Broken Fae

by Caroline Peckham

  My heart pounded like crazy as I waited for Rosa to say something and she finally called out, "Got it!"

  A breath swept from my lungs and we hurried back to the vent waiting for her as she shuffled back through it. It was taking a lot longer than I’d hoped and I kept throwing glances down the hall even though I knew my wards were intact.

  Come on, come on.

  Tension was taking the place of the thrill of the heist. This was the most risky part. Once that spyglass was in our grip, we had to get back off of the Acrux grounds and stardust to Dante's. Then and only then would I celebrate. And fuck would I celebrate. I was going to fetch Elise and have the mother of all threeways with Dante while I wore every item of jewellery and even that damn clock I'd stolen from the Dragon Lord and laugh my fucking head off while I buried myself in my girl and Dante cheered me on. Ah, bliss. But not yet.

  Roary held his arms out for Rosa as she appeared above us and she dropped out of the shaft. He caught her by the waist and planted her on her feet, grinning at her. “Not bad, little pup.”

  “You shouldn’t have doubted me, Lion boy.” She tossed the spyglass to me with a wink and I looked down at the dark metal object with a shiver running through me before I tucked it into my pocket.

  My Atlas buzzed and I took it out, my gut tightening like a vice as I read Dante's message.

  Dante:

  Lionel is heading upstairs. If you’re not gone yet, move!

  "Go," I hissed at the others, raising a hand and disabling the wards at the ends of the corridor. Roary pushed the vent hatch back into place and we all sprinted down the hall at a fierce pace.

  I sped around the corner and slammed straight into a butler with a tray of drinks in his hand as he stepped out of a hidden passage in the wall. I fell down on top of him as he yelled in fear and panic ripped through me. He threw out a hand and Roary stamped down on his wrist, but it was too late. A flash of magic sparked from his fingers.

  The alarm blared out like a siren in my ears and I punched the asshole butler in the face before scrambling to my feet. Roary had his hand locked around Rosa's as we raced down corridor after corridor, my heart jamming into my throat. We had fifty three seconds before the FIB arrived. That was it. We had to get the fuck out of this house – now.

  As we made it to the passage that led to the room we'd come in by, I slammed into a solid ward which must have been triggered by the alarm.

  "Fuck!" I stumbled back, my nose bloody and aching before I quickly healed it.

  I wheeled around, racing after Roary and Rosa as they shoved through a door and we found ourselves on a long balcony above a stairway that led down into the main entrance hall. The quickest way out now was that fucking door, but it was no doubt locked up tight since the alarm had been triggered.

  "Roary," I hissed, pointing to a skylight above us just as the thunder of footsteps sounded downstairs. I cast shadow around us to try and keep us hidden, but the front door was suddenly thrown open.

  FIB agents poured into the hall and my heart collided with my fucking lungs. Lionel Acrux appeared in a suit, running towards them shouting something my ears wouldn’t decipher. We had seconds before they spotted the unnatural shadow right where we were standing. I could do fuck all to stop it.

  Roary extended his silencing bubble and threw a powerful blast of water at the skylight above us that shattered it to pieces. In the same breath, he cast a staircase of ice right up to it and shoved Rosa ahead before pushing me up next. I sped up the stairs as shouts of rage came from below. I dove onto the roof, twisting around and yanking Roary up after me just as a huge fireball tore through the ice stairway and blasted a massive hole in the roof as we leapt away from it.

  “Stop this instant!” Lionel boomed and my blood chilled. How had this gone so fucking wrong?

  Roary froze over the gap where the window had been and we all tore across the roof, hunting for a way down. An FIB asshole in a black jumpsuit rose up beyond the manor on a gust of air, raising her hands as she spotted us. “This is the FIB, stop where you are and put your hands where I can see them!”

  I sent a rogue fireball flying her way and she blasted a hurricane of air down on our heads in retaliation. I was thrown backwards onto the roof and the breath was forced from my lungs as I tumbled down a slanted slope of tiles. A scream caught my ear as I managed to stop myself from falling and I pushed up onto my knees as my mind spun with the descending chaos. Terror wound through to my core as Rosa was blown clean from the roof by the agent’s power, falling down into a courtyard and splashing right into a swimming pool at the heart of it.

  "Rosa!" Roary bellowed from near where she'd fallen, a wall of ice beside him defending him from the force of the wind.

  I growled under my breath as I pushed to my feet, clawing my way back up the roof and sending as much fire from my body as Faely possible toward that bitch. The agent was forced to take cover, dropping out of sight but my heart shuddered in my chest as a huge, terrifying Dragon roar came from somewhere below.

  "Get out of here! I'll get Rosa!" Roary commanded me.

  I hesitated to obey, but his eyes blazed with the demand and I looked to the sky as a huge jade Dragon climbed up into it. Lionel Acrux was the biggest damn Dragon I’d ever seen, his eyes bright green and murderous, his scales glinting like an oil spill. And holy fucking Dragon balls, he was going to kill me, Roary and Rosa if I didn’t do something.

  As he set his gaze on Roary, a growl ripped through my throat. I'd cover for them, draw that asshole away and give them the best chance possible of surviving this night. I pulled up my hood and cast a shadow over my face to conceal my identity as best as possible and set him in my sights.

  I sent a fireball directly at that scaly bastard with a shout of effort and he roared his fury as he dove towards me. I stood up and raced for the end of the roof as he unleashed a blaze of hellfire behind me, the heat of it scorching my back as it grew closer and closer.

  I dove from the edge of the roof with nothing but a prayer to the stars to catch me as I freefell through the air and slammed into a tree. I hit branch after branch, my ribs cracking as I scrambled to try and slow my descent.

  I grabbed onto one at last but the whole canopy went up in blazing flames as Lionel tried to incinerate the fuck out of me.

  I focused my magic on creating an illusion as I hit the ground beneath the tree, knowing I only had seconds before the inferno devoured me. The heat of a thousand suns was closing in on my head and it didn't matter if my veins thrived on fire, I couldn't survive the fury of a Dragon.

  The illusion burst away from me, a replica of myself racing across the lawn at high speed. Lionel took the bait, soaring after it, but it would only buy me a few seconds. I had to run. And fucking fast.

  I tore away in the opposite direction, dragging shadows close enough to nearly blind me as I hid myself within the concealment spell. But Lionel would see me if he looked hard enough, the moving shadow too unnatural to give me cover for long. And he'd be looking alright, fucking hunting me down like a pig he wanted to roast and eat in one bite.

  My limbs ached from my fall and I clutched my ribs to heal them as blood dripped down into my left eye from a cut on my brow. Lionel roared to the heavens as he discovered the truth of my illusion and I cursed between my teeth. I glanced over my shoulder, desperately hoping that Roary and Rosa were making their escape. I couldn't let that monstrous fire-breathing bastard turn his gaze their way wherever they were. So I sucked in a deep breath and fought against every instinct in my body before releasing the shadow veil I'd created and letting him see me. Making him follow.

  He roared so loud, it nearly burst my eardrums apart and I ran with all the power my body had to give as I made a beeline for the trees where Dante had broken the wards. Where I could get away. But what about my brother? What about Rosa?

  Lionel’s wing beats sounded up in the sky and I didn't dare look behind me to see how close he was as I made it to the treeline, but a heartbe
at later the whole forest was ablaze. Terror coursed down my spine as I ran for my life, my heart thundering, sweat lacing my flesh. I didn't even bother to return fire as I did nothing but try and make it to that boundary. But then I thought of the others and knew I couldn't just leave them here. I needed to give them a chance to get out. And as I spotted a hollow in a tree up ahead, I had to fucking pray they were somewhere out of sight as I came up with the only plan I could.

  I fled into the hole in the tree, ramming my back to the bark as I hid and releasing another illusion of myself darting out the other side of it. Lionel followed the fake me and I focused hard on the magic as that fucker swept lower, his huge jaws opening, readying to destroy me. And this time I had to make him believe he had.

  My magic was ebbing away bit by bit and I blinked blood from my left eye as I kept my gaze fixed on that illusion, my life depending on it. Fire rained down from Lionel's jaws and I cast an illusion so real it even made me sick to my gut to see my body burning up, hear the horrible screams tearing from its throat. I panted as I kept the magic in place and the body fell to the ground, charred and destroyed before casting a line of smoke with an acrid scent of death up to Lionel and begging the stars to make him swallow the lie.

  I sank down into the rotting bark of the tree as he circled overhead with a guttural roar of victory before sailing back towards the manor. I sagged forward, dragging in breath after breath as relief channelled through me and I forced my thoughts back into order.

  I leaned forward to peek out of the hollow trunk, spotting the flashing lights of FIB vehicles beyond the house as more units arrived. I hunted for Rosa and Roary on the roof, on the lawn, by the house. Somewhere. But I couldn’t see them.

  Fuck, please be okay.

  I took out my Atlas, dimming the light on it in case it drew Lionel’s attention as I leaned back into the hollow. There were ten messages from Dante all panicking about what had happened, but none from Rosa or Roary.

  Real fear inched deeper and deeper into me and I crept out of my hiding place, needing to go back, to find them, to make sure they got the fuck away from here.

  I cloaked myself in shadow once more as I hurried through the trees, taking a path around the edge of the property towards the front of the manor. As soon as I got a view of the drive, my heart turned to stone.

  Roary was being forced down on the ground by three FIB agents, placing him in magical cuffs to cut him off from his power. My worst nightmare unfolded in front of me and my heart crushed as I stared at my flesh and blood in the hands of those assholes. The worst had happened. There wasn’t a Night in existence who had ever been arrested. But Roary wasn’t going to get out of this. He had a backpack full of Lionel’s valuables. He was caught red-handed and there was nothing I could fucking do. It was suffocating, terrifying.

  I searched desperately for Rosa, not spotting her anywhere. What if she'd been hurt, killed? What if Lionel had tracked her down and burned her little body to nothing?

  Lionel was within his rights to protect his land, he wouldn't be punished. He was a fucking High Councillor, anyone trespassing here was taking their life into their hands. I’d known that but I hadn’t fucking doubted us for a second. Lionel was the law. And if he wanted to be, he was our death.

  A figure suddenly darted across the grounds and into the trees to my left and I gasped. I raced in that direction, adrenaline thumping through my blood, the only thing keeping me going.

  I charged through the forest and Rosa released a yelp of fright as she glanced back over her shoulder, sensing someone pursuing her. She looked like she was about to shift then realised who it was, turning fast and running into my arms. I hugged her tight as she whimpered, clutching onto me in desperation.

  "We have to help him," she half sobbed.

  "We can't," I choked out as another bone-rattling roar sounded from somewhere up in the sky.

  Lionel was circling again and we needed to get the fuck away from here. I couldn't do anything for my brother now, as much as that pained me. But I had to get Rosa home. Had to keep my promise to Dante and ensure her safety no matter how much I wanted to go back and take on every FIB agent there to save Roary. But it was too late. There was nothing I could do. Staying here would only equal mine and Rosa’s arrest or worse if Lionel found us first.

  I kept Rosa's hand in mine as we sprinted through the trees as fast as we could, our breaths the only sound between us as we made it to the wards then tore along the edge of the boundary as we hunted for the gap Dante had left there.

  Where is it dammit, where is it?

  At last, we found it and we darted through the break in the wards. I took the stardust from my pocket with my heart cracking into serrated pieces at leaving my brother behind. My only sibling, the boy I’d looked up to, admired, envied, hated, loved. He was family no matter what stupid rivalry had lived between us and leaving him here was akin to hacking off a limb. But what choice did I have? There were so many FIB agents here and if I tried to help, I’d only get us all caught.

  "It's my fault," Rosa sobbed and I shook my head in refusal as I pulled her close.

  Before I threw the stardust, a blur of motion in my periphery made my heart jolt. Elise appeared carrying Dante and dropped him down beside me with tears in her eyes.

  “I’m so sorry.” Elise threw her arms around me as Dante pressed a hand to my shoulder.

  “We need to go, fratello,” Dante said gravely and I nodded as I tossed the stardust over us, focusing on Dante's house with every fibre of my being.

  We’d fucked up so bad and I couldn’t even bear to think what lay beyond this galaxy of stars as we travelled through them. I’d have to tell everyone what had happened, had to break this awful news. We’d failed. And my brother would pay the price.

  T he stars whipped us through the sky and we came crashing back down to earth as our feet hit solid ground and I fell back onto my ass, unable to keep my balance in my stilettos as the shock of what had just happened knocked me for six.

  "Merde," Dante cursed as Rosalie crumpled to the ground, wrapping her arms over her head and sobbing.

  "It's my fault!" she cried. "He followed me down to the pool and was using his water magic to get me out when we were surrounded by FIB agents. I told him to run, leave me there, but instead of defending himself, he wrapped me in a bubble of water and launched me right across the grounds to get me away from them, hiding me in shadows when I landed. By the time I even realised where I was, they’d overwhelmed him and were putting him in cuffs. I'm the reason he was caught. What's going to happen to him now?"

  I stared between Dante and Leon, hoping one of them had an answer for that and my heart thundered in my chest so hard it ached. Leon's face was pale and he was clawing a hand into his long hair so forcefully that I could see it yanking on the roots.

  "Nights don't get caught," he muttered, like he was trying to deny it had even happened. His clothes were ripe with the pungent scent of smoke and my pulse flickered with panic for him as I realised how damn close he’d come to being burned alive out there by that scaley-balled asswipe.

  "There has to be something we can do," I said, pushing to my feet and winding my arms around Leon's waist as I held him close, squeezing him tight just to reassure myself that he was okay. "What do your family normally do to keep you out of jail? Is there someone we can call or pay off or-"

  "We don't get caught," he growled again, like he thought I hadn't been listening the first time he said it. But I assumed he hadn't meant that it had never happened.

  "Never?" I questioned to be sure.

  "No. Not once. Not in all the history of our family thieving for a living. Not since my great great great grandmother made our name as the most notorious thieves in Solaria by stealing priceless artefacts from The Palace of Souls nearly two hundred years ago. It's not...it can't...Dad is going to freak the fuck out." He shook his head in disbelief like he couldn’t accept what had just happened and I was having trouble believing it too
.

  Roary was just so confident and present, the idea of him being hauled away to some cell didn’t compute in my mind. I knew that what him and his family did for a living was illegal and yet somehow, the idea of one of them getting caught and locked up for it had never even occurred to me.

  "We can fix it," I repeated determinedly like saying it with enough conviction could make it true.

  "I've ruined his entire life," Rosalie whispered and Dante started pacing.

  We were just outside the boundary to his family home and as he looked around, he seemed to realise that we still weren't safe yet.

  "Come on, amico mio, we can figure this out once we're within the safety of my home. It's not safe out here with Felix still on the loose."

  Leon pulled away from me with a growl that was all Lion, grabbing my hand in his and half dragging me up the drive towards Dante's house in the distance, like the idea of something happening to me next was suddenly the most pressing concern in his mind.

  A low howl sounded somewhere in the trees behind us and we stilled, looking around with fearful expressions as Dante muttered something in his language. We passed within the first protection spell and Dante tugged his shirt off, quickly followed by the rest of his clothes which he tossed my way.

  "Climb on, I'll fly us back to the house and we can talk alone, figure out what to do about this mess." He shifted without waiting for us to reply and the three of us clambered up onto his back, Leon still carrying the heavy bag of treasure he'd stolen from the Acrux Manor on his back.

  Rosalie's tears fell silent as we swept over the vineyards and tore towards the huge, white house which stood at the top of the hill, the crescent moon hanging low beyond it in a dark sky full of stars. It was like they were all taking the time to watch this moment, like it mattered to them even though they'd done nothing to help us when it counted.