I consider adding a ‘Yes, ma’am,’ but decide to follow the keep-your-smart-mouth-shut advice instead.
We arrive in the kitchen of the house where my assignment is to take place. Olive walks out of the paths behind me and hovers nearby while I try to pretend she isn’t there. The kitchen is empty, but a doorbell rings moments after we arrive, so I leave the room and search for a front door. I walk into a large living area and see a woman letting a teenage girl inside. “Thank you, Lizzie. I know it was short notice,” she says. “He’s already had dinner, so you don’t have to worry about that. He’s in the playroom now. You can let him play for another—” she checks her watch “—half hour or so, but then he must go to bed. Anyway, you know the drill.” She hurries to the foot of a staircase and shouts, “Simon, we need to go.” Then she disappears into another room.
I follow her there and find her hugging a little boy goodbye and reminding him to be good. I assume this is the boy I’m here to protect.
“Come on, Mary, let’s go,” a male voice calls. The woman hurries away, and Olive walks in behind Lizzie.
“Hey there, Jamie,” Lizzie says. She sits on the floor and joins in playing with the cars. I stand with my arms at my sides, waiting for something to happen. In my left hand, I gather magic from my core so I can stun the harpy as soon as she appears and makes her move. My right hand is ready to grasp a weapon if needed. Olive stands in a corner, looking bored.
After a few minutes, Lizzie moves to the couch, finds the TV remote, and flicks through channels while the boy pushes his cars around the floor. Another minute goes by. I step over the various toys scattered across the carpet and peer outside through the blinds. No movement in the garden.
Then I hear the rush of flapping wings.
I spin around. The harpy swoops down toward the boy, her feathered wings beating the air and her great bird talons reaching out for him. Her human-like face is twisted into an angry expression. I throw my stunner magic, but she wrenches her wings out of the way, and the magic strikes the wall behind her, leaving a hole. Dammit. I lunge toward her, realizing as I go that there’s already a sword in my grip. I’m vaguely aware that Chase was right—it happens easily when you’re not thinking about it—as I slash at the harpy. She backs off with a screech that sounds unnatural coming from a human mouth. Her black eyes stare hatred at me. Then she dives again.
I raise my weapon to slice at her, but she moves at remarkable speed and wraps her talons around my arm before I can swing the sword. She shakes me vigorously, yanking me off my feet before dropping me back down. I stumble, then duck down as she swoops once more. As she swerves in the small space and comes back for me, I release the sword and throw myself at her. We drop to the floor in a confusion of clawing, flapping, and scratching. Toys are kicked to the side, and the boy is screaming, and Lizzie is screaming, and I just … can’t … pin her … down.
“This is none of your damn business!” the harpy screeches as her wings flap heavily around me, almost knocking me out. With a great thrust of her talons, she kicks me off her. I fall onto my back, then roll to the side and jump up. I’m standing against a wall—and the harpy is coming straight at me.
I have nowhere to go.
I whip my hand up. A dagger materializes in my grip, pointing straight at her. It’s too late for her to slow down. She’s going to fly right into it. The blade will pierce her heart, and she’ll die. This fight will over.
But I can’t do it.
At the last second, I move my arm out the way. She crashes into me, flattening me against the wall, squeezing all the air from my lungs, and knocking my head back so hard I feel the crack of pain throughout my entire body. I blink and groan and try to suck in air. The knife is still in my hand, and I slash blindly at her wing. I feel it sinking into flesh and feathers. She shrieks in pain and pulls away from me. Flapping clumsily, she rises to the ceiling. I stagger over to the boy and place myself in front of him. Despite the intense throbbing pain that makes me want to drop to the ground and clutch my head, I raise my eyes and give the harpy a defiant look that says, You’ll have to go through me to get to him. She flaps some more, her dark eyes sizing me up, then drops toward the whimpering girl on the couch.
“No!” I shout as the harpy grabs Lizzie’s arm and yanks her into the air. She plunges past me, aiming for the door along with the screaming girl who can’t see any of what’s happening. I dive after them and manage to catch Lizzie’s ankles. I pull hard, dragging her closer to the ground. With one last furious cry, the harpy lets go and vanishes.
Lizzie and I hit the floor. She’s still screaming, and I’m still trying to catch my breath after being flattened against a wall. But no one’s dead, and the little boy wasn’t taken, so hopefully that means I’ve managed to earn some—
“Get up,” Olive hisses, grabbing my arm and tugging me away from Lizzie. She kneels beside the girl and holds a small vial to her lips for a moment. Then she moves to the boy and does the same thing. She opens a doorway to the faerie paths and pulls me into it. Seconds later, we appear in the garden. “Don’t move,” she snaps. She walks to the outer wall of the house, holds her hand against it, and mutters some kind of protection spell. Then she opens another doorway, grips my arm roughly, and pulls me after her. We come out in Creepy Hollow somewhere near the Guild entrance.
“Absolute disaster,” Olive says.
“What? But I managed to—”
“Do you know what this costs?” she demands, shoving the tiny vial in my face. I manage to make out the word Forget on the label before she snatches it away. “A lot. And I wouldn’t have had to use any of it if you had done your job properly.”
“Done my—but I did. I stopped the harpy from taking the—”
“What is wrong with you? You had the knife pointed at her. She was going to ram herself into it. That would have been it. The end. No need to worry that she’ll probably attempt to come back.”
“But that would have meant killing her.”
“Yes,” Olive says, nodding slowly and looking at me as if I’m stupid. “Because she was trying to kill you. You were defending yourself.”
“That wasn’t the only way to end the situation.”
“No, but it was better than almost getting yourself killed, having both humans way more involved in the mess than they should have been, and letting the harpy get away.”
“I didn’t want to kill her, okay? I just wanted to stop her. I was trying to come up with another way to—”
“Sometimes there is no other way!” Olive shouts. “This is the job you’re training for. What did you think was going to happen? That you’d be able to save the world without anyone ever dying?”
Yes. That’s exactly what I want, and I shouldn’t be ridiculed for it. My voice is quietly defiant as I say, “It should be possible to do that.”
“It should be. And in a perfect world, it would be. But we’re not in a perfect world.” Olive shakes her head. “If you’re too scared to kill someone, then you’re not cut out for this life.”
“I’m not scared, I just don’t want to.”
“Nobody wants to. But the rest of us suck it up and do it if we have to.”
“Well,” I say quietly, “I happen to believe that’s not the only option.”
“Then you’re going to wind up dead a whole lot sooner than I thought.” Without waiting for a response, she turns and walks away through the forest, leaving me wondering if perhaps she’s right.
CHAPTER
FIFTEEN
“Check this out,” Perry says, sliding into the chair across from Gemma and me at breakfast the next morning. He pushes a slim rectangle of amber toward us. “It’s epic. Everything in one. Amber on one side, glass on the other. So you’ve got your mirror calls, social spells, latest news, everything. And a quick X like this—” he draws an X across the screen with his stylus “—and it shrinks to fit easily in your pocket.”
Gemma and I watch the device shrink down to about a
quarter of its size. “Pretty cool,” I say. “I guess this means my amber is no longer the latest thing.” I remove my amber from my jacket pocket and place it on the table beside Perry’s.
“Ha!” Perry points at it and laughs. “That amber is so last month.”
“Moron,” Gemma mutters, but she’s smiling into her smoothie glass.
“Well, my so-last-month amber serves me just fine.” I return it to my pocket while Perry carefully slides his new amber into his bag.
“Are you having breakfast?” Gemma asks him.
“Nah, I ate at home today. Mom made waffles.”
“Lucky you,” I say. Gemma convinced me to try the health smoothie today, and I can’t say I’m impressed.
“Do you have space for half a smoothie?” Gemma pushes her glass toward him. “I also ate something at home, so I’m kinda full now.”
“No thanks. You know I’m not into the earthy vibe. Leaves and squirrel poop aren’t my thing.”
“Oh my goodness, it’s not squirrel poop! How many times do I have to tell you that? It’s a mixture of various kinds of nuts and—”
“She’s so easy to wind up,” Perry says to me with a wide grin stretched across his face. “Ow!” He glares at Gemma. “Seriously? Did you just kick me under the table?”
“Really, guys?” Ned places a tray on the table and sits beside Perry. “You’re not six years old anymore.”
“Well, I know I’m not,” Gemma says. “I don’t know about Perry.”
“Hey, Ned,” I say to him, hoping he’ll be more relaxed around me after our time in the Fish Bowl yesterday.
“Oh, uh, hi.” He meets my gaze briefly before staring intently at his food. I guess he needs a little more time. “Um, Calla, I think there’s a note stuck on the back of your jacket,” Ned adds before shoveling some food into his mouth.
Gemma leans behind me and removes something from my back. “Guild Traitor Family,” she reads. “What does that even mean?”
“So stupid,” I mutter, taking the paper from her and crumpling it up. “It’s referring to my brother’s wife.” I let out some of my annoyance by attempting to flatten the crumpled paper against the table surface. At the raised eyebrows of my friends, I add, “She was very much in favor of the reptiscillas joining the Guild, and when the petitions were denied, she was one of the first who went along with the plan for them to start their own guardian training program.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember when all that was going on,” Gemma says. “We were in junior school then. My mom would come home and tell us about all the arguing going on at the Guild. How stupid it was that everyone was so divided over this issue when we’d all fought together so well after the Destruction.”
“Yes, so after the Council voted and decided the Guild should support the reptiscilla training institute, some guardians volunteered to go work there instead. You know, help them get their whole system set up and develop training and all that.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Perry says as he pokes at the leftover contents of Gemma’s smoothie with a spoon.
“Exactly. But there were obviously people at the Guild who weren’t happy with that. Vi and everyone else who volunteered were called Guild traitors. It’s actually kind of a joke in our family now, but, if you think about it, it’s completely unfair. They’re trying to make our world a safer place by training more people to protect it, and they get told they’re traitors for doing that?”
“Not cool,” Ned says quietly, shaking his head.
“Who should we throw it at?” Perry asks, taking the crumpled, flattened paper from me and shaping it into a ball. He looks around. “We could probably reach Blaze from here. Or … oh, your mentor’s here this morning, Calla. How about we bounce this off the back of her head?”
“No!” I grab the paper back from him. “She’ll use it as a reason to get me suspended. She’d love to see me—”
A shrill siren rings out, cutting off the rest of my words. “Ah, man,” Ned says above the noise. “I just started eating.”
“What does that mean?” I ask. All around the dining hall, people are tapping their trays and standing up.
“Emergency drill,” Gemma says. “They make us practice at least three times a year. We have to report to lesson room four.”
“Five,” Perry corrects as we join the crowd moving toward the door. “We’re in fifth year now, remember?”
“Oh yes.”
“Wait, listen.” I grab Gemma’s arm as I hear a female voice speaking over the siren.
“This is not a drill. This is not a drill. This is not a—”
“Oh crap,” Gemma says.
The crowd moves faster as people become aware of the message. Raised voices and fearful expressions surround us as everyone jostles to get out of the dining hall. We eventually make it to lesson room five, where we have to listen to our classmates’ theories on what’s gone wrong while we wait for a mentor to show up. After about ten minutes, Olive strides in.
“Okay, here’s what’s going on,” she says, crossing her arms. “An enchanted storm has been detected over the Bordeon Mountains not too far from the edge of Creepy Hollow.”
Silence greets her statement, then someone murmurs, “Draven?”
“No way,” Blaze says. “He’s gone.”
“There must be other people who can do spells that influence the weather,” Ling says. “Draven can’t have been the only one.”
“Whatever the cause of the storm,” Olive says, “it is large enough and close enough to be considered a threat. All trainees are being sent home until further notice.”
“Yes!” Perry whispers beside me. “Holiday!”
“Why can’t we stay here?” Saskia asks. “What if there’s some kind of attack and you need us to help?”
“We won’t,” Olive says firmly. “The only guardians allowed to fight for the Guild are those who’ve graduated. Trainees are to be sent home. That’s the protocol in this situation.”
“Stupid protocol,” Saskia mutters.
“Please proceed to the foyer and line up in two straight lines,” Olive says. “The faerie paths blocking charm will be lifted from the foyer walls for the next few minutes so we can send you all home as quickly as possible.”
Amidst plenty of muttering, everyone starts filing out of the room. I walk over to Olive, trying not to think of my disastrous assignment last night and the unpleasant exchange we had afterwards. “You don’t really think Draven is back, do you?”
“It certainly looks like he might be,” she says, her sharp eyes pointed over my shoulder as she watches the trainees leaving.
“That isn’t possible, though. Draven is dead.” I’ve heard the story first-hand from the person who killed him: Violet.
Olive turns her gaze to me. “Is he? There was no body. And I’m never satisfied unless I see a body.”
Well, that’s mildly disturbing. “A dead body proves nothing,” I tell her. “That can be faked.”
Her brow furrows in suspicion, then smoothes as understanding comes to her eyes. “Of course. You’ve obviously heard Kale Fairdale’s story because of your brother.”
“His story isn’t a secret anymore, is it?” I say, somewhat defensively.
“No. But we didn’t spread it around either.”
“We?” Was Olive involved in Vi’s dad’s faked death?
Olive makes her signature you’re-wasting-my-time noise. “Those of us who were around when Kale ‘died’ and then discovered after the Destruction that his death was a ruse. But that has no relevance now. There is no proof that Draven was actually killed, which means it’s possible he survived.”
“How about the fact that he completely vanished along with the enchanted winter that covered almost the entire fae world. Isn’t that proof enough?”
“No. My guess is that he was weakened, and it’s taken him this long to regain his former power. Now, you need to join your fellow trainees in the foyer.” She points to the door, and I real
ize I’m the only one left in the room.
I hurry down the corridor toward the foyer. When I get there, I see a number of faerie paths doorways opening and closing as trainees step into them one after the other. A mentor stands at each doorway, ticking names off a scroll. I join Gemma, Perry and Ned.
“Oh, there you are,” Gemma says. “Do you want to hang out with us for the rest of the day?”
“Uh, I’ve got some stuff to do actually.” I lean closer to her and say, “You know that tattoo artist I met when I was Underground the other night? Do you know where I can find him during the day?”
“That’s the ‘stuff’ you have to get done?” she says with raised eyebrows. “A tattoo?”
“No, I just need to talk to him about … something.”
“Okay, I’m going to try pretend I’m not super curious about whatever’s going on with you and the tattoo guy—”
“There’s nothing going on.”
“—and instead tell you that you can find him Underground at a place called Wickedly Inked.”
“Okay, thanks. Have you been there?” Gemma doesn’t seem like the tattoo type, but I don’t want to offend her by saying so.
“A few times. My brother has a bit of a tattoo addiction, and Chase is his favorite artist. Sometimes I go with when he gets a new one.”
I nod as we shuffle forwards in the queue. When it’s my turn to walk into the darkened paths, I don’t think of my home in Carnelian Valley. Instead, I think of the Underground tunnels and hold the words Wickedly Inked in my mind.
* * *
I walk into Wickedly Inked and find a spiky-haired elf girl sitting behind the counter writing on her amber. After looking around at the many framed artworks hanging on the walls, I walk over and say, “Hi, is Chase here?”
She spends another few moments writing on her amber, then looks up. She takes in my appearance before saying, “You don’t have an appointment.”
Wow. Friendly girl. “I know that. Is Chase here?”
“Yeah, but he’s busy.”