“Calla.” He catches my hand and pulls me back. “You stole from me, you fought me, you rode a gargoyle with me, you traveled into my past, we got lost in a labyrinth, we fell into an abyss, you know I’m not just a tattoo artist, and I know you’re hiding a Griffin Ability from the Guild. I’d say we’ve gone beyond the barely-know-you stage.”
“I … I guess.” I return slowly to the couch. I realize my hand is still in his, so I slide it out and wrap it tightly around my other hand in my lap. Then I tell Chase what I found when I returned home hours ago. I tell him of the secret my brother revealed about my mother. The secret everyone in the Guild will soon know. By the time I’m telling him all the things Dad and I shouted at each other, I’m blinking back tears once more. “I know I’m being selfish. I know I’m being childish. But I just want to be angry.”
Chase leans forward on his knees. “Anger isn’t childish. It’s a natural response to discovering information you feel you should have been told sooner. And you can tell yourself you shouldn’t be feeling it, but if that’s what you feel, that’s what you feel.”
I bury my head in my hands. “That isn’t what I feel, though. All I feel is guilt.”
“Why?
“Because,” I whisper, “I have a secret too. Everyone thinks they know me, but they don’t. They don’t know what I’ve done.” Unable to sit any longer, I push myself up. I pace in irregular patterns around and between the furniture. “You know the dark things in the world?” I say, because now that I’ve started, I can’t stop. I have to keep going. I have to say this out loud. “The dark things we were talking about earlier? The things we do our best to drown out?” I stop pacing and stare at his feet, not wanting to meet his eyes as I whisper, “I think I’m one of those dark things.”
“What?” Chase lets out an uncomfortable laugh. “That makes no sense at all, Calla. You’re the one who chooses the bright colors in life. There’s nothing about you that’s dark or evil.”
I force myself to sit. “But there is. I … I did something terrible.” I pull my knees up and start rocking back and forth. “Really terrible. This is my secret. My true secret. Worse than being born with a Griffin Ability. Because if the Guild knew about it, they wouldn’t just put me on a list. They’d lock me up for good.”
Chase rests a hand on my shoulder. “Whatever it is, it can’t be as terrible as the things I’ve done.”
I hesitate, knowing I can still turn back. I can leave without saying another word. I can keep my secret until the day I die. But I don’t want to carry it for that long. I don’t want to carry it another minute. “At the chef school I attended briefly,” I say, “there was a boy in the year above me who … who killed himself. No one ever knew that I was there when it happened. No one ever suspected me. No one ever found out that—” I take in the shuddering breath I’ve been waiting years to breathe and finally, finally release it “—I was the one who made him do it.” I plunge ahead, my words coming easily now that I’ve confessed the worst part. “He was moody and manipulative. Friendly and flattering one day, then nasty the next, telling me I was only born beautiful so I could lure people close enough to make them go crazy. He always apologized when he was having a good day, but he’d go right back to being vindictive when his mood changed. I stayed away from him whenever possible, and when it wasn’t possible, I ignored him, no matter his mood.
“One day he showed up in Woodsinger Grove, where I used to live. I was out getting some exercise, and I came across him near my home on my way back. He surprised me and pulled me into the faerie paths. We came out on top of the school. It wasn’t a hidden place like the Guilds. It was out in the open, a grand building with many floors. There was a flat section of roof where people—couples—used to go so they could be alone without teachers stumbling upon them.
“I knew what he planned to do with me the moment we got there. After he struck me down and stood on my arm so I couldn’t squirm away, he told me he didn’t believe any of that nonsense about me having powerful dark magic. If I did, I’d easily be able to stop what was about to happen. ‘And you know what’s about to happen, don’t you,’ he said to me as he began unbuttoning his clothes.
“I hated him then. I hated him like I’ve never hated anyone before or since. And in that moment, I remembered a girl warning me to say away from him. With fear, she’d said, ‘You don’t want to be the object of his attention.’ I realized he’d done this before, and he would probably do it again. And that hatred inside me boiled into a deep desire to hurt him. To stop him. For good.
“I imagined a great black serpent slithering past me across the rooftop. It backed the boy into a corner until he had nowhere to go but up onto the wall that enclosed the area. He searched in desperation for an escape, and that’s when I showed him a bridge. A bridge from the wall leading into the nearby treetops. He didn’t question it. He stepped onto it—and he fell.
“He was a faerie, but it was high, and the ground was solid, and his head was injured beyond anything his body could hope to heal, and I looked down and I didn’t care. Later I tried to wash the blackness from my soul, the horrifying guilt at having ended a life, but it’s a stain I’ll never be rid of. It’s always there, at the core of my being, along with that dark voice that whispers, ‘He got what he deserved.’” I look at Chase for the first time since beginning my confession. “So I am one of the dark things in the world,” I tell him, “because deep down inside me, there’s something that craves death and darkness. And no matter what my mentor says about all guardians having to kill at some stage, I won’t do that. I refuse to give in to that side of me. If I do, I’m afraid it will consume me, and everything I wish so desperately to be—a strong protector, a good person—will be gone.”
“Calla,” Chase says, covering both my hands with his. “I wish I could explain to you how wrong you are. Trust me on this: I have seen the dark things of the world, and you are not one of them. The very fact that you long to protect and save others—even your enemies—shows that you aren’t evil.”
“But I killed that boy! And it wasn’t just self-defense. I could have projected something different. I could have got away without killing him. But I wanted him to die. That says there’s something evil inside me.”
“And later you were overcome by immense guilt. That says you have a conscience.”
“But … that doesn’t change the fact that I killed him.”
“No. It doesn’t.” He shifts closer to me, peering more intently into my eyes. “Calla, this is part of life. Sometimes people do terrible things that, later on, they wish they had never done. But no amount of remorse can change the past. Believe me, I am horribly aware of that fact. The only thing you have control over now is your future. If you want to protect people, then do that. If you want to saves lives without ever killing an enemy, then do that too. I know from experience that it’s a whole lot more challenging to go about it that way, but I can also tell you it’s possible.”
I blink through my tears at him, realizing this is the closest he’s come to telling me what he really does during his non-tattoo hours. I look down at our joined hands and bite my lip. I’m partly horrified that I just shared my greatest secret with someone, but mainly I’m immensely relieved. I thought Chase would be shocked to hear what I’ve done, but it seems he understands better than I expected. “If I asked,” I say carefully, “would you tell me what it is you’re so remorseful about?”
I look up and find him giving me a wry smile. “You wouldn’t like me nearly as much if you knew.”
Mustering my own smile, I say, “What makes you think I like you now?”
“You’re here, aren’t you? I imagine you’d have gone somewhere else if you didn’t like me.”
I nod slowly, then keep my eyes on his as I ask, “Is it … something to do with what you said earlier? About there being too much darkness to drown it all out?”
Chase’s smile fades, but his eyes never leave mine as he says, “Yes. It is.” He
looks away then and lifts his hands off mine. “And I hope you’ll forgive me for saying nothing more than that. The past is … well, it’s the past.”
“That’s fine,” I say, rubbing my hands along the tops of my legs. “Rather say nothing than lie, right?”
“Right.” He raises his hand toward his coat hanging over the back of the desk chair and curls his fingers in a come-here motion. His amber slides out of an inside pocket and flies through the air. He reads a message quickly, then stands. “I’m so sorry, but I can’t stay any longer. I need to be somewhere.”
“Oh, that’s completely understandable. It’s not as though I—”
“You can stay, though,” he adds hurriedly as I stand. “I mean, if you don’t want to go home. Nothing improper, just … you hanging out here if you don’t have anywhere else to go right now.” He frowns. “That sounded a lot less awkward inside my head.”
I laugh and wipe away the last of the moisture beneath my eyes. “Thank you. I think I will. Just for a bit.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, your horrible alarm didn’t go off when I arrived. Did you deactivate it?”
“I was playing around with some modifications.” Chase slides his coat on, concealing the weapons secured to his body. “I’ll cast the charm again when I’m outside. You won’t need to worry about any surprise visitors showing up.”
“Is that something that happens often?”
“No, actually, you were the first.” He regards me with a thoughtful expression. “And you were of the pleasant variety rather than the kill-him-now variety.”
“I see.” My skin warms at the thought that he considers my abrupt arrival in his life ‘pleasant,’ but I doubt he means anything by it. “Acquired a few enemies over the years, have you?”
“A few.” He pockets his amber and stylus and heads for the door. “Which you can probably figure out means ‘a lot.’”
He heads out with a final goodbye, and I return my backside to the couch. After staring sleepily at the paintings for a while—I can’t decide if the leaves in the forest scene are actually moving, or if it’s my imagination—I look at my amber and find a message from a few minutes ago.
I know you’re Underground. Don’t worry, I’m not coming to get you. I know you’re angry. I understand why. Just tell me you’re okay (otherwise I will have to come and find you). V
Darn my family and their annoying Griffin Abilities. I can’t hide anywhere without Violet finding me. Puffing out a frustrated breath, I write two words: I’m fine.
After a jaw-achingly wide yawn, I get up and search the room for a blanket. I find one in the wardrobe beside the door and wrap it around myself before returning to the couch. I’m exhausted from the labyrinth ordeal, anxiety over the attack on Mom and Dad, and the emotional upheaval since then. I’ll just rest here for a bit before returning to Ryn’s house.
I snuggle against the cushions, letting my mind wander back over my confrontation with Dad. With my mind relaxed, flashes of the scene play out against the backdrop of Chase’s living room. Dad getting in my face, Ryn trying to stop the two of us fighting, me throwing a cushion at the wall.
A Seer. Mom is a Seer. The sleeping potions and the weird turning in circles and the dazed looks and her paranoia about the Guild. Everything makes sense now, but my brain still has trouble reconciling this new information with the picture I already have of my mother. The woman I’ve always thought of as delicate and, well, weak actually has magic powerful enough to show her the future.
And she planned on never telling me.
Why? And why did she run from the Guild? Why couldn’t she just tell them what she saw, go through the process of officially ending her training, and live a free life?
I wonder what she saw that traumatized her so much.
Of course! My sleepy eyelids pop open as I realize something. This must be the information the scarred man is after. He wants to know what Mom saw in her vision all those years ago. But how would he know about it in the first place? Tamaria. He must have heard it from her. She was in Mom’s class, so she must know something about what Mom Saw. But not enough, obviously, or the scarred man wouldn’t have come after Mom.
My mind keeps cycling through possibilities and theories as my body grows closer to sleep. The last clear thought I have before drifting into unconsciousness is what Dad said before we began yelling at one another: She doesn’t trust anyone who works at the Guild, and she never wants her family to have anything to do with them again. The fact that she decided you’d be safer there than anywhere else must mean there’s something she’s very afraid of.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
“How about that one?” I point to the half-finished sketch of a wing that might belong to a phoenix.
“No, I think that’s more feathery than the look she’s going for,” Chase says. “I’ve got this one, which is based on sprite and sylph wings, very long and wispy. That one over there has just a bit of a feathery influence, so she might be open to it. And this one … well, it’s a bit different.”
We’re sitting on Chase’s living room floor with some of the furniture pushed aside so there’s space for the sketches we’ve spread out around us. Despite my intention to return to Ryn’s house last night, I never woke up from my brief rest—which turned out to be not so brief, as I discovered when Chase woke me some time this morning. I was highly confused for at least five seconds before I remembered where I was and why.
Now, after ten minutes in the bathing room, I’m helping Chase decide which drawings to present to his most high-maintenance client, who decided she wants a pair of wings tattooed across her shoulders—and she wants it done now. “Oh, I really like that one.” I point to the sketch in Chase’s hand. “It looks like ink is dripping off the ends of the wings. Definitely show her that one.” I look around and add, “These are all incredible, though. I wish I’d been born with your kind of skill.”
With a short laugh, Chase says, “Sometimes I wish I’d been born with this skill too.”
“What do you mean?”
He runs a hand through his hair as he surveys the drawings spread across the floor. “This isn’t something I’ve always been able to do. It was a gift. From … a friend. She was the real artist. Before she died, she gave me this skill.”
I try to remember if I’ve heard of anything like that before, but my brain comes up with nothing. “I didn’t know that was possible.”
“I didn’t either, but apparently it is. She was an elf. Maybe it’s a type of magic we don’t know about.”
“Maybe,” I say. “So … stick figures one day, fine art the next?”
“Something like that. I never had the desire to draw or paint anything when I was younger. Not even stick figures. I certainly wasn’t the creative type.”
“I doodled on everything,” I say, smiling as I picture the myriad ink drawings covering every school notebook I’ve ever owned. Well, except for my most recent ones. I’ve barely had any time for daydreams and doodles amidst my efforts to catch up—and then keep up—with all my guardian studies. “Hey, have you ever used fire paint?”
“No, I’ve only ever used regular paint. None of that fancy stuff with flames or sparkles or water or smoke or … whatever else you get.”
“They had the fancy stuff at Ellinhart, but it’s expensive so we only got to use it once. The fire paint was definitely the most exciting painting experience I’ve ever had. I mean, you’re painting with flames. Just imagine it.”
“I am. I’m imagining a charred canvas.”
“No! You’d think that would happen, but it doesn’t. It’s incredible. The flames continue burning wherever you place your brush, as if the paint is made of burning magma. I ended up with burns all over my hand and Mom freaked out about it, but it was so worth it.”
“Perhaps I should try it.”
“You should. And the water one as well. It’s beautiful.”
“Okay then.”
 
; I smile back at him and hold his gaze for a moment too long. Feeling suddenly awkward, I look down and search for something else to say. “So, um, I know you’re talented, but you didn’t draw all of these this morning, did you?”
“No, most of these are old,” Chase says as he gathers the drawings into two separate piles. “I only had time to do three more based on my client’s vague brief after I got back this morning.”
“This morning? You mean you haven’t slept yet?”
“Who needs sleep?”
“Um … me?” I say in a small voice.
He smiles. “I do sleep, just not much. Which is fortunate, since my non-tattoo work takes up many of my nighttime hours.”
“Seriously?” I say to him. “Your non-tattoo work? Just come out and admit what it is you really do. You know I know.”
“I will admit to nothing,” he says with a superior grin. “And you don’t know nearly as much as you think you do.” He stands and carries both piles of drawings to the desk. “Okay, I need to get to work, and you need to do what people do when they have a family member in a hospital.” He gives me a pointed look.
“Hospital? That sounds a whole lot like a word humans use to describe their healing institutes.”
“You should visit her.”
“Does that mean you’ve spent a lot of time in the human realm?”
“It means I’ve decided it’s quicker to say ‘hospital’ than ‘healing institute.’ And don’t think I haven’t noticed you’re doing your best to avoid the subject.”
I release an overly dramatic groan and say, “Firstly, what point is there in visiting someone who’s asleep and can’t hear a thing I say? Secondly, I’m still angry with her and my dad, and, as childish as it sounds, I’m not ready to let go of that anger yet. And thirdly, why do you even care if I visit my mother?”