Some Like it Hexed, page 9
And then she left me standing there by myself. That was probably the most challenging and weirdest part of the whole conversation. It was one line back and forth to each other, and then she walked off as if she were talking randomly to a stranger in a grocery store. I didn't like the feeling it gave me, but what could I do about it? Willa was being prepped to take her spot as queen regent, and it was something that Willa didn’t want. On top of that, her father was missing, and so was a very important stone for the entire fae realm—possibly for all the realms.
I gathered myself and headed into the dining room, finding Alabaster and Shade sitting at a table with plates in front of them. They hadn't touched their food, and Shade stood as I walked in. It was strange, and I could tell he thought it was strange, too, because his cheeks went red, and he cleared his throat, slowly sitting back down. It was like he had a burst of chivalry, but his body quickly rejected it.
Not wanting to make a big deal about it, I sat down and smiled at one of the servants as they brought me dinner. I picked up my fork and pushed the beans around, my mind somewhere else.
"Your uncle gave me a clue today or hinted at where I could find clues."
I had completely forgotten to ask Shade and Alabaster what they had found in the city. "Really? Did you figure it out?"
Shade nodded as he swallowed. "We ended up at apothecary down an alleyway in town. We went inside, and it was a bunch of empty vials and books and potions that were apparently illegal to sell in the fae realm. But there was also this curtain to the back room, and while we were at the back, we overheard two people whispering to each other. There was an older gentleman and then a hooded figure, but I couldn't see their face."
A hooded figure…
Flashes of my dream came back to me, but I didn't say anything. It was a dream. After all, I didn't want to sound like the crazy one. I was starting to think I was going insane. Between the fae realm and the reflection in the mirror that I could barely identify as me, I could feel the pressure starting to rise in my chest. It was just so odd that my dream was so similar to that. We spent most of the rest of dinner silent, picking at the food on our plates while our minds wondered whatever questions we were trying to answer.
When my uncle finished, he pushed back from the table and blotted his lips with his napkin. "I'm going back to the library to do some more research."
I glanced around. "Where's Tiny?"
Alabaster put both hands on his knees and grunted as he stood up. "He's got family in the area, so I let him go spend some time with them. I don't really need him here. I'm not really under any danger in this realm, not like I was on Earth. I'll let you know if I find anything at the library."
I gave him the best smile I could muster, which probably looked pretty awkward and bordered on creepy. I was never particularly good at faking my emotions. "I think I'm going to take a little bit of a break. One of the servants mentioned that I should see the nighttime gardens. Apparently, they glow and dance when the moon comes out."
My uncle smiled. "They are beautiful. Just be careful. We don't know who this cloaked figure is or if they're anywhere near us."
"I'll go with her," Shade said, tossing his napkin onto his empty plate. "I could use the walk to clear my mind."
We ambled slowly down the steps and along the lit walkway toward the back gardens. I held my hands in front of me nervously, unsure of why Shade was coming with me. I knew he wanted to keep me safe, but I felt like there was more to it than that; at least there was to me. As I walked, my thoughts were consumed by him, that was until I rounded the corner and saw the opulence and glow of the night gardens. They were stunning and appeared as if someone had lit the entire garden with sparkling lights and glow-in-the-dark paint. However, as I grew closer, I realized that everything in the space sparkled and glowed independently. It was an entire ecosystem of intricately grown plants and flowers that moved and opened as we passed.
I gasped at the beauty every five seconds, shaking my head at the wonder in front of me. Small specks of light lifted from the leaves of the plants and shimmered all around us. I felt as if I were walking through space with millions of stars and glowing planets passing by as I walked. A light chuckle from Shade drew my attention.
I glanced over at him and wrinkled my nose in embarrassment. "What? Can a girl not be completely enamored by this place?"
He smiled and gave me a short nod. "Of course you can. I was enamored by this place when I first saw it as well. I thought it was just magic. I thought the fae had enchanted this garden, but it's just part of this realm. It's hard not to love everything about it."
There was a pain in his voice, and I knew that the fae realm was bittersweet to him between his missing brother and the attack when he was younger. I had only been there a short time, and it was bittersweet to me as well. It was almost as if I couldn't even trust the beauty around me because I wasn’t sure where its loyalties laid. Nonetheless, at that moment, I just wanted to enjoy it.
We wandered down and through the paths and had no idea of the amount of time we had been in there, but it didn't matter to me. When we reached the middle of the garden, it opened up to a fountain in the center. Illuminated water spirals seemed to defy gravity as they twisted up and around the pillar and flowed from the top. Glowing lily pads gave off a neon ring in the water as they floated gently around the bowl of the fountain.
I sat on the edge and looked down, watching my reflection waver in the water below. I could see Shade's reflection as well, but not the Shade that I had come to know. He was the fae version of the witch that had originally kidnapped me. He sat down next to me, running his fingers along the water’s edge.
I kept my eyes on our reflections as I spoke. "I want you to know that I'm not naïve. I can see through the beauty of this place. I'm starting to see the secrets you were talking about. They're such strange things going on here."
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Hooded figures, enormous libraries, half-written notes from a missing king—it's a huge, messy puzzle, and we're not even sure if we have all the pieces or what the final picture will be."
"Wait… Did you just say a hooded figure?"
I looked up at him, finding the startled look on his face surprising. I forgot that I hadn't told him about my dream, but I guess I kinda had to at that point. He was going to think it was stupid. In fact, a day removed from the actual dream, and I thought it was stupid as well. After all, the last dream I remembered having before that was Shade—but with Bean's head—drooling on me. I couldn't really put a lot of stock into what happened when I was asleep.
I took a deep breath and turned toward him, clutching my hands in my lap. As I went to answer, I was cut off by the sound of loud blowing horns coming from the castle. Shade immediately stood up and looked around, the tension back in his shoulders, and his senses perked. I didn't understand what was happening.
"Has someone arrived at the castle?"
Shade shook his head as he scanned our surroundings. "No. Those are alarm calls." He reached down, his face serious. "We need to get you back inside."
I stood up with him and began to walk, feeling his hand tighten around my wrist as he pulled me along.
I shook my head and grabbed him, stopping him in his tracks. "What's going on?"
He looked back at the castle and then at me. "Someone's been attacked, and it's inside the castle walls."
16
Callie
* * *
My first thought was immediately Willa.
As soon as the words came out of his mouth, I was racing down the path, leaving him behind. I could hear his footsteps behind me but didn't stop to look back as I took the steps two at a time up the balcony and in through the side door of the castle.
I stopped when I got inside and looked around, determining what was happening and where it was coming from. I raced through the kitchen and out the door into the hallway, figuring I would make my way to Willa's room because it was most likely where she was. However, as I turned to head toward our living quarters, a large group of servants came rushing down the hallway in the opposite direction.
One of the servants was the girl who had been waking me up in the morning, and I quickly reached out and grabbed her, pulling her back. "What's going on? Is the princess…"
The girl was breathing heavily, and she shook her head. "No, Princess Willa is safely guarded in her room. This is in the library. It was the finder. He was attacked."
I let go of her wrist, and she ran off, but I couldn't move. My heart flip-flopped in my chest, and all I could think about was that Alabaster was the last remaining relative that I knew of, and I hadn't even gotten to fully know him yet. Shade hurried next to me, shaking his head as he caught his breath. "Willa?"
My face stayed still, my eyes locked on the path toward the library. "No. She’s safe. They said Alabaster was attacked."
I knew he was reaching out and touching my arm, but all the nerves in my body had gone still, and I barely knew how to breathe.
"Is he alive?"
I blinked several times, pulling myself out from the trance, and looked up at Shade. I realized I hadn't even asked that question. My mind automatically assumed he wasn't, but I had no idea. His eyes fluttered over my face, and I could see that he was reading that exact thought in my mind.
He pressed his lips together and put his hand against my back. "Let's go see. We'll go together."
Without him there, I probably wouldn't have been able to move from that spot. My feet felt like lead. The closer we got to the library, the closer the dread filled me. I hadn't realized until that moment how important it was to me that I had found another family member. For a second, I didn't feel like an orphan. We made our way to the library, pushing through the crowd of servants gathered, nervously looking through the doors. Several guards carried a stretcher with Alabaster lying unconscious on it as we reached the doors, his body bruised, blood trickling from the edge of his mouth.
Slowly I reached out, afraid to touch his hand, afraid to feel the coldness of death. But when my skin met his, I felt warmth, and I immediately knew he was still living. Tears pulled at the edge of my eyes, and I looked up at Shade, who gave me a half-smile and nodded. We followed them through the castle to the medical wing, where we were stopped short as they took him into an examination room. I stared at the doors, biting the inside of my lip, afraid to look away because I didn't want to miss something.
I wasn't sure if ten minutes had passed or ten hours because I was stuck in that warp, the tunnel straight to my uncle lying in the other room.
When the doctor finally came through, or whatever they called fae medical people, she smiled kindly, trails of magic finishing from her fingertips. "He's going to be okay, but I think it's going to take a while. Looks like he was attacked by some magical creature, but it wasn't just a magical attack. They physically attacked him as well. It appears they used some sort of freezing magic, something that left him vulnerable to the attack. There are no signs that he fought back."
I swallowed hard. "Is he awake?"
The doctor shook her head. "I administered some magic that will keep him calm and comfortable so his body can heal better. His wounds were pretty traumatic, and even my magic couldn't fully heal him. He did, however, have a book clutched in his hands. I wasn't sure if it was his or from the library, but I took it, and I figured you might want to have it back… at least until he wakes up."
I nodded, watching as she pulled a small green book from her front pocket and handed it to me. There were fingerprints of blood from where my uncle had gripped it tightly. Shade put his hand on my shoulder and smiled at the fae doctor. "Thank you. If anything changes, if you could let us know, that would be great. We'll come back in the morning and see how he's feeling."
She smiled and bowed slightly, turning and going back through the doors. I was in a bit of a trance, so Shade guided me down the hallways and back toward our bedrooms. He opened my door to let me in, going in first just to look around for safety. I stood there in the center of the room, clutching the book to my chest, trying to work through everything in my mind. I was frankly kind of shocked that Willa hadn't even come out of her room yet. Surely, she knew about what had happened.
Then again, someone had attacked Alabaster, and they didn't know where the person—or creature—had run off to. Ultimately that meant Willa's life could be at risk. We didn't need two of us going down, and who knew what we could expect from the coming days.
Shade walked over to me and put his hand on my shoulder, shaking me out of it yet again. "I don't want you to leave the room tonight, okay? I'm going to be right down the hall, and I'll come to check on you. I'll at least listen in to make sure that you're okay. Lock the door, don't answer without knowing who's on the other side, and if you need anything, just call for me."
I smiled, patting him on the chest. "Thanks, Dad. Should I carry my pepper spray?"
He furrowed his brow and put his hands on his hips. "It's not funny."
I groaned, rolling my eyes. "I know. I know! I have this terrible habit of inappropriate humor when I'm nervous."
In a move that I didn't see coming, he reached over and pulled me in, wrapping his arms around me in a hug. It was strange at first, but the magic surged up my arm and across my chest, and I laid my head against his shoulder, letting out a deep sigh. Slowly, he pulled back, but when our eyes met, he quickly averted and turned, heading for the door. He glanced back at me with an awkward smile as he shut it. I could tell he was waiting on the other side until I locked the two deadbolt locks.
If it hadn't been for everything going on at that moment, I would've been incredibly frustrated, but I had too much on my mind. The last thing I needed to think about was Shade's inability to decide whether he liked me or he didn't like me. I was forty years old, and I was playing games with him. I wasn't playing games on purpose. It was just like a cat chasing a mouse, but suddenly the mouse turns on the cat, and it was back and forth over and over again.
Slipping off my boots, I headed over to the bed and plopped down, lying back. I pulled the book out and opened it up, reading the first couple of pages. I realized quickly it was no different from the five million other magical beast books we had looked at in the library. I had to admit, I was kind of irritated by it. I thought for sure there'd be something, a clue, anything in the book. But it seemed he had just clutched on to the first thing he could find when he was attacked.
I flipped through to the last page and was about to close it when I saw a golden-color ink on the very last page. It wasn't printed like the other text and instead hand-drawn. It was a knot, like the Celtic knot, except this one was very familiar. I sat up and looked closer at it, tracing my finger over the lines. I knew I had seen that symbol somewhere before, somewhere in passing maybe. Maybe the book wasn't useless after all. Maybe he had clutched it because of the mark on the last pages. There had to be something to its familiarity, and it wasn't anything I had researched or experienced back on Earth.
I replayed the time I had been in the fae realm back in my mind, searching for that symbol that I knew was somewhere in there. Suddenly, startling me to the point where I almost fell off the bed, a loud knock echoed wildly through the room. I closed the book and put it under my pillow, straightening out the blankets over top of it. Hurrying over to the door, I grabbed the door handle but leaned against it. "Who's there?"
There was a sound of shuffling on the other side, but no one said a word. My heart began to race louder in my chest, and slowly I backed away a few steps, narrowing my eyes. Shade said not to trust anyone coming to the door unless I knew who it was. Whoever was standing out there, though, they either couldn't hear me or didn't want me to hear them. I looked all around the room, but I was trapped. Would the attacker really knock on the door? Unfortunately, the question had been coming up far too many times in recent weeks.
With my breathing increased and my heart racing, I closed my eyes and focused on the energy flowing through me. I had given in to the comfort of knowing that Shade was there to protect me. But I didn't need saving. Whoever was standing on the other side of that door either meant me harm or not, but I wasn't going to find out cowering in my room.
Hopefully, I wasn't making a terrible mistake. Mistakes in the fae world all seemed to end in either near-death or complete annihilation. I liked those tropes in movies, but not in my own life.
17
Callie
* * *
It's times like these that I wish I had that flat iron again.
Mustering my bravery, or my stupidity, I grabbed the handle of the door. I yanked it open, practically wheezing with my hands balled into fists, ready to attack whoever was on the other side. But on the other side wasn't some secret cloaked nemesis.
Instead, there was a giant ball of fabric wiggling around until one of the servants poked her head up over the top of it. She started out with an immediate smile. As her eyes rolled over my intense, very ridiculous defense pose, her smile fell.
"I'm really sorry for bothering you so late, but I needed to bring your dress over for the ball. You don't need to do anything. I just need to hang it up in your room."
I glanced at my hands and dropped them to my sides, standing up straight. I could feel the flush of my cheeks from embarrassment, but I was getting used to it.
Hell, what was I talking about?
I had been used to being embarrassed my entire life. I was never the most graceful of people. I stepped to the side, and she hurried in, over to a large rack in the corner with several pieces of clothing hanging from it. To be honest, I hadn't even realized it was there. It could've been some stealth ninja hiding in my room that entire time and I would've just completely ignored the fact that they were there in plain sight.
