The expression on Calla’s face tells me she knows nothing about this letter. But a recent memory nudges the edge of my mind. A memory of Perry saying something about actively searching for other guardians who disagree with the Guild. It was a comment he made in passing, probably sandwiched in between the news about which prison Vi and Ryn landed up in and the memo he received about eight more Griffin rebels being captured.
“Sorry,” Calla says to Harryd. “I don’t think I know this Perry you’re talking about.”
Which is what I was hoping she would say. If these guardians do have a letter from Perry, it doesn’t prove they’re on our side. They could very easily have confiscated the letter from someone. Or they could be lying about it.
“Well, hopefully you will one day,” Harryd says. “Now, if you’d like to leave—”
“Wait,” someone else says. “You need to warn them about the tracking, remember? And your suspicions about where they took the other guy. Blackhallow.”
Dash, I whisper silently.
“I’m not listening to any more of your lies,” Calla says, and I know she’s right even though I long to hear more about Dash. She raises both hands, magic crackling dangerously around her fingers. I swallow, open my mouth, get ready to use my Griffin Ability—
“Hey, hey, wait,” Harryd says. “The Guild’s tracking you now!” I pause with my mouth open, wondering if perhaps we should listen to him for just a little bit longer on the off chance that he’s telling the truth. “You can’t go back to wherever you’ve been hiding,” he continues. “They’ll find you there. They’ll find you anywhere.”
Calla pauses with her hands still raised and ready to attack. “Em,” she says without looking back at me. “I hope you’re ready to say something in case things are about to turn south.”
Irritated mutters reach my ears as I answer, “I am.”
“Then tell me, Harryd,” Calla continues, “why we should be so worried about this tracking spell when no one has ever been able to track us before.”
“It’s the newest kind of enchantment,” Harryd explains hastily. “I thought it was still in the experimentation phase, but the Head Councilor ordered it to be put in the funnels in all the Griffin rebels’ cells when she arrived. You breathed it in as soon as you went in that room. It’s slower than some other tracking or summoning spells, but it’s far more accurate than anything else we’ve ever used. But it only works as long as you remain in one place. As soon as you travel any considerable distance, they have to restart their location spell.”
“Let’s say you’re telling the truth,” Calla says. “How long do we have until we’re found?”
“The longest it’s taken the Guild to locate someone is twenty-three and a half hours.”
“And the quickest?”
“Sixteen hours.”
She hesitates, then nods. “And how long until it wears off?”
“The fastest they’ve seen is three weeks. In some cases, it’s lasted up to two months.”
“Right. And what information do you have about Dash Blackhallow?”
“I overheard part of a conversation in which both Dashiell Blackhallow and Reinhold were mentioned. The two could be unrelated, but if not, that could be where they’re holding him.”
“Reinhold?”
“An off-site research station. I’ve heard the name only a few times over the past few years. I don’t even know where it is.”
“I see. Em? I think it’s time for—”
“Every guardian in the room will become motionless for the next ten minutes.” My words reverberate around the room. The guardians have only a second to direct their fearful glances my way before they become frozen to the spot. I launch myself toward the door after Calla, and together we run.
Eight
No guardian army waits on the other side of the door to attack us. A tunnel with rough rock walls extends left and right. Calla picks left. “Only ten minutes?” she comments as we race along the tunnel. “How generous of you.”
“Yeah, well. I figured there’s a possibility they were actually telling the truth. No need to keep them frozen for longer than necessary.” We come to a halt, and I add, “Are we trying the faerie paths? Hopefully they’re accessible from here. Wherever ‘here’ is.”
“Yes.” Calla’s stylus is already in her hand. She scribbles quickly against the wall, and I hold my breath for a moment before a dark doorway materializes. As we rush into the faerie paths, she says, “I wanted to believe them. I really did. I just couldn’t take the chance.”
“I know,” I answer as the darkness closes around us. Moments later, we rush into a forested area faintly illuminated by a moon far above us. Not the same forest as the one outside Noxsom, I realize. It feels colder and more overgrown. “Where are we?” I ask.
“Random part of Creepy Hollow.”
I tip my head back and take in the spindly branches scraping lazily at the night sky. “It definitely seems creepy.”
“Yes. This part is.” She pushes her sleeve up and looks at her arm. “Communication spell’s gone,” she mutters, then reaches into a pocket and removes a small mirror. “That woman said something about Harryd opening an elevator so the rest of the team could get out. Let’s hope that wasn’t a lie.” She draws a quick pattern across the mirror’s surface with her finger before holding the mirror up in front of the two of us. For several endless seconds, all I see is the reflection of our pale faces. Then the glass surface ripples, and suddenly we’re looking at Chase instead. “Did you get out?” Calla asks immediately.
“Calla! Where are you?”
“We’re fine. Creepy Hollow. Did you get out of Noxsom?”
“Yes, we’re hiding nearby trying to figure out how to get back in to retrieve you guys, but I’m guessing that’s no longer necessary.”
“No.” Calla briefly explains what happened while I look around in all directions to make sure we’re not about to be attacked by some ferocious magical beast.
“You were probably right not to trust them,” Chase says when Calla’s finished speaking, “though I sure hope they were telling the truth about being on our side.”
“I know. It would be amazing if a whole bunch of guardians finally stood up for us.” She switches the mirror from one hand to the other. “Chase, can we meet at blue two? Oh, and please bring supplies. Weapons, potions kit, all of that. I’ll explain when you get here.”
“Uh, okay. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Ten minutes, tops.”
Calla taps the mirror to end the call. “Blue two?” I ask. “Is that code for something?”
“Yes.” She looks around, then quickly opens another doorway to the faerie paths. The ground we step onto on the other side is hard, covered in frost, and illuminated by starlight. I see no trees, no life, only a vast, still lake stretching out before us, and a snow-capped mountain beyond it. An icy breeze lifts my hair, raising a shiver across the back of my neck. Bandit, still in the form of a lizard, climbs out of my pocket, scurries down my leg, and begins exploring.
“Before we decide on anything else,” Calla says, “we need to talk about the tracking spell they mentioned.”
I pull my jacket tighter around my body as I face her. “You think it’s real?”
“It could be. And if it is, we can’t risk going back to the oasis. We can’t have guardians pouring in there if it turns out this spell is as accurate as they say it is.”
“Sixteen hours. That’s the fastest they’ve found someone.”
“Yes. Which means we need to keep moving every fifteen hours to be safe.”
“They also said this spell could last for two months.”
“Yes.”
I breathe out a heavy sigh. “So we have to keep moving every fifteen hours for two months?”
“We’ll find a way to get rid of it before then. Like your Griffin Ability, for example. Perhaps you can tell the enchantment to leave us.”
A brief humorless laugh escapes me. “Know
ing my luck, it’ll be one of those special witchy spells that’s immune to Griffin Abilities.”
She frowns. “Special witchy spells?”
I tell her what Zed said about witches being aware of Griffin Abilities long before anyone else, so they crafted a few spells that would be resistant to any kind of Griffin magic. “It makes sense,” I add, “that the Guild would use magic that can’t be tampered with by Griffin Abilities if Griffin Gifted fae are the ones they’re trying to track down. Even if it means they have to consult with witches.”
Calla rolls her eyes. “Yeah. At this point, I wouldn’t put it past certain Guild Council members to work with witches if it served their purposes.” Her gaze shifts past me. “It’s hard to imagine I was once so desperate to be part of that world.”
“Well,” I say quietly, “from what Perry says—and if we can believe the people who freed us from Noxsom—not all guardians are like that. Hopefully plenty of them exist who wish the Guild was the same kind of place you wanted to join all those years ago.”
She smiles as her eyes refocus on me. “That’s probably the most optimistic thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
Her words bring to mind all the things I’m not feeling optimistic about—like how are we ever going to find Violet and Ryn now that the Head Councilor’s taken them from Noxsom? One problem at a time, I remind myself. “Okay, let’s continue with the optimistic streak then.” I feel for my Griffin power. It’s tough to tell how much is left, but hopefully it’s enough to get rid of whatever magic we breathed in while we were inside that Noxsom cell. “What exactly shall I say to get rid of the tracking enchantment?”
Calla thinks for a moment, then gives me a few suggestions. Once we’ve decided on the best words, I let go of my hold on my Griffin power and speak. “The Guild’s tracking enchantment will leave our bodies now.” I touch Calla’s arm. “Your body contains no magic that will allow anyone to track you or find you. My body contains no magic that will allow anyone to track me or find me.” I pause, sensing the rush of power as it leaves my body. I don’t try to hang onto any of it, just in case every last bit of it is needed for my command. “I really hope that worked,” I say after a few moments.
“We’ll find out tomorrow. And if it didn’t work, then we’ll just keep moving around. It won’t be that bad, I promise.”
“I guess.” I look around for Bandit, just to make sure he hasn’t wandered too far, and find him in cat form scratching at the frozen ground. “I’m starting to wish I hadn’t removed that small metal thing Roarke stuck behind my ear,” I say. “It kept Violet from finding me while I was with the Unseelies, so hopefully it would have kept the Guild from finding me too—although we’d still have to worry about them finding you. Oh—” I look up as something occurs to me. “Crap. What if the Guild forces Vi to use her ability to find us? Then it won’t matter if this tracking spell is still on us or not.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Calla says with a shake of her head. “They don’t know what she can do. They know she’s Griffin Gifted, but that’s it.”
“Won’t they try to find out, though?”
“Probably, but they won’t be able to. Like the location of the oasis, there’s certain information we’ve made sure is wrapped up in our protective enchantment. And we’ve all been trained in resisting compulsion potions and truth potions. The Guild will be lucky if they can get anything useful out of our people.”
I look at Bandit again and think of all the movies I’ve seen that include interrogation scenes. I think of how the interrogators often threaten the life of someone else—a family member, friend, partner—in order to make a person talk. My mind can’t help taking the next step and imagining Violet being tortured in order to make Ryn talk—or vice versa. The chill in the air seems to sink through my clothing and into my bones. I rub my hands up and down my arms, but the action does little to warm me. “I don’t think I can be as hopeful as you,” I quietly tell Calla. “I think if the Guild wants information, they’ll get it in whatever way they can.”
“Hey, what happened to that optimism from a few moments ago?” she asks. “This will all work out. We’ll get our happy ending.”
I shake my head and let my hands fall to my sides. “You don’t know that, though. You guys think you’re all, like, superheroes or something, but it isn’t possible for you to save the day every single time. Maybe this time, there is no happy ending. Maybe this will never work out, and we’ll never be a family.”
Calla’s expression becomes as fierce as when I told her Vi and Ryn would be disappointed to have me as a daughter. “That is not an option. We will get them back. Somehow, no matter how many wrong steps we take along the way, we will rescue Vi and Ryn and everyone else.” She breathes out a shaky breath as she looks away. “After you died—after we thought you died—it almost tore our family apart. It was … I can’t explain to you how horrible it was. And now, when we’ve been given the chance to be a whole family again, something else is threatening to divide us again.” She swallows. “Most people don’t get a chance to fix their mistakes. They have to deal with the consequences and move on. So that’s what we did all those years ago. But for whatever reason, I’ve now been given that chance. And I refuse to mess it up.”
I let her words sink in before asking, “What mistake?”
She pulls her head back slightly. “Zed didn’t tell you? He didn’t mention that he was a prisoner in the Guild and I allowed him to escape when he should have remained locked up? That if I hadn’t let him go free, he never would have been able to conspire with witches and place a changeling spell upon you?”
I shake my head. “No. He didn’t say anything about that. So … you’re saying … setting him free was your mistake? And because of that, you blame yourself for what he ended up doing to me?”
“I’m saying I recognize the part I played. For a long time, I tried to make up for what I’d done, until I realized it was impossible. I could either hate myself forever or forgive myself and move on. So moving on is what I did. Now, though, I have a real chance to make things right. That’s why I did everything in my power to get you back from the Unseelies, and that’s why I will do whatever it takes to get Vi and Ryn back.”
I swallow against the emotion tightening my throat. “Thank you. And also … I don’t hold you responsible for the mess Zed made of our lives. That’s all on him.”
She gives me a small smile. “That means more to me than you can imagine.”
A faint ripple in the air nearby catches my attention. A second later, a doorway opens and Chase steps through. Before either of us can say a word, he pulls us both into a tight embrace. I’m not the hugging type when it comes to people I don’t know well, but I barely have time to be startled before he steps back. “What else happened?” he asks immediately. “Why can’t you return to the oasis?”
“The Guild is apparently tracking us now,” Calla says. “It was something we breathed in while we were in that empty room. Did any of our team go into the other rooms?”
“No. They didn’t get a chance before your door slammed shut.”
“Good.” Calla explains to Chase how we’re going to have to keep moving, possibly for the next two months.
“Well,” I say when she’s finished, “we could return to the oasis for a few hours in between each move. But then …” I shake my head. “No, I guess that’s too much of a risk.”
“Definitely too much of a risk,” Chase says. “What if the Guild’s tracking techniques improve?”
“Look, who knows if this whole tracking spell thing is even true,” Calla says, “but until we know for sure, we’re not going back to the oasis. Em’s told the spell to vanish from our bodies, but we won’t know until tomorrow if her magic was successful.”
“Why wouldn’t it be?” Chase asks. “Her ability seems pretty amazing so far.”
“Thanks,” I say, “but Zed told me certain witch spells are immune to Griffin Abilities. If the Guild knows abo
ut that kind of magic, then I’m sure they’d try to take advantage of it.”
Chase sighs. “Wonderful. Well, in case you need it, here’s your bag.” He hands Calla a leather backpack. “Weapons, a full potions kit, some money. You’ll need to buy food.”
“And a change of clothes, perhaps.” She gives me a watered-down smile. “This is going to be fun, right?”
I lift my shoulders against the cold and start shifting from foot to foot while eyeing the backpack with skepticism. “Small weapons only, I assume?”
“Some of them,” Chase says. “But most of them are small because I shrank them. You’ll have to make them bigger before you can use them.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that was possible.” I shake my head at myself for being so silly. “But of course it’s possible. Everything’s possible in this world, right?”
“Almost.” He frowns as I continue to shuffle from foot to foot, then waves his hand briefly above my head. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you don’t know how to warm yourself.”
“Oh, thanks,” I say as the sensation of warmth slowly envelops me.
Calla pulls the backpack onto her shoulders. “Ugh, I just can’t believe they tricked us like that,” she groans. “For the second time! First they used Ryn and Vi as bait to draw some of us there, and then tonight the rest of us walked into the exact same trap.”
“We were far better prepared tonight,” Chase reminds her. “We could have pulled it off if our people had actually been there.”
“Which leads us to the next problem,” I say. “Where are they now?”