The Everafter Wish Read online

  Despite the uncomfortable metal ridges of the bed frame digging into her back through the skinny mattress, Elle fell into a deep sleep almost immediately and didn’t wake until the door of her cell clanged the next morning. She sat up in fright, her heart racing as she blinked several times at a woman in a palace guard’s uniform striding away from her cell. The dim light hadn’t changed, but as Liana had said, it was the food sitting on a metal tray on the floor that hinted at what time of day it was.

  Elle climbed off the bed and made her way toward the bowl of white mush that smelled like it might be porridge. “Perhaps it’s just that I’ve grown used to it,” Liana said from the neighboring cell, “but it’s my opinion that the food they give us isn’t all that bad.”

  “You’ve been here too long!” someone further along the line of cells shouted at her.

  “Yeah, well, maybe it helps that I’m not a snob in the food department,” Liana shouted back.

  Elle bent to pick up the bowl and spoon, then walked toward the bars separating her from Liana, raising the bowl to sniff the contents. She tried a small mouthful, chewing and swallowing as she came to a stop in front of the bars. “Doesn’t taste too bad to me either,” she said, “but my standards aren’t exactly high. I mean, I like to think I cooked pretty good food for my stepmother while I was a slave, but I’m used to shoveling cold leftovers into my mouth while simultaneously cleaning the kitchen. Eating warm food while standing still is something of a novelty for me—even though I’ve now been doing it for about … I don’t know, two weeks?” She paused, thinking back to the few nights she’d spent in a vampire mansion in one of the Eternal Nights, and the week prior to that when she’d been locked in her attic. How long had it actually been since she’d spent a normal day as a normal slave in Salvia’s house?

  “You could sit,” Liana suggested, one eyebrow raised. “You might enjoy the food even more.”

  Elle smiled. “Right. I guess I could.” She sat on the floor in front of the bars and crossed her legs. After rubbing her sleepy eyes, she took another mouthful of porridge.

  “One of the guards should bring you a few basic necessities at some point,” Liana said, sitting opposite Elle with her own bowl. “Toothbrush, a bar of soap, that kind of thing.”

  Elle looked around. “Are there showers somewhere?”

  “Yes, down one of the passages. They take us to shower every few days. In between, there’s the basin and toilet in your cell. You can be grateful we’re all women in this section of the dungeon, seeing as how we have practically zero privacy.”

  “Yeah, I suppose it could be worse,” Elle said. She and Liana continued eating, and Liana fired questions at her after almost every mouthful.

  “Did your parents complete the quest before they died?”

  “No. At least, not that I know of. I never saw either of them with magic.”

  “Do you still see any of your parents’ other friends?”

  “No.”

  “Is that TV show Three Shifters and a Pizza Place still really popular?”

  “Um, never heard of it.”

  “Last night, you said something about having the Godmother’s protection. What did you mean?”

  “Yes, it’s—” Elle pushed her sleeve up and looked at her arm, but the symbol was gone from her wrist. “Well, it was there. The Godmother’s symbol. You know, the one you use if you want to summon her. It was pale, like a scar, and it appeared when the king tried to kill me.”

  “Interesting. You’ve obviously had some recent dealings with her? She told you I’d been killed, and I assume she’s the one who told you all about the quest and humans having magic?”

  “Yes. I, uh, summoned her for a wish—”

  “Elle—”

  “And before you go telling me what a bad idea that was, I know. But I was desperate. And I think—I think?—our deal is complete and I owe her nothing else. That’s what she said, but … I don’t know. Can you ever really trust the Godmother?”

  “Probably not. What were you talking about last night when you said your mother wished for something and you ended up with a strange ability to remove memories?”

  “Oh, that was after Savoy caught you and learned that vampires could take magic from humans once they had it. My mom wanted to stop him from doing that, but she had no idea how, so she summoned the Godmother and—Oh!” Elle paused as something occurred to her. “Maybe that’s why the Godmother said you’d been killed. Maybe that’s what my mom told her. Did you ever see her again after Savoy captured you?”

  Liana shook her head. “After I escaped, the king got hold of me before I could speak to anyone else. I suppose it makes sense that your mom might have assumed Savoy killed me.”

  “Yes. Unless nothing happened the way the Godmother told me, which I guess is also possible. Anyway, apparently the Godmother told my mom …” Elle trailed off, her spoon hovering over her half-finished porridge as the sound of footsteps reached her ears. She looked over her shoulder. A woman dressed in ordinary clothing with a scarf covering most of her head walked slowly toward her cell.

  “That’s not a guard,” Liana whispered. Elle placed her bowl on the floor and stood quickly. Behind her, she heard Liana do the same. Further along the row of cells, someone else was whispering now.

  The unknown woman came to a stop in front of the gate to Elle’s cell. Slowly, she lowered the hood created by her scarf. The dim light illuminated part of her face, and Elle’s breath caught at the sight of Queen Amra, Dex’s mother. “Are you the new prisoner?” the queen asked.

  “Yes. Um, your majesty,” Elle added quickly.

  The queen’s gaze traveled across Elle’s face and she nodded. “Yes, I recognize you. You’re the one they were dragging away last night.” She lifted her right hand and gold light flared into existence, forming a sphere above her palm. Elle blinked and squinted as the queen raised the light until it was level with her face. Then she lowered her hand, and the light vanished. “You’re human,” the queen said, and Elle realized the purpose of the light must have been to check whether her pupils changed shape or not.

  “Yes, I’m human,” she confirmed. She realized she was fidgeting with the chain at her neck, causing the pocket watch to twitch beneath her sweater. She hastily lowered her hand to her side.

  “Chevalier told me you have magic. Is this true?”

  Elle nodded. She cleared her throat and added, “Yes, your majesty.”

  “Show me,” the queen commanded.

  “Oh. Okay. I don’t really know if it will …” She trailed off as her hands began to glow. Perhaps it was as easy as wanting it to happen. Perhaps magic responded to her desire to use it. She lifted her hands as silver particles appeared amid the glow rising from her skin. The queen took a few quick steps backward. “Don’t worry,” Elle said. “The bars are enchanted. The magic can’t get to you.”

  “I—I know. I was startled, that’s all.” The queen lifted her chin and made an admirable attempt at smoothing away the shock from her face. “I’ve never seen … why is it silver?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I recently saw vampires with magic. I tried to convince myself they must be fae somehow masquerading as vampires, but after what Chevalier told me last night, my mind kept going back to them. Do you know how this is possible?”

  Elle nodded again. “Vampires get magic by taking it from humans. I don’t know how, but I’ve been told that’s where they get it from. That’s why the rate of human abductions has risen dramatically recently. A group of vampires discovered this is possible.”

  “And when a vampire takes a human’s magic, it ends up gold,” the queen mused. “How interesting.”

  “Y-yes,” Elle said. “I suppose it is.”

  “Well.” The queen took another step back. “Thank you.” Then she turned and walked away.

  Elle stared into the shadows for several long moments after the queen disappeared.

  “Hey, Liana,” the shifter on t
he other side of Liana’s cell called. “Guess you were telling the truth all these years.”

  Elle looked back at Liana. “That was weird, right?”

  “Definitely. In all my time locked up here, I’ve never once seen the queen.”

  Elle walked back toward her. “So the shifter lady knows?” she asked quietly, her gaze moving behind Liana to the woman in the next cell. “About the quest and everything?”

  Liana nodded. “Can’t exactly spend years in the same space as someone else and not share all your secrets. And even though she’s grumpy and we like to yell at each other, she’s not that bad. Right, Jax?” she asked in a louder voice, tossing a grin over her shoulder.

  “Frenemies for life,” Jax called back.

  Elle peered further past Liana and raised her hand in a brief wave. “Um, hi.”

  “Hey, human girl with magic. I’m guessing that’s what got you locked down here?”

  “There’s a human here with magic?” someone called out from further away, and Elle moved to the side until she could see the shadowy figure in the cell beyond Jax’s. “I always thought Liana was nuts when she said that was possible.”

  “Me too,” Jax said.

  Liana rolled her eyes. “Thanks a lot, guys.”

  “So she’s fae?” Elle asked. “The woman at the far end?”

  “Yes. That’s Myra. We’re all locked down here because King Belaric would like to get rid of us but, for various reasons, he can’t.”

  “He’s hoping we’ll all end up dying before he does,” Jax added, walking back to her bed and dropping onto it. It squeaked loudly in protest.

  Elle looked at Liana again. “Don’t you think it’s interesting that the queen came down here to check if Dex was telling her the truth? Surely she could have asked her husband.”

  “Perhaps she did, and maybe she didn’t believe her husband either and wanted to see it with her own eyes. Or, more likely, King Belaric told her it was nonsense but she wanted to find out for herself anyway.”

  Elle frowned. “You think he’d want to keep the truth from her along with everyone else?”

  Liana shrugged and sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe things have changed, but when I used to work for them, he didn’t tell her everything. I used to overhear things sometimes, you know? By accident. And then later I’d hear the king and queen talking, and he’d give her a prettier version of whatever the truth was, or he’d outright lie about something. And she never challenged him on anything, even if I knew she had her doubts. I think she’s always been a little afraid of him.”

  “Interesting,” Elle mused, her fingers playing with the chain at her neck again. “If the king did lie to her, and now she’s seen the truth for herself, I wonder what she—”

  “What is that?” Liana interrupted. She moved closer, her hands raised as if to clutch the bars. She stopped just short of touching them. “What’s that around your neck?”

  “Oh.” Elle pulled the pocket watch out from beneath her sweater and held it closer to the bars. “It’s just a—”

  “Is that your father’s pocket watch?” Liana asked, her voice low and earnest.

  “Yes. You remember it?”

  In a whisper, Liana asked, “Have you used the wish?”

  Elle blinked. “What wish?”

  “Shh,” Liana said, her face almost touching the bars now. Her voice was barely audible as she said, “There’s a wish inside it.”

  “But … how?” Elle leaned closer and lowered her voice further. “Don’t wishes have to be stored inside a gem?”

  “Not always. Your father won the pocket watch in a card game or something while traveling overseas. Apparently, in certain parts of the world, they don’t use gems. Or at least, they use gems now, but they used to use other objects. I think the process is easier with a gem, which is why wishes are usually stored that way nowadays.”

  “Okay, so how do I know if there’s a wish inside here?”

  “You have to look, obviously. Haven’t you ever opened it?”

  “Well, sure, I’ve opened the front,” Elle said, raising her other hand and demonstrating. “But it’s just a glass cover. The watch face still looks the same with the cover open.”

  “Not that part,” Liana said with an impatient sigh. “I assume you’d have to look inside. Pull the watch face forward so you can see the mechanism behind it. If there’s a wish inside there, that’s probably where it’s stored.”

  “I didn’t know I could access the mechanism,” Elle said thoughtfully, feeling around the edge of the watch face with her nail to see if there might be a small gap somewhere. “I’ve never needed to try because the watch has never stopped working before. Dad said it was one of those magic-powered ones that doesn’t need to be wound up or have a new battery put in or anything like—Oh.”

  She paused as her fingernail caught on a tiny gap in line with the watch face’s number nine. She pressed, inserting her nail between the gold layer encircling the face and the gold layer behind it. With a small click, the watch face popped forward. Heart pounding faster, Elle pushed the face sideways on its hinge until it sat flush against the glass cover. The back of the watch face layer was where all the cogs and wheels and other minuscule parts were located, but Elle’s attention was captured by the very back layer of the pocket watch: Swirling between the rear casing of gold and a circular glass layer in front of it was the glowing magic of a wish.

  “Stars above,” Elle whispered. “You’re right.” All these years, she’d been wearing a wish around her neck. A wish. “Do you know what tier it is?” she asked, looking up at Liana. It couldn’t be third, could it? She couldn’t possibly have had a third-tier wish—the price of her freedom—in her possession all this time.

  “I don’t know. It was a long time ago, but I seem to remember your dad saying something about the amount of magic not being exactly in line with what would be considered first-, second- or third-tier these days.”

  “So … something in between? Or something even smaller than a first-tier wish?”

  “Smaller, perhaps. I mean, it doesn’t look like a very large amount of magic. My guess is that it wouldn’t grant you anything too amazing.”

  “I wonder if …” Elle looked over her shoulder at the gate of crisscrossing bars. “I wonder if it would unlock my gate.”

  “Hmm. Do you think that would work if the bars are enchanted to repel magic?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose it depends which magic is stronger.”

  “What’s that about a wish?” Jax called out.

  “Nothing,” Liana shouted back. “Mind your own business.”

  Footsteps echoed through the cold, dark space, and Elle looked around as a man in a uniform approached the cells. She snapped the pocket watch shut and quickly slipped it beneath her sweater again. “Now that’s a guard,” Liana muttered. “Probably here to take our breakfast trays. Though they usually wait until later in the day to take them.”

  The guard stopped in front of Elle’s cell, but instead of telling her to slide her tray across the floor or insert it between the bars, he folded his arms across his chest.

  “You’re new,” Liana said before the guard could utter a word. “Haven’t seen you down here before.”

  The guard frowned at her, then motioned with his head for Elle to move to the other end of her cell. He took a few steps to the side and waited until she’d moved closer. “I’m not supposed to be here,” he said quietly, though Elle suspected Liana could still hear him, “but it’s easier for me than for the prince. The usual guards are under strict orders not to allow him down here, but he wanted you to know he’s working on it and he’ll figure something out. Basically, if days end up passing and you don’t see him, he doesn’t want you to think he’s given up on you. He will find a way to free you.”

  “Why don’t you find a way to free her,” Liana called out, “since it’s apparently so much easier for you to sneak down here than for the prince.”

  The gua
rd sighed. His wary gaze flicked toward Liana before returning to Elle. “Look, Prince Chevalier has done a lot for me, and I’ll help him in whatever way I can, but I value my life. If I free you and the king finds out it was me, I’ll be dead. Not only that, but he’ll make sure my family suffers for my crime. I’m sorry. All I can do is deliver the prince’s message.” With that, he turned and strode quickly away.

  “Days,” Elle murmured, wandering back toward Liana.

  “Sorry,” Liana said. “I’m sure you didn’t expect to be stuck in this grimy hole that long, but look on the bright side: at least it’s not years.”

  Elle shook her head. “It’s not that I mind being stuck in here for days. It’s a lot worse than my attic, but I’m sure I could survive just fine. What I’m worried about is what might happen up there—” she nodded toward the ceiling “—during the next few days.”

  “Why?” Liana’s brow crinkled. “What’s going on up there?”

  In low tones, Elle explained to Liana that the Godmother had killed Vincenzo Savoy, the man most vampires wanted to see on the Astranerican throne, and taken control of his army of enhanced vampires. “She knows how vampires can get magic from humans, so she’s probably putting them all through the process or ritual or whatever it is right now. Then she’s going to make her move against the king.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “That’s what she said. She said the king is planning to come for her—once he can figure out which Eternal Night she’s been hiding in—and that she may as well make things easier by coming to him instead. I don’t know when that’s going to happen, but she doesn’t seem like a woman who wastes time.”

  “You think it could happen within the next few days?” Liana asked.

  “I don’t know. She’s the Godmother. Anything’s possible.”

  “And if it does happen within the next few days, she’ll probably defeat the king, seize control of the throne, and Dex will never get the chance to come down here and free us.”

  “Probably not. And while that would be truly terrible,” Elle added, “I’m not just worried about our freedom. I’m worried about the whole country. I’m not a fan of our existing king, but do we really want the Godmother ruling? She’s insanely powerful, and she likes playing games with people. She’d probably start plotting to take over neighboring countries as well.”