Labyrinth (2 page)

Nate’s hand brushes against my foot. “But you’ll have plenty of time to hang out with me.” He smiles, and something flutters in the region of my stomach. Tora’s imaginary voice reminds me how much trouble I’d be in if anyone knew I was here. I tell the voice to get lost.

“So have you found anything of your mother’s yet?” I ask Nate as I push myself up and cross my legs. Without any Guild assignments to occupy my time, I’m probably going to go into some kind of withdrawal. I need a ‘project’ to keep me occupied, and trying to get Nate to kiss me again doesn’t count.

“No. I finished going through my dad’s study when I got home this afternoon, but I can’t find anything that seems even remotely connected to my real mother.” He hesitates, and a lopsided grin forms on his face. “Have I mentioned how unreal it is when you just appear in my bedroom?”

Tora’s imaginary voice: GET OUT OF HIS BEDROOM.

“Unreal in a good way, of course,” Nate hurries on when I don’t answer. He pushes a lock of golden brown hair out of his eyes. “I wish you’d do it more often.”

 I smile shyly. “I was kind of hoping you’d come and visit
my
bed—house, I mean house—sometime.” CRAP! I’m not sure who’s blushing more right now.

A moment of awkward silence passes before Nate says, “So you have a house then? It’s not a magical tree like your fancy Guild?”

I throw a few purple sparks in his direction, aware he’s making fun of me. “What’s wrong with a magical tree?”

The sparks turn into beetles that buzz around Nate’s head. He swats them away, laughing. “So you do live in a tree then?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. We all do. It looks like a regular tree from the outside, but once you step inside—”

“—it’s actually a faerie castle with a mermaid-filled fountain in the atrium and unicorns standing guard at the door?”

I cross my arms. “No, Nate. It’s like a normal home. It’s just round instead of square.”

“Oh. That’s boring.”

I suppose it would be for someone who lives in
this
neighborhood. “Look, Nate, we can’t all be as wealthy as—”

“I’m joking, Vi!” He leans forward and grabs my hand. “It sounds, well, impossible to fit a normal home inside a tree. But that’s magic, right?”

“Well, it’s not like the house is
inside
a tree,” I explain. “It’s powerful glamour magic that conceals the house so that when you look at it you only see a tree.”

“Whatever it is, I’d love to visit you there and meet your friends and learn more about your world.”

Right. I haven’t actually mentioned to Nate that he’s never allowed to meet anyone I know. And it’s not like I have any friends to introduce him to anyway. Training overtime and taking on extra assignments haven’t left much time for friendship. I also have a suspicion Ryn spreads rumors about me behind my back.

“That’s pretty,” says Nate. I realize he’s looking at the ring on my finger.

“Oh, thanks. Since I’m not allowed to fight anyone for the next few days, I thought I’d get some wear out of the few items of jewelry I own.”

“Who’s it from?” Nate lifts my hand and examines the purple stone with its unusual gold flecks.

“It’s my tokehari from my father.”

“Toke-ah-what-ee?” Nate lowers my hand but doesn’t let go. His thumb moves in random patterns across my hand. It’s ticklish, but in the best possible way.

“It’s an old tradition,” I explain, trying hard to control the goose bumps rising on my arms. “Guardians are always aware that each assignment may be their last, so every guardian parent puts away a special item for each of their children. Of course, children may end up inheriting many things if their parents die, but the tokehari is special.”

“Special as in . . . magic special?”

“Possibly, but they don’t have to be magical items. This is just a ring that my grandfather gave my grandmother. My father inherited it, and when I was born he obviously decided to leave it to me.”

“Cool,” says Nate. “Did your mother leave you something?”

“Uh, yes. A necklace. Anyway, have you searched your father’s bedroom yet?”

“Hmm?” Nate looks confused at the sudden change of subject. “Oh. No, but we could do it now.” He jumps off the bed. “It’s Lucinda’s day off so there’s no one here but us.” I meet his gaze as I climb off the bed, and something tells me there’s another meaning behind his words.

Tora’s imaginary voice: DO NOT GET BACK ON THAT BED WITH HIM.

I sigh inwardly. If it’s not Nate’s parents killing the mood, it’s my guilty conscience. I tear my eyes away from Nate. “Okay, lead the way then.”

We cross his oversized bedroom and walk down the passage that leads to the rest of the house. The first door we pass is closed, but the second has been left ajar. Nate pushes it open and pulls me inside. My feet sink into the thick carpet.

Nate spreads his arms. “Where do you want to start?”

My eyes brush over the bed, the dressing table, the sepia-toned artwork on the walls. “Well, if I wanted to put something away where no one would find it, I’d go for . . . the closet?” Nate walks across the room and flings open the doors to the walk-in closet. It’s larger than my bathing room.

“Dad’s stuff is on the right,” says Nate, his hand trailing over the shirts and jackets. The hangers squeak as they swing back and forth on the rail. The smell of cologne lingers.

“Your dad probably wouldn’t like me using his shelves as a ladder, would he?”

“Probably not. But he wouldn’t like you digging through his belongings either, and we’re not about to ask his permission to do that, so climb away.”

I lift my foot onto the first shelf as Nate starts going through drawers of socks, ties and underwear. I keep climbing until my head is level with the open space that runs along the top of the whole closet. “Lots of boxes up here,” I say, my fingers gripping the dust-covered plywood. “And files and photo albums and books. I’ll bring them down.” I jump onto the carpet.

“Why don’t you just pass them to—” Nate stops talking and forgets to close his mouth as the boxes float, one by one, down to the floor.

“Faerie, remember?” I say, settling on the floor and crossing my legs beneath me.

“I don’t know if I’m ever going to get used to this.” He sits opposite me and starts paging through a file while I pull the lid off one of the shoeboxes. It’s filled with old birthday cards and several loose photographs.

“Is this her?” I ask. Nate reaches for the photo.

“No, that’s my mom. Step-mom, I mean.” He turns it over and looks at a date written on the back. “From before she married my dad.” He drops the photo back into the box, and I move it to one side, reaching for the next box.

“Okay, nothing useful in there,” I say, after I’ve sifted through the crayon drawings and toddler photographs. “Just a whole lot of photos of you looking even more gorgeous than you do now.” Nate coughs and looks up at me.

Crap, did I say that out loud?

I look down at my feet, wishing I could hide my blush behind a glamour. “Um, what’s her name? Your birth mother.”

Nate turns back to the file on his lap. “Angelica. I don’t remember her surname though.”

“Do you know why she left?”

He shakes his head. “Dad always says she was never cut out for family life. Even after she discovered she was pregnant with me, she still didn’t want to marry Dad. He likes to tell me that she loved me, but I’m pretty sure he only says that to make me feel better.” Nate closes the file and pulls another one onto his lap. “I mean, if she loved me, then why did she just leave one day?”

My fingers trace the embossed title of an old hard-covered book. “Maybe something happened, and she didn’t have a choice but to leave.”

“Well, whatever.” Nate flips through a few more plastic sleeves. “It worked out for the best. My step-mom is pretty cool, as far as moms go.”

I slide my fingers beneath the book’s cover and push it back, listening to the creak of the ancient spine. And there, in the overly-neat handwriting of a child, is her name.

“Angelica!” I blurt out.

“What?” Nate’s head snaps up.

“It’s here. Her name. This was her book.” I pass it to him, and a bookmark falls from between the pages. Retrieving it from the box of photos into which it fell, I see that it isn’t a bookmark after all, but a thin metal disc, tarnished with age. A symbol of a griffin with a serpent for a tail is engraved into its surface. Something stirs in my memory.

“What’s that?” asks Nate.

I shake my head, turning the disc over. The reverse of the same pattern is on the other side. “I don’t know, but it’s weird. I feel like I’ve seen this symbol before.”

Nate takes the disc. “Haven’t lots of people? I mean, it’s a griffin, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but griffins don’t usually have serpent tails. They have a lion’s body, which means they also have a lion’s tail. But
this
one has an actual serpent where the tail should be. And see the way the serpent curls up, making a circle around the griffin?” Nate nods. “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this exact one before. On a textbook maybe. Like on the spine.”

“Your textbooks sound far more interesting than mine.”

I take the metal disc from him and turn it over and over in my hands. If this disc belonged to Angelica then I can use it to find her. Nate is preoccupied, poring over the brittle pages of the book, so I close my eyes without saying anything to him. I run my fingers over the pattern and send my mind out, searching, probing, feeling for the person attached to this item.

Abruptly, I feel a rushing sensation. Something pulling at my mind, tugging irresistibly. I feel trapped. Smothered. Faces and colors swirl and flash, blinding me, dizzying me. I can’t get out.

Vi! Violet!

My eyes spring open. I see clothes hanging above me, and Nate’s anxious expression. “You just suddenly fell over,” he says. “Are you okay?”

“Um, I don’t know. That was weird.” I push myself up into a sitting position. The bottom of a coat brushes my shoulder. “Well, this disc thing definitely doesn’t belong to your mother.”

“Wait, you were trying to find her? And you didn’t tell me?”

I shrug. “You were busy looking at the book.”

“Vi!” He tries to remain angry, but curiosity clearly gets the better of him. “Okay, so who does it belong to?”

“Too many people.”

Nate frowns. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I saw lots and lots of faces, so I’m assuming the disc has belonged to many different people over the years.”

Nate stares at me a moment before saying, “This ability of yours doesn’t work very well, does it? I mean, what if someone else owned this book before my mother?”

“Well, let’s hope she had it long enough to truly make it her own.”

“Is that how your ability works? How long would she have—”

“Shh!” I reach across the boxes and clamp my hand over his mouth. “I heard something,” I whisper.

I lower my hand, listening carefully. From the room below us comes a thump. My first thought is that Drake and Zell have come for Nate, but then I remember that Flint put protective spells around the house. Nate rises and goes to the door of the closet. I’ve just reached into the air and pulled out a knife when a voice calls, “Nate? I got your favorite for dinner.”

Nate dashes back to the pile we’ve left on the floor. “Jeez, what is she doing home already?” He grabs Angelica’s book, tucks it under his arm, and begins piling the boxes on top of each other. I discard my knife into the air and hastily send the boxes and files back to the top of the closet. I stuff the griffin disc in my pocket and run out of the room after Nate.

“Thanks, Mom,” he shouts down the stairs. “Looking forward to it.” Then he pushes me back into his room and shuts the door. “You should probably go,” he says to me.

“What, you don’t want me meeting your mom?” I tease.

“Well, uh, maybe not looking like that.” He drops Angelica’s book onto one of his couches.

I put my hands on my hips. “What’s wrong with the way I look?”

“Come on, Vi,” he says, keeping his voice low. “You just need to add your boots and you’re like the forest version of Lara Croft.”

“Excuse me? Lara who?”

“I mean, it’s really sexy and everything.” He pulls me closer and slips his arms around my waist. “But it’s not exactly the way I’d want you to meet my mom.”

“I can glamour myself in something pretty,” I suggest. I’m only joking though. I’m terrified at the thought of meeting his parents; it would be taking my betrayal of the Guild even further to reveal myself to another two humans.

“How about you glamour yourself in something pretty just for me?” whispers Nate, his lips at my neck. A shiver races up and down my arms. I don’t bother reminding him that he can’t see glamours.

A knock at the door causes him to jump away from me. “Uh, hang on,” he says to the door. “Just getting changed.” He turns back to me.
Go, already
, he mouths.

I can’t help giggling at how rattled he is. “You know she can’t see or hear me, right?”

“Yeah, but
I
can,” he whispers.

“Fine,” I say, pretending to pout. I fetch my stylus from Nate’s bed just as my pocket tingles against my skin. I squeeze my hand past the metal disc to reach my amber. It’s a message from Tora.