“If you don’t behave, I’ll have the same happen to you,” the Fey warrior growls.
“I think electricity and I are well acquainted,” Percy says, rubbing his chest where his lightning-shaped scar is, and Blanchefleur motions irritably for me to go back to my exercise.
The next electric shock forces another short cry from me, but by the time the nineteenth hits, I’ve evolved from crying out to biting on my lips. Progress.
I hear Percy giggle in his corner and glare at him.
“I’d like to see you try it,” I say.
“It’s just…” he wheezes.
“Watch it,” I growl. I’m tired, cranky, and have been zapped so many times I feel I could jumpstart any car simply by touching it. This is not the time to make fun of me.
“You’re startin’ to look like a wet chicken,” Percy finishes, waving his hands sweeping over his head.
I react before my brain can catch up to what I’m doing, and point my finger straight at Percy still rolling on the floor, sparks flashing above my index. Then, as I feel my power ready to unfurl, something seems to shift in the air around me. I instinctively flick my finger over towards Blanchefleur and the sparks erupt in a wide arc before hitting an invisible wall. I grind my teeth together as the force pushes back against me, pulsing in tandem with my heart.
Suddenly, Blanchefleur gasps and the trail of sparks explodes in a glittering shower between us, shaking the walls.
“How did you know the attack was coming?” Blanchefleur asks, blinking in surprise.
I shrug, rubbing my head as another headache thumps against my temples. “I just reacted,” I say.
“So somehow, your body knew it was coming,” Blanchefleur says thoughtfully. “The next step, now, is to consciously recognize it. Once you do, you’ll be able to feel the Aether all around and use it to fuel your powers instead of draining your own.” She turns sharply around towards Percy. “Will you please stop laughing?”
“I can’t help it,” the knight says, holding onto his sides. “Have ya seen her face?”
The door to the suite suddenly opens to let a worried Arthur in, trailed by Hadrian and Keva.
“What happened?” Arthur asks. “Is anyone hurt?”
“What did you do?” Keva asks, her eyes round as she takes in my face. “Have a catfight?”
I glare at her. “No, why?”
Hadrian gestures strangely around his head like Percy did a moment ago.
“Your hair’s standing out all over the place,” Keva says.
“We were practicing,” I retort, self-consciously patting my staticky hair down. At least Lugh didn’t come back with them or I’d be in Humiliation Central right about now.
“How did it go?” Arthur asks, looking concerned.
“Rather well, I would say,” Blanchefleur says.
“I concur,” Percy adds, wiping tears from the corners of his eyes.
“Yeah, bloody brilliant work,” I mutter, “stifling a yawn. “Now excuse me while I, uh, go powder my nose,” I add, using one of Keva’s favorite expressions.
I stand up shakily, nod goodnight at the group, then head straight for my bedroom, my father’s file tucked under my arm.
“Better not be using any of my makeup!” Keva shouts before I shut the door on all the noise.
I let out a sigh of relief then crash onto my bed, feeling dead as a flat tire. Then, with a triumphal sweep, I break open the smooth piece of wax sealing the envelope. But as I make to pull its contents out, I hear voices drift in from the living room, sounding tense, and I pause.
“Did ya come to an agreement?” Percy asks.
“No,” Arthur says, and I can almost picture him glowering.
“We’re at a standstill,” Hadrian adds. “There are some on the Board who are amenable to another treaty, but…”
“Lugh isn’t making things easy despite his decision to help us,” Keva’s clear voice rings out.
“Ya’d almost think he was a lily liver38,” Percy says.
“Don’t speak of him that way,” Blanchefleur says, so low I have to strain to hear her. “Lugh is one of the greatest warriors you’ll ever get to meet. He could even outshine Michael on his good days. He and Lucifer would have won the war if they’d remained together.”
I shiver at the mention of the head of the demons. Lugh and Lucifer brothers-in-arms? The guy’s worse than Carman! And to think I almost went back to Avalon with him….
“How come he didn’t end up in Hell like the others then?” Hadrian asks.
“Things are not black and white like you wish them to be,” Blanchefleur says, her voice so sharp it could cut through stone. “All Lucifer and Lugh wanted was the same right humans have: Free will. Believe it or not, neither wanted the complete and utter destruction of all eight worlds.”
“Eight?” Keva asks.
“Seven in Heaven, and one on Earth,” Blanchefleur explains.
“What about Hell?” Keva asks again.
“Hell wasn’t created until after the Fall,” Hadrian says.
“In any case,” Blanchefeur continues, “when things got bad, Lugh decided to use his abilities to repair some of the damage done.”
“Is that when…,” Percy starts.
“When he defeated Balor, yes,” Blanchefleur says. “You can now understand how, after locking his own sire in the deepest reaches of Hell, Lugh’s no longer intent upon stoking the flames of war.”
The conversation, peppered with names and facts I’ve never heard of before, succeeds in increasing the headache my practice session with Blanchefleur has given me. I close my eyes against the stabbing pain, curling up into a tight ball.
My hand brushes one last time against my father’s file, and I feel my lips curl into a smile as sleep finally welcomes me into its blissful arms.
I wake up with a start as a pillow falls smack onto my face. Groaning, I roll over to my other side, and hide my face under the covers to avoid another of Keva’s usual morning attacks.
“Rise and shine, oh Your Laziness,” Keva chants. “Today’s the big day.”
“Big day for what?” I mumble, finding it extremely hard to crack my eyes open.
“The Christmastide Ball, silly. What else could be more important than that?”
“Not interested,” I say, yawning. I already have what I wanted from this trip, so there’s no more need for me to pander to others. I smile as I reach under my pillow for the file, and my breath catches—the envelope’s gone!
“Stop being such a baby and get ready,” Keva says, pulling the covers right off me as I search around my bed frantically for the missing file. “You’re Arthur’s squire, there’s no way you can skip out on the ball. And it’s going to be my pleasure to help you get ready.”
“I’ve got more important things to do at the moment,” I say, leaning over the bed to see if the file hasn’t dropped to the floor. But the plush carpet is bare of anything beyond a pair of discarded socks and my slippers.
Keva tuts. “I know you weren’t born with much common sense, but I thought you would know better by now. Even Arthur knows it takes hours for girls to get ready for such a great event, and since you don’t have anything decent to wear, we have to start now.”
I feel her ice-cold foot on my back before she pushes me off the bed.
“And you’re up!” Keva says with a smirk. “Excellent. Now let’s get down to business.”
Ignoring her, I grab the mattress and hoist it up to check under it, when something large and butter yellow is thrust in my face.
“If you’re good, I’ll let you have it back,” Keva taunts me, snatching the envelope away before I can grab it.
“Give that back,” I snarl, fury boiling inside me, my powers awaking.
Keva’s smile drops. “Kano!” she says, bringing her other hand up next to the envelope.
Bright green and red flames erupt around her extended hand, and my anger switches to fear.
“Don’t,” I say, my
mouth gone dry.
“You forget you’re not the only one who can do EM around here,” Keva says, the corner of the envelope already curling in the Fey fire’s heat. “Now promise to be good, and I’ll give it back to you.”
I nod emphatically. “I’ll do anything you want, promise. Now give it back!”
The promise barely leaves my numb lips that the flames disappear. “Excellent,” Keva says, slipping the file into a large purse of hers. “But I’ll keep it with me for now, for safekeeping, until you’ve held your end of the bargain. Now let’s go shopping!”
To my greatest horror, the whole morning and most of the afternoon are spent getting groomed, prodded, pinched, and otherwise tortured from one shop in Geneva to another, until I feel like I’ve turned into just another useless dummy in one of the stores’ windows.
Finally, after long, excruciating hours, Keva seems to be satisfied and we get to return to Camaaloth to await the fateful hour.
“Now can I have it?” I ask Keva the moment we cross our suite’s threshold.
“Just remember to sit like a proper lady,” Keva says, relinquishing the precious file at last. “And straighten your clothes before you do!” she adds as I rush to my room and slam the door in her face.
I hop onto the bed, my fingers already reaching inside the envelope. My breath catches as the picture of a young man falls out, his smile bright and carefree, his dark eyes staring mischievously at the camera. Printed underneath it is a name:
Duke Gorlois de Cornouailles
My fingers shake as they trace the curls of my father’s dark hair, so much like mine. A tear falls onto the grinning man’s soft cheek, unbidden, and I quickly blot it out before it can harm the photo. Taking a breath to steady myself, I fish for the next item, and carefully pull out a small newspaper clipping, the paper yellow and crackly with age.
RICHEST MAN IN FRANCE DIES UNDER MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES
The elusive Duke Gorlois de Cornouaille, whose family died in a tragic accident when he was but a young boy , succumbed yesterday to what some call the family curse, finding death at the tender age of twenty three ,Police records have yet to be released , but it has been speculated that the young duke may have committed suicide ingesting a lethal dose of poison , or perhaps , as has been more common lately with those of his milieu , succumbed to an overdose , The duke is leaving behind a vast estate and a single heir , a daughter , though her whereabouts are currently unknown .
“My father was not a druggie!” I exclaim in outrage, forcing my hand not to tear the article to pieces. “And he certainly didn’t commit suicide either. He was killed; killed by a dangerous, murderous, rotting Shade!” I flick the newspaper clipping aside. “You useless, swineheaded, paper-pushing, driveling coot,” I add to the idiotic journalist who dared pen such awful gibberish.
I return my attention to the envelope. The last thing that remains in it is a thick leather-bound journal, the Camaaloth seal imprinted on the cover above my father’s name.
For the next hour, my eyes scour the logbook, taking in every minute detail of my father’s accomplishments, from the day he started at Lake High, to his quick promotion to knighthood, and from there to the KORT Presidency.
But the more I read, the more I catch myself wondering whether I truly am his daughter—it seems that Duke Gorlois was as avid a Fey exterminator as any other, more so in fact, judging by the outrageous number of hunts he organized and the revolutionary ways he devised to trap them.
“Is it what you expected?”
I jerk in surprise as Arthur’s head suddenly hovers above mine.
“Yes and no,” I finally say, afraid to read on for fear of what other atrocity against the Fey I’m going to read in there.
Arthur drops his gaze to the journal.
“You should skip to after his first vanishing,” he says. “That’s when things get interesting.”
“The first vanishing?” I ask, finding it difficult to form the words.
Arthur flips further ahead in the logbook then stops at a page whose corner is deeply earmarked, as if it’s been read many times before.
“Here,” he says. “Talks about how he disappeared during a hunt. The school sent several search parties for him that went on for weeks, but they finally had to give up. That’s when they elected another KORT President.”
“Your father,” I say, finding the passage mentioning Luther’s accession to the position.
Arthur nods, pulling my desk chair to sit in front of me. “You can imagine how happy he was when Sir Tristan finally brought Duke Gorlois back,” he says with a wry smile.
I nod slowly. My father’s return must have shocked everyone, judging by the next entry’s illegible handwriting, dated half a year later. I shake my head, giving up on trying to decipher the text. But as I turn to the next page, a handwritten note falls out. The hairs at the back of my neck raise as I recognize Dr. Cockleburr’s straight, sharp-edged handwriting.
“That’s when he was incarcerated,” I whisper.
“Briefly,” Arthur says, sounding mildly uncomfortable. He clears his throat. “As is customary for anyone who’s spent any length of time in Fey company. You know how some people can get affected.”
Owen’s vacant look and erratic behavior instantly jump to mind and I repress a shiver—surely my father couldn’t have turned out like him, could he?
“It till didn’t stop him from being elected to the Board’s Presidency the year he graduated,” Arthur says. “I think people expected him to resume his previous activities and find ways to exterminate the Fey on a grander scale, not to come up with all of these insane ideas.”
“Insane ideas?” I ask, going still with indignation.
Arthur’s lips quirk up. “Like re-kindling our ties with the Fey, for instance.”
I feel the tension leave my shoulders. “Sounds like someone I know,” I say. “Guess his policies weren’t that popular then?”
“You’d be surprised,” Arthur says. “He did retain his position for another four years, after all. Until his second vanishing.”
“Is that when…” My voice chokes out as I thumb through to the final page and read its last entry—a single line:
Dead—Fey attack; no witness.
It figures they’d omit the most important part; like which Fey killed him, or why, or even that there was a baby on board….
Arthur clears his throat again, loud and long enough to make me look up. He’s playing with something in his hands, one of the last rays of the timid sun playing on his cheek, turning his eyes greener.
“You’re awfully fidgety all of a sudden,” I say, my hand tightening around my father’s logbook in case he wants to snatch it away from me.
But instead, Arthur thrusts his hand towards me. I stare at the red velvet box with a mixture of confusion and pleasure.
“Is that for…for me?” I ask.
Arthur nods. “Merry Christmas.”
I slowly pick the box up, hesitating a moment before opening it.
Lying on a velveteen pillow inside, is a delicate pendant representing the sun and moon, each bearing a stone in its center; one pearlescent white, the other ruby red.
“Do you, uh, like it?” Arthur asks as the silence stretches between us.
I want to tell him it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, that I’m deeply touched by his thoughtful and generous gesture, but instead, all I can utter is a very confused and skeptical, “Why?”
Arthur’s face falls. “I told you, it’s a Christmas present,” he says flatly, before getting back up and crossing the room over to the door.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Arthur’s hand freezes over the handle, and he turns around uncertainly.
I take the necklace out of the box by its thin, golden chain, and put it on. The pendant comes to nestle just beneath my jugular notch, an unfamiliar but pleasant weight against my sternum.
“Do you think Keva will mind?” I ask.
> It’s now Arthur’s turn to look confused. “Why should she?” he asks.
“Well, it seems to clash a little with what I’m wearing,” I say.
As if warned by her sixth sense, Keva slams the door open, her bright orange dress making her skin look like it’s glowing.
“Get your buns out here, Morgan,” Keva declares. Only then does she notice Arthur, standing awkwardly by the door, and she dips into a light curtsy. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize….”
“Is it time?” Arthur asks.
“Yes, sir,” Keva says. “And your fiancée has already arrived, looking for you.”
My hand automatically reaches for my new necklace as Jennifer’s regal figure emerges from the doorway. Her cool blue measure us both, then drop to my neck.
“How sweet,” she coos, making my blood run cold, “you gave your own oghams to your half-breed.”
Arthur’s face blanches. “She needs keeping an eye on,” he says.
“I do not!” I exclaim, doubly affronted by their insults—hers at my parentage, and his at my mental abilities. My hand clasps the pendant so tightly its edges bite into my palm, but I can’t make myself throw it at them, not when it’s my first present ever.
“The Board is waiting,” Jennifer says, choosing to ignore my outburst as if I were nothing more than another of the servants. “As are…our guests.”
Arthur’s nods curtly, his usual stern mask back on. He readjust the golden sash strapped across his wine-colored uniform jacket, then offers Jennifer his arm. “Let us get a move on, then,” he says.
I hasten to follow them, accidentally knocking my father’s logbook off the bed and sending it clattering to the floor.
“St. George’s balls,” I mutter, struggling to scoop it up without falling forward in my uncomfortably tight dress.
“You’ve done it, haven’t you?” Keva says behind me, sounding exasperated.
“Done what?” I ask, closing the journal before putting it away.
“Messed up your gown!” Keva exclaims. “It looks like you’ve slept in it for days now!”
“Uh-huh,” I say distractedly, for my fingers have notice something odd about the bound report. I draw my finger back down its inner hinge, feeling a wispy-thin, but definitely uneven edge along the lining, confirming my suspicions—someone’s torn the last few pages out of the journal!
Rise of the Fey Page 31
