“No, there is no other way.” He talked over me. “If I don’t turn you over, then my people will suffer.”
“But if you do turn me over, the whole world will suffer,” I told him. “I’ve seen it.”
He gave me a mocking look. “Are you sure about that?”
“Yes,” I said confidently.
“And how can you be sure. How can you be sure of anything?”
“I…” He had a point. How could I be sure of anything?
He scooted the stone closer to me and I scooted back.
“What is that?” I asked, pointing a shaking finger at the stone.
“Something that’s going to temporarily take your Foreseer power away.”
“What!” I cried, scooting back from the stone even more. “How?”
“Don’t worry,” his voice purred. “It won’t hurt. And it’s only temporary. For the moment, Stephan needs you free of your powers, but eventually you’ll get them back.”
“Please don’t,” I begged. “You can’t give me to him.”
“I already said I don’t have a choice.” He looked livid as he rolled up the sleeve of his black shirt. Across his arm was a mark. Not the Foreseers mark, but a different one—a red symbol traced by a black triangle.
“What is that?” I whispered, although I think deep down I already knew.
“The Mark of Malefiscus.” Nicholas practically growled. “I am forever branded with the mark of evil. And between the Blood Promise and the mark of evil, I have to hand you over.”
“How did you—how did you get it?” I asked, trying not to shake from head-to-toe. “Are you related to Stephan?”
He shook his head. “No. Like Malefiscus, Stephan is capable of making marks, not just on himself but on other people.”
My breath caught again. If Stephan could put the mark on people…What if he’d put the mark on Alex? I wasn’t sure if I believed that or not. Yes, Alex had done some questionable things, but now…I don’t know…he went to the City of Crystal for me.
Nicholas picked up the stone and held it in front of my face, just out of my reach. “Until we meet again,” he said.
“No!” I screamed as the stone began to hum. It did not glow, though, or create smoke. It just hummed. Louder and louder, until the humming clawed at my ear drums.
I threw my hands over my ears. “Nicholas!” I yelled. “Please don’t do this. “
“It’s not my choice,” Nicholas shouted over the humming. Then, suddenly, his eyes were rolling back in his head. He let out a deafening scream that rang loudly through the room. The stone fell from his hands and hit the floor with a clank. The next thing I knew he was lying on the floor. He wasn’t dead—I could see his chest rising and falling with each breath—but definitely unconscious.
I stared at him, bewildered. What happened? Had the stone backfired its power on him? Then I felt a warmth against my neck. I reached up, and slipped my locket out from underneath my tank top.
“Oh my God.” My necklace. My beautiful, amazing, wonderful necklace. The stone’s magic must have taken Nicholas’s Foreseer power away from him, instead of from me.
I tucked the locket back under my shirt and immediately started searching for a way to escape. I didn’t know how long Nicholas was going to be out so I needed to hurry. What I needed was the key to the cuffs.
I inched my way over to Nicholas, as far as the chains would allow me to go, which was close enough that I could reach Nicholas’s foot. I grabbed hold of his shoe and started dragging him toward me. My word, faeries were heavy. It was like trying to pull a bag of bricks. But I managed and almost started jumping up and down when I found the key tucked away in the pocket of his pants.
“Yes,” I cried, unlocking the cuffs and then letting out a breath of freedom. I ran for the door, unsure of how far I would have to go to be able to use my Foreseer powers to get me out of here. But then a sudden thought raced through my mind that made me pause just outside the door. The Ira ball. What if it was here?”
I glanced back at Nicholas, sleeping away. How much time did I have? I wasn’t sure, but I had to try and find it. I raced back into the room, ran over to the table and threw open all the drawers. Each one was vacant.
Other than the table, this room was empty, so I ran out of it and into the next room, where I began ripping everything apart. I dumped out drawers, threw the cushions off the sofas, tossed books off the shelves, but I still couldn’t find it.
Frustrated, I kicked a small garbage can that just happened to me in my legs reach. It tipped over and something round and moss colored rolled out of it and across the floor. The Ira.
I swiped it up and stuffed it into the pocket of my shorts, which was a tricky thing to do since the thing was about the size of a softball. But I didn’t want to be touching it with my skin when I used my Foreseer ability to try and get back to Laylen and Alex.
Worried I might still be too close to the praesidium, I decided to leave the house. I looked around until I found the front door, threw it open, and ran outside. I almost ate it when my feet hit a slick surface—crystal and it was as slippery as trying to walk across an icy parking lot. I slowly made my way across it, slipping and sliding with every step I took. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and crossed my fingers that this would be far enough away.
I casted a glance back at the house, which now that I looked at it, was not a normal house, but a dome house that had been carved out of snow-white crystal. The roof was dotted with bright red gemstones, and the tree that towered beside it had leaves that glowed like nightlights.
Just as I was closing my eyes to take off, the front door to the dome house swung open, and Nicholas stepped out.
“Gemma.” His voice echoed over the ice. “Don’t even think about leaving.” He started to run toward me, moving slowly— feebly, like the stone had drained him of most of his energy.
I shut my eyes, and quickly conjured up a mental picture of the massive SUV, hoping Laylen and Alex would still be at the gas station.
“Gemma.” Nicholas’s angry voice sounded closer.
I squeezed my eyes shut, picturing the leather backseat of the SUV and how I had been lying down on it. I heard Nicholas call out my name again, but I was already gone.
Chapter 29
I landed on my back. My eyes were open and I was staring up at the vinyl ceiling of the black SUV. I shot upright, breathing heavily as I immediately skimmed my surroundings. To my amazement, the SUV was still parked at the gas station, only now instead of being parked to the side of a gas pump it was in a parking space in front of the gas station. The sun was still shining brightly, so I must have not been gone for too long.
But where were Laylen and Alex?
Right as I thought it, I spotted them standing not too far off in front of the car. They looked like they were arguing, stern expressions set on their faces, their arms flying as the spoke heatedly.
I threw open the car door. “Hey,” I yelled and they both jumped.
As soon as they saw it was me, they ran over and hopped into the car.
“Where the heck have you been?” Alex asked, not in a rude way, but in an extremely freaked out one.
“We have to go,” Not knowing how long it would take for Nicholas’s Foreseer power to return to him, I knew we needed to get on the road fast.
Alex and Laylen looked at each other and then a few moments later the tires were spinning as we peeled out of the parking lot, leaving the gas station behind in a cloud of dust.
I think it took Alex about a minute before he started firing off questions at me. Where were you? What happened? Why are your wrists bleeding? Are you okay? The last one threw me for a bit of a turn, but I answered each one, and made sure to include all the details about the Fey and the Blood Promise. I even took it upon myself to be the one to tell him that his father was definitely a descendent of Malefiscus. I also told him about Nicholas’s new mark.
I thought when I told Alex all of this, he would freak out. Well, I mean freak out in the sense that he would deny, deny, deny, and refuse to believe such a thing about his father. Yeah, he did change a little bit over the course of the last few days, but some of the things I told him were big.
So I was shocked when he shrugged and said, “Of course my father is a descendent of Malefiscus. I already knew that.”
Laylen’s head whipped in Alex’s direction. “What! I mean, yeah we all guessed he was, but….you knew.”
Alex slumped back in the chair. “When I was little, my father would tell me stories of Malefiscus.”
“Everyone’s parents did,” Laylen pointed out as he merged the SUV into the left lane so he could pass a very slow moving minivan.
“Yeah, but my father would tell me different stories.” His jaw tightened. “Darker stories.”
“How dark of stories?” I asked, leaning forward on the console.
“Stories of how one day a descendent of Malefiscus,” he ran his fingers through his hair, letting out a stressed breath, “would bare Malefiscus’s mark.”
“Those were the kind of stories your father told you when you were little.” I stared at him, horrified. Jeez, maybe Marco and Sophia weren’t that bad.
He shrugged. “I was a little kid, so I thought it was normal. I honestly didn’t even remember his story until you mentioned your vision and how he…” He swallowed hard. “How his parents cut off his mark. I knew then that my father had to be the descendent he always told me about.”
I shook my head at him. “And you didn’t bother mentioning any of this to us because…”
“Because I don’t bother mentioning a lot of things to you.” Alex stared out the window, with his arms folded.
As I sat there thinking about Alex, and the way that he was, the thought that he might have been marked by Stephan, just like Nicholas had, crept back up into my mind.
“So did you know your father could mark people with the Mark of Malefiscus?” I asked, looking at Alex.