I slid out from under the Prince and stood upright before whoever it was could arrive. A moment later, Toross parted the curtain to our tent, stopping in the entryway just as the Prince got to his feet. His movements were still slow, and sluggish. I wondered if he’d be able to break into a run if he had to.
“Am I… interrupting something?” Toross asked as he watched us both.
The Prince got himself upright and stared at Toross from where he stood. He knew, now, that Toross was my uncle. I hadn’t been able to keep the story he’d told me about my parents from him, either, though I had left out the part where his family killed my grandparents.
It was better he didn’t know that right now.
“No,” I said, “What is it you need?”
His eyes moved from me, to the Prince, then back to me. “I want to show you something.”
I frowned. “Show me something?”
He extended his hand. “Yes. Come with me.”
I glanced at the Prince. I couldn’t leave him alone, especially if I didn’t know how long I would be gone for. What if Radulf came back out while I was gone? What if he manifested in the flesh again and tried to finish the job? What did that even look like? A brief flash of Radulf’s shadowy form crossed my thoughts, and I saw him sneering at me.
Shaking my head, I pushed the memory aside. “Can… this wait?” I asked.
“Wait? For what?” Toross asked.
“I don’t know… until tomorrow?”
“No. I want you to come with me now. I will bring you back here when we’re done.”
The Prince placed a hand on my shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. Without having to look at him or consult with him, I knew what he’d meant with it. I’m okay, go and do this thing. He obviously had faith that he could control Radulf while I was gone. Maybe it had something to do with what we’d done earlier?
I had a hunch that it wasn’t my scent that kept Radulf at bay, but our link. Today we’d crossed a threshold and strengthened that link, and maybe that was enough for now, at least. Either way, it didn’t look like Toross was going to leave this alone, so I decided to nod and go with him.
I gave the Prince a final look as I left the tent. He nodded, and then I was gone, following Toross through the camp of the moon children. It was the middle of the afternoon, so the place was alive with life, and movement. There was laughter, people talking, food being prepared, clothes being washed and hung on clothing lines scattered throughout the place.
I thought Toross was going to take me to the main tent, to bring me before the Alpha, but we went around it altogether, following a small road leading away from the tents and into a quiet, slightly wooded, very peaceful place.
The sunlight broke through leaves overhead in streaks, casting light along the path we were following. Unlike the rest of the village, there was snow beneath my feet and collecting around the base of the trees, but from that snow there were flowers blooming.
They were everywhere. Turquoise, lilac, and pale blue, flowers that were as tall as my knees and blooming despite the dimness, and the snow. It smelled like a garden out here; a cold, frosty garden, but a garden nonetheless.
At the end of the path was a tree, the tallest and thickest of the miniature woods we’d entered. It was surrounded by a halo of flowers of all shapes and sizes, made brighter by the way the sun shone on the flowerbed. As I approached, the flowers very slowly turned to face me, moving in unison as if to greet me.
It smelled wonderful here.
Safe.
Home.
“What is this place?” I finally asked.
“This was your mother’s garden,” Toross said as he approached the flowers around the base of the tree. He knelt and plucked one, then handed it over. It looked like a rose, but it was pale purple. Frozen droplets clung to its many petals. I sniffed it, and it was like no Earth flower I had ever smelled. Bright, flowery, and fresh.
“My mother’s…” I said.
“She loved this place,” he said, “I have tended to it ever since… well.” He didn’t need to continue. We both knew what he meant.
I looked around. “It’s beautiful here. So quiet. You can’t hear the village.”
Toross nodded. “It’s the trees. They keep the sound out. This is a place where you can mediate, reflect, be with your thoughts. I come here often.”
“It smells like her,” I said. “I mean, it’s weird. I don’t know what she smells like, but… is that weird?”
“I don’t think so. I smell her too. It brings me comfort to believe that a part of her still lingers in this place.”
“You mean her ghost?”
“No… perhaps. It’s difficult to tell. What I have to show you, however, is this.”
Toross moved a little closer to the tree at the heart of this little glen, careful not to step on any of the flowers as he went. Kneeling down, he reached into the flowers and pulled out a long, thin, black box, dusted over with snow. He brushed some of the snow off the top, then moved away from the bed of flowers and handed it over to me.
It was sturdy in my hand, and clearly handmade, but it was gorgeous. Smooth, dark, carefully filed, and covered with an intricate design that had been carved into it. I ran my fingertips across it, and a strange current fed back into my hands, like the box was charged with electricity.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Open it,” Toross said.
I searched for a clip and found it. I wasn’t sure what I’d expected to find inside, but an ornate, curved dagger wasn’t on the list. A turquoise gem embedded into the small crossguard gleamed when the light touched it. The blade itself was sharp, and pointed, though its shape was a little different than what I was used to.
It kind of looked like a “Fang,” I said, suddenly.
Toross nodded. “That was what your mother called it. It was hers.”
“This was her dagger…” I trailed off.
“Your father made the blade and locked the gemstone into place, she made the handle and used the dagger to defeat her enemies… and channel her magic.”
I looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“Her magic was powerful. Raw. She had trouble controlling it. This helped.”
I remembered my time in the aviary, how my power had manifested in a powerful explosion that shattered the structure. I hadn’t been able to do that again. I didn’t even know how. But maybe with this…
“Why have you given this to me?” I asked.
“She would have wanted you to have it,” he said, “You should have it.”
“I don’t think—”
“—it’s yours, Dahlia. It was meant to be yours. Take it.”
I looked down at the dagger I had almost been too nervous to touch. My heart started thumping, adrenaline coursing through me. Carefully, I reached into the box, picked the dagger up, and gripped it tightly in my hand… then it happened.
A surge of power rushed through me, filling me, erupting from me in a powerful shockwave that sent even Toross to the ground. My entire body vibrated as pure energy coursed through me. I wanted to scream, it was too much to handle, but when I tipped my head back and opened my mouth, a beam of white light shot out of it and went streaking into the sky.
Then the world went black, and I fell to the floor.
Unconscious.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Dahlia,” came a soft, distant voice.
I rubbed my eyes, groaning. Everything hurt. “What?” I croaked. “Mother… Pepper?”
“Wake up, sleepy head. There’s someone who wants to meet you.”
Opening my eyes and looking around, I found myself lying on my bed back at home, in Carnaby Street. My heart surged into my throat, the sudden burst of adrenaline filling my body with a kind of trembling warmth. I was home, and Pepper was smiling at me from my bedside. She had a little plate in her hand. On it rested a tiny porcelain cup, feathers of steam rising from it.
“What am I… where am
I?”
“At home, of course,” she said.
I sat upright and stared at her. She was wearing a long, red robe, over a white nightgown, and on the bridge of her nose sat a pair of half-moon spectacles held around the back of her neck by a light chain.
“How am I home?” I asked.
“Don’t be silly, dear,” she said, “Sit up and drink your tea, then come downstairs.”
Pepper set the plate and the cup on my end table, gave me one final kind smile, and then headed out of my room. I watched her, then I stared at the cup, finally resting my gaze on the window in my bedroom that overlooked the alley into Carnaby Street. It was frosted over, little bits of snow sitting on the outside of the windowpane and clinging to its support frames.
Beyond the window, a gentle snow fell over London’s rooftops.
I slid my feet out of the bed and looked at my toes, my hands. I was wearing pajamas and odd socks, and while I didn’t have a series of moon-tattoos on my right hand, there was still a butterfly shaped tattoo on the back of my left. I caressed it with my fingertips, trying to get Gullie to wake up, but it was no use.
I couldn’t understand what was going on. Was this a dream? Was I dreaming right now? Or was Arcadia a dream? I could just about remember most of it, but it was starting to slip away, the way a dream would after waking. It was like mist, like smoke, ethereal and ghostlike. By the time I finished drinking the tea Pepper had left for me, it was almost gone.
Mira, Melina, the Prince.
All of it.
I got up off the bed with the empty cup in my hand and walked over to the window. There were people walking past the entryway to the alley in which the Magic Box sat. I could hear them talking, their feet crunching on the snow, the cars rolling down the street just outside of the frame. Reflected on the window glass wasn’t the fae girl I had come to know so well, but the old me.
The bookworm with the mousy brown hair. The seamstress who rarely sees the light of day. The boring one with no friends save for the little pixie that lives in her hair.
What the hell is this?
I heard movement coming from the living room. Turning around, I headed toward my bedroom door—which stood ajar—and listened. The last time I had been here, soldiers of the winter court were storming my house to steal me to Arcadia. Tonight, the house was mostly quiet, save for someone knocking around on the other side of the door.
I opened it and stepped through, but as soon as I crossed the threshold, I was no longer in my house. The chilling cold bit and nipped at my exposed skin. I wrapped my arms around myself and instantly started shivering. I wasn’t in my house anymore, but in the woods somewhere, with cold snow under my bare feet and black trees all around me.
“Oh shit,” I said, my teeth chattering. “Pepper? Evie? Where are you?”
There was no reply, save for the woosh of the wind. I scanned the woods, searching for a path to take, somewhere to go. When I thought I spotted a soft, blue light pulsing through the trees, I headed for it, hoping I wouldn’t lose my toes to frostbite. I still had some energy in me, so I broke into a run, speeding through the trees in the dark, following the light in the hopes it would take me somewhere warm.
I spilled out of the tree line into an open clearing of dirt and snow that led to a small lake that had iced over and turned black. On the other side of the lake was the source of the light, bright and pale blue like the reflection of the full moon in the sky on the surface of the black ice. But the light stood apart from the moon. It was its own thing, shining directly in front of the tallest, thickest tree in the woods.
In it, I thought I saw someone. Two people, in fact. They were only shadows breaking the light as it shone behind them, and I could’ve sworn one of them was beckoning me to come closer.
Looking down at the ice in front of my feet gave me all kinds of anxieties. It didn’t look sturdy. It barely even looked real. If I fell into it, I knew I would die. There would be no finding my way out of it, and even if I did, hypothermia would get me within moments. Still, I had to get to the other side. I had to get to that tree.
Taking a deep breath, I broke into a quick sprint and—using my fancy feet—I glided across the ice as lightly and as quickly as I could. The less my whole weight stood on any single spot of ice, the less likely it would be that the ice would break. That was my thinking, at least, and it seemed to hold out.
The wind raced through my hair, the bitter cold biting at my nose, the tips of my ears, my cheeks. After a moment, though, the cold didn’t really bother me all that much anymore. Adrenaline was coursing through me, and my heart was pumping hard enough that I was starting to warm up from the inside out.
The closer I got to the light on the other side of the lake, though, the dimmer it got. I saw it receding, fading. I stretched my hand out, “No wait!” I yelled, but the light eventually became a tiny blue dot, then disappeared just as I reached the other side of the lake.
I staggered a couple of steps before finally coming to a stop on solid ground. Panting, hot steam issuing from between my lips in puffs, I looked around, searching for the source of the light, but it was gone, and I couldn’t find it.
“What is happening?!” I yelled. “Where are you?!”
“Dahlia,” I heard a voice that made me freeze to the spot. It came from behind me somewhere, and as I slowly turned, I saw two figures standing by the edge of the lake I had just dashed across, wreathed in moonlight.
It was a man and a woman. The man was tall, with shaggy blonde hair and kind blue eyes. He was wearing a brown, tweed jacket, black trousers, and a grey scarf around his neck. The woman was somehow taller, with long, silvery hair, and even though she was slender, she still exuded strength and confidence. She wore a combination of furry leathers, most of them black and deep brown, that clung perfectly to her body and looked comfortable to wear.
They were bathed in moonlight. Both were smiling, he was handsome, she was beautiful, but neither looked like they were dressed appropriately for the weather around us. I wanted to ask who they were—it was an instinct—but I didn’t have to. It would’ve been stupid to waste breath on such an obvious question. My knees gave out from under me and I fell to the snowy dirt.
I was already crying.
“What is this?” I asked.
My mother tucked some of her brilliant, silvery hair behind a long, pointed ear. “You know what this is,” she said.
“I don’t. Is it… is it really you, or is this another fae trick?”
“Look inside yourself. What does your heart tell you?”
“My heart hurts. So much has happened, sometimes I don’t know what’s real and what isn’t anymore. I couldn’t bear it if this was a trick.”
My father approached, taking a few steps across the snow. He extended a hand, and without hesitating, I took it. As soon as my skin touched his, I grabbed him as if he was a life-ring and I was adrift on a cold, black sea. I couldn’t have rushed into his arms any faster. I clung to him and sobbed into his chest, not speaking, just crying.
A moment later, I felt my mother’s hand touched my back, and soon, all three of us were joined in the embrace. Once a broken, separated family, now whole again. I didn’t want to doubt this. I lost myself completely in it. If it was a trick, then let me be tricked. I could care less at this point.
“We should speak quickly,” my mother said, “We don’t have much time.”
I perked up, my eyes and nose red, tears wetting my face. “Time? What do you mean?”
“The magic that brought us all here won’t last long.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You touched my dagger, did you not?”
I turned my eyes up to look at her. “I… I don’t remember, but I think I did.”
She looked down at me and brushed my hair with her fingers. “That is why you’re here. That is why we’re here.”
“But isn’t this… what is this? Are you ghosts?”
My mother and fathe
r exchanged soft smiles. “We passed from this place a long time ago,” my father said, “But when you touched the dagger, it brought us back so that you could see us. So that we could see you—see the woman you’ve become.”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t want you to leave,” I said, “The fae took away my mothers, I won’t let them take you away as well.”
“We don’t have a choice, but we still have some time.” He took one of my hands, my mother took the other.
I looked up at my mother. “How did you know I would touch the dagger?” I asked, “I thought you never wanted me to come back here.”
“I didn’t,” she said, “It isn’t safe for you here. It’s the reason why I sent you to Earth. But I knew, one day, you would come back. Even I wasn’t strong enough to re-write your fate.”
“We didn’t know how you would be brought back here,” my father said, “Only that one day, fate would call on you to return to fulfil your destiny.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t want a destiny. I wanted to keep living my life back at home, where it was safe.”
“Safe is not an environment in which people grow, and you have grown to be an outstanding woman… we are both so very proud of you, Dahlia. You have inside of you the best of both of us. You have my strength and my cunning, and you have his… human eyes.”
“Hey,” my father protested.
My mother grinned. “You inherited his ingenuity, his creativity, and his skill with a needle.”
“You made clothes?” I asked.
“I made this little number,” he said, pointing at his tweed jacket. “It’s a little dated now, but it’s comfortable.”
I shook my head. “I never knew you were a tailor. I never knew… I… I have so many questions for you both.”
“I know,” my mother said, “But we don’t have time to answer them all for you. In fact, our time grows shorter by the second, and we have something important to tell you.”
“What is it?”
She paused. “They need you, Dahlia.”
“Who does?”
Marked (The Coldest Fae Book 3) Page 11
