Finally Faeling: An Eight Wings Academy Novel: Book Three

by Akeroyd, Serena

  “I felt the shift,” she remarked as a greeting. “Only one left to go. Should I be offended you kept me until last, old friend?”

  Gabriella snorted. “Less of the old, Casima.”

  “You’ve certainly had a makeover, Gabriella.” She eyed her up and down. “The last time I saw you, I didn’t think you had long for this realm, but of course, having the Redeemer for a grandchild comes with perks.” She tipped her head to the side. “It is time, I assume?”

  My grandmother sighed. “The time we’ve all been waiting for.”

  Casima pursed her lips. “Some more than others.”

  “You don’t approve?” Seph interrogated, leaping onto the topic with both hands. I understood why as well—everyone was so fucking happy to serve Gaia. It was irritating.

  “She doesn’t approve of the aftermath. Casima, Gaia love her, can be a selfish beast when she wants to be,” Gabriella said wryly.

  Dan sniffed. “Takes one to know one.”

  Casima smiled and pointed at Dan. “This one, I like.” She beckoned us forward. “I prefer to do this inside. I don’t want to perish in front of my staff. Bad for morale, you know?”

  “There’s no perishing,” I murmured uneasily, staring around the entryway to take in a very nice open-planned house. It wasn’t what I’d expected. I’d thought it would be bright and colorful with comfortable furnishings—her kaftan said a lot, after all. Except it was anything but. There were pieces of furniture that belonged on a spaceship, and the only thing that was halfway decent was the navy on the walls, because it made things naturally cooler in here thanks to the darkness it brought with it.

  “No? That’s a relief,” Casima said dryly. “Then I’m sure there’ll be some other payment. Gaia always gets her own way and it’s never totally painless.”

  Considering she was the first witch we’d approached to ever speak negatively about Gaia, I’d admit to liking Casima more and more.

  Before I could say a word, my abuela murmured, “Your magic is taken. As we suspected.”

  Casima rolled her eyes. “Well, living without it won’t be fun, but at least I’ll be alive.”

  That had been the attitude of Chaow, the Thai earth head too.

  It came as a surprise, honestly. These people were powerful enough to reap change on a global scale with their sacrifice, with their offering. Yet they’d live without it just to carry on walking this Earth.

  Maybe that part shouldn’t have come as a surprise—death was death, after all. But magic was integral to these people. Even my mother, who did without, wouldn’t be parted from it completely. That was why she’d kept the Gaian candlestick on her mantel. She’d done away with tradition by not having a Sol salutation on the wall, but the Gaian candelabra was both a connection to her magic as well as an heirloom.

  There were people who’d prefer to lose an arm than lose their magic, just as there was, I felt sure, someone out there who’d rather die than live without it.

  I guessed we should be grateful that we’d encountered only the former during our trek across the globe and not the latter.

  The proceedings took place quickly. There was little to be done, after all. Casima created a ball of fire that reminded me of the flame emoji, except it had a ball as a base and the spitting tongue of the fire leaped two to three feet high. Parts of her afro were caught in the blaze, but instead of sizzling and catching afire, if anything, it made the black strands of thick hair glow with heat and then gleam like silk as though her fire had conditioned it.

  “Who first?” Casima inquired casually, surprising me with both her candor and her lack of fear. Chaow had been a little more hesitant, and Lars had shown the most discontent, but Casima appeared bored. Like she had things to do and we were interrupting.

  Seph cleared his throat as he stepped deeper into the foyer. There was a large square rug in the center. It was made of a kind of straw that squeaked slightly beneath his feet. In the center, there was a large vase filled with dried stalks. The type of stuff you found in a fancy decor store, but never knew where the original flowers came from.

  “It hurts a little,” Seph mumbled, his eyes on Casima’s.

  “The good stuff always does, honey.” She winked at him, and despite the tension coming off of Seph, I had to stifle a laugh.

  Seph’s smile was more of a grimace, but he raised his hand and pressed a finger to the fire. This was the only one that could have potentially injured him. Wasn’t like you could get a blister or burn your finger from earth, was it? But he didn’t even wince as his finger connected with the flame, and as he did, Casima hissed out a long, low breath, and murmured, “You weren’t wrong about the pain.”

  I bit my lip, hoping she wasn’t suffering too much as her inner fire was extinguished and replaced with a chunk of silvery ore that had my other Virgo mates traipsing over to do the deed.

  With Casima’s fire collected, that was it. Done. Before we’d left Lars’, we’d harvested the wind from my grandmother, so we were technically ready for me to do my part.

  Whatever that bit entailed.

  It was all well and good being told to ‘bloat’ a fucking river, but how exactly did one go about doing that?

  Each of my Virgo carried the individual pieces of ore, and I had my grandmother’s in my pockets. The four pieces of rubble felt at home there, touching me, and that was undoubtedly because they were my element. I would, in time, become the head of the first family, after all.

  Maybe I already was, considering my mother appeared to have no interest in magic.

  “What are you going to do now?” Casima asked, her voice husky with discomfort as she eyed the ore. Her fingers rubbed against her palms, almost as though she was feeling the loss of her magic like a physical ache.

  “We have a quest,” I murmured softly, naming the challenge ahead of us in the only way I saw fit.

  Somehow, we had to achieve a miracle without a fucking clue how to do it…

  To be fair, it sounded about right with the shit show my life was turning into.

  “A quest? What type of quest?”

  Gabriella raised a hand. “The Redeemer must earn her stars.”

  My mouth tightened at that and, ignoring my grandmother, I turned to Linford and said, “Time to begin?”

  He dipped his chin. “I’d say it was a pleasure as always, Casima, but—”

  She smiled. “I know what you mean, Linford.”

  How well did the first families know one another? Casima was another who was on first name terms with not only my grandmother but my grandfather too! Lars was the new head of his line thanks to his father’s recent passing, but I had a feeling his dad and my abuela would have been friends. In time, maybe Lars would have come to know Gabriella too, if it hadn’t been for the fulfilling of his duty. Maybe, in time—depending on how long my grandmother lived after my magical plastic surgery, that is—I’d come to know his son, for he’d be the next head. It was something to ponder, something to hold on to in an everchanging future.

  “Do you mind if we travel from here?”

  “Of course not.” She hesitated. “Shall I leave?”

  “Might be for the best,” he told her kindly.

  She nodded, then stepped over to me. Reaching for my hand, I felt her soft palms and the callused tips of her fingers. “Go with Gaia, Redeemer. I’ve never known what you were supposed to do, and I doubt any of us were totally sure, but I know that my sacrifice won’t be in vain.”

  I stared deeply into her eyes and lied, “I’ll make certain of that.”

  Of course, I wanted to be certain, but how could I be? I had no idea what we were going to do. Trude had lived a half-life for centuries to pass on what was essentially a verbal treasure map. But Casima had just drained her magic for us to use, so I couldn’t, wouldn’t, throw it in her face.

  Squeezing her fingers, I murmured, “My thanks.”

  Her smile was shaky in the aftermath of being purged, but she cast us all a look before r
etreating out of the foyer and going somewhere else in the house.

  “Seems a bit rude to toss her out of her own hallway,” Dan muttered, making my lips twitch.

  “Better that than the workers see us disappear. No one understands my gift. I’d prefer not to be stoned to death before I can fulfill my role.”

  The idea that, a hundred years ago, Linford was granted this ability just so that he could chauffeur us around the planet with ease put me on edge, but I said nothing, just turned and waited for him to take us to the first step of our quest.

  The Amazon.

  “How do you know where to take us? All you have is a place name—” And hadn’t sharing Trude’s vision with my grandparents been fun! “—that’s hardly enough, surely?” Matthew questioned, his tone harsh now that Casima was gone.

  My distrust for both my grandparents had spread to my Virgo. Who could blame them? They weren’t on our team, if anything, they were on the Redeemer’s team, and though I was she, I wasn’t. Not really. Sure, it might be a title that was being forced upon me, but the key word there was forced.

  “I’m going to will myself to each location, and the Goddess will guide me to where we need to be.”

  More kismet.

  I was getting really sick of the stuff.

  Sighing, I closed my eyes, and the second I opened them again, gone were the minimalist lines of Casima’s room. Gone was the rug, the artful floral display, and the simple paintings that were visible in the lounge. In their stead was a sea of trees, loam, and a bright jade green river. The noise was immense. The tide wasn’t, if rivers even had tides—sue me, I was a girl from Tampa and geography hadn’t been my strong suit at school—but the sheer mass of water created a counterpoint that was, truth be told, anything but restful.

  “Where are we?” Daniel questioned, eyes alight with interest as he peered around our new location.

  “I don’t know,” Linford admitted. “I just pointed us at the Amazon.”

  I cut him a look. “How do you even do that?”

  “How do any of us do what we do?” he replied. “It’s a blessing.”

  “Curse more like,” Seph mumbled.

  “Not for our intentions. Everything is unfolding as it must,” my grandmother intoned, and my mouth twisted into a sneer at that.

  Ever since she’d sacrificed her magic for the cause, she’d been even more irritating. Each step we took forward, a bewildering serenity overtook her, making her seem so fucking Zen that it just stressed me out all the more.

  The waters weren’t helping solve that problem either. Not when the area we were standing on was narrow enough for me to see from one shoreline to another, and from there, I could even see another island ahead of me.

  I wasn’t the only one discomforted. Seph turned in a circle and murmured, “We’re surrounded by small islets.”

  “Where we stand is of no import,” Gabriella stated calmly.

  “How do you know that?” I ground out, irritated all the more by her piety. “Did Trude tell you something she never told us? As far as I’m aware, we’re the ones who had a conversation with her. Not you.”

  My grandmother guilelessly said, “She’s communicated many times with me over the years. Bursts of images here and there…” She closed her eyes. “I recognize this place. This is where we must begin.”

  Feeling like a grump, I held out a hand to Seph. “The water ore, please?”

  He reached into his pocket and retrieved the four pieces he’d been storing in there. Giving them to me, I stared at them, faintly mesmerized by the clean lines on either side of the ore. It was as precise as if they’d been shorn through with a laser.

  Shaking my head at the sight, I leaned over and placed the ore on the ground, muttering, “In the Amazon, place the Water stone, to stir the beginnings of change.”

  “She said you had to bloat the river,” Matt reminded me, coming over to place a hand on the bottom of my back. I wanted to lean into him so badly, but he’d played his part now, as had my other Virgo, and this was all down to me.

  “How do you do that?” Dan asked, also stepping toward me.

  “Rain?” Seph suggested, moving to stand beside Matt.

  “It’s the only way, I guess,” I muttered, not entirely happy at the prospect of getting soaked through for nothing.

  With a sigh, I let my magic spill from me, and only when it had touched all my mates and my grandparents—treacherous though they may be—I called on the rain.

  It was weird because calling on it was simple, and yet so complicated too. I didn’t know how to seek out the lifegiving waters, but something in me did. Something that was Sol-granted and Gaia-gifted, something I no longer particularly wanted.

  Still, I sought the rain and it found me.

  Overhead, the relatively sunny day suddenly turned dark and overcast. The clouds began to churn, morphing from a bright white and sinking into a deep, gloomy gray. In seconds, the cheerful weather turned dusky and grim before the heavens opened and rain began to fall.

  I stared up at the sky then down at the ore. With no goal in mind, other than to make the river bloat, I studied the silvery pieces but saw not even a glint of magic that was supposed to somehow redress the balance between Fae and Witch society.

  A thought that made me roll my eyes.

  How was I, standing here in the middle of the Amazon rainforest of all fucking places, supposed to do any of that?

  Beneath us, the loam on the ground stayed dry, but the water began to make our area bog down with its weight. The chirps and songs from the birds disappeared too, and it was weird because I only realized just how much activity there’d been when the rain took over everything.

  As I stared at the river, the whooshing sound made a reappearance, and I realized why the birds and local wildlife hadn’t been that loud to me… the Goddess was in my head once more.

  Sandwiched by my males, I closed my eyes and tried to focus on what she was saying. It reminded me of when I was a kid and the station broke up, leaving a static screen of white and gray behind. There’d been that buzzing noise back then, but it was like someone had turned up the volume to the extent where I felt like I needed noise protection earphones on.

  The pain that followed was like a punch to the temple. I cried out as I raised my hands to my ears, but it was no good. My men stopped me from staggering to the ground again, but the noise just wouldn’t stop.

  “Something isn’t right!” Matt called out, his voice louder than the rain, but like a whisper over the sounds in my head.

  “No shit, Sherlock,” Dan grated.

  My eyelids began to flutter, almost as though they were trying to decide whether to help me pass out, but as they began to move, it was like an old-fashioned projector. With each flutter of my lashes, I saw an image.

  The ore we’d gained from the witches had been shapeless to me. But in the image? They had a definite form.

  Each piece had a distinct pattern on it, and when those patterns came together?

  That was what brought light.

  The noise stopped, and the sudden cessation made me feel like I was going deaf.

  I stared up at my mates, and saw my grandparents hovering nearby with panic on their faces—undoubtedly for the ‘cause’ and not for me—and whispered, “The ore isn’t right.”

  Matt scowled. “It has to be. Seph took Lars’ ore. He has the Water stone.”

  “Yes, but it’s just…” I licked my lips, wondering how I could be surrounded by so much water and yet feel so parched.

  Dan cupped my chin. “What is it?” To the others, he said, “Her eyes have turned silvery.”

  Matt and Seph grabbed at my hands, squeezing them like his words meant something. Uncertainly, I frowned. “Silvery?”

  “It started back at Lars’. They change color when you’re under—” He hesitated. “—pressure. Are you okay?”

  Standing upright took more focus than it should have because I just wanted to melt into them and
let this day be over, but when I was finally back on firm ground, feeling shaky for it too, I whispered, “This is wrong. Put all of the ore on the floor. Each one has a pattern on it.”

  Reaching for the Air stone that I’d been carrying in my pocket ever since my grandmother had been purged, I tossed it on the ground while my Virgo did the same, but they scowled when they looked at the silvery rocks.

  Dan was the first to comment on the obvious: “There’s nothing, Riel.”

  “There is.” There had to be. I frowned at the shiny surface, not seeing what I had a moment before. “Dan, touch one of them.”

  He shrugged but pressed a finger to a stone. When a little marking appeared, my eyes widened, and we all shuffled in place, excited at seeing something that hadn’t been there earlier.

  “What is it?” Seph asked.

  “I think it’s going to make up a rune.” I reached up and rubbed my temple again. “I-I saw a picture. It reminded me of the runes you were teaching us, Dan.”

  “Trude said this was the place that required the Water stone,” Linford stated, his voice hushed with concentration. “The water rune is a like a lightning bolt on its side.”

  “Touch them all, Dan. We need to find that symbol.”

  He did as I asked, and we all stared when, on the final piece of ore, we found two inverted triangles set like a lightning bolt.

  “Find the other three,” Linford told him, and Dan complied, reaching over to touch the other set of stones, not stopping until he found the three remaining pieces that fit this particular puzzle.

  “One from each element,” Seph whispered as I picked up the last three Air stones and set them in my pocket, a move they copied.

  “It fits,” Matt remarked with a gusty breath. “Now what?”

  Nervously, and hoping Gaia wouldn’t start with her shit in my head again, I licked my lips. “Now we call on the rain again.”

  ❖

  Seph

  This time, when she called on the rain, it was like the storm of before was a little shower. Water flooded the skies until seeing into the distance became an impossibility.