creepy hollow 05 - a faerie's revenge (36 page)

The final river feels like ice against my burning skin. I rise to the surface, gasping against the cold as well as for air. As the rippling waves around me subside, I notice the water glowing faintly. Blue gems stud the rough cave walls, glinting with wintry beauty, and between them, patterns and pictures have been carved into the stone.

“Calla!” I look around and see Chase behind me. The current, stronger in this river than in the others, is already pulling me along. He joins it, swimming with quick, strong strokes toward me. I reach out for him as the current drags me along. I don’t know why, but I feel a need for physical contact with him in the same way I need air. A clasped hand, linked arms, an embrace,
anything
. Something feels incomplete without his touch. He catches my hand, then points past me. “Look, we’re at the mouth already. There’s the monument.”

I turn, never letting go of his hand. Up ahead on the right, just before the cave ends, I see the monument. A round base, motionless stone waves, and the trident rising up. It seems bigger in real life. “Where are Ana and Kobe?” I ask. “They should be there waiting for us.”

“Something doesn’t seem right,” Chase says, pulling at the water to move us forward faster. “Do you see figures lying down beside the monument?”

I squint though the dim bluish light. I see two shapes on the ground, and fear sends another shiver through me. “I … I think so.”

I have to let go of Chase’s hand as we kick against the current and move diagonally toward the shore on the right. Once the water becomes shallow enough to stand, Chase pushes us forward with an extra spurt of magic. I almost stumble and fall over, but he runs across the pebbles toward the monument. “Be careful!” he shouts back to me. He raises his hand in a sweeping motion, and I sense a shield surrounding me. Hopefully he’s done the same for himself.

With no warning, nausea rises within me and spreads a sickening ache across my stomach. Dizziness consumes me. I bend over and lean on my knees, breathing heavily. By some miracle, I don’t fall over. “Chase,” I gasp. “Chase!” His head whips over his shoulder just as everything becomes black.

I find myself floating in a void of nothingness as my body is squeezed and squeezed and
squeezed
, until finally the pressure releases me and I gasp for air as I stagger toward the light. A tangled nighttime forest greets me. Confused, scared and cold, but longer attacked by nausea, I look around. Is this Creepy Hollow? I hear movement behind me and turn as quickly as my remaining dizziness will allow.

Magic. A swirling ball of it hovering above a pair of hands. And beyond that, the face of a person I recognize. Without hesitation, Zed hurls the magic at me.

I throw myself to the side and land behind a tree. Telling myself that I’m
not
dizzy and that I
can
stand up, I scramble to my feet. I raise shield magic around me as I hear Zed’s footsteps crunching over fallen leaves. “Now that was a waste of stunner magic,” he says.

“What the flipping heck, Zed?” I shout. “What did you … did you
summon
me here?” Summoning magic isn’t something we learn. It isn’t natural. It isn’t right. And what happened to me just now definitely didn’t feel right.

“Yes,” Zed says, still walking toward the tree I’m hiding behind. “Difficult spell, but I had help. And you’d be surprised at how straightforward it actually is if you’ve been able to tag the person you want to summon.”

“Tag?” I focus on the illusion of invisibility and drop my mental wall.

“Neck been feeling itchy lately?” Zed asks. He swings around the side of the tree, his arm raised and ready to attack. His brow puckers in confusion when he finds the space behind the tree empty.

I try not to breathe, not to move, as my mind races back to the last time I saw Zed. He tried to kiss me, and his hand was around my neck, pressing tightly as he drew me toward him. He must have done something then. Something I was too shocked to notice because all I cared about was getting him off me.

A shiver raises the hairs on my skin. Being wet and without a jacket on an autumn night isn’t ideal.

“I gave you the amber as well,” Zed says, turning away as his eyes dart across the area around the tree, “but it turned out I couldn’t track that for some reason. Fortunately the tag charm hadn’t worn off yet by the time I did the summoning spell.”

With my dizziness finally gone and adrenaline rushing through my limbs, I jump to the side and run.
Invisible, invisible, invisible,
I remind myself. Sparks fly past me. I guess he can see the leaves my shoes are kicking up. I stop, skid to the side, and leap. Magic shoots me upward. I land on one branch and grasp at another to keep from falling.

“This will be a lot easier if you just give in now,” Zed shouts as turquoise sparks flare past me.

I abandon the illusion and reinforce my shield. “Dammit, Zed, I don’t know what game you’re playing, but you have
exceptionally
bad timing.”

“My timing is perfect,” he says, stalking toward me.

“I was in the middle of something important!”

“Exactly. That was the moment at which I was told to summon you. They didn’t want you and your illusions interfering with their plans.”

“They? Are you … are you working for Amon and Angelica?”

“No.” He stops beneath the tree and starts to gather more magic above his palm. “But I found myself in need of assistance, and so did they. You know what people say: The enemy of my enemy and all that.”

“Zed, NO! That is a
terrible
idea!
They
are the real enemy. They’re the ones who locked us up in the first place. Why would you take their side now?” Part of me knows I should be running. I should be throwing everything I have into an illusion that will give me enough time to open a doorway and flee. But this is
Zed
. He’s been helping me ever since we found ourselves hanging beside one another in cages. We have a friendship that goes back years. There must be a way I can talk him out of whatever he’s about to do.

“Firstly,” he says, “they weren’t the ones who locked us up. Prince Zell was, and everyone admits he was a little crazy. Secondly, I’m not on their side. This was a once-off arrangement that benefited both parties.”

A chill courses down my spine. “What did you have to do for them in exchange?”

“Come on, Calla. You know I can’t tell you that.”

“Is that why I’m here? Have you been told to hand me over to Amon’s men?”

He chuckles. “Nothing like that. My work for them was done after I escaped the Guild.”

Cogs turn in my brain. “You allowed yourself to be caught,” I say softly, “so you could get inside the Guild.”

“Yes.”

My mind runs through the possibilities. Vi said someone escaped the detainment area in the morning. I came across Zed the following afternoon. That means he was on the loose inside the Guild for more than twenty-four hours. What terrible things could he have done in that time? “Zed,” I say carefully as I pump more magic into the invisible shield surrounding me. “Whatever it is that you want with me, you don’t have to do it. What happened to us being
friends
?”

He doesn’t answer. Magic crackles above his palm. Enough to break my shield? Possibly. But then what? He won’t have time to strike me with anything before I get away. We watch each other, his gaze locked on mine, each waiting for the other to make a move.

His hand flashes toward his pocket. I imagine invisibility and jump. I hit the ground and roll to the side. He tosses something, a small dark ball that explodes inches away from my shield. I throw my arm up as my magic shatters and vanishes. Then he raises his arm and slams his magic at me.

* * *

I awake slowly, my thoughts as lethargic as my limbs. I can’t remember where I was when I fell asleep. I try to turn over, but I find my hands pinned behind my back. With a groan and a great deal of effort, I manage to peel one eyelid open. I see Zed—and I remember everything.

“I’m sorry I had to stun you,” he says, “but there’s no way you would have come with me by choice. You haven’t been out for long, though. I didn’t have time to gather a great deal of stunning power after you made me miss with the first shot.” He bends down over my feet. Glittering ropes, the kind that can’t merely be cut free, appear in his hands. “This isn’t personal, Calla,” he tells me as he winds the rope around and between my ankles. “I’ve never had anything against you. I haven’t forgotten our years of friendship, and I actually care about you a lot. That’s why I had to get you out of there.”

I blink and shake my head. “What are you going on about?”

He pulls the final knot tight. “I gave you a chance to see things clearly, but you kept refusing. I didn’t want you to wind up dead from the dragon disease, though, so I found a way to remove you permanently from the Guild.”

My sluggish brain doesn’t want to connect the dots, but they’re too obvious for me to avoid. “
You’re
the one who got me expelled?” The shocking truth wakes my brain up. I wriggle against my bonds and shout, “How could you do that to me?”

“I was
helping
you, Calla.”

“Helping me? You almost got me thrown into prison for murder!”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen. I needed someone to take the fall, and you needed to get out of there. I planted enough evidence that they’d suspect you, but not be able to prove it for certain. You were supposed to be expelled, not charged for murder. I even gave you the cure before I left so you wouldn’t get sick. I
saved
you, Cal.”

“You never gave me the cure.”

“I did. With one of those surveillance devices. They all have their own control enchantments, and I stole one while hiding in the Guild. I made it inject you while you were in a lesson. By the time we danced at the ball and I left that streak of powder on your hand, you were already immune.”

“You … you were …” I shake my head and whisper, “You killed Saskia. And all those other people who wound up sick. How did you turn into this person? This
murderer
?”

He grabs my arms and pulls me closer. “Because it’s about time the Guild started paying for everything they’ve done to the Gifted. For everything they’ve done to
you
and
me
and people just like us. A whole lot more people were supposed to die, in fact. We—the group I told you about, the group I wish I could convince you to join—had planned to send a very clear message, starting with that Starkweather girl and then letting it spread through every Guild. We were then going to stand up and claim what we’d done so that everyone left would know exactly what crimes they were paying for. But
somebody
interfered by running off and finding a cure.”

“Well, if I do nothing else right for the rest of my life, at least I’ll know I successfully
interfered
with the mass killing of thousands of innocent people.”

Zed lets out a long sigh before standing. “My friends are very angry about your interference.”

“Ah, the lovely friends who’ve deluded you into hating the wrong people. So you decided to summon me, tie me up, and deliver me to them?”

“Of course not,” Zed says, looking genuinely upset. “I know you’re not the one who’s at fault here. You thought you were doing the right thing saving everyone.” He lifts his hand, and I feel myself slowly rising from he ground. He walks through the forest, his hand pulling me along by an invisible thread of magic. “I do wish you’d kept your interfering ways to yourself, though, because now we have to do something that’s going to make you very upset.”

I struggle and kick, but it only causes me to roll around in the air. I pull repeatedly at the ropes around my wrists, hoping to loosen them. “You don’t
have
to do anything, Zed.”

“I do. People have to pay for the suffering they caused us.”

I give up my useless struggling, deciding to save my energy. And it’s then that I realize, with chilling clarity, exactly where we are: in a part of Creepy Hollow very close to Ryn’s home. My throat goes dry and shivers run along my skin. “Zed? Where are we going?”

“As I said before, Calla, this doesn’t have anything to do with you. You’re a good person, a sweet girl. But the fact remains that your brother and his wife left me and dozens of other people to be tortured and locked up in a dungeon. Those of us who got away before The Destruction only had to survive the torture. Those who didn’t had to commit atrocious acts they had no control over.”

I don’t bother to answer. I’m already lowering the barrier around my mind and picturing a group of guardians running toward us. They shout at Zell, raising their weapons and firing at him. He falters, but then he shakes his head and laughs. “You and your illusions,” he says, continuing to walk straight through the imaginary arrows and sparks. “I know exactly how you work. Show me whatever you want. I won’t believe any of it.”

“Zed, please,” I say, my voice desperate. “It wasn’t Ryn’s fault. It wasn’t Vi’s fault. They told the Council about Zell’s prisoners as soon as they could.”

“And what did Head Councilor Starkweather and the rest of her Council choose to do? Nothing.
Telling
the Council resulted in nothing. Your brother should have freed us while he was there.”

“But he
couldn’t
get everyone out—”

“Why not? He got you out easily enough.”

“There wasn’t time. Zell was already there. He—”

“There was time to break open another few cages at least. Then we could have fought him and got everyone else out.”

“How?” I twist in the air, trying to get closer to Zed, trying to make him
see sense
. “You all had those metal bands blocking your magic. If Ryn had let you out, Zell would have stunned you and locked you up again.”

“Not all of us. He couldn’t possibly have fought all of us. No, the fact is that your brother only cared about saving you, and because of his selfish decision, the rest of us had to suffer. Gifted people did terrible things they never wanted to do. And what did the Guild say when it was all over? Did they apologize for abandoning us? No. They labeled us ‘dangerous’ and tagged us so we’d never be truly free again. And none of it was our fault!”