Chapter 38
While the others stared at the two Fables, I slowly turned, heart in my throat, as the door behind us swung wide.
Shadows spilled into the room like a fog, swirling around a dark, robed figure.
I didn’t need to see his face to know who it was – I could feel his energy flickering against mine. Fae energy.
And even though I wasn’t surprised, a little ember of hope inside me died.
Nocta.
Some part of me had wanted Tarquinius to be the villain.
For my father to finally be in the clear.
But it wasn’t our suspiciously immoral, Senate-loving headmaster.
It was my father, standing just a few yards away, his monstrous patchwork minions stepping into the room just behind him, grunting, hissing and growling at us.
I’d seen them before, but that didn’t take the horror out of seeing them again .
. . like the work of a deranged taxidermist, their bodies were constructed of random, mismatched animal parts.
A wave of revulsion rolled through me. Hot on its heels was a renewed fury that burned away the shock of this day.
How could someone do that to another human being? How could my own flesh and blood be so sadistic and twisted and then expect me to trust anything he said?
His Quirk allowed him to do things that shouldn’t be done, Splicing those parts into monsters.
I waited for that sense of fear that I would be judged for being his daughter to overwhelm me. For that deep-rooted worry to wrap around me like a choking, thorny vine. But it never came. Something had happened during my Fae vision quest. Something inside me had shifted.
I knew what I was now.
Who I was.
And my father’s vicious actions did not define me.
“Hello, Harlow.” Nocta reached up to pull back his hood as Typhon wheeled around, both hands raised.
Before a single rune could be cast, a slight figure blurred past me, a feral howl splitting the air. I whipped my head to the right in time to see the healthy version of Fable surging past me in a blind fury, lunging straight for Nocta’s head.
Fucking hell, she was no match for him.
“Fable, no!” Magic buzzed at my fingertips as I fired off a shielding spell to make sure he didn’t kill her. But she dodged behind one of Nocta’s monsters, and I missed.
“Fabes!” Marina shouted, stepping in to fire off a quick rune as two of the nearest monsters lunged for her.
Somehow, in the chaos, Fable managed to get past them and took Nocta down at the knees.
She whipped off a rune that coated her body with electricity with one hand, tearing her knife free of her belt with the other.
Anger rolled off her in waves, and she was like a whirlwind of power and speed, her rage turning her into an assassin before my eyes. Of all my friends, she was not the one I would have put money on to take out Nocta.
Part of me was proud of her, the other part was terrified.
Nocta’s magic pulsed, blasting her a few yards back before she could strike.
“Support her!” I shouted as she rose, wobbling back to her feet, anger still burning hot in her eyes. She was right. We’d had no plan for this, but I hadn’t counted on her coming face-to-face with the man who had killed her brother then losing her fucking mind and going rogue, either.
Now we would have to play the cards we were dealt, and that meant backing her up at any cost.
Typhon was in the thick of it, taking on one of the creatures with one hand even as he extended a massive shield of bluish magic with the other, moving it wherever it was needed as the rest of Nocta’s minions fired off half-assed spells.
The rest of us sent our spells nearly in unison, a perfect mix of defense and offense that kept the monsters at bay, leaving Nocta open for Fable.
And vice versa.
But what should’ve been an easy victory for the strongest Dwimmer who ever lived, who also happened to be part-Fae .
. . was not. He was struggling. As quick as he was, she was even quicker, keeping him on the back foot with her magically enhanced speed.
Every time he tried to counterattack, she was there, finding a new angle to strike that forced him to focus on defense.
Fucking hell.
As crazy as it seemed, it looked like she was going to pull this off. But how? Unless –
The truth hit me like a brick; He wasn’t even trying. Not really.
But . . . why? Why would he let Fable beat him?
One of the franken-critters took a wild swing at her, and there was no more time to think on it.
“I got left!” I shouted, bashing back two of the monsters and praying that the others reacted in time to push back the rest.
Nocta’s hands were occupied with Fable, trying to wrest the knife from her hand, and I saw my opening. I forced out another quick rune, this time aiming a massive door-buster rune straight at Nocta’s chest. There was no way he’d avoid it.
And I thought we had him . . .
Right until he disappeared in a puff of smoke, blinking back into existence a heartbeat later, now standing behind her. A hand wrapped around her neck, using her body as a shield.
“Enough!”
The booming word of command echoed through the chamber, his voice buzzing with magic and power.
And, in that moment, there was nothing any of us could do but obey.
I froze in place like a statue, watching in horror as he lifted his other arm and smashed his forearm into Fable’s exposed neck.
The crack of bone. Her eyes rolled into her head.
She crumpled to the floor, and I let out a guttural scream, a mix of rage and fear surging through my veins.
“No!” The Fae part of me felt like it was trying to claw its way out of my skin, but I wouldn’t be stopped.
Nocta’s magic had us all in a tight hold, but I wasn’t like the others.
His magic would not hold me – I would not let it.
I forced one foot forward, and then the next as his hold on me shattered.
Magic flared from my pores, chaos mine to command.
“You son of a –”
“She’s not dead. And that isn’t your Fable!” Nocta fully yanked back his hood and stared at me, drinking in my face like a man dying of thirst. “Daughter . . . you know this already in your heart. Think it through . . .”
I had already formed the next attack’s rune with my hand, but his words made me hesitate, and I pulled back just short of launching it at him.
I stared down at Fable’s limp form, mind racing.
The pain that wasn’t real from the stone.
The way Fable had thrown me under the bus with the others .
. . the way she’d defended Tarquinius . .
. wanted so badly to come back to Neverthorn .
. . cringed from Zeed. Zeed who could have read her memories.
Killed the Switch who’d come from Tarquinius.
“Talk,” I barked at my father.
“Don’t listen to him, Harlow! He’s a master manipulator.” Typhon struggled against the hold Nocta had on all of them.
“There are several of those in this story, Typhon Moreno, but I am not one of them. I could’ve killed her and every single one of you ten times over by now. Surely, you realize that?”
Nocta’s gaze tripped over each of us, pausing as it caught on a stunned-looking Phyllis for an extra beat before he dragged it away to refocus on me.
“This girl is an impostor, created to deceive you,” Nocta continued. “A servant of Tarquinius, who is your true enemy here.”
“She’s not.” My voice cracked, panic morphing into desperation as I spared a glance at my motionless friend, mind reeling, even as I thought through all the things that had been just a little off, a little bit strange. “You’re lying!”
I raised a hand, magic surging back into my fingertips, but stopped short when a hand dropped on my shoulder.
“Harlow.”
I turned, locking eyes with a wide-eyed, silently crying Zeed.
“I . . . I think he might be telling the truth. Something has been off about her. I noticed it when I got to Heathermoor. At first I thought it was me. That whatever happened to me while I was gone had made me paranoid, but then she wouldn’t even let me touch her, but the Fable in there, weaving .
. . I touched her cheek, Harlow. That is our Fable.
The one who was trapped here, with me . . .”
My mind flashed again to the tragic incident with Fake Phyllis – and the last of the puzzle clicked into place. Fable hadn’t wanted Fake Phyllis to be compelled, because they were working for the same person.
Fable was a Switch.
She hadn’t been afraid Fake Phyllis was going to hurt me back at the cabin in Heathermoor. She’d been afraid that Caterina was going to compel the woman to reveal her secrets . . . afraid it would come out that not only was she a Switch herself, but that Fable was, too.
A dozen little incidents replayed in my mind on a loop:
The communication stones and how I’d felt Fable’s pain, only to see that she was fine.
How she’d tried to get us to leave Heathermoor as soon as we got our hands on the rock from the treasure.
The way she had been terrified to walk through the gates of Heathermoor at the very start and refused to put on Liam’s pendant.
None of it felt like much at the time, but now it all made perfect sense, forming a single, cohesive story. Fable was a Switch. Had been since we left Neverthorn . . . maybe even before that.
And all that time, the real Fable – our Fable – had been here. A prisoner, in agony.
“Ellie,” I called, my voice breaking.
“Yes! I’m going to her now.” She looked at Nocta, who nodded and let her go. He let all of us go.
“Who is she?” I breathed the question, numbness spreading over me.
Nocta’s gaze was fixed on the unconscious figure on the floor. With a flick of his hand, he threw out a rune, the magic slicing through whatever illusion she’d been using to shield her true form. In an instant, Fable’s features melted away, revealing a pretty, regal face I’d never seen before.
“Malena Baumgarten,” Nocta muttered. “The greatest Switch who ever lived, they say.”