Where did you go? (Infatuated fae #3)

10. Caly

10

CALY

“W hat if he isn’t as bad as you think?” Eli prodded.

“Eli,” I warned with a look.

“I’m just saying, think of all the people who stood up for my mother, and all the while, she was a monster. What if your father is the opposite? What if he had a reason for leaving you guys behind? Look, all I’m saying is you have a lot of questions about your family and things, right? Maybe you should talk to him before you kill him. My father always spoke highly of him.”

He put his palms up to stop my argument before I could start it. He’d been intermittently hounding me with the same plea throughout the trip. At first, it made me annoyed and furious. I felt betrayed. He knew what had happened to me as a child. He knew everything that I had been through. How could he think it was all right that my father left me and my family? None of them would be dead had Zef stayed with us. The queen never would have targeted me. I wouldn’t have been put through half the horrible things that had torn and sliced me into what I was now.

But as usual, Eli eventually got in my head.

At first, it started with tiny questions; he wondered if it was possible things somehow could’ve been worse had my father remained with us. To be honest, I had never even given such an idea a second thought.

From then on, throughout the quiet of the journey, little thoughts wafted into my mind, like, What if he ascended thinking he could bring us with him later? I hated admitting it, but after everything I’d learned about the Artemi, I could sort of understand some of his reasoning for hiding us in the human realm. From the sound of it, most of his enemies were unable to cross over to the human realm. Saracen had made it through though.

I’d never allowed myself a thought in his favor or even in any direction other than him being a greedy, selfish bastard who chose to kill his weak and gentle daughter when he designated and dumped all his powers onto her. Look at all that I was capable of. I didn’t shy from pain; I enjoyed it. It let me know I was still alive. So why hadn’t he chosen me and spared Adrianna?

Unacknowledged questions began to leak into my brain, pooling in the little nooks that had always been so easy to skip over when I focused only on my hatred of him.

How had he and my mother met? I knew what most of the other realms thought of humans, yet he had sired children with one. My mother never spoke about him. Was it simply that she never had a chance? Or was it out of pain? Hate? Were they even together? Or had it been some tryst that spawned my sister and me?

I was naturally a curious person, and now it seemed as though the dam that blocked the stream of questions had broken. I decided at last that I would find out some answers before I killed him—and myself. At least I could take some answers with me to tell Adrianna that way.

“This is stupid. How much longer are we going to circle around this mountain?” I asked. We hadn’t been on the mountain for all that long, and I didn’t blame them for thinking it might be home to a supposed weather goddess. The glittering mountain was beautiful and ominous. Even I—who had no trustworthy instincts compared to Eli and Mendax—looked to the mountain for what could be our next clue to Moirai. It somehow felt a little more magical than the ground below it. Still, I couldn’t help but worry that we were wasting all this energy in vain.

The trail was wide enough for the three of us to walk shoulder to shoulder, but that never ended up happening. It was like one of the men needed to be in front of the other.

“Guys,” Eli said sternly from the back. The tone of his voice was serious and weary, catching both of our attention.

Mendax and I turned to find Eli cupping his hand, holding it out and staring at the contents. Weakly flapping in his palm were two glasswing butterflies.

Shit.

“I thought something touched my ear, and when I went to swat it away, I grabbed these.” Eli’s jaw clamped down. He shifted his gaze to Mendax. “We are being watched. Whatever sabotaged the second scroll is most likely trying to stop the third. Which means that we are on the right track.”

We did the usual things, like backtrack to search for footprints or eyes in the sky, perhaps a stray bird that was feeding our whereabouts to its owner, but we came up with nothing, which somehow made it even creepier.

“Well, whatever’s following us is either gone or significantly more skilled than us at hiding,” said Mendax.

“What is it that we’re supposed to do once we find this place?” The lack of food and energy was beginning to get to me. I was struggling to remember things that would typically be easy. I dug into my bag and pulled out the largest piece of the broken scroll, recalling what it said as I read it out loud to all of us. “Calypso Petranova, Salutations and so on. Presumably, if you are reading this, then you have made it past the benthyc of Lake Sheridon. For further directions to Moirai, continue onward to the weathered. Coax her into initiating the flood, and further instructions will find you. The Fates.”

“I know nothing of the weathered. In Unseelie, we have few changes to the scenery or environment,” Mendax added.

“I don’t know much more than rumors that I’ve heard,” said Eli. “Like any of the old gods, the weathered are to be feared. They are old and wise and change the weather based on what she calculates will be the most beneficial to the highest number of fae.”

“Is there more than one weathered? Or does just one control all the weather?” Sometimes it still felt like I was in a dream when all these fantastical and magical things were brought up. I think that was why a part of me got lost to science when I was younger. It was so solid, opposed to all the magic that had hurt me and Adrianna. It was solid and had easy answers.

Mendax opened his mouth to speak, but his words fell silent when we rounded the corner of the mountain.

My mouth quickly dropped open.

From the side of mountain we had just been on, the in-between was empty other than the trees. Eerie forests and silence took up the majority of what you could see—a blanket of white snow through a gray forest. Now I took another step, barely believing my eyes.

My stomach clenched and growled loudly as the smell of sweet and savory hotcakes was brought to me on the icy wind.

The entire mountainside was filled with small wood-and-stone houses. One of them had rich smoke swirling from the chimney. The houses were maintained, but none of them seemed to be the type of house a powerful, weather-controlling goddess would live in. As a matter of fact, none of them looked lived in. The mountainside town looked completely abandoned, save for the delicious scent and the houses not being in disrepair.

“The suns is this? I messed up,” Eli said. “Maybe someone here—if anyone is here—will give us rest and point us in the direction of the weathered.”

Mendax looked to Eli. “What makes you so sure the weathered isn’t here? Why do you give your instincts so little trust?”

“Nobody lives here,” Eli replied “Look around. Most of the houses are abandoned. The person we need is a goddess and clearly not here. We should look for a larger house on the top of the mountain.”

“You’ve so obviously never been fooled by a tattered, muddy black dress and bloodstained hair,” whispered Mendax as his sultry blue eyes landed on me.

“At this point, I don’t care what’s here other than whatever that smell is. I am so hungry, I could scream,” I complained.

“Why didn’t you say you were hungry? You promised you would be better at telling us when you needed nourishment,” Mendax scolded.

“You told me three hours ago you had plenty of rations for yourself in your bag,” Eli snapped.

“Sorry, mother,” I bit out. The truth was I had run out of rations and snacks for myself days ago, but neither man needed to eat like I did, being fae, and I was fine going a few days without food, but we’d miscalculated and were supposed to be in Moirai by now.

“If I need to hand-feed you myself so you do not die from starvation, I will, but I will be sorely disappointed in your lack of self-preservation, pet.” Mendax glared at me.

I bowed my head in defeat and promised to do better about letting them know when I was hungry. As annoying as it was, it was also nice to have someone care about me enough to worry. Having two someones worry felt too good to be real.

We moved down the path, weaving our way through the rows of houses until we came to the one with the smoking chimney. My hopes of getting a fabulous meal began to diminish the closer we got to the small house. It was apparent there were people inside, but the cracks in the windows and the tufts of roof led me to believe that even if they had a hot meal, it was not going to be enough to feed me and the two giant men beside me. Perhaps I could still get something small to tide me over while they pointed us in the right direction.

We all looked to one another to see who would knock on the tattered wooden door. Mendax and I immediately stepped back, leaving Eli closest to the door. He was the people-y one. Plus, everyone liked Eli…well, except Mendax, of course. Eli would be able to get answers out of them without threatening their lives.

Eli took the remaining steps until he stood just before the front door. He ran his fingers through his blond hair and then rapped the small bronze knocker in the middle of the door. A ruckus sounded on the other side of the door, and a gray-haired, elderly woman opened it, stepping into the doorframe. She looked tired and worn down but good-natured enough. The many lines of her face gave the impression of a wise and knowing woman. Her cool brown eyes stood out against the sunspots that covered her face. She didn’t look surprised to see us in the least. She cooked a mean hotcake, I could tell.

“You must be here to see the weathered,” she stated.

Surprised, we all exchanged wary glances. This was really not who we had expected to be the all-powerful weather goddess the Fates had talked about. Though upon further inspection, she did have the face of an astute and judicious woman. I supposed it wasn’t all that far-fetched.

“Yes,” I said, stepping up with a large smile in place. “Yes, I can’t believe we found you.”

She let out a little laugh. “Oh goodness, I’m not the weathered.” She called into the dimly lit house, “Jamie, some people have come to see you. Do be nice.”

The old woman retreated from the doorway and disappeared into the small house just as a young, raven-haired girl who looked no older than sixteen popped into the doorway, a hand on her hip.

“What do you want?” she said as she popped a piece of hotcake in her mouth.