Chapter 16
Iwish I could say that I had a great sleep . . . that in the morning all my uncertainties had been dispelled, and I had a clear head, ready to face a full day of classes.
Nope.
No dice for me. My dreams started in Neverthorn, as I stood next to Calypso’s wishing well, the hulking school behind me.
“Are you going to find her?”
I blinked and Calypso was there, sitting on the edge of the well, her yellow eyes glittering as if full of gold dust.
“Who?”
She smiled and flipped herself back into the well, no splash of water, no sound to prove that she’d even been there. My feet began to move on their own, straight toward the thicket of brambles and thorns.
“No, I don’t want to go in there!” Silly, it was just thorns, and just a dream – even in my sleep I knew it was a dream.
But I couldn’t help the surge of a near-panic level of fear that was spiraling through me, faster and faster like a tornado picking up speed in preparation for demolishing a town.
One step, then another, and another.
I couldn’t stop my feet from moving and I had the urge to throw myself backward, to claw at the ground and cling to the wishing well. Cling to Calypso?
How bad was this going to be?
Another blink.
I stood with the bramble forest at my back, my body and face scratched up, hot with blood and the ichor of the plants. All that disappeared as Opie ran across my line of vision.
“Opie!”
She looked over her shoulder at me. Brows furrowed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I hate you.”
I ran after her, the dark of the night bringing her to me here and there, like a ghost flitting between shadows.
My feet went out from under me, and I slid down an unseen slope, rocks and mud slamming into me.
Blink.
A house in front of me – no, not just a house, a mansion.
Broken shutters boarded up, sagging wooden deck, peeling paint, shingles missing, what few glass windows remaining cracked and jagged.
There were enough spider webs that I couldn’t be sure they weren’t the only thing holding the place together.
I called out. “Opie?”
“Harlow! Help me!”
Not Opie . . . Fable.
“Fable! Where are you?’ I ran for the front door, threw my shoulder against it and fell again, tumbling down and down, hitting the ground hard.
Blink.
“They’re all dead.” Lucinda stood over me, half her head caved in, blood running from her nose and splattering her white gown. Not a nightgown. A hospital gown. Was that what it had been?
“Who . . . who’s dead?”
Her hand reached out and she brushed her fingertips from my hairline, down over my face. “All of House Phoenix.”
The dream began to pull apart at the seams, but it felt . . . telling, and I forced my racing heart to calm. It felt real and if there was any chance that I could gain even a clue from my subconscious mind, I would take it. “Lucinda. Who is going to hurt us?”
Her unhinged smile broke through the blood pouring from her nose. “Trust no one.”
So yeah, waking up the next morning, at the ass-crack of dawn, I was less than rested.
Fatigued and grumpy as hell, I found myself in front of Sage Thalienne’s door. As I stared at her Phoenix sigil etched deep into the wood, nerves fluttered in my belly competing with my exhaustion.
Before I could knock, the door creaked open, and the Sage called out.
“Come in, Hannah.”
I stepped over the threshold and took in the space which was .
. . way bigger than it looked from the outside.
We were in a forest – seemingly impossible considering we were inside Heathermoor – trees all around, a babbling creek that meandered, weaving in and out of the space.
Directly in front of me a flat, square stone was set in the soil that was about the size of a plank of plywood.
In short, on this side of the door, it didn’t look like an office at all.
“Wow.”
“An illusion, of course, but thank you.” Thalienne stood to the right, where several boulders were stacked in such a way that they created a table. I’d not noticed her at first, I was so caught up in the scene in front of me.
Food and drink were laid out across the flattened tops. She motioned at it. “I assume you’ve not broken your fast yet. Please take something, and we’ll get started.”
I made my way over to the boulders and stared at the glowing blue liquid in a glass carafe that had steam rolling off it. “Um. What is this?”
“My equivalent of coffee, only much healthier.” She sipped her own glass of the steaming liquid, so I poured myself a cup, and lifted it to my lips.
It smelled like spices – cardamom and pepper, cinnamon and something I couldn’t put my finger on.
I took a sip and groaned as the silk liquid hit my tongue and slid down my throat.
The fusion seemed to rip through my veins, not only waking me up but connecting my mind to my body in a way I wasn’t sure I’d ever felt.
I didn’t stop with the one sip but kept gulping it back.
If she’d intended to poison me, I was a goner, because I couldn’t stop. Like a woman in the desert, and an oasis at my feet, I emptied the cup and set it down. Fighting not to run my finger around the edge for any wayward drops.
The room seemed to take on an unreal glow, the magic pulsing even more brilliantly than before. Runes that had been cast caught my eye, glowing slightly under the cover of the illusions.
Like x-ray vision.
“Holy sheep shit.” I swallowed and cleared my throat. “Sorry.”
“Quite fine. The first time I drank a Fae elixir I thought I had died. I assume that this was your first?”
My mind bucked. Fae elixir was known to hurt anyone who wasn’t . . . Fae. My heart began to race, pounding as fear caught me. Maybe she was going to kill me after all.
“Why did you give it to me?”
Her eyes flicked over me. “You don’t know?”
“Don’t know what?”
Her smile was fleeting. “My apologies, I assumed . . . most Dwimmers know their genealogy, but you said your mother died when you were young? Correct?”
Crap, she’d overheard me talking to my table the night before. I tried to think about exactly what I’d said. “Yes, that’s true.”
“And you lived with your grandmother? I assume your father’s mother?”
Would she know if I was lying?
“Were you checking on me?”
Her hands cupped her glass mug. “It is my job to understand each student, to help them grow and learn. You, Hannah, are not like the other children. I can sense that you have Fae blood running through your veins. Perhaps from your father’s line.
But almost certainly from your mother’s.
It flows stronger in women . . . as a general rule. ”
Her words were like hammer blows and even though the room was bright and beautiful it suddenly felt like it was closing around me. This was not the training I was expecting. I reached back and steadied myself on the rounded boulders.
She spread her hands. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but there can be no doubt. It is what makes you unique, even for a member of House Phoenix.”
Fae?
I rocked back on my heels and shook my head. “I don’t want to be . . . unique.”
She ignored me and motioned to the rectangular flat stone in the center of the room. “Your lesson starts now.”
“How could my mother have died from a normal disease if she was part-Fae? Aren’t Fae supposed to be almost eternal?”
Her sigh was heavy. “I will answer this, and then we work. Each morning you may ask me a single question, of any sort, and then you work. Fair?”
It was more than fair. I nodded and held out my hand to shake on it.
Her smile was immediate. Only, she didn’t take my hand, but stepped closer and clasped both my forearms, then touched her forehead to mine. “A deal then.”
A tingle of . . . what could only be magic, only it was magic like I’d never felt before . . . spread from her fingers across my skin, but the same flush seemed to travel her arms as well.
She eyed me for a second, then began speaking briskly. “Fae magic withers if it isn’t used. We are nearly everlasting, as you say, but only once we’ve come into our powers. It is why it is important to ensure that you connect with that piece of yourself. Your mother very likely never did.”
That was the reason I lost my mother? Because no one taught her about her Fae magic?
Shock and grief that I thought were long buried lurched to the surface, like a monster that had been sleeping.
“She went to Neverthorn, why didn’t they teach her?
” Was I shouting? Yup, yup I was. “They . . . you mean . . . they essentially killed her.”
Sage Thalienne shook her head. “On the stone, now.”
“No. Tell me the truth.”
She shrugged and made a sweeping motion with one arm. My body was dragged across the floor and deposited on the stone. “One question a day. Ask me tomorrow. Now we work.”
My arms burned where her fingers had pressed into me, as if I were pushing against something that could hurt me if I didn’t obey – a deal with a Fae was a tricky thing. I should have known better. There was no way I’d miss one of our meetings now. Not a chance.
And she damn well knew it.
Well, played, Thalienne, well played.
I took a deep breath and calmed the anger – easier than calming the anxiety at least. I tapped my fingers against my thighs rapidly, counting each one until I got to forty, then looked up.
Thalienne was watching me, her face and eyes unreadable. “We will be working on silent runes today.”
I blinked and my mind kind of blanked for the second time in as many minutes. “I’m sorry, what kind of runes?”
Was this the wild magic she’d been warned about just last night? Were we seriously about to do that exact thing the Senate had sent both a troop of Runecoats and a Senator to stop her from doing?
I couldn’t decide if she was my hero or an absolute lunatic.
Maybe both.
“Silent runes are specific to Fae hybrids – no other Dwimmer, nor even a pure-blooded Fae, should there be any left, could cast these runes.” She moved to stand on the stone across from me. There were eight or so feet between us. “Watch my hands.”