The Hidden Crystal

Chapter 27

The door opened and closed. Iris stiffened. The sofa shifted beneath her as a weight settled beside her, and a hand began stroking her hair. A hand that was not Char's.

She was afraid to look at him.

"I'm sorry. I'm just not good at lying. Please don't hurt the fairies. I really tried."

A deep chuckle followed her rushed torrent of words. "Sweet little Iris." The mage brushed her hair back behind her ear and leaned in, his breath hot on her skin. "Char seems to be under the impression I'm pushing you too hard with our magic lessons."

Her breath hitched in her throat. Was that good enough? Did that mean the fairies were safe?

She pulled her hands away from her face and looked up at the mage. He wasn't disguised as Jonah anymore. His frigid blue eyes were hard and inscrutable; his smirk could have meant anything. She swallowed hard, afraid to speak, afraid saying the wrong thing would end in harm for the fairies.

"Smile and wave, Iris."

Right. Char would look for her through the window when he took off. She hadn't finished lying to him.

She took a deep breath and turned to face the glass, searching for him down below. The snow was melting, revealing patches of dead, brown grass. Leaves were falling from the trees, shocked from their branches by the cold weather out of season, forming piles of death around the trunks.

It was all wrong. Outside was wrong. The smile she plastered on her face when she saw Char was wrong. The mage sitting beside her, positioned just out of Char's sight, was wrong.

Char launched into the air, sending leaves swirling from the force of his wing strokes. She met his green eye through the window and wished he knew. Wished she could tell him.

But she smiled at him, and he flew away, taking her heart and all sense of hope with him.

She buried her face in the sofa's backrest. The mage resumed stroking her hair, and she trembled at his touch.

"You didn't wave, Iris."

"I didn't last time."

"Where is the book he gave you?"

Char told him?

Of course he did. He thought the mage was Jonah, and as a former orphan, Jonah would have been interested in the book, too. The names would have meant something to him. He would have told Iris about the ones he knew who came before her, and she would have told him about Fred, Ginger, and Kayla.

Her heart hurt.

"Iris."

She forced herself to turn around and look at the mage, past the mage, to the spot where Char had left the book. "I-it was right there."

The mage clicked his tongue. "Naughty little fairies."

Panic flooded her chest. "N-not necessarily. They're always tidying up. I-I'm sure they weren't trying to hide it from you."

His hand cupped her cheek. She flinched.

"And even if they were, you'd rather I punish you instead, wouldn't you?"

She nodded.

He smirked and leaned in to kiss her. She forced herself to hold still, to accept the lie of his false affection in the light kiss, but everything within her recoiled from him.

He chuckled, brushing his thumb across her cheek. "You learn quickly." Then he snapped the fingers of his other hand.

Iris hadn't realized the fairies were gone until that moment. A solitary golden orb appeared, darting to the bureau and opening a drawer in obvious haste. It removed the hidden book and rushed it to the mage's waiting hand.