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Chapter Fifty-Three

RAIN

T he six of us piled into Aspen's room to come up with a plan.

Clearly, Nevaeh hadn't been lying to us.

Twice, Torian said that out loud, almost as if trying to remind himself it was even possible.

Unfortunately, I didn't know how to even start looking for some vague symbol of some vague thing that would definitively call the Hunt down on my girlfriend.

Torian had ideas, though. Wilder had been told stories of such things placed around the Winter Palace before he'd come here.

They were typically made of a natural material, like wood or cloth.

Often, some kind of revulsion or invisibility enchantment was put on them - which I should be immune to.

Always, they were written in Faeril of some kind.

High Faeril was what Wilder had been told about.

Hawke realized he'd seen things written in low Faeril, or the common version of their language, but hadn't realized what they were - although, if they were Hunt signs, that made more sense.

Me? I felt like I was watching a tennis match as my head bounced back and forth between the speakers.

Eventually, Aspen's phone beeped with a warning curfew was coming.

The guys headed back to their side of the building.

Aspen and I kept talking, but she was as ignorant of these things as I was.

She'd been little when she'd left and didn't remember such things.

Flowers, though, she remembered clearly.

The next morning, I woke to a male voice whispering softly. I couldn't make out the words, so I opened my eyes as I rolled toward the sound. Torian stood on Aspen's side of my bed, crouched down so his face was level with his sister's, and his words were not in English.

They were beautiful, though. Beside him, Glow was unfurled completely, acting as if the very sound of Torian's voice was the nutrient it needed. Then I heard Aspen reply in the same language. Clearly, it was one I needed to learn. Well, in my spare time, if I could find any.

"Does this mean you found something?" I asked.

Torian's head snapped up. Those eerie green eyes of his held mine for a long moment, and then he did the last thing I expected. The guy smiled.

"Something, yeah. Sadly, I found approximately a thousand items on the Silver Oaks campus with the right magical signature to be what Ms. Rhodes described."

"But he said some are in houses," Aspen said, rolling onto her back so she could see me.

I nodded, thinking about that. "Doesn't really rule them out, does it?"

"Sadly, no," Torian admitted. "With Aspen showing Winter magic, there are a lot of people who'd gladly ignore it if she vanished. Same for Wilder."

"And Nevaeh," I pointed out.

He grunted in disgust, but didn't deny it. "Bracken doesn't use this season. He can, but he's weak in it, so he avoids it. There's one more faeling who uses Winter, but I think that's it."

"So how do we check them?" I asked.

"We can go - " Aspen tried.

But Torian cut her off. "You cannot go outside until we find this thing! Aspen, you are too important for that! The moment you turn eighteen…"

"Is no one's business but mine!" Aspen snapped, finishing his unspoken warning. "Fuck, Tor, we've talked about this! I don't care about some big future plans for when I'm grown up. I don't care if you care. And this? It's just making me feel like a damned prisoner here!"

"Keir and I can handle the enchantments," I assured her. "We'll do it as fast as we can. You focus on growing some of those bubble plants for us, ok? You know, like thank-you gifts, since you still can't say the word."

She just stuck her tongue out at me. "I can so! I just don't like it."

"I happen to like it," I told the pair. "I mean, just so that's out there. But no, seriously. I can grab Keir and check any..." My words trailed off as I realized the bigger problem. "Shit. How will I know if I find a thing? I've never seen one. Can you glamour me what they look like?"

"Sadly, no," Torian said. "I've never seen such things either.

The Mad Queen kept me in her Palace like a fucking trophy!

" He grumbled under his breath at the mere thought.

"But Hawke knows. Wilder knows about the ones the Summer army put up in Avalon.

The Valentinas wouldn't use that kind, though.

They were too common to even be titled in the last uprising. "

"Uh..." I looked over at Aspen. "Do I want to know?"

"Fae history," she explained. "Don't worry about it. But if you go out, I think you should take Hawke, not Keir."

"Take both," Torian suggested.

And that was how, two hours later, I ended up outside with both of them. Wilder had promised he'd keep an eye on Torian, supposedly. At least, that was what Hawke told me. And Jack? He'd taken off to mingle with the other crows.

"So, tell me about these things we're looking for?" I asked, enjoying the bright sun and chilly breeze.

Because February was slipping past quickly. The first grasses were starting to wake up, but they weren't quite growing yet. The world just had this brittle green shade to it, mixed in with all the yellows and browns. The sky, however, was the bluest I'd seen in far too long.

Fat and puffy clouds hung in the sky. The sun was intense, making my coat feel like it was too much, but I knew I'd regret taking it off, so I settled on wearing it open.

Keir had on a jacket. Hawke had gone with a chocolate-brown hoodie that worked a little too well for him.

When I caught Keir checking him out, I had to smother a giggle before I made things awkward.

"Hunt signs," Hawke said before pausing.

"Well, that's the closest I can translate the term to.

The literal term would be something like 'sighting assistance.

'" He grunted, showing that wasn't important.

"They're apparently often carved on trees or made from scraps and hung in them.

When I was a kid, we used to see them all the time, but no one ever said what they did.

Wilder and I talked last night, and yeah. I'm kinda glad no one told me."

"So look up?" I asked, gesturing to the tall trees around us.

Many were oaks. Some were pines and cedars.

There were more, but I didn't have names for all the types.

That was Aspen's thing, and I learned them as she talked about them.

Sadly, we'd spent most of our time inside since I'd been here, due to the cool fall and cold winter.

And yet, I now longed to know each and every type that grew on the Silver Oaks grounds.

"Could be buried in the leaves underneath too," Hawke admitted. "Our best course is to go to each place Torian marked, look around until we figure out what enchantment he detected, and either disable it or mark it off the list."

I nodded, aware the pair were leading me out towards the same place where we'd celebrated Winter Solstice. "How do we disable them?" I asked.

"Burning is good," Hawke said.

"You do fire?" Keir asked.

Hawke chuckled. "I do a lot of things. You can also shield them, preventing the call. Rain? She could just touch it, because her shadows don't mix well with sidhe magic."

"Which means I get to touch a lot of things," I realized.

"Mhm," Keir said. "Isn't being the Morrigan glorious and so very amazing?"

I scoffed. "It got me outside on a gorgeous Sunday. I mean, I hate why, but I do like the company."

"She's talking about you," Hawke pointed out.

"Figured it was you," Keir said. "I mean, I heard there was a hot and heavy make-out session a while back."

Hawke made a little noise as he canted his head. "Less hot and heavy. More overstepping my manners."

"Uh, hi. Right here," I reminded them.

"Shh," Keir teased, never looking away from Hawke. "She's cute when she's sleeping, though."

"Don't tell me you did the creepy guy thing and watched her sleep?" Hawke groaned. "No, not cool. Not even that vampire movie made it cool!"

"No, not like that!" Keir insisted. "I just woke up before her. But she snuggles."

"So does Wilder," Hawke said just a little too casually. "You should try it. You know, if you want to swap rooms, I can tame the savage beast for a bit."

"Torian?" I asked.

"Uh, yes," Keir assured me. "And gonna pass on that, Hawke. I'm good. The last thing I want to do is screw up my friendships."

I turned and gaped at him. "Uh, hi. Still here."

"And you're not like a fae," Keir assured me.

"I'm not fae enough half the time because I grew up here, and too fae the rest. That typically translates to crashing and burning - except with humans.

So, call it a fetish if you want, but I'd much rather be seen as fun and entertaining than as annoying and ignorant. "

"You're not annoying," Hawke said .

"Yeah, remind me of that the next time my new suitemate goes off on a rant."

"Tor just has a lot on his mind," Hawke pointed out. "Things with Aspen are more complicated than you know. He has to protect her. That's his big vow, Keir. Torian swore that he would - " And Hawke stopped hard. "Fuck."

"Do something you can't talk about," I finished for him. "Yep, this is getting to be a common refrain."

"I'm sorry," Hawke said. "I am, Rain. We didn't even know you existed when we made that promise."

"And you can't get out of it now?" Keir asked.

"Shouldn't," Hawke clarified. "Trust me, it's a protection, not an inhibition, and Ms. Rhodes was right. We want to tell our friends. We want to trust the people who are nice to us. We also can't be sure that in a year, two, or a hundred that they'll still be our friends."