From storm and shadow, p.4
From Storm and Shadow, page 4
“Oh, come on,” he says tightly. “Bergenfell discovered you work at The Gilded Canary. Wouldn’t have taken her long to find this—” His words are cut off as both bloodtongues dart forward, razor-sharp beaks snapping and wings beating the air.
Okay, so my no-killing theory may have been incorrect.
Ash fires at the larger one, which swerves clear with a screech. I grip my knife tighter and slash in a wide arc as the smaller one nears me. Feathers fall, a scaly tail sweeps around, and I twist neatly out of the way. Duck, roll, spin around, swipe again. I know from the piercing cry that my blade has caught its clawed leg. I’m up again, on the other side of the smaller bloodtongue now, and Ash is no longer in sight.
I dodge and swipe, toss magic and reshape it as it flies. Stones, ice, fire. My mind withdraws. External thoughts still. The world narrows until it’s only me and the bloodtongue and the weapon at the end of my arm. The creature moves surprisingly fast, diving away from most of my magic. Then fire ignites along one wing, and the smell of singed feathers fills the air. It jerks its head back, preparing to strike, and I lunge forward and swipe my curved blade across its neck. Too many feathers. Not close enough to meet flesh.
Ash’s voice reaches my ears.
The world expands outward in an instant. I dodge away from the snapping beak, my gaze darting around in search of Ash—and I see the tail swinging toward me an instant too late. I dive out of the way, but it catches my shoulder, knocking me against the wall as I curse myself. I should be better than this. I am better than this. But Ash is here—Ash is here!—and it’s the kind of distraction I haven’t dealt with in a very long time.
I drop to the floor as the tail sweeps toward me again. I feel the air move as the tail passes mere inches overhead. And that’s when, with a piercing shriek, the larger bloodtongue explodes into a flurry of feathers. The feathers drift to the floor and vanish, leaving behind an oddly metallic scent—and Ash with a sword glittering in his hand.
Again, that sense of overlapping time. We are trainees. This is just another assignment. Another session inside the simulation ring. He’s defeated his opponent before I’ve defeated mine. In a moment, he’ll look over at me and his lips will turn up in that cocky grin I can’t help but love, and he’ll say something like, “Beat you again.” And I’ll laugh because even though the two of us are competitive, there’s never been any serious rivalry between us. We’re competitive because it’s fun.
But Ash isn’t smiling. And I’m not laughing.
The barbed tail. Again. I roll out of the way, my arm slashing upward, and my curved blade slices through scaly flesh. The bloodtongue flaps and whirls around, one wing still burning. Its wounded tail strikes a window. Glass shatters. The tail lashes out again, dragging a splintering gash along the wall. It occurs to me with a sudden, terrifying lurch that this creature might break right through into Teddy and Duke’s apartment.
An arrow shoots past me, trailing sparkles through the air. It glances off the wall as the bloodtongue dodges. “We need to get it out of here!” I call to Ash, deciding that I’m not waiting to find out if he can kill this thing before it winds up inside my neighbors’ home. “Now!”
“Doorway!” he shouts back, sending another arrow across the room. Ducking to miss another swipe of its tail, I drop to the floor. I switch the knife to my left hand, grab my stylus from my back pocket, and scribble a doorway spell. Darkness spreads across the floor: an opening to the paths.
“Now!” I shout again.
He throws himself at the bloodtongue and wrestles it toward the doorway in the floor. But the angle is off, and the bloodtongue is forcing him to the side, hissing and spitting, and they’re inching closer to me instead of the doorway. I splay my fingers behind me, and with a burst of magic, I shoot toward the struggling creature. The three of us topple into the darkness.
“Don’t think,” Ash gasps, and though part of me wants to snap once more that he doesn’t need to tell me what to do, I recognize that only one of us can direct the paths. So I let him do the thinking as utter darkness envelops us and I cling tightly to the writhing feathered creature.
Light appears. Leaves and branches and moonlight. We hit the ground. I tumble away from the bloodtongue, the scent of damp earth filling my nose. Part of me wonders if the creature may be dead by now—some fae can’t survive a trip through the faerie paths—but the thought has barely taken shape when that savage tail slams down beside me. Then I’m on my back, sharp talons pressing into my chest. Its beak is open. A long, forked tongue flicks out. My hand is up between us—its head strikes down—
Shield, I think in the split second before that hard beak meets my face. The creature snaps at the layer of magic that’s materialized between us, then rears back. Before it can strike again, I release the shield. My knife is up, slashing across, and this time I meet flesh. With a blood-chilling squawk, it lurches away from me. It jerks forward again and then—it bursts into a swirling mass of feathers. They float toward the ground, coming to a gentle rest before vanishing. That metallic smell is in the air again, but fainter out here, mixed with forest scents: leaves, earth, the subtle perfume of flowers.
I push myself hastily to my feet. Ash stands a few feet away, a sword raised, blood-covered blade pointed down and the hilt gripped between both hands. I’m guessing he stabbed it straight after it lurched away from me. For several moments, we simply stare at the space where the bloodtongue existed only moments ago, chests heaving as we gulp in air.
And that’s when I feel it: magic. In the air, the trees, the ground beneath my feet. My gaze slides over giant trumpet-like flowers, their pink fluorescence lighting up the leaves around them. Purple umbrella-shaped trees hang overhead, trailing long, leafy tendrils and looking for all the world like giant, glowing jellyfish. Two winged sprites flit past, holding hands. A line of glow-bugs wiggles its way over tangled, interwoven tree roots. And all around, the quiet trill of tiny nighttime creatures fills the air.
I don’t recognize this place. We could be anywhere in the fae world. But that doesn’t matter. It’s my world. My true home. I missed it so, so, so much, and I didn’t even know it until this moment. My next breath is almost a sob.
“You never stopped training,” Ash says quietly. The moment—which feels as though it may have stretched out across an eternity—is broken. I tear my gaze from the glow-bugs and look at him. He releases his sword, which vanishes with a trace of gold sparkles. Another twinge of nostalgia pierces my chest, but I force my mind away from the weapons I still secretly long for to the weapons I own now. Weapons of solid, cold metal. Cold metal, I realize as I blink down at the crescent-moon knife in my hand, that’s now covered in black blood.
I just fought and killed a magical creature.
I’m standing in the fae realm for the first time in years.
They know where to find you.
I blink again, my eyes still on the blade. “Um, no,” I say, and my voice sounds oddly distant, as though it belongs to someone else. There are too many trains of thought racing through my head, and I’m struggling to catch even one of them. “I didn’t stop training.” An image of light streaming through red glass joins the jumbled thoughts flashing through my mind. I squeeze my eyes shut and give my head a little shake. “Um … they’re going to send more bloodtongues. If Bergenfell still has your blood, then—”
“No, we only had those two, and it took Bergenfell months to acquire them. They’re even rarer than they used to be. It’ll take weeks of paperwork before she’s able to get her hands on another one.”
“Tracking owls?”
Ash shakes his head. “Not enough time. The imprint of our magic will be gone from your apartment by the time Bergenfell can get any owls there. They won’t pick up anything.”
“Okay.” I nod. Take another breath. Allow my eyes to dart across the scenery as my mind races back through everything that’s—
Teddy and Duke.
I lurch away from Ash, holding my knife against the leather cuff on my wrist as I aim for the nearest tree. The complicated spells that took forever to weave together snatch hold of the knife, pulling it from my grip, shrinking it immediately, and returning it to the indentation in the cuff. By the time my hands are reaching inside my jacket for another stylus—because I’m not about to crawl around on the ground in search of the one I dropped—the moonstone has reappeared, hiding the tiny weapon. I write across the tree trunk with my spare stylus, rough bark grazing my hand. A doorway spreads open in front of me.
“Hey, wait, where are you—”
“I’ll be back!” I call as I race into the darkness without a backward glance, thinking only of my friends. They would have heard the fight, the crashes, the screeching of the bloodtongues. If they go into my apartment and some other fae creature shows up—
I run out of the paths and into their living room, my eyes combing the space. There’s no one here, and their front door is standing wide open. A second later, their voices reach my ears. I race through the open door, swing left, and dash into my own apartment. They’re standing in the center of the living room, Teddy with his palms against his cheeks, and Duke with a phone pressed to his ear. For a second, I take in the demolished room I left behind: every item of furniture swept against the walls; TV shattered; window smashed; rug wrinkled and smoking in one corner.
“You’re okay!” Teddy says. A moment later, I almost topple over as he collides into me and embraces me tightly.
“Oh, wait, she’s here,” Duke says into the phone, coming closer. “She—”
I reach around Teddy, yank the phone from Duke’s hand, and say, “I’m fine, everything’s fine, thank you!” before ending the call. “That was the cops, right?” I add after a beat of silence.
“Of course that was the cops,” Teddy answers for Duke. “We had to call them. You were being attacked in here!”
“I was not being—I’m fine, okay? I promise I’m fine. But you need to stay out of this apartment.” I drag them both into the hallway before tugging my door shut. Then I herd them back into their place, my gaze darting over both shoulders as we go. I close their door. “I don’t know if someone else might come looking for me, so you have to promise to stay out of there.”
“Silver, what the hell is going on?” Duke demands. “We didn’t ask too many questions before, because you—”
“I can’t tell you. It’s … even if we had time, you wouldn’t believe me. I—just—there’s something going on and I need to figure it out. I’ll be back … soon.”
“Soon?” Teddy repeats. “When is soon? Where are you going? And what do we tell the landlord? I mean, that damage in there? He’s going to freak when he finds out about it.”
“I’ll … figure something out. I’ll take care of it. Just don’t call the cops again. Please? I promise I can take care of myself.” I wrap my arms around both of them and squeeze tightly. “I have to go. Please stay safe.” And then, because there might be someone else in the hallway by now and I don’t want to open a faerie paths doorway out there, I head for Teddy and Duke’s bedroom.
“Wait!” Teddy calls after me, genuine panic in his voice now. I shut their door and write on the back of it, tears pricking behind my eyelids. “Waitwaitwait, Silver, please! You can’t just—” His words slice off mid-sentence as I vanish into the faerie paths.
Four
I step silently from the paths and find Ash pacing. I watch him for a few moments, taking him in fully for the first time tonight. Broader shoulders, the angles of his face more defined. Gone is any trace of the boyishness he still possessed at age sixteen. Looking at him now, I can’t imagine that only two and a bit years have passed. He seems older than that.
He turns and sees me. “You came back.” His voice is deeper too. Is that possible?
“Of course I came back. I said I would, didn’t I? Despite what you think, I’ve never lied to you before.”
His brows jerk upward in disbelief.
“Fine. I’ve never lied about anything important,” I correct.
“It seems we disagree on the definition of—”
“So an enchanted door you know nothing about has holes in it,” I interrupt, folding my arms across my chest, “and you decided to put your eye against one of those holes and peer through? How stupid are you? What if—”
“I didn’t shove my eyeball right up against the door.”
“What if some creature from the other side stabbed you in the—”
“I observed from a short distance.”
“—or shot some deadly venom into your eye.”
“There’s little that’s deadly to a faerie, so I think I—”
“There’s plenty that’s deadly to a faerie,” I argue.
“The holes aren’t tiny, okay? I could see enough from a distance to know that a shadow passed across the other side!”
I bite down hard on my lip and suck in a steadying breath before this becomes the most pointless argument of all time. Squeezing my eyes shut, I press my fingertips against my temples and rub. “There shouldn’t be any holes in the door,” I say, almost to myself. “It shouldn’t be possible. My dad locked it. That’s the only reason my parents went back there that night. To lock the stupid door.” I drop my hands to my sides and look at Ash. “And I don’t mean a simple locking spell or an everyday key with no magic on it. I mean the kind of key that holds great power. The kind of key that keeps something locked and prevents things from getting through. I’m pretty sure that includes random holes.”
“I don’t know what else to tell you, Silver. The door is locked, and there are holes in it. And I know it’s locked because I heard Bergenfell say as much. Although … she did say something about it not being locked properly.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“I mean … it’s either locked or unlocked, right?”
“Silver, I don’t know! Look, can we—” He holds both hands up. “Can we start again? Please? You’re … you’re alive! I just want to have a conversation with you that doesn’t involve me having to defend myself after every sentence.”
“I think my anger is pretty damn justified after what you and the rest of the Guild did to—”
“I know. I know. I’m sorry. Please just …” He trails off as he moves closer. Part of me wants to take a gigantic step back and put as much distance between us as possible. But another tiny part—the part of me I’ve never been able to banish entirely—wants to collapse into his arms and cry and cry and cry until there’s nothing left inside me. He holds my gaze, his eyes reflecting the light of the magical forest around us, and I can’t look away. “Can we please just talk?”
I manage to break eye contact. “Fine. We can talk. But I’m not going back to Stormsdrift. I hadn’t planned to return to the fae realm at all until you brought us here.” I look around at all the blossoms and leaves that glow different colors. I’ve never seen anything like it in the human world. “It’s … weird,” I add quietly. It’s amazing. Heartbreaking. The kind of ache you feel for a place you no longer belong in. Returning home to Stormsdrift would be even worse.
“Hang on,” Ash says. “You haven’t been back into this world at all? Not since you were … since that night?”
“I was here at first,” I correct before I can stop myself. I clamp my mouth shut and try to force my mind away from the past. Red light streaming through stained glass windows; red blood on the—
Stop. Pretty flowers, pretty trees, pretty glow-bugs.
I force myself to see my surroundings instead of the nightmare inside my head, and when I trust myself to speak again, I say, “It’s been a little over a year since I was last in this world.” One year and three months, to be precise, but Ash doesn’t need to know how closely I keep score of the amount of freedom I’ve accumulated.
“You haven’t been back here in over a year? So you don’t know anything about what’s been happening in Stormsdrift?”
I stand a little straighter, lifting my chin slightly. “Did you expect me to hide out nearby and keep tabs on all the people who tried to kill me? No, Ash, I don’t know what’s been happening in Stormsdrift. I got as far away as I could, started a new life, and didn’t look back. Why?” I add as icy fear shoots through me. “Have the councilors done the same thing to other people? Is your family—”
“They’re fine. At least, they were when I left. And no, the Council hasn’t falsely accused anyone else of murder and then hunted them down. But there’s … something else. Something that changed a little while after you were gone. A few weeks later, perhaps. I don’t remember exactly. A kind of … darkness. Not something visible,” he adds. “It’s more … something you can feel. A strange magic in the air. And this thick fog that settles over everything, taking days to disperse each time it comes. I know we get a lot of storms—obviously, it’s called Stormsdrift—but when they clear up, things are generally bright and sunny. Not this eerie, shifting mist we live with so often now. It didn’t happen too often at first, but now it’s almost constant.”
“I guess that is weird,” I admit.
“And then there are the creatures. Odd fae beasts we never encountered during our training. Creatures we can’t find any record of. And they seem to be more … deadly.” He says this last bit grudgingly, probably thinking of the argument we just had. Yes, Ash, I want to remind him. There is plenty that’s deadly to a faerie. “We’ve lost some guardians,” he continues quietly. “More than we should have. And a few civilians. The Guild even implemented a curfew several months ago. No one’s allowed out between sunset and sunrise. Well, guardians are, of course, but no one else.”
I breathe out a quiet curse. “I’m … I’m sorry.” In my head, Stormsdrift has remained exactly the same all these years. How naive of me to think it wouldn’t change.
Ash clears his throat. “Yeah. Not fun. And to add to all the strangeness, sometimes the faerie paths just … don’t work.”
