Secrets of the Deep (46 page)

“Now you’re sounding paranoid.”

Archie shuddered. “I don’t know—I hate the thought of anybody, good or evil, being able to just waltz into my brain and say hello whenever they feel like it.”

“Are you done venting yet?”

“Not nearly!” Archie grumbled. “I haven’t even touched upon the threat from Davy Jones, or this Wyvern person seeking Atlantean artifacts— Hey!” he interrupted himself suddenly as inspiration dawned. “That’s it! Yes! I need to work.”

Nixie cocked a brow.

He turned to her in desperation. “Please, Nix, take the orb out of hiding. Let me tinker with it again for a while. I know the demonstration was a bit of a disaster and that we said none of us would touch it anymore. But maybe I can still fix it. Fine-tune a few things.”

She frowned. “I don’t know, Archie. We hid it for a reason.”

“
Please?!
I just need something to keep my hands busy for a while. Working on it would make me feel so much better. Otherwise all I’m going to do is ruminate and brood. You can see I’m all at sixes and sevens. Please, Nix? For me?”

She tilted her head, frowning, but he could see it was hard for her to deny him.

“You know as well as I do this artifact needs more study,” he urged in a low tone. “Don’t worry; I won’t let the others see it. Nobody needs to know. Don’t you trust me, Nixella?”

“Of course I do, more than anybody in the world.”

“Well then?” he asked.

She rolled her eyes, but relented with a sigh. “Fine. Anything for you, Arch. But don’t tell Maddox I let you have it.”

“You’re a peach!” He gave her a brief bear hug. “Mum’s the word, my dear.”

She shoved him away with a halfhearted scowl, but Archie grinned, relief flooding into him. He felt better already just thinking about having some grand mystery to tackle for a while.

“So, where’d you hide it?” he asked eagerly.

“Come on.” She nodded toward the stairs, and he followed her up to one of the villa’s unused bedrooms, where they crossed to the closet.

She had not told anyone where she had hidden the orb, but he knew the girls had concealed it in Dani’s hatbox, which was hidden somewhere under a cloak of invisibility.

With a furtive glance over her shoulder, Nixie opened the closet door and took out her wand. Murmuring a command, she flicked her wand and made the hatbox visible. When it appeared in the back of the closet, she reached down and picked it up.

Archie watched in relief. He knew he would never have found it on his own, but she’d taken pity on him.

“You know, Arch, I’ve been thinking.”

“You do that a lot,” he said as she carried the hatbox over to the bed and opened the lid. As far as he could see, there was nothing inside. But that was part of the trick.

Nixie turned to him. “Prince Janos said the djinni came back from their mission claiming the Dark Druids had captured a Light Being, right?”

“Righty-ho.”

“But Her Ladyship specifically told Jake back at Merlin Hall that that technology had been lost a long time ago, which he told the rest of us.”

“Yes?” Archie prompted, nodding in agreement, and trying to be patient as he eyed the seemingly empty hatbox.

“Hold on…let me get your toy for you.” Absently, Nixie waved her wand once again over the hatbox. With a flick of her wrist and another mumbled command, she caused the orb to shimmer into view.

She picked it up and handed it to him with a rueful smile, but her dark eyes were troubled.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” He took it gratefully. “As you were saying?”

“Well, I just wonder if the Dark Druids’ newfound ability to capture an angel could have anything to do with this treasure trove of Atlantean devices that greasy little archaeologist told us about. After all, if Atlantean science is based on fallen angel technology, it would certainly seem to be related.”

“Hmm,” said Archie.

Nixie gazed at him intently. “And Dr. Giannopoulos said his patron took a few pieces of the treasure trove back to England with him. Who knows what those other gadgets can do? I can’t help wondering after hearing this news from Janos about the angel being captured if Wyvern could be one of the Dark Druids, or working for them. I wish we would’ve thought to ask him, but everyone was out of sorts after hearing about Derek Stone’s capture.”

Archie considered this with a troubled frown. “Hmm, yes, well, I suppose it could be related. Anything’s possible, of course…but look on the bright side. At least the rest of the trove won’t do them any good now. The whole cliffside came down in that avalanche. You were still half unconscious when that happened, but I assure you, whatever might’ve been hidden inside those caves is now buried under tons of rock—and probably smashed beyond repair.”

“Honestly,” she said as she closed the hatbox again and put it back in the closet, “don’t you think it’s time we told your aunt about the orb and everything that’s been going on?”

“No!” Archie exclaimed, taken aback.

Nixie looked startled by his vehement tone.

He shook his head with a dire look. “After the full moon, fine. But not now! Egads.”

“Why not?”

“We need to focus on one disaster at a time, Nix. Let’s make sure we’re clear of Davy Jones first. Plus…” He hesitated, trying to think of how to say it tactfully, even though Nixie didn’t care much about tact.

“What?” she demanded.

“Well, at the moment, Aunt Ramona is already cross at us all for being out in the middle of the night with Jake. To tell her now, at this late date, all that we’ve been keeping from her? That we lied about going to Malta? That Jake got attacked last night? We’ll be grounded for the rest of our lives!”

“Yes, but—”

“Nix,” he said with an earnest stare. “If she’s angry enough, she could send you away. And Maddox. And even Dani. She could separate us all. I don’t want to be parted from you.”

Her expression instantly sobered. “Oh…I hadn’t thought of that.”

Archie tapped his temple with a fingertip. “Lucky for you lot, I think of everything. But right now, my poor brain is overloaded, so can we please stop talking about this? I need to work so I can feel normal again,
capisce
?”

She gave him a droll look for using the Italian word. “Very well. But the truth’s got to come out sometime, Arch.”

“I agree. But for now, let’s just get through this day—and,” he added grimly, “the full moon tonight.”

# # #

Meanwhile, down on the beach, Isabelle was almost as out of sorts as her brother was up in the house. But instead of wrestling with confusion, she was burdened by a heavy sense of responsibility—and a dash of guilt.

Miss Helena had specifically left her and Maddox in charge, as the two eldest. They had a duty to make sure the younger kids were all right. But the two of them were barely even speaking—and deep down, Isabelle felt like that was her fault.

The truth was, she had been
unwilling
to be friends with Maddox because she had hoped for something more.

Was that really fair to him, though?

If he didn’t feel that way about her, then that was that. When was she going to accept it?

He couldn’t help how he felt. Was she, of all people, so selfish that she couldn’t take a little disappointment? She’d been sulking about his rejection for weeks, truth be told. In all honesty, as an aristocrat girl of wealth and privilege, she was used to getting her way about most things—not that she ever took advantage of that fact.

Still, it was easy to be good and virtuous under such conditions. But only lately had she been driven to distraction by something she simply could not have.

It was time, she admitted, to get over it.

Their group of friends was presently surrounded by so many dangers they had to be united or they’d fail.

And that meant the moment had come when she must resign herself to giving up on any thought of Maddox as a beau.

She gazed across the beach at him, filled with regret. He was alone as usual, working on the sailboat. He had dragged it up onto the sand and appeared to be waxing the hull.

She still found her empathic blindness where he was concerned entirely disconcerting. In fact, before they’d left Merlin Hall, she had privately consulted one of the adult empath mentors about what it meant and if there was any way to fix it.

The woman had laughed softly at her and told her that the reason she could not read this boy’s emotions the way she could everybody else’s was because he would one day be important to her destiny.

It was some sort of mystical protective mechanism. Sometimes certain people, the expert had explained, were veiled from an individual empath’s gift, because seeing into that person’s heart would have changed the course of what was supposed to happen and tangled up the whole precise tapestry of fate.

It would have been, she had said, like cheating in a card game where you had some unfair advantage.

“I’m sorry, my dear, but some things even empaths will just have to go through like everybody else, with no special insight,”
the woman had kindly explained.
“It’s a matter of groping our way through the dark like ordinary mortals, trying to find our way as best we can. I know it’s frustrating, but trust me, Isabelle, this experience is a gift.”

“A gift?”
she had exclaimed.
“It feels like a punishment!”

“Perhaps at first. But…isn’t it rather wonderful, and freeing, not to be inundated for once by what someone else is feeling? Look at it this way. When you’re around this particular boy, you can fully hear your own true self, who you are inside. For once, you don’t have to be overwhelmed by someone else’s stormy emotions, their needs, their pain, their dissatisfaction, or even their joy. Around him, you can just concentrate on being you and figure out what
you
feel. That, my dear, is a rare luxury for people like us.”

Isabelle supposed it sounded good, but in hindsight, she feared the lady’s advice had gone in one ear and out the other. For she had spent the past month obsessing, aye, banging her head against the brick wall that was Maddox, still trying to figure out constantly how he felt—especially how he felt about
her
.

She had not even attempted to listen to herself around him, like the lady had suggested. It was almost as if she didn’t want to
know
who she really was inside, as if she were somehow frightened to explore that.

But really, why bother? Her role in life was already settled. Everybody knew she was the good girl—period. She put others before herself, used her gifts to anticipate their needs, and always tried to say the right thing, to comfort other people, support them, listen and care and soothe hurt feelings.

Of course, that didn’t leave much time for considering her own emotions, but was that so bad?

After all, what if she paid more attention and didn’t like what she found? What if she peered down into the depths of her own heart and discovered she wasn’t as nice as she wanted to believe? What then?

Her roguish cousin Jake might revel in being naughty, but she wanted to be good. Just like Maddox. True, she had high standards, and sometimes people made fun of her, called her a goody-goody for it. But it was a bad world, a dark world, and surely somebody had to try to be the light.

As for how Maddox might be involved in her destiny, Isabelle saw now in chagrin that she had clearly jumped to some silly conclusions on that point. She had fancied that it meant he would be her husband one day, and they’d live happily ever after.

For some illogical reason, she had completely ignored the obvious reality that Guardians didn’t
have
wives. Their lives were too dangerous.

Everybody knew that. Maddox knew it. Isabelle knew it. Even Derek Stone knew it, and so did Miss Helena. But seeing her governess being courted by the manly master Guardian, Isabelle supposed she must’ve let her hopes run away with her…

She heaved a sigh and acknowledged that sometimes, life was not a fairytale. Maddox had seen it from the start. Now it was her turn to accept it.

And she owed him an apology.

He was only here on account of his duty—not because of her—and selfishly, she had made his job all the harder with her sniping.

Well, it stopped now.

Her mind made up, she started off across the sand, sensing the emotions from all the others as she passed them. Dani and Liliana were playing with Teddy and Wallace at the water’s edge, running around and laughing. She could sense Dani’s boundless warmth even amid gnawing worry about tonight. Her joy with the beauty of the beach, her sheer adoration of Jake, her protectiveness toward Liliana.

Isabelle sensed the younger mermaid’s homesickness despite her playful cheer, her stubborn bravery in the face of adversity, her worry about her father and her friends back home.

Over there, in the shade, Isabelle saw Jake and Sapphira drawing in the sand and putting their heads together to come up with a plan for the villa’s defenses, given that the full moon was tonight.

She sensed Jake’s dread that Davy Jones might yet find them and his steely intent to keep everybody safe, especially a certain redhead. His cold fear over Derek and Tex and Red and Henry and Helena.

From Sapphira, she sensed calm, focused anger and a tough-minded readiness to fight anything that tried coming up that beach tonight. Fortunately, neither of the two really seemed to believe the Lord of the Locker had discovered their whereabouts.

Isabelle was surprised at how complex her former rival’s hidden emotions were, though, as she passed Sapphira. She sensed her regret about lying to them, a sincere hope to be accepted behind her haughty royal façade. She sensed the crown princess’s self-doubt about her ability to rule, and beneath it all, the ache of her father’s rejection.

But that wasn’t everyone.

As Isabelle glanced up at the house, she could even sense Aunt Ramona, peacefully napping in her chamber after being kept up so late last night.