“Kasia’s here.”
Mia and Colson both looked up as we stepped into the cabin. A board game was laid out between them, the colorful pieces scattered around the table. I fought off a surge of annoyance. I knew we’d set alarm charms around the perimeter, and I knew they could tell it was us coming and not, you know, any of the dozen other baddies who probably wanted to get their hands on us, but couldn’t they be a little more cautious?
“Welcome back!” Miranda bounced up and down in her chair where she’d been observing them playing. “Did you get any food?”
“Were we supposed to?” Asher said, startled.
Miranda’s angel-like face did an amazing transformation into a pouting frown. “All we found is mushy stuff in the closet and it was bleh!”
“We had some oatmeal,” Mia clarified.
“And some small rocks that were also bleh!”
“Expired trail mix,” Mia added.
“Kasia’s here,” I repeated, in case they’d missed that one of the most dangerous people we knew had somehow managed to find us.
Colson waved his hand and the board game neatly packed itself up and returned to its cupboard in the living room. “Miranda, can you please go upst—”
“She needs to stay,” I said.
This earned me a couple confused looks, one from Miranda, whose eyes grew big as dinner plates. She looked between the four of us, then slowly eased herself back into her chair, dress pooling around her like spilled milk. “Me? Why me?”
“That’s what we wanted to ask you,” Asher said as both of us sat with them.
“I don’t think—” Colson said.
“She’s part of this,” Asher said firmly. Colson began to glower, and for once I wasn’t in the mood to indulge him in his newly christened role of Colson: Defender of Helpless Supernatural Beings.
“She stays,” I emphasized, backing Asher up.
“Are you two all right?” Mia said. She looked me over as though I might have a gigantic gaping wound I hadn’t yet revealed to them. “Where was Kasia? Did you have to fight her?”
I quickly filled them in on what we’d discovered, including the part about finding a potential ride via a goblin with connections to a Farcast portal.
“That’s great, though!” Mia said. “We just have to make sure we don’t run into Kasia tomorrow and we’re good to go.”
“It’s the ‘not running into her’ part that’s got me worried,” Asher said.
I scooted forward in my chair, trying not to loom toward Miranda who had been sitting the entire time in awed silence. Getting a renewed look at her this morning, she really did look like the most delicate, innocent thing I’d ever seen. Which would make sense if she was in fact some sort of sacrificial lamb like Asher thought. Even still, as much as I understood why Colson wanted to protect her, she was involved in this. She had been long before any of us could possibly imagine.
“Miranda,” I said gently. “Do you know anything about a woman named Kasia Armani?”
“Why the heck would she—” Colson started, but Asher cut him off with a sharp glance.
“She’s the…bad woman you’re talking about?” Miranda said in a halting voice. “The one you’re all afraid of?”
“Yes,” Mia said.
“I haven’t seen her before, but…” Miranda’s tiny hands bunched the folds of her dress, twisting the fabric so tight I thought it would tear. “She’s not the first one who wanted me. There have been…others. I don’t think they were very nice others...”
“We won’t let anyone else get you,” Colson said fiercely.
“Who were these others?” I said.
Miranda’s tiny shoulders bobbed up and down. “I don’t know. The house I was in, it wasn’t here. Like, here, wherever we are now. I was in another place, dark place. I didn’t see anybody else. Not until the house started moving and some people came. This was so long ago I’d almost forgotten. But the house kept them away. I think it…I think it knew they were bad.”
Her entire body bent forward, like a sapling bowed over with too much snow. I could almost see it then, the weight of loneliness that rested upon her like a dark shroud. I imagined all those years of isolation were bad enough, but even worse was not having any idea why she’d been forced to endure them. As I watched her, I was reminded of Radell and the brief glimpse of weariness he’d shown. With Miranda, I could feel the length of those years of isolation, as though they were drawn out before me as long as the lonely hallways she must have wandered.
Mia gently clasped Miranda’s hand. Miranda’s tiny fingers squeezed back and Mia smiled. “We’re sorry if those memories make you sad. We just need to know a little more. Do you remember anything about when you first arrived in the house? Did anybody take you there?”
Miranda’s face scrunched up tight. “It wasn’t a house, not at first. And I don’t remember—Well…I remember one person.”
“Somebody who came to see you?” Asher said.
Miranda’s face screwed tighter. “It was so long ago. He was…big. And he wore armor, lots of shiny, shiny armor.” Her voice turned soft. “He wasn’t very nice. But he didn’t hurt me. He said I could never leave. He told me that if I did terrible things would happen. He was…” She paused. “He was glowing! I remember that! He glowed.”
All of us shared a look. One of the Fae. That wasn’t exactly a shock.
“I wanted him to stay,” Miranda said. “But he said he couldn’t. He left and then…and then…”
A single tear skated down her cheek and dropped into the folds of her dress. “I was alone. At first it wasn’t so bad. There was so much to see. I wasn’t in the dark as much and many things were being created. But soon every day became longer. I wanted to go out and touch what I was seeing. I wanted so bad for someone to come visit but no one ever did.”
Her hands were starting to shake. Her bottom lip quivered. “I wish I could have slept forever. Whenever I went to sleep things got better. I could get away. I could go wherever I wanted to. I dreamed…I dreamed of places and things I’d never seen or been to. But I wanted to, oh I wanted to so, so badly!”
A rush of tears streamed down her cheeks now. “I don’t know what I did wrong, but I’m sorry! Whatever it was I’m sorry! Just please, don’t make me go back there! I was so alone, and I don’t think I could stand it if I went back!”
Colson’s fist tightened on top of the table. “That’s enough, no more questions.”
“Miranda, I’m sorry you were alone, and we’d never take you back there,” Asher said. “But if you think of anything else—”
Colson started to rise. “I said—”
“Here, here.” Mia scooped Miranda up and held her close. I stood as Colson did. I glared at him.
“We need to talk. Outside. Alone.”
A muscle in Colson’s jaw twitched, but he gave a jerky nod and I followed him out to the back porch. The barren, snow-covered landscape stretched out to the horizon, feeling about as chilly as Colson’s attitude when he faced me. I braced myself for his anger. It’d only been a couple days, but ever since Miranda had joined us the quiet, contemplative guy had gone almost Rambo in his devotion to her.
“Asking her all those questions won’t help us,” Colson said. “All you’re doing is making her remember things that scare her!”
“In case you forgot, what we’re trying to do is figure out the best way to approach this,” I snapped back. I was trying my best to keep my voice under control. “We’re on our own out here, Colson. Lucien can’t save us, nobody from our Academy knows where we are, and we’re trying to take one of the most dangerous beings alive—”
“She’s not a ‘being’—”
“—to the safest place we know. I didn’t see you with us this morning playing dodge-the-psycho.” I let out a breath through my nose, chest heaving. I stabbed my finger toward the kitchen, where I was pretty sure Asher and Mia could still hear, even through the closed door. “What happened to them? When did you stop caring about them?”
Colson turned away with a growl. “Don’t be stupid. I would never stop caring about any of you.”
“You’re getting way too attached. I’m not saying,” I followed up when Colson whipped around to protest, “that we all don’t feel some kind of…parental, maternal, protector-ish feelings for Miranda. I’d gladly fight every acolyte in the world before letting Kasia get her hands on her. But taking Miranda home is a bigger priority than making sure she feels safe. Even if it temporarily makes her feel uncomfortable, we need to know what she does, or anything else about her that might be a threat.”
The muscle in Colson’s jaw was twitching again. His eyes were downcast. They’d always given away the most about what he was thinking, but now they were clouded over, by confusion or frustration, I couldn’t tell.
“I know…I know it seems crazy,” he said. “And I know I’ve been focused on her lately, but that little girl…the way she looks at me, the way she sees me, she doesn’t see me as a monster.”
My jaw dropped. This was coming out of left field. “A monster?”
Colson squinted at me, as though trying to discern if I was being serious or not, whether I’d forgotten what I’d seen on the cliff back home, the darkness that’d overtaken him. I hadn’t. Not at all. But whatever that had been, Colson wasn’t, couldn’t be, a monster.
“Why would you care about what she sees you as?” I said, my voice lowering a shade. “What’s this about?”
Colson took a step back, as though he still couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Then he gestured to himself, as though I might have missed the enormous half-giant boy standing in front of me.
“Notice anything?”
“Nothing that would make me scared. Nothing you have to prove to anyone. Colson,” I took a step closer, almost expecting him to step back as I did so. “We know who you are. Forget how the Academy treated you. Forget about your fam—” I stopped myself before I revealed what Mia had told me about his family disowning him. “You’re our friend. You always will be.”
“Don’t say things you don’t know about.”
I took another step closer. “I’d know if you’d tell me.”
He winced. And I’ll admit the plea sounded hollow, even to my ears. Hadn’t Asher just given me an almost identical appeal just this morning? Who was I to request the secrets of others when I couldn’t even share my own?
“Colson, whatever’s going on, we can help. Please. We won’t see you any different. Mia wouldn’t see you any—”
“Don’t!”
His voice broke through the quiet bubble we’d constructed around us. Colson rubbed at his eyes. “Don’t. Please. If she knew, if she knew…”
“Are you crying?”
Miranda had managed to sneak up on us, soft as a whisper. She scurried over to Colson and tugged at the thick fingers of his dangling hand, bouncing up and down on her toes. “Don’t cry! Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry!”
Colson eventually uncovered his face. His cheeks were wet, but they strained to smile down at her. “See? I’m not crying anymore. You fixed me.”
Miranda beamed back. “I’m so glad! But you were crying before. Is something wrong?” She turned to me, orb-like eyes pleading for me to have some answers. “Did that bad woman come back?”
I crouched down so I was at her level. I was prepared to lay the whole thing out to her, but suddenly my mouth went blank. Whereas before we’d needed her to remember, painful memories and all, adding pain here wouldn’t do any good.
“We…uh, we were just talking, and…”
Miranda waited expectantly. My mouth opened and closed but the words wouldn’t come. It was in this moment I had a glimmer of understanding why my mom hadn’t told me some of the tougher stuff from her past. How would she have said it in a way I’d be able to comprehend?
“The bad woman didn’t come back, Miranda. And Colson and I were just trying to figure some stuff out. That’s what friends do, they help each other figure stuff out.”
Miranda looked between us, then nodded. I was surprised to see that, though she accepted the answer, she still seemed a little wary, like she knew there was more to it.
“Let’s go inside,” Colson said, taking her hand again. Both of them headed back into the kitchen. Colson cast a look over his shoulder. It was hard to read, but I knew that what we’d been talking about wasn’t over yet.
I awakened in the Dark Prince’s castle.
Okay, so awakened was a strong word. I had kinda-sorta-maybe gone looking for the guy. I’d been trying my level best to keep his influence from creeping into my head, but I felt like I had a pretty good grasp on controlling him now. Not when I was actually using his powers, but that was a work in progress. And what with all the craziness of the last couple days, I had a sneaking suspicion (meaning: I knew) the guy had some info he wasn’t sharing.
“It’s about time.”
I blinked, and my vision refocused. I hadn’t ended up in an empty part of the castle, but I hadn’t ended up in the Prince’s usual sitting room of eeriness, either.
It was a gallery, not unlike the kind in the Academy. Landscape paintings and portraits adorned the walls. There were even a couple metal sculptures, though I honestly couldn’t tell what they were. Things with arms bent and twisted out of shape. Metal mouths agape in what looked horrifically like silent screams.
“Please don’t tell me you’re going to start complaining about how nobody ‘gets’ your art,” I said.
The Prince actually smiled. Grimaced, technically, but it was about as close as he could get without leering, or outright sneering, at me. “Cute. It’s not mine.”
I was taken aback. “Then whose is it?”
The Prince stepped suddenly in front of me, his powerful presence overwhelming my senses, putting every instinct I had on high alert. I reached for Valkyrie before I remembered my sword didn’t follow me when I came here.
“Do you know what it’s like being trapped in this accursed place?” The Prince said, voice low and filled with malice.
“That…didn’t answer my question.”
“Day in and day out it’s the same. I can go nowhere. I can do nothing. Nothing except try to convince a silly little girl that she would be better off if she’d let me out.”
His last words were punctuated by great booming sounds, like the entire castle was shaking with the force of his anger. He stared me down but I glared right back. I’d steeled myself for this before I’d come in. He could bluster and threaten all he wanted, but I felt confident he couldn’t do anything to me unless I let him.
And if I let him…?
Strange as it was, his words sounded oddly familiar; hadn’t that been the exact same feeling Miranda had? Trapped, with no way out. A prisoner for a crime he didn’t yet know. A strange feeling twisted in my chest. It took me a second to realize what it was: sympathy.
“So you’re tired of being trapped in my body,” I said.
The Prince swept away with a huff and paced around the statues, hands clasped behind his back.
“I thought you liked the castle?” I went on. “Picked out the curtains and everything.”
“What have you come seeking from me now?” He looked around, as though expecting to see the usual couch he could recline against. When he couldn’t find it, he resigned himself to leaning against the sculpture. “What is it you want?”
“Where did you come from?”
I could see the surprise in his eyes, almost immediately masked by cold indifference. I moved closer, pressing him back now that I’d temporarily thrown him off balance. I’d never seen him this flustered and I wanted to use the opportunity. He’d only ever been a curse to me. A talking curse. A so-handsome-I-was-almost-drooling talking curse. But still a curse.
“Why do you care?” the Prince said. “To you, I’m just your enemy.”
“Well yeah, but you haven’t done much to make me think otherwise.”
“And I never will. All you need to know is that you need me, and—”
“And you need to get out. We’ve gone over this schtick before, remember?”
The Prince’s jaw clenched. “What. Do. You. Want?”
Touchy, touchy.
“You failed to mention that the Cursed One was a child.”
There it was again. Another flicker of surprise, a slight lift in his eyebrows. “You didn’t ask. And…I didn’t know. Despite what you might think, I’m more limited in this accur—lovely body than you are.”
I ground my teeth. “That’s right, keep dissing my appearance. Works wonders on girls you’re trying to charm, I promise.”
The Prince gave me a grin with all teeth. “My tongue might have slipped. Your soul, or spirit, or wherever I’m residing is lovely.”
“She’s a child,” I went on. “And…”
“She?”
I mentally cursed myself. Not that the Dark Prince would be any more of a threat to Miranda than he was to…well, pretty much anyone else in my life, but the less he knew about her, and about everything I was doing, the better. I still wasn’t sure whether he could see what I could, or could hear every thought I had. Until he outright told me he couldn’t, I would keep as many things under wraps as possible.
“We need to stop the Cursed One from…being the Cursed One.”
“I told you all that I know.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
The Prince’s look was so sharp it could have cut me.
I tried a different approach. “I know where you come from. Kasia cursed me with you. Were you, I don’t know, aware when you were with her? You could tell me everything you know about her. We could bring her down and then I could figure out a way to free you!”
The Prince was silent. His unnerving gaze rested on me like a dart he was aiming to throw, making my skin prickle, my hands shake so that I had to clench them.
“I remember nothingness,” the Prince said. His tone was so soft I had to lean in to hear. “Only nothingness and a yearning. For what, I didn’t know, only that it tore through me, tortured me with the feeling that if I didn’t get whatever it was I needed, I’d be forever in torment, that the pain would continue to tear through my…”
His gaze dropped a fraction of an inch. I could see his lips form the words: my soul. That wasn’t possible. Couldn’t be. What kind of curse had Kasia created with a soul?
“And then one day I ended up here, stuck with an insufferable host,” the Prince said sharply. “But the yearning remains the same. I wish to help you achieve all that you want. If you’ll only let me—”
“You’re a good liar, I’ll give you that,” I said. The Prince’s hand paused, halfway to reaching out to me, as though beseeching my help. As if I were that dumb. “I’m sure you just made that entire thing up, but thanks for at least trying. Maybe next time flesh it out a bit. It’ll give you something to do while you’re trapped inside this ‘accursed body’. Meanwhile, I’ll go figure out exactly what Kasia did on my own.”
I expected the Prince to grow angry. The guy wasn’t exactly known for restraint. Instead he smiled wider. “If that’s the case, why don’t you ask her, then?”
I could suddenly feel them: the press of the eyes on me. It wasn’t possible. She couldn’t reach me here. She couldn’t be inside me—
Unless she wasn’t inside me.
I sat up in the real world, my consciousness snapping back to my body. I was already moving before my brain had caught up. In the bedroom Mia and I had taken, the moon cast the furniture in a thin filament of white-blue light, reflecting off the snow outside. There were no sounds in the house. It would have been almost peaceful if I hadn’t been so freaked out.
The pressing weight remained.
I was immediately at the window, knowing I should calm down, but not quite able to do it. We’d put the alarm charms far enough around the cabin that we’d have plenty of warning before anyone approached, but they weren’t going off. The only indication that anything was wrong was me. What if Kasia had somehow managed to connect to me?
What if I was putting my friends in danger?
I grabbed Valkyrie and slipped downstairs on silent feet, cutting through the living room where Asher and Colson were sleeping. The front door barely made a sound as I went through. Panic lit a fire in me as I took off across the front yard and away, not thinking of any direction, not caring, as long as I put as much distance between myself and the others as possible.
No, no, no, no, no. She couldn’t be here. Maybe she was following me. Maybe she had seen me in Oslo and waited until now to make her move. Maybe her tracker hadn’t been on Dragon, but instead on me. Or maybe the tracker had been on the Dark Prince the entire time. It made a sick kind of sense. Put a curse on me, get a free tracking spell thrown into the deal. It was a win-win. I had to separate myself. There was still a chance she hadn’t zeroed in on my location.
My bare feet stung as I scrambled over tufts of grass, slipping on beads of ice and snow. Without my jacket, the wind bit through the thin folds of my shirt. I ran until my throat felt raw. I ran until my chilly muscles begged me to stop. I looked up as I reached the top of a lone hill.
Kasia stood there.
My heart thudded like a drum in my chest. I raised Valkyrie, ready to give it my all, ready to face her down and every acolyte she had with her if I had to—
The clouds parted, and in the moonlight peeking through, if I looked closely, I could see through her.
No. Way.
“Is this some kind of sick dream?” I croaked, throat raw. “You won’t even let me get my beauty rest?”
Kasia smiled. “What do you think?”
The Prince was hammering against the inside of my head like a convict against the bars of his cage. The shift from his aloof attitude to this was so startling that I nearly gasped aloud. I forced myself to stay silent. I couldn’t risk showing any weakness.
Kasia’s smile didn’t waver, her shrewd eyes missing nothing. She knew.
Never looking away from her, I scrunched my numb feet deeper into the snow, feeling the sharp bite shoot up my leg. The pain scared me. A part of me subconsciously knew it: this wasn’t a dream. Not like the last time.
“Yes, we have a connection,” Kasia said. “Forged by the darkness within each of us.”
“That you gave me,” I spat.
Kasia looked slowly around. “It’s strong. You’re close, aren’t you?”
Fear clamped its icy claws on me. I stomped forward and brushed past her, moving closer to the few houses the hill overlooked. I’d run closer to the city. We were surrounded by more than a few places we could be hiding in, even from the direction I’d come.
“What’s the point of this?” I gestured to Kasia’s semi-permeable body. “Are you trying to be buddies? The psychotic pen-pal I never wanted?”
“You haven’t used him lately,” Kasia said. “Such a shame.”
“Maybe for you.”
“He’s growing stronger. And your resolve’s growing weaker.”
“You don’t know anything about my resolve,” I snarled. “I could…I could let him out completely right now and beat him back inside.”
Kasia’s smile grew. “Perhaps.”
I was beginning to shiver, the adrenaline of my flight wearing off. The Prince continued to rail against my mental wall. I gritted my teeth, trying to push him back, but I couldn’t. I was too distracted. Or Kasia was right and he was getting stronger.
“You have something I want,” Kasia said. “Something you can’t understand.”
I chuckled, though there was nothing funny about it. “Hate to break it to you, but I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand. The Cursed One—well, never mind. Let me guess, you want to take it, sacrifice it, get super-ultra strong and destroy the Academy, then dance around the embers, right?”
Kasia stared unnervingly at me.
“Aw, don’t feel bad. I know what the Cursed One does. Believe it or not, we have Masters who actually know a thing or two about old, ancient stuff. Shocking, I know. At least your little cronies tried to attack another Academy besides ours this time. Thinking outside the box, good for you.”
“Give me the Cursed One and I’ll let your friends live.”
A bead of sweat rolled down my back. I pretended to think, though my body was freezing and my mind felt like it was going to split in half. “Nah, I’m good. I’m an all-and-nothing kind of girl. How about you leave us all alone, and I’ll give you nothing?”
My headache was becoming nearly unbearable, like an ice pick was being driven through my skull. Bile rose in my throat.
Kasia raised a hand, and with a sweep of her arm the pain instantly vanished. The Dark Prince fell silent. I could still feel him there, seething, but it was as though a layer of thick cushion had been shoved between us.
“How did you…”
“I said you’d come to me. I have control the likes of which you can’t understand.”
I gaped at her. Then it hit me. Her unusual magic, the level of control over the curse…this was more than dark magic.
“You have a curse inside you, too,” I gasped. “That’s why you can control them.”
“We all have curses. Some are just stronger than others. Give me the Cursed One, Skylar. I’ve been lenient so far. I’ve let my acolytes bumble about, but soon I’ll personally join the fight and you know when that happens nothing will stop me.”
She stepped closer. Even as a vision or a walking dream or whatever, I could imagine the power emanating from her. I could feel the prickle of the eyes on my skin.
But I could feel something else, too. The sensation of a small, warm hand clutching mine. I could see the smile of an innocent caught in the crossfire, clear as anything in my mind.
And now that the white noise of the Prince had been muffled, I could pick out other things in my headspace. The hum of the power rushing beneath my skin. A thin thread of magic running between Kasia and me, connecting us.
I had no clue how long that’d been there. It wasn’t strong, not enough for her to track us, not enough to see my thoughts (I hoped). It was more like an empathetic connection. One that took advantage of my weakened mental state to worm its way in and let her connect to me.
I teased the thread. I couldn’t break it. It was anchored deeper within me—no doubt tied between the Dark Prince and whatever curse she was hauling around herself.
But I wasn’t going to let her keep getting inside my head. She didn’t think I was strong enough to resist him—to resist her.
She had no idea who she was dealing with.
I opened my eyes to find Kasia had moved closer. She didn’t cast a shadow. The buzz of my magic was loud in my ears. I wrapped it around the thread.
“Give me the Cursed One, Skylar,” Kasia said. “That’s all I want. You can’t protect it. You can’t even protect yourself. Give it to me.”
“Sorry,” I said, “the babysitting position’s been filled. But thanks for offering.”
I slammed my magic down on the thread like a trap door, not severing it, but closing off the connection. Kasia’s look of surprise was so worth it as her form flickered and vanished.
Score one for me. Finally.