by HD Smith
I was breathing in short, frantic breaths, but I gasped as her touch hovered over the injured rib. She had a wicked smile on her grotesque face as she pushed in on my side. I closed my eyes and the tears welled over, running down my cheeks. I tried to bear the pain, but she wasn’t letting up.
“Stop, please!” I begged, opening my eyes. “I helped you once. Don’t do this.”
Cinnamon threw back her head and roared with laughter. Pressing in harder, she hissed in my ear, “I could have claimed no willing involvement had you not wakened me.”
Fuck. She blamed me. I’d cured her from Mace’s spell, but she’d made the decision to continue with the plan to kill Junior. It was her choice. She could have walked away.
Without warning she struck fast, biting me hard on the neck. I screamed as her fangs sunk in deep. White-hot pain shot through me. I could feel the burn of her venom coursing into my blood. Light-headedness followed. I tried to scream, but nothing happened. She was draining my life away.
Don’t let them kill you, lass. Ronin’s words echoed in my head and lit a fire of energy at my core. A crackle of power, stronger than anything I’d experienced in the past, exploded around me, enveloping my entire body. White wisps covered my skin, pulsing with electric tension.
“Stop,” I whispered, releasing the magic from within.
Chapter 12
Cinnamon was thrown back with a force so powerful it shattered every glass chandelier in the ballroom. Thousands of twinkly shards rained down around us. The twins ran to help her, summoning protection spells to prevent the falling debris from causing more damage.
I held out my hands to catch the glittery shards, which was when I noticed I was no longer in my body. My physical figure, still covered with white wisps of power, hung limp by my wrists. The energy that surrounded me disintegrated any falling glass before it could hit my body. I watched as Mace approached. He reached out to touch my face, but pulled away quickly when a whip of power lashed out at his hand.
The pop of electric current from the frayed wires above continued to spark as Sage helped Cinnamon to her feet. Giving her head a quick shake, she morphed back into her normal form, thankfully losing the rabbit’s head. Her dress was shredded, showing more skin than any of us wanted to see. Holding her hands out toward me, she studied the white tendrils as they lapped out at her when she got too close. After a few seconds she stepped back.
“Send Jessie to my room,” she commanded, storming away, “and have Mary clean this mess up. You’re dismissed.”
“What of Claire, sister?” Sage asked.
“Leave her,” she ordered.
The boys looked at each other with knowing stares as they waited for Cinnamon to exit the ballroom.
“This is your fault,” Sage accused Mace in a hushed whisper.
Mace barked out a laugh. “Gwen was lying.”
“She lied about where she got the message, not about what it said,” Sage argued.
“Then why didn’t you speak for her?”
“You’d already killed her before I knew Cinnamon was interrogating her,” Sage said through clenched teeth.
Mace rolled his eyes. He threw a glance at my body. “Do you really think Claire will do anything to help us?”
“Cinnamon’s bitten her, so I guess it doesn’t matter now. She’ll be dead soon, and we’ll be trapped here forever!”
I looked at the bite wound on my neck. It appeared to have a faint blue glow. It looked bad, but it couldn’t be that bad.
Sage kicked a large chunk of metal framing, which came within centimeters of Mace’s head. He didn’t flinch.
“Enough,” Sorrel said, joining the conversation. “We can’t keep bickering like this. Too many have already died.”
“Oh, please,” Mace said, “Gwen was a piece of tail, not your fucking soul mate.”
Sorrel’s eyes widened. “You bastard. Gwen was mine and you were jealous.”
“She was a servant in the castle, and Cinnamon was growing tired of her. Would you have rather she sucked the life from Gwen and left her a crippled hag like the rest of them?” Mace threw his hand out toward the front of the castle, as if pointing to the town and its residents.
Was that what happened to all the townspeople? Were they all Cinnamon’s victims? Was that what she planned to do to me? Drain me of my life—aging me to death?
“Screw you, Mace. You’ll never understand love, you heartless SOB.” Sorrel left, muttering curses.
“You can’t just leave it alone can you,” Sage admonished after his twin was gone.
Mace had already turned to leave. “Grow up. We both fucked her first and you know it.”
A very frazzled Jessie came running in a minute later. He came in through the door Sorrel had exited. With my presence I could see tiny bite marks covering most of his exposed skin—something that hadn’t been visible before to my normal sight. They glowed an eerie blue. I looked back at my body. My bite was now glowing stronger, as the venom took hold. My neck was an angry mess of torn skin, and slowly as if spreading, the blue glow intensified around the ragged edges.
Sage, studied my body, but left when Mary came in to clean.
“Some gift you turned out to be,” she muttered as she began sweeping up the shards of broken glass. “Gwenny died for nothing.”
Mary pushed her sleeves up, which exposed the glowing blue bite on her forearm. Cinnamon had bitten both servants—the mother too probably. There’d been no obvious marks on her brothers, but their arms had been covered.
Mary continued to curse me under her breath as she cleaned. I blinked out of the ballroom, not wanting to hear her rants. I had no clue how to stop what was happening with my power, so I might as well figure out how to escape the castle. Which meant searching every area I could find.
I surveyed the castle’s many rooms by quickly jumping around to get the lay of the land. Most were empty and the unoccupied ones with furniture were covered with a thick layer of dust. I avoided Cinnamon’s room; I had no desire to see exactly how Jessie received his bites.
On my way through the kitchen I saw that the mother was also bitten; a blue mark glowed brightly on her left wrist. The three servants looked healthy otherwise—maybe the bite wasn’t as deadly as Sage had implied. Jessie’s arms had been full of bites, and he was still walking around.
From the window on the second floor landing, I could see the entire back of the estate. It was gnarled and overgrown. Foliage ran rampant, vines twining everywhere over dead plants and arches. Elaborate walkways passed dry fountains and empty garden beds. It must have been very beautiful once, but now it was dead, all traces of a manicured paradise lost. The castle felt the same way to me, as if nothing here were really alive.
The upper floor was a hodgepodge of rooms and hallways that were a bit confusing to navigate. Sorrel was sitting by an open window in his room. His expression was sullen and his body was slumped in the chair. There was a faint yellow shimmer over the open window. A ward, perhaps, to keep him in? Cinnamon had said they were trapped here. Was this what she meant? Would it allow me to pass?
A large ripple flowed over the surface as the tip of something pierced the barrier. Sorrel looked up, but wasn’t surprised. I moved by the window to get a better look. It was the tip of a vine that ran up the walls of the castle. I’d noticed the vines from outside when I arrived at the castle, and again at the second floor landing—they were everywhere.
“Hello, again,” he said, his voice sounding dejected.
Was he talking to himself?
“You shouldn’t let her make all the decisions,” a male voice said.
I looked around the room, but it was empty. Another ripple passed over the barrier. Was the vine talking?
“She’s your sister, not your keeper.”
Holy crap, the vine was talking. On a normal day this would have ranked nine out of ten on the crazy scale, but considering Cinnamon could morph into a were-bunny and my body was currently cocooned in a pro
tective bubble of magic that I’d spontaneously created with my will, I was willing to keep an open mind. I peered out the window, but I couldn’t see past the ward. I supposed it was unlikely that a random person would be outside the second floor window of his room pretending to talk to Sorrel via the foliage, but the idea that the vine was aware enough to have a conversation just didn’t ring true.
Perhaps I could persuade Sorrel to check. I’d stumbled onto this ability last spring. It was similar to compulsion, but not as strong or as reliable. It was more of a suggestion, but coming from my presence in the in-between it acted as a subconscious or subliminal message. It wasn’t like talking to someone face to face. Sorrel wouldn’t be hearing me with his ears, but he would get the message.
“Is someone out there?” I asked Sorrel, lacing my voice with persuasion.
He ran to the window and looked out. “I see nothing.”
“What was that, friend?” the voice from the vine asked.
Sorrel slumped back down in his chair. “Nothing,” he moaned.
“I hear there’s a new girl,” the vine said. “Tell me about her.”
Sorrel straightened in his seat. “How did you hear that?”
Yes, how did the creepy vine hear about me?
“Just because most people can’t talk to me doesn’t mean I don’t understand what they’re saying. That’s how I heard about Gwen. Is the new girl as pretty as Gwen?”
Sorrel’s shoulders drooped. “I don’t wish to speak of Gwen.”
I was shocked that Sorrel actually seemed to care about anyone. Like the others, he always seemed too self-absorbed to really have affection for someone else. Clearly Gwen was having a lasting effect on him, which wasn’t really helping my cause. Of course, melancholy was better than dissention.
“Cinnamon was wrong to take Gwen from you,” the vine said. Sorrel didn’t respond. “Speak of the new girl,” the vine prompted. “Who is she, another maiden from the country?”
“Don’t,” I said, trying to stop him, but I’d been a second too late.
“It’s always about Claire. I’m sick of Claire,” Sorrel whined.
“Claire?” the vine said, its voice pitched a bit higher, as if it recognized my name. “She’s here in the castle? How?”
Okay, now I was more than a little interested in the vine. What was this thing, really? And how the hell did it recognize my name? Was it somehow connected to Mab? Was she keeping tabs on them? Was this Purgatory’s answer to low tech surveillance? My situation was bad enough. I didn’t need the mother of all that was evil locking me in her dungeon until I forgot my own name. Been there, done that.
“It doesn’t matter,” Sorrel groused, oblivious to the vines piqued interest. “She has been bitten. Cinnamon will finish her off soon enough. I will speak of Claire no more.” He slammed the window shut and pushed the vine back through the barrier.
“I wish Claire were dead,” Sorrel mumbled, while unbuttoning his shirt.
“Yeah, I love you too,” I muttered, forgetting he was tuned into my suggestions.
Sorrel looked up, his eyebrows drawn together. He scanned the room, but didn’t fix his eyes on where my presence was.
Shaking his head, he flipped the lock on the window, then lay down on his bed. With a snap of his fingers the lights in his room went out.
He was rolled into a ball, as if his life wasn’t worth living.
“Enough,” I said, tired of this woe-is-me attitude. I’d never get the quads fired up about getting free if they continued on as they were now. Sorrel needed to be his ruthless old self—someone that would do anything to escape this hell, not this broken shell that mourned a dead servant. “Get over Gwen,” I said, with as much persuasion in my voice as possible. “She screwed your brothers first—she didn’t love you.”
He gasped and snapped his fingers again, bringing the lights back up.
Okay, so that might have been harsh, but he needed to get back in the game. I left his room to find the others.
Sage wasn’t in his room, which left Mace, my least favorite.
I heard Mace yelling before I got to his suite. It was the last room at the end of the longest hallway—far away from everyone else. I hesitated at the door a moment, listening for the other party—Sage, perhaps? A few seconds later I realized no one was yelling back. Was Mace in there alone? I passed through the door into his bedroom.
He sat in the corner, staring at a silver hand mirror and nodding.
“Yes, I understand what you’re saying,” he said, his voice now hushed to a whisper, as if he’d realized he’d been talking too loudly. He stopped again, nodding as if he were listening.
I moved around to get a better look at the mirror, which was when I noticed the silver filaments leaching from the grip into his hand. They thrummed with a pulse as if pulling power from him. I saw his reflection—which was what I expected—until I realized the reflection’s mouth was moving but Mace wasn’t talking. Okay, that was weird, but not really weirder than Sorrel talking to a vine, I suppose.
“Please, Aunt, you must come and get me. I have begged before, but you were still angry with me because you didn’t get Claire. Now she’s here. Come and take us both away from this place.”
Shit. Was he somehow talking to Mab through that thing?
He paused again and the reflection started moving its mouth. From this perspective, I heard nothing, but Mace was clearly listening to something.
“But Claire is here. I swear it. Don’t you still want her? You could come and get us both, Aunt. Please.”
Something was up. There was no way Mab wouldn’t rush right over and snatch me from them, even if she wasn’t going to take Mace with her. She’d come for me and I’d be locked away in her dungeon forever, which meant he couldn’t be talking to Mab. Perhaps the silver fibers were manipulating him or allowing him to see what he expected? Could the mirror be spelled?
I leaned in closer, and was surprised to see one of the fibers detach from Mace and drift toward me. I pulled back, and the silver thread reattached to Mace’s finger. Unsure what would happen, I swiped my hand through the mirror, gasping when I heard Omar’s voice. His image appeared for a split second as the filaments attempted to attach to my presence. I actually felt cold from the touch, but that should have been impossible. And how the hell had Omar’s image come through the mirror? Mace thought he was talking to Mab. I didn’t think either image was correct; my spelled mirror theory was sounding more plausible.
I braced myself and put my hand through the base of the mirror, letting the threads wave around my incorporeal fingers.
“Claire, thank God,” Omar said, “I’ve been trying to reach you.”
I pulled my hand away, shaking off the cold. I was no expert on magical forms of communication, but I seriously doubted Omar had been trying to reach me through some mirror-based communication network I’d never heard of. Even if I believed this mirror could somehow be used to contact another, how would he have found me? It was impossible. This was a trick, or a spell, or maybe a little of both. It wasn’t real.
Just then I realized Mace had said my name. “Aunt, what happened? Did you see that? Claire was in the mirror... Yes, she was—I saw her.”
Okay, as if I needed confirmation, I was now one hundred percent sure he wasn’t talking to anyone, and apparently my presence could interfere with what he saw. I shook my hand again, as if I could warm it before taking the plunge. Placing the tips of my fingers on the handle, I tried talking directly to Mace. He needed to get rid of this thing.
“This is a trick,” I said. “Whatever you think Mab is telling you, she isn’t. Do you seriously think she’d miss her chance to claim me? Wake up. She isn’t going to save you. Figure out how to save yourself.” I pulled my hand away, stepping back to see what he’d do.
Mace sat there for a minute. He kept looking at the mirror, then looking away.
“Put it down,” I said, using persuasion.
“But I want to talk
to her,” he said.
“It isn’t real. The mirror is a lie. It’s manipulating you. Destroy it,” I commanded.
His lip curled up in disgust. He raised the mirror high and smashed it on the corner of the dresser. It cracked, but didn’t break. What I saw as his reflection was now split into each cracked shard of glass. Seven or more versions of his image appeared to be laughing.
“Quit laughing at me,” he screamed. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” Mace pounded the mirror against the chest of drawers, but it still didn’t break.
“Toss it out the window,” I persuaded.
Mace whirled around, pulling open the window, exposing the shimmering yellow ward. He brought his hand toward it to test its hold. The curtain of yellow energy turned red. He sucked in a breath as if it burned him, but he didn’t pull back. Instead he slowly passed the mirror through the red blockade. It disintegrated on contact with the barrier.
He slammed the window shut, stumbling back as if severing contact with the mirror had weakened him. Mace fell onto the bed, shivering, teeth chattering.
Holy crap. Mab didn’t play around. I was sure he’d been talking to that thing for weeks. No telling what it encouraged him to do. At least, I assumed it used his own desires to keep him happy. Unfortunately, Mace wasn’t exactly a boy scout.
“Sleep,” I encouraged. “Rest, then man up and figure out a way out of this prison.”
Mace’s body relaxed as he fell into a deep sleep.
Sorrel was hopefully free of his Gwen-induced depression, and now Mace was free of the mirror trap. Based on his actions Sage was already in tune with doing whatever it took to get out of this hellhole. Maybe they’d all start working together now. Of course I still had to deal with the poisonous bite that was apparently killing me, but I had to believe there was a way around that. Jessie had more bites than I could count, yet he looked healthy. There had to be a cure.
Chapter 13
I was back in the ballroom with my body, which unfortunately was still unconscious, white wisps covering me in a thin layer of protection. At least that’s what they appeared to be doing. It had been over three hours since Cinnamon bit me, and I had no idea how to turn the protective field off.
