The Gleaning (13 page)

Side by side, my arm crossed in front of his chest, holding on to his hand. We stepped together in perfect unison, like he’d always been my dancing partner. We bowed to the line of couples facing us and switched places. Eyes like magic stones: sapphires and emeralds and amethyst like William’s watched me with a mix of curiosity and contempt. This time there was no questioning their meaning.

They looked at me like I was stealing something of theirs.

“Don’t mind them,” he whispered to me. “They are envious of the strange girl on my arm.”

“I’m not strange,” I lied.

“In my world, strange is the highest compliment one can give.”

“Oh?” I cocked my head and grinned as he twirled me under his arm.

His voice broke me out of the sensation as he pulled me in closer for a more intimate part of the dance. “This is an interesting jewel, Rose. Where did you get it?”

It must’ve slipped from under my cape when I spun. “My mother,” I said honestly. “She gave it to me tonight. It was a gift.”

The warlock’s eyes lightened from amethyst, fading into a near lilac, like they had in the carriage. In the candle-lit ballroom they were effervescent; and in that moment, I never wanted to be far from his enchanting gaze.

“Shaped like a heart, this rare jewel. How telling. I wonder why she chose tonight,” he said thoughtfully, staring at me intensely, so intensely that I felt my blood might boil right out of my skin, “to give you such a precious gem.”

“Mother said…” I worded it carefully, trying to read his eyes as they absorbed my words, “the necklace would keep me safe.”

“From what, I wonder?”

“Not a what, a who,” I said, fingering the heart-shaped charm.

“Any ideas who this dangerous person could be?”

“I suspect it could be you.”

Then maddeningly, the words disappeared. I wondered what happened next. If that was a hundred years ago, right around the time of the curse, if William’s father was insisting his son court humans, then that must’ve been the beginning of the end of the utopian society of Spellspinners.

I knew Rose’s clue had something to do with the amulets. But I couldn’t figure out what.

Logan

Though it was a cruel disappointment that he hadn’t been able to see Lily, Logan trusted Chance with his life and knew he’d delivered her safely from the dungeon. Now his mind was left to replay his dream about the frightened boy. He couldn’t shake the woman’s voice in his head. ‘Stay here…this will keep you safe’ He didn’t believe it was just a dream. It had to have been a memory of his mother.

Before now, Logan’s early memories had been locked away from him. He knew nothing about his mother and father outside of Jacob’s likely false intel—that they’d abandoned him on the doorstep when he was a toddler.

The age matched up; the kid in his dream was about three or four.

Logan’s thoughts were interrupted by male voices outside his cell—and something else…

Frenetic scratching, like claws on metal, followed by a painful squeak.

“Not rats,” he muttered. If he had an Achilles Heel, it would be anything furry sporting a thick, wiggling tail.

He peered out the aged keyhole.
Squeak!
He heard it again, the sound of rats trying to escape from a metal cage.

Through the window in his cell, Logan peered down the corridor and saw an unfamiliar warlock carrying two small cages to a room across the hall. When the door opened, Logan saw Jacob barking orders to the other warlock, who seemed to be some kind of lab technician. Then Logan closed his eyes and Saw what Jacob saw.

Rows and rows of cages stacked on top of each other like moving boxes. White rats with red eyes ran on spinning wheels or alternately huddled together in straw nests. In the corner of the room was a metal-topped examination table. An old man Logan didn’t recognize, frail like Jacob, but with no noticeable magic energy, was strapped to it. Oddly, his eyes looked more hungry than frightened, as he stared down at a rat strapped to a steel tray next to him.

Jacob’s crony poured a liquid substance into an IV drip. The cord ran from the old man’s veins to the rat’s tail.

Logan watched in horror as a beeping machine pumped, and the rat aged backwards, like a time lapse series of photographs. The creature grew younger and younger until it possessed the wrinkled, nearly translucent pink skin of a newborn. Then, just as quickly, the process reversed; the rat regenerated into a full-grown adult, fat and thick with fur, before deteriorating into a skeletal, desiccated thing. Like a rapidly deflating toy, it twisted unnaturally to its side, and then seized with a final jerky gasp before lying still.

What…the…?

Jacob cursed, chastising the lab tech. Clearly that wasn’t the result he was after. The lab tech apologized profusely as he pulled a white sheet over the old man’s body. Shriveled up toes stuck out from the sheet. Jacob’s experiment had killed him, too.

A lot of weird crap went down here, sure, but
murder
? Jacob experimented on rats? And who was that old guy anyway? A human? A prisoner? He hadn’t looked too keen on escape—wasn’t hollering for help or anything—so maybe he was agreeable to having his fluids intermixed with a rat’s? Unlikely.

Sensing dark energy approaching, Logan jumped back from the keyhole.

He slumped down on the cot as if he was resting. He had mostly recovered, but that didn’t mean he wanted Jacob to know. His father would be much easier on him if he thought he was already beaten down.

Almost as quickly as that poor rat completed its lifecycle, Logan cleared his mind of Lily, his dream memories, and what he’d just seen.

“You’re awake, I see.”

Since playing dumb sometimes worked, Logan decided to go that route. “What happened?” He rubbed his eyes. “Where am I?”

“Someplace safe. I need to protect you from the witch; prevent any further…incidents before the Gleaning.”

“I don’t need protection from her.”

Jacob sighed, and a cloud of black soot exhaled with his breath.

“You are special, Logan, and thus more vulnerable than your brothers. You understand that, right?”

Logan chose to remain silent, which caused Jacob to sigh again. Logan coughed through the volcanic ash.

“The way you’re feeling now—that loyalty you feel for her? The urge to protect her? It is all a result of her enchantment. She cast a spell on you, son. This is why you feel the way you do.”

When Logan still didn’t respond, Jacob pushed further. Logan could see he was digging deep to find restraint, to not unleash rage on Logan before the Gleaning. “You gave her an opening, boy. A chink in your armor. If you are chosen to fight this witch, will you show her mercy, like a lovesick fool? Or will you stand your ground and drain her dry?”

“It’s against the Congression’s rules to drain our opponents.”

He sneered. “Damn their
rules
. Do you like to see me this way? Old before my time? Suffering? This will be your fate, too, son, sooner than I’d like to admit. We have
no choice
. The Seven Sisters’ curse left us nothing but enough strength to glean our youth back in this fashion. It may seem barbaric to you, but we are only taking back what was stolen from us. And believe me, they will be doing the same to you. The witches are after one thing and one thing only: your powers. Protect yourself, boy, protect our future. Win this for us.” He paused in the doorway, holding it open for Logan. “Come on, now. You’ve done sufficient penance. You need to wash up before breakfast. You smell like a diseased garden.”

Lily

Before I could process what I’d read, I was distracted by the sounds of arguing coming from the kitchen.

“I know what you did. You sent in a doppelganger! You drugged the coven with a potion and gave me an extra dose. I’m her mother! You know I’d never fall asleep while Lily was on such a dangerous mission! How dare you?”

My ears were keen; I could hear everything even without Listening.

“As she admitted to the entire coven, and to you, Lily refused to go in and complete her task. We had to find out if this boy was the one.” Camellia’s voice.

“The doppelganger couldn’t see the mark! It had to be Lily. So foolish of you! Jacob followed Logan in. How could you put her in that position?”

“She was in a trance, she doesn’t remember anything.”

“You’re playing with dangerous magic here, Camellia. If it gets out of control, we could lose all we’ve worked for.”

“It was a risk I was willing to take. Entering the Gleaning without definitive proof about the identity of the Rognaithe? How could that possibly work in our favor?”

“How could risking our girls be in our favor? I should never have agreed to send Lily in. We should’ve gone another route.”

“It was the only way. You’re too close to this, Iris. It’s time for you to step back and let me do my job.”

“Don’t you forget where you got your power, Camellia. What I gave you, I can also take back.”

When I heard the front door slam, I jumped up and peered out into the hallway.

“Mom?” I called. She appeared at the bottom of the staircase, looking red-faced and fiery eyed.

“Hi, honey,” she said as she walked up to my room. “How are you feeling?”

“I’m not great, honestly. This is bad, isn’t it?”

“So you heard?”

“You and Camellia weren’t terribly discreet.”

She sighed and rested her hands on my shoulders. I knew from her reflection in the mirror that she wasn’t going to pretend things were okay.

“I’m sorry I didn’t shut her up last night when she was making all those false accusations. I didn’t feel I could argue with her in front of the entire coven until I had more information. But essentially she thought this shifter could draw the mark.”

“Because she looked like me? How was she able to cast a sleeping spell on you like that? You guys hold the same level of magic. How could she block your Hearing without you knowing?”

Iris’s chest rose and fell in deep, meditative breaths. Her youthful skin and hair seemed to glow in the morning sunlight, but her eyes looked world-weary. I gripped the sides of my chair, bracing myself for whatever she was about to say. My instincts warned me it wouldn’t be good, but at least it’d be something.

“Have you ever wondered why Camellia is the Mistress of Light and we’ve obtained the same level of magic?”

“I assumed it was because you didn’t want to be Mistress.”

Her look held me like I was glass—if I moved, I would slip from her grasp and shatter.

“Not want the top honor in our coven?”

“Well, yeah…I don’t mean to be insulting, but you are sort of more a…um…”

“What? An absent-minded hippie?”

“No! I just never see you in a leadership role. That’s all.”

“Oh.” She looked hurt. “I wasn’t always like this. Lily, Camellia is the leader of this coven because I gave up my place.”

It took me a moment to respond. “But why?”

“For you.”

“Why? To raise us?”

I was flooded with guilt, but it did made sense. Being a leader took absolute fortitude and concentration. You can’t raise two active daughters AND be the leader of the greatest coven on earth simultaneously. Right? You’d have to choose, and Mom chose us.

“Raising you girls was my number one priority, of course.”

“I know, Mom.”

“But the real reason I gave up my place was to protect you, in particular.”

I was reminded of Rose’s mother, giving her the mysterious necklace for protection. “Protect me from what?”

“From the dark forces,” Iris said. “From the cruel magic threatening to consume you if I unveiled your whereabouts even for a moment. I made a d—” She stopped and rephrased. “The veil that hides your identity from the Sons of Darkness was…costly.”

My heart hammered. “Costly, how?”

“Nothing good comes without sacrifice.”

Had she sacrificed more than her position? “But why do I need extra protection against them?”

She paused as if deciding how to phrase the next bit. “Because you are special. And because they wouldn’t give up until they claimed you.”

“They?”

“Jacob.”

Logan’s father.

“What would he want with me?” I shuddered to think.

“That’s for another day. I told you this because I need you to know that Camellia isn’t the stronger of the two of us. I am just as strong, and just as fit to lead. And from now on, you’re going to have to trust me as if I were not only your mother, but your Mistress as well.”

I saw a ripple of strength in my mother that wasn’t there before, or maybe I hadn’t noticed because I wasn’t thoughtful enough to look for it. I felt another rush of guilt as I recalled how I’d underestimated her over the years. That had to stop today if we were going to rise against Camellia.

Then something picked at me…I had to ask.

“Camellia felt fine about taking your place? I mean, if Orchid became Mistress, but had to step down for her kid, it wouldn’t feel right poaching her spot like that. That had to cause massive amounts of tension in your friendship, right?”

“The difference between you and Orchid and Camellia and me is that we were never friends. We didn’t choose each other like you did as little girls. We must be mindful with our powers, honey. Our magic is a beautiful gift, but can also be an incredibly dangerous one. Those who crave power never stop craving it. Once they are on top, once they’ve conquered everything worth conquering, they simply change gears and set their eyes on new prospects. There are always new heights to conquer, Lily, as you are discovering.”