Oberon Reformatory Book Three: Final Offense Page 8

  “Hi, Rory,” Angelina gushes. “What have you got there?”

  “Oh, just some cookies I conjured up while practicing with Headmaster. Do you guys want one?”

  Of course, they do. Brooke gobbles hers down while Maisy licks the sugar off the top of hers. Angelina takes dainty bites, moaning with pleasure as the flavors hit her tongue.

  “Thank you, Rory,” she says. “You’re the best. Want to sit with us?”

  My first instinct is to flee before I get sucked into some inane conversation with them, but I grit my teeth against the urge.

  “Sure,” I say, forcing a smile.

  I squeeze onto the couch between Angelina and Maisy, careful of my wings. Today is Thursday, which means the prisoners are given the ability to release the appendages for a few hours. Wings of every color are fluttering under the fluorescent lights, mine included. Of course, I’ve Glamoured them to appear only blue, as usual. No one can see their true form, or I’d be outed as a princess immediately.

  I glance up, peeling back the layers of magic. Several cameras line the ceiling, and one of them is pointed in my direction. Echo is watching, so I need to make this good.

  I nod and smile while the girls chatter on about the most ridiculous of things, like hairstyles and boys they knew on the outside. It’s like they don’t even realize they’re locked up in prison. Like they think this is all temporary.

  “Ugh, can you freaking believe that?” Brooke asks, looking across the room.

  I follow her line of sight to a couch against the wall. Lark and Robbie are snuggled into one corner, holding hands. My sister’s wings are ice-blue like her eyes, Glamour hiding the dark edges. She looks so much like Dad, my eyes burn with emotion.

  “Not only is she hanging out with a Zephyr, now they’re what? Girlfriends? Gross.”

  Maisy’s words strike anger through me, and I have to fight hard not to react. Even if it wasn’t my sister and best friend she was disparaging, I’d still be mad. My parents have been fighting for Fae equality my whole life, and faeries like these girls undermine every hour of work they’ve put in over the last two decades.

  Angelina makes a scoffing noise in her throat, then looks at me expectantly. I can tell she’s waiting for me to agree with them, like she’s somehow forgotten how tight Lark, Asher, and I were before I orchestrated our big fallout. Like that fight would change my mind and make me hate someone based on the color of their wings.

  “I don’t see anything wrong with it,” I say, shocking the trio. “Zephyrs and Sylphs aren’t so different, and if they like each other, who are we to judge?”

  “But...” Maisy starts, then trails off.

  Her mouth closes and opens a few times before she snaps it shut, unable to find a clever response. The other two hold their tongues as well, the Glamour I’ve cast over them preventing them from condemning me and my opinions.

  “Anyway, I better get going. These cookies aren’t going to hand themselves out.”

  The three of them mutter goodbyes as I stand. I wander away, winding through the crowds and offering treats until my plate is empty. Offering my friends a weak smile, I leave the room and head back to my cell.

  My generous distribution of the cookies should be enough to make Echo believe I’ve reinforced my Glamour, and I don’t have it in me to pretend anymore. I am physically and emotionally exhausted.

  Echo is trying to use me to take down my family.

  And thanks to his magic, I can’t tell a soul.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I walk into the mess hall for breakfast, and my eyes immediately search out my friends. Cedric, Jolene, and Acadia sit on one side of the table, their heads bent together. Lark and Asher sit on the other. He’s holding her hand and whispering furiously into her ear as her pale face pinches in fear.

  My first instinct is to go to them and find out what’s wrong. Peeling back the Glamour in the room, I see several cameras placed near the ceiling, focused on different groups of faeries, including my friends. Forcing my feet to move, I head to the buffet line and grab some food before finding an empty chair.

  My eyes dart to Asher and Lark before returning to my food, and in that brief moment, I lock eyes with Lark. She looks miserable, and I can see tears pooling in her dark eyes.

  What is going on?

  My breath catches in my throat as my eyes fly back to their table, scanning the faces of its occupants before moving across the rest of the mess hall. Not seeing the beautiful face I was looking for, I move my gaze back to meet Lark’s. She gives me an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

  My sister isn’t here. And Lark doesn’t know where she is.

  I take a bite of my eggs, but my throat is so tight, I can barely swallow it. Dropping my fork to the tray, I rise to my feet and walk to the trash can to dump my food. I catch Asher’s eye on my way out, silently urging him to come find me in my room.

  I hurry back to my cell, luckily finding no cameras in my hall. I leave the door cracked open while I pace back and forth across the small space. It doesn’t take long for Asher to squeeze through the opening and push the door closed behind him.

  Throwing up a quick privacy shield, I fly forward to stand in front of him, my eyes pleading.

  “I don’t know where she is,” he says before I can speak. “Lark went by her room this morning to get her for breakfast, but she wasn’t there. We searched the common room, and the other hallways, and Lark checked all the bathrooms. We couldn’t find her anywhere. I’m sorry, Rory.”

  “Where could she be?” I ask helplessly. “She has to be somewhere.”

  “Maybe Echo released her,” he offers, but the look in his eyes tells me he knows just as well as I do there is little to no chance of that happening.

  Despite Robbie trying to tone down her magic, it would be obvious to anyone looking that she was more powerful than most of the other inmates in Oberon Reformatory. And Echo was always watching. Always looking for new, dominant Fae to add to the top tiers of his army.

  I open my mouth to tell Asher as much, but the words won’t come. I growl in frustration, curling my hands into tight fists as I try to force the truth out.

  Echo is building an army to steal the throne and return the world to the way it was under Sebille’s rule. And I think he’s taken my sister.

  It should be so easy, but nothing passes my lips besides a few choking noises and grunts. Asher grasps my shoulders and pulls me into his embrace. His warmth feels like home, his scent divine despite the faint chemical smell of the lemon soap Echo forces the inmates to use.

  “I can’t tell you what I know or what I think has happened to Robbie,” I mumble against his chest.

  “It’s okay,” he says softly. “We’ll figure it out, together.”

  I nod before lifting up onto my toes and burrowing my face against his neck. His arms tighten around me as my lips brush the sensitive skin of his throat. I pull back, press a chaste kiss to his lips, then put some space between us.

  “Thanks,” I say. “I appreciate you pulling me back from the edge.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” he smiles, then crosses his arms over his muscular chest. “Now, let’s figure this out so we can find April.”

  One corner of my mouth ticks up at his use of my sister’s alias. Despite insisting that we use our fake names with each other, I’m having a really hard time calling her anything other than Robbie. Asher smiles back at me, and I’m suddenly longing for the day when he can freely and openly call me by my real name. Just thinking about hearing him call me Finley makes my heart beat faster.

  “Tell me whatever you are able, and I’ll make guesses until I get it right.”

  I start to nod, then whirl around as the hinges on my door squeak. Lark slips through the opening before pushing the door closed behind her. I pull her into a hug, and I’m not sure who’s consoling who as we hold each other tightly. When I release her, Asher explains what we’re doing.

  “It’s worth a shot,” Lark says, making herself comfortable on my bed. “Just say words, and we’ll work on stringing them together.”

  “Echo,” I say, and they nod.

  “You think Echo took her,” Asher says. “We’d already thought of that.”

  “Do you think he’s hurting her?” Lark asks, her voice cracking on the words.

  “No,” I say, shaking my head.

  I try to mention solitary confinement, but the words won’t come out. I clench my teeth and groan. I should be able to talk about it…unless Robbie being in solitary had a direct correlation to Echo’s plan. My face relaxes as the thought occurs to me.

  I have to be right. If Robbie wasn’t in solitary and had nothing to do with Echo’s grand scheme to take over the world, I’d be able to talk about it. The fact that I can’t proves that my thoughts are spot on and Robbie has become a key component to his plan.

  “Cassie,” I blurt as the young Sylph pops into my head.

  “Who?” Larks asks, looking confused.

  “Solitary confinement,” Asher says, and I nod furiously. His face darkens as he turns to his cousin and says, “Cassie is the young girl Rory met in solitary, remember?”

  Understanding dawns on Lark’s face as her gaze turns back to me. “You think Echo locked April up in solitary confinement?” I give her one firm nod, and she asks, “Why didn’t you just say so?”

  “She can’t, or she would’ve,” Asher says, and I nod furiously at him. “Which means…your sister being locked away has something to do with Echo’s plans. Otherwise, you’d be able to say it.”

  “Yes,” I say, relief filling me at his understanding. I’d expected this to be a lot harder.

  “How do we get her back?” Lark asks in a low voice.

  “I don’t know
,” I say. “I have a training session with Echo this afternoon.”

  “Hopefully, now that you’re his most trusted confidante, he’ll tell you everything and we can get her out of there,” Lark says.

  “Hopefully,” I reply.

  I really hope she’s right, for all our sakes.

  “Very good, Miss Finley. You impress me more and more with each day that passes.”

  I force a smile at Echo’s words as the wind I’d created dies down and my feet land softly on the floor. I’ve let more of my true power show during this session, hoping that he’ll be impressed enough to keep his sights on me and not so much on my sister.

  He hasn’t said a word about her, and I have no way to bring her up without making him suspicious. It’s frustrating to the extreme, when all I want is to scream for him to tell the truth and set Robbie free.

  Channeling my anger, I conjure a ball of blue fire and launch it toward a target that’s been set up on the far wall. The fireball hits the bullseye, and a flare of blue light fills Echo’s private gym as the target explodes into flames. My eyes dart to the headmaster, who is smiling with satisfaction.

  I show off for a while more, pretending to preen under his compliments until he calls our session to an end. Shaking out my arms, I call to air, forming a cool breeze that dries my sweat in an instant. Echo is still smiling, and I can tell he’s nearly bursting at the seams to tell me something.

  “I have a surprise for you, my dear,” he says.

  Bingo.

  “Really?” I gush, anticipation filling me.

  “I’ve made an important discovery about one of our newer inmates,” he hints, his gray eyes gleaming.

  “Oh, really? Which one?”

  “The girl calling herself April Goode is not who she claimed to be,” he says, rubbing his palms together. “She is, in fact, a hybrid.”

  “But…she’s blonde,” I offer lamely.

  “A rarity, indeed,” he cackles. “But that is not the most intriguing part. Though she has not admitted as much, I am fairly certain the name is an alias, and she is, in fact—”

  Oh, God. No. Don’t say it.

  “—the youngest daughter of the king and queen…Princess Robin Oberon.”

  My heart stops in my chest as I feel the blood drain from my face. I have to stop this. Robbie hasn’t confirmed anything, so Echo is just guessing at this point. Maybe I can convince him he’s wrong.

  “A princess?” I ask, stopping short of scoffing because the last thing I want is to offend him. “The king and queen would never let their daughter be locked up in here. Besides, the princesses have black hair and eyes, like Zephyrs.”

  “Ah, you’re right,” he says, his smile remaining. “If they knew Princess Robin was here, they would definitely interfere. But what if they have no idea? The girl was arrested and sentenced under a fake name, which makes it entirely possible that her parents have no idea where she is. And I wouldn’t put it past the king and queen to Glamour their daughters to appease those blasted Zephyrs when they should be condemning the whole race!”

  He’s getting much too close to the truth, so I change tactics.

  “What makes you think she’s anything more than what she claims to be?” I ask.

  “It’s simple, really,” he says, smacking his lips. “Though she’s attempted to hide it, it has become evident that she’s much more powerful than an everyday Sylph. Even more powerful than most hybrids, if I had to guess. And she looks exactly like that idiot Easton, down to the color of her eyes and wings.”

  “I don’t know, Headmaster. It seems highly unlikely—”

  “Are you arguing with me, girl?”

  His demeanor flips from pleased to angry so fast, my head spins. I’m treading on thin ice here, and I’m smart enough to know when I need to backpedal.

  “No, sir. I apologize. You are, of course, much wiser than me in such issues.”

  I swallow against the lump lodged in my throat, hoping I haven’t laid it on too thick. Echo’s expression relaxes into one of satisfaction, and I relax the tiniest bit. Appealing to the man’s narcissism seems to have worked. For now.

  A knot forms in my stomach as he goes on to list all of the ways we could use Robbie against my parents. How we would gain the upper hand, seeing as how Easton and December Oberon would never put one of their precious mutt children at risk. And if there’s some way we could coerce the princess into working with us against them, we would win the day and return the planet to the old ways.

  I watch him with wide eyes, pretending to absorb every word he utters as my panicked brain tried to figure out a way to get my sister out of this mess. She put herself at risk to come find me…and now she’s paying the price.

  And for someone claiming to be so observant and all-knowing, he hasn’t seemed to have noticed the resemblance between Robbie and me. If he spends time with her one-on-one, he will, without a doubt, make the connection.

  I can’t let that happen.

  I need to find a way to break her out of solitary. To save her. To save us all.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Not being able to tell my friends what I’ve learned is frustrating to the extreme. As soon as I left Echo’s wing of the building earlier, I attempted to say what I’d learned out loud, and nothing had happened. When Jax led me back to my cell, I shook my head at him and told him I had nothing to report.

  Now, as I lay on my bed and count the cracks in the ceiling for the thousandth time, my mood is dipping lower and lower, bringing me to the verge of outright depression. Tears sting my eyes as I think of my sister, stuck in solitary confinement and scared out of her wits. She pretends to be strong and independent, but I know she needs me.

  And the fact that I can’t be there for her right now when she needs me the most makes me want to throw up.

  I wonder if she’s in my old cell. I wonder if Cassie can hear Robbie crying, and will try to console her as I did for the young faery when I was locked down there. I wonder if Robbie blames me for this.

  I wouldn’t hold it against her if she does. This is all my fault.

  If I hadn’t Glamoured my chaperone and snuck off instead of going on my grand tour of Europe like I was supposed to, I never would have ended up here. I wouldn’t have been in that club, wouldn’t have been harassed by that human, and I wouldn’t have killed him.

  Great-grandpa Robin wouldn’t have asked me to help him figure out what was going on in this place, and Robbie wouldn’t have gotten herself sent here to try to help. She’d be at home, safe and sound in her bed, and I’d be in some chic café in Paris sipping coffee and eating chocolate truffles.

  Echo wouldn’t have us in his grip—the two most powerful faeries that ever lived—and wouldn’t be able to use us against our parents.

  This really was all my fault. One bad decision after another, and here we are. Imprisoned. Enslaved.

  And there’s nothing I can say about it. Literally.

  I doze off, but it’s a fitful sleep wrought with nightmares. Memories of what’s happened at the reformatory mingle with visions of the future. A future filled with war and pain. With death and despair.

  My sleeping mind creates a vision of my parents, lying dead and bleeding in the street outside our home. I wake with a start, my heart pounding out of my chest as I try to catch my breath. I leap to my feet and pace the room, willing myself to calm down. It was just a dream.

  But it’s up to me to make sure it doesn’t become a reality.

  It’s bad enough that I allowed myself to be locked up in here for this long. I was supposed to do my time until my “grand tour” was over, then break free and go home like none of this ever happened.

  I hadn’t counted on finding true friendship and real love in the meantime. Lark, Asher, and the others had thrown a real kink in those plans I’d made. There was no way I was leaving here without them, or without the other countless innocent Fae locked up in here with us.

  I also hadn’t counted on my sister showing up to help me, or having her true identity discovered by Echo and getting herself locked up in solitary confinement. The one place I can’t get to her.

  I stumble to a halt. Can’t? Or won’t?

  If I continue on the path I’ve been following, keeping my head down and being everything Echo wants me to be, then no, I can’t get to Robbie. Any attempt to break her free would put my cover at risk. If I were to get caught, I’d get thrown into solitary right next to Robbie, and Echo would never trust me again.