“So it’s still there, just hidden,” I finished. “I’d advise you to tell the necromancers not to go near that particular spot to do summonings or anything, but most of her power is gone. She never really had any in the first place.”
“Which is why she wanted the book.” She held out her hand expectantly. I hesitated, then passed it over. The book hadn’t stopped glowing once since I’d got it back. I expected it to reprimand me for losing it by going blank for a month or calling me a clueless amateur again, but for now, being able to hold it again was enough.
“She said she killed the former Gatekeeper,” I said. “Did you know?”
“No,” said Lady Montgomery. “I didn’t. She killed many people, according to our records.”
“It’s how she lost her power,” I said. “The Gatekeeper cursed her, and grounded her in that graveyard, forever. She couldn’t move on, and her power was gone. That’s why she got half-faeries to help her. But her scheme collapsed around her. Not being able to do anything herself was her undoing, in the end.”
“Normally I’d reprimand you for acting behind the guild’s back, but there is no doubt that the council would support your actions in this case, Ilsa. And the same goes for you, Morgan and River. I’m going to have to ask for reports for our records—not just for us, but for the future, in case that ghost manages to escape.”
“Yeah, my main goal as Gatekeeper is to actually leave the next one some direction,” I said. “It’s only fair.”
“And do your plans involve the guild?” she asked.
I hesitated. I barely had the energy to be afraid she’d lock me up anymore, and besides, Mum’s dilemma was paramount.
“Maybe,” I said. “I just found out my mother is in Faerie, potentially being held captive. I need to get her back before I begin to make a plan. She’s—in the Vale.” The words tasted of ash on my tongue. Even knowing the Gatekeeper’s power, could she really stand up to the monsters of Faerie’s darkest corner?
“And you, Morgan?” she asked.
My brother blinked, looking startled. “I—I wouldn’t mind staying at the guild,” he said. “Seems the best place to learn how to use my power, right? But I want to help Ilsa find our mother first.”
I shot him a grateful look, but I had no intention of dragging the others into the Vale with me, if it was even possible to do so.
River hesitated like he wanted to speak, then stopped and shook his head.
“It’s not up to me what you do with your time, Ilsa,” said Lady Montgomery. “But as a member of this guild, I at least expect you to follow our rules, as you promised when you joined.”
I nodded. “I know, but the book… I don’t think the book plays by anyone’s rules. I can promise I won’t harm anyone or compromise the safety of the city, the guild, or anyone else.”
“You speak sense,” she said. “If the Gatekeepers have lasted this long without being arrested, I assume they found a way to temper the book’s power. Is there a reason it’s glowing?”
“Maybe it’s happy I found it again. I don’t know.”
Maybe it wants to show me the rest of its pages. It was about bloody time.
“I’m giving the three of you the rest of the day off, unless you’d like to volunteer to help clean up.”
“I should probably check my house is in one piece,” I said. “Thanks, by the way. For letting us get on with the job.”
“I know better than to stand in the way of a Gatekeeper,” said Lady Montgomery. “That said, you will remain under my authority as long as you are a member here. Ilsa, Morgan, you are dismissed. River, stay for a word, please.”
Morgan and I left. I hoped River wouldn’t be in too much trouble, though from her tone, she wasn’t angry with him. Morgan hovered beside the door, then disappeared into shadow.
“What’s he doing?” asked Hazel, who’d waited outside for us.
“Returning the book he borrowed, I’d guess,” I said in an undertone. “I’ll explain later.”
“I can’t believe she didn’t arrest you,” said Hazel.
“She already tried that,” I said. “Didn’t work. Are you okay? The witch said you were drugged…”
“Honestly, I don’t remember much before I woke up in that castle,” she said. “I—are you sure that creature won’t come back?”
“I don’t think it’s the ghost or the fetch we should be worrying about,” I murmured. “Mum. The Vale. Aren’t you worried?”
“Of course I am.” She bit her lip. “But I can’t see Mum getting kidnapped. And I’d be able to sense if she was severely harmed.” She ran a hand over the mark on her forehead. “Are you going to wear that mark all the time?”
“No.” I dug in my pocket for any stray spells. “Spare disguise charm… wish I’d thought to put this on before all the necromancers saw.”
“They can see it in Death anyway,” Hazel said. “I can’t believe you got away with that either.”
“You get away with crap all the time,” said Morgan, slipping out behind her. “Being Gatekeeper.”
“Not here,” she said. “I guess you’re right, though. You, a necromancer, though? Are you sure?”
Morgan shrugged. “Are you sure you want to be Gatekeeper?”
Hazel blinked. “What? I don’t have a choice. Neither does Ilsa. That’s why I asked. You could go anywhere or do anything.”
“Not really. I’m flat broke and I owe a bunch of people money.”
“You never mentioned that,” I said. “Which reminds me. Corwin helped the enemy. I guess it’s the Mage Lords I should be reporting him to.” I looked at River for confirmation as he exited the office behind Morgan. “Or should I have told Lady Montgomery?”
“Nah, he’s gone,” said Morgan. “Ran off. Guess I scared him.”
“You sure?” I asked, as we turned away from Lady Montgomery’s office.
“Yeah, he wasn’t the mastermind. He knows I’ll end him if he came back.”
The guild doors opened and we walked out. “Wait, who was it?” asked Hazel.
“The one who hypnotised you into taking the book. Corwin, my housemate.”
Hazel nodded. “Oh, that guy. Morgan and he had a thing.”
“We did not.” He looked at me. “Did you tell her?”
“Nope. Didn’t need to.”
Morgan scowled. “Where are you going, anyway?”
“To check the house is in one piece,” I said.
“Oh yeah. Wonder if Corwin left his Xbox behind.”
I rolled my eyes. “Didn’t you steal enough from his store?”
“Yeah, I got these firework spells—”
“Don’t you even think about it,” I said. “Anyway. You’ll find someone better than that tosspot.”
He smiled a little. “Yeah, I guess so.”
The book chose that moment to interrupt by glowing bright green. “I think it wants me to read it.”
We walked quickly to the house, and I unlocked the door. I threw my necromancer coat aside, my heart lifting a little despite the heavy weight on my chest. We’d made it out alive, none of us had been banished by the guild or thrown in jail—and I knew better than to think Lady Montgomery hadn’t noticed how River and I felt about one another, so I could only assume she didn’t mind.
But saving Mum had to come first. I opened the book, flicking through the pages. A whole new section had appeared towards the back…
“This is the key to the Vale,” I said. “I’m sure it is. Mum’s in there, and Grandma said her life’s in danger.”
“So is yours, if you follow,” River said. “The only way to cross to the Vale as a necromancer is to disconnect from your body. You can’t do that indefinitely. You’d die.”
Morgan gave him a sharp look. “What? You sound like you’ve done it before.”
“He has been there before,” I said, lowering the book. “Right, River?”
He wasn’t looking at me. My heart beat faster.
“Tell me you
didn’t know,” Hazel said. “Tell me you didn’t know where she was this whole time.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was sworn not to tell on pain of death. Until you figured out—”
“The vow,” I said. “You swore a vow to someone there. In the Vale.”
The room felt colder, like it’d fallen under another Winter magic spell.
He knew Mum was alive.
He lied to you for weeks.
And he never tried to save her.
“She gave me the orders herself,” he said. “She was furious like you wouldn’t believe that your life was in danger, and told me that I was to defend you beyond the limits of my vow, if necessary. I’d already been in the Vale and found out about the conspiracy against the Courts, so I knew I had to take on the case.”
“So when you said you hadn’t heard from her, it was a bare-faced lie?” I said. “I know you aren’t bound to tell the truth, but I trusted you.”
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “She really didn’t want me to tell you she was in the Vale.”
“Because we’d stage a rescue,” Hazel said. “Well, no shit. We’re not letting her rot in the Vale. She’s the Gatekeeper. What the hell do the Summer Court have to say to that?”
“I didn’t know where the client was based when I received the message. By the time I realised I was in the Vale, it was too late to turn back.”
“But why can’t she turn back?” I asked. “Why stay there at all? For that matter, how did she end up there?”
“On a quest for the Court, from what I gathered,” River said. “She wouldn’t tell me the details. But the last I saw, she wasn’t a prisoner. She was there by choice.”
“We can’t leave her there,” Hazel said. “Summer needs a Gatekeeper. I can cover for her, but she… dammit, she should have told me.”
“I don’t understand it at all,” I said. “Summer should have sent someone of their own, not her.”
“The Grey Vale drains the Sidhe’s power,” said River. “As a human, the Gatekeeper isn’t as badly affected.”
“But she could die there,” I said. “Every nightmare from Faerie exists in that realm. Who sent her there?”
“I don’t know,” River said. “Like I said—I was given the bare minimum of information and then told not to tell you the truth. I can only apologise for it. If it’s any consolation, I believe your mother is in every way equipped to survive the Vale. Don’t forget less time has passed for her than it has for you.”
“Still.” I paused, taking in a deep breath to calm myself down. We all knew faerie vows. But I’d trusted him with my life and safety, and Mum… she knew I was Gatekeeper, and had chosen to leave us here alone anyway. Or rather, the Sidhe had. Assuming that, sending Mum into the Vale made a lot of sense. Humans were expendable, after all.
Anger sparked inside me. “Bloody Sidhe,” I said. “I’ll take it up with the Erlking himself if I have to. Considering what happened to that ghost, they might think twice about threatening me.”
“Don’t,” warned River. “You might be able to go after your mother, but you’d be endangering your own life for no reason. Trust that she knows what she’s doing.”
“I trust her. The Sidhe are a different story. And that goes double for the people who lie on their behalf.”
He paled. “Ilsa…”
I held up a hand. “Give me some space. That’s all I ask. Hazel, will Arden take a message into the Court?”
“Sure. I was thinking of sending them a drawing of a giant middle finger.”
Morgan snorted. “Yeah, right. Guess I wouldn’t survive the Vale, but I wish I could help.”
We looked at one another for a moment. Hazel’s phone buzzed in the silence and she picked it up. “Hi…” Her voice rose in surprise. “She what?”
“What is it?” I asked.
She lowered the phone. “The Winter Gatekeeper’s back.”
Hereditary Power
Hereditary Power
It's time for the Gatekeeper's final stand...
The Lynn siblings might finally be reunited, but now their mother is held captive in Faerie and their family's magic is fading, Ilsa holds the key to saving both realms from total annihilation.
With allies in short supply and the Summer Court refusing to believe the threat they face is real, it's up to Ilsa to dig into her family's past to find the truth of the Gatekeeper's curse. Enemies old and new are gearing up to take out the Gatekeeper and claim her power, and even the help of the legendary faerie killer Ivy Lane might not be enough...
1
“The Winter Gatekeeper’s back.” With those words, Hazel ended the phone call. “The Winter Lynn house is locked down again. Nobody can get in.”
“But—which Gatekeeper?” I asked, since nobody else came out with the obvious question. Not Aunt Candice. It can’t be her. I banished her beyond the gates of death.
Hazel shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Evil Aunt Candice is back?” said Morgan. Our older brother, psychic sensitive and necromancer, was the one Lynn who hadn’t been around in June when our distant relative had tried to murder us.
My heart sank. “It can’t be her. Who told you she’s back?”
Hazel slipped her phone into her pocket. “That was Lou from the necromancer guild in Foxwood. I asked her to watch the place while I was gone. Someone has claimed Winter’s territory again.”
A moment passed. “That… it might be good news, if Holly’s come to finally take over as Winter Gatekeeper.”
And if not? There was only one person who could have claimed Winter’s gate, and I thought I’d banished her into the afterlife for good.
“It’s more likely to be Holly,” Hazel said. “Maybe she heard the Courts pretty much threatened to declare war if she didn’t come back. I’ll go check it out.”
“I wouldn’t,” I warned. “If it is you-know-who, you’re in no condition to fight her.”
Not to mention, she’s dead. But if anyone was tenacious enough to sneak back into the land of the living, though, it was our deceased and distant aunt.
“We dealt with one ghost today. I can...” Hazel trailed off, pressing a hand to her forehead.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. The spell that knocked me out was damn strong. I’ll be fine when we get to the house.”
I hope so. The ghost we’d fought and barely beaten had nearly killed Hazel, and tried to use Morgan as a puppet to steal my talisman. All of us were exhausted, even River, my half-faerie, half-necromancer… I wouldn’t say boyfriend, but if I’d been able to complete my necromancer training, he might have been.
At least, until about five minutes ago, when he’d revealed he’d known all along where our missing mother was. The Summer Gatekeeper had disappeared in the most dangerous region of Faerie: the Grey Vale, a death trap even to Sidhe, while on a quest that couldn’t end until she completed it. I understood why he’d kept the truth from me, since faerie vows left no room for flexibility, but the betrayal stung all the same.
“We already told Lady Montgomery we were on a rescue mission,” I said to the others. “Let’s make it official. Send Arden into the Summer Court to warn them, and then…”
“Go after Mum,” finished Morgan.
River shifted on his feet, the merest betrayal of his disapproval. Okay, I was well aware that Hazel was the only one of the three of us with any level of faerie magic—not counting River himself, of course. But I wouldn’t leave Mum to suffer alone. Whether the Winter Gatekeeper was back or not.
Hazel snapped into Gatekeeper-in-Training mode. “Right. I’ll clean up if someone has a spell handy. Morgan?”
“Why do you want to clean the place?”
“Because my housemates will ask awkward questions if they come back and find evidence of blood magic in the living room,” I answered for her, heading for the stairs. “I’m going to grab some spare clothes. I’ll be down in five.”
I ran upstairs, rem
oving my torn and bloodied necromancer coat and shoving it into a rucksack along with some spare outfits. I left my suitcase, scribbled a quick note to my housemates explaining I’d be back in a week or two, and checked on the book I kept in the pocket of my hoody. Small, square and unobtrusive—you wouldn’t think it was a talisman that contained the power to control life and death. The curling symbol on the cover, which belonged to a faerie language I couldn’t read, gleamed softly with white light, and its power resonated in my hands and in the mark on my forehead. The mark of a Gatekeeper who didn’t guard the gates of Summer or Winter, but of Death itself.
Powerful curiosity brimmed within me at the sight of new text on the pages, but if I stopped to read it now, I’d lose track of time. Find out which Winter Gatekeeper is back first, deal with the book later.
I found the others downstairs, surrounded by the smell of cleansing spells. No blood or necromantic residue remained on the walls or carpet.
“The first spell turned the walls pink,” said Morgan. “Damn Corwin… you ready, Ilsa?”
I nodded. “Hazel, where did you cross over from the Ley Line, anyway?”
Her brow wrinkled. “Ah. I can’t remember… it’s all fuzzy thanks to that bastard’s spell.”
“You must have used a Path, right?” I said. Oh no. The Lynn house rested in a liminal space on the Ley Line, the invisible line through the middle of the country which marked the place where the three realms of Faerie, Death and the mortal world overlapped. Only the Summer and Winter Gatekeepers or their heirs were capable of controlling the way in and out of the family home.
“I can help,” River offered. “I’m familiar with the Line, since I used it to cross over from Faerie a few weeks ago.”
I glanced at River. He didn’t flaunt his magic most of the time, but it was difficult to forget he was half-Sidhe. His pointed ears and faintly glowing green eyes were clear enough markers, though his human side lent him slightly rugged features, tousled fair hair and a more muscular frame than most half-bloods. He wore his necromancer cloak, arms folded across his chest, and the grim exhaustion of his expression seemed to be expecting us to throw him out. Collectively, the three of us could probably toss him outside for not telling us the truth about our mother’s captivity, but he was in the employ of the Summer Court, he knew what might be going on over there, and I’d rather have him as an ally than an enemy.
The Gatekeeper's Curse- The Complete Trilogy Page 44
