4. Chapter 4
Without a second’s pause, I grabbed the front of Ben’s surfboard and beat my tail. Ben lurched forward as I sped us through the water, almost colliding with me.
“What?” he called, jumping off as we reached the shallows.
“Granddad’s in hospital.” Adrian stared at his phone, glassy-eyed. “He’s gotten... way worse.”
Ben swore. “Turn around. We’ve got to get dressed.”
Adrian turned his back while we got dressed, and Ben tried to pull his surfboard further up the beach.
“Leave it.” I took the surfboard from him and tucked it under my arm. “You go. I’ll keep it for you.”
“Okay.” Ben pulled me into a deep kiss, and my eyes closed to absorb the entire feeling of him. He pulled away far too soon. “I’ll text you with updates.”
“Please do.”
Tears welled up in my eyes as I watched them hurry back up the beach. In my heart, I knew this wouldn’t be the last time I saw him again, but how many more times did we have left?
***
Another spotty night of sleep in the swimming pool had me waking up in the wee hours. Something in my gut told me I wouldn’t get another wink, so I got ready for what would inevitably be a rough day.
Ben texted early to let me know his grandfather had taken a turn but was doing better in the hospital. That had eased my fears that we had time to exact our plan later that evening. Suddenly, our plan had to work. We had no time left. Or at least, Ben didn’t.
In the meantime, I had some more dirty work to attend to.
After breakfast, I took Dad’s car down to Dawn. Where I was going, people would expect to see an Arrowood car.
When I pulled into the gated prison car park, my stomach rolled. Dusk’s only prison didn’t intimidate the same way other prisons did. We had such a low crime rate that the population never even reached half capacity. As such, the prison had minimal security and resembled an urban school.
Only two storeys high, the building had large windows with crystals embedded in the frames, but no bars like human prisons had back in London. A chain-link fence ran around the exterior, and a small sports area stood at the edge of the car park, complete with a football field.
It was no life of luxury, but considering the crimes people had to commit to end up here, they surely couldn’t complain.
Once I parked, I sat in the driver’s seat beating a nervous rhythm on the steering wheel.
Whatever the reason Isadora wanted to see me, it couldn’t be good. It took a good ten minutes to build up the courage to get out of the car and head into the prison.
Guards searched me with enchantment detectors, and I pursed my lips as they ran the length of crystal on sticks up and down my body. The last time the police had used one on me, Ben’s good luck power had triggered it and almost caused an abandonment of the Arrowood-Everhart peace treaty.
But this time, it didn’t sound an alarm, and after leaving my belongings at the front desk, an officer escorted me to the visitation room.
Every step echoed in the cafeteria-style room, the ominous reverberations returning to me no matter how unwelcome they were. Dozens of tables with two seats were fused to the floor, and the officer gestured for me to sit at one.
I sat, clasping my hands on top of the table. I really should have brought a stress ball or something.
A screech of metal made me jump as a heavy steel door on the other side of the room opened. Isadora shuffled in, dressed in a brown jumpsuit, with an officer on either side of her.
Her brown hair looked greasy, and she had scraped it back in a ponytail. Her skin had a pallid look to it, and I doubted that was because she couldn’t wear make-up. As she approached, I met her gaze.
The innocence had vanished. The events that had brought her here had stolen it and left only fatigue and despair. Although, the way she held her swelling belly made me wonder if she didn’t have a smidgen of hope left.
Isadora made the act of sitting down look like a professional sport, and when she finally sat, she sighed as if she had completed an enormous task. Something told me that pregnancy wasn’t the only thing tiring her body and soul.
“I thought you might show up,” Isadora said, leaning forward on the table.
“Of course you did. Blackmail was never your forte, Izzy, but I suppose all that time with Freddie taught you something,” I said.
“Don’t act like you know me.” Her eyes narrowed. “Neither one of us knows each other. I just didn’t understand how much until that night at Freddie’s.”
I wanted to argue with her, but she was right. Despite living under the same roof and eating at the same table, we were perfect strangers, thanks to the secrets we had kept.
“I’ve got places to be,” I said, playing with a loose strand on my cardigan sleeve. “So, did you want something?”
Isadora snorted. “Meeting up with your boyfriend again?”
“Actually, I’m trying to break the curses that you and your boyfriend cast on us all.”
Her face fell. That showed her.
“Any luck?” she asked.
“If we succeed, you’ll know,” I said. If I could avoid it, I didn’t want to come back here to fill her in. “So? Cut to the chase.”
Isadora straightened up a little, winced, and rubbed at her lower back. “I wanted to talk to you about Freddie.”
“Are you serious? That’s what you dragged me here to talk about?”
“If you want me to keep your secrets, we do.” She sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. “I wanted you here, Maeve, because I think you’re the only one who could do anything with this information, anyway.”
“About?”
“Something that Freddie said. I was worried that using the phoenix egg might have some repercussions and Freddie assured me that he could get us access to unlimited phoenix eggs.”
I tried not to let any expression show on my face as my interest piqued.
“Maeve...” Isadora finally looked me dead in the eyes. “... whatever method Freddie had to gain all those eggs, he told me that the merfolk had the answer. With another phoenix egg, maybe the phoenix will lift its curses… and you might be the only person who could make the merfolk reveal how to do it.”