The Guardian

by Quinn Arthurs

  “I also want this mistake cleared away.” Distaste hung heavily in the air as Onyx studied me. “The human is right. We must get to safety and figure out answers.”

  I hesitated before walking forward with my backs. “I take it we’re getting kicked back into the cold.”

  “It is far more efficient than a car.” At Reed’s cheerful words I wanted to shake my head. The guy was going to give me whiplash going from stoic to cheerful constantly.

  “More efficient, but far less comfortable.”

  “That may be, but it is by far the safest means we have.” Terran gathered us all close together and nodded at Onyx who reached out his hands. I grasped tightly to Reed, allowing him and Terran to grab my belongings. “You ready, Tori?”

  “Never.” I tried on a cocky smile to bely the truth of that word. I definitely wasn’t ready to teleport again, but I wanted answers. If this was how I was going to get them, I’d do what I needed to.

  3

  I nearly gagged as I was thrown back out of the cold. Reed held me steady as I got my feet underneath me again. I didn’t understand how anyone could ever get used to that. I breathed deeply, trying to dispel the shakiness and nausea that surged through me.

  “Welcome to the Fae Realm, Tourmaline.” Terran sketched another bow before stepping away to set my bags to the side as I studied the room.

  From the abundant size and plush furnishings, I assumed we were in the palace that Onyx had spoken of. Light emanated from orbs near the ceiling, and I highly doubted there was electricity involved. I briefly wondered how that worked, before pushing the errant thought aside.

  Other than the lights, I was surprised at the normalcy of the living quarters. Although far more elegant than anything I had ever experienced, I doubted it would be out of place in a mansion in the human realm.

  The colors were all soothing and nature-oriented. Shades of brown, green, and blue created a calming atmosphere so the room didn’t appear stuffy despite the opulence. I wished there were windows to see if the exterior was as normal as the interior, or if it was the magical, Alice in Wonderland style place that I had always expected of a hidden realm.

  I tried to keep my expression neutral, knowing that I couldn’t feign the disdain they had shown at my own accommodations. I was as impressed by luxury as they next person, I simply didn’t want them seeing it. Or in Onyx’s case, gloating in it.

  “You think we’ll be safe here?” I resisted the urge to poke around and explore these new surroundings, see where the other doors I had noted led to, choosing to perch on the arm of a nearby chair instead so I could study the three.

  Terran smiled and I blinked at the unexpected reaction. I had yet to see him smile and the relaxed gesture was a surprise. “Yes, Tourmaline, you’re safe here. This place is warded by centuries of fae and witch alike. The boundaries will not be easily breached, and we would have plenty of warning.”

  Centuries. Okay, then. “Fine. Does someone want to explain what all is going on, then?”

  “So, you’ve decided it’s not a hallucination after all?” Onyx’s dry voice grated at me, and I ground my teeth together. I didn’t understand how his friends could go this long without punching him.

  “My mother raised me to be open-minded.” My chest ached at the reminder of her departure from my life, and I fought back the tears that wanted to prick at the backs of my eyes. I would not cry in front of these three. I would grieve my mother in peace and solitude. “I have never seen real magic, but I can’t deny being teleported to multiple places. I may be stubborn, but I’m not a fool.” I looked pointedly at Onyx as I finished my statement. I hadn’t forgotten his chosen insult.

  “There’s a lot of information, Tourmaline.” Terran rubbed at the back of his head, surprising me when he took a seat cross-legged on the floor, rather than sitting on the overabundance of available furniture. “It’s not all easy to tell, nor is it easy to know where to begin. I am unaware as to what your current knowledge even is.”

  “Stop calling me Tourmaline. It’s Tori. I still have no idea why mother named me that.” I grimaced, shaking my head in distaste.

  “It’s a beautiful name,” Terran offered. “A protective one.”

  “You should be more upset at a nickname like Tori.” Onyx rolled his eyes. “No power in that at all.”

  “You said your mother taught you the rite, but you didn't believe in magic?” Reed arched a curious brow and flopped down on the couch beside me, leaving me enough space to not feel claustrophobic in his presence.

  I sighed, shifting myself slightly as I tried to order my thoughts. “It’s complicated. My mother believed herself to be a witch. She worked spells, taught me crystals and herbs. She’d leave gifts for the faeries and didn’t celebrate the common holidays. There was never any actual magic though. No fire, puffs of smoke, shining lights.” I looked pointedly at Terran as I added the last words, and he inclined his head in understanding. “She was always afraid, always running.”

  I swallowed hard, locking the emotions away inside of me as I tried to explain. “She was convinced something was after us. I just assumed she was crazy. I let her teach me because it made her happy. I let her use her stones and magic words on me and my apartment because it helped to keep her calm.”

  “You’ve never physically seen magic before today?” Reed asked, considering something. “Tell me what you see now.” He held up his hands, murmuring low. A glow began to form around his hands, a pale blue-grey color that swirled and weaved.

  “Grey swirls.” I studied his hands, trying to figure out where the light was coming from.

  “So she can see your magic,” Onyx growled. “She may have partial witch or fae blood. It doesn’t mean she’s deserving of Guardians. We have real work to do.”

  “Did your father have magic?” Terran studiously ignored Onyx’s grumbling, continuing to focus on me.

  I shrugged. “My mom refused to talk about him, teared up every time I asked. I eventually just stopped.”

  “Have you ever tried to cast?” Reed continued to study me as though I was a puzzle he couldn’t quite work out.

  “I cast when I brought you here,” I pointed out. “Or at least when you say I brought you here. I pretty much stopped doing magic with her when I entered my teens. I stopped altogether when I was about sixteen. It was nothing more than a way to focus her meditation and soothe her anxieties.”

  “Magic is far from foolish.” Terran’s soft voice was nearly tart now, his posture stiff. “It is centering, true, but it is more than that. For those of us with magic in our blood, we need to cast, to expel it from our system before it leaks out on its own without direction or builds uncontrollably inside of us.”

  “Then why have I never seen anything?” I threw my hands up in exasperation. “Why did it only work today? I learned spells before I learned to read, yet nothing ever happened. Why today of all days?”

  “You brought the altar pieces with you, correct?” Reed stood, heading to the smaller bag that I had packed at my mother’s apartment. “There were instructions, and all of the pieces. Maybe we can figure this out.”

  “Quit wasting time.” Onyx’s words were a roar that nearly had me falling from my precarious position. “Test her blood and be done with this. I do not understand why the magic made a mistake, but we cannot continue wasting our time with this girl when our future is at stake.”

  “Anybody tries to touch my blood and they’re going to be in for a major world of hurt.” I tried to sound threatening rather than terrified. I had no idea why they would want my blood, what it could possibly show them or how they planned to take it; all I knew was that I objected to any process they would have in mind.

  “If there was an error in the magic, it must lay in how we were called.” Terran’s voice was infused with calm and patience. I couldn’t help but wonder if that was his natural temperament or if he was simply practiced at dealing with Onyx all the time. “Reed is right. If we can understand the s
pell she used, we will be in a better position to deal with all of this. If nothing else, there must be a reason she needs protection and we were called to her.”

  Reed was occupied pulling items from the small knitting bag. The only thing that I hadn’t brought was the bowl full of water and herbs which I had dumped, not wanting to soak the rest of the materials. “You followed this incantation?” He read quickly through the card before considering all of the pieces of the spell before him.

  “My mother taught me that spell before I could even walk.” Her repeating the words over and over to me, humming them like a lullaby, was my earliest memory. “She warned me never to put the whole thing together until it was necessary. She quizzed me on it every day for years, even after I began to reject her teachings.”

  Terran pulled himself from the floor with grace, going to join Reed as he investigated. “Crystals. Herbs. You cleansed the area before beginning?” Terran glanced my way, directing the question toward me.

  “Of course.” I stood as well, unable to remain sitting when everything inside of me was churning with energy. “Look, do you have any answers or not? I feel like I’m the one doing all of the explaining here.”

  Reed was inspecting the photograph of my mother intently, weighing it and the candle. Most of the candle had burnt down, obscuring her name and incinerating the hair that had been tied there. Only the shells remained, marked now by the melted streaks of wax that surrounded them.

  “Shells for protection, possibly for prosperity or finding, gemstones also for protection,” Reed murmured.

  “Is there anything on the altar that you didn’t bring? Anything that is gone now?” Terran asked quietly.

  I blinked a bit, considering. “I dumped the herbs from the bowl. The hair’s gone now too.” The three froze at my words.

  “Hair?” Terran asked quietly. “What hair?”

  “On the candle.” I indicated the stump that Reed held. “I engraved her name, wrapped the hair around it.”

  “You used salt?” Reed’s voice was eager now as he smelled the candle for traces of the herbs I had used.

  “Salt for cleansing. What is going on?”

  “You broke the binding.” Terran’s words were slow, his eyes wide now as he studied me. “Your mother must have bound you, maybe even herself to an extent. To limit your power and visibility. You said that she was afraid of being found.” I nodded my agreement. “Her death would have been the first step of breaking the binding. Depending on how she tied you though, it wouldn’t fully break on its own. We had assumed you simply did not have much control, that your mother was providing your walls and that’s why you were unguarded.”

  “None of this makes sense.” I was shaking now. Confused, even fearful in all they were throwing at me.

  “It’s a simple test.” Onyx spoke in a slow, measuring tone less threatening than usual. “You are in the Fae Realm now. Your magic, if you have any, is stronger here. We can offer enough protection you won’t be harmed.”

  “You want me to cast a spell?” I was skeptical, but I knew he was right. If magic was visible here, we could know once and for all if I actually had it.

  “You said your mother taught you.” Reed offered me a sweet smile, leaning toward me slightly as he spoke. “Do you remember any of the spells?”

  I hesitated for a moment, then reached out to grab a small piece of amethyst from the bag that had contained the altar pieces. I rubbed it between my fingers, trying to let my mind empty. “I remember a little.” I focused on the amethyst, feeling the cool stone against my fingertips, letting its calm soak into me.

  “Calm,” I murmured, focusing solely on that. I needed calm at the moment, and this had always been a favorite way of finding it when I was young. “Calm,” I repeated, letting the stone warm under my fingertips; it absorbed the panic racing so desperately inside me.

  “What?” The word fell from my lips in shock and near horror as I watched the slight glow emanate from the stone in my hand. Not the stone, I realized after a moment, not truly. The yellow glow rose from my palm, the buttery streaks of light edged in purple, the shades melding like the colors on the petal of a flower.

  “Impossible,” Onyx whispered in horror.

  “I have actual magic? It wasn’t all a fantasy?” The glow faded as my concentration broke, the calm I had been so desperate for falling away in my panic.

  “Did you recite a spell in your head?” Terran’s dark eyes were wide as he stared intently at my hand.

  “I just wanted to calm down.” I shrugged, helplessly confused. “I couldn’t think of an actual spell.”

  “Only fae can do magic without spells.” Reed grabbed my hand, peering at it as though he could still see the colors that had leaked from my palm.

  “I’m not a fae,” I objected rapidly.

  “Damn straight,” Onyx interjected with a decisive nod.

  “You do have some fae features.” Reed approached me, circling me as he considered. “You’re slender, fine-boned.”

  I shrugged, waving the words away. “Lucky gene pool. There’s plenty of slender, fine-boned women in the world. Just check Instagram.”

  “May I?” he asked, reaching out a hand as if to touch my hair.

  “Um, sure?” I wasn’t quite sure what he was doing, but he didn’t appear to want to harm me. His fingers were warm and gentle as he tucked the strands of my hair behind my ear.

  “Your hair is thick, and the brown richer than you see in most humans. Not completely unique but a little different. Your ears have a slight point to them as well.”

  I covered my ears protectively, brushing his hands away. “It happens. There’s a lot of celebrities and stuff who have a point to their ears. Look it up.”

  “It can be a genetic mutation,” Reed agreed with a nod. “However, the fact is you have several features that lean toward fae heritage. The ears are just the most prominent.” He gestured at Onyx with a raised eyebrow. Onyx huffed but obliged with his friend’s silent request, sliding his hair back enough to show the extended points of his ear tips. My fingers itched to touch them, and I clenched my hands behind my back to fight the urge.

  “So what, you think I’m part fae?” I asked sarcastically, snorting in humor at the question. Surprising me, Reed and Terran both nodded slowly. “You actually think I’m part fae?” I couldn’t even begin to wrap my mind around that. “I’ve got freckles! I have no super powers! I can be touched by iron without harm.” My words were desperate as they tumbled out.

  “If you’re part fae you may have very few of the fae traits. Your magic is dual-colored, Tour — Tori.” Terran corrected himself mid-word. “That in and of itself is almost unheard of.”

  “What, you don’t reproduce outside of your own kind?”

  “It’s not that we cannot.” Onyx’s voice was low, his eyes trained on the wall behind me. “Matings between fae and witch are rare, children between them even rarer. Most mothers and infants do not survive. Fae magic and mortal magic are not always compatible. Each group is also fairly secular. It is not that couples are forbidden.” He appeared to choose his words carefully. “No one would be punished, by witches or by fae. However, the inclusiveness is not there. It is more convenient and realistic for couples to join within their own group.”

  “Well, then it’s not like I’m unheard of,” I pointed out. “It’s simply not common.”

  “Tori, there have been only four known individuals in our combined history that have multi-hued magics,” Terran explained as he sat down across from me, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees so he could continue to gesture with his hands.

  “Well, you said babies like me are rare. It’s not odd there’s only been like four of us.” I couldn’t understand his awe.

  “You’re thinking in human terms.” Onyx’s voice was stiff as he re-covered his ears, to my relief. I was having a very hard time resisting touching them to see if they were real. “Our history isn’t like yours. You’re not talking
hundreds of years. We’re talking about hundreds of centuries. Four in dozens of millennia, Tourmaline. This is nothing to treat lightly.”

  “Four in that long?” I asked in a weak whisper.

  “You’re basically an impossibility,” Reed offered up with a shrug.

  “Ok, so I’m rare. That’s cool and all, I guess, but why does it have you all so stressed out? Why would it really matter other than looking interesting?” The lights had been pretty, but I couldn’t see how the effect was long term.

  “When a fae and a witch baby survives, there’s enormous celebration. The child normally takes after one parent and is mostly raised by that faction.”

  “So, you’re basically saying you don’t know where I should be put?” None of this was making sense and I had a pounding headache. “You’re fae and witches and obviously don’t have a problem mingling.” Hysterical laughter was building in my throat, the way all of this was spilling from my lips as though it was normal.

  “No fae/witch child has been reported in years. There is the occasional child, whose magic is multi-hued, who can handle both fae and witch magic.” Terran reached out a hand as though he was attempting to comfort me, but I simply waved him away. “Your birth, your childhood, all of those should have been followed and cherished. You should have had Guardians.”

  “Look, I don’t want any of this.” I thrust my hands into my hair, tugging at the strands as I tried to center myself. “I need to go home. I need to finish planning my mother’s funeral, have her cremated. I need to go to work. This has all been fascinating, but this isn’t my life.”

  “You’re not listening, Tori,” Reed scolded. “You are rare amongst our people. There is a reason you were taught to call Guardians to you.” He glanced at Terran, who nodded. “There’s only one reason we would have been called to you, one reason the magic would have bound us.”

  “You’re our missing link, Tourmaline.” Terran’s voice was soft. “Your destiny is great and noble, and the magic has determined that you need Guardians.”