The Faerie Guardian

Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

I sit down on Nate's floor, loosely holding Angelica's book in both hands. "So how does this work?" asks Nate. He sits down in front of me. "Do GPS coordinates pop into your head?"

"I don't know what that means, but no." I drum my fingers across the cover of the book. "Because this book belonged to Angelica, I can use it to connect to her. Once I have that connection, I can sort of . . . see everything she sees. As though I'm inside her head. And with that connection comes a vague sense of her location."

"What do you mean by vague?"

"Well, when we come out of the faerie paths we shouldn't be more than half a mile from wherever she is."

Nate frowns. "Half a mile is a considerable distance."

"And then I can connect to her again to get closer," I explain. "Look, if Angelica were down the road from us, I could pinpoint her exact location, but the further away she is, the harder it is to find her."

"Okay, okay," says Nate. "I guess it's not an exact science, huh?"

"Nope." I close my eyes and grip the book. "It's got nothing to do with science."

I breathe deeply and extend my mind, searching for the owner of the book. I imagine myself soaring across a great distance, my thoughts brushing minds along the way like a butterfly flitting from flower to flower. When I find the one I'm searching for I feel myself sucked in. I open my eyes and see through hers. A large chamber, lavishly decorated with wall hangings, shadowy at the edges because I can never see properly through other people's eyes. She looks down at the page in front of her, folds it, and smoothes her fingers across the crease.

I pull back.

"Okay, let's go," I say, pushing the book into Nate's hands and jumping to my feet. "Quickly, before I forget."

"Where is she?" Nate asks, scrambling up behind me.

"I don't know, but I know what the place looks like." I open a doorway on the wall beside his desk, then grab his hand and pull him in after me. I focus my mind on the image I saw, and the feeling that went along with it. Old, protected, possibly underground.

We step out into the near darkness of a tunnel. I look up, my eyes drawn to the tiny points of light glittering on the ceiling above us. The ceiling itself is rough and uneven, and curves to meet the walls on either side of us. I reach down and brush my fingers across the surface beneath my feet. Cold and hard, like stone.

 "Something doesn't feel right here, Nate," I whisper. For some reason, I'm afraid to speak out loud.

"What do you mean? Are we in the wrong place?"

"No, that's not it." I pause for a second, listening to the dead silence. "I don't know, I just have an uneasy feeling, almost as though . . ." My next breath catches in my throat.

"Vi?" Nate reaches for my hand.

"I think we're Underground, Nate."

"Uh, yeah." I can tell from his voice that he thinks I'm being slow. "I'm pretty sure we're underground, Vi."

"Not just normal underground, Nate. The Underground."

It's just light enough for me to make out Nate's confused expression. "The Underground as in . . . the subway system in England?"

I close my eyes. Why do I even try? "No, Nate," I say with as much patience as I can muster. "The network of tunnels beneath Creepy Hollow that the most dangerous fae call their home."