A Faerie's Curse

Chapter 7

Seven

I’m confused to see Ana in the kitchen when I get back to the mountain. “What?” she asks when I stop in the doorway with a puzzled expression.

“Nothing.” I pull the blue wig off and watch her stirring something in a pot on the stove. “Weren’t you telling us this morning how much you like your own space?”

“Yeah, so? I do like my own space. Doesn’t mean I can’t have dinner here when Gaius extends the invitation.”

“Does he do that often?” I ask as I walk into the kitchen and lean against the long table.

Ana shrugs, keeping her back turned to me. “I guess.”

“I suppose you guys are kind of like his family.”

“Yeah. Kind of. Or we were until a stranger pushed her way in,” she adds under her breath, just loud enough for me to hear.

I decide that this animosity thing has gone far enough. I grip the back of a chair and ask, “Why don’t you like me, Ana?”

She looks over her shoulder at me with a scowl. “What?”

“It’s painfully clear that you don’t like me. I’m just wondering why.”

She does nothing but turn back to the pot and continue stirring.

“Is it something I did? Is it about Chase?” Crap, maybe she has feelings for him and she sees me as the one who butted in and ruined everything for her. Except … she’s been unpleasant since the moment I first walked into Chase’s tattoo shop.

“No, it’s not about Chase,” she mutters without looking around.

“Then what? Please just tell me what the problem is so I can do something about it. I’m not going anywhere, so you and I may as well sort this out.”

“Fine.” She bangs the lid of the pot down and swings around. “This team is all I’ve got, okay? They’re not just Gaius’s family, they’re my family. I’m very protective of them, and I don’t like outsiders. It’s just been us for years now, and I thought it was going to be like that until … I don’t know. Forever, I guess. And then you just barged in like you belonged here, and Chase didn’t make a big deal of it at all, like he had no clue that maybe the rest of us might want a say in the matter. So … yeah. I didn’t exactly feel warmly toward you.”

“Okaaay,” I say slowly. I guess I can see how that might upset her. “But that doesn’t explain why you didn’t like me the first time we met. You didn’t know me at all when I first walked into Wickedly Inked. I could have been a potential client, and you were downright rude.”

She places her hands on her hips. “Yeah, well, I’ve never liked pretty girls.”

That’s the last thing I was expecting. “What?”

“The prettiest girls are usually the meanest.” She runs her fingers delicately through her spiked hair. “I’ve been picked on by more than my fair share of beautiful girls, and these days I just don’t have time for them.”

I find myself slowly shaking my head. “I … don’t … even know how to respond to that logic.”

“It’s fine,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand, moving further along the counter to where a pile of chopped vegetables sits beside an empty dish. “I’ve decided you’re not that pretty after all. It was just the gold hair and eyes. Kinda dazzling and overwhelming at first.”

“So … does that mean you’ve decided I’m not that mean after all?”

She flicks her hand and the vegetables jump into the dish. “Yeah.”

“But you still don’t like me.”

She shrugs, performs another twirl in the air with her hand, and watches the dish of vegetables put itself into the oven. “I’m getting over that part.”

“Really?” I sit down at the table and cross my arms. “It does not feel like it, I can tell you that.”

“Jeez, just give me a bit of time, okay?”

“Fine. But for now, it would be great if you could keep your snide comments to yourself. I don’t want to be the only one making an effort to be friendly.”

She turns around, leans against the counter, and considers me. “I guess I could try that.”

“Thanks,” I say, eyeing her warily. I didn’t expect her to agree to that. She continues watching me. After several uncomfortable moments, I ask, “Now what? Are you holding back all the comments you’d really like to fire my way?”

She tilts her head. “You completed your first mission last night, right?”

“Yeah,” I say uncertainly. “The baron’s daughter and the invitation.”

She nods slowly. “Did anyone tell you about the tattoo tradition?”

“Tattoo tradition?”

“We each got a tattoo to commemorate our first completed mission after joining the team.”

“Gaius has a tattoo? And Lumethon?”

The corner of her mouth curls up into what could almost pass for a smile. “Theirs are in more discreet locations. So, what do you say?” She walks to the table and wraps her inked fingers around the back of a chair. “Ready for that first tattoo? You’re not properly one of the team until you do it.”

“So … you’re offering to tattoo me?”

“Uh huh,” she says, nodding slowly as if I’m stupid.

I had thought my first tattoo would come from Chase. The phoenix he drew. But if this is a team tradition, I don’t want to turn my nose up at it, and I can save the phoenix for Chase. Unless … unless this is a trick and Ana’s planning to tattoo some horrible, permanent image onto my body, like an ogre’s skull. “Um …” I would ask Chase, but I don’t have the ring on at the moment, and Ana will know exactly what I’m doing if I put it on right now. She’ll know I don’t trust her, and I can kiss goodbye to this fragile first step toward friendship she’s offering me—if that’s what this is.

“Well?” she asks. “I don’t have all evening. Dinner will be ready in forty minutes.”

“Okay,” I say to her, deciding on a part of my body I can keep an eye on while she works.

“Awesome. What do you want?”

Later that night, with the lingering pain of my newly inked tattoos distracting me from sleep, I try to forget the worries plaguing my mind and instead calm myself with relaxation breathing techniques and the image of my peaceful lake.

It doesn’t work. When I drift eventually into unconsciousness, my dreams are filled with smoke and black eyes and pointed teeth dripping blood over eerie, grinning lips. I’m locked in a cage again. A hand reaches through the bars and sharp fingernails scrape across my skin as I try to get away. The bars vanish. I’m on my back, my body incapacitated as smoke drifts closer. I use every ounce of strength trying to get my arms and legs to move, but an invisible force pins me down. The witch leans over me, her blonde hair falling in her black eyes and her ancient, blood-chilling laugh shattering the dream into a thousand pieces of glass that pierce my chest with sudden, sharp—

I gasp and cough as I wake and roll onto my side, pressing my hand against the pain in my chest. As the ache subsides and my heart approaches a normal pace, I push myself up. Chase? I call silently inside my head, because that’s generally the first thing I do when I wake up, no matter what time it is. He doesn’t answer.

I look across the room toward my enchanted windows. After unpacking most of my belongings and moving in here properly, I asked Gaius if I could paint my bedroom walls. It may be fun to live inside a mountain, but I missed not being able to see outside. In between training and trying to figure out how to rescue Chase, I spent hours reading parts of my art textbooks, teaching myself how to paint windows with landscapes that would reflect the time of day and the weather outside. Eventually, I succeeded. Now, as I look at the windows and wish I could open them to allow a refreshing breeze inside, I see stars twinkling like jewels in a dark blue sky. Morning has yet to arrive.

I kick the bedcovers away from me and climb out of bed. It isn’t enough right now to simply see outside. I need to breathe in fresh air. After pulling a blanket off the bed and wrapping it around myself, I step into my boots and open my bedroom door. My boots lace themselves up as I head downstairs. An odd outfit, I’m sure, but I don’t plan for anyone to see me at this early hour. I unlock the faerie door in the entrance hall and walk through it to the lake house. I’m confused for a moment by the light that greets me when I step into the living room, but of course; it’s already morning here. The pattering of rain greets me as I move further into the house. I locate the front door key and walk outside onto the porch. I breathe in a long gulp of air, savoring the smell of wet earth and damp leaves. I sit with my back against the door, pull the blanket tighter around my shoulders, and run through every thought that was so determined to keep me awake.

Amon’s still locked up at Velazar Prison. Angelica’s on the loose and her whereabouts are unknown. Same for Zed, who disappeared after attempting to kill Victoria. I don’t know if we should still be concerned about him and his group of guardian haters. Will Ryn’s team manage to bring them down before they try something else against the Guild? And then there’s the veil-tearing prophecy. That horrible vision my mother Saw so many years ago of witches spilling blood over a trident monument beneath a full moon and using a great bolt of lightning to tear the veil. The full moon is close—only two days after the Seelie Palace party—but the Monument to the First Mer King is still safe, and if we can rescue Chase during the party, then no one can force him to produce that lightning bolt of power. We’ll be safe for another month while we try to find Angelica.

I lift my hands and look at the black patterns that now mark the tops of my fingers. They finished healing while I was sleeping. Only one is permanent—the flower I chose for the fourth finger on my right hand; a symbol of my first assignment—while the rest of the marks are temporary. I quite like them, though. Simple patterns formed from lines and dots. Perhaps I’ll have them done permanently one—

Miss Goldilocks?

I smile to myself as Chase’s voice fills me with warmth. Hey.

Still don’t have much sense of time down here in this dark cell. Is it morning there?

I tilt my head back against the door. Yes and no. It’s not morning yet at the mountain, but it is at the lake house. Bad dreams woke me up. I’m sitting on the porch watching the rain now.

What were you dreaming about?

Witches. Smoke. Blood.

The usual pleasant stuff, huh?

I laugh quietly. Yeah. I watch the heavy grey sky and the thousands of raindrops smacking the surface of the lake, and I begin to imagine a different scene. I start up high where the clouds are, using an imaginary brush to paint streaks of blue across the sky. Letting go of the fortress around my mind, I see the paint taking form, overlaying the real-world scene in front of my eyes. I finish the sky with varying shades of blue. I paint the lake with sparkling silver. I fill the ground with dabs of emerald green for the grass and magenta and saffron for the flowers. As my creation comes together, I remember when life was as simple as making art instead of worrying about villains and the possible end of our world. While I don’t wish to have that life again, I miss the simplicity.

The Seelie Queen came to me tonight, Chase says, interrupting my work of art. In a blink, it’s gone.

What?

The Seelie Queen. My grandmother. I’ve never seen her before. She was gone by the time I took over this court when I was Draven. You know, I’ve lived in the magical world for over ten years now, but I still find it strange to associate the word ‘grandmother’ with someone who doesn’t look any older than I am.

Did she speak to you? Did she … hurt you?

She didn’t come close. She watched me for a long time. Eventually she said, ‘Look at how powerless you are now.’ Then she left.

How does she know you aren’t some random halfling Angelica decided to bargain with? If she never met Draven face to face, then she doesn’t know what he looked like.

There are others who’ve confirmed it for her. Some of her guards who were captured and marked during my reign. They were there when we were ambushed beside the mer monument. The night they took me. I suppose the queen wanted to confirm she was really getting the one and only Lord Draven before agreeing to free her traitorous daughter.

At least you still have the ring.

Yes. If she saw it, she thought nothing of it.

I wonder why she came to you now. I wonder if she’s … Visions of all the terrible things the queen might have in store for Chase race through my mind. I try to stop my thoughts before he can hear them, but they’re at the surface already. What if we’re too late? What if she’s planning to do something to you now before the party, and we—Stop. No. I’m sorry. I shake my head and press my hands against my forehead. I’m sorry. I should be filling your head with positive thoughts, not negative ones. We’ll make this work. We’ll get you out of there. There is no alternative because you mean far too much to me and I can’t consider a future without you. I take a deep breath and force my thoughts to STOP before they can run any further. Before I can overwhelm Chase with just how much I feel for him. We can talk about all that once he’s safely back home. We can speak about those final moments in the golden river. Those moments when I bared my heart to him beneath a shower of magic-infused droplets before a whirlpool plunged us into a cold reality where everything went wrong.

How? Chase asks after several moments of silence. How did you manage to look past every horrific thing I’ve ever done and see the person I wish I could be?

Or we could talk about it now instead. My heart squeezes and jumps a little faster, preparing to share its innermost thoughts. Because you are that person now, I tell him. It isn’t just a wish. Your past has made you what you are, and my heart chose that person. My heart chose all of you.

Miss Goldilocks … His voice is a whisper in my mind. My dreams should be filled with the horror of this place. The perpetual darkness, the echoing screams, the metallic scrape of chains on stone. But instead I dream of kissing you.

A shiver runs down my arms, and I wish so badly to have him next to me that it hurts. I feel my face scrunch up as I force the ache away and choose positive thoughts instead. I have to say, that sounds like the more pleasant option, as far as dreams go.

It is, he says. I keep reminding myself that they won’t have to be dreams for much longer.

Warmth spreads up my neck toward my face. I like the sound of that.

I sleepily restart my painting, making the sky orange this time, before Chase says, Has Gaius done anything more with regards to keeping the prophecy from taking place?

The orange drifts away, mingling with the rain before disappearing. Not much. Our focus is on getting you out of the Seelie Palace at the moment.

While I’m grateful for that, you should probably be putting more energy into finding out what Angelica is up to. She won’t be wasting her time now that she’s free.

Probably not. A chill breeze lifts my hair. I huddle further down into the blanket. I keep coming back to why, though. Why does she want the veil to come down? What would be the point in having no barrier between the magic and non-magic worlds? I still can’t even imagine what that looks like. I know there are several places in the world where there are … openings of some kind. Where fae can cross over from our realm into theirs and back again. But this is different, right? If the veil is gone … will we be left with only one realm?

I don’t know what will happen, Chase says, but I think I understand Angelica’s motivation. Ignored since the day she was born, the youngest child of a queen with no time for anyone but her heir, Angelica has always wanted power and attention. She was told she was a waste of royal blood, and she’s been trying to prove everyone wrong ever since. She began hunting down griffin discs while she was still a guardian trainee. She was the one who eventually found the chest containing Tharros Mizreth’s power. I consumed that power in the end, and she pretended to be satisfied when I ruled over everything, but she wasn’t. She would rather it have been her in the position of power than her son. Now, with her mother back on the Seelie throne, she has the opportunity to tear through to another world and rule that one instead. I believe that’s her plan.

I lean my head back against the door. And Amon? Why would he want this to happen? He seemed so quiet and unassuming. If he had ambitions of power, why did he spend so many years as a librarian?

Amon … That’s a more difficult one to answer. I’m not sure I’ve figured it out yet. I started gathering notes on him after I realized what kind of visitors he was receiving at Velazar. That information is all at the mountain now, if you’d like to read through it. Look in my room in one of the desk drawers. You’ll find a stack of papers tied together. My notes on both Amon and Angelica.

Thanks, I’ll definitely—My thoughts screech to a halt as I feel the thud of footsteps moving through the house. I straighten.

Calla? Chase asks.

Hang on. I imagine myself as empty space as I climb quickly to my feet and move to one of the windows. Peeking through, I see a figure by the faerie door. A figure turning slightly, reaching into his pocket … I breathe a sigh of relief as I recognize him. It’s just Kobe, I tell Chase as I let go of my illusion and open the door. “Kobe?”

He tenses as he spins around. “Oh, it’s you, Calla.” His shoulders relax.

“What are you doing here so early? Is something wrong?”

“Yes,” he says gravely. “I just heard from our mer contact. The Monument to the First Mer King is gone.”