Kai got up off the floor, still clutching the coffee-soaked napkins, and pointed to a chair. “Do you have time to sit down? We’ve got questions, but you should take it easy. Can I pour you a mug?”
Ashleigh shook her head, but she sat down with her hands folded neatly in her lap, and waited while Kai and Heather took their own seats again. Then she cleared her throat. “Guards have been dispatched to catch the escapees and the attackers who helped them. We’re still piecing together everything that happened, but I have to tell you what our first reports have revealed.”
Her eyes went to me, and I stiffened. Her look still held sympathy even after I’d given up my oath to the Court, and I was afraid that I knew what that meant. “So my mother was involved?”
“We have not found any evidence of Rosmerta at this time,” Ashleigh said formally. “However, the guards from the jail have identified the two people who freed the prisoners as Morrigan, the dethroned queen of the Unseelie Court, and your sister, Akasha.”
I slumped back in the chair. I thought that I was numb after all of the shock, but it seemed that I still had some feeling left, because that cold blow hit my heart and took my breath away.
Kai let out a yelp of surprise. “Morrigan’s the evil queen? She didn’t say that to us!”
“But we knew that the group Akasha was hanging out with was probably Unseelie,” I said, shaking my head.
Ashleigh took a sharp breath. “You didn’t tell us that you met Morrigan.”
When I’d told my story to Ashleigh and then Count Duncan, I’d forgotten some of the details in my haze of exhaustion, including the name that the Fae woman had used. I put my face in my hands. “I’m sorry, I forgot. I didn’t know it was important. But she must have coerced Akasha, or she was just dragging her along. There’s no way that Akasha willingly helped with the jailbreak.”
“If we knew that Morrigan was involved, we might have been prepared for an attack like this,” Ashleigh said in a low voice. “But while it’s true that she appeared to be leading the break-out, magical residue shows that Akasha opened at least one of the jail cell doors, the one holding Allen.”
That couldn’t be a coincidence. Akasha had told us that her real father was a faeriekin knight, which Allen had been before his arrest. And he was in trouble for helping my mother. A horrifying picture took shape in my mind: Mom working with her Unseelie lover to take down the Court that restricted her magic, and leading my sister into dangerous criminal activity.
I looked back up at Ashleigh. “Allen must be her biological father. That’s her motive for helping him. How—” My voice caught in my throat. “How much trouble can she get into for this?”
Ashleigh gave me a sad frown and shook her head. “Allen was the one who killed the Count. Akasha could be charged as an accessory to the murder.”
“No!” I punched the armrest, making the others jump at the noise. “She’s just a kid! You can’t hold her responsible for that!”
“I’m so sorry.” Ashleigh looked down at her hands. “It’s not my decision, Rosa.”
I jumped to my feet. “Then whose is it? Glen’s? Let me go talk to him. I need to explain how confused Akasha is right now, how much she’s been manipulated by my mother and probably that Unseelie Fae, too.”
The xana guard moved to block the door, and the other two stepped closer to me, looking wary.
But it was Kai who grabbed me and held me fast. “Calm down,” he murmured in my ear.
I struggled halfheartedly and then went limp, hanging my head. I just didn’t have it in me to fight anymore.
Ashleigh stood up and faced me. “You’ll have a chance to speak on your sister’s behalf, but not right now,” she said. “Glen isn’t old enough to become Count yet. The widow Countess Serafina will serve as regent until he graduates high school and maybe college. We’re still working out the details.”
I pushed Kai off of me. “I’ll be calm now.” When he released me, I sat back down in the chair. Despite the boost from the caffeine, I felt ready to collapse and fall asleep again.
Kai hovered near the chair, but he looked over at Ashleigh. “I never understood why Glen’s dad isn’t next in line to inherit.”
“He was disinherited years ago.” Ashleigh shuffled from one foot to another. “Mr. Byrnes actually chose that. In order to inherit, he had to stay in his arranged marriage with the highborn Samantha, Glen’s mother. He knew the consequences of his divorce and getting remarried, and he said that he didn’t want the responsibility. But because Glen was born of both lines, he was allowed to stay in the line of succession as long as he was trained by his grandfather and went through with his arranged marriage to me.”
I waved one hand in the air. “I don’t care who I have to talk to. Just tell me when, but not before tomorrow morning.”
Ashleigh looked up at the guards. “I think it’s safe enough that we can let everyone go back to bed. I’m sorry for the disturbance.” She headed for the door, but stopped with one hand on the handle. “This is a stressful time for everyone, and we have a lot to figure out, but I promise that no one is going to rush to any conclusions. We’re still gathering evidence and trying to figure everything out.” She looked back at me, then at Heather. “And we’ll try to find a solution that makes all of us happy.”
I looked at Heather and saw how she looked down at the floor. I cleared my throat. “Um, if Glen is becoming Count soon, does that also mean your wedding is happening soon?”
Ashleigh looked back at me and narrowed her eyes. “That hasn’t been discussed yet, but I don’t think so. This is a time of mourning.” She turned and marched out of the room, and most of the guards followed her.
I got back to my feet with a sigh, thinking of the bed waiting for me, and all of the stairs and hallways between us. Just then, the floor seemed to shift under me, and I stumbled, trying to regain my balance.
Kai reached out and grabbed my arm to steady me. “I’ll, uh, walk with you.”
I stiffened, then remembered that his room was in another wing of the castle, and reached for Heather. “That’s okay, we’re out of your way. She’s right down the hall, so we’ll keep each other standing.”
Kai stepped back awkwardly. “Um, okay. I guess I’ll see you girls in the morning.”
I took Heather by the hand and walked out before he could say anything else.
24
Investigate the Tear
Rosamunde
I woke up at last feeling rested and stretched. My muscles were stiff from lying down so long, but my head was a little clearer for the sleep. I looked to the window and saw the gray light of twilight outside, so there was no way to tell how long I’d been out for. It felt like a year.
My stomach grumbled. When was the last time that I ate? I couldn’t remember having any food since the tear in the Veil had opened, so it must have been lunch while waiting for the trial yesterday afternoon.
But first, I needed a shower. Fortunately there was a bathroom attached to my bedroom, and someone had come by while I slept and laid out clean clothes and towels for me. I found a long blue dress, suited for the spring-like weather, and thin gray stockings. It was a little plain for my taste, but I had to get out of the wrinkled jeans and t-shirt.
The shower was complicated by the fact that the water kept flowing in different directions, but at least it was hot even with the electricity out, so I managed to get clean. I dressed quickly and went downstairs to look for the others.
I found all four of my friends already awake and seated in a small conference room at the heart of the castle, where guards could watch them from all angles. The whole atmosphere was very stiff, almost claustrophobic, without any windows to the outside and the room was lit by faerie lanterns and candles.
Ashleigh smiled when she saw me and sent off a servant to bring me some food. “We’ve already eaten,” she said apologetically. “Everyone else has already been up for—for a while.”
I caught the way she hesitate
d about the time. “Is there any way to tell how long it’s been?”
Glen shook his head. “Time does not mean anything in here right now. But we have bigger problems.” He reached across the table and held a large crystal out to me. “Our normal security cameras were knocked out, but we had backups in the jail in case of a magical attempt at breaking out. One spell managed to get this footage of the incident.”
I pulled out a chair and gave the crystal a wary look. “Can it wait until after I’ve had some coffee, at least?”
“Of course.” Glen put the crystal back into his pocket and folded his hands on the table.
He looked a lot older today. The faeriekin knight had always been formal and stiff, with the weight of the responsibilities on his shoulders, but he could still smile and laugh like a normal teenager. But his grandfather’s death had transformed him overnight into a machine that just went through the motions.
Ashleigh poured a mug of coffee from the pot and slid it across the table to me. “Glen was just trying to show you that we’re still gathering evidence from last night,” she said. She smiled as she said it, but her eyes didn’t quite meet mine, and when I reached out to take the mug from her, her fingers slipped away before they could touch my hand.
I sipped the coffee carefully, because my mouth still felt tender from the night before, then grimaced and looked for sugar and creamer. As I attempted to stir some flavor into the beverage, I looked back up at the others. “Was anyone else hurt last night?”
Glen shook his head. “Not seriously. A few of the guards sustained minor injuries in the attack, but it’s clear that they were only intent on distracting us, not to kill. The guards in the jail were rendered unconscious by a spell but recovered soon after.”
The servant returned and set down a plate in front of me. All it held was a cold bagel, a small container of cream cheese, and a banana. It was the kind of breakfast that I’d have at home, but not at all what I expected at the castle, where brunch spreads often had fresh pastries, fruit sculptures, and a chef preparing omelets to order. The lack of power and the attack on the Count must be affecting everything. Well, at least the coffee was hot.
So I ate my cold bagel without complaining and listened as Glen described the events of last night. I let him show me the crystal, which played back a recorded video of Akasha entering the jail with Morrigan and then unlocking Allen’s cell door. Allen left the jail in a hurry, while Akasha stayed behind to help the prisoners.
I pointed at the crystal. “See? He went to—um—to do the assassination by himself,” I said delicately, afraid to mention the Count. “Akasha had nothing to do with it.”
Glen put the crystal away with a frown and folded his arms. “She’s still responsible for letting him out into the castle. Whether she knew what he was going to do or not, she aided a traitor in the performance of a crime. Witnesses also claim to have seen her and Morrigan helping Allen escape recapture after the attack. She’s an accessory to treason and murder.”
I swallowed a very dry bite of bagel. “But you have to go easy on her because she’s just a kid, right?”
Glen sighed. “Well, thus far we haven’t charged our classmates as adults, but they were arrested on much less serious charges. Murder is the worst thing you can do. It’s her fault that he got out, so it’s her fault that he killed.”
I threw my hands up in the air. “You might as well say that if you had let him out on bail yourself, and then he’d killed someone in the next county, that you would be responsible for that death!”
“That’s not the same. He was not released on bail, because we believed that he was dangerous. Obviously our fears were well-founded.” Glen pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “We can try to make some kind of deal with her if she’s willing to testify against the others. It would be better if you could find her before she gets caught up in any more trouble, though.”
He turned and left the room, followed by a contingent of guards.
Ashleigh watched him leave, then shook her head sadly. “He’s got more to worry about than just helping your sister right now, Rosa. Don’t take it out on him.”
“Well, he can be upset about his grandfather, but he can’t take it out on Akasha.” I left my half-eaten breakfast on the table and got to my own feet. “I’ll go take care of it myself. It’s long past time that I met up with someone.”
I gathered all of my belongings that I could—bag, coat, broom—and had to settle for leaving without my cloak. Outside, it took me a little while to get my bearings without anything in the sky. But I knew that the front gate of the castle faced west, so I turned a little to the right and headed northwest to Madrone.
From the air, I could no longer see how far the circle of magic had spread. Every direction I turned looked the same: gray sky, no lights in the houses, no cars on the roads. The trees were starting to twist and transform into impossible shapes.
I got turned around a few times in the air, but I finally figured out that if I flew higher, I could see the center of the tear glowing in the middle of town. It was the only landmark besides the mountains that I could see, but fortunately, it was exactly where I needed to go.
When I circled over the tear, I didn’t see anyone on the ground. At last I landed reluctantly nearby and approached warily on foot, looking around me in all directions.
“You certainly took your sweet time, witchling,” a voice said from above my head.
I jumped back reflexively and looked up, but I saw nothing—until a gray form moved up in the trees.
Dandelion uncurled from a tree branch and jumped down. “When I asked you to meet me here, I thought you’d make it a little faster.”
“Sorry.” I looked around him to the tear, but it looked the same as it had yesterday. “I got held up with a lot of other things. Akasha didn’t want to come with me when we found her. Instead, she and a bunch of Unseelie broke Allen out of the castle jail, because apparently he’s her biological father, and then he killed Count Duncan.”
He sucked in a sharp breath. “That sounds like quite the operation. How many Unseelie were there with her?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, but it sounded like a pretty big group. They attacked the castle to distract the guards. The jail’s been emptied.” I looked down at the ground. “Akasha was working with a Fae named Morrigan. Ashleigh and Glen said she was a big deal, like, some ex-queen of the Unseelie or something.”
Dandelion nodded. “Yes, when there were two courts, Morrigan was the other leader. I didn’t think she was active anymore, though.”
“Well, she’s getting my sister into trouble.” I clenched my hands into fists. “Glen threatened to charge Akasha as an accessory to murder for his grandfather’s death. He’s out to punish anyone he can for what happened. I have to find a way to convince him that Akasha was being coerced or something. It can’t have been her idea to kill anyone.”
He stepped to the side and gestured to the tear. “First, we still have to deal with this. Everything is going to be chaotic until we manage to clean up this mess.” He put a hand on my shoulder. “And you need to stop splitting your focus.”
I grimly set my jaw and started to walk toward the tear. But the closer I got to it, the farther away it looked. I frowned and tried again. It was easy to see it right there—but when I tried to approach, once again it moved even farther out of my reach. For every step I took, it retreated two or three steps away.
Finally I stopped and glared at Dandelion, who hadn’t visibly moved at all, but somehow was still right at my side. “What’s going on?” I asked. “Is there some kind of spell protecting it?”
He grinned and pulled out something big and ratty from behind his back. My cloak! “Here,” he said, holding it out to me. “It might help if you wore this.”
I snatched it away from him and stared at the cloak in my hands. “I couldn’t find this anywhere!” I swung it over my shoulders, and suddenly the distortion of the magic everywhere became a lo
t more bearable. I let out a heavy sigh of relief. “But where did you get this? I set it down on a chair in the castle and it just disappeared.”
He shrugged. “Maybe you won’t forget it next time.”
This time I had no trouble walking up to the tear, but I wasn’t sure what to do next. It shimmered in the air before me with ragged edges all along the ancient madrone tree, and in the center I could look straight through to the Otherworld. I wasn’t sure where it was connected, but the grass on the other side had a distinctly blue tinge, and I could see more misshapen trees leading off into the forest.
When I reached out to touch it, it felt warm and tingly. I pulled my hand back quickly, afraid of making it get any bigger.
Dandelion took my hand in his and pressed it back to the edge of the tear. “No. You need to understand it. You’ve been through the proper gate many times now. Can you feel how this one is different?”
I tried to concentrate on what he meant. Well, for one thing, I couldn’t really see the gate at Doe’s Rest Castle. The boundaries were defined by the rowan grove, but I’d never seen it look any different when it was open versus when it was closed. With the dragon scale necklace I now wore, I barely felt any transition when I stepped from one world into the other. But here, the tear felt wrong, as if both sides were pushing against each other for dominance. I realized that without help, it couldn’t get any bigger.
But why was there so much magic leaking into our world? Did that mean that the Otherworld was somehow stronger than the mortal one? I didn’t know how I felt about that.
I looked up at Dandelion. “What does it mean?”
“Your mother didn’t understand how to make a real gate,” he said with a shrug. “This is crude, just a hole in the Veil. It’s very dangerous for both your world and mine. We have to find a way to close it.”
Fae of Calaveras Trilogy Box Set Page 66
