Calla's Story

Chapter 11

Eleven

“Sword! Scimitar! Bow and arrow!” Olive barks out, snapping her fingers between each command. “Calla, you’re not keeping up. Dagger!” Finger snap. “Chakram!” Finger snap. “Whip!” Finger snap. “I don’t see a whip, Calla.”

I try to block out her harsh voice and impatient glare and concentrate instead on the feel of the whip in my hand. Eventually, it appears within my grip. I bring it swiftly through the air, watch the end wrap around a low-hanging branch, and tug it hard. The branch cracks and breaks and sails through the air. The whip vanishes as I let go, but the branch keeps coming. I dodge so I don’t get myself knocked out.

We’re outside at the old Guild ruins, an area that’s apparently used quite often for training. It’s large enough to accommodate plenty of trainees and their mentors without anyone having to interfere with anyone else. I’m here with Olive and her other fifth-year trainee, a petite girl named Ling who hasn’t said a word to me. We used part of the ruins as an obstacle course to warm up, then practiced a few single combat moves Olive decided we needed to perfect—most of which ended with, “Not good enough. Do it again.”—before moving on to weapons control. It’s a simple exercise in which we have to make the required weapon appear instantly before moving to the next. It’s an exercise I suck at.

“Ridiculous,” Olive says after the broken branch lands somewhere behind me. “How exactly did you make it through four years of training if you can’t even control your own weapons? Oh, that’s right. You didn’t get through four years of training.”

The afternoon has been full of gibes like that one, and I’ve held my tongue every time. But we’ve been out here for almost three hours now, and I’m tired of being mocked. “You’re right,” I say to her. “This is ridiculous. When am I ever going to be in a situation where my opponent recites a list of weapons for me to produce instantly, one after the other?”

Olive marches across the overgrown ruins and stops with her face inches from mine. “I have ninety-three years of guardian experience, so you’d damn well better believe me when I tell you that this exercise is crucial. When you’re in a combat situation and forces are coming at you from all sides, you need to be able to adapt in a second.” She snaps her fingers once more, right beside my ear. “Now you are not leaving here until I’m satisfied with your performance. Ling, you can go home. Calla, start again.”

The weapon names keep flying at me, and I keep trying to match Olive’s pace. I don’t seem to be getting better, though. If anything, I’m getting worse. “Useless,” she says after a further half hour. “Useless! I give up. I’ve got more important things to do than waste my time on this, Calla.”

She heads back to the Guild through a faerie paths doorway as angry tears blot out my vision. I blink them away before they can fall. I press my lips together and stare at the ground, wondering for the first time if Olive and Saskia and all the other people who think I should have started at the bottom might have been right. I thought I was good enough for this level of training, but I haven’t managed to get a single thing right this afternoon, and it’s only my third day at the Guild. Things will only get tougher from here onwards.

“You’re trying too hard,” a male voice says behind me.

I spin around, surprised to find a glittering knife in each of my hands by the time I’m facing him.

“See?” the tattoo artist says. “It happens easily when you’re not thinking about it.”

My grip on the knives tightens as I watch him carefully. “What do you know? You’re not a guardian.”

“I know what I’ve seen. I know it’s supposed to be effortless. Automatic. As easy for you as breathing.”

As easy for me as breathing? If only. “How did you find me?” I ask. I need to keep him talking while I come up with an illusion good enough to distract him.

“I have ways of tracking people down, Calla.”

“Okaaay, stalker. I hope you realize how creepy that sounds.”

“Coming from the girl who broke into my house to look at my art.”

“I was curious. That doesn’t make me creepy. Definitely not as creepy as you, old man.”

“Old man?”

“I saw your Stone Age furniture. If you were alive when that stuff was made, then you definitely qualify for the ‘old man’ label.”

“Oh, the furniture,” he says with a nod. “That isn’t mine.”

“Did you steal it? Like you stole the bangle?”

He sighs. “Fine. Yes, I stole the bangle, but not from the Guild. I stole it from the man you saw in the tunnel last night. He’s dangerous, and I need to keep the bangle’s power away from him.”

“Well, he won’t be getting it from me, so you can relax.”

The artist frowns and takes a step toward me. “Please tell me you haven’t given it back to the Guild yet.”

Instead of answering, I release the barriers around my mind and picture an ogre stomping across the ruins. It stops in front of the tattoo artist, balls its fists, and lets out a bellow.

“Don’t bother with your mind tricks,” the tattoo artist says, staring straight through the ogre. “They won’t work on me. I wasn’t aware last night that I needed to shield my mind from you, but I am now.” He starts moving toward me, walking right through the ogre.

He can’t see it. He can’t see it.

Shocked, I stumble backward, abandoning the ogre illusion. “How—how do you know I’m doing it if you can’t see—”

“I can see your concentration.”

My concentration? No one’s ever noticed that before. The artist quickens his steps, and I throw up a shield between us before he can reach me.

“Really?” he says. “We went through this last night. Your shields mean nothing to me.”

“Do all the guardians nearby mean anything to you?”

His eyes dart across the ruins, and I take advantage of his momentary distraction. I throw sparks into the air, as bright as I can make them, and in the blinding flash that follows, I release the knives, grab my stylus from my belt, and write a doorway beside my feet. A gust of power blows my hair back and knocks me onto my side. He’s broken through my shield. I roll into the opening darkness of the faerie paths, but something snaps around my wrist and yanks hard. I hang there, half in darkness, looking up at the vine wrapped around my arm and the artist at the other end, raising me from the faerie paths with a sweep of his hand through the air.

I slice wildly across the vine with my stylus. It breaks. I fall.

And the darkness closes above me.

The faerie paths dump me in the spare room at Ryn’s house, because that must have been the first place I thought of. I immediately open another doorway and hurry through it to my bedroom at home. I sit on the edge of the bed and breathe slowly as I run through what just happened. The tattoo artist couldn’t see my illusion. That’s never happened before. Does that mean he’s far more powerful than the average faerie, or is it simply that other people have never been aware of the need to protect their minds from me?

I shake my head and cross the room to the chest of drawers. It doesn’t matter what the reason is. The important thing now is to return the bangle to the Guild before anyone else gets hold of it. I open my sock drawer and stare at the dangerous piece of jewelry. Aside from the continually shifting shades of green in the stones, there’s no hint of the power it contains. I pick it up carefully, afraid I might vanish in an instant and reappear somewhere in the past. Nothing happens, though. As far as I know, it only works when I put it on, and I certainly won’t be doing that again.

“Cal, is that you?” Dad calls from downstairs. He must have heard me exit the faerie paths.

“Yes,” I shout back. I lean out of my doorway and add, “I’m just going back to the Guild quickly. I forgot some stuff there.” It isn’t a lie. I did forget to return to the Guild to fetch my books in my haste to get away from the tattoo artist.

“Okay, but could you come down here for a moment?”

I run down the stairs and find Dad sitting at the dining room table surrounded by papers. Dad used to save lives for a living. Now he manages the business side of a private security company so that other people can save lives and Mom doesn’t have to worry about him getting hurt. I think he probably wishes he was still a guardian. He probably wishes many things. Not having a daughter with a Griffin Ability is no doubt near the top of the list.

The words I heard him say to Ryn replay in my mind as I cross the room toward him. All I’m asking is that you make sure there’s no record of the bribes anywhere. It’s a shock to know that my father would even consider something like that, let alone carry it out. But I have to remind myself to be grateful for whatever he’s done rather than morally indignant. After all, his actions have kept me off the Griffin List.

I wonder if Mom knows what he’s done. Probably not. She’s so fragile, I’m sure Dad would want to protect her from this like he protects her from everything else.

Dad stands as I reach the table and lean against it. “I came across this in a cupboard earlier today,” he says, lifting a knife from a box. The wooden handle is beautifully carved with elaborate patterns and looks just the right size to fit comfortably in my hand. “It was the tokehari my mother left for me,” Dad says. “Something special I could always remember her by.” He holds it out to me, along with a leather sheath. “I’d like you to have it. I know you have guardian weapons now, but there may come a time when you don’t have access to those. A guardian should always be prepared.”

“Thank you, Dad.” I take the knife and test the weight and feel of it in my hand. I run my finger along the patterns in the handle. “It’s beautiful.”

“The sheath can be secured to the inside of one of your boots. That way you won’t have to remember to pack it every time you have an assignment or training.”

“Cool.” I slide the knife into its slim leather covering. “I’ll do that tonight. Then I can start practicing with it tomorrow.”

With a smile and a nod, Dad sits and returns to his work. I head for the stairs.

All I’m asking is that you make sure there’s no record of the bribes anywhere.

I stop and look back over my shoulder. “Dad?” He looks up. “I’m sorry for … being the way I am. I’m sorry for whatever you’ve had to do to keep me off the Griffin List.”

He frowns, then stands and comes toward me. He pulls me into a tight embrace. “I’m not sorry,” he says. “Anything I’ve had to do to keep you safe, I would gladly do again. One day when you’re a parent you’ll understand that.”

I nod against his chest. He steps back, pats my cheek, then returns to the table. I climb the stairs and reach my bedroom as music begins playing from the direction of my desk. I walk over to it and pick up my hand mirror. Zed’s face appears on the shiny surface, but I don’t touch it to accept the call. There’s a traitorous part of my heart that wants to hear his voice, but I’m still annoyed and hurt. Besides, I have something more important to do right now. I can speak to him later when I’ve returned the bangle. I toss the mirror onto my bed and turn back to my drawer.

The room vibrates.

“No, no, no,” I whisper, raising my hands to steady myself. The world ripples and jolts, and suddenly I’m standing in an entirely different place. “What?” I cry out. “How?” There is no bangle on my arm. I wasn’t even touching it.

A woman pushes a trolley through the right side of my body and continues walking. I jump away from her and look around. I’m standing in a large shopping mall somewhere in the human realm. I don’t recognize anything until I spot the music-themed cafe. I see a younger version of myself nestled in a couch beneath a guitar on the wall, and I remember this day instantly. It was my first day at Ellinhart, and I was still furious that Mom had once again refused to let me join the Guild. I left school as soon as my last lesson ended, defied my mother’s rules and fae laws, and sat down in a human coffee shop in full view of every human who walked by. Of course, none of them knew what I was, so I probably wouldn’t have been in much trouble if anyone found out, but I still felt like a rebel.

“Ugh, what am I doing here?” I jump up and down and shake my arms around, hoping to jolt myself back to the present. It doesn’t work. Maybe I’m stuck here forever because I don’t have the bangle with me. But then … how did I get here in the first place?

“Don’t panic, don’t panic,” I murmur to myself. I managed to return to the present last time this happened, so I have to trust I can return again. I walk into the cafe and hover near the couch where thirteen-year-old me is sipping a mug of coffee. I know what’s coming next, and a crazy, stupid part of me wants to relive the moment. I look around and find him sitting at the piano-painted counter.

Zed. He’s looking this way with a frown on his face. He abandons his drink, crosses the room, and sits beside younger me on the couch. She almost spills her coffee in fright, but then she recognizes him. She knows who he is before he speaks. “This is going to sound really odd,” he says, “but I think I know you. From … well, do you remember me?”

Of course I remembered him. How could I forget the guy who was locked in the hanging cage next to mine? He did his best to distract me from my fears. The terrifying Unseelie prince, the wails and cries of the other prisoners, the creatures that swam in the dark water below us, the blood of the man I tried to get away from—

The world tips and shudders and jolts me back to the present.

I stumble across my bedroom and catch myself against the desk. Nausea attacks me. I double over, clutching my stomach. Breathing deeply, I manage to get to my bathing room without throwing up. I kneel beside the enchanted pool, pressing my fingers into the small white pebbles that cover the bathing room floor and watching my rippling reflection in the water. After a minute or so of deep breathing, the nausea passes.

I have to get rid of this bangle.