by Claire Luana
“Make it stop!” she cried out.
Tristam held his hands up in the air. “I can’t. You’re going to have to jump. I’ll try to cushion your landing with air.”
We were about ten feet lower than her now, and I didn’t expect her to do it, but the lure of a million dollars must have been too much. She launched herself down, landing partly in Tristam’s arms and partly on the altar top with a thud.
“Fuck!” she hissed, her face contorted with pain. “I think it’s broken. I thought you were going to catch me!”
“Sorry.” Tristam’s face reddened. “I didn’t get my magic ready in time. Next time give me some warning.”
“So this is my fault?” she scoffed.
A better person would have felt sorry for her, but the thought running through my head was that we’d easily beat them now. If Sophia couldn’t walk, they couldn’t cross the finish line.
“Can you stand on it?” Tristam asked through gritted teeth. He was obviously having the same thought I was.
Even if he carried her, he wouldn’t be able to race as quickly as Orin and I.
“Yes, I think so.”
“Then it’s not broken. You probably just sprained it.”
“I’ll use magic to brace it,” she said, trying to put on a brave face. But we all knew that even if she did, she still wouldn’t be able to run as fast as I.
My glee was short-lived as the altar top hit the ground with a thump. We must have been thirty feet underground by this point. The rectangular shaft of light beaming from above our heads was the only illumination of the space we found ourselves in, which looked to be some sort of carved tunnel. Please not another goblin mine!
“Come on,” I said, grabbing Orin’s hand and setting off into the dark tunnel ahead of us. As we moved into the stone tunnel, I spotted stone coffins laid into recesses in the wall. So not a goblin mine. We were in a crypt. The place where they buried their dead. Another shiver passed through me at the thought of it. I’m not sure which was worse.
“Wait.” Orin pulled on my hand, bringing me to a standstill. Behind us, Tristam was struggling to help Sophia walk.
I looked at Orin, already knowing what he was thinking. “You can’t be serious after everything they’ve done.”
“We can still cross the line first,” he reasoned. “But we don’t know how long this passage goes on and we can’t leave them like that. She’s in pain. She needs a doctor.”
“You’re worried about Sophia?” I looked at him like he had grown a second head. “When I first met you, I thought you were a selfish bastard and look at you now. I’ve ruined you,” I said, with a little spark of pride.
“Yes, I’m worried about Sophia,” he huffed. “But you can hold the Nobel Peace Prize. We don’t know where this tunnel goes, or what we’ll find at the end. If it happens to be something unfriendly, we’ll stand a better chance against it with Tristam and Sophia there.”
“There’s the old Orin I know and love,” I said. Though I found it didn’t bother me much anymore. It was just part of who he was. Faeries growing up on their own in this cruel world didn’t have the luxury of kindness. Anyway, he was right. I wouldn’t put it past the FFR to position some final boss monster right before the finish line.
“Yeah, sweetness and light,” he growled. “Come on.”
We walked back to the struggling pair. Orin picked up Sophia in his arms and began to walk into the dark. Tristam didn’t look particularly happy about the situation, but he accepted our strange kindness. He knew he couldn’t cross the finish line without Sophia, and he couldn’t carry her quickly enough to beat us.
The walk through the underground tunnel was slow going. The paving stones were uneven, making the walk difficult, and the lack of light did nothing to help. The farther we walked from the alter top, the darker it was, and before long, we were having to feel our way rather than see.
“Can one of you conjure up a magical light?” I huffed as I stubbed my toe on an uneven stone.
“Don’t waste your magic on my account,” a voice boomed through the tunnel. A green flash lit up the room and fizzed out, but not before I saw who’d conjured the magic. My pulse rapidly increased as I prayed I was wrong, but then the whole place lit up in a brilliant white light. I squinted against the glare, blinking.
Standing in a large vaulted chamber was Vale Obanstone. Behind him with a leering grin on her face was Patricia, and behind her, the end of the race. I got ready to bolt for the finish line when something else caught my eye, and I froze.
The king and Patricia stood before a set of stairs leading up to a stone platform. From the platform—an altar of sorts—sprouted a large obelisk that flashed with rivers of lavender light pulsing through cut out channels. At the base was something that looked suspiciously like a bomb. And in Patricia’s manicured hand was a sleek silver pistol.
It was as we’d feared. This wasn’t the finish line. This was the final anchor point and the culmination of the Brotherhood’s mad plan.
26
“What is this?” Tristam said, looking around in confusion. “Where’s the finish line? Where are the cameras?”
Orin put Sophia down, and she hopped to Tristam’s side, hissing with each step.
“There is no finish line,” I said, proud that I managed to keep my voice from wavering. “Is there.”
Patricia raised the pistol and pointed it at Orin and me.
“Not for you, I’m afraid,” King Obanstone said. “But for me, for the Brotherhood, we are finally at the end of a race we have run for a very long time.”
“The Brotherhood?” Tristam asked, shooting a worried glance at me. “Father, what do you have to do with those terrorists?”
“Tristam, what’s going on?” Sophia asked quietly.
I told you so! I wanted to shout at them.
“The Brotherhood are not terrorists,” Patricia said, stepping forward. She wore a long black dress that looked suspiciously like a robe. Apparently, she’d cast aside her “TV show host” wardrobe for full villain attire. “The ICCF are the terrorists. Ripping apart the natural world, forcing us to separate into humans and faeries. But that’s not how it’s supposed to be. We’re just returning the world to the way it was intended.” I really didn’t like how the pistol barrel wavered whenever she tried to emphasize a point. She didn’t look like a pro with that thing. I didn’t want it to accidentally go off.
“I thought the final anchor point was supposed to be in the middle of the board,” Orin whispered to me. “Why the hell is it here?”
The king must have heard him because he leered at Orin. “Didn’t anyone tell you not to trust a drunk?”
I opened and closed my mouth, the pieces slotting into place. “Niall was a plant. Misdirection.”
“Well, he told a partial truth,” Patricia said gleefully. “We couldn’t be sure what kind of spell you would use on him to get him to talk. The final anchor is at the very center of the board.” She waved her hands around the ancient chamber as if on a game show. “Just about half a mile underground.”
Shit. That meant Cass and Auberon and the rest were…way too far away to help us. They’d be looking on the surface, and find a big ol’ bag of nothing.
“Father,” Tristam insisted, not willing to have the attention off him for even a second. “What is going on here?”
“Let me tell you, my dear boy.” Vale strode down the stairs and ushered Tristam and a limping Sophia towards the anchor point.
My mind was whirling at this point. We needed to get the MED away from that magical anchor. But there was no way Orin and I could do it alone. We needed backup. We needed Cass. Even if we could escape from here unscathed, we didn’t have enough time to get out of here, find them, and get back before the king blew the whole Hedge. But maybe I could alert her…
The king was gesturing wildly now at the huge obelisk, explaining the division of the worlds, the Brotherhood’s mission, the race.
“So the race was
just…a distraction?” Sophia asked dismayed. “Was there ever a million dollar prize? A boon?” I could tell she was devastated that she’d put herself through hell for nothing when she could have been on a beach in Ibiza the whole time.
I crept my hand into my pocket, grasping for Cass’s mirror. “Cass,” I whispered, praying it was loud enough to trigger the mirror’s connection.
“Father,” Tristam said. “I don’t think this is a good idea. Maybe once upon a time, the worlds were joined, but it’s been different for millennia. Technology can’t exist around quora. You’d topple the human world, their financial markets, governments. I can’t imagine that’s what you want…” he trailed off as he saw the gleam in his father’s eyes. Tristam took a step back, paling. “That is what you want.”
The mirror was in my hand now, and I flicked it open, still inside my jacket pocket.
The king continued. “The faerie races are vastly superior to humans. It’s wrong that we scrape for resources while humans flourish, taking the best of this planet—”
“Jacq? Jacq, are you there?” Cass’s voice crackled out of the mirror, and my stomach squeezed like a vice. I clapped the mirror closed, but it was too late.
The king and Patricia whirled towards me, Patricia’s pistol trained on me, the king’s hands raised. “What was that?”
“What was what?” I asked weakly.
Patricia strode to me, her heels clicking on the stones. She pointed the gun at my temple, pressing the cool barrel against my skin.
“Easy!” Orin said, but the king turned to him.
“Don’t you move.”
“Give. It. Here,” Patricia said to me, her voice cold as ice.
I swallowed and offered the mirror. Idiot. Idiot, Idiot! She took it from me, backing away with her gun still trained on Orin and me. I swallowed, my heart stuttering.
She handed the king the mirror, and he flipped it open. He sneered as a face came into view.
“Cassandra Cunningham. No doubt the ICCF rabble is with you, searching helplessly for an MED you’ll never find. What’s the human expression? Always a day late and a dollar short.” He snorted.
“Father,” another voice stemmed from the mirror. “Don’t do—” but it was cut off as the king dropped the mirror to the ground and crushed it with a savage stomp of his boot.
“Who was that?” Tristam asked, his voice wavering. “Father, that sounded like—”
“I told you your brother was alive,” I said, realizing that if we could get Tristam and Sophia on our side, we were four against two. Well, Sophia was kind of worthless, so maybe like three and a half against two. “Your father’s been lying to you this whole time. Your brother fled because your father was going to kill him for discovering his twisted secret!”
The king’s face contorted with rage. He crossed the chamber faster than my eyes could take in and backhanded me across the face. Stars exploded in my vision, and I hit the ground hard.
“Don’t touch her!” Orin shouted, shooting a jet of purple flame at the king. The king deflected it easily, and a shot rang out.
I jerked up, my eyes searching Orin’s body for any sign he’d been hit. There was none. Patricia had fired her gun in the air. “Nobody move until I say,” she said, her normally chipper voice low and deadly.
“Orin, Jacq, get over here.” She gestured towards the obelisk, and we obeyed. My cheekbone smarted like hell where the king had slapped me. Damn, the man hit hard.
“Tristam, tie them up,” the king retrieved a coil of black rope and tossed it to his son. Tristam caught it with a face like he’d just been thrown a poisonous viper. “Father—”
“Do it!” the king barked.
Tristam stumbled forward and faced us, unable to look us in the eyes. “Turn around and hold out your hands,” he mumbled. I glowered at him, wanting to scream at him. But something held me back, some glimmer of sanity through my anger. Tristam was our only chance at getting out of this mess. “It’s not too late to do the right thing,” I murmured under my breath. “Auberon made the right choice. You can too.”
“Silence,” the king commanded.
I pressed my lips shut. I wasn’t sure if my words had gotten through to Tristam, but I had to hope that there was something good inside him. Something that knew this was wrong. Some part that was brave enough to stand up to his father.
When Tristam had tied our hands securely, he stepped back, and the king stepped forward, any sign of rage gone, replaced by his normal, calm, regal appearance. “You two will be the first tragic victims of an awful ICCF mistake. Technology designed to keep everyone safe will, well, be the end of life as you know it.”
“You’re going to try to pin this on the ICCF? No one will buy that.”
“They will when I’m done with it. Without television or the internet, it will be a simple matter of spreading the story I want and squashing the rest.” The king stepped in close and seized my chin.
“You Cunninghams have been a thorn in my side ever since your worthless sister took my son from me. You’ll be a fitting sacrifice to bring an end to the world as we know it. It’s almost poetic.”
“I hate poems,” I spat at him, through that wasn’t entirely true. When Orin had recited that van Goethe poem about the Erl-King during the Sorcery Trial, it had a nice lilt to it…
The king seized my arm and pulled me forward, up the stairs to the raised platform where the base of the obelisk sat.
Orin started after us, but Patricia trained her weapon on him. “Ah-ah-ahh, handsome,” she said. “Don’t you move. Or you’ll be next.”
The king threw me forward to my knees, and I hit the ground hard. A sleek silver box with a blinking red timer faced me. But I wouldn’t have time to worry about that. Because I’d already be dead by the time it went off.
27
“I think you already know what’s going to happen next, don’t you?” the king sneered.
I remained still, not giving him the satisfaction of an answer. If he wanted to give me a whole bad guy monologue about how amazing he was and what he was going to do, so be it. But I wasn’t going to have any part of it.
He whipped out a curved dagger and held my face up so I could get a good look at the weapon that was going to kill me.
“Pretty isn’t it? You know, this has been in my family for generations. I was going to give it to Auberon, but once I’m gone, it will pass to Tristam.”
“Sooner rather than later,” I spat, turning my eyes away from the sharp blade. At least it would go in easily and, hopefully, lessen the pain. I frantically tried to think of anything else we had up our sleeve, but we’d used the xana potion, and my mirror was crushed into shards and scattered all over the floor. If my arms weren’t tied behind my back at the wrists, I’d have gone for one of the shards to even up the playing field a little, but as it was, I was out of options.
“With your lifeblood spilled onto the foundation of the altar, there will be enough magical power to obliterate the vile Hedge that has divided the natural world. Your sacrifice will not be in vain. You will be a part of ushering in a glorious new era for all faerie-kind.”
He pulled the dagger away quickly, so now all I could see was the floor. I twisted my head so I was looking straight at Orin. There was so much I wanted to say to him, so many things I wished I’d told him, but it was too late. I could already feel the point of the dagger in my side, ripping through the fabric of the FFR uniform.
I love you, I mouthed to him soundlessly. What else was there to say? I would be dead within the minute and telling him I loved him was the best I could do.
I’d seen Orin at some pretty low points, but I’d never seen tears flowing down his face the way they were now. He was so angry, and my whispered proclamation of love only served to make him angrier still. Patricia had tied his legs too, and now he thrashed on his side, kicking and writhing to free himself of the rope. It was a valiant effort, but it would be too late. He’d never get to me in time, and even i
f he did, they’d only kill him too.
“Stop!” A voice called out.
I felt a sharp pain in my side as I was dragged roughly away, scraping my cheek along the cold stone floor. My ropes loosened, and I found I could move again. Pulling myself up, I saw it was Tristam that had saved me. He’d pulled me away from his father. It was him I’d heard yelling stop.
Blood dripped down my side, staining the uniform below the rip, but it was a shallow cut, barely breaking the skin. Tristam had pulled me away before his father could cause too much damage.
“This is madness, Father,” Tristam said. “You can’t do this. You can’t just… kill people. And you?” Tristam pointed to Patricia. “How do you think this will go for humans when the Hedge goes down? Why are you even helping him?”
I took advantage of Tristam’s distraction to scramble over to Orin and began to work on his ropes. Mine had been cut, whether with a knife or with magic, I didn’t know, but I had neither of those to aid me now. I only had my fingers and a few years in Girl Scouts on my side.
“Patricia grew up in the Brotherhood,” the king said smoothly. “Her father was one of our most esteemed members. Everything she has is thanks to our efforts. She knows there is always a place for those who are loyal. Unlike you, who are being dangerously disloyal. Cease this prattling, son. The human must die.”
I looked up sharply at that, just in time to see Tristam barrel into his father like a linebacker. The king took a shoulder to the gut, apparently not expecting a physical attack. I ignored the commotion, intent on getting Orin free. It was only when a scream rang out, echoing throughout the chamber that I finally looked up.
Somehow, the king had gotten Tristam off him. Now Sophia was struggling in the king’s arms, and Tristam was watching helplessly as Patricia held a gun on him.
