Twist and Turns, page 16
He might be a foul-mouthed, bossy, brooding male, but he isn’t a monster.
She closed her eyes. Whether or not Braken had anything to do with her loss of memory didn’t matter at the moment. It told her nothing about who she really was. Nothing seemed to get her closer to any of the answers she needed.
I wish I could just give up. Lie down and sleep, and not have to worry about the nightmares. Or the horrors that happen when I’m not asleep.
But she wasn’t the giving up type. She sat up and walked to one of the dressers, on top of which sat her comb. Starting to brush through her long locks, she counted the strokes, seeking the calm that always came with the activity.
By the time she hit fifty, she was breathing regularly, her heartbeat no longer faster than an alley cat. She could feel her internal reservoirs refilling, her strength returning. At the hundredth stroke, she put down the comb and told herself that she wasn’t giving up.
Walking calmly to the door, she slammed her fist against it. “Let me out!” she shouted, continuing to hit the door. “I’m being held against my will! Help me!” Over and over she banged against the door, over and over repeating the same words, calling out to anyone who might hear her. It was no doubt a longshot, but she couldn’t risk not trying. Someone could hear, she told herself. Someone might call the Guard.
Her hand began to ache, so she switched to the other one. She pounded until her limbs felt like jelly, finally leaning face-first against the door when she could pound no longer.
And that was when she heard a thump. It came from the hallway, somewhere away from the door, but it was definitely on the same floor. She pressed her ear to the door just in time to hear a groan.
She stepped back, her eyes searching frantically again for a weapon. There was nothing of use that she could see, so she rummaged in the drawers of the desk, coming out with a large ink quill and brandishing it as a weapon.
The door burst open suddenly and she froze, ready to do her worst to whoever crossed the threshold.
Except she was the one standing on the other side of the door. Her hands went limp as she took in the face of a woman who looked exactly like her. Her reflection had come to life, and here it was, just as it had been in the tea tent back in Gelder’s Glen.
Although their features were identical, their clothing varied. Her doppelganger also wore leather britches, of a darker brown than her own. Her shirt, however, was composed not of cotton but of animal fur, and it was sewn together with leather patches, hugging her body and allowing for full mobility of her arms and torso.
She wore a dark green cloak of a shade that seemed like it changed as she moved. Her double’s honey-blonde hair was braided into an intricate pattern, tight against her skull and down the back of her neck. They stared at each other for a second, maybe two, and then the other woman vanished, setting off down the hallway.
Unwilling to let her double escape again without getting some answers, she followed. Terror hit her in the hallway when she saw the number of liveried bodies that were strewn about the hallway. It was unable to determine whether they were dead or merely stunned, and keep up with the woman who was now rushing down the stairs.
She put on a burst of speed, taking the stairs two or three at a time, then rushing pell-mell down the corridor, dodging the bodies that were littering the first floor. She crashed into the courtyard, ignoring those who had fallen here, keeping her eyes peeled for her doppelganger.
She looked up at the squeak of the gate and saw her slip through it. Pursuing at top speed, she followed the swirl of her dark green cloak, around corners, down busy streets. The sun was setting over Exeria, but the streets were just as crowded as before. It was hard for her to keep her target in her sights, but she refused to give up, and as the chase continued, she seemed to get faster, to get closer, to somehow gain on her prey.
She didn’t understand it, but there was no time to think about it. When she saw the cloaked figure leap to grab the overhang of a low-hanging roof, she skirted across the street and did the same, pulling herself up and onto the slick, tiled surface. When her double leaped from that roof to the one next to it, then climbed up the wall to the next story in a series of quick and elegant movements, she did the same.
She didn’t think. Her body acted for her, an instinct machine that turned her from helpless maiden to determined athlete. Minutes later, she found herself running along the narrow pinnacle of a roof, the place where the tiles came together in a narrow run of plaster. The woman in front of her raced along without fear, so she did the same, every molecule in her united in purpose.
Until the wind picked up.
A gust upset her balance, and a second later she was falling, slipping down the tile and heading for the edge of a five-story building. The fall would likely break her neck. She scrambled for purchase, her fingers finding none.
A shadow hit her face just as her body went over the edge. She reached up for the hand that reached down to her, staring into her double’s eyes as she pinned all her hope on the other’s outstretched hand.
They made contact, and suddenly the world around them exploded with light.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Power burst through her, a raging torrent that ripped through her insides, blanking her senses. She burned with it, on the edge of exploding into a thousand points of light.
The first thing that grazed her consciousness was the sound of screaming. Her eyes blinked open, the blindness clearing from them as she felt herself pulled upward. She scrabbled up the tile until they reached the narrow plaster strip again. She stood, carefully balancing herself before trying to understand what just happened.
The night around them was heavy with the shouts and screams of the people below them. She could see them, pointing and running, the street a whirlwind of chaos. She turned to her companion, who was looking at her, her expression stunned.
That makes two of us.
Her double raised her hand, and she did the same. When their fingers got close, electricity crackled between them, pink and purple forks of miniature lightning. She pulled her hand away in wonder and saw that her doppelganger did the same.
The woman looked at her, and she realized suddenly that one thing about their faces were different. Her eyes. They’re pink, like rose quartz.
“Adelina,” the woman whispered suddenly, then gasped. Her double turned with a whirl of her cloak, and her eyes widened as she saw what looked like shadows streaming out of the cloak, covering her double until she vanished entirely from sight.
She breathed for a moment, letting the shaking subside from her limbs as the adrenaline started to drain out of her system. As carefully as she could, she retraced her steps, letting herself down from the tile roof and onto a balcony below. Then it was a complicated climb down, lowering herself from balcony to balcony until she reached the ground. She forced herself to focus on the climb and not on what had just happened.
Don’t think about how you almost fell to your death. Don’t think about the burst of magical light that happened when you touched each other. Don’t think about her at all!
Finally, her feet once again were touching the ground. She let out a ragged breath, her legs feeling like they were about to melt from under her. She leaned against the wall of the building, looking both ways down the narrow alley where she’d landed.
Now that she was no longer in danger of crashing to the earth, she could consider what had just happened. For the first time, she’d gotten a good look at her double and found that they weren’t identical. Her eyes are pink, mine purple. In every other physical attribute, including their athleticism, they seemed evenly matched.
Except she wasn’t the one falling off the roof, she reminded himself. So maybe we aren’t perfectly matched. Still, she couldn’t help thinking that she was somehow related to the other woman. The resemblance was too uncanny for there not to be a genetic thread tying them together.
She called me Adelina. That’s my name.
She wasn’t sure how she knew this, but it was true, nonetheless. While she’d never felt certain that Linetta Cimmera was who she truly was, there was no doubt in her mind, in this moment, that she was Adelina.
For the first time since she’d woken up beside that riverbank, she knew who she was. And even if she wasn’t certain what her place was in this world, she understood now that she had one.
Pulling herself off the wall, she started to walk to the end of the alley that let out onto the street. She could no longer hear the screams of the people on the larger streets, so she hoped that enough time had passed for the fervor to die down and for her to pass without notice.
But where am I going? It wasn’t like she could go back to Malvo and ask if she could stay until she figured out who she was. But no thanks on that whole mentor/mate offer. Let’s be friends instead.
She had no idea where to go next, she only knew she needed a little distance between herself and the place where she’d almost tumbled to her death. Maybe I can find my double again, she thought, although it was evident that if the woman didn’t want to be seen, she wouldn’t be. Deciding to find herself a room at a reputable inn to give herself time to think over her next move, she came out of the alley and into the street.
A street that was lined with a contingent of the city guard.
“Hells,” she muttered, backing down the alley. She turned, intending to sprint to the other street, but behind her was a squad of guards blocking her exit. Looking up, she considered the balconies and the roof again, but with the way her limbs felt, she didn’t think she’d manage the climb up again.
In moments, she was surrounded. “Hands up,” the beefy guard in front of her commanded. Adelina did as she was told, lifting her hands and letting him pat her down for weapons. The guard then yanked her wrists down and clasped cuffs around them.
“What are you doing?” she asked, concerned. She’d just escaped one prison and wasn’t keen to repeat her performance.
“You’re being brought in for questioning,” he replied, his voice like gravel, then he pushed her in the direction of the street in front of her. “Let’s get a move on.”
They walked in silence, Adelina trying to get a sense of where they were in the city. She’d only seen a tiny portion of it on her ride from the gate to Malvo’s house, and when she’d been chasing her double, she hadn’t kept track of the directions she’d run in. Nothing around her looked familiar.
She wasn’t sure how far they marched her, but after a while, they reached a squat building with a white so dark that it was almost gray. It stretched the length of the block, with doors set at intervals in the brick. The contingent of guards stopped before one door among several and knocked on it. It swung open from the inside, and they were waved into the corridor.
Adelina looked around her, but there wasn’t much to see. Plain gray walls, austere wooden furnishings. The rest of the city was a whirlwind of decoration, every inch seemingly intricately carved or painted, but inside these walls, there was nearly nothing. It was a contrast that caught her off guard.
“Down here,” the lead guard said, dragging her down a corridor by her cuffs. He took a few turns, enough for her to lose track of where they’d walked, then stopped abruptly in front of a nondescript door. “Inside.”
He opened the door and propelled her inside, coming in behind her to point at a chair. She took the seat, which sat in front of a large desk with nothing on it. “Hold out your arms,” he instructed, and she did so. She watched as he removed the cuffs.
“Wait here for evaluation. And don’t attempt anything you shouldn’t. These people aren’t as nice as the rest of the Guard.”
She blinked at his words, worry knotting her stomach. The guard went out the door they’d come through, shutting it behind him. Alone, Adelina let her eyes wander the room, looking for anything that made sense.
Beyond the desk was a large chair, and behind that, a low cabinet with many drawers. The walls on either side of the desk were lined with shelves, and on the shelves sat scrolls, bound books, and a series of wooden boxes on their side, filled with papers. She was just turning around to take in the cabinets on either side of the door when it opened, a woman with her long silver hair in two buns on either side of her head, hiding the points of her ears.
The woman walked around the desk and sat in the chair behind it, setting a folder on the desk in front of her. She opened it and skimmed its contents before looking up to make eye contact with Adelina. “Are you registered for magical activity?”
The question caught her by surprise. “I beg your pardon?”
“Any Fae with powers of an intensity beyond the same gifts we all share must be registered with the King’s Council.”
“There must be some mistake,” she said, her forehead furrowed. “I don’t have strong magic.”
The steely-eyed Fae stared at her. “According to this report, you were seen in the Fourth Quadrant on a rooftop with another woman. Either you or this woman generated a ball of energy that was great enough for King Lyr himself to feel.”
Adelina blinked, unable to comprehend what she was hearing. “I...that is...we...”
The woman ignored her stammering. “The king wants both women found and evaluated. That is why you’re here.” She shut the folder and primly folded her hands above it. “Are you ready?”
“No!” Adelina had been put through the wringer for days, only to finally discover her name and a connection to someone nearly identical to her. She didn’t want to confront the thought of having something else hiding inside her, another secret that she had no answers to, no power to control.
The woman eyed her, then turned around to pull open one of the drawers in the long cabinet. She brought something out, then turned around to place it on the desk before her. Adelina studied it, feeling more confused than ever.
It was a small white statue, about six inches high, carved in the shape of a woman with her hands pressed together, fingers up. She wore flowing robes, her hair tumbling down her back in waves. Her ears were delicately pointed, and on her face was a sublime expression.
“This is one of our evaluation tools. It’s rudimentary, but it works. Those who have only the ordinary Fae skill with magic will not cause a change. But those of us with more...” She held her hand over the statue and the white of its surface slowly turned pale blue.
Adelina held back a gasp. The woman pulled back her hand, a smug expression on her face. “Those of us with more magical ability will cause the statue to shift in color.” She gently pushed the statue in Adelina’s direction. “Now it’s your turn.”
Letting out a long breath, Adelina held out her hand, letting it hover above the statue as the other woman had. She told herself that nothing would happen, that she had the same powers as everyone else. She could light a fire by will alone. She could cause her skin to glow when light was needed. Those were the extent of her powers, as far as she knew.
It only took a second for the statue to turn so blue that it was almost black. It began to shake, and the serene expression on the woman’s carved face began to morph, turning into a silent scream.
Adelina pulled her hand back with a gasp, holding it against her chest. She watched as the other woman stared at her with eyes as round as coins. She grabbed the statue and hastily tucked it away again. Adelina saw that she was nearly panting. The woman scrambled out of her seat and rushed to the door, disappearing without another word.
Adelina melted into her chair, the events of the last hour too overwhelming to comprehend further. She gave up on trying, instead trying to banish the fear that was threatening to engulf her.
What does that mean? There is no way I have strong magic...right? She’d never felt anything inside her that would indicate the power the statue seemed to say was inside her. The memory of her hand clasp with her double and the energy that had rushed through her then descended on her mind, and she knew she was in trouble.
Her hands moved to her stomach, which had knotted itself with fright. I’ve attracted the attention of the king himself. How can that bode well? He sent men to find me, me and my double. Have they caught her too? Is she even now sitting in an identical room, making another statue turn blue?
Adelina doubted it. Her double had a way of disappearing whenever the mood struck her. She had a feeling that whatever the other woman was, she wasn’t a prisoner.
Not like me.
There was no way of knowing what had caused the surge of power, but Adelina knew her chances of convincing the woman and her colleagues that she wasn’t a powerful magic user like she thought were so slim as to be none. There was only one thing she knew for certain: Whatever was about to happen, she wasn’t ready for it.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Adelina wasn’t sure how long she waited alone in the room, but finally the door opened, and the woman with the silver hair reappeared, this time with a plain gray dress in her hands. She handed it to Adelina, then leaned against the desk to face her.
“Put that on,” she said, indicating the dress. “You and I are headed for the Academy.”
Adelina knew better than to ask questions. They only lead to more problems. She waited until the woman turned her back, then pulled off her britches and blouse to slide into the dress she’d been given.
The woman then moved to the cabinet to draw out a stack of blank paper along with a quill and ink well. “Is there anyone you’d care to send a message to, to let them know your whereabouts?”
“What do you mean?”
The woman indicated the ring with a crown on it. “Your family. Do you wish to inform them that you’re headed to the Academy?”
Adelina bit her lip. The woman obviously thought she was a noble. Maybe I can use this to my advantage. “Why write them when I could go home to inform them?” she asked mildly. “I’m sure nobles are allowed free passage at this Academy.”
