Fae of Calaveras Trilogy Box Set

by Kristen S. Walker

  “You know I’d never get away with using magic to cheat at school,” I said with a nervous laugh. “The teachers make us empty our pockets before any test, and I’m pretty sure that Julie has some kind of anti-magic spell around the classroom, anyway.”

  Glen looked up from his book with a shrug. “She’s never taught us anything like that in sorcery.”

  I flinched at the mention of sorcery class, guilt coming back at the memory of copying his notes. I hoped Julie had never mentioned the encounter with me during lunch that day, because he’d know that I wasn’t there to look for a missing textbook.

  Ashleigh smirked and shook her head. “Of course she wouldn’t tell you how she did it, or some students might be able to figure out how to get around it. Maybe that will be your final test before graduation—can you beat the teacher’s own spells?”

  We all laughed at that, and I tried to relax again. Someone was bound to notice how much I was on edge if I couldn’t get myself under control.

  Maybe it would be easier if I just got it over with. I could take something generic, like a pen or a beverage coaster. It wouldn’t have a strong tie to Ashleigh, but it would come from her house, so that had to be good for something, right?

  But I knew it wouldn’t be enough. Especially since I had to prove that I was still being cooperative even now that Zil couldn’t talk to me anymore. I had to bring something brilliant, and I was pretty sure that whatever would be perfect would be exactly the thing that Ashleigh didn’t want me to take.

  At last Heather stood up and stretched. “Bathroom break,” she announced, and started heading down the hallway to the downstairs bathroom.

  This could be my chance. I put down my things. “Me too.”

  Ashleigh looked up. “You can use mine upstairs. It’s the door to the right of my room. Can you find it?”

  “Yeah, sure, thanks.” I went for the stairs.

  I went to the restroom first, then slipped into Ashleigh’s bedroom next door. Everything was laid out neatly. The clothes were organized in the closet, with shoes lined up on the floor below, and brushes and makeup arranged on the vanity.

  I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. If everything had its own spot, then it’d be obvious if something went missing. This was going to be even harder than I thought.

  Except for hair. Hair was definitely tied to the person that it came from—a part of that person was one of the best ingredients for contagious magic. Who would notice if some of their old hair went missing?

  I leaned over the vanity and examined the hairbrush. It had been totally cleaned—weird. Who cleaned their hairbrush every day? There was a trash bin on the floor next to it, also empty. Did faeriekin have some kind of magical sprites that cleaned up after them? I tried to keep my room neat, but it was never this clean.

  Then I had another thought. I listened for a moment, just in case anyone had come upstairs to check on me, and tiptoed over to the bed. Aware of just how creepy I was being, I bent down and examined her pillow.

  But this time, it paid off. I pulled three long, blonde hairs off the pillow, and then stood there staring at them, not sure what to do. Stuffing them in my pocket would make them impossible to find later.

  I finally located a spare notebook on the shelf, ripped out a blank page, and folded it into a makeshift packet. Silently thanking the art teacher for origami lessons, I tucked the hairs inside and attempted to hide it in the palm of my hand.

  I tried to walk downstairs and smile casually at the others. “So, did I miss much?”

  The faeriekin shook their heads without looking up, and I noticed that Heather wasn’t back yet. I returned to my seat and picked up my book, using the movement to slide the paper packet between some of the pages. Hopefully that would keep it safe until I got home.

  I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Mission complete. Now I could play it cool for the rest of the study session, and tomorrow I would drop off the hairs with Marzell. I hoped the final plan from the Unseelie wouldn’t be anything too difficult. Every test had involved swiping small objects, so I probably just needed to steal something a little bigger, and then I would get Akasha back.

  I grinned to myself as I flipped to the final chapter in the chemistry book. My nightmare was almost over.

  29

  A Trade

  Rosamunde

  On Tuesday morning, I went straight up to Marzell and handed him a stack of papers I’d photocopied out of my notes. “Here are my English notes that you asked for, all about Twelfth Night,” I said, loud enough for other people to hear. I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with a good excuse to be seen talking to him.

  He looked down at the papers in surprise. “Oh, um, thanks,” he said, fumbling over them a little. Then he looked up at me quizzically.

  “Yeah, the scene with Olivia shows her vanity, because she’s boasting about how pretty she is, like her golden hair and all that.” I nodded at the notes in his hand.

  He continued to look confused, because we’d read that scene aloud the other day, and while Olivia listed several features, she never mentioned her hair of any color. “Boasting?” he repeated weakly.

  I pointed to directly at the homework notes again. “I think you’ll find the line on the third page there.”

  Marzell managed to flip the pages until he saw where I had taped my impromptu envelope directly onto the page, and labeled it with red marker: “Ashleigh’s hair.” He stared back up at me with wide eyes. “Oh. I see. That helps a lot.”

  I gave him a big smile, flashing my teeth at him. “I’m glad.”

  The dwarf tugged on my arm until I stepped aside with him. “Thank you,” he whispered.

  I bent forward a little so I could speak more quietly. “When do you think you’ll be able to tell me the next part?”

  “Oh, I can do that right now.” He tucked the papers away in his backpack and rubbed his hands together. “You need time to prepare, so they told me to tell you as soon as you gave me anything. This weekend, you’re taking Ashleigh on an overnight trip to Bear Valley.”

  “That’s almost two hours away.” And the area was pretty remote, up the mountains in the middle of the state park, with nothing around but ski lodges. I frowned, not liking the sound of luring Ashleigh away from home with me. “And what is the real plan?”

  He shook his head. “It’s better if you don’t know any details. You can leave Friday after school. Borrow your dad’s car and drive to this location. If all goes well, you’ll both come back on Monday.” He handed me a piece of paper with details about a reservation at one of the ski lodges.

  “What happens if it doesn’t go well?” I asked in a tense voice.

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Then you’ll be given more information at the time.”

  The whole thing sounded really fishy. I folded my arms. “What’s the plan supposed to do? Are you trying to get Ashleigh away from the castle while something else happens? Or are you going to do something to her ?”

  Marzell gave me a regretful smile and shook his head again. “I can’t tell you any more than that. I’m sorry. But if you do this, I guarantee that your sister will come home on Monday, too.”

  My heart pounded faster at the thought of bringing Akasha home at last. Taking Ashleigh on a trip was an easy enough thing to do. But what if they were doing something horrible? She was a good friend, but I would almost consider trading Ashleigh for Akasha—ugh, that was an awful thought. But maybe I could get away and alert Glen somehow, so he could save Ashleigh. And Marzell promised that if everything went well, Ashleigh would be coming home with me, too. It seemed too good to be true.

  Monday was President’s Day, making the upcoming dates a three-day weekend. Thursday was Valentine’s Day, but she claimed not to have any plans, so a spontaneous ski trip might actually work unless people started asking questions about how I got the reservation. Nobody would rent a room to a sixteen-year-old girl.

  I held up the reservation confirmation. �
��How am I supposed to explain this to her and my dad? They both know that I couldn’t get the money to pay for this.” Maybe if I kept digging for information, he’d let something slip that would clue me in to the real plan.

  “You won a contest,” he said smoothly. “An all-inclusive holiday weekend at the lodge. Since you just broke up with your boyfriend, a girls’ getaway sounded like a good idea with your best friend.”

  I had to admit that it sounded plausible, especially when he pointed to the bottom of the page which listed a website where the contest had been hosted. My name and email address were written down as the winner. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make the whole thing seem legit.

  But something kept bugging me about the whole plan. “Zil promised me that no one would get hurt by this plan,” I said firmly. “Is that promise still good? And she was gonna give me details about why Ashleigh had to be involved, too. If you’re my new contact, then you have to uphold Zil’s side of the deal.”

  Marzell’s face fell. “They haven’t let me talk to Zil since I got the note to give to you. I can’t confirm anything that she told you, but I know she was in trouble for saying too much.”

  I groaned. “What, did they get her parents to ground her or something?”

  A weird expression flickered across his face. Something that I had said struck home. I pushed closer. “Are her parents working for the Unseelie, too?”

  He quailed and backed away from me. “I—I can’t say any more! Please just promise me that you’ll do this!”

  “Ugh, I need time to think about it.” I stuffed the paper into my bag and started to walk away.

  “You need to confirm soon!” he called after me. “Remember it’s only a few days away!”

  I grumbled and headed down the hallway, not in the mood to argue with him any longer.

  Heather caught sight of me just as I walked away from Marzell, and gave me a look full of concern. “Is everything okay, Rosa?”

  “Yeah, just a difference of opinion,” I said, shrugging it off. “It’s been a rough week. I’m a little on edge.”

  She smiled sympathetically and put her arm around my shoulders. “I know. Do you want to go do something fun on Thursday? I don’t think it’s a good idea if you’re alone.”

  I didn’t have time to think about what I should be doing for Valentine’s Day now that I was newly single, because I had to figure out whether or not I would help the Unseelie. I just let out a gusty sigh. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

  “Okay, we’ll worry about it later.”

  There was only one person I could go to for answers, and the Unseelie couldn’t keep me away from her. As soon as school let out that day, I got away from my concerned friends and hopped on my broom, flying straight to Zil’s house. It was easy for me to find the huge, old Victorian house again—there was nothing else like it in town.

  I landed in the back yard, just in case there were some kind of Unseelie bodyguards keeping an eye on the place, and banged on a side door.

  A middle-aged pookha woman answered, and her eyes went wide when she saw me. “Rosamunde,” she said, closing the door behind her and wrapping her arms around herself against the cold. “What are you doing here?”

  “Mrs. Burbage?” I said, vaguely recognizing Zil’s mother from school events. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you would be home in the middle of the day. I need to talk to Zil.”

  Her brow furrowed into a frown, and she stared straight through me with her glowing golden eyes. “Elizabeth has a cold. I don’t think she’ll be able to come back to school until next week.”

  “Just for a few minutes,” I begged. “Please, it’s important.”

  Mrs. Burbage shook her head. “I’m sorry, but she needs her rest. You can see her again next week.”

  Next week would be too late. And there was a lie detecting charm heating up in my pocket, so there must be some other reason why she wouldn’t let me near Zil.

  I decided to gamble on that knowledge. “You’re lying. She’s not sick at all. Why won’t you let me just speak to her? Are you mad that we kissed?”

  Her eyes flashed angrily when I accused her of lying, but she knew better than to give me another weak excuse. Her mouth clamped down. “You need to leave now,” she said between clenched teeth.

  Then she went back inside and slammed the door in my face.

  I wasn’t going to let a door stop me. I looked up at the windows on the second floor. One of them had to be Zil’s bedroom where they were holding her prisoner. I hopped on my broom and flew up.

  I started at the back. The first window that I knocked on had no answer, but the second one had a light on inside, and when I banged on it hard enough to rattle the glass in its ancient frame, the curtains flew open and I saw Zil’s startled face.

  I couldn’t help but smile when I saw her, despite all of my frustration. She answered me with a smile of her own, and the sight of her curving lips made my insides twist up into a warm knot.

  At my frantic gesture, she unlocked the window and leaned out. “Rosa, what’s going on?” she gasped.

  “I think your mom’s about to run up here and stop me, so I gotta make it quick,” I said with an apologetic shake of my head. I had so much that I wanted to tell her, but no time to do it in. “Why did they ask me to take Ashleigh on a skiing trip this weekend?”

  She paled at my question. “They’re using you to kidnap Ashleigh without the Seelie Court finding out,” she said, her voice dropping to a hoarse whisper. “They’re going to hold her until Glen agrees to help them open the gate to the Otherworld.”

  All of the pieces clicked together into a single, horrible picture. Somehow, they needed Glen’s sorcery to open the gate, and I was going to help them get the one thing that Glen was sworn to protect before anything else in the world—his betrothed.

  Zil glanced back over her shoulder, and I heard angry voices echoing from inside the house. “They’re coming. You’ve got to go.”

  I nudged my broom dangerously close to the house and leaned forward to kiss Zil through the open window. “I broke up with Kai, and I miss you,” I whispered.

  Her eyes sparkled as she smiled back at me. “I miss you, too. Now go!”

  I turned the broom around and soared up into the sky at top speed. When I glanced back over my shoulder, I saw Zil getting pulled back inside, but I couldn’t see who had grabbed her. I hoped she wouldn’t get into too much trouble because of me.

  30

  Freak Out

  Rosmerta

  I grabbed Elizabeth by her long black hair and dragged her back from the window.

  “Ow, let go!” she screeched, struggling to get away from me.

  I released her hair and just pointed down. “In the kitchen. Right now.”

  I forced her to go first down the stairs, following the reluctant pookha girl. I wasn’t going to let her run outside and attempt an escape with my daughter. She stomped the whole way, glaring back over her shoulder, but I kept close behind, giving her shoulder the occasional push.

  She finally stumbled into the room and immediately ran to hide behind her mother. “She’s crazy! She just attacked me!”

  Mary turned and folded her arms with a glare almost as angry as mine. “You brought that girl here! How much did she see? Did you blow our cover?”

  Elizabeth pouted and looked at the floor, pressing herself into the corner once she realized that we were both against her. “She didn’t see anything, I promise. Stop freaking out, both of you.”

  Mary looked at me, and I shook my head. “I stayed away from the window, and I think Rosamunde would have come back if she’d seen me. But she said something and I need to know what it was.”

  Elizabeth cringed, holding her hands up to ward off further attacks.

  I took a step back and a deep breath to calm myself. “If you just tell me the truth, then I won’t be mad. How much information did you give her?”

  “I didn’t tell her anythin
g,” the girl insisted. “She just wanted to let me know that she broke up with her boyfriend. That’s all.”

  I sucked in a sharp breath. I didn’t like the kitsune boy, but I liked the idea of Rosamunde dumping her boyfriend for this obstinate girl even less. But I didn’t believe that was the only exchange between them. “You whispered something. Tell me.”

  She glanced up at her mother for help.

  Mary was still glaring and radiated fury out of her golden eyes. I expected her hair to start standing on end with rage. “I told you not to talk to her anymore,” she snapped. “I know how you feel, but you promised to wait until all of this was over. You’re the one who wanted to be involved in this—will you screw it up now?”

  Tears started trickling down the girl’s cheeks, and she clasped her hands together, pleading with her mother. “I didn’t say anything, I promise. I just told her that I missed her. Please believe me.”

  I moved in swiftly and grabbed her chin, wrenching her face up to look at me. “Are you absolutely sure?” I said, emphasizing each word slowly. “I need to know if I’m putting you and your whole family in danger by staying here. If you said anything, then I have to go right now.”

  Her tear-filled eyes gazed back at me steadily. As if her voice came from somewhere else, she said flatly, “I’m sure.”

  I let her go and started to walk out of the room.

  “Rosmerta,” Mary called after me in a warning tone.

  I paused in the doorway. “I know,” I said, turning my head back over my shoulder. “It’s still too dangerous if Rosamunde comes back here again. I’ll tell the others that I need to find a new place to stay. And we’ll take extra precautions this weekend.”