The Spell, The Stones, and The Treasure (Fated Chronicles Book 3)

by Humphrey Quinn

  “Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?” he asked her.

  Arnon and Kanda tossed inquisitive looks back and forth.

  “Part of what I need to fill you in on,” advised Meghan. “You know how it turns out Colin is not my brother?”

  They replied yes.

  “Well, it turns out that Ivan actually is my brother. Older brother. Half-brother. We share the same mother.”

  The look of awe said it all.

  “Isabella Crane,” remembered Arnon. “Her death was…”

  “Fake,” Meghan finished.

  “I was going to say, tragic… how did she?” he clipped his words, tongue and brain befuddled.

  Meghan stepped in between Arnon and Kanda, putting her arms around their shoulders, saying, “Let me tell you a little story.”

  She spent the entire walk across the encampment, getting inside the house, Kanda making tea and heating up a large pot of stew, to tell her story. The only interruptions were when Meghan explained her real birthday was actually the next day (at this point, it was already nearly midnight), and when Kanda noted they needed wood for the fire; Ivan jumped up and offered to grab a handful. Jae followed.

  They stepped onto the front porch; it had a roof and a brick floor.

  “Hey look,” said Jae.

  It was trying to snow. Little bits of white came down here and there, in no great numbers. It turned an already somber day downright moody. No one wanted the snow to come yet.

  They each grabbed an armful of wood and carried it back inside the cozy home. This home was set between two large tree trunks, which had nearly grown together, making it larger than some of the others. And unlike some of the others in the encampment, magic had been used to make it larger on the inside than the outside.

  Kanda and Arnon set bowls down on a small round table, insisting they eat. Meghan enjoyed every bite. She had missed Kanda’s food. Oddly enough, she could have even happily listened to one of her stories. Something she would never have admitted when they camped back in Cobbscott. If Colin were here he’d never let me forget it. “Good thing Ivan doesn’t know,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Huh?” he said, thinking he heard his name.

  “Nothing,” she replied hastily, clearing away her empty dish.

  Jae yawned. “Excuse me,” he said.

  “You need a good sleep, young man,” said Kanda.

  Meghan looked at Kanda suspiciously. She felt a yawn coming on herself. Was this a special sort of tea she had been drinking? Or was there an extra ingredient in the stew? Kanda was well skilled at brewing concoctions that fixed all sorts of ailments.

  Kanda laughed when Meghan eyed her suspiciously. “You’re all simply very tired,” she said innocently.

  “I could use a few hours of shut eye,” said Jae. Kanda showed him to a room where he proceeded to slump onto the bed and fall asleep almost instantly.

  When Kanda exited, she looked guilty.

  “Okay, I lied. But only for that boy in there. He looks so troubled.”

  “He does have a lot on his mind,” said Ivan. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud, unsure whether they should explain Jae’s predicament or not. Meghan shrugged, her body language saying, might as well.

  Ivan took this one, which Meghan was grateful for, seeing as she had just spent an hour straight, talking. Arnon and Kanda didn’t interrupt as Ivan spoke, other than exclamations of horror, shock, and dismay.

  “How terrible,” whispered Kanda, after he had finished. “Truly despicable. How old is Jae?”

  “My age,” said Meghan. “Few months older.”

  “I don’t know what our world has come to,” Arnon said. “I was once proud to be who I was, but these days...”

  He and Kanda shared a sympathetic smile.

  “To use one so young and vulnerable for such a brutal thing,” Kanda said. “Juliska Blackwell is truly a monster. I had no idea she was recruiting ones so young.” Tears stained her eyes. “Arnon, we need to explain this in tomorrow’s meeting. People need to know she has done this. It might change how people feel in regards to our next move. It might well have just changed my own mind.”

  “I agree. Still, with the Stone out there and unaccounted for,” he let the subject go.

  An uncomfortable silence fell over them.

  Meghan sipped her tea, trying to ignore the sudden loud beating of her heart. She checked in with Nona, who had not joined them and was out scrounging up her favorite late night snack... mice.

  Nona was mid-hunt.

  Meghan did not care to listen in as her Catawitch went in for the kill.

  She glanced at Ivan. He seemed far away.

  Arnon pounded his fist onto the table.

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s just, you young people... too much is expected of you all. Too much.” His voice grew strained as he spoke.

  Without warning, Ivan excused himself.

  Meghan assumed Jae’s predicament was taking a toll on him. That and she was sure he didn’t want to lose it in front of anyone. Ivan preferred to suffer alone.

  “Where you heading?” she asked him.

  “Out,” he replied curtly.

  “At least take a coat,” insisted Kanda. “It’s freezing out there.”

  There were a few hanging near the door. Without looking them over, he grabbed hold of the first coat he could reach and sprinted out of the house.

  Meghan let him leave without attempting to follow. She felt certain that now was not the time to play the tagging along nosy sister.

  “Ivan doesn’t do well with sitting still for very long,” she told her uncle and Kanda, as an attempt at an excuse for his sudden departure.

  “Yes, I can see that,” said Kanda. “Another troubled soul. He seems like a nice young man, though. A good addition to your family.”

  “Ivan is... I don’t even know where to start really. We sort of hate each other as much as we like each other, and yet, I know I could trust him with anything.”

  “Sounds like you’ve been brother and sister longer than just a day,” noted Arnon.

  “Yeah. I guess so.”

  Arnon lowered his head as if avoiding something.

  “What?” asked Meghan.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, looking back up. “You’ve been through so much, Meghan. I always thought I’d be there to help you through it all and now I feel like I’m just your old life. And there is so little I can do to protect you from your new life. The life this prophecy has laid out for you seems to take you farther and farther away from me.”

  Meghan did not know how to reply. She felt tears welling up in her eyes and bit her tongue, refusing to let them fall.

  “The prophecy has been on my mind quite a bit,” she admitted. When Arnon told her all about it during their catch up session, she’d wished she could talk to Colin after, but hadn’t tried to. He must be just as overwhelmed by it as she was. But he was in hiding and she didn’t want her attempts to reach him, to end up putting his life in jeopardy somehow. It was better that no one knew where he was. If he wanted them to know, he’d tell them. She hoped. He still hadn’t forgiven her, that she was aware. But her uncle had indicated he believed Colin wasn’t as angry as he’d been before.

  “It is starting to feel like I’m just a pawn waiting for the prophecy to decide what my next move is,” she continued. “I’m just running here and there, or in circles, with no say as to what my future has in store for me. Nothing seems clear. Nothing makes me think that somehow this is all just going to work itself out. I don’t even know if I can get Colin to speak to me again, never mind forgive me. And Colby, my actual twin, has got some serious issues.” She threw her hands into the air. “If we are somehow meant to work together, I honestly don’t see how that’s going to happen.”

  She sucked in a breath and continued, the words just pouring out of her as if she had planned them. It felt like now that she’d started, there was no stopping.

  “I was born with my lif
e already laid out for me. I might not have known it until recently, and I don’t blame you at all for not telling us sooner. You gave me and Colin the best childhood we could get,” she aimed at her uncle. “But I can’t escape fate. I suppose none of us can. All because someone had a prophecy about me. Us. It sort of feels like, why bother making any decision about anything? It’s not like it matters.”

  “Oh, Meghan. It does matter,” said Kanda, quite seriously. “Your choices always matter. Prophecy or not, you do have choices. Not everything in your life is ruled by this one thing.”

  “Isn’t it though?” she argued. “Chances are, I’ll probably just die trying to fulfill this thing I don’t even know how to fulfill. Or maybe not, because I might live forever. I can’t even fathom what that means.”

  “Do you want to quit?” asked her uncle.

  “Does what I want, even matter?” she retorted hotly. “Somehow, I’d just get dragged back in. When I look back now, I wonder if anything I ever did was really by my own choices. Or was every single move I made, or you made, leading me to exactly where I am, because this was where the prophecy wanted me to be.”

  “With or without the prophecy, I believe that each moment in our lives leads us to where we are supposed to be,” offered Kanda. “But if I am to be completely truthful, I have not lived my life with a prophecy behind it. I do not know how I would feel if this were the case.”

  Meghan tossed her a smile for trying. It didn’t help much, but she knew they were trying to be as helpful as possible.

  “I think what drives me crazy the most is the how,” said Meghan. “I get that the prophecy exists. I get that I’m a part of it. I more or less understand what it means. But what exactly am I, or Colin, or Colby for that matter, supposed to do exactly? How do we bring about this balance to the magical world? Battling it out against each other? Figuring out some way to overpower each other? Working together? I just don’t get the how... and I think that’s what frightens and frustrates me more than anything.”

  She lowered her head, wondering if she should tell them about the vision she’d had about killing Colin. Nona slipped into her thoughts, mid mice-chew, sending her a thought that indicated she believed Meghan should. Meghan sent back an, “Ick, Nona,” but agreed.

  “There’s this vision I had,” she told Arnon and Kanda.

  She stopped, trying to find the right words to explain it.

  “Take your time,” encouraged Arnon.

  “I had this vision before I’d ever heard anything about the prophecy. Basically, Colin was out of control. His Projector’s powers had turned him into some kind of monster. Unlike anything you could ever imagine Colin, doing or becoming. And at the end of the vision... I killed him. I don’t really know how I did that. Once again, there was no explanation as to how I killed someone who is supposedly un-killable. Regardless, I was the only one he trusted to get close to him, and I stabbed him in the back, and killed him.”

  She tried not to read the horror in Arnon’s and Kanda’s eyes.

  “We were older,” Meghan continued. “Not a lot older, but older. So… do I believe this prophecy will ever let go of me? That I would ever have the option to just walk away? That I have any choice but to do whatever it asks of me? And as much as I know you, or my mother, or Ivan, or so many others would love to step in and take over, the truth is, none of you can. It’s all on me, Colin, and Colby.” She drew a long, airy breath.

  Just outside the front door, Ivan had heard every word. He reached up and grasped his chest. It felt like his heart squeezed so tightly that it could not beat properly. It hurt just to breathe. He didn’t want to feel this. He didn’t know how to feel this. He didn’t even know what this was.

  Air suddenly seemed in short supply. He could not get enough, even standing in the great outdoors. He wandered off, heading nowhere in particular.

  Inside, Meghan took a sip of her now cooled tea, almost wishing Kanda had actually given her a sleeping potion, too.

  “I really wish I knew what to say,” said her uncle. “This isn’t anything I would have wished for you, in a million lifetimes. I can only express how terrible it feels to only be able to offer words of comfort, or encouragement. To have no recourse other than that is equally as frustrating. Because I would take your place in a heartbeat if it were possible.”

  “I know,” she sighed out. “But you can’t. No one can. I guess in the end, I have accepted who I am. I just wish I knew my part in it all. I feel like I’m blindly being led into a fate I have no control over.”

  There was silence again. Kanda got up to grab the hot water kettle.

  There was a scratch at the door.

  “That’ll be Nona,” said Meghan. Kanda opened the door and let her inside. “No more for me, thanks,” she decided, when Kanda approached with more tea. “I think I’ll try to get some sleep now.”

  Kanda showed her to a room. Meghan slipped inside and closed the door. It was small, with just a bed. The bed looked inviting but now that she was sitting on it, she did not feel like sleeping.

  Nona curled up in her lap.

  “Don’t let everything overwhelm you,” she said to Meghan.

  “I actually don’t feel overwhelmed. More like, relieved.”

  “Sometimes talking can clear the mind,” said Nona.

  “Yeah, I guess that had been building up for a while. Poor Uncle Arnon and Kanda. I really laid it on them, huh.”

  “Don’t feel bad. They will worry about you whether you tell them everything, or not.”

  Meghan stroked Nona’s back. The hair on her body was so thin she could feel the Catawitch’s skin rumpling underneath her fingers.

  Meghan leaned back, hoping for her mind to go blank, and to sleep. But blank did not happen. She once again started to wonder how Colby had killed her, and again, whether he actually had.

  She worried that her mother would try to sacrifice herself to end Colby’s life if it became necessary, only to find out it was for nothing, because he could not really die. That his immortality would bring him back after her spell had worn off when he reached his eighteenth birthday.

  In the middle of all the fretting about everything, she dozed off, only to wake with a start after the face of Juliska Blackwell slithered its way into a dream.

  I’m so glad she is not my mother, was her first thought upon waking. That is something to be thankful for, at least. But why was she the one staring down at my cradle as I slept in the orphanage? Why was Juliska’s face in my vision, rather than Isabella’s?

  The vision had led Meghan to believe that Juliska might have been her mother.

  Nona answered Meghan’s thought. “Perhaps it was simply that at the time you did want her to be your mother. You saw her as a mother figure. Since you didn’t know your true mother’s identity, you put Juliska’s face in her place. Your visions and your desires, merging.”

  “I hadn’t thought about it like that,” whispered Meghan. “You’re right, I think. I did really want it at the time.” The possibility she had once desired, now made her shudder in disgust.

  “Rest now,” insisted Nona.

  Meghan rested her head on the pillow. “I’ll try,” she muttered sleepily. “I’ll try.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Maura handed Billie a steaming cup of coffee. She took it in one hand, and continued steering the ship with the other. Noah climbed the stairs, joining them. Maura poured him a cup too.

  “Thanks,” he said, downing the first chug, licking his lips heartily. “There’s just something about that first sip in the morning.”

  “I agree to that,” said Billie, tipping her mug towards his.

  The sun was just coming up. It had been another long, cold night at sea. They had been afraid a storm was coming; cloud cover hung over them all night. But the morning brought sun peeking up over the horizon, casting beams of orange, gold and yellow across the water’s surface.

  “I’ll take over steering the ship,” offered Noah.


  Billie nodded and stepped back, allowing him to take her place, but she didn’t leave.

  “Something’s on your mind, I wager?” he said.

  “Have you noticed the difference?” she asked. “It’s been only days, but already...”

  “I was going to bring up,” he replied. “I wasn’t sure if it was just me. Quite glad it’s not, actually.”

  “I assume you two are speaking of magic?” said Maura. “I feel it too.”

  “I had no idea our magic was so drained. Even before returning to the island,” said Noah. “I haven’t felt this strong since... since I can’t even remember when. Years maybe.”

  “I feel the same,” said Billie. “And you Maura? Is it the same for you?”

  “It is. I don’t know exactly how or why, but my magic feels strong, renewed almost. Like it’s fresh and new in a way.”

  “Which begs the question,” started Noah, “just how long has Juliska Blackwell been draining our magic? And more importantly, how did she do it?”

  “I think it’s the same weapon they used on my group,” said Maura. “The treasure hunters had something that drained our powers. It’s how they overpowered us. But...” she paused.

  “Go ahead,” coaxed Billie.

  “We noticed months before that happened, that we were weaker. It happened subtly. Over time.”

  “You know what it’s reminiscent of?” said Noah. “I can’t believe I’m even suggesting it as they are supposed to be non-existent, but it reminds me of the stories about the Mazy Stones.”

  “Mazy Stones. Huh. I wonder,” whispered Billie.

  “Mazuruk died out ages ago,” reminded Maura. “How would they have gotten more stones?”

  “Unless not all of the original stones were actually destroyed,” said Noah, with a hint of suggestion.

  “That is a most disturbing thought,” said Billie. “Especially in the hands of Juliska Blackwell.”

  Footsteps climbed the stairs behind them.

  “Maria,” called out Billie. “Morning.”

  Maria nodded hello. “I know it’s early, but I thought you guys might like a bit of breakfast, while it’s hot.”