A Faerie's Curse (Creepy Hollow #6)

  Late in the afternoon, the rest of the team—which now includes Elizabeth—gathers in the mountain’s meeting room for our final run-through of the plan.

  “Problem,” Ana announces the moment she walks in. None of us are seated, and Lumethon hasn’t even arrived yet. “I spoke to Trian Hared. He—”

  “Who?” Darius asks.

  “The musician. He—”

  “Oh, that guy you got all swoony over?”

  “Darius!” Ana punches his arm before continuing. “Trian wasn’t invited to this party, but he’s been to an event at the palace before. He said he doesn’t remember where the journey began, but it was ridiculously long. Three or four hours at least, and not only was his invitation checked by someone at three different points during the journey, he was also supposed to have some special charm to get him through the entrance.”

  “What charm?” Gaius asks.

  “There’s a waterfall of some sort at the entrance to the palace. If you don’t have this charm on you as you drive through it, the water becomes solid and knocks you backward out of your carriage. The guards almost arrested Trian, but then it turned out he hadn’t opened his invitation properly. Apparently when the person or people the invitation is addressed to first open it, a charm is released that allows those people passage beneath this waterfall curtain.”

  “Oh dear,” Gaius mutters, followed by a far more colorful curse from Elizabeth. “We don’t have that charm.”

  “I know,” Ana snaps. “The baron and his daughter would have received it.” She drops into one of the chairs around the oval table and buries her face in her hands. “Whyyyyy does everything have to be so hard?”

  “What’s so hard?” Lumethon asks as she walks in, looking alarmed.

  “We don’t have the charm that will allow us to pass through the Seelie Palace entrance,” Kobe tells her.

  “Hang on,” I say, holding my hands up as my last memory of Olive springs to mind. “The person I followed to the palace last night sprinkled something over her herself before she drove beneath that waterfall. Something she kept in a pouch in her desk at the Guild. Maybe it’s the same kind of thing. Something that allows her to pass through the water.”

  “And what if it’s not?” Ana says as she looks at me between her splayed fingers. “What if it was something entirely unrelated?”

  “Then why would she bother sprinkling it on herself just before entering the palace grounds?”

  “Whatever it is, we have to try it,” Gaius says, seating himself at the table. “Calla, can you get this pouch from her office?”

  My eyes meet Elizabeth’s across the table. We both know I shouldn’t be projecting any illusions before tomorrow night, but this has to be done. “Of course. I’ll go as soon as this meeting is over.”

  “Excellent. Let’s run through everything then.”

  Those still standing take a seat at the table, and Gaius begins by telling everyone to be here at midday tomorrow. We’ll get ready—masks, weapons, relevant spells and charms—and leave the mountain in the late afternoon, which means we should arrive at the palace in time for the party in the evening.

  Two or three hours later, when we’ve been through our plan in detail and talked through every possible obstacle we might encounter, Gaius calls the meeting to an end. He invites everyone to stay for dinner, but I tell him I’ll eat when I get back. I want to get that pouch out of Olive’s desk before she locks her office for the night.

  I’m tired of wigs—they itch my head—but I know they help me to blend in far more easily than if I’m wearing a hood. I use the shoulder-length black and pink one again and stick with my normal black jacket. Lumethon’s tan-colored one spent far too many hours hanging around Olive’s office yesterday.

  I expect the Guild to be emptier, given that it’s evening and training should be over. Anyone working through the night should be upstairs in an office or out in the field on an assignment, but instead I find a bustle of activity in the foyer. Councilor Merrydale is there, speaking with two other guardians while tapping his foot and glancing over his shoulder every so often. Olive is present, as are several other guardians I recognize. Relieved to be covered by invisibility, I walk confidently across the foyer and up the grand stairway.

  Olive’s office is unlocked, so I slip inside with no trouble. I hurry over to her desk and open the top drawer. The pouch, of course, isn’t there. Because, as Ana pointed out, everything about this mission is hard. Grumbling beneath my breath, I yank the second drawer open—and there it is. “Okay, scratch that,” I whisper to myself. Not everything is that difficult. I pick up the pouch and find a symbol—the Seelie Queen’s insignia, I’m guessing—stamped onto the fabric. Pushing the drawer closed with my hip, I open the pouch and peek inside. The powdery contents glitter in the light of the glow-bugs attached to Olive’s ceiling. “This had better work,” I murmur as I pull the string to close the pouch. I open my jacket and drop the pouch into the inner pocket—just as I hear footsteps pounding along the corridor outside.

  “… right now?”

  I’m not here. Don’t see me, don’t see me.

  “Yes. Not more than a minute ago. I saw her—”

  The door swings open and Olive storms in with a thunderous expression. “Who’s hiding in here?” she demands, her eyes darting around. She marches to the desk. I squeeze around the other side as she yanks her chair back and looks under the desk. “You didn’t see her leave the office?” she asks the guard standing in the doorway.

  “No, but I might have missed something while on the way here. We’d have to go back to security and ask if one of the other guards saw—”

  “Was the woman wearing a hood?” Olive asks as I inch around the edge of the room.

  “No. She was a faerie. Pink and black. Or dark brown. I couldn’t quite tell from the—”

  “Get inside here and close the door,” Olive snaps.

  No, no, no! I suck my stomach in and hold my breath as I side-step past the guard. “Yes, of course,” he says, moving into the room and slamming the door.

  But I’m out. I’m out and I’m running. Not the best idea because it will draw attention, but if guards are watching for me, they’ll see me anyway, no matter what speed I’m moving at. And they’ll send people after me. Get out, my instincts tell me. Just get out as fast as possible. Corridor, stairs, foyer. It’s almost empty now, allowing me to run straight across without having to dodge anyone. Through the doorway into the entrance room, I see Councilor Merrydale. But he’s chatting with the guards, so it’ll be easy to open a way to the faerie paths under the cover of invisibility and get myself out of here. I dash into the room—

  And something shocks me. I can’t move. I’m stuck in the doorway. What the … I’m visible. I’m glowing. Councilor Merrydale steps back, raising a hand to his mouth in surprise as he stares straight at me. “Oh, it—it worked.” In an instant, his surprise vanishes. “Seize her before she gets away,” he shouts.

  I wrench myself free of the magic constraining me to the doorway and stumble backward. The guard launches through the doorway and tackles me to the ground. I kick and squirm and elbow my way out of his grip. Scrambling away and aware of a least five guardians rushing toward me, I cast about for a suitable illusion. My desperate mind starts screaming—and screams are what I hear out loud. The blood-chilling screams that filled Ryn and Vi’s house, magnified and echoing across the great foyer. The sound sends chills across my skin as my pursuers look around, searching for the source. Glittering weapons blaze into existence all around me. I jump to my feet and find that despite the deafening shrieks of despair, every guardian still runs for me.

  Fire, as searingly hot as I can imagine it, tears across their path. They leap away from the flames, giving me time to run for the exit. I dive through the doorway—and I’m stuck again. “Argh!” I writhe and shout and try to imagine flames consuming the foyer behind me and—

  A heavy force knocks me into the room. A person, stron
g and fierce and pinning my arms behind me. “Got you,” a voice snarls in my ear as she rips the wig from my head.

  Olive.

  “Release her immediately!” my projection shrieks, and though I’ve never seen the Seelie Queen in real life, I think of her portrait in the library upstairs and picture her in the most opulent gown my imagination can come up with, along with an expression of fury and a commanding, pointing finger.

  “Your—your majesty?”

  I take advantage of Olive’s momentary confusion and thrust my elbow back as hard as I can. She grunts in pain and her grip loosens. I repeat the action, knocking her further backwards. I scramble away, turn around, and force a pulse of magic straight at Olive’s chest. With a cry, she flies backward and hits the wall.

  “What is the meaning of this?” my imaginary queen yells as she moves toward the doorway. I jump to my feet, fumble for my stylus, and scribble across the wall.

  “It isn’t real!” someone shouts on the other side of the queen.

  A doorway of dark space materializes in front of me. I take my first step—and Olive throws herself around my legs. I fall into the darkness of the faerie paths with the lower half of my body still sticking out. “Ugh, get off!” I yell, wriggling and shooting sparks of magic from my fingers.

  “You’re not getting away this—”

  “Yes I am!” I sit up, lean forward, and swing my fist at her face. Surprise, more than anything, is probably what makes her let go. I give her a good kick and squirm my way into the darkness as my doorway closes up behind me. I stand up in the darkness and scramble awkwardly into the lake house on the other side of the paths. “Flip, that hurt,” I mutter, clutching my aching hand. And now, in the quiet of the lake house as fatigue and a headache creep up on me once more, my mind finally has a moment to comprehend what just happened.

  A spell. To detect Gifted. That’s what that woman was testing downstairs. She must have put it on the entrance room doorway after I was already inside the Guild. That’s why there were more people than usual in the foyer. They cast the spell and then everyone went home, probably never suspecting they’d get a chance to see it in action so soon. And the damn thing works, which means that every single Griffin Gifted fae who—

  Ryn. Crap. I have to warn Ryn.

  I’m about to rush straight to his house when I remember the other spell I’m supposed to be avoiding. Stupid Guild and their stupid detection spells. What were the words to that shield charm Gemma and Perry put together? It was so much simpler than the tongue twisting faerie paths spell but, darn it, I can’t afford to get it wrong.

  I unlock the faerie door and run through it. Then into the entrance hall, past the living room, and

  “Oh, Calla, did you—”

  “Yes, got it!” I shout as I run for the stairs. Gaius can examine the contents of the pouch later if he wants. I find the page with Perry’s spell beside my bed. I rush into the bathing room, stand in front of the mirror as I hold one hand above my head, and read the spell. Looking into the mirror, I make sure the glowing dust forms and settles over me. “Done,” I murmur to myself as I leave the page on the bed. I hurry back downstairs, and barely a minute later, I’m stepping out of the faerie paths into Ryn’s living room.

  Dark, quiet and musty, the room’s only light comes from the open door leading to the kitchen. I take a careful step forward, and then another, afraid to disturb the stillness. The room is tidy, with everything in its place except for the open books on the coffee table and the bottle standing beside them. A bottle containing some kind of alcohol, judging by its shape. Human-made alcohol, I realize as I step closer. The kind that knocks faeries out after only a few sips. It’s unopened, though, which provides me with some relief.

  “What do you want?”

  With a jolt, I realize Ryn is sitting on one of the couches. So still and silent, I hadn’t noticed him there. I clasp my hands together as the pounding of my headache intensifies. “I—I know you probably don’t want to see me, but I need to warn you about something. The Guild has set up a spell across their entrance that detects those with Griffin Abilities.”

  He says nothing, his eyes remaining trained on the floor.

  “I know you might not be going back to work for a while, but when you do, you’ll need to figure out how to get in without setting off their detector.”

  Still, he says nothing.

  “Well, I’m not saying you have to figure it out,” I add quickly. “I have a friend who can probably come up with a way around this. As soon as he does, I’ll let you know.”

  Nothing.

  “Ryn …” I swallow. “I—I know I’m responsible for this. I’m not denying that. But the magic—the spell that did this—came from a pair of witches. I know who they are, and I swear I’m going to find them. They … they must be stopped. They mustn’t be allowed to do this to anyone else.”

  I expect some form of reaction from Ryn, but it’s like speaking to an empty room. I can no longer stand the one-sided conversation, or the darkness or the stuffiness. The desperate desire to make things right grips me as I walk into the kitchen. I cast about for something to do. Something that will help. The center of the kitchen table is piled with envelopes and folded notes. That’s the spot where mail materializes when it reaches this house, which means Ryn hasn’t touched any of it. I gather everything and sort it as best I can into two piles, one for business mail and one for personal. The personal pile is much larger. Condolences, no doubt. I leave them on the counter where Ryn will see them when he next comes into the kitchen.

  A few dirty dishes sit in the sink, so I get a spell going to clean them while I prepare a hot drink for Ryn. Despite the fact that it’s his favorite, he probably won’t drink it. He might throw it at me in an outburst of anger—which, now that I consider it, would be preferable to the deathly silence he’s directed at me so far. I return to the living room and leave the mug on the coffee table within his reach, but still he doesn’t move. If it weren’t for the occasional blink and the slow rise and fall of his chest, he could pass for a statue.

  Next, I go upstairs. Quietly, so I don’t disturb Violet. The bedroom door is open. I expect to see her asleep on the bed, or perhaps staring at nothing, but the room is empty. After looking briefly into the other rooms upstairs, it becomes clear she isn’t here. I tidy up wherever I can, but there isn’t much mess to begin with, so it doesn’t take long before I’m walking back downstairs.

  Ryn hasn’t moved. Steam curls lazily into the air from the mug on the coffee table. I wrap my arms around my chest and swallow. “Where’s Vi?”

  He doesn’t say anything for so long that I assume he’s still ignoring me, but then, in a hoarse voice he says, “She left.”

  “Okay. Um …” I cast about for something else to say. “When will she be back?”

  The breath he breathes in is more of a gasp, and it shudders on the way out. “I don’t know if she’s ever coming back.”

  Somehow, the silence seems to intensify as I come to understand what he means by ‘left.’ “You mean … like …”

  “Yes. Like she didn’t just leave home, she left me too.”

  “Ryn …”

  “Go,” he says quietly.

  I press my eyelids closed, and a tear drips down my cheek. When I’ve managed to swallow down the guilt and pain enough to speak, I whisper, “I love you and I’m sorry.”

  Then I turn to leave. My gaze lingers on the bottle of alcohol—should I take it with me?—and I notice again the books lying beside it. Books with pictures, one of them with Vi’s handwriting scribbled in the margin. I pause, squinting down through the darkness, and this time I see something I recognize: a pyramid with a second, smaller pyramid on top of the first. My heart stills a moment before jumping into action. I lift the book, looking back at Ryn to see if he might be about to object. His staring gaze is pointed elsewhere, though, so I close the book and take it with me as I leave with renewed determination.

  I finally
know where the witches are.

  CHAPTER

  EIGHTEEN

  The guilt-beast circles my thoughts as I enter the mountain with Vi’s book tucked beneath my arm. Food is the furthest thing from my mind, but Gaius comes out of the living room and points toward the kitchen. “I kept some dinner for you,” he says with a smile. “You need to keep your strength up for tomorrow night.”

  My strength. His words remind me of the weariness tugging at my body and the ache pounding my head. I don’t need food. I need some of that tonic sitting beside my bed. But Gaius is already taking my arm and leading me toward the kitchen, so I decide it’s easier not to fight. “You said you managed to get that pouch from your old mentor’s office?” he asks as I sit at the kitchen table.

  “Hmm? Oh, yes.” I remove the pouch from my pocket and hand it to Gaius. After waving his hand briefly at the stove to heat up whatever’s in the pot, he takes the pouch.

  “Very interesting,” he murmurs, looking inside.

  “Gaius,” I say, opening Vi’s book to the page with the pyramids. I cover her handwriting with one hand as I point to the pictures. “Do you know this place?”

  He turns his attention away from the contents of Olive’s pouch. “Uh … Mitallahn Desert.” He reads the name out slowly, as if unsure how to pronounce it correctly. “Yes, I’ve heard of it.”

  The name is familiar, but I can’t remember why. “Do you know anything about it?”

  “Yes, I remember Chase saying something about it several months back. It was … oh, yes, it came up in his research on Amon. That’s where Amon grew up.”

  Of course. That’s why the name is familiar. I read it in Chase’s notes. I close the book and place it on my lap.