The Faerie Wand (Dark World: The Faerie Games Book 4)

by Michelle Madow

  But she didn’t have to be so smug about it.

  “I didn’t exactly have time to think about it,” I said. “Given how exhausted I was after pushing my magic to the limit to win the Faerie Games.”

  “We would have been able to acquire those items on our own,” Julian said before Ryanne could respond. “But if you’re offering, we’re listening.”

  He gave me a look that I knew meant, Don’t get defensive before hearing her out.

  I breathed out slowly, since he was right. My magic simmered down, and the electricity along my arms dimmed until it was gone.

  Julian reached for my hand under the table and squeezed it. “Are you offering to supply us with the items you speak of?” he asked Ryanne.

  She cocked her head and smiled. “What do you think?” she asked.

  “I think you’re going to offer us a deal in exchange for them.”

  “I knew you were the smart one,” she said, and I glared at her. “Don’t take it personally, Selena. You’re part of our family. Obviously, you’re intelligent, too.”

  Under the table, electricity danced between my fingertips in the hand that wasn’t holding Julian’s. If Ryanne was trying to get under my skin, it was working.

  Of course she was trying to get under my skin. She was so ridiculously fae.

  I closed my hand into a fist, snuffing out the tiny bolts. “What type of deal?” I asked.

  “A simple one.” She squared her shoulders and smiled again. “If you ever return to Earth, I want you to deliver a letter to a vampire who lives there. Perhaps you already know him?”

  “There are tons of vampires on Earth,” I said. “I don’t know every one of them.”

  Julian nudged my calf with his foot.

  I ignored him.

  He could be as perfectly polite as he wanted. It didn’t mean I had to be.

  Prince Redmond narrowed his eyes at Ryanne, took a long sip of wine, and placed the glass back down. “There’s no need to speak his name at our table,” he said in distaste.

  “Are you jealous, love?” She tilted her head and batted her eyes at him.

  “Of course not.” He sat back, crossed his legs, and smiled wryly. “But there’s no purpose in revealing his identity until they have the letter. All that matters is that they agree to the terms.”

  Aiden poured himself more wine, even though his glass was already half-full.

  “Fine,” Ryanne agreed, turning back to Julian and me. “I’ll supply you with dried food that will last for a week, two water bladders, traveling clothes, a sleeping roll, and two horses,” she said. “In return, you’ll find me before you leave for Earth. I’ll give Selena a letter, and she will personally place it in the hands of the vampire for whom it’s intended, as long as he hasn’t been slain.” She frowned, as if the possibility troubled her. “Do we have a deal?”

  Julian studied her, his expression hard in thought. Then he turned to me. “Do you feel comfortable agreeing to deliver a letter to a mystery vampire?” he asked.

  “My parents are well connected, I’m powerful, and I have the Nephilim army for extra protection,” I said. “It shouldn’t be a problem.”

  He squeezed my hand again and turned back to Ryanne. “The dried food will be three-fourths beef made fresh from a healthy cow, and one-fourth made from a variety of fresh fruit,” he started. “The water bladders will hold three liters of liquid each. The traveling clothes will be high quality, the correct sizes for us, and practical to fight in. The sleeping roll will easily fit two full-grown adults.”

  She looked him over in approval. “Sensible,” she said.

  “The horses will be the two strongest, fastest horses that the three of you collectively own,” he continued. “We’ll also need two packs with straps that easily allow us to carry them on our backs, each one large enough to hold all of these supplies. As payment, if Selena returns to Earth, she will try her best to deliver the letter to the vampire in question.”

  “It’s not if I return to Earth.” I bristled. “It’s when I return to Earth.”

  “I know,” he said. “But I have to cover every scenario.”

  I smiled, since it warmed my heart that he knew I’d succeed.

  Ryanne nodded as she took in Julian’s requests. “You really think I would swindle my niece on such an important quest?” she asked.

  He kept his gaze level with hers. “It’s best not to risk it,” he replied.

  “And one more thing,” I said before they could move forward with the deal. “You’ll also tell us everything you know about the current location of the Holy Wand.”

  Prince Redmond snarled. “Getting greedy now, are we?” he said.

  I didn’t so much as flinch. “Other than the half-bloods—who don’t have the connections I do—I’m the only person in the Otherworld who can personally deliver this letter to your vampire,” I said. “Judging by the elegance of your home, you clearly have food, water, clothes, sleeping rolls, and horses to spare. This deal is more than fair.”

  “She’s right,” Aiden said as he munched on a fig.

  Ryanne glared at him, but she didn’t disagree.

  “All right,” Ryanne said after a few extremely tense seconds. “We have a deal.”

  3

  Selena

  “Dante,” Redmond said, looking to the servant who’d escorted Julian and me to lunch. “You heard them. Go fetch their supplies.”

  Dante gave him a single nod and hurried out of the room.

  “Aiden will show you to the horses once you’re ready to depart,” Ryanne said. “But for now, about that wand…”

  I sat forward, eager for her to continue.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know its current location, or anyone in specific who does,” she said, and my heart dropped. “But straight south of the citadel, just past an orchard of apple trees as large as the Circus Maximus, there’s a village of half-blood farmers known for their interest in the ancient times when the Otherworld was ruled by queens instead of empresses. Go there. They tend to keep to themselves, but one of them might be able to point you toward the wand.”

  “We’ll do that,” I said, glad we had something concrete to go on.

  “Hopefully you’ll find the information you seek.” Ryanne smiled brightly. “Now—more sandwiches.”

  She raised her hand, released her turquoise magic toward the empty platter in front of me, and refilled it with a fresh batch of finger sandwiches.

  I reached forward to take one, because at the smell of freshly baked bread, on came my second wind.

  As promised, Aiden led Julian and me to the stables after we’d said our goodbyes to Ryanne and Redmond.

  The horses were brown with white diamond spots in the centers of their foreheads. They were so tall and strong that they reminded me of the unicorns on Avalon—minus the horns, of course.

  I approached the horse closest to me and stroked her neck, impressed by the silkiness of her fur.

  “That’s Maggie,” Aiden said, referring to the horse I was petting. “Her brother is Seamus.”

  “They’re beautiful,” I said.

  “They are,” he agreed, and then he pulled a piece of white fruit about the size of a large grape from his satchel. “As you saw at lunch, my mother is gifted in creating and enchanting food,” he said. “One piece of this fruit will give the horses all the nutrients and hydration they need for the entire day. I can provide you enough to last for two weeks per horse.”

  Julian pulled a beautiful dagger out of the ether. “Will this be a suitable payment for the fruit?” he asked. “It’s pure gold.”

  Aiden’s eyes lit up at the sight of the weapon. “Yes,” he smiled. “It’ll outshine everything in my collection.”

  Julian handed the dagger to Aiden, who ran his fingers over it and secured it in his belt. Then Aiden removed his satchel and made room for it in Julian’s pack.

  “Give the fruit only to the horses,” he warned. “It’s poisonous for anyone else.
If you eat it, you’ll be sick for days.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  He tossed us the bridles, and we began to prepare the horses. Well, Julian prepared the horses. I didn’t know how to put on their bridles and saddles, since the unicorns on Avalon were only ridden barebacked. But Julian dove straight into teaching me, and soon, both horses were ready to go.

  “The horses are beautiful,” Julian said as he attached his pack to the back of Seamus’s saddle. “We’ll return them on the journey back.”

  “There’s no need for that,” Aiden said, as expected.

  The horses were ours now. If we returned them, it would be a gift.

  A gift meant that Ryanne would be in our debt.

  I was getting the hang of fae rules, since I’d learned a lot about them during my time in Vesta’s Villa. Cassia had been more than happy to share everything she could with me.

  Cassia.

  My heart shattered, like it did every time I thought of Cassia and the cruel way Octavia had murdered her. The pile of her nails on the ice. Her bloodied eyeball rolling to a stop, and the orbs zooming in on it to project it for everyone to see…

  Lock it away, I told myself, imagining a sphere of electricity protecting my scarred, mangled heart. Without Julian to keep it together, it would have been charred to a crisp weeks ago. Thinking about that day won’t help you on this quest.

  “Besides, my parents are just as scared about the plague spreading in the west as many others in the citadel,” Aiden continued as he hooked my pack onto Maggie’s saddle, blissfully unaware of the darkness that had almost overtaken my mind.

  But Julian wasn’t unaware. His eyes shined with concern, and I nodded to let him know I was all right.

  Aiden remained focused on tying the pack in place, “My parents believe the Holy Wand exists,” he continued, “and that once found, its magic will cure those afflicted with the plague.”

  “So you think this plague is real?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure.” He shrugged. “The rumors of what the plague does to the afflicted are outlandish, if you ask me. Even if it is real, it has to be exaggerated.”

  “What do the rumors say it does?”

  “They say the plague drains the fae of our magic,” he said. “Once it fully sets in, their wings turn black, their eyes turn cloudy, and they become savage.”

  “And how does it spread?”

  “No one knows,” he said. “If it’s more than just a rumor, no one’s gotten close enough to find out.”

  “Hm.” I paused, thinking about how we’d approach this on Avalon. “Is there information in your history about anything like this happening before?”

  “I’m no historian,” he said, and I smiled slightly, since it was something Torrence would say. “But I’d think if there were information related to the plague, someone would have said something by now.”

  Julian had been quiet for a bit—the way he always was when he was piecing things together. So I turned to him to see what was going on in his mind.

  “The rumors match what the half-bloods are saying in the city,” he finally said. “I thought they would have died down by now, but apparently that’s not the case.”

  “Hopefully you have nothing to worry about.” Aiden patted my horse on the neck and stepped away from her. “But if anyone can fight off the afflicted, it’s the two of you.”

  “We’ll definitely be on the lookout,” I said. “And if we do run into any of these afflicted, I’ll turn them into ash.”

  “Go get ‘em.” He smiled. “And good luck.”

  4

  Selena

  We only passed a handful of travelers as we rode south. The moment they realized who we were, they scurried away to avoid crossing us, just as they had near the city.

  “It’s like they think I’m going to strike them down with lightning for no reason,” I muttered as I watched the latest carriage hurry off the path and drive over the grass.

  That earned a smile from Julian, who was riding beside me. “You were pretty terrifying in the Games,” he said lightly. “Striking down the orbs, turning those bunches of grapes to ashes, turning the entire labyrinth to dust… they’ve never seen anything like it before. And people tend to be scared of the unknown.”

  I nodded, unable to keep myself from reading between the lines of what he was saying. Because I’d turned more than just things to ashes.

  There was Bridget, and then Felix…

  I still didn’t know what had come over me in that final moment with Felix. He just disgusted me so much. And then there were the things he’d said to me in the labyrinth, and the way he’d looked at me as he’d walked forward to try touching me…

  I’d wanted him to burn for it. I’d enjoyed watching him suffer.

  I was no better than Octavia.

  Stop it, I told myself. You’re nothing like Octavia. Don’t let yourself go there.

  “Maybe they have a good reason to be afraid,” I said instead. “They watched us as we were forced to kill each other for their entertainment. They enjoyed it. Maybe I should strike them down on the spot as payback for what they did to us.”

  The threat lingered heavily in the air.

  “You won’t,” he said, and I pressed my lips together, since he was right. “They don’t all support the Faerie Games,” he continued. “Sure, some of them do. But the Games are held every year by the gods and the Empress. It’s been that way for centuries. Many believe it’s better to be silent and alive than to stand against the gods and be killed for it.”

  “It almost sounds like you’re on their side,” I said bitterly.

  But isn’t that similar to what I did? Played along in the Games instead of refusing to do as the gods asked, to keep them from smiting me?

  I hated this. All of it.

  “I’m not,” he said. “But no one—not me, not you, not anyone—is either pure good or pure evil. The world’s far more complex than that. There are always shades of gray.”

  “Not for the demons,” I told him. “They have no consciences. They’re as evil as they come.”

  “Every rule has exceptions,” he said wryly. “But the fae do have consciences, even though it doesn’t always seem like it. Look at Aiden. He’s a full blood faerie prince, but he didn’t seem so bad, did he?”

  “I guess not,” I said.

  “And he wasn’t afraid of you.”

  “Probably because he’s my cousin.” The word sounded foreign on my tongue. Because while I loved my parents—and Julian and Torrence—having an extended family had always been something I’d felt like I’d missed out on.

  Once Julian and I completed this quest, I wouldn’t mind getting to know Aiden better.

  “Call me crazy,” Julian said. “But it sounded like you just admitted to not hating a fae.”

  “Only one of them.” I returned his smile, but only for a second. “The rest of them haven’t given me much to like. Especially not Prince Devyn.”

  “Agreed.” Julian focused on the road ahead as our horses plodded on. “But Prince Devyn is complicated. His gift is a burden. Nothing he does is without reason, even if it doesn’t seem like it.”

  “So he threw me into the Games, knowing all the terrible things that would happen in them, for a reason?” Each word dripped with venom. “I hate him. I always will.”

  Julian was silent for a few moments. “Do you remember what Bridget said?” he finally asked. “When she was dying?”

  How could I forget?

  “She said the fate of the world depends on me winning the Games,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  I sat on that for a bit. Because Bridget’s gift of prophecy was similar to Prince Devyn’s gift of omniscient sight. And if Bridget was right that the fate of the world depended on me winning—which was way too much pressure for me to wrap my mind around—then I had to have actually played in the Games in the first place.

  It was so ridiculously twisted.

  “Ther
e are lots of possible futures,” I eventually said. “Avalon’s prophetess always tells us that.”

  “There are,” Julian agreed. “That’s what gives us free will.”

  “So let’s say Bridget was right,” I said, and he waited for me to continue. “Surely, out of all the possible futures, Prince Devyn could have picked a better one for me than this. One that didn’t involve kidnapping me, nominating me for the Games, and having me nearly die on multiple occasions.”

  “Maybe,” he said slowly. “But if that’s true, why do you think he did it?”

  I glared at him. “It’s really sounding more and more like you’re on his side,” I said.

  “I’m just trying to step back and look at this from all angles.”

  “Well, your angles suck.”

  “They might,” he said. “But hear me out.”

  I said nothing.

  He took that as a sign to continue.

  “By nominating you for the Games, Prince Devyn didn’t only ensure that you had a chance to win,” he said. “He also ensured that you were gifted with Jupiter’s magic. Magic that will help keep you—and according to Bridget, many others in the world—alive.”

  My electricity sparked happily under my skin, and I gripped the reins tighter. I did love my magic. But still…

  “I wasn’t born powerless.” My chest hollowed, like it did every time I thought about it. “I would have had my own magic if my birth mother hadn’t bound it. Prince Devyn should have foreseen that and stopped it from happening. It would have saved everyone a lot of trouble.”

  “But your birth mother bound your magic on Avalon,” he said. “And according to you, Avalon’s untraceable, even for the fae. Maybe he wanted to stop her, but he couldn’t. So he did the next best thing.”

  “The next best thing would have been figuring out how to remove her spell. Yet here I am, still unable to use my natural magic.”

  “Which is why you needed Jupiter’s magic,” he said.

  The magic in question fired up inside me, and I gripped the reins tighter to control it. “You’re really not helping,” I said. “Let’s just drop it.”