by Smith, HD
I glanced at Mace. Of course, he was the one I wanted to take. Turning back to X, I was about to indicate Sorrel.
Before I had a chance, X asked, “Which is the one you trust the least?”
I tightened my jaw and was about to say Sorrel when Sage spoke.
“I’m her new favorite. She hates me the most,” Sage said.
I glared at him. He arched his right eyebrow, a wicked gleam in his eye. It was obvious to everyone in the room that he was not the one I wanted. “Sage is the one I trust the least,” I said as if X’s spell forced me to speak the truth.
“Then he is the one you can take. You have twenty-four hours. After that, I can’t guarantee anyone’s safety.”
Chapter 29
“Why did you do that?” I asked Sage once we were outside, although I already knew the answer.
He gave me a sidelong glance. “Because you were about to pick Sorrel, obviously.”
“Wonder why? Oh, that’s right. I don’t trust you.”
“I have a stake in this, too, Claire. He used me to take the locket. I want to know what happened to it and how I wound up in that damn pit.”
“Are you kidding me? Mab took it. Do you really want to go poking around that bear? This isn’t important. We don’t need the locket now.”
“You implied that Faith has the locket. She will confirm she doesn’t and X won’t give us Sydney. It is important.”
Part of me knew he was right, but we had to find Cinnamon first and locate Faith to set up the double-cross before we worried about the locket. “Look, I get it,” I said, “but we only have a day to find what we need. Can I trust you to help me and not go running off on your own fact-finding mission?”
Instead of answering me, he closed his eyes and thought of Cinnamon.
“Oh, no you don’t.” I grabbed his arm before he could blink away.
I thought of my office at the apartment and snapped a line to that location. As soon as we landed, I wrapped the room in a protection spell. I sensed him try to leave, but the spell kept him locked inside with me.
“Let me go,” he yelled.
I pushed him against the wall with my will. “You need to chill out. We need a plan and showing up wherever Cinnamon happens to be unannounced is not a good one.”
Sage struggled, but he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Especially if she’s with Gizelle,” I warned.
“You don’t know where she went,” he growled.
“I don’t know if she made it, but I do know that’s what she said as she slipped the line and her body disappeared.”
He was sullen, but he stopped fighting.
“Can I let you down now?”
“Yes,” he muttered.
I dropped my will and released him. “It’s a better plan to summon her here.”
After a moment, he nodded in agreement.
“Before we do that, however, we’re going to see where she is and what she’s doing.” I held out my hand for him to take.
He raised an eyebrow.
“I’d prefer we stick together during the jump,” I said, not completely trusting him to follow or remain in the in-between.
He took my hand. In a sarcastic tone, he asked, “Do I get a kiss too?”
I rolled my eyes at him. “Not on the first date. Now close your eyes.”
I snapped a line to Cinnamon’s location, but was surprised when we arrived outside a large cottage in Purgatory. It was dangerous for Cinnamon to have come here, but she had been looking for Gizelle.
The cottage, which at first glance appeared to be part of a larger estate, was painted white with a thatched roof and dormer windows. It was two-and-a-half stories tall with a wraparound porch on the first level. The cottage was located in the middle of a secluded clearing, but when I surveyed the grounds, there was no obvious path in or out. I was expecting a walkway that led to the rest of the estate, but it was just the dwelling in the middle of the trees.
Sage had a much more visceral reaction to the place, but when he realized I noticed, he shut it down.
“Do you know where we are?” I asked.
“We’re at the farm in Purgatory. We summered here with our mother, when we were young, of course. I haven’t been here in years.”
“Cinnamon shouldn’t have come here. If Mab discovers she’s in Purgatory—”
“Mab can’t sense us here,” Sage interrupted.
“Why not?”
“Father protects this place.”
“In Purgatory?” I questioned, not believing him.
He nodded.
I immediately thought of the map.
“What the hell?” Sage blurted as our presences lifted high above the clearing.
Looking down, I could see a clear red line around the spot where the farm was located. I raised us higher to see all of Purgatory. There were two other lines. I would have assumed they were just clusters of demons in Purgatory, but now I suspected they were also pockets hidden from Mab. I lowered us back to the farm. Was this how The Boss had hidden my mother and me all those years ago? Had he somehow tucked us away in Purgatory or Paradise?
I lowered us back to the clearing.
“A little warning next time,” Sage said, pulling his hand away.
I ignored his complaint. “Why do you call this place the farm?”
Other than the house, there wasn’t anything here. Maybe if there had been a barn or paddock or other outbuildings, I would understand, but it was just a cottage in a clearing.
“Because it’s in the woods,” he said, as if that was obvious. “How did you do that before?”
“Just one of my new tricks,” I said. “Try to keep up.”
He raised one of his eyebrows.
I headed toward the house. “Let’s find Cinnamon. Then we find the Dragon. Agreed?”
He grunted.
“And no matter what we find in there, don’t bring your body here unless I tell you to, okay?” I glanced back.
He rolled his eyes. “I know the plan.”
We found Cinnamon in the parlor with Gizelle. At first, I thought they were just sitting around having tea, but then I noticed that Gizelle was tied to her chair.
“Now, Mother,” Cinnamon said, “I’d like to believe you when you say it can’t be removed, but I don’t,” Cinnamon said in the iciest tone I’d ever heard her use.
Sage snorted. “This should be good.”
“As I told you five hours ago, dear, I didn’t realize that you were all connected to the girl. That was only meant for your brother. Unfortunately, there is no way to remove it until you have disconnected from Claire.” Gizelle’s voice was velvety sweet although I thought I could hear underlying frustration.
“Fine,” Cinnamon said. “How do I do that?”
“How were you connected to the girl in the first place?”
Cinnamon’s eyes looked toward the ceiling. She let out a long sigh and then muttered, “A kiss.”
Gizelle’s eyes widened a fraction. “Was there some reason you were kissing her?”
“We weren’t kissing. She kissed me. It had something to do with the spell Parker had me under.”
“If it was a spell from Parker, then why were your brothers affected?”
“They were connected to me at the time,” Cinnamon admitted.
“Well, you’ll all need to disconnect for it to work then. There’s no way to do it individually. Really, Cinnamon, you shouldn’t have been so careless.”
“Mother, I’m tempted to abandon you here, so please don’t aggravate me with your usual backhanded praise.”
“Cinnamon, dear, you are being so cruel to your poor mother. I have never done anything to you or the twins. Mace—”
Cinnamon raised one of her eyebrows and interrupted Gizelle. “Oh, Mother, please give it up. We were never something you wanted. Thanos has always been your only concern.”
Gizelle’s eyes narrowed. In her coldest voice, she said, “Yes, you ungrateful child. I n
eeded you to save him. Now you’ve gone and ruined it all. I’m blind now. I see nothing. So yes, I let the little Fall Queen have Mace. Why not? I have my real son back now—Mace is no longer needed. None of you are. I’ll protect Thanos by keeping him away from Claire. He won’t be at the Lux tomorrow. He will be safely at my side in Purgatory. You and your brothers can rot. I’m quite disappointed that Claire was unable to finish the job. She is such a disappointment.”
Cinnamon’s eyes turned stormy.
“Let it go,” I said to her. “Gizelle isn’t worth it. You’re better than this. We’ll figure out how to disconnect and remove the mark without her.”
The tension in Cinnamon’s shoulders eased, which was when I realized I’d used my persuasion on her in front of Sage.
“What did you do?” Sage asked.
“Hopefully, the right thing.”
Cinnamon stood, waved her hand over Gizelle, and whispered a short incantation. The ropes holding her mother to the chair disappeared. “You’re dead to me,” she said and then she disappeared.
“Where did she—” Sage asked, but stopped when Cinnamon joined us in the in-between.
“Thank you, Claire, that was actually quite refreshing. I haven’t felt this free in years.” Turning back to her mother and using the same persuasive voice I’d just used on her, she said, “You’ll do nothing to save Thanos. Now go.”
Gizelle, who was rubbing her wrists where the ropes had bitten into them, looked lost for a moment before she disappeared.
“Why did you do that?” I asked. “Thanos could die!”
“Thanos should be allowed to if that is what fate intends,” she said. Noticing Sage, she asked, “Where are Mace and Sorrel?”
I filled her in on everything that happened with X and then realized that she’d stepped into the in-between the same way Ronin did. “How did you do that?”
Cinnamon looked around as if unsure what I meant.
“How did you step into the in-between and not leave your body out there?” I nodded toward the cottage’s living room.
“Claire, this is a perfectly acceptable destination.” At my confused expression, she added, “It’s like a fold in time, a pocket.” She looked around again as if surveying a room. “It’s a bit dank, but some airing out and it could be nice.”
With an exasperated sigh, she took my hand and yanked. I felt my body leave the apartment, almost like I jumped in the air or my feet were stuck in mud and I pulled them free. Just as quickly, they were looking for a place to land. I stumbled forward, but instead of arriving in the cottage, I materialized in a small room no bigger than a large walk-in closet. The walls had a translucent shimmer, which showed the living room and Sage, but the room itself was definitely real.
“See,” she said, pulling Sage in with us. Once we were all inside the relatively small space, the translucency changed. The walls were still see-through, but more opaque, as if we were no longer in the cottage and only an echo of its impression remained.
Was this what Ronin saw? Had he been stepping into a pocket of time without knowing it? “How did you find this place?”
“I was attempting to hover in the in-between while also removing my body from X’s warehouse. At first, I thought I’d transported to Mother’s location, but she couldn’t see me. I then figured out how to manipulate the space to show itself. Quiet ingenious, really.”
I wasn’t sure if Cinnamon meant she was ingenious or the room was, but either way, this was definitely a new feature of the ability. It was possible Ronin had never realized he was stepping into the pocket and only thought he was making himself invisible.
“Now this is the best part,” Cinnamon said, stepping up to one of the semi-translucent walls.
She started gesturing on it like a giant tablet, calling up a small window and swiping through destinations—all ones I recognized. These were the lines I’d formed on previous trips, and a few, like the cottage that Cinnamon had added, were new. She tapped one of the destinations and the room switched, going almost completely translucent again so that we could see the world around us.
“Where is this?” she asked.
It was the small farmhouse in Purgatory where Ronin had taken the girl he’d rescued from the old owner of the Wild Hare last summer. The girl he’d told me to stop asking questions about. There was no one there now. The place looked abandoned.
“Just a place I’ve been, nothing special.”
Cinnamon continued scanning locations, not that there were many. She either believed me about the farmhouse or didn’t really care. “I’m calling this place the Tardis,” she said, continuing to scan the different locations.
“We’re not calling it the Tardis,” I said. Of course, if she knew what it could really do, I’d never change her mind.
“Why the hell not?” she asked.
“Copyright infringement.”
She waved her hand at me and made a dismissive sound. “It’s not like they’d ever know,” Cinnamon muttered.
“Let me do it,” Sage said, trying to push her out of the way.
Ignoring them both, I walked the room. It was maybe fifteen square feet, empty except for the interactive walls. Looking up, I noticed that the shimmery walls ended near the ceiling and the real structure around us became clear. The paint was cracked and peeling. Clearly, no one had maintained this place for years. Following the corners, I examined the other walls in the room, which was when I spotted the outline of a door.
Without thinking, I opened it.
Chapter 30
I suppose I should have thought about what I might find on the other side of a door in a fold of time that looked abandoned and old, but I really didn’t expect to find a mansion. And I definitely wouldn’t have guessed it would be filled with frozen people.
They weren’t popsicle frozen, they were more like living-wax-museum frozen. It was surreal, a three-dimensional picture of a party in full swing. Along one wall was a beautiful portrait of a family. The woman in the picture was one of the statues. Her head was thrown back in what must have been a hearty laugh. The small girl in the portrait was frozen running gleefully from the hands of her teenage brother. The man, the father in the portrait, wasn’t present in the room and neither was the eldest son: Ronin.
How had the Time King’s family been trapped here? Where was he? And why was Ronin not with them? I studied the image of his father more closely. There was something about the eyes that looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Maybe they just reminded me of Ronin.
I closed the door on the party. I was too afraid of becoming another still-life addition if I tried to enter the mansion. I found another door in the next wall, but this one was locked. Taking a step back, I found two other locked doors.
“It’s my turn,” Sage whined, reminding me I wasn’t alone. “You don’t own it.”
“No, wait. I saw something,” Cinnamon said, flipping through until she landed on the cottage we’d just left.
Faith was there. She looked different than before. Her khaki mini-skirt, white knee-length socks, red cardigan, and matching mary janes just didn’t quite fit her persona. It was tame compared to the biker leathers she’d worn in Mab’s castle and at my apartment. Her hair was still pulled back into a severe ponytail, and it really just came across as a dominatrix playing demure schoolgirl dress-up.
She was looking around the living room where Cinnamon had held Gizelle captive. She stopped to pick something up off the floor, a wicked grin crossing her face as she held a length of the rope from Gizelle’s bonds.
“Who is that?” Cinnamon asked.
“Faith,” I said, moving closer to get a better look. With a thought, the room lost most of its transparency and it appeared as it always had when I was in the in-between. I was going to like this room.
“Mab’s untouchable, girl four?” Cinnamon confirmed.
“The one and only,” I said.
“I expected her to look more badass,” she said.
; I snorted. “Yeah, this is obviously her innocent look.” I flashed Cinnamon an image of Faith in the biker-inspired getup from earlier.
“How did she find the cottage?” Cinnamon asked. “It’s very well hidden.”
I shrugged. “She can see the past of an item, and that includes people. If Gizelle went to Mab’s castle and Faith was there, she may have learned enough to find this place.”
“She can take things right out of someone’s head?” Cinnamon asked.
“As far as I know, yes.”
“And we need her,” she asked, “to trade for my brothers?”
“And Sydney, yes,” I said.
“And we need the locket,” Sage added.
I was about to correct him when Cinnamon took action.
“Okay, wait here,” she said, then disappeared from the in-between and rematerialized in the cottage.
Faith jumped back, startled.
“Shit, Cinnamon, don’t let her get close enough to touch you!” I yelled.
Faith straightened, regaining her composure. “I’m sorry, where are my manners?” She held out her hand and stepped forward as if to shake Cinnamon’s.
“Stop,” Cinnamon said, holding her hand up. She muttered something under her breath and from the in-between, there appeared to be a shimmering outline around her: a protection spell similar to what I’d used before.
Sage growled, frustrated. “Let’s just materialize and grab the little witch.”
“It’s more complicated than that,” I said. “You can’t let Faith touch you or get close enough to touch you because there are these feelers that she can send out around her.” As I described this, I wondered why I couldn’t see them with my second sight as I had in the apartment. Being in the room must be different, which made sense because I was physically here, not watching all of this with my presence. I attempted to show Sage the problem by turning on my second sight.
I blinked my eyes to see the magic that clung to her. A thin green glow still swirled around her. The tendrils licked out and touched things as they had in the apartment.
“That’s weird,” Sage said. “And I see the problem now. So what are we supposed to do?”
