“She should tell you anyway,” says Flint, dropping his empty blossoms back on the tray. “My mentor told me back when I finished training, and you and Tora are practically family. It should be a crime for her to keep information like that from you.”
It’s true. We are like family. I lived with Tora for almost a year after my father died. I had no other relatives in Creepy Hollow, and Tora didn’t want me to be alone. It was strange at first, living with my mentor, but we’re so close in age she ended up feeling more like a bossy older sister.
Suddenly, I remember where I’ve seen the griffin symbol: in Tora’s library. The library I spent hours studying in while I lived here.
“Actually, Flint, it’s a crime for me to share information like that,” says Tora from the kitchen doorway. “Something your sleazy mentor knew.”
Flint looks like he’s about to protest at the word ‘sleazy’, but I interrupt. “I’m just going to use the bathing room.”
They barely notice as I leave the room. I hurry to the library and close the door behind me. The walls are covered with books from floor to ceiling, but the one I’m looking for should be near the desk. A shelf I could have easily stared at when I should have been studying.
I scan the spines of the books—and there it is! The griffin with the serpent tail that curls up and forms a circle around the legendary creature. I pull it from the shelf, blowing a rainbow-colored cobweb off the top. The A to Z of Halflings Throughout History. It sounds almost like a children’s book. Sitting down at the desk, I flip the book open. The symbol must be mentioned inside if it’s important enough to be on the cover. I turn to the contents page. Yes! I silently thank the genius who laid this book out. The contents page has a list of names, in alphabetical order, and beside each name is a picture. I search for the griffin and find it beside the name Tharros Mizreth.
I know that name. Everyone does. But my fumbling fingers turn to the relevant page anyway.
Possibly the most dangerous of all halflings in the history of the fae, Tharros Mizreth possessed power unequaled by anyone both before and since his time. While many halflings are unable to control their magic, Tharros had complete command of his abilities from an early age. His greatest desire was for the fae realm to no longer be hidden, and his attempts to control parts of both the human and fae worlds resulted in the death of many.
He chose for himself the image of a griffin, traditionally a symbol of power and majesty, adding to it a serpent in the place of the griffin’s tail. While expert opinions differ as to the meaning of the serpent, the most popular interpretation involves the snake that Tharros conjured to kill his human father.
Tharros was born and raised in the fae realm in—
CHAPTER EIGHT
I close the book and lean back in the chair. I know most of Tharros’s life story from history lessons I had to sit through when I was younger, but I’ve never heard about the griffin symbol or the snake that killed Tharros’s father. I pull the disc out of my pocket and trace my fingers across the pattern. This is a symbol of the most dangerous halfling our world has ever known. How on earth did Angelica end up with it? Could she possibly be related to him? Half of his family tree would be human, after all.
I stand and return the book to its shelf. I run both hands through my hair, then lean on the desk. Perhaps it’s a bad idea to go looking for Angelica. If some Underground faerie—okay, so I’m not a hundred percent sure, but Zell seems like the Underground type—is after her, she’s probably mixed up in something dangerous.
“Vi?” I look up to see Raven standing in the doorway. I didn’t even hear the door open. “Vi, honey,” she says warily, as though talking to a dangerous animal. “What are you doing in here? We were getting worried about you.”
“Um, I just . . .” Crap. I just what? “I . . . I started getting upset. About the suspension. And I needed a few moments to gather myself.” Gather myself? Who says that?
“Okay, well, are you sufficiently gathered? Because dinner’s ready.”
“Yes. Coming.” I slip the disc back into my pocket. I point a finger at the glass ball suspended from the ceiling, but instead of simply extinguishing the flame within it, I manage to explode the whole thing.
“Um . . . oops?” I say.
“Okay, let’s not tell Tora about that,” says Raven, pulling me out of the room before I can cause any more damage. “I’ll fix it later.”
I follow her to the table where Tora and Flint are waiting. I sit down and look at my plate. There are many things Tora is good at; sadly, preparing food is not one of them. Fortunately, I’m too preoccupied with what I’ve just discovered about the disc to really notice the charred flavor of the food.
I make it all the way to dessert—which, thankfully, is a mound of recognizable fruit—before Tora drags me into the conversation. “So, Vi. Flint shared an interesting piece of information with me earlier.” I stare blankly at her. “An interesting piece of information involving a certain human boy,” she adds.
My barely civil conversation with Ryn comes flooding to the forefront of my mind. “You’re not the only one Flint shared that information with,” I grumble. Flint looks up and meets my glare. “Since when do you gossip with Ryn?” I ask.
Flint chews and swallows. “Ryn? That boy you’ve been feuding with forever?”
“It’s not a feud, Flint. It’s a mutual dislike.” I separate the blood red segments of a citrullamyn. “A very intense mutual dislike.”
Raven turns to her husband. “And you told this boy that Vi kissed her assignment?” she demands.
“Of course not,” says Flint. Raven crosses her arms, and he adds, “I swear!”
“Ryn must have overheard,” says Tora. “I remember him coming out of Bran’s office while you and I were talking.”
“Great. Thanks a lot, guys.” I stab a segment with my knife. “Ryn’s never going to let me live this down.”
“I think it’s sweet, actually,” says Raven. “The kiss, not the gossip. Was it your first, Vi?”
“I don’t think it counts when you’re six years old, so yes.”
Raven sighs and puts a hand to her chest. “How tragic that you had to make him forget.”
“Did Flint not tell you the part where I shoved him halfway across the garden?” I ask, trying to force down the guilt that rises like bile in my throat.
“Honestly, Vi, is there not a single romantic bone in your body?” asks Raven.
“I guess not,” I lie, popping a piece of the dripping red citrullamyn into my mouth. Please, please stop talking about this.
“Well, if it had been me,” continues Raven, “I might have been tempted to throw that Forget potion away and fling myself right back at that boy. I mean, a first kiss is something special.”
Flint leans one elbow on the table and stares at his wife. “Since when do you have fantasies of flinging yourself at human boys?”
“They’re not fantasies, dear. I’m just saying that if—”
“Vi would never do that,” Tora says, interrupting them both. “She’s far too committed to her training. She wouldn’t risk everything she’s worked so hard for over a mere boy.”
“And I wonder who she learned that from,” says Flint. “Could it possibly be her work-obsessed mentor who hasn’t given any faerie of the opposite sex a second look since she finished her own training?”
Tora protests loudly, but I’ve stopped listening. She’s right. What am I doing with Nate? Seriously. What. Am. I. Doing? Is he really worth the risk I’m taking? Why do I even like him? Sure, he’s good-looking, but then so is Ryn, and there’s nothing on this earth that could make me want to date him. Nate has a sense of humor; he makes me laugh; he’s interested in my life. But I could probably say the same thing about hundreds of human boys. If Nate hadn’t kissed me, if he’d been happy to say goodbye, would I ever have missed him?
I look over the table at the curling black lines tattooed across both of Tora’s wrists. The markings tha
t identify her as a guardian. I’m so close to receiving markings of my own, but if the Guild finds out that I’m consistently disobeying them, I’m pretty sure I can kiss those markings goodbye. What will I have left if I’m not allowed to be a guardian? I’ll have Nate, but for how long?
As I lick my fingers clean, I come to a decision. I’ll go to Nate tonight, before I have a chance to change my mind, and tell him I can’t see him anymore. I won’t give him the potion—it seems wrong somehow to take his memories from him—but after tonight I won’t go back to see him again. And I won’t try to find Angelica.
A small ache settles in my chest. This sucks, but I can do it. I’ve survived far worse.
“Violet?”
I look up, unsure how long Raven has been trying to get my attention. “Yes?”
“What do you plan to do with your week off?”
“Uh, sit at home and repent my wicked ways?”
“Yeah, right,” says Flint, laughing. “You probably have a private training center set up in your home. I doubt you’ll rest for a second.”
I throw a blueberry at him. “Perhaps I will rest, Flint. I haven’t done that since I began my training five years ago.”
Both Flint and Raven’s mouths drop open. “Okay, you definitely need a break, honey,” says Raven.
*
I pace from one side of my bedroom to the other, trying to work up the courage to go to Nate’s. I wipe my sweaty palms against my pants. This is ridiculous. I always knew getting involved with boys was a bad idea. I scoop my hair up with one hand and fan my sweaty neck with the other.
Just get it over with. If you don’t do it soon, he’ll be asleep.
Filigree squeaks from my bed, and I look over to find him clutching a silver ribbon in his squirrel paw. He holds it out to me. “Thanks, Fili.” I tie the ribbon around my hair to keep it off my neck. “Okay. I’m doing this.” I snatch up my stylus and hold it against the wall with shaking fingers. Shaking fingers? When do my fingers ever shake? I definitely need to get this over with.
I step through the doorway of the faerie path into Nate’s bedroom. The lamp beside his bed is on, and images flicker soundlessly across the TV in his sitting area. A strip of light is visible from the bathroom, the door held ajar by a running shoe. I can hear an electric toothbrush buzzing like a giant insect.
I perch on the edge of the couch and wait for Nate. The buzzing stops, water runs, the bathroom door swings open, and Nate walks out. He’s toweling his damp hair and wearing nothing but a pair of boxers.
Crap. I should have left this for a more appropriately clothed time of day.
I stand. My eyes are glued to his bare chest, which is absurd considering the large number of bare chests I’ve seen during training. Male faeries seem to like sparring without their shirts on.
But this is different. Faerie skin is pale, whereas Nate’s is golden brown, as though he spends his spare time in the sun. My eyes brush over the slight ridges of his stomach, the V-shaped indentation that runs from his hips down toward—
Stop stop STOP! Do not let your mind go there!
“Vi!” Nate tosses the towel onto his bed and walks toward me. “This is a surprise.”
“Um, yes.” I press my hands to my burning cheeks and force my eyes down to the floor. I clear my throat and take a step backward. “Yes. We need to talk.”
“Uh, okay.”
I swallow uncomfortably as I meet his gaze. “Look, Nate, this isn’t going to—”
“Wait.” He holds a hand up. “I know what you’re going to say.”
“I doubt it,” I mutter.
“I’m not stupid, Vi,” he says. “I was there when your mentor spoke about the laws you’d broken. I remember her saying how serious it was. She told you to bring me back home, but I don’t think continuing to visit me was part of the deal. And you didn’t say a word yesterday when I mentioned meeting your friends.” He steps closer. “I know you’re breaking the rules to come and see me, Vi. And you’re obviously terrified that someone will find out and you’ll be in even worse trouble this time. That’s what you came to say, right? That you can’t see me anymore because it isn’t allowed?”
I look down at my feet, press my lips together, and nod. Looks like I didn’t have to worry about what I was going to say; Nate said it all for me.
“Please don’t do that, Vi.” He grips my shoulders. “Please. I know it’s a risk for you, but who am I going to tell? As long as you don’t mention it to anyone, and you’re careful about coming to visit me, how will anyone find out?”
I look up into his eyes. Warm, pleading, beautiful. I feel my resolve begin to slip. “But . . . being a guardian is all I have, Nate. I can’t lose that. I’ll have nothing left.”
“That’s not true anymore,” he whispers, leaning forward to touch his forehead to mine. “You have me now.”
My throat aches. “For how long, Nate? My life is measured in centuries. Yours . . . yours will be over just as I’ve begun to live mine.”
Nate’s grip on my shoulders tightens. “We still have many years before we have to worry about that.”
Easy for him to say. I’ve lost my mother, my father, and the three best friends I had when I was younger. I don’t want to go through that kind of pain again. I watch my hands come up to rest against his chest. I close my eyes. His heart pulses beneath my fingertips, and I can’t help feeling that I want to stand here like this forever.
I snatch my hands away and step out of his embrace. I point at his closet. “I’m not discussing anything more until you put a shirt on.”
A grin creeps over Nate’s face, but he grabs a T-shirt from a drawer and pulls it over his head. He returns to the sitting area and takes both my hands. “Don’t think about something that will happen far in the future,” he says. “What do you want now? If you want to be a guardian and have me, then why should you have to choose?”
I bite my lip. It’s hard to say no to Nate, even when he’s wearing a shirt. I should have made him cover his face too. “I don’t know, Nate.”
His expression changes then, becoming more guarded. “Unless, of course, this is actually about me,” he says, “not the rules. I mean, I’d understand if, you know, you don’t feel the same way about me as I do about—”
“No,” I insist, before I can decide whether that’s true or not. “I . . . I don’t want to get hurt,” I admit in a tiny voice.
Nate pulls me closer, his arms encircling me. “I swear I’ll never hurt you,” he says, and presses a kiss to my forehead. “Besides, you have super gymnastic-like attack skills. I’d be an idiot to try and hurt you.”
“You know that’s not the kind of hurt I’m talking about,” I say. “But, yeah. I could totally take you out.”
“Aha, a smile!” says Nate in triumph. “Does that mean I’ve convinced you?” I look down at my feet. “Okay, let’s compromise,” he says before I can answer. “How about we find my mother first, and then you decide about us?”
After taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, I give in. What could be the harm in letting this last a little longer? It’s not as though I love him yet. “Okay.”
“Yes! Can we go now?”
“Now? Don’t you think it’s a little late, Nate? Wherever your mother is, she’s probably asleep.”
Nate leans forward and kisses my neck. “Please,” he whispers in my ear. His arms drop away from me, and he steps back. “I’ll take my shirt off again,” he teases. With a flick of my hand, I send a cushion sailing through the air and into the side of his head. “Hey, no attacking with magic!” he protests, trying to beat the cushion away.
“Fine,” I say, laughing as I let the cushion drop to the floor. “We can go now.”
“Awesome. There’s the book.” He points to his desk, then crosses to his closet and grabs a pair of jeans. I lift the book’s cover and run my finger across Angelica’s neat handwriting. I’m still aware of the possibility that she may be involved in something dangerou
s, but if things get dodgy I can open a doorway and bring us straight home.
Nate tugs a pair of running shoes on, ties the laces, and pushes his arms into the sleeves of a jacket. “Okay. Let’s do this.”
CHAPTER NINE
I sit down on Nate’s floor, loosely holding Angelica’s book in both hands. “So how does this work?” asks Nate. He sits down in front of me. “Do GPS coordinates pop into your head?”
“I don’t know what that means, but no.” I drum my fingers across the cover of the book. “Because this book belonged to Angelica, I can use it to connect to her. Once I have that connection, I can sort of . . . see everything she sees. As though I’m inside her head. And with that connection comes a vague sense of her location.”
“What do you mean by vague?”
“Well, when we come out of the faerie paths we shouldn’t be more than half a mile from wherever she is.”
Nate frowns. “Half a mile is a considerable distance.”
“And then I can connect to her again to get closer,” I explain. “Look, if Angelica were down the road from us, I could pinpoint her exact location, but the further away she is, the harder it is to find her.”
“Okay, okay,” says Nate. “I guess it’s not an exact science, huh?”
“Nope.” I close my eyes and grip the book. “It’s got nothing to do with science.”
I breathe deeply and extend my mind, searching for the owner of the book. I imagine myself soaring across a great distance, my thoughts brushing minds along the way like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower. When I find the one I’m searching for I feel myself sucked in. I open my eyes and see through hers. A large chamber, lavishly decorated with wall hangings, shadowy at the edges because I can never see properly through other people’s eyes. She looks down at the page in front of her, folds it, and smoothes her fingers across the crease.
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