Authors: Quinn Loftis
“Maybe for you
, dear sister, but for me it is proof of my superiority to you. Are you scared you will not be able to make it in time?”
Peri took another step forward and her frown deepened.
Ignoring her sisters question she asked, “What have you gotten yourself wrapped up in this time? What magic is it that I sense in you? It is familiar to me, and yet I cannot place it.” Peri’s head shifted side to side as if a different angle might suddenly shout the answer at her.
“You needn’t worry about me. What you need to worry about
are the two healers in my possession. I propose a little wager, Sweet Sister. Solve the riddle, make it to the destination in time, and you can have them. But if you fail…I will not only keep these healers but you will give me the others as well.”
Peri’s face tightened as she glared at
Lorelle. “Why would I bargain with the lives of the ones I know are safe?”
“Because if you do not then the ones in my grasp will surely perish in a most horrific way. Can you live with that, Perizada?”
“You’re bluffing. You won’t kill them. You need the healers for something, I’m just not sure what.
Lorelle threw her head back and let out a throaty laugh. “I’ve already taken everything I need from them. They are useless to me now.” Lorelle lied, knowing that her sister wouldn’t be able to determine the truth in her dream. Lorelle
watched as her sister struggled with her need to protect the healers in her care and the need to save the ones that would otherwise die at the hands of her sister.
“What is the time frame?” Peri finally asked through clenched teeth.
“You have exactly twenty four hours from the minute I finish telling you the riddle. Are you ready, perfect Peri? Are you prepared to fail and have to look into the eyes of the healers who have trusted you to protect them and tell them you bargained their lives and lost?”
“Give me the damn riddle and then be gone!” Peri growled.
“Pushy, pushy. Fine, listen closely, I will only say it once.
Pitter, patter, pitter patter rain drops fall,
The bitter wind bites down to the marrow.
Little bird,
little bird don’t you fall,
You won’t come back a little sparrow.
It aches, It aches, hunger and thirst,
Glisten, glitter to the bistro
they go,
Tick tock, tick tock, who’ll be first,
Dusk sets, dawn rises, can’t be slow.”
Volcan pulled
Lorelle’s consciousness from Peri’s mind so quickly it nearly made her physical body sick. Her eye’s opened as he rushed from her body nearly dropping her on her knees. She had to grab the table that the healer still laid on to hold herself up.
“What sort of riddle was that?” Volcan barked.
Lorelle laughed as she told a frightened looking Jewel to heal her friend. Then she answered him. “One that my sister will understand, if she is able to figure it out,” she paused, “with so little time to spare in searching for the healer. People, even high fae, don’t think quite as reasonably when they are rushed, especially when lives they are charged with are on the line.”
She felt Volcan’s pleasure at her explanation and
she nearly vomited.
“Maybe I judged you too quickly
, Lorelle. Maybe, just maybe, there is hope for you yet.”
Lorelle
closed her eyes as she tried to push out the last of the lingering darkness Volcan left behind, all the while thinking,
I’m not sure I want that sort of hope.
That, however, wasn’t her final thought. Her final thought as she flashed the nearly dead healer back into the dark forest was that it was too late. It was too late the minute she sliced Kara Jones open and tasted her blood.
“You would think
, as I did, that century old fae would be unaffected by the pop culture of this time. You would think, as I did, that century old fae had a high standard for which they set in regards to every area of their very long life. You would think that, and you would be wrong.” ~Sally
“What is it?” Lucian asked sitting up in bed nearly as quickly as Peri had.
Peri held out her hand and a pen and paper materialized. She began writing furiously, the scratching of the pen the only sound in the room. Lucian waited, ever patient for her. He could feel her distress, sense that something had happened while she was sleeping but what he did not know. Finally, several seconds later she looked over at him. Her eye blazed with an anger that only came from one thing―betrayal.
“Tell me,” he said softly but firm enough that it was clearly still a command.
“There is no time for me to say it twice. I need you to gather everyone except the new healers and bring them here.”
He wanted to argue, wanted her to trust him enough to share with him and only him, but he recognized that for the insecurity that it was. He would not let something that had no merit come between them.
“I do trust you,” Peri told him as she laid her hand over his larger one that was resting, possessively, on her thigh. “And I need you to trust me.”
He was up and out of their door with no more than the sound of a
gentle wind as he moved with the swift and quiet way of his wolf. Peri stared at the paper in her lap. The hastily scrawled words glared back at her, daring her to try, taunting her to play her sister’s game and run the risk of looking like the fool she said she was. How had it come to this? Once again a riddle stood between her and the life of another, although she wasn’t even sure this healer really even existed. But could she take that risk? “What if, what if, what if,” she chanted to herself and then added, “What if’s never added a single breath to the one baring the question.”
Her attention was drawn away from the riddle in her lap and she looked up to see the room filling with what she had come to think of, to herself of course, as the Special Seven. She figured that covered a wide range of meanings that applied in some way to each one.
Jen, the queen of giving ridiculous titles, would be proud.
Lucian took his seat next to her while the others either took to the floor or perched on anything capable of holding them up. Their groggy eyed faces, lined with sheet indentions and impressive bed heads were suddenly alert as her words penetrated the fog of sleep.
“I have spoken with Lorelle,”
“How?”
“What?”
“When?”
The barrage of questions flew at her, each in a different pitch and emotion. Peri started to quiet them down but she didn’t have to. Lucian let out a low growl, deep and rich, one so similar to another Alpha that could command a room with the simple act. Everyone went still and quiet.
“Please allow her to finish completely before you ask your questions. It will slow things down if you do not,” Lucian said
in the same deceivingly polite tone that his brother did. Deceiving because usually, for his brother Vasile, the calmer the tone, the deadlier his anger had become.
Peri continued as though she hadn’t been interrup
ted. “She came to me in a dreamscape, don’t ask what it is, there is no time to explain it. While in the dreamscape she proposed a challenge. She gave me a riddle and a time frame. If I figure out the riddle and make it to the destination in time, then she will release the two healers in her possession. If I fail to make it in the time frame give, not only will she keep the healers, she is demanding I give up the ones in my care. I sensed very dark magic in her and around her, leading me to believe that whoever is the bearer of such magic is her puppet master. If it is who I think it is, then there is a real possibility that she will not follow through with her end of the bargain. That said, I have twenty four hours to decipher a riddle she recited to me which is supposed to disclose the location of the girls.” She paused and looked at their utterly shocked faces and let out a deep breath. “Go.” She said giving them permission to commence rapid fire question time. In hindsight Peri realized that might not have been the best way to handle it.
“Enough,” Lucian commanded pushing an abundance of his power into the room so that all of the wolves were on their knees and the fae’s
eyes bore holes into the floor. “Sally, you begin,” he told her coolly.
Sally cleared her throat before speaking. “Do you think we should take her seriously?
What if it’s just a ploy to distract us, or what if they, I’m sorry to say it, are already dead and it’s just a trap?”
Peri shrugged. “I honestly don’t know. My sister has become quite the deceiver and while I have my doubts
about her motives I would rather be cautious than run the risk of leaving two girls in the hands of Lorelle and whoever else is yanking her chain if there is a possibility we can save them.”
Surprisingly there was a moment of silence before Adam finally spoke up. “So what’s the riddle? We only have twenty four hours to solve it and find the girl
s.”
Peri nodded. “Okay then.” She looked down at the paper in her lap where her hastily scrawled writing stared back up at her. “Remember it’s a location that we are looking for.” Then she read.
“
Pitter, patter, pitter patter rain drops fall,
The bitter wind bites down to the marrow.
Little bird, little bird don’t you fall,
You won’t come back a little sparrow.
It aches, It aches, hunger and thirst,
Glisten, glitter to the bistro they go,
Tick tock, tick tock, who’ll be first,
Dusk sets, dawn rises can’t be slow.”
“Don’t every one speak up all at once,” Peri added dryly when she finished reading and looked up at the blank faces staring back at her.
“I need a pen and paper,” Sally said suddenly snapping her fingers as if they would suddenly appear in her hand. She glared at the high fae when Peri snapped her fingers and a stack of paper and pens
did
appear on the floor. “Must be nice,” Sally muttered as she snatched up a piece of paper and a pen.
Peri shot the healer a smirk before looking back down at the riddle before her.
Silently, one by one, the group picked up paper and pen and began writing down the riddle, going over in their minds what it could possibly mean.
“So it’s a place,” Elle said as she tapped her lips with her pen and stared at the words she had just written. “Well would the pitter, patter, pitter patter, bit indicate that it’s a place where it rains a lot?”
“Bloody hell, that narrows it down to a few hundred countries, not to mention cities,” Costin growled.
“We have to start somewhere,” Crina added.
“Did she specify if it was in the U.S., since that is where she obtained them in the first place?” Sorin asked.
“Nope, why on earth would she give us a hint like that?” Peri answered snidely.
“Okay if the pitter, patter is rain, then the bitter wind bites down to the marrow must mean it’s also cold in this place and windy,” Adam suggested.
“What the crap does a little bird have to do with a place?” Sally looked up at Peri. “This isn’t straight forward, she’s making a play on something Peri. Little bird and not returning as a sparrow, that means something, it’s a reference to something but I don’t think it’s the place necessarily.”
“What do you mean?” Peri asked her eyes narrowed as her ears perked up at the healer’s words.
“I’m not totally sure yet,” Sally admitted. “But with references like the little bird, the glitter and glistening and the bistro, I mean seriously what would those have to do with a place?
It seems more like she is referencing something that would point you in the direction but not necessarily describe the place itself.”
Once again the room dropped into silence, the only sound was the scratching of pens and the occasional growl of frustration.
A knock on the door several hours later had a few heads popping up as Peri absently said, “Enter.” She didn’t look up from the paper she and Lucian stared at to acknowledge whoever had knocked.
“Is this some secret meeting that we aren’t supposed to know anything about?” The sound of Stella’s voice breaking the ominous silence had everyone in the room finally looking away from the words that were frustrating them.
Not only was Stella standing there looking curious but the other two healers were right behind her. Anna attempted to look around her shoulder while Heather’s head was tilted slightly obviously listening to every detail.
“If it
was secret, then we did an awful piss poor job of keeping it that way, don’t you think? And being as old as I am there are very few things I do piss poor anymore.” Peri rolled her eyes as she reached up and stretched her arms and back. She was stiff from being hunched over for so long and the much needed stretch seemed to help wake her up a tad. “If you insist on standing there in the doorway, please do come in and make yourself useful,” Peri told the three healers who stood staring at them curiously.
The three girls pushed into the room and walked around the sitting bodies. Anna helped to guide Heather around everyone until they reached the bed where Peri and Lucian sat. As they sat down on the floor Anna looked up at Peri. “So how can we help?”
Elle chuckled. “Something seriously has to be wrong with them. They are taking this all way to well.”
Peri ignored her comrade and explained what she had told the rest of the group hours earlier. She then read the riddle to them, pointed out the pen and paper and told them to get to it. They didn’t have to be told twice.
Heather mulled the words of the riddle over and over in her mind. She repeated them under her breath committing them to memory as she tried to work through what the meaning was behind them. Sally had mentioned, after Peri had filled them in, that she thought the riddle was eluding to a location by referencing something else. So Heather focused her attention on the things in the riddle that weren’t so obvious. She considered each line, breaking them down in her mind, and attempting to give meaning to them in any way that might make sense. It was going to be a long day she decided, as the murmurs around her continued.
∞
Jewel watched Kara unblinkingly as she sat propped up against a tree in the dark forest where once again Lorelle had basically tossed them. She stared at her unconscious friend, willing her to continue each labored breath that rattled through her weak lungs. She had lost a lot of blood in the little ploy executed by Lorelle and her evil master. Jewel gave thanks to whatever god or goddess she needed to for allowing the magic in her to do what it was obviously intended to do, and that was to heal. She would not have been able to forgive herself if she had had to watch Kara die on that table at the hands of a vile shadow person and an evil fae with an inferiority complex.
For so many years she had read book after book of fairy tales, fantasy, sci-fi and the like about evil and the good that conquers it but never in a million years did it prepare her to face it. Even after her mother
’s many adamant attempts to convince her that there was so much more to the world they lived in, she could never have imagined someone like Lorelle or something as horrible as watching Kara’s blood flow from the huge cuts in her arms and the horrific designs now carved on her skin. As she stared at her new friend and the symbols on her face and neck she considered this new ability to heal and slowly made her way to Kara’s side.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t do more
, Kara,” she whispered. “I’m sorry I’m not brave or bold like you and didn’t fight back. But, I’m going to try something now, something that might make up for a tiny sliver of my failure.” She took Kara’s hand in hers and tried not to shiver at the cool temperature of her skin or the clammy feel against her own flesh. She closed her eyes and pictured the power that she could feel inside of her own body swirling around like ribbons of gold behind her closed lids. Her body felt warm as she attempted to once again control it and push it towards its intended goal. Jewel thought about each symbol and the location and one by one she pushed her healing power to them. She watched in her mind’s eye as the cells regenerated and the tissue healed and slowly began to close. Sweat formed on her brow as she attempted to minimize the scarring as much as possible. Jewel attempted to remove as much of the symbol as she could in hopes that the distorted pieces would keep the evil from being able to use Kara.
When she opened her eyes and started to pull her hand away she sucked in a breath as Kara’s hand clenched around her own preventing her from severing the bond. Jewel looked at Kara’s skin and wanted to weep as she saw that it had worked. There was a small amount of scarring in some places but for the most part the symbols were gone, though she knew the damage did not only lay in Kara’s flesh. It was also branded forever in her heart. The pain she endured at
Lorelle’s cruelty would not be easily forgotten. Jewel wished desperately that she could take that pain away, but she knew the only healing that would work for that was time.