“Or maybe she just hadn’t got around to sending it yet.”
“Or maybe—” Ryn raises a conspiratorial eyebrow “—she’s the spy Zell mentioned to you. Maybe she murdered that Seer last week. Maybe that’s why she was so insistent that we forget about what we saw in Zell’s dungeon. She doesn’t want us finding out that she’s involved.”
“No, no, no.” I shake my head. “The idea that the head of the Guild Council could be working with the Unseelie Court is both too preposterous and too scary to contemplate, so I’m going to go with my initial reaction: She hadn’t got around to sending the necklace to the Seelie Queen yet.”
Ryn lies back and puts his hands behind his head. “So you think I should put the necklace back?”
I hesitate before answering. What if the spy is Councilor Starkweather? She’ll just take the necklace right back to Zell, and then we’ll all be up against a powerful, immortal faerie. “I don’t know, Ryn.” I gather my neatly written pages and roll them together. “You decide. After all, you’re the one who took it.” I pack the scroll away and close my bag. I could leave now, since my report is finished, but I don’t really feel like it. And there’s something else I’m supposed to ask Ryn about. “Your mother’s worried about you,” I say as I pull my knees up to my chest and wrap my arms around them.
“She’s my mother. She’s supposed to worry about me.”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“Believe it or not, I can’t read minds,” Ryn says, “so I actually have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I roll my eyes. “The fact that you arrived home earlier looking like you’d just been in a fight? Which, apparently, you’ve done before, and which you did earlier this week while we were at the Harts’ house.”
“Oh, that.” He shrugs. “It’s just something I need to take care of for a friend.”
I watch him closely as I try to figure out what he’s got himself involved in. There’s no use trying to guess, though; it could be anything. “Okay, just tell me this: Should your mother be concerned about you or not?”
“Not,” he says. “I’ll be done fighting people by graduation.”
“Graduation. Okay.” I rest my chin on my left knee. “Your friend is lucky to have you, you know, if you’re willing to get beaten up for him.”
“Yeah,” he says quietly, watching me from his comfortable position on the blanket. His eyes appear bluer than normal in the light cast by the glow-bugs around us. They’re dangerous, those eyes, because I keep finding myself captivated by them, even though I really have no business whatsoever being captivated by anything about Ryn. I can’t help it right now, though. Something about the way he’s watching me causes warmth to spread out from the lowest part of my belly right up to—
Friend, friend, friend, I remind myself quickly. I drop my gaze just as an unexpected whoosh sounds nearby. I jump to my feet, ready to face the threat, and find a branch blazing with blue and green flames above Ryn’s head.
“Whoa!” Ryn rolls over and springs up, a glittering knife in his hand. The fire vanishes, leaving wisps of smoke rising and curling in the air. Ryn’s eyes dart around as he searches the forest. “I can’t sense anyone’s magic except ours,” he says.
“Me neither.” My muscles, tensed and ready to fight, start to relax. “So where did those flames come from?”
Ryn lets his knife disappear before running a hand through his hair. “Probably just Creepy Hollow being creepy.”
I suddenly feel stupid for thinking it was anything more than that. Odd magical stuff happens all the time in Creepy Hollow. I’m just on edge because of the crazy, evil Unseelie faerie who happens to be after me. “Yeah, it was probably just some weird, pyromaniac creature hiding in the trees.”
I resume my position on the blanket, and Ryn sits next to me with his back against one of the enormous gargan branches. “So, speaking of graduation . . .” he says.
I slide my hand into the top of my boot and remove my stylus. “We were speaking about graduation?”
“We were. And I was wondering which lucky graduate gets to spend the evening with you.”
I draw random, lazy patterns in the air, watching a faint path of silver trail after my stylus. “What do you mean?”
“You haven’t forgotten about the ball, have you?”
My hand freezes and the looping silver pattern vanishes. The ball. Dammit. I’ve spent so much time focusing on the graduation ceremony itself that I actually managed to forget about the ball I’m supposed to attend afterward. “Crap,” I mutter.
Ryn laughs. “You’ve got to be the only girl who’s overlooked the part where you get dressed up and have fun.”
“And who are you going with, Ryn? I don’t see anyone lining up to invite you.”
“That’s because the combination of my good looks and charm is so dazzling that most girls prefer to admire me from a distance.”
“Right.” I resume my random pattern-drawing. “Or it could be because you act like a total jackass in front of most people.”
“I love,” Ryn says, “how your need for complete honesty overrides any concern you might otherwise have for my feelings.”
“Wait, you have feelings?” I allow my mouth to hang open in mock horror. “Wow, sorry, I had no idea.”
“I know a lot more about feelings than you’d think.”
“Well, you certainly know how to hurt them.” The moment the words leave my mouth I know I’ve gone too far. “Sorry, sorry, that’s all in the past, I know.”
After a pause, Ryn says, “Yeah, whatever.” He picks up his stylus and transforms my silver pattern into floating drops of water. “Feelings aside, I was thinking perhaps you and I could go together, since neither of us is interested enough in the ball to bother with the stress of trying to find a date.”
I cross my arms. “And what makes you think I want to attend the ball with a jackass?”
“Because no one else is lining up to invite you?”
“Nice, Ryn. How could I possibly say no to an invitation like that?”
“You can’t.” He swirls the water droplets into a mini whirlpool in the air. “When someone as charming as me invites you to a ball, it’s impossible for you to do anything but lift your hand delicately to your forehead as you faint away, uttering the word ‘yes’.”
I glare at him. “My fainting days are over, so don’t count on that happening again.”
“Oh, but you were so good at it,” he says with a laugh. I aim my stylus at him, and he hurriedly says, “Okay, okay. All I need is a simple answer to a simple question: Will you be my date?”
“Fine. We can go to the ball together. But it isn’t a date.”
“No. Of course not. It’s simply a convenient arrangement that suits us both.”
“Yes.” I watch the whirlpool spinning for a few moments before closing my eyes and groaning. “Ugh, I really wish we didn’t have to attend that part.”
“Why? That’s supposed to be the fun part, V.” He nudges me with his shoulder.
“Maybe for some, but for me . . . well, it’s just not my thing. Dressing pretty, decorating my hair, painting my face with fancy makeup spells.” I sigh. “I can kick butt at every single exercise in the training center, but I can’t kick butt in there. In a ballroom.” The word almost tastes bad. “That’s for pretty girls like Aria and Jasmine.”
Ryn spins the droplets into a ball of water. “You did a pretty good job at the Harts’ cocktail party.”
“That was part of an assignment. Of course I could do it then.”
“And at Zell’s masquerade.”
“Again, that was like an assignment.”
Ryn sighs and shakes his head.
“What?”
“No matter what I say, you’re going to disagree with me, so this is where my comments end.”
“Good.”
“But there is one other thing.” He waves the ball of water toward me until it’s hovering over my head.
With a flick of his stylus, the swirling liquid drops through the air.
I gasp as the cold water hits my neck and travels down my back. “What the freak, Ryn?”
His grin is wide as he says, “Told you I’d get you back.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Raven!” I stand on tiptoe and wave as Raven turns around, her deep brown and magenta hair sliding over her shoulder. She peers through the throng of people filling the main lane of the Creepy Hollow Shoppers’ Clearing. I shout her name again. When she spots me, she smiles and waves. I hurry past open stalls, shop fronts built into trees, and busy faeries getting their shopping done. “Hey, thanks for waiting.”
“Sure.” She greets me with a hug. “I don’t often see you here. Shouldn’t you be hitting a punching bag or practicing backflips or something?”
“I’ve handed in my final report. My training is officially finished.”
“Congratulations!” Raven gives me another hug, then pulls me to the side of the path where we’re out of the way. “You must be bored out of your mind now.”
Ha, she knows me so well. “Yeah, kind of,” I say with a grin. “Anyway, I came looking for you because I, um, need your help.”
Raven hooks her thumb around the strap of the shrinking shopping bag on her shoulder. “Oh dear. Another fashion emergency?”
“Yes. I kind of forgot that there’s a ball after the graduation ceremony, and I don’t exactly have anything to wear.” I put my hands together and do my best imitation of Filigree’s kitten eyes. “Will you please make a dress for me?”
“Vi, don’t be silly.” Raven laughs and my stomach sinks. “I started designing your grad dress months ago.”
My stomach halts its descent. “You did? Oh. Wow, thanks.”
“Of course. It’s one of the most important occasions of your life. You have to look good.” She hooks her arm through mine and leads me down the road. “It’s going to be absolutely perfect for you, Vi.”
Oh dear. That doesn’t sound good. “Um, it’s not purple, is it?”
She smiles. “I know how you feel about purple stuff, so no. It isn’t purple.”
“Okay, and nothing big and puffy, right? I don’t want to be wading through five hundred layers of fabric.”
“It won’t be big.”
“And no overly revealing slits. That cocktail dress I wore at the Harts’ party was way too—”
“Vi.” She stops and places her hands on my shoulders. “Trust me. I know you’re mainly indifferent when it comes to fashion, but even you will love this dress when it’s done.”
The tree we’re heading toward has an archway cut out of the bark and a sign above it that says Farrow’s Fantabulous Fabrics. We walk beneath the archway and into a gigantic room filled with roll upon roll of every imaginable material. There’s the regular stuff, like colors, patterns, and textures that do nothing but lie still. Then there’s the cool stuff, like fabric made from dewdrops, or flames, or smoke, or serpent scales that change color. This must be Raven’s idea of heaven.
“Oh, that is perfect for the client I met with yesterday!” She runs toward a sparkly fabric that twinkles with every color of the rainbow. I wouldn’t be caught dead in it. “I’ll take the entire roll,” she tells the shop keeper.
“Raven?” She turns to look at me as though she’s forgotten I’m there. “I need to do a bit of my own shopping, so if you don’t need my help carrying anything . . .”
“Oh, sure, you go do your thing.” She pats her shrinking shopping bag. “My stuff will easily fit in here.”
*
The next two weeks crawl by, but finally, after five years of training, studying, assignments, and generally working my butt off, the day has arrived.
Graduation.
Imaginary butterflies beat their wings furiously within my stomach as I stand in front of a mirror in Tora’s house. Raven should be here any minute now with my dress, and in about two hours—because, apparently, that’s how long it takes to get ready—Ryn will be here to pick me. No, to meet me; it isn’t a date.
I look away from the mirror and down at my hands. My tokehari from my father, the ring with the gold-flecked purple stone, is on my right hand. When Dad died, I automatically inherited all his belongings, but the ring is special. It’s the item he specifically set aside for me in the event of his death. The item I’m meant to remember him by. I only have one other piece of jewelry that means as much to me—the arrow-shaped earrings that were a gift from Reed before he died—and they’re in my ears right now.
My gaze moves to my bare wrists. By the end of tonight, permanent markings will curl across the skin there, forever marking me as a guardian. It’s all I’ve ever wanted. Well, that and to be the very best guardian. But now that I’m standing here with my goal in sight and my future spread out before me like one endless, blank piece of reed paper, I’m not entirely sure what to do next. I’m almost guaranteed a position with the Guild, if I want it, so the logical thing would be to tell them about my finding ability and work with the Department of Missing Fae. But I’m afraid that once they know what I can do, they’ll never let me leave. I could be trapped at the Guild for the rest of my working life.
“Vi, are you up here?”
I turn at the sound of Raven’s voice. “Yes, the room at the end of the passage.”
She shuffles sideways through the door with a large, flat bag over her shoulder and a smaller square case tucked under her arm. I take a few quick strides to the door to help her. “Thanks,” she says. I dump the case on the bed as she carefully lays out the large bag. “Okay, I’m not showing you the dress until it’s actually on you. That way you’ll get the full effect.”
“Full effect?” That sounds worrying.
“Yes.” She flips up the clips on the square case and pulls the lid back. “Here, I made this bra for you. Go put it on while I get the dress out.”
She removes a padded bra from amongst the clips and colored pots in the case and hands it to me. It’s covered in white lace and is far prettier than any underwear I’ve ever owned. But there’s something else different about it. I hold it up, giving it a suspicious sniff. “Is there magic in this thing?”
Raven keeps her eyes averted while digging through the case for who knows what. “Um, possibly.”
“Seriously, Raven?” I toss the bra on top of the dress bag. “Enchanted underwear?”
“Vi.” She perches on the edge of the bed and picks up the offensive piece of underwear. “Despite what you’ve been brought up to believe, magic isn’t only useful for attacking people. You can also use it to . . . enhance certain natural features.” I stare at her until she sighs and says pointedly, “And you could use some help in the cleavage department.”
With an eye roll and a groan, I snatch the bra out of her hands. “Fine. I’ll wear it.” I head to the corner of the room to change out of my black pants and tank top. The bra fits perfectly, which isn’t surprising; Raven’s always been good at her job. I look down at my improved cleavage and notice a pleasant scent. “Next thing you’ll be telling me there’s some kind of aphrodisiac spell woven into this underwear.”
“Only a little one.”
“Raven!”
“Kidding,” she says with a laugh. “It’s just a perfume spell. It’ll produce whatever scent is most appealing to you or, if you’re standing close to someone you find attractive, whatever scent is most appealing to him.”
“How does the bra know if I find someone attractive? And what if he likes a scent I don’t like? And what if it’s someone I just happen to find attractive, but I’m not actually interested in him and I don’t want him sniffing me?”
“Um . . .”
“I can see a lot of flaws in this design, Raven.”
“Look, this range of underwear is still in the experimentation phase, okay. Now keep your eyes up while I bring the dress over.”
I do as instructed and try not to fall over as Raven guides my feet into a circle of fabric
and lifts the dress up around me. She runs her finger quickly up the center of my back, and the dress does itself up while she steps around to stand in front of me. She smiles and says, “I was right. The sweetheart neckline definitely suits you, especially since you now have a little bit of cleavage. And the empire line was a good choice too. Very elegant.”
“Okay, enough with the fashion jargon. Can I see it now?” She steps out of the way and I walk over to the mirror. I stare for a long moment before whispering, “Wow.”
“You like it?” Raven asks, her hands clasped together beneath her chin.
“Raven, it’s amazing. You were right. It is perfect for me.”
The dress is simple and strapless and feels light and comfortable. The sweetheart shape that goes across my chest is a deep bronze color, with tiny crystals sewn along the edge. They shimmer bronze, black, and grey as if each one has a tiny fire lit within it. From just below my bust right down to my toes, the dress—which is in no way puffy at all—is an off-white color. The top layer is sheer with tiny flowers that look real scattered across its surface. The flowers, like the crystals, cycle through various shades of bronze and black. Lastly, several strings of pearls and crystals hang from the center of my bust, loop gracefully around the left side of the dress, and attach somewhere high up at the back.
“Oh, wow,” Tora says from the doorway. “Raven, you did an amazing job.”
“Thanks.” Raven places her hands on her hips and examines her work. “Too many girls go for the fancy, puffy look better suited to a human ballroom in Victorian times. I wanted to get back to our faerie roots with this dress.”
“It’s perfect,” Tora says with a sniff. “I think I might cry.”
“Not in here.” Raven points to the door. “Please take your weepiness elsewhere.”
“Fine,” Tora says with a laugh that sounds more like a snuffle. “Call me when you’re ready, and I’ll try to keep my weeping under control.”
“She leaks way too easily,” I say to Raven once Tora has left the room.
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