by Deanna Chase
“Then let me leave.” I continued to back away from him until I was pressed against a wall, my cheeks still on fire.
“I can’t, princess. Right now, I’m the only thing that stands between you and them.”
I swallowed hard. “Who’s going to stand between you and me?”
“You do a fine job of that. I don’t think you need any assistance,” he muttered.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“Are you ready to listen?
“It’s really annoying that you answer my questions with a question.” Cheney gave a small sincere smile, but made no comment. “I’ll listen to what you have to say.”
“Well, there’s a first time for everything.” He glanced over to the glass-covered living room then back at me. “Perhaps we should sit in the kitchen.”
I took in the house for the first time since I came downstairs. It looked like a natural disaster. I destroyed my grandma’s house. It was filled with cracks and broken glass. She’d have a heart attack if she came home to this. “Did I do all that?” I asked though I knew I had.
Cheney glanced around. “Yeah. You never have been able to control your temper. Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it later. Right now, we’re talking, yes?”
I gave him a dubious look. “I’ve always been able to control my temper. I never fly off the handle. If you think otherwise, you don’t know me at all.”
“Whatever you say.” He motioned toward the kitchen. “Shall we?”
I plopped myself down on a kitchen chair and waited for Cheney to start talking.
“What do you know?” he asked.
“I was living a perfectly peaceful, happy existence in Raleigh until you showed up being creepy.” He gave me an impatient look and I shrugged. I didn’t know what he wanted from me. “I was on a terrific date last night with an incredible man, and then I got a phone call saying Grandma fell, so I came here. Now my life has completely gone to hell. I don’t know who you are, who those people were, or why anyone would be after me or my grandma.”
“Your grandma? No one’s after your grandma. They’re after you.”
“Why?”
“You’re a changeling.” Cheney looked at me expectantly, but the word changeling meant nothing to me. “Do you know what that is?” he finally asked.
“Not a clue.”
“It’s a member of one race, normally fae, who’s given to humans to be raised as their own. Just normally not in these circumstances.” He leaned forward, elbows resting on the kitchen table. “You’re an elf, like me—well, not exactly like me. You‘re only half.”
I glanced around the room, knowing this had to be a joke of some kind.
“What are you looking for?”
“Gandolf,” I cracked, trying not to laugh.
He pursed his lips. “I’m serious. You need to listen.”
“Oh, I’m listening, but all I hear is crazy.”
“You don’t believe in elves? How do you explain the bodies evaporating? How can I disappear and reappear? How do you explain your own abilities?”
“Magic. I just don’t know how you do it.”
“Do you remember the Abyss?”
“I have heard of it, but, come on, seriously?”
“Why can you believe in magic but not the Abyss? Where do you think your magic comes from?”
I didn’t respond. How could I? I had no explanation. I had heard of the Abyss, but I wasn’t a part of it. It had nothing to do with our innocent little coven. The smile fell from my face. I suspended my doubts and tried to absorb his words in my mind. “So you’re saying as a baby I was switched with a human child? What happened to the child I was switched with? If I’m half elf, what’s the other half?”
Cheney shook his head. “Normally that would be the case, but this is slightly more complicated. You lived as a half-elf for decades before you decided to become a changeling—”
“I don’t understand.”
Cheney sighed and stared at his hands. “You became mixed up with a group who convinced you to become a changeling to increase their power. You were led astray.”
“You aren’t doing a very good job explaining this.” It was hard to hold back my frustration at not understanding. “Who’s this ‘group’ and how does being raised by humans give them power?”
“If you would shut up, I could do a better job.” He glared. “Human magic is forbidden to elves. As a half elf you are also half human, so choosing to honor your human side, you can be born again to humans with a lot of very powerful, very dangerous magic. But if you succeed, which you did, the laws that govern elves do not apply to you. Humans have no laws to govern magic because they don’t believe in it.” He took a deep breath and ran his fingers through his hair. “As a human, you can practice their magic as well as use ours. The rebels are planning to overthrow the current ruling house—my family. My father is the Erlking, or King of the Hunt. We have been the ruling family for 3000 years.”
“My magic isn’t all that powerful. I can find lost keys, maybe do some minor healing…”
“They don’t want you for what you know. They want you for what you’re capable of doing. You were one of the most powerful half elves I’ve ever known. That magic combined with the capabilities of human magic makes you a force.”
“Okay…so assuming I believe you, believe any of this…Why don’t I want to help them? I mean I understand why you don’t want me to, but obviously, I agreed with them at the time. Perhaps 3000 years is long enough for one family to rule.”
“You think they’d be better than us? Let’s look at what they’ve done so far—not even being in power.”
Cheney was anything but impartial, yet I listened, trying to see how I could possibly be some grand weapon waiting to be used.
“They’ve enslaved trolls and tortured and murdered countless sprites and nymphs for their lack of support—not to mention the threats they’ve made against houses who refuse to support them.”
A small, pained sound escaped me much to my annoyance. I wanted to be convinced based on facts, not an appeal to my emotions.
“My family has peacefully governed the fae community for thousands of years without violence or even the threat of violence. I should be with them now, helping my people, but instead I’m here with you, trying to keep you from doing something stupid—a task I was never successful at in the past.”
Obviously this was a point of contention—at least for him. “I take it you’ve known me a long time,” I said evenly, hoping the anger in his eyes would ebb.
He sighed. “A very long time by your standards.”
“Why did I side against you?”
“You were angry.”
“That sounds rather petty given what’s at stake.”
“Your human half makes you emotional. The rebels used your emotions to their advantage. They clouded the issue and convinced you I was your enemy.”
It was funny to think that my human half made me more emotional when I had led a fairly unemotional human life. “But you aren’t?”
“No, not now. Not ever. You make me angry, and I may yell at you, but I’m not your enemy.” He looked like he had more to say, but he shook his head and quietly stared off into space.
“So those women who came here were part of this rebel group? The one said she couldn’t feel me. What does that mean?”
“The people who came here are bounty hunters. Meadow and Bella are elves though, and they couldn’t sense you because I’m here.” He frowned and paused for a moment. “So far only the elves have made it this far, but I assure you more are coming.”
“How does your being here make a difference?”
“You had second thoughts before you went through with this, and you asked me for help. I wanted to fight them and end the problem, but you refused. You said if you didn’t go through with it, they would get another half elf to. I bound myself to you so I could protect you when you became a changeling.” He st
ood and prowled around the room.
“But why would you do that if you didn’t want to get involved?”
Cheney sighed and shook his head. “You were placed with your actual human family line. The woman you call your grandmother is really your great, great, great, great—I forget how many greats, but you get the idea—niece and an extremely powerful witch. I explained to her what happened, and she took you in.”
I bit my lip to keep the steady stream of disbelief in my mind from pouring out of my mouth. My gram, a witch? A powerful witch? Her being my great-whatever-niece didn’t throw me at all—but a witch? You could’ve knocked me over with a feather.
Cheney didn’t seem to notice my shock. “You’ve grown up with protection spells surrounding you at all times. Fae cannot touch you, unless you touch them first—as we discovered—and you cannot be seen or smelled as anything other than human by any fae. While I am with you, I can further that protection with my magic and make you invisible to them. The only way they can find you is through your magic. It leaves an imprint that cannot be hidden by even the best spells.”
Oh crap. The one time I use my ability and it destroys my life. Figures. “Wait, so you’re saying the woman, my grandmother, who flipped her lid when she saw me reading Harry Potter is a witch.”
“One of the best.”
I choked on my disbelief. This was all too much. How could any of it be true? “How did you find me?”
“Your grandmother told me where you were.”
“How did you know what I wore to my high school prom?”
A faint smile broke his serious expression. He reached into his pocket and handed me a worn and creased picture. It was of me and my date with the day and our names written on the back in my grandmother’s handwriting.
“Edith kept in touch.” He took the picture back from me and slipped it into his pocket. “I swore to myself when you left I wouldn’t get involved again, but circumstances have changed. When I found out they were looking for you, I knew it was time.”
“How did you know they were looking for me?”
A smirk colored his face and the previous gentleness was gone. “I have my sources.” He cracked his knuckles, his face hard once more.
“If I am who you say I am, why don’t I remember anything?”
“Because your grandmother did a good job. If you knew you were a 150-year-old half elf, do you think you would have listened to her when she told you not to use magic? Of course you wouldn’t. So it was forbidden and over time you forgot, or she suppressed, who you were and where you came from, protecting you from yourself.”
My head was spinning. I had no idea what I thought or what I believed. “So what do you want with me? Are you going to shadow me the rest of my life so I’m not caught by them?”
“If that’s what is necessary,” he said carefully.
“But that isn’t what you had in mind when you came here.” I watched his face, trying to get some clue as to whether I could trust him.
“I hoped you would want to come back with me and help us—but at this point, I’d settle for you just not actively joining them.”
“How could I help you? I’m not saying I’m going to or that I want to, but if I were to help, exactly what would I have to do?”
Cheney stared at me for a long while. “You would have to renounce your human half and reclaim your half elf heritage or…” his voice trailed off.
“Or do what they want me to do—but for your side.”
“Yes.”
“And it’s dangerous?”
“Very.”
I nodded. “Thank you for being honest. Grandma didn’t fall, did she?”
“I highly doubt it.”
“She was attacked?”
“Probably.”
“If I keep hiding, will they keep after her?”
“Possibly.” He tossed me my cell phone.
I caught it and closed my eyes. “It’s a lot to take in. It would be easier if I remembered anything. Right now it all sounds like an elaborate practical joke.”
“Even if you remembered details, it’s complicated.”
I stood up and started walking out of the room.
“Where are you going?” he asked, not making a move to follow me.
“Upstairs. I need to think.”
Cheney didn’t reply and I didn’t turn back. Grandma wasn’t my grandma—and she was attacked because of me. I was supposed to be a weapon of mass destruction in a feud between things I didn’t even believe in. I wasn’t fully human. A person who absolutely terrified me was apparently my only hope…Finally I laughed because my only other choice was to cry.
Chapter 8
I sat on the floor of my room in lotus position trying to find my center, but I was a jumble of nerves, thoughts, and worries. Nothing was settling within me. Gram’s voice rang in my head. “Get the book,” it said. What book? Was that why she was in the attic? My mind was a million miles away from yoga. I was never going to find inner peace.
The light was still on in the attic as I climbed the ladder. I hadn’t been up here in years. It was filled with boxes and odd and ends. How on earth I was supposed to find one book in the mess was beyond me. I pulled a box toward me, knelt beside it, and dove in.
This particular box was stuff from before Mom and Dad died—toys I vaguely remembered, books they used to read to me, and all the things that a seven-year-old treasures. I held my stuffed bunny, Peter, to my face and inhaled deeply. It still smelled like them.
“What are you doing?”
I didn’t bother to look at Cheney. Instead, I hugged Peter a moment longer, then sat him to the side.
“You felt a sudden need to cry over some stuffed animal?”
I huffed in annoyance. “I remembered that when Gram woke up today, she said someone was after me and I should ‘get the book.’ This was the only light on in the house, so I figure she must’ve been up here for a reason.”
“What book?” he asked, fully climbing into the attic.
“I have no idea.”
He looked around with a calculating expression. “Are you going to cry over every box you open? If so, we’re in for a long night.”
A small smile tugged at my mouth. “I just might.”
He picked up Peter. “And who, may I ask, is this?” He held him out in front of him by the arms.
“Peter. My very best friend for the first seven years of my life.”
“Then you abandoned him to a cardboard box? Poor fellow.”
“Most of these boxes are mine. My parents died when I was seven, and I never unpacked anything when I moved here. Gram bought me all new everything so I wouldn’t be reminded of home.”
“So Peter wasn’t abandoned, just forgotten?” Cheney spoke of Peter as if the doll were a real person, making my stomach knot nervously.
I shrugged, feeling awkward. “Anyway, I’m trying to find the mysterious book.”
“Would you like help?”
“Well, that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
He smiled and pulled down his own box. I flipped through the books in my box, then grabbed Peter and put him back inside.
“Poor Peter,” Cheney said under his breath, and I pretended not to hear.
Several hours and a few sentimental moments later, Cheney and I had been through every box in the room.
“I thought for sure it would be up here.” Frustration settled in. What book could possibly be so important for me to find? Cheney walked around the attic tapping each floor board and inspecting the walls and ceiling with a narrowed gaze. “What are you doing?”
He shushed me and kept right on inspecting until a cocky smile brightened his face.
“You know where it is, don’t you?”
“Yes.” He rubbed the dust from his hands.
“Care to enlighten me?”
“I’m not sure you deserve it, but what the hell. If we push on this wall here. . .” He looked back at me, and the wall opened. He
waggled his eyebrows, making me laugh.
“You’re awfully proud of yourself,” I said as I brushed past him into the small hidden room. I flipped the light switch and was met with what appeared to be my grandmother’s secret room of all things witchy. “What a hypocrite!”
Cheney picked up a plain black leather-bound book with curled edges. “Could this be it?” He cracked it open, and I peaked over his shoulder. It was definitely spells.
“It has to be. Her Book of Shadows.”
“Do you want to go visit your grandma and find out?”
“It isn’t visiting hours.”
“Come on, Selene,” Cheney said in a slow, easy manner. “You’ve never been afraid to break a few rules.” His eyes flashed playfully, making me wonder how well I’d known him. He was daring me and something in me stirred at the challenge.
“Okay, hot shot, get me in.”
“Well, you’re going to have to step a little closer.”
I took a step towards him.
He beckoned me. “Closer. Don’t be afraid.”
“Exactly how close do you want me?”
He arched his brow with a wicked grin. My face got hot and he laughed. “You blush a lot more than you used to. You’re going to have to touch me. I know how much that displeases you.”
“This better not be another trick.” I stepped up against him.
“Put your arms around me.”
My arms wrapped around his waist. He slid his hands around me and pulled me in tighter. I thought of snotty things to say, but I couldn’t speak being this close to him. The way he smelled like sandalwood and 4 a.m. made my heart skip beats. I rested my head against his chest in a spot that felt like it was built just for me. His breath hitched, and he squeezed me a little tighter. Everything went black and the next instant we were in Grandma’s hospital room. Once I no longer felt dizzy, I pushed away from him and went over to Gram.
“Gram,” I said softly, taking her hand.
Her eyes fluttered, but they didn’t open. I was torn. I didn’t want to wake her because she needed rest, but I needed to speak with her. I tried again and received similar results. Cheney moved next to me.
“May I?”
I narrowed my eyes, not wanting to relinquish my grandmother’s hand. “Maybe we should just let her rest,” I said stubbornly.
