Chapter 12 #2
Ophelia felt her own lips quirk. “Yeah, but what now? Sneaking around is one thing, but how are we going to hunt down Chambers? We could’ve already passed him and we’d never know.”
Jena rolled her eyes and flipped up the flap of her bag, rooting around. She pulled out a compass, and Ophelia’s brow quirked.
“You just carry one of those around?”
The witch looked at her like she was an idiot.
“Um, yeah. It’s my spell bag. Now shut up and give me a minute.
” She closed her eyes, and her lips moved, chanting under her breath.
Purple mist swirled over the compass resting on her palm and absorbed into the tarnished brass.
The needle snapped to their right, and Jena’s eyes flicked open. “Okay, I think I got him.”
“You couldn’t do that above ground?”
“No, and I’m pretty sure the reason no one could get a lock on Chambers wasn’t because of the lesser fae’s magic, it’s because of all those crystals.” Jena chewed her lip like something about that really bothered her.
“What is it?”
She shook her head. “I’m just wondering if my mom knew about the door leading here. Some of the stuff in her grimoire makes a lot more sense after seeing this place.”
“Figure it out later, he’s moving,” Ophelia said, watching the needle drift further right.
Jena puffed out her cheeks and nodded. She turned to the pixie perched on a branch, swinging her feet. Three others had joined her, giggling and poking each other. “Can you take us that way?”
The tiny woman frowned and the others went still. “Not-nice.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Ophelia muttered.
“It doesn’t matter,” Jena said. “That’s the way we have to go.”
The pixie shrugged, holding her hands up for them to wait before she zipped off.
“Do you really think they can do this?” Ophelia asked.
Jena looked at her deadpan. “With coconuts all things are possible.”
The pixie exploded back through the greenery. “Come-come-come-come!” she shrilled too loud. The others burst into the air around her and flew off, Jena and Ophelia scrabbling from the bushes to follow. Jena stumbled, and Ophelia grabbed her arm, pulling her along until she found her footing.
“Thanks,” the witch huffed across an expanse of green.
They thudded across a moss-covered bridge, crystal clear water beneath it running over sparkling stones.
A nixie glanced up at them and gasped. One of the pixies circled back and shook her fist at the creature.
The nixie threw her hands up like she didn’t want to deal with it and sank beneath the surface.
Shit. Ophelia swore, not taking much stock in the pixie’s threat or the nixie’s silence.
Sooner or later, they were going to get caught, and she didn’t relish the thought of being in the custody of a bunch of pissed off lesser fae.
Especially not after all the damage the pixies had caused sneaking them in here.
Ahead, the cultivated green space they’d been in faded into something more wild.
Jena’s pace slowed, and she unzipped her heavy parka, her face flushed.
She pressed a hand to the side of her abdomen, grimacing as she looked around at the twisted trees.
Ophelia agreed with the sentiment. By all rights, they shouldn’t be growing underground.
It was creepy, and more of that luminescent algae dripping from their gnarled branches didn’t help.
“You okay?” Ophelia asked, searching the spaces between their trunks, certain she’d seen something back there moving. It sure as hell felt like something was watching them. Place was sketchy as fuck, and the pixies had vanished.
“Just hot. Crampy.” The witch nodded, then shook her head. “And not gonna be able to do that again. Shit.” She bit her lips and grimaced. “Yeah. No sprinting.”
“So, we walk,” Ophelia said, feeling like a target was on her back, though she wasn’t gonna complain about the temperature. Mud squished between her toes, and it was downright balmy. “Wasn’t the pixies helping us track down Chambers part of the deal?”
“Yeah.” Jena shrugged. “But they’re not great at staying focused.” She glanced askance at Ophelia as they continued down the narrow path snaking deeper into the weird woods. “You know, I could just give you the compass and wait here.”
“Okay, so first of all, is here really where you want to wait? And second, umm, no,” Ophelia said, catching movement out of the corner of her eye again. “I don’t care if I have to carry your stupid pregnant ass, you’re not getting out of this after roping me into it.”
The witch sighed. “Okay, fair.” She grimaced, hiking up her bag. “God, I hate this.”
“Aww, thanks. I love spending time with you, too.”
Jena rolled her eyes. “I meant being pregnant.”
“You know they make a pill for that.”
“That’s not happening.” The witch snorted. “Chase wants a big family.” She shrugged. “And it’s only temporary, right?”
“Way to take one for the team.” Shit, there it was again. Something was definitely shadowing them, and the way Jena was ambling along, outrunning whatever it was wasn’t an option.
“Okay, that didn’t come out the way I meant it to,” Jena said, oblivious. “I want a big family, too. It sucked having no one after my mom died. I mean, I had Aggie, but I’d never want any of my kids to go through that. If something happened to me and Chase, at least they’ll have each other.”
Ophelia chewed her lip. “Don’t be so sure,” she muttered, the hair on the nape of her neck prickling. Jena shot her another glance, and Ophelia frowned. “This isn’t gonna end up in the Havers Herald is it?”
“Dude, I said I was sorry.”
Yeah, she knew, but— Ophelia frowned, pretty sure she remembered something about keeping pregnant women calm. Damn it. Clueing her in on whatever was out there was gonna do the opposite of that, and Ophelia didn’t like the way the witch kept rubbing her midsection.
“I was a surprise baby born two decades later than my siblings. My parents didn’t die, they were just assholes.
Long story short, they lost custody, and I ended up in the system.
I had three older brothers that could’ve taken me in and didn’t.
None of them gave two shits about me, then or now.
I can’t remember the last time I saw them, and the last time I saw my parents was when CPS picked me up. They didn’t even come to the hearing.”
Jena sucked in a breath. “That sucks.”
Ophelia shrugged. “It is what it is. I’m just saying don’t bet the farm on blood.”
“Well, hopefully Chase and I aren’t assholes.”
“Oh, you’re definitely assholes,” she said as the wood abruptly ended and they came to a tunnel at the end of the cavern. A much smaller path branched off, running beside the craggy wall.
“Thanks for that.”
“No problem. What’s the compass say?”
Jena glanced at it and then their choices. “Path.”
Of course it was the fucking path. Ophelia sighed. “Let me go first.”
“No arguments here.”
Ophelia glowered over her shoulder and ducked under a slimy branch. “So how far along are you?” she asked, pretty sure that was a valid question. Ghandi, she hated small talk.
“Twenty-eight weeks. God, I don’t understand how any of this is down here. It’s like the lesser fae created a mini-mound beneath Havers. It’s no wonder they don’t want anyone down here. People would freak.”
“Huh.” Nope, didn’t have any idea what any of that meant, aside from it being weird as fuck any of this was underground. Ophelia stepped over a pool of green slime, and it bubbled up, spattering goo down her legs. Ugh, that was foul enough to make her rethink her stance on wearing pants.
“You know what you’re having?” she asked. The splotches that’d hit her burned, slowly searing down her legs, and she scraped at them with her bare foot. Yeah, that wasn’t any better.
“A girl, and no, we haven’t picked a name yet,” Jena muttered, skirting around the pool with a hand to her nose. It stunk like rotten eggs.
Ophelia scanned the trees, everything too still. “Trouble in paradise?”
“No, trouble with Aggie,” Jena huffed, coming to her side as the path widened. “She’s determined that we name the baby after her, and I’m sorry, but Agatha is a horrible name period, never mind for a baby. Why the hell would I do that to my kid?”
“I mean, it’s better than Sway.” Jena shot her a side-eye, and Ophelia shrugged. Whatever. She knew she was right. “Who’s Aggie again?” Ophelia glanced up at a weird harrumphing in the distance.
Jena had heard it, too. “What the hell is that?”
“Not a clue, but we probably don’t want to find out,” Ophelia said, taking the witch’s arm without really thinking about it. “Come on. It probably doesn’t even know we’re here. You were telling me about Aggie?”
“Um, yeah,” Jena said, slowly turning away to keep walking.
“She’s my godmother and raised me after my mom died.
I came back to Havers because she was really sick.
And yeah, okay, she gets these premonitions, so there’s got to be a reason for it, but she never fucking tells me anything, and it drives me crazy!
” Jena shook her head. “Ugh. Sorry. Sore subject.”
Ophelia’s brow quirked. “Apparently. What’s Chase have to say about it?” A branch snapped. Shit, was it getting closer?
“He’s fine with whatever I decide,” she grumbled.
Ophelia snorted. “What a fucking cop-out.”
“I know, right?” she said, flicking a lock of hair from her face.
“Like, there’s such a thing as too much support.
You ever try wearing Spanx for a couple days straight?
Don’t get me wrong, I love him, but that’s Chase lately.
Ever since the dragon thing, he just hovers, and I feel like I can’t breathe. ”
Ophelia frowned, not wanting to delve any further into the subject of controlling men. She’d had enough of that at the Citadel, thank you very little. “Was that really legit? I mean, I saw the story in the papers, but come on—Felix?”