“So,” Ryn says. “A mirror that stalks you until you answer it. And here I thought the only faerie technology you were interested in was Stone Age amber.”
I give him a withering look. “It was a gift, Ryn.”
He opens his mouth to respond, but a knock on the door silences him. “Miss Fairdale?” It sounds like the serving woman who read out my schedule yesterday. “I’m just checking that you’re awake and ready for breakfast.”
“Oh, yeah, thanks,” I call back. To Ryn I say, “Hurry up and get out of here. We’re going to be late.”
“Do you need any help, Miss Fairdale?” The doorknob moves.
“No, no, I’m fine, thanks,” I shout hurriedly. I doubt the Seelie Court would approve of Ryn being in my bed any more than Tora would.
Twenty-Two
Breakfast is a picnic beneath a bower of trees that sprinkle us with the occasional handful of star-shaped yellow flowers. Very pretty, until they begin landing in the food. Afterward, we’re sent to observe the Royal Guard running through a few training exercises, which is when Ryn and I manage to escape to do some more exploring. I’m still a little high on all the not-just-friends feelings coursing through me, and it seems to be resulting in some reckless behavior. Like happily wandering around the palace grounds when we’re clearly not supposed to be doing that right now.
We find two lakes that have no stone structures built nearby, and another courtyard attached to the palace with a pool full of young faeries splashing about. On the other side of a maze constructed from low bushes, we come across a pond with a stone bridge. But after examining every stone, it’s clear there’s no sign or symbol that points to something hidden.
I think of the sheer size of the palace grounds—so big it would take hours and hours to reach the other end—and start to feel a little panicky. “What if we can’t find her hiding place in time?” I say to Ryn. “I’ve waited years for this opportunity. It’s never going to happen again.”
“We’ll search all night if we must,” he says, and I have to fight the urge to take his hand and squeeze his fingers. He seems just as determined as I am to find my mother’s hidden belongings. Maybe it’s because he’s still trying to make up for the past, or maybe it’s because the alternative—hanging out with other graduates watching guards train—is too boring. Either way, I’m grateful beyond words.
We leave the pond and bridge behind us as we climb a low hill. “You know, your mother’s exploration time was probably also very limited when she was here,” Ryn says. “Don’t you think it more likely she’d have chosen a hiding place closer to the palace rather than further away?”
I stop climbing and rub the back of my hand across my forehead. I’m overheating in my long pants which, as Ryn pointed out last night, might be a little too tight for a summer’s day. My tank top keeps my arms exposed, but it isn’t enough to cool me down. “That could be true. Do you think we should head back and look around the palace?”
“Yes, I do. So far we’ve only walked through the palace, not around it. There might be smaller pools we haven’t seen yet.”
“There’s also a greater chance of someone important seeing us and sending us back to our group.”
“Afraid of getting in trouble, V?” Ryn flashes his cocky smile.
“Hardly,” I turn around and make for the palace. “I just don’t want Mission: Exploration to be cut short.”
We walk back without saying much. There’s been a lot of silence between us today. Not an awkward silence, but rather one that suggests we’re both a little preoccupied. Every now and then I catch him watching me, but I don’t ask why. He’ll probably try and get me to spill my feelings on seeing my father-who-wasn’t-my-father last night, and I’m not going down that road. Crying in Ryn’s arms was weird enough without having to talk about it now.
We skirt the palace, keeping to the surrounding trees and hoping no one will notice us as they lean out of their decorative white balconies. We pass a fountain outside a room where a group of faeries are practicing musical instruments. I sense a spell weaving its way through the trees toward us, tempting my feet to start dancing. I hurry on with Ryn close behind me. That fountain was too small to be hiding anything anyway.
“Hey, I think I hear more water,” Ryn says.
He’s right. “Yes, but where is it? I don’t see anything.”
The sound of falling water becomes louder as we approach what looks like a leafy wall of tightly interwoven branches. It seems to be concealing a semi-circular area against the edge of the palace wall. “A private garden?” Ryn suggests.
“Maybe. But it doesn’t look like there’s any way in from this side, so my mother couldn’t have hidden anything there.”
We’re about to move on when a figure dressed in white steps through the hedge. I slip behind the nearest tree trunk and press myself against it. A few feet away, Ryn hides behind another tree. When no one calls out to us, I peek carefully around the tree to see what’s going on. The figure in white is the faerie who hosted our tea party yesterday afternoon. The Queen’s daughter, Olivia. She scoops her long blonde and pink hair away from her neck and secures it with a ribbon. Then, after scanning the area quickly with her eyes, she hurries off through the trees away from us.
“Imagine still living with your mother when you’re, like, a century old,” Ryn whispers. He steps out from behind his tree and walks over to where Olivia appeared.
“I think she’s more like two centuries old,” I answer. “She’s the Queen’s first daughter, remember, and the Queen’s certainly been around for a while.”
“V, there’s an opening here.” Ryn motions for me to follow him. “You can’t see it from over there because the angle is wrong.”
I cross the grass and slip through the opening after him. Concealed within the semi-circle of space is a garden. Roses of every color are entwined amongst the branches of the hedge. Against one side is a stone archway with a bench beneath it. In the center of the garden is a round pool beside which stands a tree with oversized orange leaves that create an umbrella of shade. Water trickles over a pile of rocks and into the pool. Statues stand here and there on the grass, which comes to an end at an open doorway leading into what must be the princess’s quarters.
“We definitely shouldn’t be here,” I say, backing away from the pool.
“Don’t you want to check if your mother’s hiding place is here?”
“It won’t be.”
Ryn wanders over to the bench and sits down. “And how do you know that?”
“Ryn, this is the princess’s private garden. There’s no way my mother would have hidden her stuff here. Can you imagine the trouble she would have been in if someone had caught her?” I turn to leave, but as I do, Zinnia’s description of my parents a few nights ago comes to the surface of my mind. The two of them always liked to take on the most dangerous assignments. “On the other hand,” I say, turning slowly back to the pool, “perhaps that’s exactly why she would have chosen this place.”
“And look at all the roses,” Ryn adds, gesturing to the hedge.
I nod. “This would actually have been the perfect hiding spot for her.” I start examining the stone archway Ryn is sitting beneath, starting from the bottommost stone and moving upward. Ryn gets up and examines the other side. The stones are almost perfect and seem to have no markings other than those probably brought about by time and harsh weather. Not that I can imagine a place like this ever having harsh weather, but even the Seelie Court can’t be immune to winter, can it?
“See anything?” Ryn asks.
“No. Can you give me a leg up to check the top?”
Ryn comes around to stand in front of the bench, and I place my foot in his cupped hands. He lifts me swiftly up. I grab onto the edge of the archway and take a look at all the stones I couldn’t see from the ground. “Nothing. I guess it’s not here after all.”
“Aren’t these statues made of stone?” Ryn asks as he lowers me to the groun
d.
“Yes, but they’re really small.”
“V.” Ryn looks at me the way he looks at Calla when trying to explain something. “If a tree isn’t too small to hide your entire home inside, then is a statue too small to hide a single room?”
Even though I now find Ryn gorgeous and have the occasional irrational desire to tear his clothes off, it’s still really annoying when he’s right. Without answering, I head to the nearest statue—a woman with small horns on her head wearing a scrap of fabric that doesn’t even come close to covering the essential bits of her body. I get down on the grass and start investigating her stone surface. I find nothing but smoothly carved stone, until I spot something on the back of her heel. “There’s something here.” Excitement rises in my chest. “An arrow. It points down and to the right.”
“There’s something here too,” Ryn says, running his fingers over the right hind leg of the unicorn statue. “A wavy line.”
“A wavy line? Doesn’t that usually signify water?”
“Yes. Running water, maybe? Flowing water?”
“Okay, well, we have a fountain, but this arrow points to the right, and from here the fountain is on the left.”
Ryn walks to the remaining statue—a pixie holding a sprite in its outstretched hand like an offering—standing in the shade of the orange leaves. I join him, my eyes searching the legs first because that seems to be a trend here. Ryn gets down on his hands and knees, closely examining the front of the pixie. I’ve reached the back of the pixie’s neck by the time Ryn says, “Found it.” He gives me a smirk, and I glare at him. Everything is a competition when it comes to the two of us. “It’s on the back of the pixie’s hand, facing the ground.” He leans down once more and points up. “See here? It’s the shape of a circle.”
“A circle.” We both look at the garden. The only circle here is the pool.
“It’s inside the pool,” Ryn says. “You’ve got to get in the water—hence the wavy line—go below the surface—”
“That’s the down arrow.”
“And then to the right,” Ryn finishes.
I go to the opening in the hedge and look out. No one there. “Okay, let’s do this quickly. I certainly don’t want to be caught swimming in the princess’s pool.”
“After you.” Ryn gestures to the pool. “Since this is your mission, I think you should go first.”
I dip my foot in, testing the temperature of the water. I thought it might be uncomfortably warm, given the heat of this summer day, but it’s just cool enough to be deliciously refreshing. Of course. It’s probably enchanted to be at the perfect temperature. I slip into the water. It reaches up to my shoulders.
“Ah, relief,” Ryn says as he joins me, making a bit more of a noise than I did. “We may have to stay here for a while.”
“And get caught? I don’t think so.” I take a deep breath, sink down below the surface, and swim toward the right side of the pool. I run my fingers over the square stones, searching each one for some kind of marking. I surface for air and dive down once more. Ryn is nearby, helping with the search.
Then I see it: a simple X carved into the middle of a stone. I push against the stone with my hands, but nothing happens. I reach above my head and, thankfully, my stylus is still there, attempting to hold my hair in place. I pull it free and write an opening spell on the stone.
Yes!
The stone vanishes, leaving a rippling, semi-transparent layer between the water and the darkness that lies beyond. I swim through—and tumble onto a hard stone surface. I climb to my feet and immediately create an orb of light. It floats in front of me, illuminating a tiny room with a table on one side.
With an exclamation of pain, Ryn lands on the floor beside me. “Flip, you’d think she could have left a cushion or something on the floor for a softer landing.”
“We found it, Ryn,” I whisper as I take a few dripping steps to the table. Lying on it is a leather-bound book with gold writing across its cover, a bracelet resting on a small pile of brightly colored ribbons, a black candle, and an oval mirror with an ornate silver frame. I pick up the mirror and see my mother’s face. I’ve seen images of her before, of course, but this is different. She’s younger.
This is it. The moment I’ve dreamed about since my father first told me the story of my mother’s Seelie Court visit. I finally get to see her as a real person. I finally get to hear her voice. With my heart drumming in my chest and my fingers shaking, I touch the mirror’s surface.
Her face breaks into a smile, and she tucks a piece of black and purple hair behind her ear. “Okay, whoever you are, you’re really brave. You just took a swim in the princess’s private pool!” She claps her hands and laughs. “Congratulations! Of course, that makes me really brave too because I also swam in the pool. Well, brave or stupid.” She rolls her lavender eyes while I fight the tears forming in my own. “Anyway, you’re probably wondering who I am. My name is Rose Hawthorne, I’m a graduate from the Creepy Hollow Guild, and since I only get to visit the Seelie Court once in my life, I thought it would be fun to leave a little bit of myself here. So … The book is one of my favorites. My best friend gave it to me for my birthday a few years back. If you look inside, there’s a folded paper with a story I wrote in junior school—because I feel like you should get a laugh out of this.” She giggles while I wipe a stray tear that escaped my eye. “Um, the bracelet is the first piece of jewelry my parents gave me, and the ribbons I found in a chest of my grandmother’s belongings when I was small.
“Okay, what’s left?” She pauses for a moment and looks to the side. “Oh, the candle. That was from my parents on my eighteenth birthday. It’s a never-ending candle, so it’ll never get any shorter, no matter how much you burn it. Um, so, that’s it. Oh, and the table was made for me by my boyfriend. Amazing guy that he is, he didn’t mind me shrinking it along with my other things and bringing it here.
“So, anyway, that’s me. It would be really neat if you could return my book to the Creepy Hollow Guild with a message for me. Also, if you get caught leaving this pool, I’m really sorry. I hope I don’t get caught when I leave! Oh, and if you happen to be the princess, um, I’m also really sorry. I did not mean to disrespect you in any way by hiding these things in your pool. Please don’t hate me!” She clasps her hands together, smiles sweetly, and the image of her vanishes.
She’s gone.
I touch the mirror again but nothing happens. “It’s only set to play once,” I say softly. “I’ll never see her again.” Tears drip down my cheeks. This was my moment with her—my one and only moment—and now it’s over.
“I’m sorry.” I feel Ryn’s hand on my shoulder. “But—and don’t hate me for saying this—it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for you to watch the same message over and over. You wouldn’t want to waste your life in front of a mirror.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I sniff as I place the mirror down on the table. “But I’m still taking these things home with me.”
“Of course,” Ryn says. “Need help with the shrinking?”
“Thanks.” At least I have these reminders of her. I’ll take my time looking at them when I get home. I’ll read the book and the story she wrote. I’ll burn the never-ending candle, and its perpetual flame will never allow me to forget her.
Right now, though, we need to get out of here.
I shrink the mirror while Ryn takes care of the book and the candle. I’m about to shrink the bracelet, when Ryn says, “You should wear it.” He takes it from me and puts it around my right wrist, leaning closer as he fastens the clasp. “And the ribbons. You need some color in your life, V.” He winds the ribbons around my arm so that they cover my scar. The curling lines of my guardian markings peep out on either side. He ties the ends and tucks them away, his touch sending a shiver up my arm. I wonder if he notices the goose bumps. He’s certainly standing close enough to see them.
I suddenly remember telling Nate that he couldn’t talk me into a
make-out session in a dodgy, underground tunnel because I have standards. And I realize right now that I have absolutely no standards at all because here in this underground stone room I want nothing more than to kiss Ryn. If he pulled me into his arms now, I wouldn’t stop him. I know it wouldn’t be good for us in the long run, but my body and my heart crave him. So badly.
“Um, we should get out of here before the princess returns,” Ryn says, taking a step back and putting some distance between us. “Mission complete, so … I guess we could just hang out in your room for a while.” He watches me. Am I imagining it, or does he mean something more when he says ‘hang out’?
Only one way to find out.
“Okay.” Crap, did I really just sound as breathless as I think I did? I am so pathetic.
I slip the tiny candle, book and mirror into my wet pockets while Ryn shrinks the table. I let him go ahead of me before pushing my own way through the rippling layer and into the water. I spin around with my stylus in my hand, but the stone is already sealed up. Cool. I pull myself through the water and my head breaks the surface. I smooth my wet hair back and climb out.
Ryn is standing by the opening in the hedge, looking out. “Someone’s coming,” he says.
“What?”
He grabs my hand and tugs me toward the doorway into the princess’s quarters. “We’ll wait here until he passes.”
We stand just inside the doorway of a sitting room. All pinks and greens and floral patterned walls—it really isn’t my taste.
“Dammit,” Ryn mutters. I look out at the garden and see a man slip through the gap in the hedge. “Go through that door,” Ryn whispers hurriedly, pointing to the other side of the room.