A Faerie's Revenge

Chapter 3

Three

My six-year-old self is locked inside a lavishly decorated bedroom with a towering brute of a man, and I’ve just convinced him to stab himself in the thigh. He cries out and staggers a few steps before dropping to the ground, blood beginning to pool around him. My hands shake and tears drench my cheeks and I can’t believe I’ve done something so terrible. But he’s a terrible man, I remind myself, and he was going to hurt me if I didn’t hurt him first.

Other men run into the room, some rushing to their fallen comrade, while another grabs me around the waist and lifts me over his shoulder. “Get her down to the dungeon!” someone else shouts. “And don’t believe anything she shows you.”

The dungeon is fear and sweat and mustiness and names, names, names scribbled across a circular wall that spins around and around me. I hear a clang of metal, and then I’m shut in a cage, hanging above black water that ripples unnaturally. The cage is small, so small, and I shrink into the center of it as the bars press closer.

And all the while at the edge of my vision, in the murky darkness of the dream landscape, someone lingers.

Chase.

Draven.

He hides in the shadows, watching everything, doing nothing. Nothing to save me or anyone else. He hides until the moment he beheads the man we all thought was the real enemy. And then smoke and flame consume the dream world.

I wake with a start, my body tensing for a moment before I remember where I am. Safe. At home. I relax against my pillows, turning my head to the side so I can see the round clock above my desk. Superimposed above the mishmash of painted numbers, glowing gold digits tell me it’s just gone five in the morning. As my heartbeat slowly returns to normal, I try to think of other things. The assignment race tonight; Mom lying in the healing wing at the Guild; my three newest friends who don’t seem to mind the rumors that follow me around; Dad and the bribes he made to keep my Griffin Ability secret; Gaius imprisoned somewhere, forced to take Griffin Abilities from others; Chase, who saved my life and found my mother, even though he’s supposed to be the villain.

It does no good. It never does any good. I’ve tried to push Chase from my mind, but thoughts of him always sneak back in, like smoke slipping through the tiniest gaps. I may as well stop trying to forget him and start attempting to figure him out instead.

I roll onto my side and snap my fingers at the lamp beside my bed. Light ignites a moment later. I blink several times, then lean over the side of my bed and reach for the history textbooks I threw under there last week. My hand brushes over a thick spine. I heave the book onto the bed. I sit up, cross my legs, and open the book to a random page. It’s a relatively new textbook, which means it covers everything right up until the present, including, of course, Draven’s reign.

I check the contents page, then flip through to his chapter. I’ve studied these pages before, of course—several of my Guild entrance exams required knowledge of this section—but it didn’t mean much more to me than words on a page. Facts to be memorized. Names, dates, events, people who no longer exist. But it’s real now. He’s real.

I start at the beginning, hoping to find something about his childhood, something I must have missed before. But the reason I don’t remember reading that part of Draven’s story is because that part doesn’t exist. Nobody knows anything about his childhood. He first showed up as an apprentice to the Unseelie Prince Zell. He was called Nathaniel then, according to those who were interviewed after Draven’s fall.

Nathaniel.

Another name that may or may not belong to him.

I pull the book closer and run my finger beneath the words as I continue following the story. It seems that Zell’s followers thought Nathaniel was helping him. He did everything Zell told him to, including finding the Griffin discs and the chest that contained all the power the halfling Tharros Mizreth once had. Nobody knew that Nathaniel had his own plans. Nobody expected him to kill Zell, open the chest, and take all that power for himself. But that’s exactly what he did. And it was on that night, the night the Guilds fell, that everyone discovered who Draven really was: A powerful halfling. A Seelie Prince. The son of Princess Angelica, the Seelie Queen’s youngest daughter.

The book goes on to detail Draven’s mark and the way he brainwashed everyone into following him. It tells of all the areas he conquered and how those who managed to escape him gathered in hiding to form a resistance. The resistance had a weapon, a sword protected for centuries by a group known as the Order of the Guard. It was that sword that finally put an end to Draven and the power he was wielding. The textbook includes the prophecy that was written onto the sword, but as for who the ‘finder’ and the ‘Star of the high land’ actually were, the author has only this to say:

When the blinding light and tornado-like winds subsided, Draven, the sword, and the one who delivered the final blow were gone. Witnesses believe that the power released at the moment of Draven’s death consumed all three.

I’m one of the few who knows the truth, though. I know that Vi was the finder and that Tilly was the one who, along with Vi’s help, delivered that final blow. Together they ended Draven, but they didn’t stick around afterwards to answer questions. Vi had a secret to keep, and Tilly had a normal life to get back to. They left quickly, and Vi’s dad, a spy for the Seelie Queen, stayed behind to tell the tale—minus any names—of what happened at the very end.

All brainwashed fae were free of Draven’s influence. The winter lifted. The Guilds were rebuilt. Our world put itself back together. The end.

Except that wasn’t the end. Because he isn’t dead after all. An enchanted necklace saved him, and now I have no idea who he really is.

I don’t stop this time. I don’t tell myself I’m a foolish i***t, and I don’t consider what I’m going to say when I get there. One foot in front of the other along the stone-paved tunnel of Sivvyn Quarter, each step pushing my anger up another notch. I reach the door behind which I thought I had found someone I could trust. Hurt pierces my chest, but I smother it with anger. Then I raise my fist and bang on the door.

No response.

I wait several moments before pounding my fist against the door again. Then I bend down and bring one eye to the keyhole, just as I did the first time I stopped outside this door. But instead of seeing an old couch and a striped cushion through the gap, I see nothing but darkness. Standing, I take hold of the handle and push down. The door opens easily, confirming what I knew in my heart all along: he’s gone.

I push the door open fully and step into the empty room, light from the glowing tiles outside illuminating the bare corners of what used to be Chase’s home. Nothing remains aside from the lingering smell of paint. Deep down I know that this is the only thing I could have expected to find here. Of course he’s gone. Of course he ran the moment someone found out who he really is. But I still feel an aching disappointment as I stand in the middle of this empty space.

Disappointment that I soon manage to replace with anger. Anger at Chase for having made a fool of me, and anger at myself for letting him. I spin around, walk out of the house, and yank the door shut behind me. Then I lift my stylus to the tunnel wall and write a doorway spell onto it. There’s somewhere else I need to go, even though I already know what I’ll find there.

I walk out of the faerie paths into another Underground tunnel, this one not too far from a place called Wickedly Inked. My suspicions are confirmed as I round a corner and see that the sign for Chase’s tattoo studio is gone. I reach the open doorway and find two women unpacking boxes and organizing the contents on shelves around the shop. Jars of herbs, bottles of colored liquids, bowls of dried flowers, a collection of dragon-eye rings, and an assortment of other ingredients used in potions and enchantments. Their long black dresses swirl around them like smoke, and when one turns to speak to the other, I see her black eyes and pointed teeth.

Witches? In Creepy Hollow?

A tendril of fear wraps itself around the core of anger heating my chest. Witches live in lands so distant that, at least half the time, their existence is thought to be a myth. I’ve never met one, though I’ve heard the stories. Stories children whisper to frighten each other.

The younger and prettier of the two women lowers a jar of teeth back into a box and comes toward me. “Can I help you with something?” she asks. Her voice sounds … odd. It’s sweet and feminine, but something reverberates beneath it. Something deep and ancient and threatening. It sends a chill crawling up my spine.

“I’m looking for the previous owner of this shop,” I say, noticing that the lower part of her dress is, in fact, made of smoke.

“Oh.” She scratches her arm with fingernails as pointed as her teeth. “I can’t help you then. We moved in yesterday, and the previous owner disappeared days ago. The sale was conducted through a third party.”

“Can you point me in the direction of this third party?”

“No, I’m afraid I can’t.” She offers no explanation, and I don’t think I’m brave enough to pry further. Over her shoulder, I notice gouge marks in the wall beside the door leading to the back room. Marks that I’m pretty sure weren’t there before.

The chill creeps further up my neck. “Well, thanks anyway.” I turn and walk quickly away, waiting until I’m around a corner before hastily writing a doorway onto the tunnel wall. I hurry into it, unable to rid myself of the eerie feeling that someone is about to grab hold of me.