“Your poor heart will be fine.” I pat his arm, give him a brief hug, and then meet Ryn near the doorway. “Hey, you’re not dressed up at all,” I say. “Is everything okay?”
“Yes, but I won’t be staying long. I just needed to speak to you and a few other people before leaving.”
“Leaving? Where are you going?”
Ryn groans. “Vi had this fabulous idea. You know how she wants to keep working right up until the last second, and there are all these things going on at the Institute that she doesn’t want to miss out on just because she’s pregnant?”
“Yes. It seems to be the cause of every disagreement you guys have these days.”
“Right. So she suddenly came up with this plan to go to Kaleidos.”
“Kaleidos?” I absently play with the ribbons at the end of my braid. “The floating island Tilly’s from?”
“Yes. Time passes differently there, so Vi’s hoping she can get through most of her pregnancy on the island. She’s hoping that months there will only be weeks here and that she won’t miss out on too much of the real world.”
My hands fall to my sides. “That’s a terrible idea. The time difference is always changing, right? So what if it works out the other way around? Weeks there turn out to be months here? Then she’ll be missing even more than she would otherwise.”
Ryn crosses his arms. “That’s exactly what I said.”
“But she doesn’t agree with you?”
“She admits it’s not the best idea she’s ever had, but she still wants to see if it might work. We’re going just for this weekend as an experiment.”
“But what if it’s not just this weekend? What if you’re there for a weekend, but you miss out on weeks here?”
“I’ll be keeping a close eye on the time difference. Kaleidos has this system set up with people just inside the shimmer and people just outside it. They communicate every fifteen minutes or so to keep track of the time difference. That way they can see when it’s changing one way or the other, or speeding up or slowing down. And the Guild knows we’re going, of course. One has to get permission to travel on and off the island.”
“Oh.” I frown. “The stories Tilly tells about her childhood make it seem as though rules like that never existed.”
“Yes, well, Tilly and her brother always managed to find their own way off the island. They didn’t exactly follow the rules.”
I raise my eyebrows. “I’m sure that’s something you can identify with.”
Ryn groans. “Yes. Unfortunately, being grown-up and on the Guild Council means I’m supposed to at least try to stick to everyone’s rules these days.” He takes a deep breath and looks around the ballroom. “Anyway, Vi wants to leave immediately, so she’s at home packing. I just came to let you and a few other people know what’s going on.”
“Okay. Well I hope you don’t lose any time over the weekend.”
“I hope so too.” He hugs me, then adds, “And if your, uh, friend tries to get hold of you, let me know. Oh, wait. Messages don’t go through the Kaleidos shimmer.” Ryn frowns and scratches his head. “Just don’t do anything silly, okay?”
I roll my eyes. “He and I were friends for weeks without your knowledge. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
Ryn nods, although he doesn’t look entirely convinced. He squeezes my arm and steps past me to speak to someone else.
“Ready for that dance?” Perry asks, appearing a second later as if he’s been waiting for the moment Ryn leaves. “The next one’s about to start and it’s my favorite.”
“Ok, okay.” I needn’t have bothered replying, since Perry’s already guiding me onto the dance floor as the music changes. “This is that one where we dance in rows, right? And we keep swapping partners?”
“Yes,” Perry says, his eyes fixed on someone further down the row we’ve just joined. I follow his gaze and see Gemma. I smile to myself as I realize exactly why he’s so eager for this dance. Someone near the end of the row counts us in, and then we all start moving. I concentrate on getting the steps right. I did dancing at junior school, like everyone else—it was compulsory; part of exercise class—but I haven’t practiced much since then. I falter a few times, as do several other people, but I manage to keep up with the hand movements and the twirling and the stepping to the side and then repeating it all with the next person in line.
My second partner is someone with sweaty hands and a stiff expression. He doesn’t smile once. I’m glad to step to the side and take the gloved hands of my third partner, a man whose face is fully concealed behind a tiger’s mask. He leads well, and I find it easy to keep up with him. I twist beneath his arm, his gloved hand slides smoothly over mine, and then I step to the side once more. My fourth partner is dressed in dark clothing with a black panther mask covering his face. Warm brown eyes smile at me from behind the mask. I can’t help smiling back.
Three more partners, and then the dance comes to an end as the music slows to something more intimate. I move quickly to the side of the room, careful not to catch anyone’s eye as I go. I don’t want to wind up in some stranger’s arms as we follow the painfully slow steps of one of the traditional faerie dances. I help myself to a glass of something from a tray as it floats past me. I sip the sweet, fizzy drink, watching couples over the rim of my glass. Gemma and Rick are staring into one another’s eyes as they keep up with the dance. Perry’s partnered up with a fourth-year girl I’ve seen in the training center a few times, but he’s looking over her shoulder, watching Gemma.
My eyes skim the crowded ballroom, looking for more people I recognize. I don’t see Olive anywhere, but I didn’t expect her to be here. I manage to pick out some of the other Guild mentors and Council members, along with most of my classmates. Saskia seems to be gone, though. Is she meeting her secret admirer in private somewhere? Which reminds me … how long will my secret admirer wait before giving up? I’m not planning on searching for that stained glass clock.
Amidst all the colorful outfits, my eyes stop on the black panther I danced briefly with just now. He’s in discussion with a woman with rabbit ears atop her head. She gestures to the panther mask with a frown. I can understand that. It’s strange talking to a person whose face you can’t see. The panther-man removes his mask, and—
My glass slips from my fingers.
Chase?
I duck my head immediately, in case he looks this way, but the sound of splintering glass was barely audible above the music. Several people nearby ask if I’m okay, but I ignore them as I hurriedly brush the broken glass beneath a table with a whispered word and a quick sweep of my hand. I walk along the edge of the room, staring across to the other side with a pounding heart. Draven, the man who destroyed Guilds and brainwashed even the strongest of guardians, is standing calmly amidst a gathering of people who are celebrating the very day they all think he died.
I danced with him. I was in his arms. Why didn’t I recognize him? How did he make his eyes look different?
He raises his gaze. I freeze. His eyes lock on mine.
It would be so easy to shout his name out right now, to reveal to everyone in this room exactly who he is. I could do it. I should do it. But something holds me back …
After an infinite moment, he breaks eye contact. He nods to the woman he was speaking to, then hurries away. I push through the crowd, rushing to catch up with him. But everyone seems determined to move as slowly as possible, and after looking away for a moment, I lose sight of him. I stand on tiptoe, scanning the ballroom, but I can’t find him. The woman he was speaking to is in the same spot, so I aim for her instead.
“Um, hi, sorry,” I say as I almost skid into her. “That man you were just talking to—the one dressed like a black panther—do you know where he went?”
She blinks at me. “What man?” She looks down at the drink in her hand as her eyebrows pull together. “Where did this come from?”
Fantastic. There’s probably a confusion potion in there. I put my hand on
the woman’s shoulder and manage to force out a carefree laugh. “Oh dear. I think you may have had a little too much to drink.” Then I step past her and hurry around the room to the door. Chase must have left. He wouldn’t stay here, not when I could so easily give him away. Not when there are dozens of guardians present who could overpower him.
Or could they? Exactly how powerful is he?
I look behind me, doing one last brief search of the ballroom, before running out the door. I find the stairway and hurry down to the first floor where it’s possible to access the faerie paths. I’m probably too late by now. He’s had plenty of time to get away. The only reason he might still be here is if he wants me to find him. Part of me is hopeful as I search the lobby. The part of me that refuses to recognize what a dangerous man he is. The part of me that looks at him and still sees Chase.
That part grows a tiny bit smaller as I finally have to admit he’s nowhere to be found. I trudge back up the stairs. They don’t go any higher than the second floor, so if Chase wanted to go up instead of down, he would have had to take the elevator and pass a security scan before being allowed on any of the upper levels. I suppose he could be hiding somewhere on this floor. I pass the ballroom door and look down the carpeted passageway. A sign tells me it leads to a gym and something called the Phoenix Lounge. No one stops me, so I keep walking. I turn a corner and the passageway continues—and at the far end is a stained glass clock.
I back up. I almost turn away, but then I notice a shape on the ground beneath the clock. A strange red shape, part of it rounded and soft and part of it sticking up sharply. I raise my eyes once more; the clock tells me it’s twenty minutes past nine. I take a few tentative steps forward, reminding myself that guardians are supposed to be brave. I should be able to push down the fear crawling its way up my neck. The fear that heightens as I realize that the red at the other end of the passage looks a lot like the red of Saskia’s dress. And that Saskia wasn’t in the ballroom just now. That she had planned to meet the mysterious person who left a letter in her locker.
The moment my mind makes sense of what I’m seeing, I know it’s her. She’s lying on the floor facing away from me with one of her dragon wings poking upward, shielding the upper part of her body from view. She doesn’t move. I want to hurry over to her, but fear slows my footsteps. It almost freezes them, in fact, but I force myself to keep moving. I hear the tick of the clock and the unnatural pattern of my breaths.
But I hear nothing from Saskia.
Keeping a safe distance, I step around her. I see her hair now, and her—
I can’t help the shriek that escapes me. I clap a hand over my mouth. Saskia’s skin is a greenish hue with traces of dragon-like scales here and there. On the patches of skin where there are no scales, a fine green powder rests. Her lips are parted, and a smeared pool of vomit lies beside her face. Her hands are swollen and lumpy, pulling her skin tight around the dragon-eye ring on her right hand.
It’s rare for disease or sickness to kill a faerie, but one look at her utter stillness and her unfocused, unblinking eyes leaves me with no doubt. Saskia is dead.
A cry from the other end of the passage makes me look up. A small group of people from the ball, including one of the guards who was standing at the door, hurry toward me. To my left, where the passage continues toward the gym and the Phoenix Lounge, I notice more movement. People must have heard my scream.
“What’s going on here?” a man demands. It’s Councilor Merrydale, the very first Councilor I met at the Creepy Hollow Guild. The one who was in charge of determining all the requirements for me to become a trainee. He was always friendly to me, but he’s stern now, a frown creasing his brow as he takes in the scene. “Miss Larkenwood?” he prompts when I can’t seem to find my voice.
“I—I don’t know what happened,” I say, looking at her again, focusing on her hands and not her half-open, unseeing eyes. That ring looks so familiar. “I just found her here like this.”
Murmurs and gasps fill the passageway as the crowd grows larger. Someone starts to cry.
“Did you see who did this?” Councilor Merrydale asks.
“No, she was alone. There was no one else here.”
“What’s that on your hand?” someone says.
It takes me a moment to realize the question was directed at me. I raise both hands, twisting them this way and that. Then I see it: green powder smeared across the side of my left hand. Fear stabs at me. “I—I don’t know.” I wipe my hand against my dress, but the powder seems to have stained my skin. “It, um, must have got on my hand when I checked to see if she was alive.” I didn’t touch Saskia, though. That green powder shouldn’t be anywhere near my hand.
“You touched her?” someone says.
And then another voice, high-pitched and fearful: “You did this.”
“What?” I look around, searching for my accuser, but there are too many people now.
“You killed her,” that same voice says, wobbling and tearful. I find the owner, Lily Thistledown, a friend of Saskia’s. “We all know you never liked her. We all know the stories about strange things happening to people around you.”
“I didn’t kill her,” I protest. “I found her like this.”
But others are whispering now, and I hear the same accusation travel around the crowd.
“I didn’t do this!” I shout. I turn my gaze, desperate, to Councilor Merrydale. “I didn’t,” I repeat, shaking my head.
He glances at the crowd, then back at me. He steps forward and places a hand on my arm. “Miss Larkenwood,” he says gravely, “I’m sorry about this.” He breathes out long and slow before delivering the final blow: “You are suspended pending further investigation.”
PART II
CHAPTER
TEN
Years. I’ve spent years working toward my dream of becoming a guardian. Training in secret, saving lives the Guild never even knew were in danger, and then studying my butt off for all those exams I had to pass before anyone would allow me into fifth year. And then what happens? One moment in the wrong place at the wrong time, and everything I’ve ever wanted is about to be snatched away from me.
No. That isn’t going to happen.
I pace from one side of my living room to the other, refusing to accept that this could be the end of my guardian career. It can’t be. It won’t be. Not when I look at things logically. There are flaws in the system, but at its core, the Guild represents justice and truth. They don’t want to lock up innocent people. They want to find the real criminals. And when they question me under the influence of compulsion potion, they’ll realize I’m not a murderer.
“She’s lucky they only suspended her,” Gemma says to Perry. “They could have expelled her on the spot and taken her into custody.”
“No, she isn’t lucky,” Perry says, slapping his butterfly mask down on his lap. “This is ridiculous. They shouldn’t have even suspended her. They have no evidence against her. No reason to suspect she was the one who did it.”
“There’s that green stuff on her hand,” Gemma points out.
“Which, as Calla said, got onto her hand when she was checking to see if Saskia was still alive. Right?” Perry looks to me for confirmation.
I nod, absently rubbing my hand where the mysterious green powder was. But I didn’t touch Saskia, and I didn’t touch anything else with green powder on it, so where did it come from?
I continue my pacing as Gemma and Perry argue back and forth. After Councilor Merrydale uttered that horrible word—suspended—things happened quickly. He conjured up a bubble and placed it over my hand to prevent me from transferring the powder to anyone else. Two Guild guards took me by the arms and led me away. Minutes later I was back in the Guild heading for the healing wing. The guards deposited me in a small room, bare except for a single bed and table. I noticed chains attached to the bed, but the guards obviously didn’t consider me dangerous enough to warrant using them. They waited outside the door as a heal
er—dressed in full protective gear, including a transparent mask over her mouth and nose—attended to me. She pressed my hand against some kind of sticky pad to take a sample of the powder, then cleaned my skin and asked plenty of questions about Saskia’s appearance. She frowned the entire time and showed no sign of recognition at my description of the symptoms.
She left without answering any of my questions. Councilor Merrydale came in and cast a tracker spell over me, which consisted of him drawing a thick line around my ankle with his stylus and joining the two ends of the line by making a locking motion with a tiny key. A key he then hid away in a pocket while the line on my skin slowly faded. He then told me that my father and the two guards were waiting outside the room to escort me home. Gemma and Perry showed up as we were leaving, and Dad—who’s probably been wondering for years if his outcast daughter would ever make any real friends—let them come home with us.
“But they have no solid evidence!” Perry repeats.
With a sigh, Gemma says, “If you’re found at the scene of a crime, it looks suspicious. You know that. So even though the Guild has no solid evidence, they have enough reason to believe she might have been involved, so they can’t just let her go.” Gemma looks across the room at me. “No offense. I know you didn’t do it. I’m just saying I understand why the Guid has to proceed the way they’ve proceeded.”
“Yeah,” I say dully. “Because I might vanish through the faerie paths and never come back, and then a murderer will be on the loose.” I finally stop my pacing and flop into an armchair. “I suppose I should be grateful Councilor Merrydale took ‘pity’ on me, as he put it, and decided on house arrest instead of throwing me into a cell in the detainment area.”
“Yes,” Gemma says. “That is something to be grateful for.”
I stare at the ceiling and murmur, “Saskia is dead.” The words sound strange to my ears. “I didn’t like her, but I never wanted her to die. It’s so strange that she’s just … gone. I’ve become used to her constant degrading comments, and now she’ll never be there again in the training center or the dining hall or any lesson …”