A/N: Hi! Chapter 10! It's shorter than most of my other chapters and I probably could have added another section, but I feel bad that some of you have been asking for updates for so long, so I decided to post this anyways. It's definitely different, because—guess what—Puck and Sabrina aren't in this one at all! That's the section I'm currently working on, so we'll see them in Chapter 11. BUT there are even more Grimms in this chapter, and there's more of Moth/Ariel. We've seen so much of Moth's external personality that I wanted to explore what she's like inside her own head a bit more.
Question for you guys—do you want me to put summaries of what happened in the previous chapter or in the story in general at the beginning of chapters if it's been a long time since I last updated? Let me know because I'm not sure how often you all reread this and I will summarize if that would make it easier for you all to jump back in.
Also, I wanted to say that I really appreciate all of the reviews I get, whether they're three words long or three paragraphs long. Every single one makes my day, so don't be afraid to leave a comment even if you don't think you have much to say! To reviewers with accounts—I'll answer you guys ASAP but I do have physics homework due in 6 hours that I haven't started yet, so after that!
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Daphne
Chaos ensued in the Grimm household.
Granny Relda had called Henry while the others were searching frantically for Kladenets, and by some miracle he had picked up. Daphne had listened, cringing, to Granny explain that Uncle Jake had lost his daughter. After a while, Granny managed to calm him down, and reported to everyone that Henry was on his way with Veronica and Basil, and that they should arrive around five in the morning.
No one wanted to sleep, and no one really wanted to be alone, either. Although Daphne wanted nothing more than to be able to solve this problem by reading family journals or organizing a stakeout, there was really nothing to do besides stress out about Puck and Sabrina, and their own safety. The threat of Moth and Ariel hung over everyone like a thundercloud. Tobias had boarded up the door to Puck's room, just in case, and then had moved several dressers in front of it for good measure. Granny was planning on locking up the house as soon as the rest of the family arrived.
Time ticked on, and still no one went to bed. Instead, they scattered themselves around the living room and kitchen and occupied themselves by working, eating, and jumping at small noises. Uncle Jake made a pot of coffee and then drank about half of it. Daphne and Red, once they were finally too full to keep eating Cheez-its and popcorn, started a game of what they called zombie Monopoly. It was exactly the same as regular Monopoly, but whenever one of them fell asleep and had to be prodded awake, they had to give the other person twenty bucks.
Time passed hazily until there was a loud knock. Daphne sprang up and ran to it, meeting Granny Relda at the door. She threw it open and then threw herself into her mother's arms. Veronica hugged her fiercely, staggering back onto the porch, and Daphne suddenly felt very small.
Basil, who was now eight, was sound asleep in their father's arms, so Daphne leaned in to kiss them both on the cheek. Her father's eyes were dark with worry.
"Are you okay?" He asked Daphne, leveling his gaze to hers.
In a sudden urge to defend Uncle Jake against Henry's inevitable wrath, Daphne blurted out, "Great. I had a lot of fun in Russia."
Henry raised a skeptical eyebrow.
"Really," Daphne argued. "Other than Moth and Ariel, of course."
"Who?" Henry asked. Veronica tilted her head and frowned.
"Everyone, get in," Granny Relda urged, shooing everyone into the house. "House, time to lock up!"
"Wait, lock up?" Veronica asked. "Relda, all you told us was that Sabrina and Puck ran off because they wanted to finish the mission alone. What's going on?"
Granny Relda and Daphne exchanged glances.
"I got this," Daphne said, and so Granny took Basil from Henry's arms and carried him over to the couch while Daphne, for what felt like the millionth time, launched into the story. She was getting sick of hearing her own voice. By the time she was finished, Veronica's mouth was hanging open and Henry was sagging against the wall, looking like he might be sick.
Veronica asked a few clarifying questions and managed to remain relatively calm, but once he'd recovered, Henry pushed past them both.
"Jacob!" he yelled.
Uncle Jake stepped out of the kitchen and held out his arms. "Hank!"
Daphne cringed. Somehow, in the past few hours, her uncle's appearance had deteriorated from worse for wear to potentially homeless. He'd spilled coffee down his shirt, which, combined with the flecks of blood that had hit him when they were in the Lost Cave, created a ghastly affect that made it look like he'd been rolling in vomit. There was a huge rip in his jeans, surrounded by smears of dirt, from when he'd tripped and fallen when they were running away from Moth. His hair was still sticking up in all directions, and his eyes were red-rimmed and accessorized with massive purple bags.
The image did not evoke sympathy in Henry. He stalked toward his younger brother, anger rolling off of him in waves.
"You told me you weren't going to split the group up! You lost my daughter and didn't tell me, and now she could be literally anywhere on the planet, with Puck, of all people!"
"Dad, it's not Uncle Jake's fault," Daphne tried, staying far back from the conflict. "Sabrina and Puck thought we would be in more danger if we came with them!"
"Jacob was in charge of you all," her father argued, glaring over his shoulder at Daphne before returning his attention to Jake. "He should have handled this better. Now my daughter is being targeted by a bunch of lunatic Everafters, and we're all hiding up in Ferryport Landing!"
"We're going to help them," Uncle Jake snapped, setting his fifth mug of coffee down on the table. "We aren't going to let them do this alone. Besides, Puck is very capable of protecting her while we aren't around—"
"You and I both know that Puck has other reasons to want to be alone with my daughter!" Henry roared. Out of the corner of her eye, Daphne saw Basil sit up with a jolt on the couch and look around in utter confusion.
"Henry!" Uncle Jake, Granny Relda, and Veronica said simultaneously, while Daphne cried, "Dad!"
"Puck would never take advantage of her," Uncle Jake hissed, taking a step closer to his brother. "Don't you talk about him like that!"
But Henry was not finished, when he spoke again his voice was dangerously soft. "You don't understand, Jacob. That's my child out there. I won't rest until I know she's safe."
"Puck is the closest thing I'll ever have to a son," Uncle Jake replied, his voice trembling with fury. "Do you see me sleeping, brother?"
Uncle Jake turned on his heel and strode back into the kitchen, shutting the door with a snap, leaving stunned silence in his wake.
Henry turned to Daphne, speechless. She knew what he was looking for; over the years she's somehow fallen into the role of bridging the gap between Henry's well-meant, although poorly expressed, outbursts of feelings and the rest of the world. Most of these instances had to do with Sabrina. Right now, she was too exhausted to want to help her father see sense, but if she didn't, who would?
"It was Sabrina's choice, whether you like it or not, Dad," Daphne said to him finally, once she'd finished rolling around different words and phrases in her head. "Don't take this out on Uncle Jake. It's not his fault Moth targeted Sabrina. He's already blaming himself for Briar, and Grandpa Basil, and Puck and Sabrina, without a lecture from you."
There was something about her words that felt draining, and Daphne gritted her teeth and sank into a chair, fatigue weighing like lead on her limbs.
When Granny Relda spoke up, it was clear that she was not to be argued with. "I think what we all need to do is sleep. There's nothing any of us can do for Puck and Sabrina in this state. Now, everyone get what you need for tomorrow out of your rooms, we're going to booby trap the hallway."
As so, in the light of the rising sun, the Grimm family settled down for a few hours of sleep. The absence of Sabrina was as glaring and obvious as if someone had carried her empty bed down the stairs and left it in the middle of the room. Several times, Daphne had heard a noise and looked up, expecting to see her sister's blonde head poke around a corner. But no matter how hard Daphne wished, her sister was gone, and so she'd tried to push it from her mind as curled up with an upset and disoriented Basil on one of the couches in the living room to lull him back to sleep. Red had insisted that Tobias take the other. Everyone else set up a row of sleeping bags on the floor, except for Uncle Jake, who was too caffeinated and distressed to sleep and instead slumped in an armchair.
Although she was more exhausted than she had ever been, Daphne couldn't sleep either. She watched the shadows that webbed the ceiling shrink in the morning light, trying to match her breathing to her brother's. Once Daphne was pretty sure that the others were asleep, she sat up with the intention of going to get a glass of water, drawing Uncle Jake's attention. The look in his eyes reminded her of a solider who'd just returned from battle.
Daphne's heart clenched.
Puck is the closest thing I'll ever have to a son.
"You didn't do anything wrong, you know," she whispered. "I think you're doing a great job. Puck and Sabrina will be fine."
Uncle Jake started and then looked at her like he'd never seen her before. A shadow of a smile crossed his face.
"Look at you, Peanut. Taking care of everyone else around you, adults and children alike," he said, gesturing to the way she had one arm wrapped around her brother. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. "You're gonna make a great leader someday, kid."
Daphne frowned. A leader? She wasn't a leader any more than she was a unicorn. Basil had been upset, so she'd done what she could to get him to sleep. Henry hadn't yelled anymore after she'd finished talking, but she'd only spoken so that no one else would have to.
She noticed that Uncle Jake had visibly relaxed, and Daphne wondered whether it actually had been her words that had made the difference. Forgetting all about the water, she slid back down, feeling tiredness seep from her eyeballs as her head hit the pillow.
Daphne drifted off feeling oddly warm inside, and a little confused, and thought for the first time since they'd left Russia that everything might just be okay.
Moth's stomach was in knots.
"Are you sure this is the right place?" she hissed, lengthening her stride to match Ariel's.
Contemptuous, he replied, "Obviously."
They'd met up again in an area of the Forbidden North where Moth had never been, but knew Ariel frequented. He'd refused to tell her what had happened in the Lost Cave, but Moth thought that he looked strangely haggard and frail, as if his true age was catching up to him.
Moth scowled at Ariel's back. They couldn't afford to be weak. Not now. Not ever, once they were royalty.
She didn't know where he was taking her. When she'd returned with Kladenets but no leads as to where her moron of an ex-fiancé and his even-more-clueless romantic interest had gone, Ariel had claimed to know how to find them. How that was possible was beyond Moth, but he had started walking with purpose, and she would rather die than ask him where they were going and seem stupid.
Kladenets was strapped vertically to her back, hilt up. The constant pressure of it against her spine was reassuring, a reminder that their plan—her plan—was working.
The tundra was flat and bare here, with no vegetation, animal life, or even a hollow in the ground to mar the landscape as far as the eye could see. When Moth had commented on the endless whiteness in an effort to make a conversation, Ariel had tersely informed her that everything in the area was dead.
Good thing we're so good at making small talk. So compatible, Moth thought dryly. Probably about as compatible as her and Puck would have been.
Ariel stopped walking and dropped to his knees, his lanky frame as taut as a loaded bow. He placed a bare hand deep into the blanket of snow and a fierce shudder that couldn't have been due to the cold ran through his shoulders. Wordlessly, he reached behind him and snatched her wrist, and then the world went dark.
It took Moth a while to realize that she could see again, since it was so dark that it took her eyes a long time to adjust. They were in some sort of cave, judging by the stalagmites that rose around them like the skeletons of saplings. Ariel kept a firm, uncomfortable pressure on her arm and began to walk them through the dark.
"We're underground," he informed her unnecessarily.
Moth's mouth went dry as they wound around the stalagmites. Wherever she went, she always made an escape plan, in case she was betrayed and had to get herself out. But right now she was more than disoriented. How had they gotten here? There had been no entrance aboveground that Moth could see. She had no idea how Ariel knew where he was going, and the idea of being completely at his mercy did not sit well with her. Should she jump him now, while his back was turned?
No. No, he needed her. He couldn't hurt her.
Yet, said a nasty little voice in the back of her head.
Ariel stopped so fast that Moth nearly walked into him, but caught herself just in time. She felt a calloused finger touch her lips, a warning to be silent. Nerve endings on fire, Moth held her breath and waited.
The soft hiss of a match being lit echoed through the blackness, and some distance away a flicker of fire erupted at chest level, too far away to illuminate anything, just close enough to make her squint.
The candle-sized flame grew without warning into a torch, and that was when Moth saw the silhouette of the being that was holding it.
"Ariellll," wheezed the creature. Moth felt goose bumps pinch her arms. How had it known who they were?
"You swore you'd never return to me. And with another girl? I thought you'd given up on them."
"She's an accomplice," Ariel said, his words as brittle as a tree branch in winter.
Some halting, croaking noise that Moth realized with a shudder was laughter was coming from the crone behind the torch. Moth's stomach turned dangerously and she put her free hand over her mouth, glad that this creature was hidden in the shadows. Surely she looked as hideous as she sounded.
"Trying to help this one win immortality too?" The crone snapped back. "She been lying to you, she has. Pretty girl's four thousand and twelve."
Moth was so startled that this thing knew her age that it took her a moment to register what else the woman was saying. Immortality? Another girl? Frowning, she glanced at Ariel, who was little more than an outline. His hand squeezed her arm so hard that she had to bite her lip to stop herself from crying out.
"I've come to even our score. You owe me, Sycorax," Ariel replied smoothly. "I need you to throw the bones."
Alarm bells rang in Moth's brain. Sycorax?
Everyone who frequented the Forbidden North knew that Sycorax was the witch that had imprisoned Ariel in tree thousands of years ago. Her existence and the way Ariel had refused to help her practice black magic was the reason that Ariel's behavior today frightened even the toughest Everafters. It was why she'd sought him out.
However, everyone who knew the story also knew that Sycorax was dead.
"The favor was me letting you go last time instead of feasting on you, foolish boy! Push me one more time, and you and your lover may not be so lucky," said the witch. Again, she began to laugh. The noise reminded Moth of the calls that bullfrogs made before the palace boys used them for target practice.
Moth's stomach gave a vicious twist, one that had nothing to do with the stink that was wafting from wherever Sycorax was standing to wherever they were standing.
"Sycorax died thousands of years ago," Moth said out of the corner of her mouth, in case Ariel had finally lost his marbles. There had been a rumor, centuries after her passing, when vampires wreaked havoc on the countryside, that she'd sold her soul to the devil in exchange for the opportunity to lead the bloodsuckers, but there had never been any evidence. Moth had been sure there had been no truth to it, that it had just been a tale told to frighten children who wouldn't go to bed.
A low growl rumbled in Ariel's throat. He ignored Moth. "You'll help, vampiress, or I'll make it my personal mission to hunt down your grave."
Vampiress?!
The laugh stopped so quickly that Ariel might as well have slapped her. Sycorax's light went out without warning and then a rush of cold air made Moth suck in a breath. The sickening smell that Moth could now place—the irony tang of old blood—overwhelmed her. She felt Sycorax's presence behind her and held still as the vile creature took a deep sniff.
"That's quite a sword," Sycorax murmured in her ear.
"Watch yourself, peasant," Moth snapped, and then clamped her mouth shut to stop herself to emptying the contents of her stomach on the floor.
More bullfrog laughter.
"I like this one so much better, Ariel," Sycorax croaked. "The old one was so…boring."
Ariel snatched his hand away from Moth as if she had burned him, and Moth found herself recoiling, thankful for the darkness for hiding her temporary lapse in fearlessness. She wasn't scared of Ariel, Moth reminded herself. Ariel was wrapped around her finger, he wouldn't hurt her.
"Don't talk about her like that!" Ariel yelled, and his echo screamed back at them.
Sycorax tut-tutted, and with another rush of cold air moved away from them.
"Bones, you say?" The light returned.
Ariel was breathing like a wounded rhinoceros. He clawed at his hair and did not speak.
"I think we both know what you want me to throw for," Sycorax prodded hoarsely.
"No," Ariel snapped, "not that. We need you to locate the King of Faerie."
Moth looked between the two of them, trying to make sense of what was going on. She hated this. This was her mission. What was Ariel doing, undermining her like this?
"Why?" Sycorax argued. "I'll make you a deal, Ariel, because I like you. Give me the girl and I'll throw the bones in a way that will make all your problems disappear."
Moth's eyes widened. She might not know what was going on, but she was smart enough to know when to take over. "I'm not anyone's property to be given. He said throw the bones to find the King of Faerie, witch."
A long, pregnant pause stretched between them. Ariel was now staring upwards, his lips moving wordlessly.
"What'll it be, servant of Prospero?"
Moth's heart was beating a violent tattoo. Why wasn't he answering? Give her to Sycorax—he couldn't turn her over! He wouldn't! He needed her!
But did he? Now that Kladenets was a foot away from him, had she become collateral? Antiquated as the tradition was, the fact remained that you needed a King to be Queen—not the other way around.
"Ariel, tell her to throw for the King of Faerie right now, or I'm teleporting out with Kladenets right now and you'll never see me again," Moth hissed, feeling the old pulsing in her chest that turned her vision red and made her entire body tremble.
Why wasn't she good enough? What the hell was it about her that made her so dispensable, time after time?
"You can't teleport out of here," Ariel muttered. There was no malice in his voice, but then again…there was no anything in it. It was as flat as soda that had been sitting out for days.
That was enough for Moth. With a flourish, she drew Kladenets and swung at Ariel, who ducked just in time. He reached out and grabbed for her, but she dodged, kicked the back of his knee as hard as she could, and then held the tip of the sword to his throat as he lay panting on the ground
"Make the right decision," Moth hissed through gritted teeth and burning eyes.
Ariel was as impassive as a statue. "Find us the King of Faerie, Sycorax," he ordered.
Moth took a big step backwards and held Kladenets in a fighting stance, ready to destroy whichever one of them came for her first.
While they'd been fighting, Sycorax had set the torch down on an earthen table that had previously been obscured by shadow. She let out a dramatic sigh. "Fine. You're both so boring. Do you have his blood?"
Wordlessly, Ariel withdrew a bloodied piece of Puck's shirt from his pocket. Anger flared in Moth's gut again. Another thing he'd done behind her back!
In the pool of yellow light, Sycorax placed a small bag that looked disturbingly like it was made of human skin. Moth watched her hand move through the illuminated patch. The skin was gray and pallid, the nails covered in dark fungus. She shuddered to think about what Sycorax looked like under her cloak.
She drew a dagger, and the motion made Moth's hands twitch on the hilt, but Sycorax simply handed it to Ariel. Wordlessly, Ariel used it to split the flesh on his palm. Sycorax reached into the bag, withdrew a bone that could have been some creature's vertebrate, and handed it to him. With a hiss of pain, Ariel rolled the bone over the cut and handed the bloodied fragment back.
The alarm bells returned. Moth had never been in the presence of magic like this before. There were ways to throw bones without breaking skin, but this…this method was true black magic, the ancient kind that was practiced only by the most demented, twisted beings. Even in the Forbidden North, where rules were few and far between, practicing black magic was a death sentence.
Sycorax held the dagger out to Moth.
"Your turn, girl."
Moth swallowed. Every instinct screamed for her to back away, to tell them that she would only watch, not participate in whatever was about to happen. She began to shake harder, and Kladenets grew slippery in her palms.
Excuses circled through her mind. If she had a cut on her palm she couldn't wield the sword, perhaps the spell wouldn't work if her blood mingled with Ariel's.
Moth bit down hard on the inside of her cheek. Ariel had given his blood without complaint, and if she was going to be his equal, then she knew what she had to do.
But black magic. Black magic left scars on your soul.
She heard her mother's cold voice in her head.
You want to be Queen, don't you? Then you do anything to get there.
Moth stiffened and reached for the hilt.