“Which would now be shortened, I assume,” Dash says, “without access to her magic.”
“Yes. Once I was convinced I’d correctly altered the spell, we went ahead and did it. And as far as we could both tell, it worked. Her name was now supposed to be Macy Clarke, but she didn’t like that, so she had it officially changed to Daniela Clarke. I checked in on her every week or so. In that time, we … well, we started to become more than friends. I fell in love with her. She didn’t look the same, but she was still Dani. We had a month or two in which everything was blissful happiness. And then …”
“Then?” Dash motions with the crossbow for Zed to keep talking.
“The changeling spell that I’d altered so drastically had side effects. It blocked all her ordinary magic like it was supposed to, but somehow it didn’t block her Griffin Ability. And her mind …” He rubs one hand over his face. “It affected her mind. She started forgetting things. Forgetting she’d ever been magical. Seeing things that weren’t actually there. Afraid of imaginary things.”
“So it’s your fault,” I whisper. “You’re the one who made her crazy.”
“I only did what she asked,” he wails. “I only wanted to make her happy.”
“Your spell drove her mad.”
“And I will live with the guilt forever,” he whispers. “In the beginning, it wasn’t so bad. She didn’t get confused too often. Just like her Griffin Ability didn’t happen often. But I wanted to help her. Heal her. I tried to convince her that we should find a way to reverse the changeling magic, but she refused. She ended things between us. Told me she was happy with her human life and that she didn’t need me to be part of it anymore. But I kept an eye on her. I watched as her Griffin Ability became … out of control.”
“What was it?” I ask. “What could she—”
“But then it stopped,” Zed says, ignoring my question. “Her Griffin Ability disappeared just like the rest of her magic. Soon after that, she snapped completely. I didn’t witness it—the day she was hauled off in an ambulance—but I heard about it afterwards. I listened in when the doctors and nurses spoke about her. After that, I consulted healers—a select few that I trusted—but they couldn’t do anything. I’d properly blocked her magic when I did that changeling spell, and now her Griffin Ability was gone too. They couldn’t sense anything in her, and no one wanted to attempt reversing the changeling spell. No one was brave enough to try to fix the mess I’d made. In fact, they told me it was probably impossible. So, since the healers could do nothing for Dani, I had her moved to a private institution. The best I could find in your world. I was happy to pay for it for the rest of her days. And you—”
“I ended up with an aunt who wasn’t really my aunt. Someone who didn’t want me. Thanks for that.”
“Look, I’ll be honest with you, Em,” Zed says with an apologetic expression. “I never cared all that much for you. It was Dani I loved. You were more of a nuisance than anything else. You were the child she chose over me. So being able to send you off to your aunt was something of a relief for me. Dani loved you, so I didn’t want you to end up a homeless orphan, but I didn’t care much beyond that.”
I grit my teeth together so tightly my jaw begins to ache. I open my mouth, then snap it shut. I’ve already told him he’s despicable, so there’s no point in repeating that.
“I checked in on Dani fairly regularly,” Zed continues. “Over the years, the hospital tried to release her a couple of times, but, as you know, it never went well. Occasionally I would try some new form of magic I’d come across, but I was never brave enough to try anything drastic. I didn’t want to risk killing her. And with her magic blocked—as far as I could tell—she was as weak as a human.
“We went on like this for years. Then one day, your magic finally broke free of the spell I’d placed on you, and your Griffin Ability revealed itself. Suddenly everyone in power in the fae world wanted to get their hands on you. And I, unfortunately, heard the news too late. The Unseelie King told his son to learn everything he could about you. His search led him straight to Tranquil Hills Psychiatric Hospital—where I was trying to retrieve Dani. She’d always been safe there, but now I needed to get her elsewhere. I didn’t act quickly enough, though. Prince Roarke showed up while I was in Dani’s room. He captured me and took me back to his home, leaving Dani at the hospital as bait for you, Em. With two potions—truth and compulsion—he forced the story out of me. He discovered that you and Dani were both changelings.
“He brought in a witch then. An old witch well-versed in the magic of her people. Crisanta. He made me explain exactly how I’d performed the changeling spell on Dani, and together the three of us figured out how we could heal her.”
“Wait.” I hold my dagger-free hand up. “Why would Roarke do that? He doesn’t care about my mother. He doesn’t need her. He was never planning to fulfill his side of the bargain I struck with him, so why would he go to so much trouble to try and fix her?”
“It was his back-up plan. He thought that if all else failed—if you ended up with the Guild or the Seelies and refused to enter into any agreement with him—he would then steal your mother and heal her. Then he’d contact you, present a fully healed Daniela Clarke to you, and only agree to set her free if you handed yourself over to him.”
I find myself slowly shaking my head.
“No?” Zed asks. “You don’t think you would have agreed to that? I think you would have.”
He’s right. I’m not shaking my head because I disagree with him. I’m shaking my head because I still can’t quite believe all of this. It’s so far removed from anything I’ve ever imagined for my own life. He can’t be talking about me. He can’t be talking about my mother. She wouldn’t steal someone else’s life, would she? But somehow, deep down in that part of me that recognizes I’ve been utterly out of my depth since the moment the earth ripped itself open at my feet, I know that Zed’s story is the truth. It’s my story. It’s my mother’s story.
“Em?” Dash asks, his crossbow still pointed firmly at Zed. The magic he’s been gathering over his palm is almost the size of a bowling ball now. “Everything okay?”
It takes me a few moments to find my voice. “I … yeah. But I have a lot of questions. Starting with my mother’s Griffin Ability. What is it? What can she do?”
Zed opens his mouth, then pauses before speaking. “It’s … complicated. I doubt you’ve come across a Griffin Ability like it before.”
“I’ve known about magic for only a few weeks, so there are many Griffin Abilities I’ve never come across, Zed. I don’t care how complicated this one is. I want to know about it.”
“Fine.” Zed presses his lips tightly together, then says, “Your mother has … she is … a split personality.”
I shake my head, his words making little sense to me. “What do you mean? Her mental illness is a Griffin Ability? So she was crazy before you messed her up with changeling magic?”
“No, not like that. Not the way you’re thinking of it. There aren’t just two personalities living inside her. There are two people. And those two people—”
“—can separate,” a voice says from behind Zed. He spins around to face the door. Someone pushes it open fully, and there stands a woman in an all too familiar silver cloak and black mask.
Ada.
Thirty-Three
And those two people can separate. Despite the sudden threat of Ada standing in this very room with us, my brain latches onto those words, racing to put together the pieces of this puzzle.
Two people.
They can separate.
Mom and her ‘friend’ always arguing.
The friend I heard through the walls but never—
“Thank you for sharing that fascinating story, Zed,” Ada says in sickly sweet tones.
A knife appears in Zed’s hand. Dash steps to the side and aims his crossbow at Ada. “Adaline,” Zed grinds out between his teeth. “How nice to see you again after so many ye
ars.”
Adaline, my brain repeats. Another puzzle piece. I turn it over and around, desperate to make it fit in somewhere. I know it fits somewhere.
“I never liked you,” Adaline says to Zed as she reaches for the door handle. “I could never understand what Dani saw in you.” Glass begins splintering with alarming speed across the door and down to the floor.
My brain abandons the puzzle. My hand raises the dagger. I’m ready to leap over the glass and stab it right into Ada—
But Zed’s hand flashes forward. His glittering knife pierces Ada’s stomach an instant later. She cries out and doubles over, her hands pressing against her stomach. Her enchanted glass shards stop inches from Zed’s feet. He throws his hand up, and a faint ripple in the air hints at the protective shield he’s now holding in place.
Ada looks up, her eyes filled with fury. She tugs the knife free, and after it vanishes from her grip, she presses her hands over the wound. “You know you’ll have to do a lot more than that to stop me, Zed.”
“Yes,” he says. “But in order to stop you, I have to slow you down first.”
“Hardly,” she mutters. “It won’t take long for this wound to heal. You don’t know what kind of power I possess now.”
“I’ve heard rumors,” Zed growls. “Rumors of witch rituals.”
“You can hardly judge me, Zed. Not after the witch magic you used.” She presses both hands more firmly against her stomach. “Now, I think it’s time you finished your story. You were nearing the end, but I’m afraid I interrupted you before you got to the punchline.” Her wicked eyes alight on me. “I don’t think Em has quite understood yet. And what a delicious punchline it is indeed.”
And those two people can separate. My brain fumbles once again with the puzzle pieces it’s gathered as Ada raises one blood-soaked hand, pushes her hood back, and removes her mask.
And suddenly I’m looking into the face of my mother.
The dagger slips from my grasp. The air is sucked from my world. My knees begin to weaken. I’m hot and cold and light and heavy and finally, all the pieces click into place. “Line,” I whisper. That’s the only thing I’ve ever been able to remember Mom shouting through the walls while she argued with the ‘friend’ I never met. “But it wasn’t ‘line,’” I say, my voice coming out as a croak. “It was Adaline. It was you.”
Ada nods, her smile slipping away and her gaze turning more venomous. “I couldn’t stand the way she used to say my name whenever we separated and ended up arguing. ‘Adaline,’ she used to say. ‘Don’t be so stupid, Adaline. You can’t go after the Guild, Adaline. Your Griffin Ability is weak and useless. I’m the strong one. What will you do without me? Bury them alive in glass trinkets and ornaments?’” A bitter laugh escapes Ada’s lips. “Well, I showed her, didn’t I. Once she was too lost in her own mind to control me, I got out. She wasn’t strong enough to pull me back inside, and I was finally free once and for all. The witches taught me how to increase my power, and now look where I am. My glass isn’t fit merely for tiny trinkets. It’s an unstoppable force. And the moment you drop that shield, while the two of you are wasting time with fancy guardian magic you don’t think anyone can beat, my glass will get you. It’ll crack through you in seconds.”
“I doubt it,” Dash mutters.
“Ah, and there’s that guardian ego we all know and love to use to our advantage,” Ada says with a labored laugh. “What will it be today, young guardian? Razor blades, birds, rocks? Glass shards of your own, perhaps? Are you skilled enough to transform your magic at the speed of thought, or are you one of those unimaginative men that likes to throw raw power around?”
“The latter,” Dash says. Zed’s hand drops to his side, the shield vanishes, Dash throws his arm forward, and all the power he’s been gathering since Zed stepped into this room strikes Ada in the chest. A single second passes. Then her eyes slide shut and she crumples to the ground. “Stunner spell,” Dash says. “It’s amazing how often people forget that one.”
“Takes a while to gather the required amount of power,” Zed says, kneeling beside Ada and holding her wrists together. “That’s probably why.”
“Thanks for being so quick with the shield,” Dash says.
“Thanks for being so quick with the stunner spell,” Zed replies, his hands rapidly looping golden ropes between and around Ada’s wrists.
I drop onto my knees as my legs finally give in. “She’s … she’s my mother. She’s part of my mother. She’s … they’re two people. Inside one? That’s the Griffin Ability?” I look at Zed for confirmation.
“Yes.”
“That’s … just … so …”
“Complicated,” Zed says. “Super complicated.”
“Did you know? Before you did the changeling spell?”
“Yes. Dani told me some months after we met each other. She said that as long as she could remember, she’d been aware of this other presence in her mind. She was seven, I think, when she first split and this other identical person revealed herself. Her parents named her Adaline. Adaline and Daniela. A little bit like twins, but in a weird, magical, share-one-body-most-of-the-time kinda way. Dani was always the stronger one. Adaline couldn’t last long on her own. She’d get tired, and the two of them would meld together and become one again. It was strange. I could talk to both of them, and after a while, I could figure out which one was speaking. But if Dani got annoyed with Ada, she could silence her. That was always the way things were.”
“Until you messed with their magic and made Dani weak and insane,” I say.
“Yeah,” Zed murmurs. Finished with the rope, he pushes himself to his feet. “I don’t know why it happened that way. Why it affected Dani’s mind and not Ada’s. Why Ada’s magic wasn’t blocked but Dani’s was. None of it makes sense.”
“Sounds like you messed with the changeling spell too much for any of this to make sense,” Dash says quietly.
“It changed both their appearances, though,” I point out. “They look exactly the same. It’s so weird. If I hadn’t seen her glass magic, and if I hadn’t heard the way she speaks, I would have said without a doubt that this is Mom.”
“Yes. They’ve always looked identical. That’s where the similarities end, though. They’ve never wanted the same things. It was Ada, rather than Dani, who wanted revenge on the Guild. Dani wanted it too in the beginning—Ada obviously couldn’t force her—but she grew tired of it a lot faster. Ada wanted to stay. She tried to convince Dani, but Dani wouldn’t listen. After we ran, the two of them didn’t split as often anymore. It seemed like Ada was sort of … sulking. Then when Dani asked me to do the changeling spell, Ada was furious. She forced her way out and told Dani how stupid she was being, throwing their magic away for a boring human life. But Dani was still stronger then. She forced Ada back inside. They didn’t separate for a long time after the changeling spell, and I began to think that the magic must have blocked Ada. But after Dani began to properly lose her mind, Ada started separating from her again. I saw her a few times, disappearing and only coming back hours later. One day I watched her vanish into the early evening—and I never saw her return.”
“So you knew she was out there, then?” I ask. “You knew what she was doing?”
“No. Not for years. I assumed she began a new life in the magic realm, and I was happy to forget about her. I hoped I’d never see her again. But in recent months, I heard rumors about a masked woman who was turning people into glass, and I wondered if it might possibly be Ada. I didn’t know for sure until she walked into this room and started speaking. This is …” He gestures to her. “This is the first time I’ve seen her since she disappeared.”
“So … when the two of them are together,” I say, “their Griffin Ability is that they can split. But when they separate, Ada has her own Griffin Ability: transforming things into glass just by touching them. So does my mother—does Dani—have her own ability when she’s on her own?”
“No. Well, not that I k
now of. The way she explained it to me, her Griffin magic was the ability to split into two different people. The ability to have this other person become part of her while still maintaining a separate consciousness inside her.”
“It’s so weird,” I say again, shaking my head, not moving from my position on the floor. “So super weird. It’s like … I don’t know. Maybe they were supposed to be twins, and then one of those Griffin discs affected them before they were born, and they ended up in this weird, messed-up, unconventional twin form with one living inside the other.”
“Who knows,” Zed says with a shrug. “That might actually be what happened.”
“And I don’t understand why she didn’t reveal her face to me before now. She could have pretended to be my mother. I would have been confused, but I’d have gone anywhere with her.”
“I don’t think so,” Dash says. “You’re smarter than that. You know now that shapeshifters and illusions are real. You would have suspected some kind of magic. And she didn’t actually want you; she wanted your mother. So she was probably trying to avoid questions and explanations.”
“Then why is she here now?” I murmur, more to myself than anyone else. Dash and Zed don’t know any better than I do why Ada might be here. “Anyway.” I swallow and clear my throat and prepare to ask Zed my most important question: “Can you heal Daniela Clarke? After spending time trying to figure it out with Roarke and that witch you mentioned, did you discover a way to make her healthy again?”
“We did,” he says, and my insides bloom with warmth and happiness. “At least, we think we did. We obviously haven’t tried it yet. And there is one catch.”