Logan
Ryatt and Evander walk out of sight across the bridge connecting the barracks to the main streets of the city. I look out of my old bedroom window at the sunny glare casting shadows over the valley. The shadows move as the clouds dart across the sky toward the castle, toward my wife, who I’d much rather be with right now than here.
I… I don’t have anything to pack. Anything that meant anything to me–my laptop, my fucking glasses–were lost in the shipwreck. I have the clothes on my back, and even those were borrowed from who-knows-where, left on the dresser in Brie’s bedroom by the ghost that haunts her house.
She’s all I have, and it’s not like I can pack her in my duffle bag and take her with me.
I crank open the window to let in some fresh air to cut through the overwhelmingly male smell of the barracks. I turn to my empty duffle bag with a sigh, bracing my hands on either side of it on the bed, and hang my head, but a whoosh of air rushes out behind me, and I turn in time to see a tiny gray bird sweep across the ceiling before falling to the floor.
I wait for the impact, but instead of a confused bird diving to its death, Maeve appears in a burst of crimson light. Her moonstone necklace glows against the fabric of her dark green sweatshirt. She’s wearing clunky sandals and athletic clothes, a far cry from the silken gowns I equate her memory with.
Her hair is piled on top of her head as she pants, wiping sweat from her brow. Her eyes fix on mine as she bends to brace her hands on her knees.
“What are you–”
“Give me a minute,” she pants, breathlessly, sucking in several lungfuls of air before straightening and waving a hand toward the window in dismissal. “I flew–flew around the building like eight times looking for an open window.”
I eye her wearily. Brie mentioned Maeve’s powers of transformation, how she could turn into a little bird, but I hadn’t really thought about it that deeply. “Why don’t you turn yourself into a bigger bird? An eagle, or something? It would probably make flying easier.”
She scowls, still trying to catch her breath. “What do you know about flying?”
“Nothing.”
“Yeah,” she hisses, rolling her eyes. Steely silence settles between us as she glances around the room, pursing her lips as she takes in my meager belongings, the old calendars tacked to the walls. “So, this is where you lived?”
“Whenever I wasn’t on a mission, yeah.” I zip up the empty duffle bag. “Can I help you with something? If you’re looking for your dad, you just missed him.”
“I’m here to see you. To talk to you.”
I freeze then turn to her. “Why?”
She licks her lips. I always forget how young she is. She just turned nineteen. She’s still a kid, honestly. A kid with little real life experience about to be thrust onto a throne she’s not ready for. I know Brie still struggles with separating her life from her sister’s, and I get it. Seeing Maeve, standing face to face with her… she’s still the same little girl I followed into a forest. The same girl who killed a witch and burned the fuck out of me when I came to her aid. I glance at that necklace, rolling my lower lip between my teeth as I wait for her answer.
“What if… what if you didn’t have to travel to Emberfyll by boat? Would you do it?”
“What do you mean? Swim?”
“No, idiot,” she says under her breath, her eyes shining like sea glass in the sun. “You say it’s a veil. A veil like the one around KiloKilo, like the one that used to be around Eastonia.”
“It is.”
She wets her lips again, her eyes locked on mine. “I can break a veil.”
“No,” I breathe, shaking my head.
“But I can. You can’t deny it. I’m a Firestone. I’m a full blooded Firestone witch, Logan.”
“You’re nineteen, Maeve. I don’t know much about Firestones, but I know you don’t come into your power until you’ve had a baby, right? Motherhood trips something in your mind.” I point to my temple before shaking my head, dismissing her. “No–”
“Just hear me out, okay? Look–” She waves at me, trying to get my attention as I turn for the door, which is wide open. “Logan–”
I shut the door and lock it, turning back to her with my arms crossed. “You can’t. Breaking a veil is… incredibly difficult magic. You should ask your grandmother about it.”
“I’m not like her, okay? She had a few drops of Firestone blood in her veins in comparison to what I have. Same with my mother. I’m different. The stars aligned at my birth. I am the compilation of generations of Firestone blood converging. I can do it.”
“Even if you could,” I cut in sharply, “we’d still have to take boats. The journey could take months–”
“Maybe,” she hisses, losing her patience. “Even you don’t know how far away it is, and what if the alexandrite fails, hmm? What if it’s not the same kind of veil as the one around KiloKilo? You’d die. All of your warriors would die–”
“You know this isn’t my idea.”
“And I’m here to offer you another solution.” She holds her hands out in surrender. “I can get you there. Both you and Brie. I can do it. I could take us there tonight. It’s a full moon. My powers are at their height. Will you at least hear me out?”
I stare at the teenager. My sister-in-law. The same young woman who made it possible for me and her sister to elope last night. The same young woman who spirited dozens of miles away to pluck us from the ocean.
“Fine. What’s your plan?”
* * *
Brie fidgets beside me in a dark, hollow space on the backside of the castle. It’s well after midnight. Moonlight drifts through windows that spiral above us toward the ceiling of what must be another tower, like Brie’s room. But it’s cold here. It shouldn’t be. It was a hot day and an even hotter evening. The family gathered here had dinner inside in the AC instead of out on the deck, where I had to sit next to my mate like her sister hadn’t just offered the lifeline of a lifetime.
Brie said yes to Maeve’s asinine plot immediately, and I’ve learned over the last month or so to keep my fucking mouth shut when it comes to these sisters and their schemes.
But watching Maeve dart around the room, moving dusty chairs and discarded end tables against the only door into this creepy, shadowed space makes me wonder if she can, in fact, get us to Emberfyll with only her magic.
She left out a very important piece of information, though.
“You are crazy,” Brie hisses as Maeve thrusts a thermos into her hands.
“Just drink it, Brie. Every drop. You have to.”
“You’re going to open a portal?!” Brie clutches the thermos full of that strange, bitter tea her family uses on the members who don’t have the power to jump from one place to the other.
“Like it’s hard?!” Maeve hisses, whisper fighting in an effort to not get caught.
I glance around, wondering if the spirit of the house is going to jump in and end this, but the air remains still. My eyes land on the sheet of dark velvet covering something tall and ominous in the center of the room, something flooding the area with a dark, twisting kind of energy that makes my skin crawl.
Something I figure Maeve is planning on using in her plan, which is now a lot more complicated than it was before.
“It’s simple. It really is,” she tries to explain. Brie scowls but pops the lid of the thermos and drinks deeply, gags, and continues chugging the lukewarm liquid. “I’m going to use the mirror. I’m going to syphon its powers to strengthen my own. I know what the shore of Tarsian looks like. I know what the sea looks like. I can get us there–”
“You can get us into the water–” Brie tries to argue, but Maeve cuts her off with a wave of her hand.
“Logan made a blood oath to me. We’re bound by that. I’ll be using that bond, that oath, to get us to Emberfyll. He has memories of not only Emberfyll but the seas coming out of it, of passing through the veil. I have everything I need. Well, almost.” Her voice drops at the end as she grimaces.
Brie sucks down the rest of the tea, fighting for her life as she sucks in a breath, then asks, “What else? What else do you need?” But the look on Maeve’s face must tell Brie exactly what Maeve needs to complete her insane plan because Brie yelps, shaking her head. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’ll work, and you know it.”
“Maeve, you can’t. That’s–that’s the darkest kind of magic–”
“What are you talking about?” I ask the sisters. I’m losing my patience and will power with each passing second. I could be upstairs in bed with Brie right now, enjoying the precious few nights we have together, but instead I’m standing here, listening to them whisper fight.
“She’s talking about The Book of Whispers.” Brie snarls, her voice flashing with fury.
Maeve’s nostrils flare. “It will work. You know it will.”
“It’ll take pieces of your soul–”
“It won’t. Richard of the Arcane Umbra wasn’t a witch. He didn’t have any power to counteract the book's power, but I do. The book was made for someone like me, someone with the ability to read and cast spells without having to give anything back to it in return.”
“Even so, how are you going to get it? It’s not here–”
“Misty has it.”
“She has the copy. The Book of Whispers was destroyed!”
“I can still say the spell. I can open a portal just like Richard did. I’m going to do it, and I’m going to use the mirror as a base for the spell. It’ll be like jumping, Brie. We can travel thousands of miles that way just by stepping through the glass!”
I run my hand over my face as they fight over the logistics of it, but Brie’s voice is starting to slur as the herbs take hold, and she stumbles. I catch her as her body starts to relax.
She pants, “You’re going to kill yourself, Maeve. You’re not powerful enough for this.”
Maeve stares at her sister, her chest heaving as she inhales sharply. “I am powerful enough. I’m going to prove it to you. Do you want to sit around for months while he’s gone? And you–” She turns to me, pointing an accusatory finger at my chest. “Do you want to be separated from her? Risking death if the stones don’t work?”
I don’t. I really don’t.
Brie shakes her head but continues to slump in my arms like she’s losing the ability to stand upright.
“How much of the herbs did you give her?” I ask, concern washing through my system.
“Enough to keep her comfortable,” Maeve answers matter-of-factly, tilting her chin up to me. “And a little extra.”
I sneer, but Brie can barely keep her head up, and Maeve takes that as a win.
“I need you both to trust me. I can get us there. We’ll reach Emberfyll in a matter of minutes. Once we’re there, Logan can do whatever he needs to do while I work on bringing down the veil. The family will realize we’re gone and likely figure out exactly what I did in a matter of hours, and the whole strength of our families armies will be heading to Emberfyll to fetch us within the day. By the time they arrive, I’ll have destroyed the veil around Emberfyll, and the two of you can live happily ever after, or whatever. Or, we play the long game and spend months waiting to hear if Logan died or not.”
Maeve taps her foot, checking the dainty wrist watch on her arm.
Before either of us can argue, she continues, “It’s eight o’clock in Crescent Falls now. Misty’s here in Veiled Valley, which is one less thing to worry about.”
Brie exhales, nodding, her head pressing into my chest.
“I can do this,” Maeve concludes, nodding, like she’s still trying to convince herself she can, in fact, do this.
“Your powers will be completely spent when, and if, we reach Emberfyll,” I tell her, my voice steady despite the nerves making it almost impossible to focus. “I’m not sure what we’ll find there. There wasn’t much left when my parents abandoned the place and took their pack with them. If I’m remembering correctly, a few people chose to stay. My uncle was still raining havoc. If he’s alive, we could be walking into a war zone with only me to protect the two of you.”
Brie nods against my chest like she agrees, but I feel her starting to slip away as the herbs take control, rendering her mind and body useless.
“We’ll deal with it. You made a vow to me to keep her safe.”
“I mean to keep it.”
She looks at Brie, saying, “She’ll perk back up in a few minutes. The drowsiness is a side effect of the herbs, but it doesn’t last long. I’ll be back in ten minutes at the most. Stay here. Do not leave this room.”
With that, Maeve disappears in a soft shimmer of crimson light.