Calla's Story

Chapter 29

Twenty-Nine

I smile for the remaining fourteen minutes of my final training session. When I get to the old Guild ruins, it’s raining there. I was hot from an hour of arm strengthening exercises, but the air out here has a chill to it. I remove a hoodie from my training bag and pull it on over my head. A wide moss-covered archway stands not too far away. It’s crumbling in places but still intact enough to provide shelter from the rain, so I wait beneath it, leaning against one side.

Chase arrives through a faerie paths doorway. He looks around, then walks toward me with his hands pushed into his coat pockets. He reaches the archway and leans against the opposite side. Droplets of rain cling to his hair, and his eyes appear brighter than usual in the strange light brought on by the rainy weather.

“You look like you’re back to normal, Miss Goldilocks,” he says. “Didn’t I tell you you’d be fine?”

“You saved me,” I say simply. “That’s why I’m fine.”

He looks away for a moment, an indefinable expression on his face.

“You found my mother.”

“I did,” he says, returning his gaze to me.

“How?”

“I’m aware of some of the locations that Amon, the prisoner I assume you were there to see, has been using. One is a house on an estate behind Thistle Orchard in Eilemor. It’s secluded and surrounded by mulberry bushes. That’s where I went first, and, sure enough, there she was. It’s protected, of course, so it took me some time to get in.”

Based on only the words ‘mulberry house,’ it would have been almost impossible for the Guild to find Mom. Chase did it in under a day. “I don’t know how to thank you. Without you, I’d be dead and my mother would still be missing. My family would be broken.”

Chase smiles. “I would say it was luck or chance that I arrived in time to catch you, and that I know the location Amon refers to as the ‘mulberry house,’ but I don’t entirely believe in either luck or chance.”

I’m starting to think I don’t either. No one’s that lucky, are they? “You were there looking for Gaius,” I say.

“Yes. He was taken from Wickedly Inked where he was waiting for me. I keep my day job separate from my night job, so the tattoo shop used to be a safe spot until Saber discovered I work there.”

“And you could track Gaius because of his watch?” I was a little overwhelmed by pain and dizziness by the time Chase started transferring healing magic into me, but I think I remember him saying that.

“Yes. I knew he was at Velazar Prison before the tracking signal disappeared. It reappeared as I got closer to the island, so I knew he must have left. I began circling the area with Jarvis, hoping to see him somewhere on the water or on the island outside the prison, but then the signal disappeared. That’s when I saw you with Saber. I couldn’t get to you because of the protective layer around the island that keeps magic in and out. So, if you think about it, the best thing that could have happened to you was Saber throwing you over the wall.”

“And the reason I fell through the protective layer,” I say as I remember the flash in the air around me, “is because I had no magic.”

“Well, you had very little magic. Probably too little to be detected.”

“How, though? Amon told Gaius to take everything.”

Chase shakes his head. “Gaius can’t have taken everything. If he had, you wouldn’t be here. Taking magic from someone … most people can’t do it, and most people have never seen it done, so they don’t know what it looks like. Most people don’t even know it’s possible. Gaius can do it because that’s his Griffin Ability. The only other way is to use dark magic. Dark spells. If it’s done properly—if every bit of your magic is drained from you—it kills you.”

I feel my eyebrows jump up. A tendril of nausea twists around my stomach. “It kills you?”

“Magic is part of who we are, Calla. We can’t survive without it. Amon obviously doesn’t know that, or he would have known that Gaius didn’t do the job properly.”

“It sure felt like he did the job properly,” I murmur, remembering the sick, hollow feeling as I lay on the prison floor. “Have you found him?”

“No. He wasn’t at the mulberry house. I’ve sent people to check the other locations I know of, but so far no one has found him.”

“I’m sorry.” I feel partly responsible. If Chase hadn’t come to my aid, would he have been able to find Gaius before Marlin disappeared with him?

“There’s no need to be sorry. I will find him.” He pushes a hand through his hair. “Now that you’re no longer at death’s doorstep, can you tell me what happened yesterday? Amon is the dangerous man I was telling you about, the prisoner Saber has been reporting to. He’s planning something, but I haven’t been able to figure out what.”

“I think I can help you out there,” I say, remembering the moment I realized Saber and Marlin were after the same thing. “As strange as it sounds, whatever Amon is planning, it has to do with a vision my mother had decades ago. The vision she was so traumatized by that she fled the Guild.”

“I see.” Chase rubs his chin. “Thank goodness she didn’t wake up before I found her.”

“Yeah.” I tell Chase everything else I remember, in case there’s any information that might mean something to him. He listens intently, his face betraying no emotion except when I tell him about being pinned down so Gaius could take my magic. He seems disturbed, so I move on quickly, glossing over the horror of that ordeal.

“I’m sorry you had to go through that,” he says when I’m finished.

I shrug. “You know what they say about things that don’t kill you, right?”

“They leave you lying semi-conscious in a boat with a knife in your stomach?” he says, a teasing gleam appearing in his eye.

“Yes. I believe that’s exactly what they say.”

A grin curls one side of his mouth up, but then he looks down. “Sorry. I probably shouldn’t joke about something as serious as being stabbed. Or about losing your magic—especially not that.”

“It’s okay,” I tell him, trying to sound nonchalant. “I’m fine now, so you can make light of it as much as you want. It’s better to laugh than get sucked down by despair, right?”

After considering my words for a moment, he says, “Yes. It is. I didn’t look at things that way for a long time, but I think you’re probably right.”

Teasingly, I say, “I’ve been known to be right on occasion.”

The smile he gives me does strange things to my knees. It’s stupid. It’s so stupid. Isn’t this what happened with Zed? I let myself get carried away with ridiculous feelings and the next thing—wham! I found rejection slammed in my face after a spontaneous, one-sided, most-awkward-of-all-time kiss. Would the same thing happen now? Would Chase tell me I’m too young? Would he say he doesn’t think of me like that? With the way he’s currently looking at me …

No. Don’t be silly. Gaius is still missing, your mother is still in an enchanted sleep, and you’ve still got an enormous amount of work to do before your nasty mentor will even think about letting you graduate. This is not the time for romance.

I clear my throat and force my gaze away from his. “Um, there’s something I’m curious about. I know I was fading in and out of consciousness after you caught me, but I definitely remember you saying something strange.”

“What’s that?”

“You told me that I’m supposed to be around for a long time still. That it wasn’t my time to leave the world. You sounded pretty certain. How did you know that?”

“Oh, you know.” He looks away. “It’s just one of those things you tell people when you want to reassure them.”

“Really? That’s all it was?” I thought it sounded like more.

“And …” He removes one hand from a pocket and rubs the back of his neck. “I know things.”

“You know things?”

“Yes.”

I pull my head back slightly and narrow my eyes. “Does this cryptic, mysterious act work for all the girls?”

With a grin that makes him look younger, almost boyish, he says, “Seems to be working for you.”

Flames ignite my cheeks as I attempt a look of indignation. I’d like to stammer out a denial, but I’m pretty certain my blush is already giving me away. I look to the side, shaking my head and trying hard not to laugh.

“I also wanted to tell you something,” he says.

I look back at him as my silly heart begins to soar.

“I’m going away for a week or two. Some business I need to attend to.”

My heart crashes back to the forest floor. “Oh. Are you going to be searching for Gaius?”

“No, I’ve got other people doing that. This is something that was planned a while ago. Something I can’t put off.”

“Oh. Okay. That’s unfortunate.” I twist my hands together. “I was going to ask you to come to—well—it doesn’t matter now.”

“Come to what?”

“My brother’s wedding—union ceremony—whatever you want to call it. He’s actually been married for over seven years now, but he and his wife never got to have the big celebration, so they’re finally doing that. I was going to ask you if, you know, you wanted to go with me. As my date. Not like a date date, but just … to accompany me. But you won’t be here, so don’t worry—”

“I’ll try to be back for it.”

I hesitate, wondering if he’s being serious. “Really?”

“Yes. I’d very much like to go with you. As your date.”

“Oh. Great. Well maybe I’ll see you there.”

“Hopefully.” He smiles again.

I say goodbye, he says goodbye, and then I disappear into the faerie paths with a bounce in my step.