Now the old basement housed my family’s history. The government had confiscated a great deal, but if they’d only known what treasures lay beneath their feet, well, they probably would have gotten in a lot of trouble for missing such a trove. There were ancient spellbooks of every class, some little more than runes scratched onto badly cured hides. Others were priceless works of art, richly illuminated with gold leaf, inscribed on vellum; however, I’d learned the hard way that a spell’s potency had little to do with the way in which it had been recorded. Each of these books was powerful, and each could blast your brains to bits if you weren’t careful.
There were also more traditional works of art scattered about; well, traditional for the Corbeaus. There were paintings that held captured beings, still running about and pleading for release; enchanted rings and necklaces and, um, handcuffs; and a crumbling granite statue that was, in reality, a troll unlucky enough to have been caught out in the sun. Micah looked over the heaps of magical artifacts, pausing to admire a cut crystal decanter. He picked it up to watch the light dance off the facets, only to nearly drop it when he saw the remains of a sprite crumpled in the bottom.
“Oh, that. Unfortunate,” Mom said, glancing over toward the dull thud of crystal on wood. “Poor thing couldn’t breathe, once we replaced the stopper.”
“Indeed,” Micah murmured, respectfully setting the crystal coffin back upon the shelf. Mom, oblivious to the sprite’s plight, plunged farther into the room and I followed, the fey stones coming to life with a quiet, brimstone-scented puff wherever we walked. She didn’t have to tell me where she was going, because I could feel it. It was in my blood.
She was taking us to visit The Raven.
The Raven had died long, long ago, and an ancestor of mine had had it embalmed. Well, the legend is a bit more colorful than that. It claims that my ancestor was a wizard without equal, and his pet raven accompanied him in all things, magical and otherwise. After a time, my ancestor learned that his faithful companion was the source of his magic. Eventually the bird had died, as all things do, but as my ancestor was preparing to bury his dear friend, the dead bird offered a bargain: take my name, keep my memory alive forever, and I’ll bestow upon you untold power.
Since we’re all here, you can imagine that the wizard accepted. Now, whenever there’s a moment of strife or a family member needs a magical boost, we speak to The Raven. That first Raven had not only shared his name with my family, but we bore his image across our flesh. Sure, there are other clans who have magical totems—the Coyote of Southwestern America, for instance—but none have quite the affinity, or power, of the Corbeaus.
Mom stopped abruptly before The Raven’s tomb, a leaded glass coffin that I suddenly found eerily akin to Max’s current resting place. After a brief moment, she stepped aside. “Sara, you must ask,” she said, turning to face us. “The Raven and I, we’ve never really gotten along. Different sorts of magic, you see.”
I nodded and looked beseechingly at Micah. “No, my Sara, it is not for me to petition your ancestor,” he said, obviously having divined our purpose.
“I can’t,” I mumbled. “I can’t even handle the little magic I have. If he gives me more, I won’t know what to do with it.”
“You’re a powerful girl,” Mom said, tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear. “You always have been. When you were a baby, you’d make your dolls dance on their own, create working zoos with only your stuffed animals. Once, you conjured a genie to do your bidding. Then Max was gone, and it was all I could do to hold on to you and Sadie.” She swallowed, her voice catching as she continued, “And The Raven is a part of you. He won’t give you anything that would hurt you, Beau’s daughter. He will only offer guidance.” Mom gripped my hands. “The Raven will help you save Max.”
I stared from Mom to Micah, terrified that they both thought I could do this. “Your mother will not let anything harm you,” Micah said softly. “If I recall, Maeve was always one to kill her enemies rather than capture them. I cannot imagine that the Seelie Queen would lead her daughter into danger.” My mother smiled wryly. “And,” Micah continued, sliding his hand across my lower back, “I stand beside you.”
My mark flared, whether from his touch or his words I could not tell, and confidence rushed through my veins. For the first time in my life, I was more than a Corbeau, more than a member of the Raven clan, more than Max’s little sister.
I may be all those things, but I’m also so much more.
I smiled at Micah, then took my place before the glass tomb. “Raven,” I began, “please grant me wisdom.”
chapter 16
Twilight came, and under cover of darkness Micah and I left the relative safety of the Raven Compound and my fairy mother behind. I would definitely be asking her a few questions about that when we had the time. Now, we were hiding in the woods that encircled the stone prison that, in turn, encircled my brother.
As we crouched in the damp, decaying leaves, I considered how much my life had changed in such a short time. Only a week ago, I had been an office drone whose only indulgences had been caffeinated beverages and fast driving. I had pretended to know nothing of the ways of magic, had hidden my mark from anyone who might glimpse it; I had never hung out at a beach or even sunbathed in the park, never joined a gym, never worn any of the cute, fashionable shirts that might have ridden up and revealed my secret. I had been gifted with one of the strongest bloodlines in history, yet I’d spent much of my life wishing for the magic to just leave me alone.
No more would I hide. I was a Corbeau by birthright, and the daughter of a fairy queen.
I am a force to be reckoned with.
I slid my hand into Micah’s, seeking a bit of warmth for my cold fingers. He squeezed reassuringly but didn’t look away from the prison. And well he shouldn’t, since we’d been waiting for the guards to change for the better part of an hour.
“Do you think it will work?” I’d asked back at the Compound. The Raven had given me one of its feathers, still glossy and black despite the many centuries since his death, along with the assurance that we would be able to leave the prison with Maas in tow, unseen and unstopped by the guards. Of course, like all things magical, it had come with a hefty catch: our dreamselves could not carry the feather, thus making this rescue all the more dangerous.
“What does your heart tell you?” Micah countered.
“It’s rather silent on the matter,” I replied, though, in truth, it beat a quick tattoo against my breastbone. “But I do know that The Raven has never failed my family, not once, when we needed him.”
Micah had smiled at that; in the Otherworld, the integrity of a long-dead bird was as good as gold.
Once we’d returned to the Otherworld, the rest of our preparations had been simple. First, we’d spent a good amount of time placing small pieces of metal in various pockets and pouches about our bodies, retrievable at a moment’s notice, in case we needed to wield them either to strike a foe with added force or even build a wall. Well, in case Micah needed to wield it, since I was still limited to gently bending small portions of copper.
At first I didn’t understand why the metal we secreted in our clothing was mostly iron. Micah had a quantity of silver within his body to call upon, and I’d assumed he would stay true to his metal. When I asked, he explained that it was far more effective to strike someone with iron than silver.
“Is that why Ferra’s a queen?” I’d asked when he pointed that out. “Because iron is a stronger metal?”
“In a way. You don’t find her to be the picture of royalty?”
I made one of those unladylike sounds that Micah so disapproved of. Really, he was just going to have to accept the fact that I was not very refined. “I always imagined a queen as a kind woman, who cared for her people more than anything. Ferra is not that sort of woman.” An image of my mother appeared in my mind’s eye; while I hadn’t known she was a queen, Mom would move mountains for her family. I couldn’t imagine her beh
aving like the despicable Iron Queen, not one bit. “And shouldn’t the queen be a precious metal, like gold or platinum?”
He smiled ruefully. “Things are not always as they should be.” I caught the sadness in his tone, and remembered the gold gaudily displayed in Ferra’s palace, and the gold-lined oubliette. I also remembered that silver is a precious metal too, surely worthier of the throne than ugly old iron. But Micah didn’t want to talk about it, and he turned his attention to the far more pressing task of breaking Max out of prison. As for me, I let him get away with his distraction technique. For now.
“It is getting inside that requires stealth,” Micah murmured as we watched the guards. “Leaving shall be simplicity itself.”
By simplicity, Micah meant that he intended to take Max and me along one of the metal pathways he used for traveling, much as he did in the Mundane World. In order to accomplish this, he’d tasked the silverkin with placing sufficient metal at short intervals between the prison and his home, almost like a trail of silvery breadcrumbs, to guide us to safety. Since the prison proper contained only a small amount of metal in the various electronic devices, and all metal had been removed from the soil underneath it, that was the best we could do.
I nodded, deliberately not speaking, or even thinking, about our impending escape. Micah was confident, and that was all that mattered. Never mind that it was a foolish, risky plan that centered on a dead bird’s feather and a few pounds of iron filings. Never mind that it could very well end with Micah and me either dead or sharing Max’s cell. Nope, not thinking about that at all.
Micah lightly touched my arm and jerked his chin toward the prison. The guard had finally retreated to a small side building the size of a garden shed; through the window, I could see him munching on a sandwich. Carefully, we rose and Micah wrapped his cloak around both of our shoulders.
“You’re sure this will work?” I asked.
“It worked the last time,” he replied. “They never saw who breached their puny wall.”
“I thought you were your dreamself then.”
“I woke as soon as I sensed you in danger.” Huh. So Micah, in his wakeful body, had charged through a stone fortress full of enemies armed with terrible, terrible weapons, enemies with a special taste for Dreamwalkers at that, all for me.
I stood on my toes and stretched to kiss his jaw. He touched my hair but said nothing, not that I’d expected him to. He had to concentrate on blending in.
Micah referred to his cloak as his chameleon skin, but it wasn’t really a lizard’s hide. As near as I could tell, the fabric was woven from various plants with magical properties; close to the hem I could make out something like mandrake leaves, and the clasp was a curl of belladonna, complete with dark, shiny berries. The sum total of these plants meant that the cloak would keep Micah either warm or cool as needed, lend him speed if he were pursued, and hide him from his enemies. It was not like a cloak of invisibility, he’d cautioned me. Some things were quite rare, even in the Otherworld. No, this cloak worked more like a pencil eraser, blurring itself along the edges, so it was hard to tell where the cloak ended and the surrounding landscape began. If one looked directly at Micah one would see him, clear as day, but who looks directly at something that isn’t there? This chameleon skin was a most useful garment indeed.
Gingerly, we made our way across the open space toward the imposing cinderblock wall encircling the prison. Unlike Micah’s last visit, when he had rushed into an unknown environment hoping his illusion would hold, we were trying to be subtle. Conveniently, there was no door or fence, just an opening wide enough to drive a truck through, flanked by cameras and plastic spike strips poised to be flung under any uninvited tires. I wondered how well plastic fared against rubber.
My heart pounded so loudly I thought the guard would surely hear it, but he didn’t look up from his lunch as we walked by the shed or as we stepped beyond the wall. A few steps later, Micah opened the door to the facility, and, as anticlimactic as it was, that was it.
We were in.
The halls, all of them an identical shade of elementary-school green, made me feel like a rat in a maze. I couldn’t imagine how the labcoats managed to navigate the place without a map, but Micah strode purposefully ahead, making sure to drop a tiny speck of iron every few paces. When we reached the doors to the auditorium that held Max, Micah put another piece of our plan into play.
After I’d spoken to The Raven, my mother had rummaged around the dusty, morbid artifacts and produced a special gift of her own: a wolfhound’s tooth. Similarly to the desiccated sprite, it was encased in a stoppered crystal decanter, the tooth’s enamel long since cracked and yellowed with age. When I’d questioned her, she’d smiled wickedly and said that we would need a diversion. And, she’d added, she’d greatly prefer a diversion that would kill a few of her son’s captors.
So we’d tossed the tooth near the hole in the wall that Micah had left during our last visit, and taken up our vigil on the other side of the facility. Now that we were standing before the auditorium door, Micah smashed the glass jar, and we heard the monstrous wolfhound burst into being, the bloodcurdling screams as it launched itself at the nearest guard, its sharp Otherworldly teeth making short work of the plastic guns. Wrapped in Micah’s cloak, we pressed flat against the wall as alarms sounded and the control booth emptied. The scientists rushed away, whether to help or hide, I didn’t know. After the last labcoat had fled, Micah grinned.
“Come, love,” he murmured, as he opened the door for me. “It’s time for me to meet your brother.”
At the sight of Max’s pathetic form, my gut clenched. He looked far worse than the last time I’d seen him, which, I reminded myself, had only been a few days ago. He was still in that plastic cylinder attached to tubes and wires, but the green, viscous liquid had been drained away, leaving him naked save for the electronics wrapped about his limbs. I think the liquid had been keeping him warm, since he was now covered in gooseflesh. He was freezing but too tired to shiver.
Also, without the liquid I could see how gaunt he really was; his ribs jutted out painfully, and the pasty skin hung in loose folds from his joints and abdomen. How long had Max been kept in this science experiment gone wrong? How long had it been since he’d eaten real food or seen the sun? Too long; far, far too long.
I hoped we weren’t too late to save him.
“I will kill whoever is responsible for this.”
I hadn’t realized I’d spoken aloud until Micah nodded. “We will.”
Micah popped the flimsy latch on Max’s plastic shell, but as I reached in to rip the electrodes from Max’s skin, Micah stayed my hand. “Careful,” Micah warned. “His dreamself may be held elsewhere.”
What? How is that even possible? I swallowed and tried to keep from screaming. “What should we do?” My voice was hoarse, my arms trembling; we were so close to freeing Max, and now there was one more fricking obstacle! Micah, of course, remained as calm as ever.
“I shall call him back.” Micah gently nudged Max’s shoulder, then placed a hand on his forehead. Max cracked an eyelid, only to squeeze it shut again.
“He’s here,” Micah proclaimed, and we plucked away the feeder tubes and wires and other torments attached to my brother. Even without them, the evidence of his imprisonment was obvious, from the small circles crusted over with blood that patterned across his torso, to the greenish bruises where plastic bars had held him in place for—how long? Weeks, surely. Perhaps months, or even years.
Yes. I would like to kill every last one of these Peacekeepers.
When we removed the last bar, Max slumped forward into me, his flesh so cold I gasped. My fingers flew to his neck, and I sighed in relief when I found his pulse. Micah hefted Max’s limp form and wrapped him in the chameleon skin cloak. Luckily, we wouldn’t need to worry about blending in for our escape. “The feather,” Micah murmured.
I pulled out The Raven’s gift and placed it where Max had stood, still unsure what
a feather was supposed to do for us, but I didn’t have to wonder for long. As soon as the feather was out of my hands it began to shimmer and melt, its mass increasing, changing color and shape. In the space of a few heartbeats, it had grown into a perfect replica of Max, with all the assorted tubes and wires properly attached.
“Oh,” I mumbled, too stunned to do more than stare; the replica was perfect, right down to the bruises and gooseflesh. Micah, apparently used to such magical occurrences, grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the door and out into the corridor, Max slung over his shoulder. We could still hear shouts and growls from the far side of the prison. I imagined the wolfhound was ripping the guards to shreds. Good.
We walked out of the Institute for Elemental Research just as easily as we’d walked in and made our way to the nearby tree line. When we reached the first few scraps of metal, I asked Micah the fateful question.
“Are you sure you can do this?” I gasped. While we had been planning at the Raven Compound, and in front of my mother, Micah had been confident that he could travel along the metal path carrying both Max and me. Later, when we were alone, he’d admitted that he’d never done so with a single companion, let alone two.
“I should be able to,” he replied, settling Max more comfortably across his shoulders.
“Should?” Should was just a nice way of admitting that he had no idea. Should was not acceptable. I grabbed his shirt and pulled his ear to my mouth. “Listen, if you have to leave someone behind, leave me. Just get Max out of here!”
Micah touched my cheek, the sun breaking behind the thunderclouds in his eyes. “My Sara, I will never leave you.”
Before I could respond, there was a commotion in front of the Institute’s main entrance. Micah didn’t turn to see what it was. Instead, he threw an arm around my shoulders and we leaped into the metal.
Traveling via metal is…weird. As near as I can tell, the molecules of your body separate and merge with the metal, passing you along, slipping and sliding between protons and dodging electrons as they whizz by in their orbits. Remember chemistry class, and how they talked about covalent bonds? Well, imagine taking a covalent bond, instead of a bus. I know. Weird.
Copper Girl Page 13
