Fae of Calaveras Trilogy Box Set

by Kristen S. Walker

  Glen just shrugged off my protests. “Whatever you think happened is up to you. But I’m promising you that I’ll try to put your case in the best light possible when I go before the Court. You’re going to have to confess everything that you did, and testify about the people you knew were involved in the Unseelie. We made a lot of arrests today, but they’re going to get a fair trial, and you’ll be a witness to give evidence of what you saw.”

  I stiffened when I heard that arrests had already been made. I’d promised that I’d turn Zil in for what she’d done, but I didn’t really know who else was working for the Unseelie. “Who did you arrest?”

  He rattled off a list of names, only a few of which I recognized: the dwarves, Marzell and Esther, and Esther’s husband was under suspicion as well. And of course, Sir Allen. The rest were all other magikin, satyrs and dryads.

  I remembered how shocked I’d been to see Allen there. “When the Unseelie told me they had a spy in the Court, I thought it could be a bluff. I never suspected Sir Allen. Did your grandfather ever suspect him before? Do you think he could have been working with anyone else?”

  Glen shook his head. “He was just as surprised as the rest of us. My grandfather would have never made him one of his personal guards if he ever doubted Allen’s loyalty. He’s got a bit of a reputation as a, um, ladies’ man—” He looked apologetically over at the other girls. “But otherwise his service to the Court has been outstanding for years. And everyone who had prior ties to the local Unseelie has been watched closely ever since my grandfather became count. He knows they would tear him down again if they had the chance. So if Allen has any other accomplices in the Court itself, we’ll only get them through his confession.”

  Or the confessions of the others who worked with them, I thought. I knew without asking Glen that the satyrs and dryads were probably denying any authority among the Unseelie. Whoever had been orchestrating the whole thing wouldn’t have been at the ritual itself, so they were still at large. And with my mother and anyone else still on their side also out there, the Unseelie were still a very big threat.

  Glen nodded as if he could hear what I was thinking. “We only caught some of the worker bees. The queen is still out there, and we don’t know what direction they’ll attack from next. We stopped one attempt, but if the dragon scale is still out there, then they can try again.”

  I tilted my head to one side. “What made you think that they ever had the dragon scale in the first place? They knew of a way to use your magic to open the gate without it. If they could find another faeriekin like you, one who knows sorcery as well, then won’t they be able to do the same thing again?”

  He gripped the armrests on his chair. “The dragon scale’s disappearance at the same time as your mother’s sudden resurfacing was too much of a coincidence,” he said with a shake of his head. “And there aren’t many faeriekin who study sorcery. I know that I’m the only one in Golden Forest County. They’ll have to go far to find another one, and if your mother has stuck around here for so long even with us hunting her, she’s pretty determined to stay. I don’t think she’ll run away now.”

  So there was still danger—and hope, as painful as it was to think of it again. In the past month and a half, I’d put myself through so much to try catching my mom and saving my sister. But just when it was supposed to be over, I was back at square one. I couldn’t bring myself to try again.

  “I’ll tell the Court everything that I know, and I’ll testify at the trial,” I found myself saying aloud. “But I don’t think that I can do much more. I’m tired of lying and sneaking around, and I’ll never get the Unseelie to trust me again. Besides, I don’t think that there’s anything I can do to help. This whole thing has gotten so much bigger than just my mom and me. I don’t know the first thing about finding a missing dragon scale or stopping rogue magikin from opening a gate into the Otherworld.”

  Ashleigh made a sympathetic noise in her throat. “No one is expecting you to do more than you can, dear.”

  Glen’s phone chimed in his pocket with a new text message. He glanced at it and then looked back up at me. “Like it or not, you’re still involved. The guards just arrested Elizabeth, and her family is being investigated for harboring your mother.”

  After my emotionally draining confession, I thought I would fall asleep right away. But when I followed Ashleigh up the stairs to a guest room and looked in the door at the bed all made up for me, I suddenly panicked at the idea of being alone with my thoughts. I grabbed Ash’s hand as she turned to leave. “Don’t go just yet,” I begged her. “Can we talk for a little longer? Just you and me?”

  “Sure.” She gave me a tired smile and followed me into the room. It was a smallish room for the castle, without any extra seating, so we plopped down on the side of the bed together.

  “I just wanted to say I’m sorry, again.” I looked down at the floor. “Today was such a crazy day. I don’t want anyone to be mad at me, you most of all.”

  Ashleigh reached out and took my hand. “It’s okay, Rosa, nobody’s mad at you. And we’re all gonna help you fix this, you’ll see.”

  I sighed and flopped back onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling. “I just don’t see how anything can be fixed at this point. Mom, Akasha, Kai…”

  Ashleigh lay back on the bed next to me, still holding my hand. “Did you want to fix things with Kai? I know you guys were having problems before.”

  I swallowed, but I still felt a lump forming in my throat. “I don’t know. You’re right, we had our issues, and when I ended it with him, it felt like the right thing to do.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “But it’s not like I want to be with Zil, either. I can’t trust her. Getting involved with her was a mistake.”

  I felt Ashleigh shaking her head at me. “I still can’t believe that happened. Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?” I turned my head, and I saw her lower lip stuck out in a pout. “You’re supposed to tell me stuff like that.”

  I turned away from her look of disappointment. “I’m sorry. I was afraid you guys would get mad if you knew what I was doing with the Unseelie, and it was too hard to explain the situation with Zil if I didn’t tell you everything.”

  Ashleigh propped herself on one elbow so she could look me in the eye. “Why did you do it? Not the spying, you already explained that. But the cheating.”

  “I’m not really sure.” I could still remember the way that Zil smelled, the way her ears twitched when she was unhappy, the thrill that I got when I knew I was meeting her again. “Have you ever thought about cheating on Glen? I mean, especially now that you know he loves someone else?”

  Ashleigh’s face turned red, but she shook her head. “I couldn’t! I mean, it could cause so many problems for both of us if people found out. Fae take oaths very seriously.”

  That didn’t answer the question. Her blush meant that she had thought about it, and I wanted to know with whom. I wanted to ask more about Glen and Heather, and if he’d broken his oath to her. But after all the lying and secrets I’d kept, I didn’t know if I had the right to ask her those kinds of questions anymore.

  I tried to focus on how to explain myself better to her. “Affairs are, um, extra exciting,” I said bashfully. “I guess the dangerous rebel thing was exciting, too. For a little while, she had me half-convinced that the Unseelie were right about some things. Sneaking around and talking in code—but maybe I was just confused. I wasn’t happy with Kai, so I was looking for an excuse to escape.”

  Ashleigh smacked me on the shoulder, just hard enough to sting. “How could you trust the Unseelie? You could’ve gotten yourself hurt! Or killed!”

  I winced away from her. “I know it was stupid. And I did get you hurt, today. I’m really sorry for that.”

  She shook her head. “I knew the risk going in.” A smile spread across her face. “Besides, you saved me in the end.”

  I looked at her closely. Even without my lost lie-detecting charm, I could feel that she genuinely
meant what she said, and it filled me with warmth. I smiled back at her. “I’m just glad that you’re okay.”

  When the tension faded, I felt drained once again. I stifled a yawn.

  Ashleigh sat up and tugged at the covers on the bed. “Time for bed, sleepyhead. We’ll talk more tomorrow.”

  I made a faint noise of protest that I could take care of myself, but I let her tug off my shoes and get me under the blankets. I was still dressed in the clothes she’d leant me, warm fuzzy sweats to replace my own clothes wet from the snow, but I didn’t want to bother changing. I was really too tired to argue with her, and it was comforting to have her tuck me in.

  She bent over and planted a kiss on my forehead. “Good night, sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  I widened my eyes in mock terror. “Don’t you have a spell to keep the bedbugs away?”

  She winked at me. “That was it just now. Go to sleep!”

  Ashleigh flicked off the light and closed the door behind her, and I drifted off to sleep.

  2

  Rosmerta's Next Move

  Rosmerta

  The day had gone so horribly wrong. I was exhausted from all of the craziness. When the other Unseelie finally left Tom and Frank’s house, I wanted nothing more than to go into the guest bedroom they’d lent us, curl up on the bed, and fall asleep. But I knew that I had to finish what I’d started, and the clock was ticking with the Seelie Court still one step ahead of me. It could be a long time before I could rest again.

  So many had been arrested that day when the ritual to open a gate had been sabotaged by the faeriekin fool boy, Glen. Esther, her son Marzell, Sir Allen, the dryads and the satyrs—our numbers were lacking now, and we’d lost many sources of help and information. And then I had sent Elizabeth, the pookha girl, to turn herself in to the authorities as well, hoping to turn them off our trail. Elizabeth’s family, including her mother Mary, would also have to back off to avoid suspicion. Elizabeth’s misinformation might be enough at the trial to help release some of our comrades, but in the meantime I was left to shoulder the burden alone.

  Fortunately, I still had all of my witchcraft tools with me, and a new safe haven that no one would suspect. What was more, Elizabeth had also given me a dragon scale from the Veil’s guardian herself. I didn’t know what powers I could gain from such a rare object, but I was eager to find out.

  I left Akasha to watch television with Tom and Frank in the living room, with explicit instructions that I wasn’t to be disturbed, and went into the guest bedroom. I checked that the curtains were closed, both to keep out streetlights and to prevent anyone from seeing inside, then lit candles and set them up on shelves around the room. Then I unlocked the heavy wooden trunk of my magical tools.

  After months of using every spell in my arsenal to keep us hidden, I was running low on the herbs and plants that I’d once been able to grow in my own garden. I could buy them from others, but the plants I’d once tended by my own hand held the most power for me, and I knew that I’d never be able to replace them. In my mind’s eye, I could still see my beautiful garden reduced to smoldering ruins, years of work undone in a single day. When this final harvest ran out for me, I would be half the witch I was before.

  My other daughter, Rosamunde, was the one who burned my life’s labor to the ground. Since then I’d tried reaching out to her for forgiveness, hoping that she’d be sympathetic to her own mother’s suffering. But her part that day in stopping the ritual had been the final blow to separate us. There was no chance for either of us to back down now. I’d promised to punish her for what she’d done.

  There would be time enough for that once I opened the gate and the Unseelie took power. The first step was to figure out how to open the gate without the help of a faeriekin. This dragon scale had to be the key. And I had just the spell to reveal its secrets.

  I took a silver bowl from the trunk and set it on the floor next to me. Next, I filled it with clear water from a flask, sealed to keep any normal light from touching it: I’d gathered it under a full moon, so it retained the powers of sight from that night. At the bottom of the bowl, I placed the dragon scale: a glittering golden disk large than my hand. It gleamed through the water, reflecting the candlelight, and little golden sparkles began to dance around the room, bouncing off the silver bowl’s sides.

  Even that small amount of light made the dragon scale so bright that it hurt to look at it directly, but I steeled myself against the pain and forced my tired eyes to stare at it through the water. Gradually, I let my gaze become unfocused and my mind emptied of all ideas. I relaxed into a trance state, halfway between asleep and awake, blocking out my emotional and physical pain so that my whole being was filled with nothing but that golden light.

  I lost track of time as I sat there gazing into the shining water. Then images began to drift on the surface before me. I got the impression of an enormous tree—an oak? No, it was a madrone—the immense, ancient tree at the heart of town that gave Madrone its name.

  I saw myself kneeling in the dirt at the roots of the tree. The flash of a knife in my hand. Akasha’s face, twisted in pain, then her hand in mine. Crimson blood dripping down between our fingers onto the glittering golden scale. The scale growing, expanding into a window that showed glimpses of a strange land, then widening into a door, and a centaur stepped through.

  I managed to pull myself back from the visions with a gasp for air. How long had I been holding my breath? My lungs ached as if I’d been underwater for a long time. The vision had been so clear and so strong, brighter than any I’d had before, that I’d almost lost myself.

  Quickly, I blew out most of the candles so the golden lights stopped dancing around the room. Then, careful not to look directly into the bowl again, I fished the dragon scale out of the water and wrapped it in a piece of black cloth. I buried it in the bottom of my trunk where I wouldn’t be able to see it again by accident.

  Then I sat down heavily on the floor again and took a sip of the moon water to steady myself. There was no doubt that I had just glimpsed a ritual capable of opening a gate to the Otherworld. It was simple, completely different from the previous ritual I had constructed using the research of a faeriekin sorcerer, but it looked like one that I could successfully perform on my own—well, with Akasha’s help.

  Why hadn’t I thought to use my daughter before? She was only two months away from her thirteenth birthday, the customary time for her to begin her training in witchcraft. I could start sooner. But first, I had to tell her the truth.

  The visionary spell had drained me, so I took some time to recover. Tom heated up frozen pizzas for dinner for the four of us, and for once I didn’t complain about the bland, store-bought food. Before things changed, I’d cooked dinner for my family every night; but all of us were tired, I was in a strange house with a much smaller kitchen, and any food was sufficient for me to regain my strength.

  Frank had gone to the store to pick up a few things at my request. After eating, I selected a single red rose from the bouquet he’d set in a vase on the counter and beckoned Akasha to follow me back into the guest room.

  Akasha saw my trunk of magical tools sitting open on the floor and backed up into the hallway. “Nuh-uh,” she said, shaking her head. “I hate magic. I’m not gonna have anything to do with whatever crazy thing you’re planning next.”

  I put my arm around her shoulders and drew her into the room. “You can’t stay afraid of it forever, sweetie. You’re going to be thirteen very soon. But just sit down and talk with me for a minute. I have something important to tell you.”

  She let me take her over to the bed and sat down. I shut the door and set the rose aside for the time being, then sat next to her.

  I took a deep breath. “I have a confession to make,” I said, putting my arm around her again. “This is hard for me to say, but I think it’s going to be even harder for you to hear. I just want to start off by saying that I love you and I’ve always tried to do what I b
elieve is best for you, okay?”

  Akasha folded her arms across her chest. “I’m trying to be on your side, but you’ve made it really hard lately. You said we weren’t gonna have to hide anymore, but we still are, and I can’t go to school. They’re going to make me repeat seventh grade and I’ll be really bored.”

  I stroked her hair and counted to ten, willing myself to keep my patience. How had I managed to raise a daughter who was so absorbed in schoolwork and books? But I didn’t want to hurt her feelings, especially now that I needed her help.

  “I’m sorry that things have been rough lately,” I said at last. “I’m still trying to make things better, and when life’s gone back to normal then you can go to any school that you want and we’ll find a way to get you credit for the time that you missed. You’ve been keeping up with your independent studies, and I’m so proud of you for trying so hard.” I took a deep breath. “There’s just another obstacle in my way right now, and I’m afraid that it’s your sister’s fault we’re still hiding.”

  She nestled in closer to my side and slipped an arm around my waist. “I know she’s still mad at you for the spells you used on us, but you did it to keep us happy and safe, right?”

  Here it comes. “Well, that’s part of why I did it. But it’s time you knew the whole truth. See, a long time ago, before you were born, I did something that made Samuel mad.” I was careful to use his first name instead of “Dad” or “your father,” like I usually called him with my girls. “He was so mad that he was going to leave me and take Rosa with him. I was really scared to lose them, so I used a spell to make everyone forget what I’d done. That was the only thing that I could think of to keep our family together.”