When we opened up the door to the fae illusion room, I was struck with awe. It was a beautiful space full of sunlight that poured from a glass ceiling. There were bookshelves lining the tower all around, with spiraling gold staircases. Growing from the bookshelves were an assortment of climbing flowers, with hundreds of butterflies flitting throughout the room. They were in every color— some smaller than a tiny gem, others as large as my head. I laughed as a massive group of butterflies landed on Oberi’s horn, and she sneezed. The room smelled like honey, and harp music came from somewhere unknown, along with birdsong.
I was sure the elaborate array was just a bunch of illusions. It was probably some ugly Institute room like any other. But what the fae had done with the place was incredible.
What was underneath our feet wasn’t really carpet, but moss. In the center of the room were a variety of tables and chairs for fae students to study at. This time of morning, none of the other fae were here. Kallie was the only one sitting at one of the massive square desks, picking books off stacks that floated in mid-air. Alette hovered above her, giving chase after monarch butterflies.
After I described the room to Charlie, he said, “Sounds very elaborate.”
“Definitely the prettiest room on-campus,” I agreed.
Marcus was already here, sitting on a levitating armchair while Rishi batted at butterflies. He read Kallie’s grimoire, which appeared to be upside down— but maybe that was just the cover, and the contents inside were right-side up. Fae were funny like that.
Charlie helped me down from Oberi and into my chair. I resolved to stay put. It wouldn’t be easy rolling through all this moss.
“You must’ve found something if you called for us this early,” I said, scanning the books beside her. They were written in Malovian, which was one language I couldn’t yet read.
“I’ve been researching fae assassins, as we planned, to find the girl in my previous vision,” Kallie noted. “There’ve been so many in history it’s been complicated going through them all. I attempted the tracking spells from my grimoire again since I broke the inferichite cuff, and nothing much came of it, but the Unseelie spell at least gave me a direction to start looking.”
“So you found something?” Charlie asked.
“A bit,” she admitted, and she waved her current read in the air. “The merfolk key has been lost for centuries. But from what I can conclude from history, something like it resurfaced again a few hundred years ago. I dug into ancient conflicts, stuff from before the Great Supernatural War. In one of Malovia’s history books, I discovered that the merfolk began a conflict with the fae over something the fae had stolen from them during the time of King Minos’ reign. Specifically, something the sister of King Minos took.”
“Does it mention a key?” I asked.
“No, but it sure does talk a lot about the king’s sister, Duchess Amalie,” Kallie said. “She was quite popular with the people, but she had a secret. I believe this is the same woman I saw in my vision.”
“Let me guess, she liked killing people,” Charlie suggested.
“Correct. She was an exceptional assassin, hired on behalf of the crown to take out enemies to the royal family,” Kallie said. “They sent her to Atlantis to eliminate a political opponent, but while she was there, she found something extraordinary. The book doesn’t mention what it is, as the royal family wanted to keep it secret, but historians have guessed it was an object of great magical prowess.”
“So she was successful in stealing the key from Atlantis,” I said. “Where’d it end up after that?”
“The merfolk went through a lot of trouble to get it back,” Kallie admitted. “But I don’t think they ever did. And get this— once she stole it, she refused to hand it over, or tell anyone where she’d taken it. Whatever Amalie took from the merfolk was lost, and she couldn’t give it to the crown, as they’d asked. Eventually, the king was forced to behead her on grounds of treason.”
“She must’ve realized what she had and sacrificed herself to keep it safe,” I said quietly.
“That’s what I figure,” Kallie said with a nod. “Unfortunately, all clues end there. If we’re going to find out where the key is, we have to learn more about Duchess Amalie, and where she might’ve hidden it.”
“What else do you know about her?” I asked.
“Not much. Besides her assassinations, there wasn’t much written about her, because she was ruled a traitor. Therefore, most of her historical documents are stricken from record.” Kallie let out a huff. “Stupid royal decrees.”
She shuffled through a bunch of papers. “But,I’ve been investigating her lineage, and shedidhave a son before she died. Who had another son, and so on and so forth, until eventually I came to a common ancestor we both share— Arthur Cedrick.”
I couldn’t believe the similarities. “Arthur Cedrick is one of my ancestors, too, on my father’s side,” I noted. “He’s an immigrant who came to California and built Orenda Academy after he befriended the Hawkei tribe.”
“That’s amazing! You guys are related,” Marcus said in awe.
“Very distantly, but yes. My grandfather told me so,” Kallie said. “And although Ava and I have the same ancestor, she doesn’t have enough fae blood in her line to have any illusion abilities. But Arthur Cedrick’s family has a direct line to me, with very strong Unseelie influences.”
“And that’s where my research comes in.” Marcus shut the grimoire and hopped off the floating armchair. “We can use Kallie’s bloodline to find out where her ancestor Amalie took the merfolk key.”
“Can we do that?” Charlie asked skeptically.
“Absolutely,” Marcus said eagerly. He waved the book in the air. “Andthistells us how.”
“My grandfather’s grimoire has all kinds of Unseelie spells,” Kallie said.
“Including an ancestry-recession spell,” Marcus said. “Memories can be passed down through the centuries, from parent to child. This stuff isn’t easy to access, not once you get past the next few descendants of offspring. But with Kallie’s demigod abilities, she should be able to dig through her ancestry and find them. And the best part is, we don’t have to go through a complicated ceremony to do it. We just have to put Kallie into a trance, and see where the vision takes us. Maybe Amalie can tell us where she put the key.”
