Fae of Calaveras Trilogy Box Set

by Kristen S. Walker

  He barely glanced at it before tossing it onto the table next to an empty soup bowl. “It’s okay, I’ll get you another one.” He put one arm around my shoulders, then beckoned Akasha to join us. “I’m just grateful that both of my daughters are here, safe! It’s been so long since I’ve had you together!”

  Akasha stood up stiffly and let Dad put his other arm around her, but she avoided meeting my eyes.

  “I would have gotten here sooner, if I hadn’t been running around looking for Akasha after Mom lost her yesterday,” I said, raising my voice pointedly to be sure that my sister heard me. “But last I saw her, she wanted to be around faeries more than her own family. Did you change your mind for some reason?”

  Akasha blushed and turned her face farther away. “I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

  Dad nudged me. “Now, no reason to be critical. As I said, I’m just happy that you’re both here now.”

  Dandelion, who had been hanging back while I greeted my family, stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Actually, we need your help. I’m sure that Rosa didn’t mean to insult you.” He gave me a warning look.

  Akasha’s head snapped up to look at him. “Oh, so it’s okay for you to work with Fae, just not me?” She folded her arms and looked at me. “And just what do you need my help for? I thought you were the expert on magic.”

  I looked around warily at the crowded room, afraid of announcing details about what Akasha had done to a potential angry mob. I leaned closer to her and said in a low tone, “You and Mom are the only ones who can undo what you did. If you come along and help fix things, then we can try to get you a deal with you-know-who.”

  Akasha shook her head. “I haven’t done anything that needs a ‘deal.’ I don’t answer to you-know-who, and they’re not going to be in charge for much longer.”

  Dad looked back and forth between us. “Akasha, did something happen that I should know about?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Yes,” I insisted. “But there isn’t time to go into all of it right now. Akasha has to fix it before it gets worse.” I gestured to the cafeteria and the rest of the hospital beyond. “Before any more people get hurt.”

  Akasha went quiet and looked down at the floor, chewing on her lip.

  Dad put his arm around her again. “Look, I told you before that I don’t care what mistakes you’ve made. But if you can do something to fix them now, you should try. Running from your problems, or pretending they aren’t your responsibility, isn’t going to make things any better.”

  She sniffled and wiped her eyes. “I don’t know how to fix anything,” she mumbled to her shoes. “When I pushed, I made it bigger, and then when I tried to make it stop getting bigger, I just stopped it from coming here. I don’t think I can reverse anything.”

  I bent down a little and looked up into her face. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that you can’t be afraid to ask for help. We can figure out how to do it together.” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder at Dandelion. “And there are other people who are going to help us, too.”

  Akasha rubbed her face and blinked up at Dandelion. “Who are you, anyway?”

  He swept her an elegant bow. “Don’t you remember our chess matches up at the castle? It’s been a long time.”

  Her eyes widened. “No, I do remember. You’re the guy with the funny name. Houdini?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, yeah, I remember your disappearing act.”

  He took her hand with a smile. “No need to be so formal. Call me Harry.”

  “Introductions and explanations are just going to waste more time,” I said brusquely. I looked over at Dad. “Is it okay if I take her with me for a while? I can’t really promise that we’ll stay in touch, because of the phone thing, but we’ll come back when we can. Where are you staying right now?”

  Dad grimaced and pointed upstairs. “The staff are basically all staying here for the time being, both because there’s so much to do and because there’s no place left with room for us. Don’t stay out too late tonight, okay? I’m going to worry about you the whole time you’re gone.”

  I glanced over at Dandelion. “I don’t know that there’s a reliable way for us to tell time, either, once we’re—back inside.”

  “We’ll do what we can,” Dandelion said mildly. He touched Dad’s arm, and that seemed to reassure him.

  Akasha sighed. “Okay, okay, I’ll go with you guys. But you’re going to have to answer my questions, no matter how long the explanations take. I’m tired of everyone just pulling me around without warning me what’s going to happen next.”

  I looked up at the ceiling and let out a sigh. “I’ll tell you as much as I can. But let’s do it on the way, at least.”

  We said good-bye to Dad with one last round of hugs. He promised to warn the front desk to keep an eye out for when we came back, so they would page him without the hassle, and then let us go.

  30

  Akasha Surrenders

  Rosamunde

  As soon as we were outside of the hospital, Akasha turned on me and grabbed my arm.

  “There’s no way we’re going after Mom.” She folded her arms and tilted her head to one side. “You know she won’t help you. So why don’t you tell me where we’re really going and what the plan is?”

  I grabbed her arm and kept pulling her along after me, away from the crowded parking lot. “People can still overhear us,” I muttered into her ear. It was so weird that my sister was almost the same height as me, after years of looking down on her. “Let’s just keep moving.”

  The mob that had surrounded us earlier was still lurking around, watching Dandelion in particular. He kept his head up and his manner cool, as if he didn’t even notice them, but I knew that he would be on the alert.

  We made it to the edge of the parking lot before we finally had enough clear space to take off. I hopped on my broom and jerked my head toward the back for Akasha. “C’mon, let’s go.”

  She grimaced—Akasha had always hated flying—but she didn’t protest, just climbed on the back of the broom and put her arms around my waist.

  When I was sure that she was secure, I launched us up into the air and Dandelion quickly followed, sprouting the same brilliant wings as before. We zoomed back toward the mountains.

  Akasha saw that we were heading toward the circle of magic and sighed. “Do we really have to go back in there?”

  I twisted my head around to call back over my shoulder, “We’re going to the castle to find out which Fae gave Mom her powers, to see if we can find them and get them to end the pact. If Mom doesn’t have her magic any longer, then we hope that you’ll be able to take complete control of the tear and close it on your own.”

  Akasha groaned and buried her face into my back. “So you’re taking me straight back to your faerie friends. Of course. And what will keep them from just arresting me the moment that I show up?”

  “A lot of begging by me.” I felt her take a breath to protest, and held up a finger to stop her from interrupting. “Don’t worry, I already did that. Glen said if you came in before you did anything else, and you agreed to testify against the Unseelie you were, um, seen with, then he’ll cut a deal with you.”

  Her arms tightened around my waist. “Is he in charge now? At sixteen?”

  “Glen turned seventeen in December,” I corrected her. “But no, he’s not fully in charge yet. Countess Serafina is the regent until he’s old enough to take over. But I think she’s letting him make most of the decisions, and his word’s always carried a lot of weight. You gotta remember that he’s been training his whole life for this.”

  She sighed. “I guess it was pretty savvy of you to get close to him, then. Did you know that you were gonna have to bail me and Mom out of trouble, or were you just looking to get into politics yourself?”

  I was tired of arguing about my friends with my sister. I just rolled my eyes, and instead of responding, I pointed down at the city below us. “Is San Andreas go
ing to be affected once you leave?”

  Akasha leaned to the right to look down, forcing me to lean left to compensate. Whatever she’d been doing the last few months since I’d seen her, it hadn’t involved learning to fly any better.

  “I think the barrier that I set up around the city will hold without me,” she said with the clinical air of a scientist examining an experiment. “The rate of expansion for the circle has also slowed, but I’m not sure if that’s due to my efforts or just the lack of full moon to boost its power. I’ll have to observe it tonight when the moon rises again in order to test my hypothesis.”

  Her cold, detached manner for talking about people’s lives and safety made my stomach clench, even knowing that Akasha liked to discuss things in an analytical manner. Could she truly be some kind of sociopath like Mom, unable to feel empathy for others’ suffering?

  I shivered, but I forced myself to say, “Well, if you keep these people safe, then that’s got to work in your favor with the Court. I mean, you never wanted to hurt anyone, right?”

  Akasha’s arms tightened on my waist again, and she was quiet for so long that I thought she wasn’t going to answer. But after several tense minutes, she cleared her throat and said, “I really didn’t mean for any of this to happen, Rosie. I thought we were just going to let some of Mom’s friends come through the Veil and then they were all going to make the Count step down or something. I didn’t know about—any of this.”

  I could hear the catch in her voice as she struggled to explain, and the knot in my stomach slowly relaxed. She did feel bad about what happened, then. I patted her arms at my waist reassuringly. “It’s okay. We’re going to fix everything. Just stick with me, okay?”

  Her head bobbed, nodding with her cheek pressed into my shoulder. “I will. Thank you, Rosie. I’m so sorry that I didn’t listen to you sooner. You were right about Mom all along.”

  I smiled a little to myself, glad to have my sister back. If I could just keep her safe, then all of this trouble would be worth it in the end. I felt warm with her arms wrapped around me for the whole flight to the castle.

  Ashleigh met us outside the front entrance to the castle, racing down the steps before we’d even touched down on the driveway. She threw her arms around me first in a quick hug, but then she let me go and grabbed Akasha and squeezed so hard that she almost knocked the smaller girl over.

  “Thank the stars!” she gasped out. “We were so worried about you, Akasha! I’m so happy that your sister finally got you back.”

  I looked around the yard and saw guards watching us, a few with hands on their weapons, but they had made no move toward us yet. “Akasha is surrendering of her own choice,” I said loudly. “She will testify against the Unseelie.”

  “Of course!” Ashleigh finally let my sister go and held her at arm’s-length, looking her up and down. “You’ve grown up so much, dear. I’m glad that you’ve decided to do the right thing. Let’s bring you inside so you can talk to Glen.”

  Dandelion opened the front door for us, and the guards stood aside for us to pass. Inside there was the usual flurry of servants to take my broom, our jackets, and so on—although this time I was careful to hold onto my nettle cloak.

  Ashleigh led us across the foyer and into the west wing toward Glen’s office, but we hadn’t gone far when she suddenly stopped and put a finger to her lips, then pulled us into another hallway. Halfway down this corridor, she found a doorway, took out a set of keys from her pocket, and unlocked it. She beckoned us inside quickly, then closed and locked the door behind us.

  The room was dark at first, but Ashleigh created a faerie lantern and set it to hover just overhead. In the dim light I could see that we were inside a plain study, without the usual fancy decorations and furniture that I usually saw in the castle.

  “Everyone saw you come in, so we don’t have long to talk,” Ashleigh said in a low voice. “But I have to ask. Why did you come back here? It’s not just to turn Akasha in, is it?”

  I saw concern in her eyes and wondered what was going on. “Not just that,” I said slowly, trying to watch her for some sign of what she was so worried about. “Akasha is going to help us close the gate, too. She and Mom opened it together, so they’re the only ones who can close it. But since Mom would never give it up, we were going to strip her powers by finding the Fae who holds her pact.”

  Ashleigh was shaking her head. “If she surrenders now, then the Court will keep her caught up in red tape for days. We can’t waste time with that.”

  I grabbed her arm. “Don’t they want to the gate closed as fast as possible?”

  Ashleigh looked down at the floor. “Glen is really upset right now about his grandfather’s death. He’s not making good decisions, and Serafina isn’t exactly thinking clearly, either. They want to punish someone. If Akasha is the first one they can get a hold of, then I’m afraid they’ll take it out on her.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with the count getting killed,” Akasha burst out.

  I cleared my throat. “Um, well, because you helped break into the jail, and one of the prisoners killed him after that, you’re technically an accessory.”

  “I didn’t know he was going to kill anyone!” Akasha wrapped her arms around her ribs and glared at me. “You said that you already talked to him about this. You didn’t tell me he was waiting to arrest me as an accessory to murder.”

  I held up my hands apologetically. “He said if you turned yourself in, he would try to cut a deal for you to talk. I thought we’d already worked this out.”

  Ashleigh shook her head. “He was lying. I think he was just saying anything that would get you to help. You should have gotten your mother first, or one of the other Unseelie. It’s not safe for your sister here.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Glen,” I protested, but I didn’t entirely believe that. He’d been acting weird and keeping secrets from me before, and I didn’t trust him like I did my other friends. But punishing my sister for his grandfather’s murder seemed extreme even for him.

  “I’m sorry.” Ashleigh’s eyes welled up with tears, and she pulled a handkerchief out of a dress pocket to wipe them away. “This whole thing has changed him. I’ve tried to talk to him, but I feel like I don’t even know him anymore, and he certainly doesn’t care enough about me to listen.”

  I put my hand on her arm, more gently this time, and gave her a sympathetic smile. I’d seen their relationship slowly falling apart for weeks and it looked like the current crisis was just the final death blow.

  I took a deep breath and tried to focus on what to do next. “So we have to get Akasha away.” I looked up at Dandelion. “Could you take her someplace safe and wait for us while we look for some kind of clue about Mom’s patron?”

  “Of course,” Dandelion started to say, but Ashleigh put up her hand to interrupt him.

  “You won’t find that information in our records,” she said with a shake of her head. “We already looked months ago, when she first went on the run, because we had the same idea. She didn’t make her witch pact in this Court, and although she swore an oath when she moved here, the name of her patron wasn’t recorded.” She took a deep breath and put her handkerchief away. “We’ve been trying to track down which Court she was originally part of, but it looks like she traveled all over the place, and we still hadn’t traced her back all the way yet.”

  Akasha cleared her throat. “Um, I may know the answer to that question.”

  I turned to her. “How do you know? She never told me.”

  Akasha ducked her head shyly. “Well, recently I asked her for an explanation about why she did—things.” She waved one hand dismissively. “It was a lot of weak excuses and I didn’t realize until later that she was lying about most of it. But maybe she was telling the truth when she said that she went to college in Santa Cruz, and that’s where she first got involved with all this magic stuff. I think she became a witch there, too.”

  I didn’t really keep t
rack of what all of the Faerie Courts were, since I’d never been to many places outside of Golden Forest County. I looked over at Ashleigh for help. “Which Court rules Santa Cruz? Do you think they would help us?”

  Ashleigh put her chin up proudly. “I’m still the daughter of a duchess. They’re obligated to help me.” She put a finger to her chin and thought for a moment. “Santa Cruz is in the County of Mists, in the Barony of Darkwood, but I don’t have any close contacts in either of those Courts. But the Township of St. Cross is overseen by a knight, Dame Susan, who has been a mentor of mine. She keeps her own records, so I think we could get help from her.”

  I didn’t know enough about the intricacies of Fae politics to think of another option—nobles were always dropping in at the castle from different Courts, but I never paid attention to names and ranks, preferring to hang out with the friends that I already had. So I just nodded. “Okay, sounds good. Now, how do we get out of here in order to go there? We can’t let Glen arrest Akasha. If he catches her, there’s no way another jailbreak would work.”

  “We’ll sneak out the back,” Dandelion put in. “I know more than one way in and out of this castle.”

  Ashleigh looked up at him with one eyebrow raised. “You do always seem to pop in at the most unusual times. Well, you take Akasha with you. Rosa and I will go out the main entrance and throw them off of your trail for now.”

  I grabbed Akasha in a hug. “We’ll meet you outside by the Grove in just a bit. I promise, he’ll keep you safe.”

  Akasha looked at the Fae sidelong and shrugged. “If you say so.”

  “But don’t go out the same door as us,” Ashleigh added. She crossed the back of the room, the faerie lantern bobbing over her head, and unlocked another door. “I trust that you can find your way from here.”

  Dandelion nodded, and gestured for Akasha to go ahead of him. The corridor was dark, but they went without any light. Maybe seeing in the dark was another faeriekin power.