by Sela Croft
Fear filled Callie’s eyes. “You mean, from the time we entered Shadowland that Seth was tracking us?”
“In any meaningful sense…yes, he was,” Morrigan said. “He needed your magic, and Rosamon’s, if he had any hope of escape.”
“And we fell for it,” Rosamon said. “We did everything he wanted us to.”
“It appears that is true.” Morrigan said. “And it’s spinetingling to realize that this hologram is another part of his scheme. I just haven’t figured out yet what its purpose is.”
“We must break this spell,” Rosamon said. “I insist. It’s dangerous to allow Seth to have his way.”
Callie stared at the image of their mother. “I agree, but I don’t think that Rosamon and I are strong enough to undo this. It was created by someone much more powerful that we are.” She looked up. “You must help us, Morrigan. You are a sorceress with more practice and experience.”
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Morrigan said. “I agreed to come with you and do what I could. But this might be over the limit. Undoing the spell of an evil sorcerer can have consequences, especially for the one bold enough to do the deed.”
“You must,” Callie said. “We have no one else to ask.”
“Please,” Rosamon said.
Morrigan hesitated for a beat, then said, “I just know that I’m going to regret this.”
Given the power of sorcery required to create the image, and more significantly, hold it in place for over a decade, I was prepared for anything. Morrigan was about to undo the spell, if she could. Yet I had no idea what would happen, as a result.
For what seemed like an eternity, Morrigan appeared unaware of the rest of us. She stood before the image of Sadie and focused. Her dark eyes turned black and she was lost to some other plane of existence. Whispers of words that I didn’t understand came from her lips.
Morrigan moved her hands in a controlled matter, while looking at the ceiling. Her body vibrated then she gasped. The image of Sadie vanished, as though it hadn’t been there.
Callie and Rosamon stared at empty air, as did the rest of us. I waited for the cottage to shake or gloom to descend, but it didn’t. Yet there was a difference. Dust was noticeable on the furniture and the air around us stirred with life.
The house was unfrozen in time and was back to normal, or as close to that as one could expect.
“Even though she wasn’t real, I feel the loss,” Callie said. “Looking at her reminded me of my real mother. It touched my heart just to see an image of her like that.”
“It looked so real,” Rosamon said.
“It’s probably better that it was only pretend,” Callie said. “How would we ever explain everything? There would be no way to do so. But…if we had found her alive…”
“It does no good to think of that,” Natasha said. “If anything, the hologram stirred sadness within you. That would be bad enough, but I fear that is more to it than that.”
“I haven’t argued against fate before,” Noah said. “I can’t refute that life leads each of us on a path. Yet we do make choices and have the freedom to make them. What I refuse to accept is that an evil sorcerer is guiding destiny, like a cruel puppeteer pulling the strings.”
“Then we need to stop him,” I said. “That is why we are here. I’ve had enough also. Seth’s games are too much. He behaves as though he is a god. When if anything, he’s a devil.”
“You don’t suppose…” Callie hesitated.
“Don’t suppose what?” Rosamon said.
Callie’s eyes widened with horror, as she wrapped her arms around her waist. “You don’t suppose that Seth caused that car crash, do you? I mean…maybe Sadie had caught on and was aware of stuff he’d been doing.”
“Oh my God,” Rosamon said. “I saw images in my reverie. She was packing a suitcase. She was going to take us somewhere. Our mother told us that we had to get away, that she’d discovered something…horrible.” She paused. “That was it. She knew, so Seth couldn’t allow her to live.”
“That would have been his undoing,” Callie said. “He…might have murdered our parents.” She dug her hand in her hair. “I…I’m almost sure that he did. And I helped him escape.”
I put my arms around Callie, not quite knowing how to soothe her distress. There was no way to argue against the theory, since it was probably what had really happened.
Chapter 12
Logan
“There is one good reason for placing that image of Sadie in this cottage,” Morrigan said. “If I think like Seth did, her image served the purpose of pulling you into this home.”
“Did you sense any magic besides Seth’s?” Natasha said.
“Funny you should mention that,” Morrigan said. “I’m guessing that you picked it up too. There is some magical quality connected to Sadie.”
“What sort of quality?” Rosamon said then glanced at her sister.
“The image held a feeling of the real Sadie, and she was mostly human, from what I could tell,” Morrigan said. “But even a human who is exposed to magic will pick up a magical aura.”
Rosamon sat in the chair where her mother had been moments before. “Do you suppose we inherited some magic from our mother, and not just the sorcerer blood from Seth?”
“It does make me wonder about Sadie’s heritage,” Morrigan said. “But there is no way to know. Right now, that information isn’t accessible to me.”
“While we have the chance, let’s look around,” I said. “Whatever we can learn will help us.” Then I took Callie’s hand and headed in a different direction than the others. By splitting up, we could cover more territory.
“Are you okay?” I said to Callie. All that had transpired must have been a lot to take in, and I was concerned about her. I loved her and if I could have saved her from all of that, I would have. But there was no way to go but forward.
Callie shook her head. “It’s a lot to deal with, but I’m holding up pretty well. I do miss my mother. I guess I always will.”
I embraced Callie, holding her close to let her know she wasn’t alone. Then I kissed her tenderly on the lips. “Of course, you’ll always love her and miss her. I can’t imagine it any other way.”
“I just want to tackle Seth and keep him from any doing any more damage,” Callie said. “He’s done enough, and he can’t be allowed to get away with it.”
I was sure she was referring to Seth killing her parents. And that wasn’t the only crime he was guilty of. “We will stop him.”
Callie guided me to a library room with book-lined shelves. She rummaged around, pulling out a few books that were familiar. I scanned the room and probed in drawers looking for clues.
I didn’t spot anything unusual until I opened the bottom desk drawer. At first, it appeared to be a box of old Christmas cards, items that I supposed humans kept for sentimental reasons. But slipped between the cards were handwritten notes that didn’t seem to have anything to do with the holiday.
“Is this your mother’s handwriting?”
Callie put down the book she’d been holding. “What? Let me see.”
I handed over a few of the sheets of paper, then waited while Callie perused them. She appeared overly interested in the contents. “These are like parts of a journal.”
“What does it mean? Is it helpful?”
Callie continued to read. “These are notes my mother made about what had been happening.” Tears formed in her eyes. “She was scared. I can tell. She’s writing about Bram acting strangely, as if he’d been taken over by an evil spirit.”
Callie looked up at me, then back at the notes. “She feared that no one would believe her, that anyone she told would think she was crazy.” She sighed. “My mother was aware of bad things. She wanted to keep us safe but wasn’t sure how to do that.”
“Is there anything that gives us insight into Seth’s mind, what he was thinking or planning?”
“I’m looking. I’m trying to find something. She wa
s worried and thought that my father Bramwell wasn’t a hundred percent human.” Callie looked at me. “She wasn’t entirely wrong there. Seth was controlling him, so she could tell something was off.”
“Did she say what? Or did she have an idea of what Seth was after?”
“It doesn’t seem like she knew about Seth,” Callie said. “She keeps referring to Bram, so I think she was just confused.”
“Well, there must be something in this house that will shed light on Seth’s intention,” I said. “His signature is all over this place. He couldn’t be any more present, if he was haunting this house.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“We should be terrified,” I said. “Because we have yet to get a grip on what’s happening. I feel like we are walking along a path that Seth designed for us. And I don’t like it at all.”
In the middle of our search of the library, Noah shouted from another room. “Logan, you have to see this!”
His voice had come from the back of the house, so I went that direction with Callie. Upon entering, I understood why Noah had called me to that room.
We walked around the room, semi dazed. It was filled with mirrors, just like Seth had used from his cage in the prison. Each one portrayed a different scene, changing and moving like a movie. Only the scenes weren’t movies, or of anything that had already happened.
My spine tingled as I looked at the mirrors, one by one. Each mirror served as a window to a different location, including the Fae lands. And the things I was witnessing that very moment, the horrors that were occurring as I watched made me ill.
If the mirrors were showing current events, as I was certain they were, the situation was worse than imagined. Seth was wielding his evil, even as we investigated the cottage and were distracted by his tricks.
But the mirrors were not the same as any I’d seen before. There was a major difference. And the room was unique also. Noah looked at me, and I knew that he was aware of the same thing that I was.
“What is it?” Callie said with wild eyes. “Why are all these mirrors here?” She looked at me, then at Noah. “Say something…you’re scaring me.”
What could I say to her? Anything I said wouldn’t make her feel any better. It would only make her feel worse. Her fear would escalate to terror, as mine already had.
It was impossible to believe, yet indisputable.
The room had been completely transformed into a war room. It was bone chilling. The set up was far more military than the room of mirrors we’d been in before. And it was much more dangerous.
The most electrifying part was that Seth had arranged this long ago. I suspected that he’d erected his secret war room over a decade ago when he’d created Sadie’s hologram.
Seth had known that his daughters would return to their childhood home, even willed it. He’d planned for them to see Sadie. And he’d predestined that they would arrive in this very war room. That could only mean that something horrible wasn’t far off.
Chapter 13
Callie
The look on Logan’s face alarmed me, so I needed to understand what was going on. “What does this mean? Why is this room full of mirrors?”
“This was Seth’s room and he arranged these mirrors, so he could monitor our realms.” Logan turned toward Noah, who said, “Yes, it’s bad.”
“Bad can mean many things,” I said. “You have to be more specific.”
Noah motioned toward a mirror. “Like this one, for example. The images are in real time. It’s what is happening right now at the central office in Shadowland.”
“But that’s not possible,” I said. “There is a wall between the realms and Seth is on the other side.”
“Physically, he is. But we all know that his powers aren’t confined to space,” Noah said. “I mean, look at what he achieved from his gilded cage.”
My mind reeled at the possibilities. “So, from here Seth could view…anything he wants?” My mind reeled at the possibilities.
“It appears so,” Noah said then glanced at my hands. “What do you have there? Are those papers about Seth?”
In the excitement, I’d forgotten that I was still holding my mother’s notes. “Logan found these in the library. My mother had hidden them; she’d placed them among holiday cards. It was clever of her to pick a place where Seth was unlikely to look.”
Noah smirked. “Yeah, he doesn’t seem like a holiday-cheer type of guy.” He walked over to me. “What do they say? Anything important?”
“You could say that. The last note I read talks about how my parents fought over his magic,” I said. “She didn’t know about Seth. She just thought that Bramwell was possessed and doing weird things. It frightened her, especially since she had small children.”
“Looks like you’ve got quite a pile of notes there,” Noah said. “You should show Rosamon. Maybe she’ll recall something helpful.”
“And we need to tell the others about this room,” Logan said.
We found the others down the hall in my parents’ room, looking for clues. I went over to my sister and held out the notes. “Take a look at these.”
The others crowded around, while Rosamon scanned the notes. Her eyes grew moist. “Our mother went through so much. She tried to protect us. No doubt she was arguing with our father, pleading with him to stop using magic, when…”
My throat locked up and I was unable to speak. I’d thought the same thing. The argument had distracted Bramwell and caused the accident. It had been Seth’s fault, whether he’d pushed the car into that tree or not.
Noah put his arm around Rosamon. “There’s something else we have to show you.” He glanced around at the others. “And the rest of you too.” He led us back to the room of mirrors then stood back while everyone looked around.
“This is a sign that Seth left more magic here,” Morrigan said. “These mirrors are functional. What we see is going on, right this moment.”
Amalia stood before a mirror depicting the horrors occurring in her Fae kingdom. She gasped then put her hand over her mouth. “This is awful. It’s gotten worse since I left.”
I glanced at my sister and saw terror in her eyes. “I know the power of these mirrors,” she said. “I witnessed Seth using them in prison. He doesn’t have to be in a room to operate them, or to act on what he sees.”
It made me shudder to think of his capabilities. His ability was such that he could wield magic from great distances. That meant there was no way to tell when his influence was present. He was like an evil-sorcerer ghost.
Morrigan and Natasha seemed more interested than upset. I watched as they walked the length of the room, studying the mirrors.
“This is curious,” Morrigan said. With her long fingers she pointed out a couple of mirrors that were side by side. “These have slightly different views.” She looked closer. “They are two-way.”
“Seth can see in here?” Natasha said.
“I imagine so, but I assume he is otherwise occupied.” Morrigan waved her hand at the other mirrors, indicating the chaos within the Fae realm.
Natasha peered into the glass of one of the mirrors. “Then what did he use them for?”
“I think we’ve just discovered how Seth managed to see into the human realm and control events from the Fae prison.” She looked deep into one of the mirrors, as if reading its purpose. “He must have used a mirror like this to transfer his power.”
Morrigan glanced at me. “That’s how he possessed Bramwell and transferred his sorcerer essence to you and your sister.” She stood back from the mirror. “It’s just a supposition, of course.”
“I agree,” Natasha said. “The mirror has a threatening feel to it, and I recognize Seth’s imprint. It’s as though his presence lingers. Whereas the other mirrors are more for viewing.”
Rosamon appeared stunned. “Our mother had no chance. She tried to stand up to him, but he was too powerful.”
“And his power still extends to this room,” Morrigan sai
d. “There is a reason he doesn’t mind that we’ve found the mirrors. I think he wanted us to. But it might mean he has no further use for them, as he must realize that I could destroy them.”
Amalia moved closer to the special mirrors. “If he has no further use for these, that can only mean he has a more advantageous way of wielding his evil.” She took a breath. “I fear for all of us. We are here…just as he anticipated.”
“Which means,” Natasha said, “that we are following a path that he laid out. We are pawns in his game.”
Chapter 14
Callie
Morrigan’s dark sorceress eyes gleamed. “We are pawns, unless we turn the tables on dear unsuspecting Seth.”
Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on me. “How would we do that?”
“I’m suggesting that we use the mirrors for our own purposes.” Morrigan stood tall and squared her shoulders. Her long hair fell to her waist and her black garb was foreboding. Deep in her eyes, I saw conviction. She was every bit the powerful sorceress I’d known her to be, and from the looks of her, she intended to be a worthy opponent for Seth.
“I think Seth messed with the wrong enemy,” I said, beaming at Morrigan. “Do you really think we can do that?”
“I think there might be a way,” Morrigan said. “Especially, since Seth is concentrating elsewhere.”
“With all the disruption in my kingdom,” Amalia said, “he won’t be paying attention to what we do here.”
Natasha nodded. “We can count on that, partly because of his arrogance. He’s not likely to be worried about what happens in this cottage. He’s probably confident that he has this covered.”
Noah and Rosamon didn’t voice any disagreement, but Logan held up his hand. “Just wait a minute. I’m not so certain we can take control, given the power Seth has access to.”
“We cannot let that derail us,” Morrigan said. “I can guide our progress.” She looked around. “What do the rest of you think?”
