I sat up with a scream. The cry died as quickly as it came, but for a moment all I saw was darkness and all I felt was the pressure and sting of the knife plunging into me over and over and over again. I tried to reach for my chest to pull it out but my arms were tangled in something.
“Skylar!”
I wrenched at whatever was holding me, but my hands wouldn’t come free. My panic grew. I thrashed harder.
“Skylar!”
Strong arms wrapped themselves around me and I nearly lost it. But instead of smothering me, they pulled me close to something warm. Something with a heartbeat.
Asher.
I realized that I was caught beneath the folds of his jacket. The sleeves had been tucked beneath me. Asher pulled me closer. I looked up at his concerned face.
“You back with me?” he said, voice low.
I couldn’t answer, momentarily lost in his closeness. I took a couple more deep breaths. Then I managed to wiggle one of my arms free and place it atop the part of my chest where Kasia’s knife had pierced me. There was no knife. No Kasia. Just my overactive imagination.
And…Asher holding me.
“I’m good,” I said. “Bad dream.”
Asher’s laugh rumbled in his chest. “No kidding? I never would have guessed with you flailing about and trying to ruin my best jacket.”
I smiled into the folds of the fabric. His arms had relaxed just a bit now that I wasn’t dream-boxing, but he didn’t release me. I was…okay with that. He was warm and smelled good, and his nearness was doing a good job of chasing away the last remnants of the nightmare. Beneath the fabric of his jacket, my fingers twisted together, reveling in the soft texture.
Mia hadn’t stirred through all the commotion. And it was Mia this time. I could see her small frame curled into a tight ball like the world’s largest hedgehog. But beside her…
“Where’s Colson?” I whispered.
“I don’t know,” Asher whispered back.
I twisted right and left to double-check I hadn’t missed him. The sharp fear I’d felt from my dream rose in me again. “You don’t think he—what if someone—”
“No. I heard him get up. Maybe went to the bathroom or something. Or couldn’t sleep.”
I understood that. Unless there was another reason. I watched Asher out of the corner of my eye, but he didn’t seem concerned. To him, his friend wasn’t dealing with anything more than a restless night’s sleep.
“What were you dreaming about?” Asher said.
I shifted so I was sitting up straighter, still in Asher’s arms. I debated telling him about what I’d actually seen. What had I actually seen? Had dream-Kasia come to talk to me in the middle of the night? She couldn’t possibly be real. It must have been nothing but my fears manifesting themselves while I slept.
“It was something stupid,” I finally said. “I was reliving our first fight with the manticore.”
Asher grimaced. “That’s not stupid or any fun to remember. Well, except for the part where I saved your butt from becoming manticore-chow.”
“Excuse me?” I said with mock indignation. “I don’t think I want this jacket anymore.”
I pretended to take it off. Asher gave another soft laugh and wrapped it around me again, tucking the sleeves in tight. “No, please. Consider it my apology to you about earlier.”
“Earlier?”
“When I snapped at you. We were stressed but that’s not an excuse to get mad at my partner.”
“Ah, so you gave me your jacket to butter me up into forgiving you?”
“Is it working?”
I pressed my chin into the collar, feeling the tickle of the threads, smelling the scent of his skin that still lingered there. “Maybe…”
The sensations brought me back to the last time I’d been this close to him, deep in the caverns beneath New York. Asher had been injured during our fight against Kasia, and I’d been patching the open wound on his bare chest. Together, with all our vulnerabilities laid bare, I’d felt a flicker of a connection deeper than just partners. I felt that again now. I felt safe with him. He was someone I could count on more than anyone. Since that time we’d continued to grow closer, as partners, as friends…
I realized I was turned toward him, realized how close his face was to mine and how, if I leaned forward just a little, our lips would be against one another’s and I’d get to stop imagining how they felt and actually know.
Asher’s eyes—those beautiful blue eyes flecked with gold—were staring intently down at me. I saw him tilt his chin down the barest fraction, saw his eyelids begin to close—
Mia let out a dove-like sigh and turned over, snapping a twig in the process. The sound was like a gunshot in the still clearing.
Asher and I jerked back, startled. Asher cleared his throat. I couldn’t tell if it was the reflection of the embers that made his cheeks red, or the fact that we’d nearly kissed. Had we nearly kissed? Was that what we were doing? Or were my emotions toward him so tangled and messed up that I was imagining what I thought I wanted?
It was suddenly too hot. “Thanks for the jacket,” I said, uncurling from Asher’s arms and slipping it off.
“Oh. Yeah. No problem.”
He took it and slipped it back over his shoulder. He cleared his throat again. I moved so that I sat beside him. Not too close, but far enough away that I wouldn’t be tempted to do…whatever it was we might have been about to do.
“There was actually something else in my dream,” I said after a moment’s awkward silence. “I saw Kasia.”
Asher went still. His hands clenched into fists, then relaxed again. “What was she doing?”
“Seeking the Cursed One. I feel like…I feel like she’s close.”
“To it or to us?”
His expression was just as wary as I felt. “Both, I think.”
“We’ll find it first. We just need to find this Fae guy and we’ll be good to go.”
He said it as if stumbling across the Fae was something one did often when they were out walking their dog. Oh sorry, great and powerful ones, nearly tripped over you there!
“And when we find the Cursed One?” I said, dropping my voice.
“What do you mean? We stop it. Piece of cake.”
Piece of cake. Like nothing could be simpler. “Asher…there’s something else you have to know about the Cursed One.” I played with a twig at the edge of the fire, steeling myself. “If we’re going to stop it, we have to kill it.”
Asher was silent. Then he said, “Who told you that?”
“I read about it. Remembered it, actually, from Master Deltroy. Or somebody else. It doesn’t matter. We know what the Cursed One could do if Kasia gets it. We have to kill it to stop it. We can’t let her have that chance.”
Asher continued staring at me, his gaze so forceful it made me squirm. “You remembered that from Master Deltroy?”
My tongue felt heavy as a lead weight. “Yes.”
Asher didn’t stop staring, and in that moment I had a horrible sinking feeling that he knew what I was hiding. Not that he suspected like I know he did, but knew. Asher, who had grown closer to me than almost anybody else, could read me, and right now I was an open book practically screaming LIAR, LIAR, LIAR.
“I see,” Asher said. I waited for him to go on, to press me until I revealed what he knew I wasn’t telling him, but he pulled back. He tossed more sticks into the embers, even though it didn’t need it. “It’s lucky you have such a good memory. So to stop it we have to kill it.”
“I don’t want to,” I said quickly. “If there was another way to do it I would, but I don’t think there is.”
Asher’s expression turned hard. “If it’s evil, or it could give Kasia the power to destroy the Academy, then I think we’ll have to.”
“You mean that?”
“Like you said, you don’t want to. I don’t either. But if it’s between handing it over to Kasia and risking her winning, or sacrificing it, then yeah, I’d say we should. I’d say we have to.” He turned, his eyes beseeching me to agree with him. “Right?”
I didn’t have an answer to that.
“Besides,” Asher straightened up, as though shaking off these uncomfortable thoughts. “Something that can give someone else so much power to do evil can’t be that good to begin with. It must have done something to deserve punishment.” He grimaced. “Just like Calypso, remember?”
I still didn’t agree with that, but I slowly nodded.
“So, where did you really learn that we needed to kill it?”
The tightening in my chest returned, squeezing on my lungs. “I told you, Master Deltro—”
“Skylar, I was there the entire time with Master Deltroy. He didn’t say a single thing about having to kill it.”
“Maybe you missed that part.”
Asher gave me a crooked grin. He tapped his chest. “Still number one in the class, remember? I don’t miss things. Skylar…”
In a single move he’d leaned toward me, one hand brushing back a strand of hair that’d drifted across my eyes. I went still, body humming with his proximity. “You can tell me anything, remember?”
“I…I remember.”
“So, will you?”
Asher waited, watching my face as my thoughts warred back and forth. I wanted to tell him about the Prince, wanted to explode with the secret and let him and Mia and Colson, everyone know. Maybe they could help. Maybe they would be the key that could help me finally get him under control once and for all.
Or maybe they’d just become targets. It was clear he hated anyone who tried to figure out more about him. That included me. The more people I told, the more danger I put them in. I couldn’t do that to anyone.
Especially not Asher.
“I promise I will,” I said. “There’s some…I’m just dealing with some things right now. And the sacrifice stuff…” I gave a nonchalant shrug. “I did some snooping at the Denmark Academy. Didn’t want you to worry. But the rest of it…” The strand of hair had come loose again. I quickly tucked it back myself, afraid of…afraid of what? That Asher would get close again? That I was okay with that? With this?
“I’ll tell you soon, Asher. I promise.” The lie tasted sour on my tongue, but Asher slowly nodded.
“I trust you, Skylar. I trust you.”
I almost wish you didn’t.
The following silence hung like a sheet over us.
Right as something crashed in the forest.
Asher and I were standing in an instant, swords drawn. Mia sat up like a mannequin on a spring.
“Is someone there—are we under attack?”
Colson stumbled into the clearing.
I let out a sigh of relief while my heart simultaneously clenched. It was hard to tell in the low light, but I thought I saw darkness covering his face.
Then he stepped closer to the light and the moment vanished. It was Colson once again, normal as ever.
“Sorry about that,” he said to all of us. “Didn’t mean to startle you.”
“You mean by tromping into our camp while we’re in a dark forest with potential enemies all around? Why on earth would you think that’d startle us?” Asher said, his tone clipped. He sheathed his sword with a sigh. “Where were you?”
“Out looking for where we need to go,” Colson said, too fast for it to be true, like he’d thought of that answer on his way back.
“Really?” Mia said. She still crouched where she’d slept, peering at him with such concern it almost hurt.
“Really,” Colson answered. “Follow me. I think I found something.”
“Something as in the Fae?” I said as we trailed Colson’s enormous bulk through the underbrush. The good thing was he’d practically bulldozed a path for us, making walking a hundred times easier.
“Maybe,” Colson grunted back. “I was just…” he hesitated, “walking, and stumbled across this. Not sure if it’s the Fae, but it’s sparkly and shiny.”
“That’s good,” Mia said uncertainly. “We like sparkly and shiny, don’t we?”
“Except, when it comes to the Fae, sparkly and shiny could mean you’re dead or about to be,” Asher said.
“Gee, make sure you don’t overwhelm us with your optimism,” I said.
Asher grinned. “We were all thinking it.”
So maybe I was. Didn’t mean I had to like it.
I expected to grow more uneasy the deeper we walked into the forest. Instead, my anxiety was replaced with a strange sense of calm, a difference I couldn’t quite place. Everything was…more. It was still the forest as I perceived it, but now there was something underneath, something my awareness was just waking up to. Something that made the trees move the moment I passed. Made me aware of every nocturnal creature, every deer our lights illuminated in the shrouded bramble. We had to cross a partially frozen stream and paused to take a drink. Even the water tasted sweeter. The sound of it cascading over the rocks was like a siren’s song.
“Does anyone else think we might be entering the Fae realm?” I whispered, scared to raise my voice in case someone else was listening.
“If we have then we’re all screwed,” Asher said. He let the rest of the water he’d cupped in his hand run through his fingers.
“I don’t think it’s a realm,” Colson said. His face was scrunched in concentration. He pointed ahead. “But I think it’s coming from there.”
Through a break in the dark outline of trees, I could make out something gargantuan rising above the pines’ lofty tops. Our destination.
“So we’re going to find this Fae and then…ask nicely?” Mia said as we picked up the pace. After the drink my body felt refreshed. It was as though the ground gave us a little push every step, leading us toward the lumpy, shadowy shape ahead.
“That was my plan,” Colson said. “If you guys want to fight them then let me know and I’ll wait outside.”
“When it comes to the Fae, being nice is always a good idea,” Asher said. “If they were at the Academy, I’m sure there’d be an entire class on manners—”
He cut off suddenly, as though remembering something. He glanced surreptitiously back at me. Mia and Colson, too, had gone oddly silent.
“I know about my mom,” I said, hating that something like this had to be brought up now of all times. “I know she had something to do with the Fae not being at the Academy.”
“She never told you what exactly?” Colson said.
“No. And I never asked. I felt like if it was something she wanted me to know, she would have.” The words sounded like a refrain from earlier. I swore I could hear Kasia taunting me. What’s she hiding, I wonder, Skylar? “It’s okay.” I shrugged to let them know it didn’t bother me.
“Your mom didn’t do anything wrong,” Asher said. He stopped to give my arm a gentle squeeze before pulling aside a branch to allow us both to duck under.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because it’s your mom. If anything happened between her and the Fae, I’m sure there was a reason for it.”
“Exactly!” Mia said, piqued. “And honestly, who wants the Fae around? They’re so arrogant and haughty, and way, way too pretty for their own good. Especially the guys.”
“Is that so?” Colson said.
Mia smiled at him. “Jealous?”
Colson “accidentally” brushed one of the branches above her head, causing a small pack of snow to dribble down the back of her shirt. “Absolutely not.”
Mia let out a shriek of cold and delight. She began to pack a snowball when we all froze. We’d stepped out of the last line of trees and emerged…
Well, at a castle. An honest to goodness castle, like one Walt Disney might have plopped here if he’d been an idiot and also hired the world’s worst contractor.
Pockmarked stones sat in teetering piles on the outskirts of the few remaining retaining walls. Only one corner tower was still standing, and ‘standing’ was a stretch; the structure leaned over the rest of the landscape, threatening to fall at any moment. Dead brown vines stretched their fingers through the stonework. Beyond the battlements, through what remained of the gatehouse, I saw what might have been a chapel that still had a roof.
“Think this is it?” Mia finally said, breaking our silence.
“Probably,” Colson said.
As we drew close and the stones obscured the moon, I looked up and panic gripped me. For a moment, I didn’t see the remnants of some long-forgotten castle lost to time. I saw one that was complete and whole, a fortress the Prince lived inside. He was here. He’d escaped the confines of my body and now was inside waiting for me to enter so he could trap me there forever—
“You okay?”
Asher was giving me a troubled look. “See something?”
I smiled. “It’s nothing. Just a little worried is all. If it is the Fae, then we’d better be on our toes.”
“Too late for that,” Colson said. “If it is the Fae, they’ve already got us.”
The optimism of our group was simply stifling.
Colson tested the crumbling stone bridge, putting his full weight on it before declaring it safe. None of us drew our weapons as we crossed. On the outside we appeared calm, but I could tell we were all on edge, as though entering an enemy encampment.
At the far end of the keep was an open door. Inside shone a single lamp.
All of us gave silent nods that we were ready, and as one we approached the door and stepped inside, making sure to keep it open in case running bravely away became necessary. I’d expected more dilapidation inside. Maybe the homey touch of a bat colony or two. Yet this part of the castle appeared lived in. The stone was worn slick beneath my feet. The air was warm, the light inviting.
“Where do you think—” I started.
The door closed behind us. I pivoted, hand instinctively reaching for Valkyrie before I stopped myself. Like Colson said, if the Fae had wanted us dead, we already would be.
“It’s awfully late for travelers,” a man said, his voice as smooth and cool as a mountain stream. “Especially since I have not had any in many a year.”
A man—draped in the soft glow of Fae magic—materialized in front of us. He broke into a smile. “Welcome, children. You must be weary, and we have much to discuss. Please, follow me.”