The Hidden Crystal

Chapter 27

The door opened and closed. The sofa shifted beneath Iris as a weight settled beside her. A hand settled on her head, stroking her hair, and Iris' heart froze in her chest. That touch was not Char's.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly, keeping her face in her hands. "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 away from her ear and leaned in, his breath hot on her skin. "Char seems to be under the impression that 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 slowly pulled her hands away from her face and looked up at him. He wasn't disguised as Jonah anymore. His frigid blue eyes were hard and inscrutable; his smirk could mean anything. He was still stroking her hair. She swallowed hard, afraid to speak, afraid that saying the wrong thing would end in harm for the fairies.

"Smile and wave, Iris."

Right. Char would look for her through the window again when he took off. She wasn't done. She took a deep breath and turned to face the window, 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 unseasonably cold weather, forming piles of death along the forest floor. 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. She watched Char fly away, taking her heart and any sense of hope with him, and she buried her face in the back of the sofa. The mage was stroking her hair again.

"You didn't wave, Iris."

"I didn't last time," she replied, trembling under his touch.

"Where is the book he gave you?"

She forced herself to turn around and look past him to the spot where Char had left the book. "It was right there."

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

"N-not necessarily," Iris said quickly, looking up at him in a panic. "They're always putting things away and tidying up. I-I'm sure they weren't trying to hide it from you."

His hand cupped her cheek, and she flinched.

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

She nodded hesitantly.

He held out his other hand and snapped, and a fairy immediately appeared, opening a bureau drawer and rushing the hidden book to his waiting hand.

"Open it," he commanded Iris, dropping it in her lap.

She did so with trembling fingers, shivering as his hand left her cheek to resume combing through her hair.

"I-it's a record of all the orphans Father John raised," she said, showing him the first page. "He's been doing this for fifty years. Or...or, he had been doing it for fifty years..."

The book fell in her lap as she covered her face to hide her tears. Its weight left her lap, there was a quick whoosh of flames, and she knew he'd destroyed it. Because he wanted her isolated and alone. The book was a connection to her past, and it had to go. Char would have to go, too, eventually. She knew that, and she knew she couldn't let the mage kill Char, but she was powerless to stop him. At least Char was still useful, as long as the mage could hold him over her head to make her behave.

"It's time, Iris."

The mage's fingers slid down her arm to her hand, and he stood, pulling her to her feet. She wiped her eyes and nose and kept her face downcast to the floor, not daring to look around for the fairies, not daring to look up at him, following obediently at his side as he led her out the door and up the spiral staircase. Every step took her closer to the torment she knew was coming. The amulet was unbearably heavy around her neck. She wished she could wrench it off and hand it over to the mage so he would just kill her and be done with this.