Fae of Calaveras Trilogy Box Set

by Kristen S. Walker

  I nodded to the Count. “Thank you for understanding.”

  “I don’t understand, but I’m forced to accept,” he said, tension creeping into his voice. “And as the sworn protector of the people in this area, I must ask for your help. If you truly ally yourself with the Guardian and you have any kind of control over the Veil, please, find a way to close it. This is bad for both of our worlds if this tear continues to grow and allow magic to infect our world.”

  “Of course.” I stifled a yawn. “But first, I think I need to get some sleep. Can I have the use of a room here tonight? I’ve been running for two days on almost no rest.”

  Count Duncan dismissed me, and Ashleigh led me away, although still walking at arm’s-length. There was nothing that I could say to make her trust me again, so I just gave up and let her take me to the room that she’d had a servant make up for me.

  “Kai is already asleep in his room,” she said stiffly. “I had them put him in another wing, so he can’t bother you.”

  “Thank you.” I looked into the small but comfortable room, avoiding eye contact with her. “And I’m sorry that things turned out like this.”

  “I just hope you know what you’re doing, Rosa,” she said sadly.

  “I hope so, too,” I said sincerely. Or that Dandelion would train me, so I could learn what I was doing. I planned to go find him first thing in the morning and get the whole mess sorted out.

  “Get some sleep. It’s almost midnight.” She turned and walked away.

  I watched her go down the hall out of the corner of my eye. Perhaps more than anyone else, I would miss Ashleigh most of all. I’d relied on her for comfort and support more and more since losing my old friend Lindsey, and she seemed to understand me better than the others. But there was nothing I could do about it.

  I kicked off my shoes as I entered the room but didn’t bother to get undressed. I was asleep by the time my head hit the pillow.

  20

  Jail Break

  Akasha

  I looked around the clearing and saw that the other magikin were getting restless. We’d talked and argued over the plan to break into the castle half a dozen times already, and finally, the ragtag group had come to a consensus. When the initial chaos of the magic spreading across the castle grounds began, we would be waiting at the border to rush in. Morrigan, as one of the most powerful magic users, would personally open the magic-locked doors, while those more adept at fighting would stand by prepared to take out any guards who tried to stop us. The whole strike would be quick, before the castle’s forces could mobilize against us.

  I wasn’t entirely sure what my role would be, other than tagging along to talk to Sir Allen and the other prisoners. Morrigan and the others hadn’t met them before, so she was relying on me to tell them what was going on and make sure that they were quick to follow us back out again. I didn’t have a good handle on my powers yet to be able to contribute much else to the escape plan.

  Thinking about seeing Sir Allen, now that I knew he was my biological father, made me suddenly shy. Did he know that I was his daughter? Or would he realize the truth now that I looked like a faeriekin and—presumably—like him? What would I say to him? I didn’t really know him that well. I guess he’d made an effort to be nice to me and my sister whenever we came up to the castle, and of course I’d seen a lot of him the past few months while he was helping Mom plan to open the gate. But would I feel differently about him now that I knew he was really my dad?

  I didn’t have any childish ideas that we’d feel an instant connection just because of shared DNA, or that he would suddenly shower me with love and make my life perfect. I knew that kind of thing didn’t really happen. The irony was that growing up, when I had a hard time with my family, I felt disconnected from Mom and Rosa—Samuel, the dad who raised me, was the one I was closest to, because he and I shared an interest in science and technology instead of magic. Now I was forced to contend with magic, and I wasn’t sure how to handle the father who made me part of that strange world.

  My worries were interrupted when one of the karasu tengu arrived from a scouting mission, looking unhappy.

  “Something’s wrong,” he said, ruffling his feathers as he folded his wings back. “The magic isn’t spreading evenly anymore.”

  Morrigan beckoned me forward to come join the conversation; unlike my mom, she wanted me front and center in the Unseelie’s plans. “Can you describe what you saw?”

  The crow man spread his hands out in front of him. “The magic spreads out from the middle of the town like this.” His hands moved apart. “It gets faster the higher that the moon goes in the sky. Now the moon is at the peak, and the whole valley is full. It spreads up the mountains.”

  Morrigan nodded. “The full moon hits its peak at midnight. The power of the full moon and the Witching Hour should create a chain reaction to make it spread even farther. We should be getting very close to the castle by now.”

  I perked up, because something that she was saying actually made sense to me. “Yeah, Mom said that we would open the gate as the full moon just started to rise. She said that it made the Veil weaker and it was the best time to cross over, so we would use that power to fuel the gate.”

  Morrigan glanced at me with a smile of approval. “A smart plan.” She looked back at the crow man. “But what went wrong?”

  He held up one hand as a fist and gestured around it with the other one. “Where the magic hits Quiggs Mountain, it stops and flows around. It does not go up to affect the castle.”

  Doe’s Rest Castle, the seat of Count Duncan and the place where Sir Allen and the other prisoners were being held, was at the peak of Quiggs Mountain. This was a major wrench in our plan.

  Morrigan’s beautiful face wrinkled up into the most delicate of frowns. “There must be some kind of protection on the castle that’s preventing the tear from spreading. Hm. We need to figure out what the barrier is and how to break through it.” She looked at me. “You control the gate. Could you give it a push or something to make it spread up the mountain?”

  My eyes widened. “Me?” my voice came out in a squeak. I coughed and tried to speak normally. “I don’t know how to control it. I barely know how to do anything with my powers.” Levitating a few objects was all I’d done besides opening the gate, and Mom had guided me through that.

  She smiled and rested a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’ll help you. I just need to know if you feel up to trying. It’s been a long day and you must be tired, but now is the best time to try, when the moon and midnight are on our side.”

  I swallowed hard. “Um, okay.” I did feel tired, now that she mentioned it—but at the same time I was energized with excitement. I certainly couldn’t believe that it was already midnight, but then time hadn’t been normal since Mom and I opened the gate.

  “Great.” She turned to back to the crow man. “Lead us to the border.”

  I watched him warily, because I didn’t want to be slung over his shoulder and hauled off again. But he jumped up on his own and began flying away, and Morrigan just stood there looking at me expectantly.

  At last, the Fae bent down and whispered in my ear, “You do know how to fly, right?”

  I shook my head. I didn’t have a witch broom of my own, and I certainly didn’t know how to control one. Could faeries even fly?

  She answered my question by stepping up into the air, and her cloak of black feathers transformed into a pair of wings.

  My eyes widened. “Whoa. That’s cool.”

  Morrigan bent down and held out her hand to me. “You can do it, too. Wings if you want them, or you can just fly. Give it a try.”

  “I don’t know how—”

  “Stop saying you can’t and you don’t know, and just try it for once.” She kept smiling and held out her hand to me.

  There was no way that I could wrap my head around the idea of flying. It just didn’t make sense. So far, I’d managed to sort of explain away my powers by v
isualizing energy flowing from me to objects that I affected, and things like that. But could I really make myself levitate? It went against everything that I knew about physics and reality.

  But nothing was totally real anymore now, right? We were stuck in perpetual twilight and I couldn’t see the moon, plus the normal laws of physics seemed to be acting weird, ever since the gate had opened. Maybe flying was just one more thing that I could do now. Stranger things had already happened today.

  I took her hand and focused on the sky. I imagined that I could fly and I lifted myself up into the air.

  Morrigan’s smile grew wider. “Nice touch.”

  I blinked and looked behind me. Two translucent pixie-style wings stuck out from between my shoulder blades. It was weird, because they were fluttering to keep me aloft, but I couldn’t really feel anything there. “They were the first thing that I thought of,” I said with a blush.

  “It doesn’t matter what they look like, as long as they get us there.” She tugged me up higher into the sky, above the tree line. I could see the crow man winging off into the distance, a dark shadow against the gray sky. “Let’s go.”

  The crow demon led us to the bottom of Quiggs Mountain. I was shaky on the landing, but Morrigan guided me down gently.

  I could see the edge of the circle of magic like a haze in the air before us. The real world was on the other side, unaffected by the Veil. I could see the moonlight streaming down through the trees, casting shadows on the ground.

  I looked down the edge and saw where the circle continued unobstructed. It seemed to meld into the regular world without a real barrier. Then I looked back at where it jutted up against the mountain. It wasn’t as solid as the true Veil, which usually looked like a curtain of mist, but it was definitely there.

  I reached out to touch it and felt my fingers tingling. I pushed and it was like trying to push a wall.

  The crow demon made a noise in his throat. “Yes, we cannot fly any farther up the mountain. Whatever is stopping the gate from spreading is also preventing any unauthorized magikin from getting anywhere near the castle.”

  I pushed against the barrier again, harder. “But I’ve been to the castle before, lots of times. Wouldn’t I be authorized?”

  “Would they have any reason to suspect you?” Morrigan asked in a quiet voice.

  I shook my head. “Of course not. My mom, yes, but not me. I haven’t done anything—at least, not before today.” I looked down.

  Morrigan sighed. “They must have increased security because of the gate.” She moved closer and put her hand on top of mine. “We’ll do it together.”

  The gesture reminded me of Mom grabbing my hand earlier that day when we opened the gate together. I flinched away, still remembering the slice of the knife across my palm. She hadn’t warned me that she was going to cut me before she did it.

  “It’s okay,” the Fae said in a low tone. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  Shaking, I put my hand back on the barrier, and let her cover it with her own.

  “Now just visualize what you want to happen,” she told me.

  What I wanted? I guess that I wanted the barrier to move. I needed the gate to spread up the hillside into the castle to where my father was being held. I tried to picture the border moving upward and pushed again.

  Energy flowed through me and up my arm. As I watched, the barrier dissolved and magic spread up the hillside, disappearing through the trees.

  “Good work,” Morrigan said with a smile. She turned and nodded to the crow demon. “Go tell the others to hurry. We’ll be at the castle soon.”

  I had to push the gate up the hill two more times, once at the edge of the outer grounds for the castle, and then again at the walls that surrounded the main buildings of the complex. I saved that final push until the other Unseelie were assembled and ready to storm the walls. By then, it was as easy as solving a math problem when I could remember the formula—all I had to do was concentrate in the right way, and I could put the pieces together to make it happen.

  The castle was mostly dark when we flew over the walls, and all of the lights flickered out when the magic of the gate touched them and the electricity died. But shouts quickly rang out, and faerie lights sprang up out of thin air, illuminating the grounds.

  Morrigan held up her dark feathered cloak to hide us both, and I stuck close to her side, so we ran through the dark gardens to a side entrance. Meanwhile, the crow demons and some of the other magikin were shouting loudly and attacking the guards who swarmed outside, hoping to create a distraction. I heard the grating of metal as swords and other weapons were drawn—guns wouldn’t work in the Otherworld, but faeriekin knights were trained in more ancient weaponry—but I couldn’t stop to look and see who was fighting. We had to keep moving.

  At the door, Morrigan pressed the palm of her hand to the handle, and then the lock sprang open. Faeriekin charms couldn’t hold out against the power of a full-blooded Fae, certainly not when we had the power of the full moon and the Otherworld on our side. She swung open the door and we hurried inside.

  The building was dark, but Morrigan summoned a small orb of light that floated over her head. We took a moment to orient ourselves in the hallway—and then I recognized where we were.

  “This way.” I led down the corridor to the left.

  We walked quietly, stopping at each corner to listen for sounds of guards. I got turned around once and we had to backtrack a few turns. It wasn’t often that I’d been outside of the main building of the castle, and I certainly hadn’t been to the jail before. But eventually I found the staircase that led down into the basement where the prisoners were held.

  Two guards stood in front of the door at the bottom—one ogre and one faeriekin. I stopped short when I saw them and let out a squeak.

  Morrigan held me back with one hand. “Sweet dreams,” she whispered, and waved her other hand.

  “What—” the ogre just began to say, and then he and the other guard collapsed on the ground.

  I crept closer and bent to check on them. They were still breathing, but totally unconscious. I looked up at the Fae with new respect. “You’re going to have to teach me that trick.”

  “Later,” she said with a wink. Then she turned and concentrated on unlocking the door.

  This lock took her more time, but after about a minute, it swung open, allowing us to step into a long, broad hall with barred cells along either side.

  Most of the cells were full, and the prisoners stood up in surprise as we entered. I saw satyrs, dryads—and at the very end, the faeriekin knight I knew as Sir Allen. I rushed to his cell door first.

  He looked different out of his green and gold guard’s uniform. I’d never seen a faeriekin look so haggard before, with his hair hanging greasy around his face, like he hadn’t showered in days. There were dark circles under his eyes and a yellowing bruise on his left cheek.

  “Akasha?” he said, squinting in the dim light of the faerie lantern. “What are you doing here?”

  “We’re getting all of you out.” I looked back at Morrigan. “There’s magic holding the doors, right? Can you undo it?”

  She smiled at me over her shoulder and turned to the dryad’s cell next door. “Why don’t you take that one?”

  I frowned. I didn’t know how she’d managed to open the other doors. But I just had to try, right?

  I put my hand on the lock and concentrated. I could feel the charm resisting me, just like the barrier on the gate earlier. I tried to visualize what I knew about locks: tumblers and pins. I slid my magic in between them, and the door opened under my hand.

  Sir Allen stared at me. “I—have you been learning witchcraft from your mother?”

  I looked up at him sheepishly and shook my head. “Um, no. Did you know who I was?”

  I could feel my father’s eyes examining me, noting my new height, my change in features. Then his jaw dropped. “I had no idea,” Allen gasped. “I mean, I was suspicious about the
timing when your mother first told me she was pregnant, but when you were born, you were clearly human.”

  I twisted my hands together nervously. “Yeah, turns out she used some kind of spell to make me look human. I just found out the truth last week.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said with a shake of his head. “If I’d known you were my daughter, I would have been—more involved. Do you—do you want me to be more involved? In your life?”

  I managed to yank my gaze up off the floor and forced myself to look at his face. “I don’t know,” I stammered. “I mean, this is all very new and confusing. I don’t know what it means to be part Fae. Maybe you could teach me some of that.”

  He smiled and stuck his hand out. “I promise to teach you everything I know, but it looks like you’re already getting the hang of things.”

  I took his hand and shook it warmly. “Thanks. But we’ll have to talk more later. We’ve got to get out of here quickly before the other guards rally and we all get caught.”

  Allen cleared his throat and looked to the door. “Yeah, well, you guys run on ahead and I’ll catch up. I have something else to take care of before I get out of here.”

  I tried to ask what was going on, but he pushed past me before I had the chance to ask him. He rushed out the door and was down the hall before anyone could stop him.

  Morrigan saw him go and turned to look at me. “Where is he going?”

  “I don’t know,” I said with a shake of my head. “He said he had something to take care of. What do you think he’s doing?”

  I had a sinking feeling in my stomach that it was nothing good.

  21

  Fleeing the Castle

  Akasha