The avara all looked about at one another. One nodded, another shrugged. The one who had been speaking glared at Lockwood, his beady black eyes bulging.
“Fine. But we will choose the length.”
He walked over to Lockwood, lifted up a handful of his hair, and before I could even flinch, he produced a knife from his belt and sliced it through the air, parting the fistful of hair from Lockwood’s head.
The hair shimmered a bright yellow before returning to its silvery dark blue color.
“There, a fair price,” Lockwood said with a note of bitterness. “May we pass unharmed now?”
“You may,” the avara said, inspecting the hair closely, grinning. He was missing several teeth, and the ones that were left appeared to be rotting. If his breath was anything to go by, he was.
Lockwood reached over and grabbed my hand, and we walked between the avara.
I did everything I could to keep my eyes glued to Lockwood’s back. I could feel their eyes on me, combing over me, and it took all of my courage not to snatch at the back of Lockwood’s tunic. Something about the avara made me skin crawl like little lice were running over it.
Lockwood touched the gate, which I could see this close was carved to look like a large tree, and immediately, it swung inward.
There was nothing but the forest on the other side.
Lockwood stepped through, and when he did, I did reach out and grab him, afraid of being separated.
But we hadn’t moved. Our surroundings had not changed.
I wheeled around, to find that the avara had disappeared.
“What—”
Lockwood had closed the gate behind himself, sliding a large, shimmering metal lock home behind it with an echoing crash.
“Thank you for listening to me,” Lockwood said. “About not speaking.”
“What in the world was all that about?” I asked. “Why did you want me to stay quiet?”
“Avara have developed a sort of magic of their own from long residence in this world.” He sighed. “When you make a deal with them, you are bound to fulfill it, no matter what, otherwise it costs you your life. One way or another.” He touched his hand to his neck.
“Scary,” I said. “How does that work?”
“The person they make a deal with is linked to them, magically, until the debt is paid.” He sighed. “They could even trace you through the barrier to Earth, in theory. Without doubt, they could track the person across Faerie to fulfill a bargain.”
“Magical bindings?” I asked. “Sounds worse than Mom’s stories about contract breaches.”
“Indeed,” he said, “which is why it pays to be very, very careful in bargaining with an avara. You may end up losing more than you expect, especially if you negotiate in bad faith.” He absently pulled at the ends of his hair.
“Okay,” I said, “but one thing I don’t get—why did they want our hair?”
Lockwood smiled mirthlessly. “Faerie hair is incredibly magical. Any piece of us is, really, but our hair is obviously the most easily parted with. It is used in various potions and salves, and it has transmutation powers.”
I stared at him. “Your hair can turn stuff into … like, other stuff? Like gold?”
“Among other things, if done properly,” he said. “I will … as they say on Earth, ‘catch hell’ for this bargain from the Seelie court, if they find out about it.” His eyes were grim as he looked at me. “In their eyes, it is better to kill the avara than to honor their deals. And I tend to agree with that, but we are not in a position to fight right now. I suppose that is what happens when the Seelie revoke all your privileges.”
“That’s why you don’t have any weapons?” I asked.
“I used to be one of the most decorated faeries in the court …” Lockwood said sadly. “Absent my privileges, to carry a weapon in Faerie now would be a death sentence were I caught.”
“Oh. That sucks.” I paused for another thought, feeling that what I’d just said was probably woefully inadequate, as far as consolations went. “Why didn’t you want them to have my hair?”
“For the same reason I didn’t want you to speak. I didn’t want them to know you’re human. If they had cut your hair, they would have seen that it was not as it seemed, and that you were wearing a glamour. That would then tip them off to the fact that you aren’t a faerie, and we can’t have them running to the Unseelie to tattle on us.” His expression darkened. “Furthermore, leaving them with your hair could have … consequences.”
“Uhh …” That didn’t sound good. “What kind of consequences?”
“Well,” Lockwood said, his lip curling, “they could give it to the Unseelie, who could easily use it to cast all manner of magic upon you, even at great distance. If we were very fortunate, it would be merely the mischievous kind.” He turned quite serious. “It would be best not to consider anything beyond that.”
I shuddered. None of that sounded good. “I didn’t realize hair was so magical.”
“It is a part of us,” Lockwood said. Then he sighed. “What is done is done. At least you are safe still.”
“Where do we go from here?” I asked, deciding it was time to change the subject.
“We are now in Seelie territory, so we must travel even more carefully.” Although the words were cautious, I could see him brighten at the thought of being closer to home.
“What happens if we run into another faerie?” I asked.
“Let me do the talking, and hope that they don’t recognize me.” Here he gave me a smile of great reassurance.
But I was not reassured. “And if they do recognize you?”
Lockwood hesitated. “Then … we hope they have pity on us and let us through anyway.”
“What are the chances of that?”
He frowned. “I hope they’re better than what I have been told.”
Oh, wonderful. It sounded to me like we may as well have been walking straight into Draven’s penthouse with sheets over our heads pretending to be ghosts.
“Lead the way,” I said, resigned.
This part of the forest looked exactly like the other, and it was easy to see how someone could get lost in its depths. A hazy green mist was prominent in every direction, and I kept glancing over my shoulder for more avara. The idea that my hair would be valuable for some crazy dark magic faerie was … unnerving at best.
My feet ached more and more the farther we walked. Every snapping twig made me start as though someone were shooting at us. The shoes I was wearing were definitely not made for traipsing through the woods. I could feel every pebble as it pressed into the soles of my feet.
“Have Mill or Iona ever been to Faerie?” I asked.
“No,” Lockwood said. “Vampires cannot come here.”
“Why not?”
“They are undead creatures, and as such, cannot step into a world of such potent magic without perishing.” He looked somber. “And for the same reason, stakes from our trees work particularly well against vampires. They are imbued with the magic of Faerie.”
I frowned. “How do they work better?” It was unclear to me how you could do better than poking a vampire in the heart and watching them turn to black slag.
“The wood is stronger, sharper, more resilient against breakage,” Lockwood said, “and sometimes it can cause the vampire to combust upon impact.”
“Oh man, I need some of those,” I said, and an image of Draven with a shiny, blue stake through his chest bursting into flames danced across my thoughts.
“I doubt it possible we could arrange to bring a few back with us …” he said. “To assault a tree at this juncture would be to call all of my countrymen down upon us.”
“Well, let’s not do that, then.” I looked around, feeling a chill breeze raise goose bumps on the back of my neck. “Are vampires and faeries on good terms with one another?”
Lockwood shrugged. “Seelie tend to get along with vampires better, as the Unseelie think they are meant to rule all worl
ds, but vampires don’t like too many faeries in their territory.”
“Yeah, vampires are funny about their territory,” I said.
Lockwood nodded. “Yes. That said, we have been known to help each other from time to time. You see, unlike werewolves, vampires and faeries can live in harmony together. Neither one needs the other, nor do they fight over the same resources.”
“Has a faerie ever been turned into a vampire?” I asked.
Lockwood glanced over his shoulder at me. “You certainly are full of questions, aren’t you?”
“You expected me to not be?” I asked. “Have you met me?”
“Yes,” he said. “And I appreciate your curiosity. It is one of your more interesting attributes.”
Up ahead, the pale, warm light all around seemed to be growing brighter.
“Is there a sun in this world?” I asked. “Because all this light—”
“It’s just the magic,” he said. “But yes, outside of the forest, you can see that we actually have two suns. And three moons.”
“Three?”
He nodded.
“And the forest does end at some point?” I asked, “Because my feet feel like they’re about to fall off.”
“Where did you think we were heading?” Lockwood asked as we crested the hill we had been climbing.
As I stepped up beside him, my mouth fell open. I looked out over a city, every building made from mossy grey stone. A great, thick wall surrounded the town, and snow blanketed the mountains in the background. It was like something out of medieval days, but it shimmered with hints of magic. It had a strange aura about it.
Lockwood sighed, his whole body stiff. “Welcome to Stormbreak, a city of the Unseelie.” A shadow crossed his face. “This … is Winter territory.”
Chapter 10
The Unseelie city was breathtaking, like something out of a fairy tale. The breeze blew over it, and I caught sweet smells of baking bread and flowers, none of the stink I would have expected from a city of old, without indoor plumbing.
Lockwood just stood there with his hands on his hips, shaking his head.
“What’s the matter?” I asked. I couldn’t pull my eyes away from Stormbreak. The longer I looked, the more detail I noticed. The roofs were made of a shimmering, opaque tile, almost like the inside of an abalone shell. Multi-colored smoke drifted out of the chimneys, and I half expected a dragon to suddenly appear over the wall.
“We are lost,” he said.
My heart skipped a beat. “Lost? What do you mean?”
Lockwood glared at the tree closest to him. “I intended to take us along the road to Mercyhill, one of the largest Seelie cities. Apparently my friends have forgone their loyalty and led us here instead.”
“I thought you said the gate would lead us to Seelie land.”
“It should have,” he said, face tightening. “Plainly, though, it has not.”
He ran his fingers through his slate-blue hair.
I didn’t like Lockwood’s unease. He was all I had to keep me safe here.
“So we came out the wrong side or something?” I asked.
“The treachery is two-parted,” Lockwood said. “The gate was the first. The second being that the trees tricked us.”
My eyes narrowed. Tricked us?
“Did whatever happened with you … affect how the trees treat you?” I asked.
Lockwood was staring out over the hilltops at the city. His whole bearing was repelled, as though he wanted to turn and run. It was obvious he had no desire to go into Stormbreak.
Yet he didn’t run.
For me, it was easy to be entranced by the whole scene. It was as if my eyes could see nothing else, and my mind could think of nothing else but the walled city below, so different from anything I’d ever seen on Earth. Nothing like New York, upstate or the city, nothing like Tampa.
I looked at the tallest tower, what looked to be part of a castle behind the wall, and the scene … flickered. Like a horror movie. And when it did, I saw everything bathed in a black fog, almost like a very dense shadow. The buildings were in ruins, and an unearthly screech sounded in the distance.
I shook my head.
The city had gone back to normal.
“Don’t look long,” Lockwood said. “Unseelie magic at work. It makes you see what you want to see. Or what you don’t want to.”
I forced my eyes to focus on Lockwood, though there was an itch in my mind to look back, as if I might miss something miraculous if I didn’t.
My own mind working against me was frightening.
“Can you even get into an Unseelie city?” I asked after realizing he wasn’t going to answer my previous question.
He nodded, though reluctantly. “We can, but we are going to have to glamour ourselves.”
“Again? Can you put a glamour over glamour?”
“I can,” Lockwood said with quiet unease, “but it is going to make the first weaker. One glamour alone is stronger than five piled on top of one another.”
“Of course it is,” I said. “Because nothing can just be easy.”
“Relax, Cassandra,” he said. “This city is on the border of Seelie and Unseelie territory. We aren’t far. We will cross through it and be in the land of my people.”
“Well good, then let’s go—” And I started down the hill.
He put a hand on my shoulder, stopping me. “It isn’t quite that simple.”
Lockwood in Faerie was very different from the Lockwood on Earth. I had never seen him so uptight, and his stress was contagious. Where was his confidence, his calm? I needed it, especially in a place where magic actually existed.
“Nothing ever is.” I waited for an explanation. It wasn’t forthcoming, and after a minute my annoyance built to the point where I said, “Okay, this is me, done.”
“Beg pardon?”
“You’re a clam, Lockwood,” I said. “This is the last in a long line of times you haven’t been forthcoming. Start spilling, or I’m going to march down there and … I don’t even know, buy a loaf of magical bread with my hair—”
“That would be incredibly ill-advised,” he snapped, then he looked sheepishly at me. “But … I am sorry. You are correct. My lack of candor has not been fair to you.”
I folded my arms. “No, it has not.”
“This was something that I never wanted to drag you into,” he said. “I would have preferred you never found out about me, or what was happening here.”
“Well, you’re good then, because I still haven’t a clue what’s going on,” I said, crossing my arms. “Now … please. Give me something. An idea of our course. A fuller explanation of what’s happening. Anything, honestly.”
He looked pointedly at me, the green of his eyes reminding me of poison ivy. After a long moment, he spoke. “There was a murder.”
I blanched, my heart beating faster. “A … murder?” I asked. That seemed very of our world and out of place in a land of shimmering, magical smoke and stone towers. Somehow I had a hard time imagining a CSI Faerie. A lump formed in my throat as I stared at him.
A thought occurred, stirring my stomach a little. He was in trouble with the Seelie court. He needed me to lie to get him out of trouble.
He had always been very mysterious … very secretive …
“Lockwood?” I asked, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to rest until I asked, “ … did you kill someone?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No, good heavens, no. It wasn’t me.”
I sighed with relief, the ache in my stomach loosening. He couldn’t lie. He wasn’t the murderer. “Whew. Yay.” He didn’t look grossly insulted, either, so I plowed on. “Who did?”
“I—”
Lockwood was suddenly beside me, his hand over my mouth.
“It isn’t safe to talk about it here,” he whispered. “And someone is nearby.”
I pried his fingers from my mouth and ducked out from underneath him.
“You don’t have t
o do that,” I whispered back. “You could have just told me to shut up”
“Cassandra …” he said slowly. “You must understand … Faerie is full of magic. Everywhere. It twists and changes the way you perceive things. It can alter time, appearances, and even your location. You cannot … absolutely must not … underestimate it. Do you understand?”
If I hadn’t been so annoyed at him, I would have been frightened by his words, but I didn’t like that he was treating me like a child.
“Fine,” I grumbled.
“Good,” he said briskly, apparently not in the mood to coddle me. “We need to keep moving. I don’t want to be caught outside when it gets dark.”
“Great …” I said. My feet were throbbing, and my leg muscles were begging me to sit down. “So what’s the plan? Go through Stormbreak?”
“Yes,” he said, “… but we still need some protection.”
“I can help.”
I wheeled at the sound of a tinkling voice from behind us.
A tall, slim woman stood there. Hair the color of molten gold spilled over her shoulders and swirled around her as if suspended in water. She wore a golden silk gown that split at the hip, revealing long, slender legs beneath. Her face was thin, her jaw narrow, her eyes were also golden … and her pupils were slitted like a cat’s.
Lockwood forced himself in front of me, an arm wrapped around me protectively.
The woman had wings on her back, and they were fluttering madly, like a butterfly preparing for flight. She was standing like a little child or a cartoon character, her knees together, her shoulders hunched forward, a slim, golden-nailed finger on her bottom lip, her eyes as wide as a doe’s.
But the smirk on her face was … mischievous.
“Well, isn’t she a pretty little thing?” the woman twittered. “Such lovely wings … such innocent looking eyes.”
Innocent eyes?
Me?
“Get away from us,” Lockwood growled.
His wings fluttered, brushing the skin on my arms as gently as a feather. They were soft, warm, and a pleasant tingle was left in its wake.
“Oh, don’t be that way,” the woman said, her voice reminding me of wind chimes, clear and lovely. “I just want to help.”
Lies in the Dark Page 6
