But there’s one important part of the current standoff that Simon seems intent on forgetting. Or, more likely, ignoring.
The wood elves stick to their territory. They are no longer as powerful as they once were. The iron world has all but stolen their ability to wear an elfskin strong enough to walk our streets undetected by people who know how to spot them.
People like us.
And yet Simon is intent on wiping them out. I’ve talked about this with Patrick time and time again. Yes, the dark elves are dangerous. Yes, they have hurt humans in the past, and many years ago they even killed alchemists in battle. I am not denying these truths.
But to destroy the Ironwood entirely, and to attempt to wipe the Elflands from the face of the earth—along with any other remaining fey—is surely nothing more than genocide.
Aren’t we better than that?
I think Simon might be crazy, I really do. He will start another war, and it can’t be permitted. It isn’t right.
Even worse than all of this, though, is the chosen method, the weapon they have selected to aid them in the task of destruction. I have to protect Donna from Simon’s plans for her. This isn’t how things are supposed to be—she’s just a child. There must be a way to get her to safety. I can’t let them use my daughter as a weapon against any of the fey. Her abilities are so raw, so newly grown.
I heard Simon telling Quentin that Donna will be our “ticket to Faerie.” I heard him, and I refuse to believe that I’m imagining things again. Now he talks not only of destroying the Elflands on the edge of our world, but of wanting to enter Faerie itself—and cause who knows what mischief.
And he intends to use my only child to do it.
Maker will know what to do—I must speak with him. But I have to find out for sure whether or not he’s been compromised. If he has, then I don’t know—
Twelve
What do you think you’re doing?”
Aunt Paige’s voice was loud in the silent room, sounding like the sharp crack of an old tree branch breaking in the Ironwood.
Donna stood up quickly, ignoring the rush of blood to her head and clutching the journal to her chest. “I’m reading something you should have given me years ago.”
Her mother’s words echoed in her head: war, genocide …
Weapon.
She glared at her aunt. This was her mother’s journal; that meant it belonged to her. Just the fact that it had been gathering dust in Aunt Paige’s study was the worst kind of betrayal she could imagine. All of her fears—all the doubts that had been building in recent weeks—came crashing down on her.
The Wood Queen was right about so many things within the Order, no matter how sick it made Donna to admit it.
Her aunt’s face flushed. “You would have gotten that on your eighteenth birthday.”
“Says who?” Donna couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You’re talking as though it’s a bequest of some kind. Mom isn’t dead, you know, much as you might wish she was.”
Paige took a step back, all the color draining from her face in a single moment. “That’s not true.” Her voice shook. “That’s a terrible thing to say.”
Trying not to feel guilty, Donna lifted her chin in an unconscious gesture she’d inherited from her mother. “You might as well have her locked away in the attic so she can’t shame the family and endanger whatever the hell your agenda is.”
Her aunt was beginning to recover. “You’re talking nonsense. Where have all these ideas come from? I can only assume it’s that … creature filling your head with paranoid propaganda.”
“Creature? Oh my God, what is wrong with you? Xan is a person! And he’s not filling my head with anything, let alone ‘propaganda.’” Her voice vibrated with barely repressed rage. “Xan doesn’t have any contact with the fey—he’s completely alone.”
“That’s what he told you, is it?”
“Don’t you dare turn this into an attack on him. You’re no better than the worst kind of racist!”
Aunt Paige folded her arms, gripping her elbows with white-knuckled hands. “That’s ridiculous. If I were a racist, I wouldn’t have been so happy that you found a good friend in Navin.”
Donna snorted. “Oh, so I should be grateful that you decided it’s okay for me to befriend a commoner.”
“That’s enough, young lady!”
“I’m just getting started.” Donna sucked in a breath and prepared for battle. “Mom is lying in the hospital, in a coma, and nobody in the Order is doing anything to help her. I’ve been put on trial for saving Navin and Maker, and you’ve been hiding things from me for years.”
“Hiding things?” Her aunt tossed dark hair out of her eyes. “What things have I hidden? You’ve always been a part of the Order—that’s all we ever wanted for you. You’re just too young to understand everything yet.”
“How about the fact that my mother is under a curse?”
Paige hesitated for just a moment too long. “What do you mean, a ‘curse’? Has that boy been putting ideas in your head?”
“Stop doing that! Stop talking to me like I’m either seven years old or an idiot. This has nothing to do with Xan, and everything to do with the fact that you’re hiding the truth. Mom is elf-cursed, so you might as well stop pretending you don’t know that. I think you want her out of the way, and it suits you that she’s getting worse.”
“You have no evidence to support that,” Paige replied stiffly.
Donna dug her shaking fingers into the journal’s cover and waved it in her aunt’s face. “What the hell do you call this, then?”
Aunt Paige’s lips tightened momentarily and real anger flashed in her eyes. “The ravings of a mad woman.”
“I knew it!” Taking a step back as though Paige had hit her, Donna knew things had gone too far. There was no going back now—maybe not ever—after a fight like this. “You’ve always hated her.”
“Hated her?” Her aunt looked as though she might deny it, but then her shoulders straightened. “That’s too strong a word, but I’ll admit we never got along.”
“You always pretended that you did, though; at least, while I was growing up. After the attack, I mean.”
“Donna, it’s more complicated than that …” Paige’s voice trailed off. She was beginning to look as though she regretted opening up quite as much as she had.
“So explain it to me.” Maybe she was actually going to learn something useful. Something true. “We have all night.”
Her aunt’s eyes slid away. “I have to go out. That’s why I got up and found you here—in my study.”
“Yes, looking at my things.”
“Stop being childish. They belong to Rachel, and as you so rightly pointed out, your mother is still alive. Which doesn’t make them yours yet.”
Donna shook her head. “The diary says I’m to get it if she’s ‘incapacitated,’ not just in the event of her death. She wrote that herself, and you ignored it.”
Aunt Paige had no answer for that, so Donna continued on the offensive. It felt good to get some of this stuff out there.
“And where are you going this late at night, anyway?”
“I can’t tell you that, darling.” Paige’s voice had softened again, but it sounded hollow to Donna now. Seeing the growing anger on her niece’s face, Paige hastily added, “I can tell you that it has something to do with your mother. Quentin might have found a way to help her.”
Donna almost laughed at that, feeling white-hot anger gather in her chest and welcoming it. “That’s complete crap! Give me some fucking credit.”
Her aunt’s eyes widened; she’d probably never heard Donna curse before, but she did her best to hide her discomfort. “You’re upset, that’s understandable.”
“Upset? I’m pissed off!” Donna yelled. “Aunt Paige, why can’t you just tell me what you’re hiding? Why are you putting me through this?”
“Me?” Paige’s voice rose. “Young lady, you’re out of line. Who was it that
broke into Simon’s lab and stole the most precious artifact we own? The result of centuries of study, the last remaining drops of the elixir, with no more forthcoming until the Order of the Crow rediscovers the Philosopher’s Stone.”
“I couldn’t let them die!” Donna screamed, trying to get through to the woman even while she knew that screaming wouldn’t achieve much with her super-logical aunt.
“You should have come to me. I still don’t understand why you didn’t do that in the first place …”
Feeling miserable, Donna pushed a handful of hair away from her burning face. “Because I didn’t trust you. I mean, I didn’t trust the Order,” she added hastily, seeing the expression on Paige’s face darken. “And, quite honestly, I’m beginning to realize that I might be onto something.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know, I won’t deny it; but we would have told you when the time was right.”
“But who gets to decide that? The ‘right time’ for you might be too late for me. In fact, it already is. Far too late.”
Her aunt leaned against the wall, shoulders slumped. “Your mother didn’t want you to have the journal until you were older.”
Donna tucked the precious book under one arm and took a step back. She felt unbearably hot—as though she was coming down with something. “More lies. Why wouldn’t Mom want me to have it? And how could she have told you that, anyway? She lost her mind thanks to your precious Order. You’re doing it again, Aunt Paige. Stop lying to me.”
Two bright spots of color appeared on her aunt’s normally smooth cheeks. “You go too far, Donna. I am not lying, and I certainly don’t have to justify my actions to you.”
“If you’re not lying to me, Aunt Paige, then you must be lying to yourself.”
“Don’t patronize me. You forget yourself.”
Donna raised her chin, feeling the anger that she’d held in for so long begin to expand throughout her whole body. “No, I think I’m finally beginning to remember myself.”
Her aunt turned away, confusion and anger warring with something else in her expression—something that Donna couldn’t quite name. “That’s enough. You’re still a minor and you are under my care whether you like it or not. Go to your room and perhaps we can talk about this in the morning. When you’re more composed.”
Donna gritted her teeth and tried to remember to breathe. “I’m sick of being composed. I want to know what you’re hiding about my parents, and why Mom was so afraid of the Order.”
Her aunt reached toward her, blazing eyes focused on the journal in Donna’s arms.
Shocked that Aunt Paige looked as though she might be trying to snatch the book from her, Donna backpedaled, stumbling as she hit the heavy oak desk.
“Give it to me. Your mother wasn’t well, even before the attack. You can’t take everything in that diary as the truth you’re so desperate for.” Her voice cracked. “Trust me, please. You don’t want to read the ravings of a mad woman.”
“I can’t believe you’re saying that again,” Donna whispered, trying to figure out if she was more angry than scared right now. She hoped so. Anger might be the only way through this nightmare. “Mom was driven mad by the Wood Queen. You know that’s true, even if nobody can prove it. Quentin said as much to me when I was younger. He told me about the elflocks, and that they—”
Aunt Paige was shaking her head as she cut in. “It’s not true, Donna. We tried to protect you from finding out about Rachel, about how sick she really was even before that night.”
The ground seemed to tilt beneath her, and for a horrible moment Donna really thought she might collapse. “That’s a lie!”
Eagerly, Paige pressed her advantage, taking another step toward her. “Why is it so hard to believe? Your mother was always … sensitive.” Her lip curled, but the expression of distaste was fleeting, disappearing almost as quickly as it had appeared. “Especially with the way things were between her and Patrick.”
“What? What do you mean?” Blood pounded in her ears, making it difficult for Donna to hear what her aunt was saying.
“I didn’t want you to find out this way …” Aunt Paige’s voice trailed off and, for a moment, the expression of regret looked genuine. “Your father wasn’t the man you thought he was.”
“You’d say anything right now,” Donna replied, slowly circling backward around the desk, trying to keep the journal out of her aunt’s reach. The door looked depressingly far away, so her only exit was the window behind her. She swallowed, wondering if she could throw it open and escape before Paige could grab her.
Squeezing her free hand into a fist, Donna felt so tempted to hit something it almost made her dizzy. Her eyes suddenly focused on her aunt’s full-length mirror, the one she used to check her appearance before holding meetings in her study.
Donna gasped at what she saw reflected there.
Her face was the color of the whitest paper, and her normally soft gray eyes—eyes that she’d inherited from her mother—were black. Donna had never seen herself looking quite so fierce. She almost didn’t recognize the girl standing in front of her, and as she gazed at her reflection, the urge to smash … to destroy … hit her so hard she felt sick.
She had always been curious about what people meant when they said dramatic things like, “she finally snapped.” She wondered if it really was like a rubber band snapping in two, releasing a furious storm all over whomever was unfortunate enough to be in the path of the onslaught.
But she didn’t need to be curious anymore, because right then, Donna broke. All the confusion and doubt and fear, the loss and the anger, built to a crescendo inside her and … snapped.
As the dam collapsed, a tidal wave of power flooded through her.
“Donna, calm down!” Aunt Paige’s voice was anything but calm, although Donna could only just make it out above the roaring in her ears. It was like listening to the ocean in a shell, only a thousand times louder.
All she could see was a bright glow of power that spread across her vision, seeming to fill the room with a light so bright that she thought her retinas might forever be scarred. Instinctively, she lifted her free hand to cover her face—to shield herself from the never-ending white light that threatened to blind her—until she realized, with a bizarre sense of serenity, that the light couldn’t hurt her because it wasn’t coming from the outside. It was coming from within her. Her hands and arms were lit up like Christmas decorations, the glow so intense it made her eyes water.
More precisely, the light was radiating from the silver and iron tattoos that she could feel swirling around her wrists and arms, making her fingers tingle and her whole body vibrate with a power she didn’t know she possessed. This wasn’t merely the sort of power that made you physically strong enough to punch a school locker and crumple the metal like paper, or to snap a door handle with the flick of your wrist. It was more than that.
This was real power. It was more savage and yet more subtle, even though none of that made sense as it flashed through her adrenalized brain.
With her mother’s journal still pressed under one arm, Donna allowed herself to look—really look, no matter how much it scared her—at what was going on with her arms and hands.
The tattoos were moving: shimmering and churning like silver waves against her barely visible skin, making patterns that she’d never seen before. It didn’t hurt, not any more. In fact, it was beginning to feel undeniably good.
Donna smiled.
Her first and only coherent thought was, Escape.
Her second was, Xan.
And that was when the ground tilted beneath her feet and the world disappeared.
Thirteen
Donna found herself standing just outside the front door of Xan’s house, at the foot of the stone steps, trying to figure out how the hell she’d gotten there.
Her next thought—one that came directly out of years of secrecy and that the alchemists would probably be proud of—was Oh my God, did anyone see me?
Xan’s street was shrouded in early winter darkness, and the tall iron lamp on the sidewalk was flickering as though the bulb was ready to give out at any moment.
The cold air froze her burning cheeks, and Donna was glad for it.
She didn’t know exactly what it was she’d done, but she was pretty certain it wouldn’t have looked normal to anyone innocently walking by. Still clutching her mother’s journal tightly, she tried to remember what happened.
Did she do this? It certainly hadn’t been her aunt—Aunt Paige was an alchemist, sure, but real alchemy was more science than magic. It wasn’t like you could cast a spell with instantaneous results. There was a crapload of research and experimentation in alchemy, then complicated ritual, followed by intent and focus. Those were the four stages of alchemical “magic,” which were hardly consistent with most people’s wrong-headed perceptions of the ancient art.
Donna’s legs trembled and the bones in her hands and arms ached worse than they had in years. She bit her lip to keep from throwing up; the sudden wave of nausea took her by surprise. This remote travel had to be something to do with her new power, the abilities the Wood Queen had insisted she possessed. Power that her mother had hinted at in the pages of her journal.
As that thought hit her, Donna gratefully pressed the book to her chest, crossing her arms around it and hanging on as though it could protect her. From the truth?
She slowly became aware of a car driving up alongside her, but was unable to move—to hide. To do something.
With a burst of relief, she realized who it must be. Even in the dark, she could see that the car was a sturdy-looking Volvo with a badly faded crimson paint job. Even bent over and breathing hard, she could make out the familiar dents and rust spots.
And then Xan was there, a frown on his face that turned to surprise as soon as he figured out who was standing outside his house, looking like she was going to puke all over the steps. The timing of his arrival home was perfect, though she couldn’t help wishing that her earlier calls hadn’t gone unanswered.
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