“What you’ve been through?” I lower my bow slightly in disbelief. “I almost died because of you, Nate!”
“I know! And I’m so sorry.” He takes a step toward me. I train the arrow on him once more. “Zell forced me to help him, Vi. He got Scarlett to put that eye on me, which meant he could see everything I saw. I was supposed to try and find out from you who the identity of the guardian with the finding ability was. Since I didn’t want him to know it was you, I obviously kept my mouth shut. But then you went and gave yourself away!”
“What?” Is he seriously blaming this on me?
“We were in my room, and you said something about apologizing for agreeing to find my mother for me. Don’t you remember? And that’s when he figured out it was you. He beat me up for not telling him before. Remember the bruise I had? And I lied and said it was a fight I got into at school?”
“You lied. Great. How many other things are you lying about?”
He throws his hands up in frustration. “Nothing! I’m not lying to you!”
“Have you forgotten about the part where you led me to a secret cave and handed me over to Zell? I didn’t see anyone forcing you to do that.”
“He was threatening my parents! He would have killed them if I hadn’t brought him to you. So I thought I could do both. Protect them and still get you out alive. That’s why I pointed out that river to you. You know, the one that bubbled up into the cave and went back down through the mountain and out the side? We walked past it and I said you could catch a quick ride out of there if you jumped down it.”
“That was your big plan, Nate? Seriously?” As it happened, that’s exactly how I got out of the mountain, but it almost killed me.
“I had no other choice. Don’t you understand that?”
“There’s always a choice, Nate. Why didn’t you ask me for help?”
“How? Zell had that eye on me. He could see everything I saw. He was watching my every move. Listening to every conversation.”
“You’re not stupid, Nate. You could have figured something out. Closed your eyes and written me a note, or something.”
“Vi . . .”
Branches rustle and we both look to the side. Ryn steps through the leaves and into the hollow. His eyes dart between Nate and me, but his expression gives no hint as to what he’s thinking or feeling. I wish I had his ability right now. “Well,” he says, crossing his arms over his chest as he walks to my side. “Look who came scuttling back.”
Nate’s eyes pan back and forth between Ryn and me. “What is he doing here?”
Ryn slides an arm around my waist. “What does it look like I’m doing here?”
“Ryn!” I glare at him and mutter, “You are not helping.”
“You’re with him now?” Nate looks disgusted. “How the hell did that happen?”
“Dripping wet in a secret passage,” Ryn says before I can answer. “It was pretty damn hot.”
“Ryn!”
“So is this the part where you warn me to stay away from your girlfriend?” Nate sneers.
Ryn’s cocky smile makes an appearance. “Of course not. I wouldn’t insult Violet by suggesting she can’t handle you on her own.”
I roll my eyes and lower my bow. “Okay. That’s great.” I lower my voice. “So how about you wait at the bottom of the tree so that I can, you know, handle things on my own?” Ryn’s eyes bore into mine, and I can tell he’s trying to figure out if everything’s okay. “I’ll be fine,” I mouth.
“Okay,” he says. He turns to Nate. “So long, halfling boy. I hope we never meet again.” He vanishes into a doorway in the air.
“I can’t believe this,” Nate mutters, shaking his head. “I finally manage to get away from Zell, and the first person I come to—you—has already moved on as if I were never a part of your life.”
I let my bow and arrow disappear; we both know I’m not going to use it, even after what Nate did to me. “What did you think would happen, Nate? That I’d go running back into your arms?”
“I don’t know, Vi. But I certainly didn’t expect to come back and find myself caught up in a love triangle.”
“There is no love triangle, Nate. A love triangle would imply that you actually stand a chance with me, which you don’t.”
Nate takes a jolted step backward, as if I slapped him. Ouch. Those words came out way harsher than I meant them to.
“But you loved me, Vi,” he says quietly. “I know you did.”
I shake my head. “No. I didn’t, and I don’t.”
“You did. You were too scared to say it, but I know you—”
“I didn’t. Perhaps I could have if you’d given me a chance, but you didn’t.” I take a deep breath. “I did care about you, and I was so angry and hurt that I almost did something stupid with a potion. But I got over it. I got over you.”
He stares at me for a long time before he says, “I still love you.”
“Don’t lie to me. What about Scarlett?”
He pales. “Scarlett?”
“I saw the two of you together at Zell’s masquerade ball.”
“You were there?”
“Yes. Ryn and I were both there. And it certainly didn’t look like you were missing me when Scarlett was whispering in your ear.”
He looks away and shakes his head. “It’s complicated. She’s a siren, Vi—”
“Oh, so you had no choice, right? Just like you had no choice leading me into a trap in that mountain? And you had no choice using your storms to breach the protective enchantments of the Guild to potentially hurt a whole lot of innocent people?”
“Vi—”
“I think you should go, Nate. Whatever we had is over. Maybe you’re telling the truth about everything, maybe you’re not. But I don’t know, and I can never trust you again. You need to get on with your life, and I need to get on with mine. Take your parents and run, if you have to, but don’t involve me.” I cross my arms and swallow. “I don’t ever want to see you again.”
PART
IV
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The penthouse apartment of the high-rise building I’m in has floor-to-ceiling glass in every room, allowing the city lights to twinkle through. They illuminate the apartment’s interior, making it easy to see where I’m going. I creep down a curving stairway constructed from nothing more than slim, black pieces of wood inserted into the wall on one side. I suppose the stairway’s meant to be arty and minimalist, but I find myself wondering how many people have tripped down it. I reach the bottom and scan the open room displaying paintings on walls and sculptures on pedestals. A pole-like bookcase with flat pieces of wood attached to it like branches on a tree catches my eye, as does a weirdly shaped lounge suite that’s probably also considered art.
No one here.
The owner of the apartment—currently asleep in one of the oversized bedrooms—is an art collector, and it seems a certain faerie thief has taken a liking to the items on display here. Last week he stole a valuable painting, and we’ve spent the past four days figuring out who he is and when he’ll try to pull off his next heist. We want to catch him in the act.
I signal to Jay, one of the three members of my team, to follow me down the stairs. Asami, my other teammate, is already positioned on the balcony that extends along one side of the apartment’s exterior in case our faerie thief plans to enter that way. “Hide under that weird couch,” I whisper to Jay as I point to the piece of furniture that looks like a giant tiger trying to hug something. “I’ll be behind the sculpture of the woman-beast-rock-thing.”
“Interesting choice,” he says, eyeing the bizarre sculpture. Jay is a graduate from another Guild who decided he wanted to start his working life in a new place and wound up in Creepy Hollow. He’s nice enough, but I’d far rather have Ryn on my team. Not only because I’m the team leader and I’d get to boss him around, but because, well, I want to be around him all the time. Tora took it upon herself to mention to the Council that Ryn and I are
in a relationship—something I still haven’t quite forgiven her for—and the Council decided it would be better if we didn’t work together. It took a lot of restraint for me not to point out that there are several husband-and-wife teams at our Guild, and no one seems to have a problem with that.
Jay slips beneath the couch, and I crouch down behind the woman-beast-rock-thing. A small metal plaque attached to the base tells me it’s called The Revelation of Eve. Hmm.
And so we wait.
It’s a little boring.
In the month since I accepted the position at the Guild, this is only the third assignment I’ve been involved in. It seems a pathetic number to me, considering I used to have a new assignment almost every evening when I was still training. But these assignments are far more in-depth, I’ll admit—and I was a bit of an over-achieving trainee.
The wristband I now wear in place of my trainee tracker band tingles. I look down at the two stones fitted into the leather—blue for Asami, green for Jay—and see the blue one slowly flashing. I peep around the sculpture and look to the balcony where I know Asami is hiding. I pull my head back immediately. The figure I saw peering in through the window was definitely not Asami. I press the blue stone to let him know I’ve received his alert.
I peek through a crack between the sculpture’s woman-arm and beast-tail. The figure at the window has vanished. A moment later he steps out of a faerie path on the wall beside a painting of messy, mixed-up colors. He heads straight for a glass case with an ornately decorated egg resting on a cushion.
With two fingers, I press both stones on my wristband three times in quick succession. Jay and Asami know exactly what that means: Let’s take this guy down.
*
It isn’t difficult. There are three of us and only one of him, and even though he pulls a pretty elaborate stunt with a rope he magically attaches to the ceiling, it only takes a few minutes before we’ve got him bound and gagged and ready to haul off to the Guild. We didn’t even set off any alarms in the process. Jay and Asami take him back through the faerie paths, while I stay behind to return every item to its place in the room so the owner will never know anyone was here.
I remove the rope from the ceiling and wrap it around my arm. A few books got knocked off the tree-shaped bookcase, so I slot them back in wherever I see a space. The potted plant on the highest shelf seems to have dropped a few leaves. I spread my fingers, and the leaves float upward toward my open hands. I catch the leaves and stuff them into my pocket.
I’m about to open a doorway to the faerie paths when I notice a torn piece of paper lying at the foot of the glass separating the balcony from the room. I can’t remember if the paper was on the floor when we got here, but it seems more likely that it’s rubbish fallen from the thief’s pocket than something left by the owner of this place. He’s clearly an obsessive neat freak. I bend to pick up the paper and turn it over as I straighten. My heart jumps when I see handwriting I recognize.
Zell’s.
I wish I didn’t know the Unseelie Prince’s handwriting, but I have an image stamped quite firmly in my mind of his circular dungeon wall covered in hundreds of handwritten names. I’ll certainly never forget the shape of the letters that spelled my own name, which is how I know the same hand wrote the two sentences I see on the torn scrap of paper in my hand.
successfully stealing it, you will have proved to me that you can be trusted on the big day. And the big day is coming soon.
The big day? And that would be . . . the day Zell attempts to take the Unseelie crown for himself? The day he plans to invade the Guild? Damn, I wish I could read the rest of this note.
I push it into one of my pockets, open a doorway on the wall, and make the quick journey to the Guild. Inside the entrance, I flash my marked wrists to the night guard on duty, who quickly scans them with his stylus. Then I head straight to Councilor Starkweather’s office. The chances are high she’ll be here, given her workaholic tendencies.
I knock on her door. A moment later, I hear her voice bidding me to enter.
I explain our assignment, show her the note, and tell her why I think Zell wrote it. “Remember when Ryn and I broke into Zell’s dungeon to rescue Ryn’s sister, and I brought some pages back and gave them to you?”
“Yes,” she says slowly, crossing her arms over her chest. She wasn’t impressed that we’d broken into Zell’s home. She told us we were to forget about the whole thing.
“If you still have those pages, then you can compare them to this note. I’m almost certain the handwriting will match.”
“I shall definitely do that before we interrogate the thief who dropped this note.” She stands and heads toward her door.
“If it is Zell’s handwriting,” I say, following her, “can I question the thief?”
She opens the door and motions for me to step out ahead of her. “I don’t think that would be appropriate, Violet.” Apparently I’m no longer Miss Fairdale now that I’m not a trainee anymore.
“But we caught the thief. That was our assignment. Why wouldn’t it be appropriate for me to question him?”
The door clicks shut behind her. “Because everything to do with the Unseelie Prince forms part of a larger investigation that you’re not involved in.”
I can hear the words she isn’t saying: That investigation is too important and I’m too young and inexperienced to be trusted. I want to remind her that I’ve almost certainly come face-to-face with Zell more times than anyone else in this Guild, but I know my words won’t do any good. I stamp down my frustration. “Okay,” I say. “I understand.”
I head down a different corridor and away from her. I pat my pocket for my amber so I can check for a message from Ryn, but it seems I’ve left it at home. Idiot. I’ve been looking forward to a message from him all day, hoping that today is the day he’ll know when he can come home.
A few weeks after Honey and Asami successfully completed their final assignment in Egypt, a new uprising began. The winged pixie-type creatures that had agreed to live peacefully alongside the bronze-skinned elves decided they actually wanted the pyramids all for themselves. Big mess. So the Guild sent Ryn and his new team to deal with the unrest in as peaceful a manner as possible.
They’ve been gone two weeks.
It feels like years.
I know they’re fine because I get occasional amber messages from Ryn, but I miss him so. Freaking. Much. As much as I’d miss my limbs if they were suddenly chopped off. More, in fact. And I haven’t heard from my father since my birthday, so basically I’m back to spending my evenings out on assignment or at home with Filigree—just like I did for most of my training. The difference now is that I’m no longer happy with a lonely life.
I stop by the corridor lined with rows and rows of pigeon holes. Now that I’m a proper guardian, I have my own pigeon hole. Goodbye to the locker downstairs near the training center. I walk past the rectangular openings until I get to mine. There’s a folded paper inside with my name on it. Probably another boring memo. I head back down the corridor, unfolding the paper as I go. It only takes a few words for my feet to come to a halt.
VF,
You don’t know me, Violet, but you and I have something in common: We’re both trying to take down the Unseelie Prince Marzell. I saw you at his masquerade ball, and it has taken me until now to find out from him who you are. Five days from now, Zell will reveal to his closest followers, which includes me, his exact plans for when and how to invade the Guilds. Five days from now, I will give you that information—if you want it.
You have no reason to trust me, of course, so let me give you a reason. I overheard Zell asking his latest follower, a faerie with pyromaniac-like special abilities, to cast a raging inferno at the entrance of the Guild situated in the fae realm near London. His aim isn’t to breach the protective enchantments, but rather to let the guardians there know that no Guild is safe from his reach.
Tomorrow night you will know that I am telling the truth
.
D
What on earth? Is this a joke? I look up and down the corridor to see if anyone is watching or laughing, but I’m alone. I look back down at the generic stylus-printed type. It must be a joke; no one from the Unseelie Court would be allowed into the Guild to deliver a note—or for any other reason, obviously. But who inside the Guild knows that I was at Zell’s masquerade? I haven’t told anyone, but I suppose the people involved in investigating Zell might know by now—and I don’t know who those people are.
Maybe someone’s annoyed that I keep trying to weasel my way into that investigation and they’re trying to get me in trouble. Or make me look stupid. So . . . I’m going to do nothing about this note. If it turns out to be legitimate and there really is a fire tomorrow night, it’s not like anyone’s going to get hurt. The fire is just supposed to scare people, right?
When I get home, I place the note in the drawer beside my bed, next to the box that contains my ribbon bracelet and my tokehari ring from my father. The key necklace from my mother stays around my neck all the time, like the arrow earrings in my ears. I fetch my amber from my desk, and my heart does a happy dance when I see there’s a message from Ryn.
Finally home. Wanted to visit, but I heard you’re out tonight ridding the world of a dangerous thief. I’ll see you tomorrow, Sexy Pixie. Don’t forget to dream about me.
Hell no. I’m not waiting until tomorrow. I open a doorway and head straight to Ryn’s house, dizzy excitement setting my heart racing. He granted me access to his home so I can sneak up on him the way he likes to sneak up on me. I don’t know if he told his mother; she probably wouldn’t approve.
The faerie paths take me to his bedroom, which is in darkness except for the enchanted miniature galaxy floating near the ceiling above his desk—a present for his seventh birthday. He keeps threatening to get rid of it because, according to him, it’s childish. I think it’s beautiful.
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