Gemma?
I stared absently at the place where they’d been standing. I’d only seen her profile, and only for less than a second, but I could have sworn…
“Did you guys see that?” I asked Julian and Reed.
“The crown?” Reed asked.
“No,” I said. “I mean, yes, I saw the crown. But did you see who was wearing the crown?”
“Her hair was everywhere,” Julian said. “But you were closer than we were.”
“Why?” Reed asked. “Do you know her?”
“I’m not sure.” I stared at the spot where they’d disappeared, unsure about what I’d seen. Because it didn’t make sense. Gemma had barely any magic. Not anywhere close to the amount she’d need to teleport herself and another person. The witch who’d taken Skylar did seem to struggle with the teleporting—I’d never seen a witch fade and flicker out like a dying hologram before—but it was way more than Gemma would have been able to do.
Plus, I’d erased her memory of meeting us. I’d erased her memory of even knowing she had magic at all.
What were the chances that she’d have teleported to Avalon, picked up Skylar, and then teleported back here in time for Skylar to warn me?
Slim to none.
But I needed to check. Just to make sure.
“Wait here,” I told them. “I’ll be back in a second.”
“Where are you—”
I teleported out before hearing the end of Julian’s sentence, and landed in front of two tall pine trees at the edge of a parking lot that looked out to the ocean.
Twin Pines Café. Twinkling white Christmas lights lit up the outside of the building, the majority of them strung along the porch.
I hadn’t noticed them before, since we’d gotten there before sunset. But Christmas was in a little more than a week. It was so strange to think that while Torrence, Reed, Julian, and I had been journeying through the Otherworld to find a cure to the plague, everyone on Earth was happily preparing for Christmas.
I walked across the parking lot and peeked through one of the windows.
Gemma stood behind the register, ringing up a customer. She was dressed the exact same as earlier. And while her hair was the same brown as the witch’s who’d teleported Skylar to see us, it was shorter.
I breathed out in relief. I’d been imagining things.
Another girl worked behind the counter, and Mira was nowhere to be seen. Of course—Ethan would have already been by to pick her up.
Ethan, who was likely blissfully unaware of the fact that his father was dead.
Ethan, who was also, probably, a dragon.
Guilt weighed me down like a wet blanket, and I breathed slowly to get ahold of myself. We technically hadn’t killed that man… but he’d still be alive if it weren’t for us. I knew it deep in my soul.
I’d seen and caused too much death in the past few weeks to deal with. If I obsessed over it now, it would consume me.
I’d never be able to forgive myself for everything I’d done. I didn’t want to forgive myself. I deserved to live with this guilt forever.
But there were still people I could help.
I could still free the half-bloods. So that was what I was going to do.
I teleported back to the beach, where Julian and Reed were pacing around, not-so-patiently waiting for me.
“What was that?” Rage burned in Julian’s eyes. “You can’t just teleport out like that without saying where you’re going.”
“I was only gone for a few seconds.”
“And it was a few seconds too long.”
He stared at me, and I knew I owed him an explanation.
“I thought the hooded witch might have been Gemma,” I said. “So I teleported back to the café to see if she was there.”
“And?”
“She was there,” I said. “And her hair was shorter than the witch who’d teleported Skylar. Whoever the hooded witch was, it wasn’t her.”
Reed kicked at the sand near his feet and sent it flying toward the ocean. “Obviously it wasn’t Gemma,” he said. “Gemma doesn’t have enough magic to cast a spell, let alone enough to teleport. Now, are we going, or what?” He held out his hands to me and Julian, just like he had earlier.
“To Aeaea?” I asked.
“No—to Disney World.” He glared at me. “Of course I mean Aeaea.”
Julian watched me just as curiously as Reed.
I shuffled my feet in the sand, thinking about what Skylar and Prince Devyn had said. I needed to put my duties as Queen of Wands before my personal interests.
Otherwise, you’ll die, I remembered Skylar’s warning. The people you love most will be gone. The demons will win the war, and Earth will be theirs.
I pressed my fingers to my temples, thinking. I needed to make a decision, and I needed to make it now.
Promise me you won’t come after me, Torrence’s voice echoed in my mind.
Maybe everyone kept telling me not to go to Aeaea for a reason. A bigger reason that I might not be aware of yet. Similar to how the Faerie Games had a larger reason behind them than I ever could have imagined.
I looked to Julian, who watched me, waiting. “What do you think I should do?” I asked.
“I think you should do what Prince Devyn told you to do before nominating you for the Games, and trust yourself and your instincts,” he said. “He told you that your instincts would help you in the Games, and they did. There’s no reason to think they won’t help you now, too.”
I nodded, and paused to think. Because before Skylar’s visit, I would have gone after Torrence.
But now…
I turned to Reed. “What are the Supreme Mages?” I asked.
“They’re the most powerful group of mages in Mystica,” he said. “They’re a task force, kind of like a magical version of the FBI. They seek out mages who’ve gone dark and lock them away.”
“Gone dark?”
“Succumbed to dark magic,” he explained. “None of us are born fully light or fully dark. Most mages are able to use both types of magic with no problems. But occasionally, mages are born who can harness an exceptional amount of dark magic. Power that strong can be overwhelming. It ends up controlling them. For the safety of the realm—for all realms—they have to be sent away.”
“Where do they send them?” I ask.
“A prison realm that’s impossible to escape,” he said. “Ember.”
“The same Ember where the fae send their prisoners?”
“Yep,” he said. “The only way to create a realm strong enough to contain such dark magic was for the fae and the mages to work together. But besides that, the fae and the mages have an agreement. We don’t bother them as long as they don’t bother us—and we both send our worst criminals to Ember.”
“Gods help anyone who gets sent to Ember,” Julian said. “I can’t imagine that the mages and fae there are living in harmony.”
“Probably not,” I said. “But Ember isn’t our concern right now. The Supreme Mages are. If they take care of Circe, Torrence will be free. Reed—do you think you can convince them to help you?”
“So it’s just me now,” he said. “You’re not coming anymore?”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Fine,” he said. “Circe’s a sorceress, and a dark one at that. She’s stronger than a mage. So yes, it’s possible that the Supreme Mages might see her as a threat, and be willing to go after her. They’ll likely be intrigued when I tell them about Torrence—enough that they might be willing to free her from Aeaea, so they can learn how she’s able to use mage magic.”
I nodded, since I was interested in learning the answer to that, too.
“And the Supreme Mages are strong enough to take on Circe?” I asked.
“They’re the most powerful mages in the Universe. If anyone can take on Circe, it’s them.”
“All right,” I said. “But I have one more question.”
He looked at me to contin
ue.
“Before Torrence was taken away, you said you cared about her more than she knew. So if I’m going to trust you with my best friend’s life, then I need to know—do you love her?”
“Yes,” he said without a second thought. “And I’m going to do everything in my power to save her, so I can tell her myself.”
“Then I expect you to do just that,” I said, and then I looked to Julian. “What do you think?”
“This plan is exactly what Avalon’s prophetess recommended,” he said. “I believe that should speak for itself.”
I straightened my shoulders, feeling much more confident with the decision—especially now that I knew Reed cared about Torrence as much as I did. “It’s settled, then,” I said. “We’ll bring Julian to the Vale, and see him and his family off on Avalon’s trials. Then, the two of us will go straight back to Avalon. Because we have a lot to do, and not much time to do it.”
45
SELENA
JULIAN and his family were in excellent hands at the Vale. King Alexander himself saw them down the steps that would lead them to the portal. Once through the portal, they’d land on an anchor island that served as the starting point of the trials. What happened during the trials was secret, and as someone who was born on Avalon, I didn’t know what he was supposed to expect. Reed knew, but like everyone else who’d gone through the trials, he said nothing.
All I knew was that I was positive Julian and his family would pass.
And the moment Reed and I were back home, he was going to go to his sisters so they could get him an audience with the Supreme Mages.
“We’ve got this,” I said to Reed after leaving the boundary of the Vale.
Situated between the snow-covered peaks of the Canadian Rocky Mountains, the kingdom was stunning. I wouldn’t have thought it possible for such tall, majestic mountains to exist without seeing them myself.
But I didn’t have time to get distracted by the kingdom’s beauty. Besides, it was freezing—a bone-chilling cold I hadn’t felt since trekking through Hypernia.
So Reed and I nodded at each other, took each other’s hands, and teleported out.
I arrived in the middle of my bedroom, facing the fireplace. Fresh logs sat inside of it. Everything in my room was clean and perfect, like it was waiting for me to come back. Even my desk was perfectly arranged with my books for school.
The only thing that felt out of place was me.
Electricity hummed over my skin, and I shot a small bolt of lightning into the hearth. It burst with flames that danced across the logs.
I stared emptily into the fire, and then turned to look at my four-poster bed, remembering standing there with Torrence all those weeks ago when she’d given me the transformation potion.
It felt like a lifetime ago.
Grief for my best friend exploded in my chest.
Thunder rolled overhead so loudly that the castle walls shook, and lightning brightened the sky. I walked over to my large window and placed my hands on the sill. Avalon’s mountains were as green and beautiful as ever. But while it was mid-day, the cloud cover made it look like night.
The people milling around outside stopped and looked up at the lightning-filled sky, their mouths open in shock.
Because it never stormed on Avalon. The island always had perfect weather. It was lush and green because of magic—not because of rain.
Something banged behind me—the door being pushed open so forcefully that it slammed into the wall—and I jumped and spun around.
My mom and dad rushed inside and enveloped me in a hug.
I sank into their embrace. Then the floodgates burst open, and suddenly I was crying so much that it seemed impossible to stop. My mom cried, too, and my dad hugged me tighter. They kept repeating my name and repeating that I was back home, like they were afraid if they stopped saying it, it wouldn’t be true.
“How’d you know I was back?” I asked after we eventually pulled away.
Both of them looked thinner and more gaunt than I’d ever seen them.
“Skylar told us we’d find you in your room after the sky filled with lightning. We rushed here the moment we saw the storm.” My mom smiled at me so much that I didn’t think she’d ever stop. She still held onto my hand, and her cheeks were flushed red with excitement.
My dad, on the other hand, was paler than ever. His skin was thin and transparent, and he looked like he’d aged ten years, even though vampires were immortal.
“Did the fae give you blood while you were trapped at the Crossroads?” I asked him.
“They provided food and water, but no blood,” he said simply.
“But they said they’d given you everything you needed. And they can’t lie.”
Then I realized that they technically hadn’t lied. Because without blood, a vampire didn’t die. They simply shut down until someone trickled blood down their throat to revive them. The process of a vampire shutting down was supposed to be more excruciating than anyone could imagine. It supposedly felt like burning alive from the inside out.
Like what I’d nearly done to myself when I’d tried creating the portal from the Otherworld to Avalon.
Anger buzzed through me at the thought of my dad going through that. I pulled away from both him and my mom, not wanting to accidentally electrocute them with my magic.
“I was there with Bella.” My dad glanced at the door, where Bella stood in the frame. Sage and Thomas were behind her. “She voluntarily provided me with the minimal amount of blood I needed to function.”
I looked to the witch and lowered my eyes in respect. Witch blood supposedly tasted awful to vampires, but it would still do the trick. “Thank you.” The words slipped out, as natural as ever.
“Don’t mention it,” she said. “Anyone else would have done the same.”
“They wouldn’t have, and you know it,” said Sage.
Bella didn’t refute it. Instead, she stepped inside my room, looked around, and asked, “Where’s Torrence?”
The words were a punch to my gut.
“How much did you tell them?” I asked Sage and Thomas, who’d also joined us inside.
“Everything,” Sage said. “At least, everything that the four of us knew.”
Which meant Bella knew about the deal Torrence had made with Circe. And from the worried—yet still hopeful—look in her eyes, she was waiting for me to say anything but what had ended up happening.
I wished I could.
But as it was, I might as well be out with it.
“We went to King Devin, and he offered us a trade,” I said. “But we couldn’t get him what he wanted in time. I’m sorry.”
“So Torrence…”
“Disappeared the moment time was up.”
Bella cursed and turned away from me. “How am I supposed to tell Amber?” she asked. “She already thought she lost her once. She can’t go through this again.”
“Torrence isn’t dead,” I said, and tendrils of electricity buzzed between my fingers.
My mom glanced at it, and horror splashed across her face. Only for a second, but I saw it before she hid it.
Was she disgusted by my magic, or by my scars?
Maybe both.
I looked away from her, refocused on Bella, and reined in my magic. “Reed’s going to get her off that island,” I said. “He’s with his sisters now, filling them in on our plan.”
“I want in,” she said, and then, she disappeared. Teleported out, presumably to find the mages.
Thomas looked to me. “What did King Devin want?” he asked.
“A dragon heart,” I said simply.
My mom gasped, and my dad froze. But neither of them said a word.
“I assume you went straight to Utopia?” Sage asked.
“Yep. Torrence put together the connection, too.” From there, we sat down on my bed and I told them everything that had happened in Utopia, and in Australia.
“Maybe I should have killed him with my lightning
,” I said once I’d finished. “He died anyway. At least that way, maybe Torrence would be back home, too.”
“It sounds like Lavinia was on your trail no matter what.” Sage snarled. “She’s the one you should have killed.”
“She came out of nowhere, and it happened so quickly. I don’t think any of us fully processed it until she was gone.” The memory of the dragon’s blood spurting from his neck flashed through my mind, and I tried to shake it away, but I couldn’t.
It wasn’t just his death that had happened so fast. Everything since returning to Earth felt like it had happened in the blink of an eye.
I was hungry, and exhausted, and I just wanted this to be over.
But it would never be over.
This was my life now. I’d wanted magic, and now I had it.
I supposed that no wish granted ever came without consequences.
“The question is, what does Lilith want with a dragon heart?” Thomas asked, pulling me out of my spiraling thoughts.
No one said a word. Because as far as I knew, none of us had known that dragons existed until today. We’d also never been able to locate Lilith, no matter how many supernaturals we put on the task.
She was just as hidden wherever she was as we were on Avalon.
“I don’t know, but we’ll have to return to this later.” My mom reached for my hand, not pausing at the sight of my scars. “Because right now, my husband and I would like time alone with our daughter.”
46
SELENA
WE WENT BACK TO MY PARENTS’ room, and all day and well into the night, I told them everything that had happened while I’d been in the Otherworld. Well, most everything. I kept the more intimate moments between me and Julian to myself.
My parents didn’t pipe in with judgments about my decisions. Instead, they listened patiently and respectfully, not commenting one way or the other.
I supposed they were holding back their opinions until they knew everything. But also, as the Queen of Wands, I was considered an equal with my mom now, and a higher rank than my dad. While I was still their daughter, and the worry they expressed during the more troubling parts of the tale were apparent, the dynamics between us had changed.
The Faerie Plague (Dark World: The Faerie Games Book 5) Page 21
