Twisted Fate

by D. N. Hoxa

  I didn’t have a hoodie on me, or anything to cover my face with, so I kept my head as low as I could when the time came for me to go meet Hiss. I walked down the street and passed another four buildings to the side of Julie’s pub before I turned the corner. The street behind them was not as crowded, but the music still followed my every step. The back of Julie’s pub had an eight-foot wooden fence around it that wouldn’t let me see anything. There was a door in the middle of it, but it was locked. I couldn’t hear anything—the music from the pub or the many people I’d seen walk in there that night.

  Looking around, I wrapped my arms around myself and waited. I’d never feared the dark before. On the contrary—it inspired me. Anything could be out there if I was brave enough to imagine it and put it on a canvas.

  But right now, there was nothing inspiring about this night. Terrans with forbidden magic could be coming for me any second. Vampires, too. And the Light sidhe.

  I never even got the chance to think about the Guild.

  When I heard the footsteps from the other side of the fence, I immediately stepped back. It occurred to me that I had no weapon on me, but even though I had spent three days in whatever state I’d been in, I was physically strong. My limbs were still a bit numb, but I wasn’t starving. I wasn’t tired.

  And my magic was right there with me.

  Julie’s face was whiter than an elf’s, even though she wore her terran disguise again. You couldn’t see the silver of her eyes or her hair or her mauled ears. She was a witch now, and I had never seen a person more shocked than she looked in those moments.

  She didn’t speak, didn’t wave, didn’t change her expression at all. She only stepped back and to the side. There, bundled on the ground, I saw Hiss.

  “Come, Elo,” he said, his tongue sneaking out from between his curved fangs. Letting go of my breath, I walked through the door and found myself in a different world.

  We were still in the Shade. I could feel the connection, and there were green lights floating all over the garden, only these were half the size of the lights the Shade kept up in its streets. The garden was quiet, as if wrapped in a bubble. Sound from the outside world couldn’t penetrate it and about half the flowers in there were from Gaena.

  Tears in my eyes. I forgot that Julie was there and that Hiss was watching me, too. It wasn’t my father’s garden by any means, and there were no strawberries in it, but by the gods, it was the most beautiful place on Earth I’d seen yet. Uneven cobbles set the three pathways going all around the flowers and the plants. They looked like big grey versions of Hiss. I followed them and touched the flowers, all kinds of colors and patterns and textures, and I just let myself think that I was home again for a little while. Julie’s pub was in the same building as her house, and I could see the back of it. I could see Charlotte, too, watching from a window on the second floor, but I didn’t mind. I just looked at the flowers and breathed until my entire body felt like it was in Gaena.

  “How is this possible?” Julie asked eventually. She stood by the now closed door of the fence and watched me, but she couldn’t bring herself to move closer. Hiss was by my feet, exploring the flowers with me. “You were dead. I saw your body.”

  “I told you how,” Hiss said. I’d known he’d have to actually speak to Julie to get her to meet me here, but it always surprised me to hear him talking in front of other people.

  “But…but you look so well. There’s not a scratch on you,” said Julie. Her voice shook. Her chin shook, too.

  I gathered myself and looked at her. “How are you growing these flowers here?”

  It took a moment for the question to make sense to her, and she answered automatically. “Gaena soil. I bought it off some fae traders. How are you feeling?”

  “I’m okay, thank you. What more can you buy from fae traders?” Because I wanted a garden like this, too. Gaena’s soil was powerful. It had more magic than Earth—at least the human parts of Earth.

  That’s when it made sense to me why Mandar had insisted he set the trap here for the necromancer siblings. There would be more magic here to support spells—and the Shade.

  “Anything you want.” Julie slowly walked closer. Her black dress reached down to her ankles, and it floated around her legs like with magic. Her brown eyes were wide, but now that I’d seen her real face, I couldn’t get it out of my mind. I felt like I was still looking at Julie, the elf. “How does he speak? What is he?”

  I looked down at Hiss and smiled. “He’s a collector of wisdom.”

  “And I’m in need of information to expand my collection,” Hiss said. “Get over your surprise, elf. Things are what they are. We need to talk.”

  “I’m sorry to come to you like this, Julie. I’ve received some news about the men we fought three nights ago, and it isn’t good. They need to be stopped before they reach Gaena, and I need to be the one to stop them. But I also need help. Information is all we want,” I said in a rush. I hadn’t forgotten how she’d received me the first time we met each other. “Will you help us?”

  She leaned to the sides a bit, as if she were about to lose balance. Her hand pressed against her chest, and she closed her eyes, breathing deeply.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, but she wasn’t.

  Of course, she wasn’t—how could I have forgotten? She was touched with the death spell that the necromancer siblings had set free into the Shade.

  My magic was reluctant to leave me and slip into her body. There was no pain in her, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t sick. She had been, and I’d healed her, but the death spell couldn’t be destroyed completely. Apparently, the Guild hadn’t found a way to do it, either. I could still help her heart by encouraging it to beat faster. Even if my magic didn’t get the pain it wanted as a reward, it could still help her.

  And it did. I kept my focus on her heart and watched her face. Blood returned to her cheeks little by little, not too much, but enough to tell me that she was going to be okay. For now.

  When Julie opened her eyes, a new energy shone in them. She fisted her hands and raised her chin, looking a lot more like the determined, no-nonsense woman I’d met a few weeks ago.

  “Tell me what you need,” Julie said. She didn’t say that she would help me, but I saw no point in lying or not telling her what Fidena had told me. What I knew about the sidhe, too.

  So, I told her everything, including the story about Mace. She’d been curious to know why the Winter prince was after me, and now she did. I had hope that she wouldn’t use everything that I told her against me, but a voice in my head still insisted that she might.

  One step at a time, Hiss said. And that’s what I was going to try to do.

  Chapter 6

  Chapter

  * * *

  Julie refused to say a single word. She kept staring at me, and then at Hiss, and then at the ground every few seconds. Her cheeks were no longer red. She was awfully pale again, but I didn’t think it had anything to do with the death spell this time. The shock hadn’t left her yet.

  I tried to give her all the time she needed, but I was desperate for an answer. If she refused to help us, we needed to find someone who would. So, I gathered courage and met her eyes when she looked at me.

  “Julie, I—”

  “Follow me,” she said, and before we knew it, she was walking fast toward the house at the other side of the garden. Hiss and I looked at each other.

  What else could we do but what she asked?

  We made it to the back of Julie’s house to find her sitting on a rocking chair near a small round table. There was a bench on the other side of it, with the railing of the porch at its back. I sat down while Julie poured herself a glass of vodka from the bottle she’d just opened. Hiss spread his wings and flapped them fast while he jumped and landed on the bench next to me. Julie saw it before his wings disappeared again, but I didn’t think she had it in her to be surprised anymore.

  She drank the vodka like it was water, and then poured
herself another glass. I thought we would be there all night before she gathered herself, but she wasn’t even completely done with the second glass before she spoke.

  “Gaena hasn’t been my home for a long time now. If what you’re saying is true, if those Light sidhe are planning to take over it, it would mean they will kill all fae that oppose them. All elves, too.” Her voice was crystal clear. Emotionless.

  “They will if they can.” But to do that, they had to get to Gaena first, and I was trying to stop that from happening.

  “I’ll be damned if I don’t want to join them,” Julie mumbled, then squeezed her eyes shut like she regretted the words that came out of her mouth. I could see the war going on in her head through her eyes. I could see how hard she was trying.

  “I understand,” I said, despite my own feelings about this. Elves had thrown her out. They’d taken away her home for no reason at all. I understood why she hated them. Hated us.

  “I shouldn’t want to do anything to stop it, at least. I shouldn’t care at all what happens to that place, to those people,” Julie said, looking ahead at the garden but not really seeing anything. Her mind was elsewhere. “But you were right.”

  “About what?”

  “About holding an entire world responsible for the actions of a few. There are good people there, too,” she said, and only when she looked at me did I see the tears in her eyes. She didn’t let them fall. “My uncle tried to stop my mother, you know? And when he couldn’t, he told me that he would be there for me for anything I needed. That I could always call upon him for anything. That’s a nice thing to say, isn’t it? Even if I didn’t have any intention of calling on him, it was nice to know I could.” Sniffing, she drank the second glass of her vodka and poured herself another. “He died in battle about six months later, but still. If he’d been alive, maybe I’d have met him again someday. Maybe there are other people out there who can see sense behind their pride.”

  “There are,” I assured her.

  “I will help you, my Lady,” she said, and I cringed.

  “Please, Elo is just fine.” I wasn’t a Lady here. I didn’t want to be a Lady anywhere right now.

  Julie nodded. “I will help you with what you’re after, but things cost around here. Everyone you want to talk to, ask for favors, is going to want something in return,” she said, raising her brows at me. “What do you have that you can give them?”

  I looked down at Hiss. I had nothing. No money, no gold, nothing. “All I have is everything I am.”

  “A Pain Seeker,” she said with a nod. I had the feeling she was still absorbing all the information I’d dropped on her at once. “That can be valuable.”

  “The truth is, Julie, I have no idea what I’m looking for. How does one simply find an army?”

  “There are other things to look for,” Hiss said. “Fidena said you would need your weapon, your soul, your spirit, your magic, your believer, and then your army.”

  “I know of a Believer,” Julie said. “I have never met him, but I’ve heard whispers among customers. He’s a Prime wizard, and as far as the Guild is concerned, he doesn’t exist at all.”

  Shivers broke on my forearms. A Believer. I’d read about them. They could literally alter reality into anything they wanted, if they believed in whatever they wanted to create—or destroy. That was why they were considered darkling here on Earth, classified as such by the Guild because their powers were too unpredictable, impossible to control. Believers would go through the Nulling process, too.

  Before, I’d thought that nobody escaped the Guild’s radar, but since I’d come to Earth, I realized that the Guild’s power wasn’t absolute. People slipped past their control all the time—like the necromancer siblings, Bo-bo and Ari.

  “They say he’s a born Prime—so powerful as a kid that everybody believed he was a Level One—even his own parents and the Guild.”

  “Where is he?” Hiss asked before I could.

  “I don’t know. He hides, that’s all I’ve heard,” Julie said, shaking her head. “But I think I can find out.”

  Music to my ears. “What else? You don’t happen to know where I can find my weapon, can you?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know that,” Julie said. “Maybe your sword?”

  That’s what I’d been thinking. “The last time I saw my sword was when I was getting dressed for dinner the night my brother poisoned me. I left it in the room to wear a dress.” It was a special sword, too. I’d made it together with my father. To have it in my arms, even though I only used it for sparring, was like listening to my father’s voice whispering to me all the time.

  “To get to Gaena, you need to use the Gateway,” Julie said, but I shook my head.

  “I’m not going to Gaena. Not yet. I need to be here in case the sidhe try to go through again.”

  “It’s going to be near impossible. The Shade has already rebuilt itself where they ruined it, and the Guild has put so many reinforcements on the Protection Unit, even the workers are having a hard time going to work every morning,” Julie said. “They’re prepared. They have men—a small army stationed at the Unit at all times.”

  “It’s not going to be enough. The Guild might have learned from that night, but so have the sidhe. They’re going to know exactly what they’re doing, just like they did the first time. They’ll be prepared, too.” I had no doubt they would plan everything to the last detail. In their shoes, I’d have done the same.

  “What about your magic?” Hiss asked.

  I frowned at the table as Julie drank her third glass of vodka. I was starting to think I needed one of those, too.

  “She already has magic,” Julie said. “You’re a Pain Seeker.”

  “If it were my magic I needed, Fidena wouldn’t have asked me to find it.” It was already in me.

  “Most people around here have magic. It could be a sorcerer or a witch or a wizard. There are plenty of Primes in the New Orleans Shade,” Julie said, but I shook my head.

  Unfortunately for me, I suspected I knew exactly what Fidena had been talking about. “I don’t think we need a sorcerer or a witch. I think we need a vampire.”

  Julie narrowed her brows but only for a second. “Signora Vera,” she said, when my words made sense to her.

  Signora Vera was the best witch dealer in town, according to Mandar. She was a vampire, but other people made potions for her. I’d tried them myself. Even though I was an elf and very resistant to magic by nature, her potions had been able to maintain a fake appearance on me for almost twenty-four hours.

  I nodded. “She can bottle magic like nobody else around here. Mandar said she has the best magic wielders working for her already.”

  “But Signora Vera doesn’t work for anyone,” Julie reminded me. I knew that, too.

  “Mandar,” I whispered, despite myself. I hated to play games like this, but I saw of no other way to go about it. “Convincing Signora Vera to help us is going to be difficult, but she wants something—something that belongs to her and that apparently Mandar has hidden somewhere in his house.”

  I thought Julie would know exactly what I was talking about, but the confused look on her face said she had no clue.

  “The Seer Eye,” Hiss said. “She’s looking for the Seer Eye. She threatened Elo with exposure to Prince Mace if she didn’t bring it to her. Elo never did.”

  “So that’s how that fucker has been keeping her under control,” Julie whispered, staring at the ground for a moment. “I always thought he had dirt on her, something she didn’t want other people to know. Go figure.”

  “I can find the Seer Eye,” Hiss said. “I won’t need long. If it’s in the Mandar house, I’ll find it. But doing business with the likes of vampires is tricky, Elo. They are unpredictable.”

  “Trust me, I’m the last person here who wants to be involved with her in any way. But do you have a better idea?” That vampire scared me. Her body was technically dead. Whatever magic kept her alive was beyond reason�
��and beyond my magic’s reach. I couldn’t stop a dead heart. I couldn’t manipulate dead organs. I could still kill her with a weapon, but knowing that I had so little control over her body made me uncomfortable. I’d had a lifetime to get used to the idea of being the most powerful person in any place. The New Orleans Shade was teaching me that that wasn’t true anymore. It was the perfect opportunity for me to learn how to handle situations and people I couldn’t best with magic.

  At least I liked to think that it was.

  Julie and Hiss remained silent for a long time. They didn’t have a better idea because there wasn’t one. When it came to magic, Signora Vera was the woman to see.

  “I think you should talk to Mandar,” Julie finally said. I immediately began to shake my head, but she continued. “He’s felt awfully guilty about selling you out to King Caidenus. Lola, too. She’s still not talking to him, especially after everyone thought you died. I think he’ll be willing to help, if you asked.”

  “Trusting him a second time would be a mistake only the wise can afford to make,” Hiss said.

  “What?” Julie asked. She still wasn’t used to the way Hiss’s mind worked.

  Hiss chuckled. It no longer sounded strange to me, that sound. I’d grown used to it. “If you can predict a second betrayal, and if you can afford the consequences of it, then it certainly is worth talking to him.”

  “I can’t claim to know how to predict the actions of a man like Mandar. I don’t think he’s completely in charge of himself, either. He’s run by emotions, by his grief.” He’d lost his wife to the necromancer siblings, and I didn’t think he had ever quite accepted it.

  “He thinks getting his revenge will somehow bring her back to life,” Julie said, but she sounded sad. She and Mandar didn’t have the best of relationships, but it was clear to see that they cared for each other deeply.