Wicked Rebellion (Darkwater Reformatory Book 3) Page 5

  Tell the girl her father lives, and she’ll never discover the truth. After all, she won’t make it through the Reformatory Challenge. She’ll never escape the catacombs. And while she’s working her way through one test after another, she’ll take care of the Master Seeker’s pesky problem: his son, Brodin.

  “It’s going to be tough deciding who gets to do it,” I said bitterly as we strode down the path out front of the castle. The bridge awaited us. Knowing my luck, there would be a troll beneath who’d make demands I couldn’t fulfill in exchange for passage.

  “Do what?” Brodin asked, squinting around the area. What did he expect to see, the switch-witch? At this point, I might welcome her with open arms if only she had answers. I was tired of tests and challenges.

  I was even more than tired of being a pawn in a puzzle with no solution.

  “Kill your father.”

  “He’s mine,” Brodin said in an easy voice. “But if you ask nicely, I’ll let you poke him with a sword before I finish him off.”

  My laughter snorted out, and I welcomed the chance to ease some of my tension. Taking Brodin’s hand, I tugged him close. We stopped on the path, and when he opened his arms, I stepped closer, pressing myself against him. This guy twisted me up inside and then smoothed out my creases. I wasn’t sure I could bear to lose him.

  I sure as hell could never kill him.

  “Hey!” someone called.

  We turned to find Rohnan, Jacey, and Kylie coming along the path in our direction.

  “You guys find anything other than paths we chose not to take?” Jacey asked. “I saw four.”

  I explained about my uncle, and we showed them our stones.

  Rohnan frowned. “Hmm.”

  “What are you thinking?” Jacey asked, leaning into his shoulder.

  “There’s a trick here.”

  Her laughter echoed around us, but the sound held no humor. “What else is new?”

  They’d been together before I met her at the prison. Her father was an advisor to the fae king, and the king had arranged for her to marry an old guy. She refused, not only because the man was mean, but because she was in love with Rohnan. When the fae king found out and Rohnan planned to escape the kingdom, he imprisoned Rohnan, hoping to force her into the marriage to keep Rohnan safe. Jacey and her beloved uncle broke Rohnan out of the prison, but the fae king caught them. He killed her uncle and sent her and Rohnan to Darkwater, assuming they’d rot there for the rest of their lives.

  When they discovered admittance to the Reformatory could give them a way out—and a way to seek revenge on the fae king—they entered the Challenge with her roommate, Kylie, making up the third of their triad team. Separated from Rohnan and Kylie, Jacey was sent back to the prison. She’d worried Rohnan and Kylie were dead but was determined to get back into the Challenge with another team to find out.

  Brodin, me, and the tree nymph, Akimi, who we now knew was Kylie, had created a quad to enter the Challenge. We couldn’t know Bixby permitted us entrance because she hoped we’d bring her dragons.

  I stared at my simple brown stone before slipping it back into my pocket. “My uncle said everyone would need a stone, so maybe you three…” I did everything I could not to look at Akimi-Kylie. She betrayed us for no reason, dooming four dragons. “Get your stones.” I squinted up at Brodin, shading my eyes to block out the sun. “We can go inside the Reformatory and start looking around.” My belly rumbled, reminding me it hadn’t been filled in too long.

  “Your uncle said we need to complete four challenges?” Rohnan said, staring toward the bridge. “What happens after that?”

  “The implication is we’re free, but we know that’s probably not the case,” Brodin said.

  “I don’t like being manipulated into doing things like this,” I said. “But I’m not sure we have much choice.” I had no choice. I needed to save my sister, and the only way to do that was to escape Darkwater. If that meant four more trials, I’d do them.

  “None of us are eager for this,” Jacey said. “I’m worn out. I need a break, but is there another option?”

  “Maybe not, but I’m not trotting down a path until I’ve finished looking around.” I started toward the front of the Reformatory but turned when Brodin didn’t follow.

  He stared at Akimi. “What are your thoughts about all this? You’ve been here before.”

  Her gaze met mine, the pleading there making my resolve weaken, but I shored it up with some of the anger that had been burning through me since I was dragged in front of the Master Seeker.

  She must’ve seen the rage on my face, because her gaze darted away, falling on Brodin. “I have not taken the path tests before.”

  “Why not?” Rohnan asked, studying her. He saw right through her, too.

  Jacey appeared on the fence about this, as if she was still trying to resolve the feelings of friendship she had for her roommate, with Akimi-Kylie, the betrayer.

  Kylie flung up her arms. “Why? Because the last time I reached the Reformatory with a dragon, and Bixby saw the potential of more, she popped me back to the prison immediately. I didn’t hang around here, I didn’t stroll down pretty paths, and I didn’t sit inside a pretty castle and chat with family.”

  The last dig was meant for me.

  My hands fisted, and I snarled. “It wasn’t a pleasant social occasion. He’s part of this.” My arm swept wide to encompass the campus around us. “He’ll manipulate us just like everyone else on Darkwater. But you know that already, being a big manipulator yourself, correct?”

  “I had no choice,” she fumed, her face bright red.

  “Why? Tell us your motivation,” Jacey said. Sympathy filled her face, and I didn’t get it. I hated Akimi—Kylie—whatever she was called. She was the reason none of this had worked out as it should.

  “I’m doing this for my sister.”

  “Sheera, the mean girl extraordinaire?” I said. The woman who made my and Jacey’s lives hell back at the prison. They were sisters?

  “She’s not like that,” Kylie said.

  “From where you’re standing, she isn’t, but you’re her sister.” I shrugged because it hardly mattered. “You’re bringing Bixby dragons because of your sister?”

  “What you saw of Sheera at Darkwater was just a mirage.”

  That one threw me. “What do you mean?”

  Brodin and Rohnan studied Kylie like I did, and like watching a train barreling toward a cliff, we couldn’t look away.

  “My true sister is held…somewhere else.” Kylie’s gaze spanned the area. “Like Rohnan, she’s trapped. The person you met at the prison? That was a double. If I don’t do what Bixby wants, she’ll kill Sheera.”

  I didn’t like the crush of sympathy shooting through me. I’d be stupid to trust her again. She twisted this—twisted us—from the moment we met. She forced her way into our quad and then she manipulated how we completed the challenges, driving us toward the dragons.

  However, she was willing to do what I wasn’t.

  “You brought Bixby our dragons,” I said, watching her face and posture, looking for clues into what she was thinking, because this girl was sneaky. “Shouldn’t that have broken the bond?”

  “No.” Kylie’s gaze fell from mine. “Because she wants more dragons.” Her eyes lifted and tears shimmered there. Real or fake? “She’ll never release my sister, because she’ll always want more.”

  Chapter Six

  The other three walked toward the bridge.

  Brodin and I continued on the path encircling the main building, and I ignored the call of the two trails leading off to our right.

  “We’re going to have to do it,” Brodin said.

  “I hate to be manipulated. That’s all this is. Bixby sets the rules, we jump to do whatever she asks. I’d love to find a way to turn this around, so we benefit instead of her.” But how? She was infinitely powerful while we were still manacled with tennas—wrist restraints that blocked our power. I held a hand
; and tiny sparks fell off the tenna. “Do you think there’s a way to get these off?”

  “I wish.” He squinted toward the huge, ornately carved front door, and we started up the thick stone steps. “Let’s see what we can find inside. Maybe we’ll come across some clue that will help.”

  As if Bixby would leave something like that lying around? But it never hurt to try.

  He opened the door, and I went inside ahead of him.

  Brodin shut the door. “The first thing we need to do is find something to eat.”

  “Do you trust anything here?”

  He shrugged. “It’s that or starve.”

  We’d be here for days, assuming I didn’t find a way off the island before then. And we couldn’t compete in trials without food and water.

  “No harm in seeing what’s here, I guess.” I took in the foyer. Rooms led off on either side, and on the opposite end of the two-story entry, I spied a closed door. The stairs we came down were behind the door on the right. The dust bunnies held a party and all their friends came, including a host of big spiders who spun ghostly nets encasing the upper corners of the room. How were we supposed to believe kids came here on a regular basis? “I can’t imagine this place has a cook.”

  “I guess we’ll find out. Should we split up to look around or stay together?”

  “I’m used to catacomb tricks, which means I keep expecting another test to pop up in front of me and suck me into it.” I hugged my waist and shivered, though it wasn’t cold inside the building. “Maybe we should stay together.”

  He nodded and took my hand, squeezing it. “Happy to hang out with you any day of the week.” Nudging me against the big wooden door, he cupped my face. While his thumbs stroked my jawline, his lips captured mine in a kiss that was both sweet and possessive. Heat rose between us, like it did whenever we touched, and I inched closer to him, seeking his warmth. His arms went around me as he deepened the kiss. Our tongues entwined. I lost myself in this moment. In him.

  My arms went around his waist, and I tugged up his shirt to tease his spine. He huffed when it tickled and lifted his head. His grin swept me up and tugged me near.

  “We need to find time for us,” I said.

  That was our litany inside the catacombs. We stole a few moments together but being on the run wasn’t conducive to long walks and meaningful conversation. But we did need to find time before it was too late.

  The words hung between us unspoken, a future we’d do all we could to prevent.

  I nodded. “We’ll have to sleep sometime.”

  “There must be rooms here for students, assuming there are students here, which I’m beginning to doubt.” His belly growled, and I smiled. “But first, food.”

  “Should we wait for the others to get here?”

  “They’ll find us.”

  We entered a room on the right, a big parlor with dusty, stuffed chairs covered with flower-patterned material. A low table sat between a sofa and two high-back chairs, and the table held a tarnished silver tea set. Other than the grunge coating it, it looked as if someone had just placed it down on the table. Magic? I was tempted to sit, pour a cup, then sit back and savor the brew.

  The scent of hornwit tea coated the air.

  No thanks. Been there and did that with Ramseff already.

  “I see a door on the other side of the room,” I said. “Let’s see where that leads.”

  He scowled at the tea set that now looked as if someone had just finished polishing it and placing it on the tray. A pretty plate holding cookies appeared beside it, and steam drifted up from the kettle’s spout. I swore I heard the clink of a teacup on a saucer.

  Should we approach the tea set?

  Unease skated across my skin with sharp blades, making me wince.

  Nope. I was outta here. I rushed across the room, my footsteps nearly silent on the carpeted floor, with Brodin right behind me. The door opened easily to my touch, and we entered a long hall with closed doors on either side, plus one at the end.

  “Check the rooms?” he whispered.

  I well understood why he wished to remain quiet. I felt as if we moved through the building in a world parallel to another, one filled with people and sounds and life. If we nudged against the membrane separating the two worlds, we’d be sucked through to the other side. Sounded nice but I also got the idea that, once we stepped through the membrane, we’d never find our way back.

  Maybe it would be better there. People. Food. Life. I should want that, right? Why didn’t I? Because deep inside, I knew it would be fake, a shadow world I’d stumble through and never escape.

  I opened the first door on the right while Brodin did the same with the one opposite it on the left.

  I found a closet with moth-eaten wool coats, and a pair of black boots on the floor with a hole in one toe.

  Peering over my shoulder into the room Brodin had revealed, I caught sheet-covered furniture and a dingy carpet. A bookcase empty of books. Another parlor?

  We shut the doors and moved to the second of three sets exiting off the hall.

  The next two were locked.

  “Should we break in?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “So far, I’m not inspired. Maybe we can note it in our minds and keep going.” At this rate, it would take the five days I had left to search the building.

  The last two opened to matching living rooms with dingy brown sofas, squishy chairs beside an unlit fireplace, and eerily familiar tea trays with the tea pots, plates of cookies, and the scent of hornwit tainting the air.

  “Someone wants to serve tea,” he said. “Maybe we should try some.”

  “That would be a good thing or the biggest mistake we’ll make in our lives.”

  “I’m still hoping to find a kitchen with food we can prepare ourselves.”

  “Assuming we can trust the ingredients.”

  “What can anyone do to an apple?” he asked.

  “You’d be surprised.”

  We opened the door at the end of the hall and stepped through into a sunroom spanning the rest of this side of the building. Sunlight filtered through the grime coating the glass overhead, and vines grew up the sides and halfway across the top, partly obstructing the view of the path encircling the Reformatory with the woods behind.

  A cute trail left the main path and wove into the woods, both sides of it dotted with pink and yellow flowers. From here, it looked inviting, but that was the norm for Darkwater. Sweet-appearing places could lead you to your death, and anything you touched could poison you.

  We paced through the sunroom, our sneakers crunching on loosed shards of broken tile.

  “No janitorial services, I see,” he said, trying to joke.

  I appreciated the effort, though I could barely lift a smile. “Maintenance seems to be on a permanent vacation, too.”

  “Too bad they didn’t take Bixby and Duvoe along with them.”

  We left the sunroom and found ourselves in a huge kitchen with cabinets lining all the walls but one. A center island made of granite held an eight-burner cooktop, a knife block full of blades, and bowls.

  Empty bowls.

  “Look in the cupboards,” I said. “I’ll check out the fridge.” I approached the huge, stainless steel appliance and pulled open the door to find it as empty as the bowls. Moving to my right, I opened cupboards, but found nothing but plates, cups, and platters for serving. Hard to serve when there was no food.

  “Any luck?” Brodin called out, his head tucked into a pantry.

  “Sadly, no. You?”

  “Nope.” He shut the door.

  A soft sound on the counter sent me spinning.

  Another tea tray appeared, and the pungent scent of hornwit tea drifted through the air.

  “Think someone’s trying to tell us something?” Brodin asked.

  “I hate hornwit.” I had since I sat and watched the Master Seeker drink it while twisting me into a knot so tight, I’d never unravel.

  A breeze swept t
hrough the room, taking the smell of hornwit along with it. It was replaced with the spicy tang of cinnamon.

  “Okay, that’s weird,” I said creeping toward the tray. “Do you think the hornwit has changed to cinnamon tea? It’s impossible, right?”

  “Nothing here is impossible.” He joined me at the island, and we stared at the tray.

  An idea percolated in my mind, and I had to test it. “I can’t imagine cookies filling me up. Sure, they’d taste good, but a body burns through them in about ten minutes. If we’re going to complete trials, we’ll need real food. Substantial stuff that will fill us up and keep us satisfied for the afternoon.”

  “You’re right. I like cookies, but I’m hungry for more than pretty dessert.”

  The cookies disappeared and, in their place, trays of bread and cheese appeared, with a long stick of cured salami nearby. A big bowl of fruit popped into view, the blush gleaming on the skin in the low light.

  “Creepy,” I said.

  Brodin squinted at the food. “It looks okay.”

  “At Darkwater, looks are always deceiving.”

  Taking a nut from a bowl sitting beside the basket of bread, he popped it into his mouth and chewed. “Tastes even better,” he said around the bite.

  “So did the food—and drink—in the castle.”

  “That was the catacombs. Remember when we were at the prison part of Darkwater, we ate and drank what they served without any problems.”

  “True.” Did I dare trust? Actually this wasn’t a matter of trust; it was a matter of survival. To stay strong, I’d have to eat and drink. But I was scared.

  Something bumped into me from behind, and I bit back my shriek as I whirled around.

  “Kai.” I stooped down in front of the wexal cat and stroked his burnished golden coat that glinted like a fox’s. While he purred, I rubbed his large, pointed ears. “Where have you been? I was worried about you after Bixby hurt you.” He winked his deep green eyes at me as I stroked his back.

  “He seems okay,” Brodin said. He turned and leaned against the counter, munching on a hunk of bread smeared with butter. “He’s lucky he can come and go all over Darkwater.”