He wasn’t here in this room with me. Was he in the mirror-world?
He faded from the mirror view and reappeared as Brodin beside me.
“I can tell from your face something happened,” he said. “Tell me.”
I explained and he nodded. “This means something.”
“Maybe we’re just seeing the alternate plain dream world in the mirror?”
“Maybe, or perhaps the alternate actually exists.”
“We know it does,” I said. “You can die there.”
“You know what I mean. Maybe the other Darkwater Reformatory…” His gaze drifted to the mirror and the gardener still working outside, seemingly unaware that we watched him from inside. “Maybe we can use this.”
“Because you can go to this other world as an Eerie, which means you could…I don’t know change things?”
“Try one thing with me,” he said eagerly.
I nodded, gnawing on my lower lip. At this rate, it would be raw before we reached the dragons.
Speaking of which, where was Kylie? Surely she’d notice we were no longer with her. Or maybe not. She could think we ditched her. That’s what I would think.
“Hold on to me this time,” he said, and I latched onto his arm.
This time, when he shifted, I was transported with him to the parallel world.
He paced over to the window, and I stayed with him, my fingers woven into his thick ruff.
His exhale created steam on the glass pane and shifted the pristine curtains.
Chills ripped through me. I leaned forward and knocked hard on the glass.
The gardener looked up and waved.
Chapter Eight
“So,” I said. “In your Eerie form, you’re able to access a parallel Darkwater Reformatory.” Did this mean anything or was it one tiny piece of a huge puzzle we’d never solve?
Brodin looked around, but there was no one here but us.
Bixby had used spylings at the prison to watch us. For all I knew, she used them here, and they were in the room with us this minute, reporting our every movement.
I moved close to him and kissed his jawline, tracing my lips all the way to his ear.
“Damn,” he hissed, his hands sliding around my waist to pull me flush against him.
Need consumed me. I wanted this but couldn’t pursue it right now.
“We’ll talk about what this might mean later,” I whispered. Speaking quietly to him had been my sole intent when I approached, but now…
“We’ll talk about kisses?” he said with humor in his voice. He knew me too well.
“Plus a few other things.” Heat climbed inside me, building to a bursting point, just like every other time we were together. We haven’t been a couple for more than a few days, and the longing I felt for him seemed as strong as before we’d shut the bedroom door back in the Reformatory Challenge tower and explored each other throughout the night.
We pulled apart. This wasn’t the time.
“We could talk to the guy outside,” Brodin said, regret creasing his face. “Question him.”
“You’re not able to speak when you’re in your Eerie form.”
“You can talk, though,” he said. “Hop on my back, and I’ll take you outside.”
“He’ll probably bolt the second we approach him.”
“Who’s to say he’s the only one here—there—we can talk to?” Brodin’s gaze drifted to the windows in the mirror. Outside, the guy continued raking. “We might find lots of people. Maybe this is where we’ll find the kids who made it this far.”
“You’re suggesting Bixby is storing them in an alternate world?”
“Who knows?” He raked his fingers through his hair. “Other wizards made it through the Challenge. Us and Kylie can’t be the only ones.”
“Do you think the mirrors are allowing this to happen? Maybe we’ve discovered something unique and exciting about Darkwater.” Did Bixby know? She could be leading us—again—into a trap. Surely she wouldn’t leave a clue like this out in the open for anyone to find?
“There’s one way to find out. You game?”
“I want to see what we can do with the…” I lowered my voice. “Dragons.”
“This won’t take long. We can still meet up with the others and go through possible options. But…” His gaze drifted to the man raking. “Talking to him might give us clues.”
Gnawing on my lower lip, I nodded. “No harm in trying. Should we go outside? You’re kind of big for the doors.”
“Sure.”
We ducked back to the greenhouse and exited through a door on one end, spilling out into the overgrown back yard.
This wasn’t going to work. Why should it? Nothing else had gone easily for us here. But I’d be stupid not to try. If nothing else, we could report what we discovered to our friends when we met up in the rookery.
I wrapped my arms around Brodin.
“Ready?” he asked, anticipation heightening his voice. “I hope… Okay, I’m not going to hope. I’m going to do.”
In a flash, he became his Eerie again, and the world around us had shifted, leaving the Reformatory where we’d brought the dragons a pale, rough imitation of this Darkwater.
I had no idea what it meant or if we’d ever figure this out, but we had to try.
As Brodin padded along the path winding toward where we saw the gardener, I kept my hands buried deeply in his ruff. If I let go, would I find myself in the decaying Reformatory or somewhere else? Shivers trailed down my spine. Not a good thought.
When we turned the corner and started down the path, aiming for where we saw the gardener, he stopped raking and watched us approach. We left the path and walked out onto the grass.
Brodin stopped, and we waited to see how the gardener would react.
“Haven’t seen an Eerie for some time,” he said dryly. He lowered the rake onto the ground and straightened his worn clothing. His shaky fingers smoothed his collar-length gray hair, and I worried he’d run away, but he lifted a shaky smile instead. “Welcome. I’ve been waiting for your arrival.”
“You have?” I asked.
Ask him why, Brodin said in my mind.
I will.
“You expected an Eerie?” I said.
“Not him, though it’s a treat to see one.” His rheumy gaze fell on me. “I meant you, Seeker.”
“I’m not a Seeker any longer. I was disbarred.” Bitterness choked off my breath. I did nothing wrong. I didn’t deserve what happened, but neither did Brodin’s mom. Of all of us, she’s the one who paid the highest price.
“No one can take away what you hold deep inside you,” the man said. His feet shuffled on the ground. “I should tell you who I am, I suppose.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “I’m Tria.”
“Knew that.” He jerked his chin toward Brodin. “You’re Ordellia’s son.”
Brodin’s shoulder muscles twitched.
Ask him how he knows all this! he said in my mind.
“You knew Professor Trarion?” I asked.
“We were at the Academy together.”
“You didn’t tell us who you are,” I said.
“Don’t you know? I’d think you would guess.”
“How could I?” I asked in agitation, because—
“I’m your father, Tria.”
Chapter Nine
“You can’t be my father,” I said.
“Why not?”
“You’re dead.”
“Rumors are not reality.”
My uncle lied, then? What was the truth? I had no way to tell.
But this guy was old. My mother told me he’d been her age, and she was only thirty-seven. This man—this gardener with a wrinkly face and straggly gray hair—had to be in his seventies.
“You’re not my father,” I gulped out, blinking back tears. All these years, I’d been looking for him with my anger a low simmer inside me. It burst free. “You can’t be!”
He dipped forward in an awkwa
rd bow. “Nice to see you again, daughter.”
“That’s it?” I fumed, wishing I could stalk toward him, grab onto him. Shake him until his teeth rattled. But Brodin’s feet remained locked in place. He must know how I was feeling, how I ached to smack this man. “You haven’t seen me since I was a baby, since you stole from me, and when we finally meet up again, you say ‘nice to meet you?’ It’s not enough.” It would never be enough. “You took my core magical essence. That part of me that defines my deepest magic.” My heart aflame with righteous anger, I held out the hand not clinging to Brodin. “Give it to me. Now. I want it. I need it. I deserve it.”
“I don’t have it I’m afraid.” He shrugged. “I haven’t seen it for ages.”
“I’m not even twenty yet. It hasn’t been ages.”
As if I wasn’t falling apart in front of him, his gaze skimmed the woods stretching beyond the lawn. Dark and gloomy, the forest encroached on the pretty landscape like a moldering monster waiting to pounce. “Time is different here. And…I don’t know where it is.”
“You fuckin’ lost it?” I shrieked.
He shrugged. “Lost. Misplaced. Or maybe it was stolen. I don’t know and right now, I really don’t care. I have raking to do.” Leaning forward, he picked up the tool and started using it to gather leaves again.
“Find it,” I snapped. “I want it.” My fury was a white-hot flame inside me, threatening to consume everything around me.
“You’re not here long enough to make demands,” he said, maintaining a calm I envied. But then, he wasn’t the one missing the vital core of their magic. He wasn’t the one who was told it was lost.
Gone forever. My shoulders sagged. What would I do? All my life, I sought him. I sacrificed everything for this moment, and it grated dully along my spine like worn out sandpaper.
“Soon, you’ll go back to where you came from, and it will no longer matter,” he said, stretching the rake forward and tugging it backward filled with leaves.
Ask him where he thinks we’ll go back to, Brodin said.
“Go back where?” I said, struggling to control myself. Shrieking at this man would not get us answers, and that was why we were here.
“You’ll go back to wherever you came from, of course,” he said.
“Where to you think that is?”
The rake stopped, and he lifted his gaze to the building. “The Reformatory was once a beautiful school. Only the elite fae came here.”
I frowned. “When was that? For all my life, I’ve been told the island was dedicated to the prison and Reformatory, which isn’t much different than juvie.”
“I’m talking about this world, not that one.”
“What is this world?” I asked. “Where are we? Is this part of the Eerie plain?”
He sighed. “Things are much nicer here. There are no horrible creatures. There’s no supervision. And best of all, there’s no fear.”
“Fear of what?”
“Fear of what isn’t.”
Like with my uncle, this was getting us nowhere. We were wasting our time.
“How can we free the dragons?” I asked.
“Which dragons? There are many.” His brows drew together. “And why would you need to free them?”
“Bixby manipulated us into bringing them from the catacombs,” I said. “They’re chained in the rookery.”
“Ah, I see what you mean,” my supposed father said. I still wasn’t convinced this man had helped bring me to life. But he knew about my core essence. Maybe he was my father. He aged, but he said time was different here. “She’s at it again, I see.”
“The switch-witch?”
“Her, too.”
“Give us some sort of clue,” I said in desperation. “We need help.”
“I believe you have all the clues you need already. You must connect them.”
“We don’t know anything,” I said, my anger growing all over again. Such a waste. We came out here for answers but hadn’t learned a thing.
Well, other than my father telling me he lost what I’ve sought forever.
“You will find it,” he said.
“Find what?” I growled.
“That what you seek.” His arm swept wide. “What we all seek. It waits for us.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
“You’re saying nothing.”
“Or everything.” His face tightened, and urgency came through in his tone. “Think, girl. Remember everything. The answer is there, you just need to find it.”
Birds squawked and flew up from the brush behind him, startled by his rise in volume.
We won’t get what we need from him, Brodin said. But we can walk around and see if we find someone else.
Quickly, though, I said. The others will be waiting.
We can cover this side of the building, and then I’ll shift back.
We can come back again, after we’ve looked around the paler version of Darkwater.
We need to take those tests before your time runs out.
My despair crowded through me all over again. How was I going to do this? I’ve wasted most of this day already and had nothing to show for it.
Brodin turned and padded toward the building with me clinging to his side. My legs felt like rubber, and I couldn’t hold back the imagine of my sister’s murder from my mind.
The hand of fate reached inside my heart and crushed it.
As if he sensed my despair, Brodin nudged my side, urging me to climb onto his back. After, he took the path, heading toward the front of the Reformatory. But we didn’t see anyone else.
We should go inside, Brodin said.
Yup.
My supposed father was real—or he appeared real—but he could be the only living being here. I’m done. I can’t handle anything else.
My hope had deflated. All I could cling to was the next four days. My sister still lived. I’d get there in time to save her.
Brodin returned to where we exited the building and shifted back to himself. The world around us became the dingy, faded version of the near-utopia I saw surrounding my father.
When my body shuddered, Brodin gathered me into his arms and dropped his chin onto the top of my head. “I’m sorry.”
“He’s not my father.” Stubborn of me, but it didn’t feel right. I didn’t want it to feel right, not with him.
“Maybe, and maybe not.”
“If he is, he’s lost my magic.” I stared up at him with tears in my eyes, but I refused to let them tumble free. I wouldn’t give that man a weapon, the ability to hurt me. “How could a person steal something like that from their child and then randomly lose it?”
“I don’t think he did.”
“He said he did.”
“He eluded but didn’t outright say. Are we supposed to believe everything we see or hear on Darkwater? One, we don’t know he’s your father. Two, if he is, he could be lying. Three, there’s more going on here than what we’re seeing. And four…”
“Four?” I took in a deep breath and let some of my pain ease out of me with my exhale. “What’s four?”
“I’ll think of it in a second. The thing is, we have to observe everything here and then weigh it with what we know from the prison and Bixby and what we’ve heard outside Darkwater. Somewhere among all this, there’s truth. We’ll find it. And along the way, we’ll look for your magical essence. If he lost it, I imagine he did so here, which means we can find it.”
“You think it’s lying around? Someone would’ve found it and kept it.” Assuming they could tell what it was. Could someone else use it and, if so, for what? That was unclear. All I knew was it belonged with me, and I wanted it back.
“Who would’ve found it? From what we can tell, there’s no one in this realm but us, Bixby, Duvoe, and your uncle. Assuming your uncle is in this realm and not in another. In the world we just visited, we only found the man who calls himself your father.”
My smile lifted long enough to ligh
ten my heart a bit. “Love how you used calls himself.”
“We can’t trust anything here or anyone.”
I linked our hands together and leaned in close to him, savoring his warmth and the comfort he freely offered. “We can trust each other.”
“We can,” he said it like a solemn vow, and I repeated it in my heart.
Neither of us would ever betray the other.
Chapter Ten
We took the stairs and entered the rookery to find the others waiting.
Jacey patted her dragon, which stretched its neck up and shot smoke into the air. Rohnan stood with her, his hand gripping her shoulder in sympathy. Kylie had backed into the opposite wall and leaned, her arms crossed on her chest, glaring at the room in general.
The other dragons lay on the floor asleep or ignoring us. At our arrival, my dragon lifted its head and stared at me forlornly. Guilt crashed over me in heavy waves.
I approached the creature and stroked its scaled neck.
“I’m so sorry,” I whispered.
It keened, and the others joined in on the mournful chorus.
The sound ripped my heart to shreds.
“Do you think they’re hungry?” Kylie asked, coming up behind me. “We should feed them.”
“You brought one before. Did it get hungry? Did you feed it?”
Flames filled her face, and her shoulders curled forward. “Bixby took it the second I arrived.” She kicked the chain linking her dragon to the floor. “I screamed at her, yelled, and tried to stop her, but she flung me against the wall.” She rubbed her arm as if it still hurt. “I know you think I was happy to do this, but I wasn’t. I had no choice.”
There was always a choice.
I grudgingly admitted she probably had protested. Would I have been able to do anything different?
“When her magic hit me, I thought for sure I’d die.” Kylie’s chest rose and fell with her sigh, and I didn’t like feeling sympathy for her. Or understanding. “When I woke up on this floor, my dragon was gone. Bixby, unfortunately, was still here. She mocked me.”
Wicked Rebellion (Darkwater Reformatory Book 3) Page 7
