“The boring box. Thanks.”
I look up. “You pushed me off a cliff.”
“Ah, we’re back to that, are we?”
“Never gets old.”
Two boxes bump into each other, tumble out of the air, and land on Dash’s foot. “Aaaaah fffffuzzbuckling hamster balls!”
A loud snort of laughter escapes me. I slap my hand over my mouth before saying, “Are you kidding? You finally feel like swearing and you come up with fuzzbuckling hamster balls?”
“Shut up,” he says through gritted teeth.
“Shh.” I twist my head around and look toward the bedroom door. Somewhere beyond it, someone is talking. I jump up, move quietly to the door, and lean closer.
“… probably just something in the kitchen,” Chelsea is saying. “Like the broom over there. It’s always falling over.”
I wait, and when I don’t hear her voice again, I assume she’s gone back into her salon. “All clear,” I say to Dash. “Just don’t drop any more boxes.”
“I think I’ve found them all.” He gestures to the small collection of boxes with colored stickers.
“Great.” I sit on the floor beside my second open box, and Dash sits opposite me. “Seriously, though,” I say as if the interruption never happened, “Jewel seemed really into you. Maybe you should think about it.”
“Uh …” He shuffles through the CDs and DVDs before pushing the box away and pulling another one closer. “Maybe. Maybe not. We grew up together, so I know almost everything about her. We’ve been through good times and bad. We actually went to our graduation ball together, although just as friends.” He removes some books, clothes and an old ice cream container from the second box. I look through Mom’s jewelry collection. “In many ways, she probably is perfect for me,” he continues. “If we were another two people, maybe we would be. But for me … I just don’t think of her like that. She’s more like a sister. She’s always there, and she’s fun to hang out with, and sometimes she’s super annoying, but I still love her.” He shrugs. “But like a—”
“—sister,” I finish, closing the jewelry box, reaching past some old pictures of Mom and me, and moving on to a folder containing a whole bunch of pamphlets. “Right. Just don’t tell Jewel that, okay? I mean, you should definitely tell her you don’t feel the same way about her, but you should not use the words, ‘I think of you as a sister.’”
“Why?”
“It’s a cliché. She’ll hate it. Just … use other words.”
He nudges my knee with his shoe as a smile grows on his lips. “Look at you being all sympathetic toward someone you don’t like. Some might even think you have a heart.”
“Of course I have a heart, dumb-ass.”
“Yeah, I know,” he says quietly, returning the books and clothes to the box. “You wouldn’t have hated me so much all these years if you didn’t have a heart.”
“I’m not sure that makes sense, but okay.”
“You know, because of your mom. You hated me because you cared so much about her.”
I swallow and look down at all the pamphlets on my lap. They’re information and maps for a whole load of different tourist destinations around the country, which is unhelpful, so I shove them back into the folder.
“Looks like she wanted to travel,” Dash says, nodding to the folder as he opens the ice cream container. “Oh, what’s all this?” He holds up a tiny glass teddy bear clutching a glass heart. Then a miniature china doll and an angel made of dried grass.
“Just ornaments. Mom liked collecting pretty things.”
“They’re … kinda ugly.”
“Well, yeah, to you and me maybe. But she obviously thought all those little things were pretty.”
“To each his own, I guess. Well, her own in this case.” He packs the ice cream container away. “Hey, what time is it? Vi was gonna meet us here, wasn’t she?”
“Um …” I look up at the old-fashioned alarm clock beside the bed. “It’s a little after nine.”
“Okay. That’s about ten at the oasis, I think. Her meeting should be finished soon.” He pulls another box forward. “Have I mentioned how nice it is talking to you without the heat of your hatred trying to burn through me? I always wondered what it would be like. You know, just to be friends.”
“It is nice, I guess. Kind of a relief, actually. It was tiring always having to be angry around you. And it’s nice when you’re serious sometimes instead of always joking around.”
“Really? You like it when I’m serious? Isn’t that … boring?”
“No, not if it’s real.” I look up at him. “Sometimes, Dash, the situation calls for seriousness. In that case, it really isn’t helpful when you joke around.”
His gaze moves away from mine, settling on all the boxes on the bed. “I know I joke a lot. But that’s because life really sucks sometimes, and joking about it is better than succumbing to dark, depressing thoughts. And joking makes people—most people—laugh, so it’s worth it.”
“Wait. Did you just say life sucks? Because that I don’t believe. Your life is a freaking cakewalk compared to mine.”
He leans back on his hands. “Okay firstly, I’ve never heard of that comparison, but walking on a giant cake sounds amazing, so we should try that sometime. And secondly …” He pauses. “You know what I do for a living, right? I mean, it isn’t the safest job in the world.”
“Yeah, okay. So?”
“So people have died. People I care about.”
I blink, unable to look away from those very green—and suddenly very serious—eyes. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” He reaches forward and digs into the box in front of him. “We all know, going in, that the life of a guardian is high-risk, but that doesn’t stop it from being horrendously shocking and painful when …” He pulls out a file and places it on his lap. “Well, when a classmate or someone who’s trained you for years ends up killed.”
I press my hands together in my lap. “I’m really sorry.”
“It happens,” he says lightly. “I’m not the only one. Vi lost her mother when she was very young. Jewel’s uncle was killed a few years ago.” He flips the file open. “Oh, finally. This looks like something useful.”
I crawl around the boxes and sit beside Dash, grateful for the distraction. He pages past old school certificates from the same school I went to before I moved here, medical aid forms, bank account information, and something related to the purchase of a car. “Who’s Macy Clarke?” he asks. “I thought your mom’s name was Daniela.”
“Oh, she was Macy growing up, but she didn’t like that name. She changed it to Daniela when I was very young. Legally changed it, I mean. So all these later documents like bank accounts say Daniela, not Macy.”
“That’s weird.”
“I suppose. But none of these pages are useful,” I add, my shoulders slumping in disappointment. “What are we hoping to find anyway?”
“I don’t know. A birth certificate, or something related to a school or institution from my world, perhaps.”
I notice a lump beneath the next page. I reach across Dash and turn the page quickly, but it’s just another ornament that tumbles out. A flower made of pink glass or crystal. “These things are everywhere,” I grumble, picking it up and dropping it into one of the boxes.
The next page is a photo of two teen girls who, I realize when I take a closer look, are Mom and Chelsea. “Oh my goodness,” I whisper. “What if Chelsea and Georgia are just like Mom and me? I didn’t think of that until now.”
“I’d like to say no because I’ve never sensed the tiniest hint of magic in either of them, but I’m not sure about anything anymore.” He turns to the next page: a lease agreement from fifteen years ago. “What about family?” he asks. “Grandparents? Aunts, uncles, cousins?”
“No grandparents. I think there might be some other cousins. Mom’s cousins, I mean, not mine. But I’ve never met—” My head snaps up as I notice movement near the door. My automatic t
hought is that Chelsea is somehow opening my locked door, but it’s the spreading darkness of a faerie paths doorway that I see. A figure with vibrant purple hair jumps out of the paths and into my bedroom.
“Finally,” Aurora says with a smile. “It’s about time you showed up here.”
Twenty-Six
Dash is on his feet a second later, magic crackling around his fingers. “What are you—” He jerks forward, his eyes slide shut, and he collapses on the floor beside the boxes. Behind him is an unfamiliar young man.
I scramble away until my back hits the edge of the desk before pushing myself up. “Aurora, what the hell is this?”
“We should go,” she says to the other faerie. She moves toward me. I launch forward and grab hold of Dash just as something tugs my T-shirt and something else wraps around my arm.
Bright light flares and blinds me, blotting everything out in sudden, brilliant white. When the whiteness fades and I’m able to see again, I find myself in an entirely different place. A garden with flowers and hedges, but the colors are muted and the light is dim. The edges of the scene seem smudged and hazy, like a dream where only a few details are clear. Everywhere I look, I see wisps of black smoke detaching themselves from the environment and disappearing. “Where are we? How did we get here? And what did you do to Dash?”
Aurora looks down at Dash with a disapproving expression. “That’s annoying. I was hoping to leave him behind.”
“What did you do to him?” I demand.
“Stunner spell,” the guy says. Streaks of burgundy color the waves of his black hair. “Don’t worry, he’ll be fine later. Why don’t we sit?” He gestures to a bench behind him.
“Why don’t we sit? No! I’m not sitting.”
“Okay. We’ll sit. You can remain standing if you’d prefer that.” As if we’re stuck inside some ludicrous theatrical work, the two of them sit in unison. “I know that was an unpleasant first impression,” he says, “so perhaps we can start again. I’m Roarke. Crown Prince of the Unseelie Court.” He gestures to Aurora. “I believe you’ve met my sister.”
Crown Prince.
Unseelie Court.
Sister.
I hear the words, but my brain takes a while to process them. “U-unseelie Court?” I repeat eventually.
“Yes.”
“So you …” I look at Aurora. “You’re … a princess. Of the Unseelie Court.”
“Yes.”
I’m standing here with a prince and princess. A magical prince and princess. In a weirdly grayish scene where shadow-like smoke rises continuously from everything. If I hadn’t already encountered so much strangeness in the past few days, I’d be convinced this was a dream.
“A member of our court was at that party when you split the earth open,” Roarke says. “Who knows how he found his way there, but that’s beside the point. He told my father what he saw, and about the words you spoke just before it happened. Dad said it must be a Griffin Ability and that we needed to get you to our court before the Guild found out about it. We didn’t realize that this one—” he looks down at Dash “—was a guardian. You ended up at the Guild a whole lot faster than we anticipated. We thought we were too late, but then they sent you to Chevalier House instead.”
“And that’s where I came in,” Aurora says. “I showed up at the Guild, gave them my made-up story, and off to Chevalier House I went.”
“Why even bother with all that crap?” I ask, throwing my hands up. “Your father is a king. Why couldn’t he just storm into Chevalier House and take me himself?”
Roarke sighs. “Emerson, don’t you know anything about protective magic?”
“No, I do not. I didn’t grow up here, remember?”
“My father did actually visit Chevalier House himself, but he couldn’t get onto the property. And he didn’t want to upset the Guild by attacking the protective enchantments. He didn’t want a whole bunch of guardians descending upon us, demanding we return you. Things would have become messy. So he sent Aurora instead.”
I turn my gaze to her. “Poor little Aurora. A slave for a bunch of witches. Such a traumatizing experience.” I let out a bitter laugh. “And all of that was a lie.”
“Not all of it,” she says sheepishly. “My name wasn’t a lie. And I do actually have a history with witches. I lived with one when I was very little—before she got tired of me and dumped me at the Unseelie Court. Then Dad decided to adopt me, so that’s how I ended up a member of the Unseelie royal family.” She smiles at Roarke before her gaze shifts back to me. “But the story about being a slave … well, Dad said that was a case the Guild dealt with a few years ago. Witches with faerie slaves. It sounded like a good story to me.”
“Well it didn’t work. So what was your grand plan after I refused to run away with you?”
She crosses one leg neatly over the other and leans back against the bench. “I figured I’d try to get close to you. I thought maybe if you got to know me a little better, you’d trust me. I’m really not as bad as you’re probably thinking right now.” Her violet eyes sparkle with mirth. Faerie color seems to be the only true color in this oddly muted scene. “I knew I only had a few days to convince you, though. Once the Guild tested you for a Griffin Ability, we’d be out of time.”
“I guess you didn’t count on me giving away my Griffin Ability all on my own. Sorry to ruin your Plan B.”
Aurora shrugs. “I improvised. Went back to the Guild and tried to get you out. Which would have worked, by the way—” she gives me a pointed look “—if you hadn’t let those guardians get their hands on me.”
“I hope you’re not expecting me to apologize.”
“No, although you could thank me for helping you escape.”
I cross my arms and stare at her. If gratitude is what she wants, she’ll be waiting a long time.
“Unfortunately you disappeared after the encounter at the edge of Creepy Hollow,” Roarke says, continuing the story, “so we had to make another plan.”
“You didn’t presume me dead?”
“No, of course not. We know about the Griffin rebels. We assumed they rescued you. We also assumed you’d go back to your hometown at some point, so I’ve been waiting for you there.”
“Well, you guys certainly worked hard to get your hands on me. I guess I should be flattered.”
“You’re not surprised, are you?” he asks, a crease marring his brow. “Bringing things into being simply by speaking them is an extraordinary power. I don’t think anyone’s ever been able to do that. Obviously we’d do anything to get you on our side.”
“Terrific. Well here I am, so I guess that makes you guys the winners. Congratulations.”
Aurora gives me a puzzled look. “We want you Emerson. Isn’t it nice to be wanted?”
“No! I don’t want anyone else to want me.” I screw my eyes shut, clench my fists, and reach for my magic. “You don’t want me, you don’t want me,” I repeat over and over, hoping desperately that my Griffin Ability will kick in.
“It’s not working,” Aurora says, raising her voice a little to speak over me. “We still want you.”
I open my eyes, but my hands remain fists. “You want to imprison me, manipulate me, force me to speak horrible, evil things into being. Does that sound about right?”
“Actually, Emerson,” Roarke says as he stands. “I’d like to marry you.”
An indefinite amount of time passes in silence, with only the sound of my pulse throbbing in my ears. Then I blink. “Say that again.”
“I would like to marry you.”
I step back, raising my hands. If my eyebrows could climb any higher, I think they’d be in my hair. “You know what? I don’t generally use words like this, but I feel they’re appropriate in this situation: you’re crazy, Roarke. Bonkers. Loony. Completely nuts and one hundred percent unhinged. I am not marrying you.”
He tilts his head a fraction to the side. “No one’s been able to help your mother yet, have they?”
A shiver that has nothing to do with my Griffin Ability raises the hairs on my arms. “What do you know about my mother?”
“I know her mind is sick. And I know that your friends can’t help her.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe they can help her.”
He shakes his head. “They don’t know what made her the way she is.”
“And you do?”
His lips stretch slowly into a smile. “I do. And I know the magic required to heal her.”
“I assume you’re not going to tell me.”
“Not unless you marry me, no.”
“I’m not marrying you!” I yell. “It’s—I don’t even know where to begin with how utterly insane that is. It’s not happening.”
“It isn’t insane. It makes a lot of sense, actually. In the history of your world—the human world—royal marriages were often used to solidify alliances between countries. This is a similar concept. We would like to ally ourselves with a source of great power, so—”
“So you want to marry it. Wow. That has got to be the least romantic proposal anyone in either world has ever been presented with.”
His mouth quirks in amusement. “Nobody said this was about romance, Emerson.”
“I’m not marrying you! You could be, like, five hundred years old.”
“I’m twenty-one.”
“It’s still not happening.”
“Then your mother will never be healed.”
I shake my head. “I don’t believe you. I don’t think you know what’s wrong with her. You’d say anything to get me to do what you want. To get me to stay here in this creepy Unseelie Court.”
Aurora speaks up. “Oh, this isn’t the Unseelie Court.”
“Then where are we?”
“Agree to marry me,” Roarke says, “and you’ll find out.”
“NO!”
A quiet mumble catches my attention. I look down at Dash. His hand twitches, his leg moves a little, and he mumbles again. “That can’t have been a very strong stunner spell, Roarke,” Aurora says. She rises and moves to stand beside him. “We should take him back. I don’t want him waking up here.”
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