“Like I’d die that easily.” Hazel coughed, dripping water everywhere. “Can I get out of this pond now?”
“Only if your wounds are healed.” They had. Even the cuts on her hands and arms had healed up.
Hazel climbed to her feet. Her dress had transformed into regular clothes, too. “I want to sleep for a century. Then I want to kill those redcaps.”
“It was the redcaps, then?”
She grimaced. “They stole my knife, the bastards.” She took it from me, wiping the blood on her sleeve.
“Were they Unseelie, or outcasts?” River wanted to know.
“They stabbed me,” Hazel said. “I didn’t exactly have chance to ask for their names and addresses, did I?”
“Hazel,” I cut in. “You’re soaking wet and you nearly bled to death. We can talk about this tomorrow.”
Hazel stumbled. “God. Does that pond make hangovers worse?”
“Probably,” I said, taking her arm to help her cross the lawn to the house. Hazel stumbled a few times, but she made it upstairs with a little assistance.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, her voice slurring, “but I meant it about the redcaps.”
Then she walked into her room and collapsed face-first onto her bed.
Stepping back, I closed the door behind her. Fresh tears pricked my eyes, and I shook them away angrily. Some use this new power was when it disappeared in times of crisis.
A warm hand on my arm made me turn around, startled. River had crept up on me in the dark.
“Sorry,” he whispered. “She’ll be fine when she wakes up. The magic in that pond is powerful. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s not exactly something Mum broadcasts,” I said. “But—Holly has to pay for this. She and her necromancers set that wraith loose, and she can use it to attack other people and claim I was responsible.”
“Exactly,” he said. “I’d go after it, if not for this blasted vow.”
I frowned at him, unable to see his expression in the dark. “I thought you volunteered for the job.”
“I did,” he said tightly. “That doesn’t mean I agree with the way the Sidhe run things, nor did I know that the wraiths would target a village where not a single person has the skills to banish them.”
“They don’t? Not even Greaves?”
“As far as necromancers go, he’s barely above junior level. They’re going to get killed.”
“Seriously? I know wraiths are rare, but it’s a stretch to assume nobody in this realm has ever dealt with them aside from you.”
“In cities, certainly,” he said. “This is a small village in the middle of nowhere. Many others have dropped off the map for this precise reason. The rogue Sidhe will leave nothing behind.”
“Agnes and Everett would beg to differ.” But they weren’t necromancers. And if Holly really did know about the book, enough to safeguard the wraith against it, then everyone in town might be collateral damage.
River said, “I’m going to try and lure the wraith into a trap and confront it without breaking the terms of the vow. If I manage to do so, I’ll face it alone. Neither you nor your sister will be placed in harm’s way.”
“You’d die,” I said before I could stop myself. Words caught in my throat, tangling together, and I cursed whoever had bespelled the book to the heavens.
“You seem certain of that,” he said. “Is there anything you want to tell me?”
“Yes.” I just couldn’t speak the words aloud, and when he found out, I’d doubtless take the heat for whoever’s spell had bound the book. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“This is my job,” he said in a low voice. “I can’t afford to fail. There’s… I’ve suspected for a while that there’s a conspiracy in the Grey Vale against the Courts, and I think the wraiths are part of that threat. I found evidence during my missions in the borderlands that more wraiths are slipping into the faerie realms. So when word of this mission reached my father, I was immediately suspicious that there was a connection.”
I stared at him for a moment. “So you didn’t come to guard my family?”
“I was contacted about this job because of my knowledge of the wraiths, but I have a suspicion that these events are all connected,” he said. “Attacks from the Vale have become more frequent in the last few years, but the mage councils in the human realm, even Edinburgh’s necromancer guild… they aren’t going to investigate a village in the middle of nowhere. Especially as it’s generally the Gatekeeper’s job to keep the peace in this region.”
Indignation rose within me on Hazel’s behalf. “She’s trying. Both of us are. We aren’t trained for this, and it’s not our job to deal with wraiths.”
“I’m not blaming you. I’m saying you’re being targeted as part of the Vale outcasts’ plan to work against the Summer Court.”
“I find that hard to believe.” I knew barely anything about current faerie relations, but my family had given their lives to preserve the peace, for generations. Surely someone would have known if they faced a threat on that scale. “Do the Sidhe know your wild conspiracy theories?”
His mouth flattened. “The Sidhe and I aren’t exactly on good terms.”
“Wait, seriously? Why?”
A moment passed. “The last Seelie client I worked for turned out to be keeping and torturing humans in his home. I managed to set them free, but the Sidhe found out. I took on this job as a last chance.” He was breathing heavily, his fists clenched. “And I apologise for taking it out on you and your sister, but she was deliberately negligent tonight without a care for the consequences.”
“She was,” I said, “but because she’s terrified. How many times have we nearly died over the last week? It was me she was worried about, because I don’t have magic. That’s how they got her.”
“Exactly.” His eyes glittered in the dark. “I was preoccupied with you, too. If I hadn’t been watching you more closely than her, I wouldn’t have lost sight of her and let those redcaps sneak up on her.”
I stared. What in hell was I supposed to say to that?
He didn’t give me the chance to reply. Just turned and walked downstairs, leaving me standing in darkness.
Tomorrow, I thought as a wave of tiredness crashed over me. Tomorrow, Holly would pay for what she’d done. Tomorrow, we’d get answers.
17
I woke with a new sense of clarity. And as much as I wanted to find a way to make Holly pay for what she’d done, I had the means of conquering the wraith and stopping her in my own hands. Maybe I needed to coax obedience out of the book in my own way rather than chasing Grandma’s ghost. I already knew the theory of necromantic magic even if I’d had never had reason to learn it in detail.
I found out pretty quickly that I’d skipped to the top level of necromancy without even trying. As low-level necromancers, the ones in the village could use their spirit sight to track and speak to ghosts in both the veil and the living world, as well as banishing and binding them in spirit circles. Basic stuff. River’s veil tricks were way up on the top level. And me? Nothing I read told me how the book had come into existence, and I found no references to the symbol on the cover, either. There were a few variations of faerie languages, but none matched the rune on the book, even closely. I was an academic, for the Sidhe’s sakes, but there were no primary texts from Faerie itself. Not in this realm.
I drummed my fingers on the desk, adding the latest book to the ever-growing stack on my desk. If anything, the spellbook itself ought to be a source, if I could trick it into revealing its contents…
Wait. Our family tree. It was there, on the wall. If Grandma had been given the book, she must have inherited it, right? I crossed the room to the tree, traced the line with my fingertips back to old Thomas Lynn himself. Two daughters. One bound to Summer, one to Winter. Their children were the same. So had this book fallen into our line’s possession after the split—or before? Had Thomas Lynn himself brought it back from Faerie, or had
it wound up in the family another way? The records were gone. Buried. Only Gatekeepers were listed on the family tree. The others were… gone.
I swore as the book pile teetered and toppled over, scattering on the carpet. But that wasn’t what I saw in my mind’s eye. The graves. All Lynns. The Gatekeepers and non-Gatekeepers were buried in that graveyard. And Grandma had implied that the Gatekeepers couldn’t use the book’s magic. But someone of the bloodline could.
Grandma had had a sister. Like me. Great-Aunt Enid…
Her grave was recently disturbed. And her spirit would be long gone. But I couldn’t help wondering if Grandma hadn’t given me instructions because the magic had never been hers to begin with. But if I was right, who’d given it to my Great-Aunt Enid?
I pulled more books from the shelves, my heart racing. This place might be a shrine to the Lynns, but plenty of non-Gatekeepers had lived in this house. If Great-Aunt Enid had intended someone else to wield her power after her death, she must have left some information behind. But I’d been away from home when she’d died four years ago. Some detective I was. Surely she at least knew that the book couldn’t be read unless it wanted to be. Right?
“Grandma,” I said, aloud. “You can’t just show up whenever a wraith does and then vanish the rest of the time.”
But come to think of it—the barriers on Unseelie territory would have affected her, too. They’d come down specifically when the wraith had shown up, thanks to someone inside their territory. But how had they known I had the book? Maybe Holly had all the information, and that’s why I couldn’t find anything here in the house.
Frustrated, I went outside to clear my head, and found River laying out candles on the lawn.
“Hey,” I said awkwardly. We’d barely exchanged two words since our encounter last night. Luckily, Hazel had seemed too out of it to notice. “You’re not luring the wraith here, are you?”
“No, but if it comes back, we’ll be ready.” So he was back in professional bodyguard mode. Maybe it was for the best.
“I was wondering—what do those symbols on your sword mean?”
“My sword?” he said in surprise. “Any reason?”
“It sort of looks the same as the spell signature, the one they thought was ours.” I willed him to take the bait.
“Not exactly.” He drew the sword, turning it over in his hands. Green magic shimmered along its hilt to his hands. “They’re Sidhe symbols… not human spell signatures. Faerie magic doesn’t leave a specific signature, not in the way your family’s does.”
“No, but it looks similar.”
He flipped the sword over. “Maybe.” The runes shimmered with green Summer magic, and his hands shimmered at the same time. The weapon was perfectly attuned to him. He owned it. And if he failed in his mission to protect Hazel, the Sidhe would take it away—and his magic along with it.
He sheathed the weapon again. “I’ve been wondering since I got here why the Sidhe would put that mark on a human to begin with.”
“You know our family’s history,” I said. “Thomas Lynn got his whole family cursed. The mark is the manifestation of the curse.”
“It’s no curse,” he said. “It’s a vow.”
I blinked, disarmed. “What?”
“This… binding you’re under is a faerie vow. You’re obligated to serve the Court, on pain of death. If you disobey, what happens?”
“The Sidhe turn up and haul you into Faerie,” I said automatically. “I’ve been looking into ways to get out of the damn thing for years, but there’s nothing. Not only has no human ever escaped a faerie vow, they usually don’t span multiple generations. And—”
“And you don’t know the original vow’s meaning.”
“Obviously not. What does this have to do with anything? I can’t break the vow, and if I could, it wouldn’t stop the village from thinking we’re murderers and the wraith from coming after us.”
“I agree,” he said. “I was trying to think of reasons Holly would have turned on the Courts. But I don’t know her.”
“Neither do I. We haven’t spoken in years, but she’s self-centred… arrogant… basically like her mother. And I guess she might have resented the Courts’ hold over her. Or wanted more power.” From the outcast faeries? Maybe. But that didn’t explain why she wanted to bring us down.
She’d known about my magic. Who could have delivered that information into her hands? Who knew? Only Hazel and River… Agnes and Everett… even old Mr Greaves. Any of them might have betrayed us.
River paced around the spell circle. “That will draw in the wraith, if it enters the grounds. I presume Holly’s keeping it under control, or one of her necromancer companions is. That limits the places it might be hiding, because at least a few of the other necromancers in the village would be able to detect wayward spiritual activity.”
“You’re saying it’s still hidden on the Ley Line somewhere?” Or in the Vale? Perhaps it was. If Holly had made a deal with the Vale Sidhe, that was grounds enough for execution. “I wish we could run right to the Sidhe and report Holly directly to the Court itself.”
“Wait,” River said softly. “Who else has permission to travel between the Court and here? Your messenger was conveniently absent during the battle yesterday.”
“What, Arden?” I frowned. “He had to be. He was pretending to be Mum, and they’d have quickly figured out he wasn’t if he’d used magic.”
“He has free run of your house, and you said yourself that he’s the one who first removed the bindings. He’s also not obligated to obey either of you.”
“He obeys the Gatekeeper,” I said. “He also attacked Holly on our behalf.”
“And delivered the false message about finding the heir.”
He was right. “Maybe, but his magic is tied up with ours. The family’s. He’s bound to serve us, not to betray us. All he does is carry messages.”
And information. He knew about the book, and my magic.
“But he can use glamour and transform,” said River. “Those reports of you wandering around the village…”
I shook my head. “Not away from the Ley Line.”
Unless he was the one who’d put the spell on my house in Edinburgh. I never had seen who’d cast the spell, and the note had been unsigned.
“I can’t detect him in the spirit realm at all,” River said. “When he sneaked up on me the other day—the reason he startled me is because I use my spirit sight to watch for intruders, and I didn’t sense him. And his magic gives me a similar feeling to that spell signature. It’s not so difficult to copy a mark if you’re a highly gifted magical being infused with the family’s own magic.”
“But the signature isn’t our family’s,” I said.
No. It was mine… and it was me they wanted to frame. Not my sister. Hazel, they wanted dead. Maybe they’d thrown me into that grave because they’d thought I was her. The only reason we’d survived was because of my magic combined with River’s presence. The enemy hadn’t predicted we’d have help from the Court. But whoever had sent him after us had known. Did that mean they knew Arden might betray us? Why did I find it so easy to believe?
Maybe because I’d seen him in the village, outside Agnes’s shop. The Gatekeeper’s messenger. It made no sense for him to turn on us… but I never did figure out whether he had his own motives. He was tied to the Court, and through them, to us. Who knew where his real allegiances lay? Maybe even Agnes—
Wait. Agnes hadn’t directly said Grandma had used the book herself. I’d just assumed it. And she was old enough to have known Great-Aunt Enid, too.
“I’ll call Agnes,” I said to River. “I saw—I’m positive I saw Arden flying outside her shop when we were in the village, but I need to be sure before I confront him. He might be tied to the Courts, but he has more magic than I do.”
Or maybe he didn’t. Not now I had the book.
I left River to his summoning circle and walked back to the house to call Agnes. Luck was
with me and I found a signal. The phone rang a couple of times, and then she picked up.
“Hey,” I said. “It’s Ilsa, and it’s urgent.”
“Ilsa,” said Agnes. “You’re in trouble, aren’t you? Half the village is calling for your arrest.”
I closed my eyes. “It’s—someone’s framing me, and trying to kill my sister. I think they might be using witch spells to disguise themselves as us. I wondered if you’d lost any recently. Or sold any of those disguise charms to anyone else.”
There was a pause. “No, I haven’t sold them to anyone else. But—Everett—”
I heard her whisper something to her husband, then she spoke again. “Yes. Two went missing yesterday. They were in a locked box in the back room, but frankly, that’s the least alarming thing I’ve heard in the last week—”
“If you see Arden, the family’s messenger, don’t let him in,” I said. “I’m almost certain he’s working against us. And there’s a wraith on the loose somewhere in town.”
“Your messenger? Are you sure?”
“River is. I’m not sure, but I don’t think he’d make that accusation without reason. But I wanted to ask something else—did you ever meet my Great-Aunt Enid?”
“A couple of times,” she said. “Why?”
“It was her,” I whispered. “She gave me the book. Her ghost isn’t here, she moved on when she died, but it wasn’t Grandma who had this power. Because it’s not the Gatekeeper’s. I can’t think of any other way it could have survived in the family without anyone finding out. If it didn’t belong to the Gatekeeper, it won’t have been recorded in the usual way.”
Agnes sucked in a breath. “Now that you mention it, when we met, she used to go everywhere with that bird. Arden.”
“What—seriously?” Then he knew… he’d always known. He’d passed on the information to the enemy, and the only reason they hadn’t tried to kill me was because they’d thought I knew nothing at all. I was no danger to anyone as long as I couldn’t read the book.
“Yes. Why did you go to the ball, you foolish girl? I even sent you a warning, and called your house. But the connection cut out.”
The Gatekeeper's Curse- The Complete Trilogy Page 16
