Jax burst into the room.
“Desmoree, no magic in my kitchen,” she said, dodging the debris to round the counter and pull Ava in for a hug. “My dear child, are you okay?”
“I’m fine, Mum helped calm me down.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t really know, but I felt like I was really full, like my magic was too big to fit inside me. Oh, and really hungry. But there were no berries.”
Maylea turned away from her and grabbed the basket from Jax who was looking at me for answers. I shrugged.
“Here, sit sit sit,” Maylea said, sweeping off the stool beside Ava and placing the basket on the counter. “Desmoree, you can start cleaning up this mess.”
“Okay, just give me one sec...”
“The broom is over there.”
“The broom?”
“No magic.”
“Seriously, come on?”
She raised her brows and I knew my battle was lost. I grabbed Jax’s arm and pulled him over to the side.
“If I have to clean, so do you,” I said shoving a broom in his hands.
“Des,” he whispered. “How did you get her to calm down?”
“I just hummed her song and held on really tight. She isn’t wrong, I saw her magic. It wasn’t dark, it wasn’t even going crazy inside her, there was just a lot of it. Look, they did a cast with school that I want to check out, maybe it did something to make her power grow. Hopefully it didn’t affect the rest of the class though, or we won’t be the only ones cleaning up after a teenage tantrum.”
Jax snickered as he knelt down to start sweeping up some of the broken pieces of plates and bowls that littered the floor.
“Keep watch and tell me if she looks,” I whispered to him. Then I muttered the cast for telekinesis. It only lasted a few seconds at a time, but with it, Jax and I managed to clear the floor in half the time it should have taken.
Maylea took care of the counter after she plopped a bowl full of freshly picked berries in front of Ava.
When we were done, I went to find Max. He should have been back from the council meeting by now and would know what this cast was that the class had done. They needed approval for all class teachings. If it caused Ava’s meltdown, I was going to make certain it never happened again.
“Dad,” I called as I walked through the doors of our study. He wasn’t there so I took a seat at the desk.
A scattering of scrolls covered most of the desktop and I began flicking through them while I waited. After unrolling the third, I picked up on the common link between them all. He was looking into Ava’s magic. Looking for prophecies that mention rainbows of light, half angel-half fairy, even the prophecy about me sat in the pile. None of them appeared to be directly related to Ava. When I lifted another scroll I found a notepad underneath. Pulling it out, I saw the writing was scratchy and rushed, but clearly my father’s hand. It read: Emperfey. The absorption of magic of more than one kind. Mimicking the abilities of others. No more than three sustained at once.
Under the scrawl was a list of dot points, or rather a list of creatures.
Fairy
Unicorn
Fire bird
Banshee
Elf
Dragon
Yowie
Pixie
Dwarf
Hytersprite
Demons ??? – look into fey mix with demon magic.
Max had listed all of the fabled I had come into contact with, not all of them had met Ava though, so she couldn’t have copied their magic. The more I sat looking at the list and the description of an Emperfey, the more it made sense. Ava had the red veins appear in the banshee kingdom, the silver tips of her wings after taking the firebird’s feather... she was absorbing magic.
Maybe the cast in class wasn’t all to blame? “Maybe it just made it possible for her to mimic the other student’s magic, and with her rainbow of energy inside her already, all of the colors grew brighter, bigger, stronger.”
“Desmoree, I think you’re right,” Max said, stepping through the doorway. “But if what I have found is to be correct, we have to find a way to remove some of the magic before it becomes too much for her mind to take.”
“What do you mean?”
“No one has ever held more than three at once. There is a reason the other Emperfey would mimic then discard. If they held onto other magic, or too many for too long, they went insane. Ava isn’t discarding any that I can see. She is absorbing it completely. It becomes a part of her power.”
“But if that were true wouldn’t she be insane already? I mean, if she is one of these Emperfey and she is keeping it all?”
Max didn’t get a chance to respond. Ava’s scream resonated through the house.
4
WE RUSHED OUT OF THE room to find her. Heading to the kitchen first, her scream came again, this time from somewhere outside. I took off from the back of the house towards the fruit trees where Tai sat on the
grass, holding his hands over his ears.
“Tai, did you see Ava? Where is she?” I yelled as I pulled his hands away. “Where is Ava?”
“He pointed through the trees to the right and I set off. She screamed again and a vibration wave hit us full force, throwing us backwards. I phased instinctively, but Max slammed against a tree and fell to the ground in a heap.
“Des, it’s Ava!” Jax called from somewhere behind me.
“I know. You check Max, I’ll find her.”
I ran through the trees, my wings catching on branches as I passed, but it didn’t slow me. When I found her, she was crouching in a ball on the ground, her hands clenching either side of her face.
She looked up at me. “It’s too much. There’s too much. I have to get it out.” Her nails cut through the skin of her cheeks, drawing blood.
“Ava, stop!” I yelled as I dropped beside her. I grabbed her hands and pulled them away from her face. The gouges healed themselves before I did anything. Ava thrashed and screamed and another wave of energy exploded out of her. I lost my grip and fell backwards. Ava scratched at her arms, her nails digging in and tearing flesh away. The blood barely had time to seep from the wounds before her magic was healing her.
“Get it out. Get it out,” she cried over and over.
I looked for her magic, it was overflowing from her. The rainbow extending tenfold more than it should. I sent my own magic out to it, willing it to draw out some of the magic.
“Ava, send it to me, give me the magic, I’ll take it.”
Her eyes locked with mine and the whites of them were streaked with red veins.
“Ava, you have to try. Push it out to me, you can do it, come on!”
She clenched her fists tight in front of her, directing the magic towards her hands. Rainbow balls swirled in either fist. Then she shot her arms out towards me and the magic flew through the space between us, colliding with my barrier.
What the hell? I hadn’t put it up. My magic cocooned me on impact, all on its own.
I forced the shield down as Ava tried again to send it to me, but the shield snapped back into place. She lost her resolve and began clawing at her legs. Her wings shot out and around her and she turned from her legs to the feathers. The wings didn’t heal, the feathers sat where they landed, spotted with her blood, and the places she tore them from dripped with silver and red.
Destroying the Fallen Page 7
