I looked her over again. “Wow, you grew a lot. I’ve been trying to find you for months.” I touched her one more time, because I couldn’t believe that after all this time, she was standing right in front of me. “I’m so sorry that it took me so long. Now we can finally go home.”
“I am home.” Akasha folded her arms and glared at me.
I looked around the clearing full of strange magikin and shook my head. “That’s silly. Did Mom tell you that? I thought you would have figured out by now that she doesn’t really have your best interests in mind. Stop letting her use you.”
She shook her head. “No. I left Mom. These are the people that I really belong with—my own kind.”
I stared at her. I couldn’t believe that my little sister had changed so much. What had our mother done to her? “What do you mean, your own kind?”
Morrigan came up behind her and put her arm on Akasha’s shoulders. “Didn’t your mother tell you who her real father is?”
My heart sank. I’d learned about the truth from my mother that she’d had an affair, and she didn’t believe Akasha was really Dad’s kid, but I didn’t know she’d told Akasha, too. “So, what, she’s saying that your dad’s a Fae? That’s silly. You’re human.”
Akasha pulled herself up straighter. Whoa, was she taller than me? Not yet, but pretty darn close. She tossed her hair back over her shoulders and stared at me imperiously.
“I was hiding my true nature before,” she said, trying to glare at me down her nose. “My real father is a faeriekin, a knight of the Court. I’m not entirely human, so I’m making up for lost time by learning what it means to be part Fae.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “Aren’t you a little young to run away from home?”
Akasha looked down at the ground. “I don’t have another home. I’m not staying with Mom anymore, because she’s crazy, and you were right about her using us. But I don’t belong with your dad, either. He’s not my real father.”
I was really starting to lose my patience. “He loved you and raised you like his daughter!” The other Fae edged closer as I raised my voice, but I ignored him. “Blood doesn’t count for everything. And you would be with me. No matter how many parents we share, I’m still your big sister, and it’s still my responsibility to take care of you.”
Morrigan held up her hand. “Let’s just take a deep breath and calm down, okay?”
I suddenly found that I couldn’t open my mouth. I turned to stare at her. Who was this woman?
“That’s better,” Morrigan said. Now her smile looked predatory. “If Akasha wants to stay here for a time to figure some things out, I will keep her safe. I understand your concern, but I can’t let you take her if she doesn’t want to go.”
I looked back at Akasha and my eyes narrowed. Was this really what she wanted, or was she just letting someone else control her? She’d replaced our mother with someone else just as manipulative and conniving.
Akasha nodded emphatically. “I’m going to stay here. I’m sorry, Rosa. I did miss you while I was gone, but—there’s something that I have to do right now. Will you accept that?”
I raised my eyebrow at Morrigan, and with a wave of her hand, the Fae released the magic holding my mouth shut. “You can’t just do whatever you want.” A crow man put his hand on my shoulder and I took the hint. “But I guess there’s nothing I can do about it. Try to stay safe, and don’t do anything stupid, okay? Do you know where the new house is if you need me?”
Akasha looked at her feet again and nodded slowly. “Yeah, I know how to find you.” She glanced up at me. “And, um, thanks for looking for me.”
I sighed. “Of course. I was really worried about you. I hope you come home soon.”
The crow men took Kai and me by the arms and led us to the edge of the clearing. Morrigan followed behind and waved us off with a smile.
“Don’t try to come back looking for her again,” she said in her silky smooth voice. “I won’t let you find us next time.”
I glared back. “If you let anything happen to her, I will do everything in my power to crush you, just so you know.”
Morrigan just winked and turned her back on us. The trees in the forest closed, hiding the clearing from sight.
I turned to look at Kai and shook my head. “That was really weird.”
He nodded. “Now can we go to the castle and ask for help?”
“Yes.” I got on my broom and nodded at him. “Hop on.”
19
Loyalty
Rosamunde
In the time that we’d spent looking for Akasha, the circle of magic around Madrone had more than doubled in size. Half of the flight to Doe’s Rest Castle, we flew through the changeless twilight sky of Faerie, and I couldn’t tell how late it was.
When we emerged in the normal night sky with a rush of biting cold wind, I looked up first to see the position of the full moon. It was almost directly overhead. Normally I couldn’t remember exactly what all of the moon phases and times were off the top of my head, but a full moon was easy, because it was directly on the other side of Earth from the sun. So when it reached the apex of its climb, that was the equivalent of the sun directly overhead at noon: midnight. Sometimes called the Witching Hour.
I looked down next at the roads and houses, where I could see them beneath the dark trees. Just like Kai’s house, there was still electricity in the area outside of the circle of magic, because there were streetlights and the occasional lit-up window even this late at night. I only saw one car on the road, and I didn’t see a roadblock near the borders. I hoped that people knew not to drive into the affected area where their car would stop working and they’d get stranded, because I didn’t have any room left on my broom to pick up extra passengers.
It was awkward, after fighting and turning down Kai again, to have him sitting with his arms wrapped around me from behind, but I didn’t really have a choice. Yes, I’d promised to go find Dandelion at the tear in the Veil to help him figure out how to close it, but I’d also said I would take Kai to the castle and check in with my friends, who were reportedly worried about me. At the very least, I had to make sure that my ex-boyfriend was safe. His moms couldn’t get home tonight with the road through town closed, and there were rogue magikin roaming around.
But focusing on all of these details was just a distraction from the real pain in my heart, the sting of being rejected by my own sister. The tall, confident faeriekin girl I’d just spoken to seemed nothing like the shy, nerdy little sister I’d been looking for. What had made her turn around like that to suddenly embrace magic and a different identity so much that she didn’t even want to come home with me? I’d worried that being alone with Mom would change her—but I’d never expected this.
Everyone would leave me now, I realized. Mom had already abandoned our family, and now Akasha was doing the same. There was a distance growing between me and Dad over everything that had happened. I couldn’t talk to my friends about what was going on with Dandelion, Zil wouldn’t even give me the time of day, and Kai was probably growing to hate me with all of the times that I’d hurt him. When the dust settled after this latest catastrophe, would I have anyone left to turn to?
No time to think about it now. The castle was coming up fast, and I wasn’t surprised to see that even at this late hour, it was a bustle of activity, with lights on in most of the buildings. Lots of cars were parked outside and I knew that Glen’s sedan would be one of them. I just had to face my friends and handle one problem at a time.
I landed as close to the door as I could manage so we wouldn’t have to walk far in the snow. Kai followed me shivering up to the steps; although he had dressed more warmly than me before leaving his house, we’d both adapted to the warmer temperature in the circle of magic. It was a shock to both our systems to come back to the normal world, and a flight through the cold air, however short, had frozen us both.
A servant opened the door for us and bowed when we entered. He led us to a
drawing room near the back of the castle, where Ashleigh leaped up from a chair and hugged both of us.
“I’m so glad you’re safe!” she squealed. She nodded to the servant still waiting at the door. “Hot cider and tea, right now. We gotta warm these kids up.”
I hugged Ashleigh back until she finally released me, then turned to take off my coat and hang it up. As an afterthought, I took off the nettle cloak, too, because I didn’t think I’d have to keep wearing it outside of the circle of magic. The room lacked a fireplace, but it was still heated, and the air suddenly felt stifling. “Where’s everyone else?” I asked.
“Glen’s out with the rescue crews to find people who are stranded by this storm.” Ashleigh took both our coats away and hung them up herself. “Heather was getting tired, so she went to bed about an hour ago. But I’ve been on eggshells ever since you called earlier, and I wanted to be here when you arrived.” She looked over at Kai. “You didn’t give much of an explanation on the phone and then we couldn’t call you back.”
Kai nodded at me. “That’s because she hadn’t told me much then. It’s still confusing to me, so I think it’s better if you ask Rosa to explain.”
I settled into one of the overstuffed easy chairs, grateful that Ashleigh had picked one of the more casual, modern rooms to wait in. Some of the other rooms in the castle were beautiful in their elaborate formality, but they weren’t the kind of place that I wanted to hang out in after a long day. Actually, I would have been more comfortable up in Ashleigh’s room on the third floor of the castle, but the thought of all those stairs made my legs cry out in pain. I hadn’t realized how sore I was from walking through the forest until I sat down.
I let out a sigh of contentment and looked up at Ashleigh. “I’m sorry, but my phone stopped working completely when it happened. I guess I should have talked to you when I was at Kai’s, but I was in a rush. I didn’t know we’d be out for so long.”
I looked around for a clock, just to confirm my earlier suspicion. It was almost eleven. Suddenly my exhaustion from sleep deprivation the night before and the long, crazy day settled over me. I yawned involuntarily.
Ashleigh sat down in the chair across from me and leaned forward. “I know I’m asking a lot of you, but I need you to tell me everything that you know. Kai said you thought that there was a gate opened through the Veil?”
My head jerked up with a start. “Yeah, haven’t you guys been to the tear yet? Somebody has to watch that thing and make sure no more monsters come through.”
She shook her head. “No, nobody’s gone too far into the affected area. We’re not sure what could happen. It’s clear that something magical is going on, so we can’t take risks. But what do you mean about monsters? Do you mean the Unseelie?”
I shook my head. “I mean the goblins, and the crow demons, and whatever else is running loose around Madrone right now. All the magikin that get locked up in the Otherworld seem to know that the tear is open, and they’re coming through to cause trouble. You should post guards to stop them.”
Ashleigh glanced over at Kai, seated to her right. “I haven’t seen anything out of the ordinary.”
Kai nodded solemnly. “Oh, yeah, there’s a ton of magikin out. Everyone in the middle of town is all locked up to hide from them. Two of the karasu tengu snatched her sister, and that’s what we were doing all this time, looking for Akasha.”
Ashleigh’s eyes widened. “Tengu are just a legend.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” he said with a shake of his head.
She looked back at me. “And they took Akasha?”
I waved my hand back and forth. “Well, it sounded like they just gave her a ride. Akasha wanted to stay with them and the other magikin. She claims that her real father’s a faeriekin and she belongs with her people.”
The faeriekin princess let out a laugh of disbelief. “Are you sure?” She stared at me. “Your sister is part Fae?”
I shrugged. “She sure looks different than the last time I saw her. She could be faeriekin. Mom didn’t tell me who she had the affair with, the guy who’s supposedly Akasha’s biological father.”
Kai held up his hands. “Don’t look at me. I can’t keep track of all her crazy family stuff. This is the first anyone’s told me about an affair.”
Ashleigh flashed him a sympathetic smile. “That revelation came from our little adventure in Byrnes Camp.” She shared a look with me that said she remembered, just as I did, how tense it was to be held hostage by the Unseelie.
Just then, the servant returned with a tray of hot beverages. We waited while he served. I accepted a hot mug of tea, hoping that it would keep me awake for a little while longer, and curled my hands around the warm ceramic. I was starting to thaw out, and being with Ashleigh always reassured me, with her kind way of taking care of everyone.
When the servant was gone, Ashleigh leaned across and put her hand on my leg. “I’m sorry that your sister didn’t want to come with you,” she said, seeing the exact thing that was bothering me the most. “I hope she hasn’t fallen in with a bad crowd because of your mom’s influence. I’ll ask Glen to send a group out to bring her back. Faeriekin or not, they can’t hold a minor.”
I smiled back at her. “Thank you.”
She sat back and nodded. “Of course. Now, can you try to explain to me about this gate or tear in the Veil, or whatever you’re calling it, and what’s really going on out there?”
I took a deep breath. She was going to ask me a lot harder questions than Kai had, and although she didn’t know as much of the truth as Glen, she did know about the guardian. Whether I was allowed to talk to her about Kaorinix or not, it looked like I was going to be forced to confess everything I knew. But things were serious right now and I had to tell the truth to get it fixed.
So I gave her one last smile and then started from the beginning.
After I told my story to Ashleigh, she took me to see Count Duncan in his office, and then I had to repeat everything all over again. He had dealt with Kaorinix personally before, so his questions were even more pointed, and he wasn’t happy about the news. He looked at me sternly across his desk the entire time, like I’d been taken to see the dean of the school and I was about to get detention. But the punishments he could give me were much worse than anything at school.
Fortunately, Ashleigh came and sat with me for support. She held my hand and gave it a squeeze when I got nervous or upset. Somehow, I managed to get through all of it.
At last, I pulled out the necklace with the dragon scale from underneath my shirt and showed it to the Count as proof that I had the Guardian’s approval. His eyes widened when he saw it, and he looked to Ashleigh.
“How did you not know about this before?” he asked her.
She blushed and looked down. “I thought Rosa confided everything in us after the fight with her mom, but I guess there was still more to the story. I never could have guessed. I didn’t know that the Guardian had assistants in either world.” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “And I didn’t know your weird friend was so important.”
I’d told them what I’d known about Dandelion, who had made the faeriekin nervous before. But I couldn’t explain why he’d picked me of all people to join his cause, because I didn’t really understand it myself.
“I’m sorry,” I said now, also blushing. “He told me that I couldn’t be involved in politics, so I thought that I should keep it a secret. I wasn’t sure how this would relate to—to the Court.”
The Count frowned. “But you swore an oath of loyalty to this Court when you became a witch, and you also served us directly when you spied on your mother and the other insurgents. You’re involved politically. And the state of the Veil, and interactions between the two worlds, is very important to this Court.”
I didn’t even know what it really meant to help the Guardian of the Veil, because I’d barely passed the test and Dandelion was supposed to teach me all sorts of things. But I did know, from
my experiences over the past several months, that I could never give my complete loyalty to either the Seelie or the Unseelie, because I could see faults in both of the groups. And then I saw the path that Dandelion walked—a neutral line in between, avoiding the petty squabbles, concerned with the health of the worlds. He invoked the name of the Queen of Faerie, but in reality he served a cause even higher than her, to help all people.
I raised my head and looked directly at the Count. “I have helped both the Seelie and the Unseelie,” I said, because that was the truth. “And I help those who don’t fall into either group. As a servant of the Guardian, I don’t have a political affiliation, and you can’t order my loyalty. When the Veil is lifted, Truth shines a lamp into our darkest shadows.”
I repeated the words from memory, just the way I’d heard Dandelion tell them to Glen, but now as I said them, they made sense. In the realms of both magic and mortals, I’d seen the truth behind their natures, and realized that neither Seelie nor Unseelie were wholly good or evil. Like humans, they were concerned with themselves first of all, and none of them were right. They hid their mistakes in the shadows, but I could see right through them.
Dandelion said there was a kind of magic behind the words that he would teach me how to perform, but even without that, the code phrase seemed to have a profound affect on Count Duncan. His eyes widened. He opened and closed his mouth several times, but no words came out.
At last he bowed his head as if accepting defeat. “Very well,” he said. “I release you from your oath. The Court no longer commands your fealty.”
Ashleigh let out a gasp and dropped my hand. She shrank away from me as if I was going to grow a second head and bite her. I felt bad, but I couldn’t explain it to her. There was too much that she didn’t understand, too many lies fed to her by the Court and her mother the duchess, and maybe as a faeriekin she couldn’t really grasp the gray morality I saw now. From now on, there would be a barrier between me and my friends as long as they chose to belong to the Seelie Court and I held myself apart.
Fae of Calaveras Trilogy Box Set Page 63
