A Glint of Shadoewynne: Book 1 of the Shadoewynne Series Read online

  I could just see the top of the safe house’s brightly colored roof when a figure stepped out from behind a tree in front of us.

  “Hello, David. Hello, Evalia. Hello, whoever you are.” Said a familiar voice. The figure pushed back the hood of their coat as she stared daggers at me. I was stunned to see my mom. David was caught between my mother and us. He slowly looked from one to the other, as he stood up to his full height. “Hello, Stefa. What are you doing here?”

  WHAT! David knew my mom. I slowly backed more towards Travis, until my back was pressed to his front. I didn’t see Kait anywhere. “David, how do you know my mom’s name?”

  “This is your mom?” He looked confused for a second, as he looked between us. The resemblance between us was clear. “She contacted me a month or so ago, looking for you. She said she was an aunt that hadn’t seen you in years. I told her I wasn’t going to help her find you. If she was family, she should have been able to find you without my help. She showed up a couple of times on campus and the last time I saw her, I had her removed by security, and I thought that was the end of it.”

  I didn’t know what to believe. My heart was telling me that David would never hurt me, but, along with everything that had happened before, it really looked like my suspicions were correct and he was working with my mom. My heart had been wrong before, and my instincts didn’t seem to have an opinion. I mentally cursed them, as I tried to figure out what was going on. Travis had edged around me, so he was blocking my view of my mother and David.

  “Honey, I was worried about you. You never call, and when you do, you are short with me. That’s not like you at all. I worry about the influence these men have on you.” Her voice was sickly sweet, like she was talking to a dog. She wrapped her coat, which was way too thin for the weather, around herself, seeming to shrink into herself as she hunched her shoulders.

  “Bullshit. You have never cared about me. It’s always been about you. What do you really want?”

  “I’m hurt, Honey. I love you. I only want the best for you. Now, come with me so we can talk alone.” She held out a shaky hand, like I should take it and go with her.

  “I don’t think so. I trust Travis and David, and anything you want to say to me, you can say in front of them.” I crossed my arms over my chest as I edged out around Travis. He sighed and stepped in front of me again, and put his arm out to stop me from getting in front of him again. Mom’s hand had slowly dropped as I spoke.

  “Fine. A nice old man stopped by about a week ago looking for you. I think you need to meet with him. He says he’s your father’s uncle, and he had information that you need to know.” Her voice was firm, like she was scolding a young child.

  “What information?”

  She shrugged nonchalantly as she looked at the ground. “He wouldn’t tell me.”

  “How did you find me here?” She glanced at David before looking back at me. Was there something to that glance, or was I reading something into it?

  “I used the ‘Find My Friends’ on your phone.”

  “Again, bullshit. I left my phone at my apartment. How did you find me?”

  She glanced at David again, then swallowed hard. It really looked like there was a reason for those glances, and I could feel my heart breaking as my suspicion about David was confirmed. I grabbed the back of Travis’ shirt. After a moment, she replied. “The ‘Find my Friends’…”

  I interrupted her. “Quit lying!” I screamed at her. “I am tired of your lies. You say you love me, but you are essentially stalking me. I am an adult, Mom! Why are you here, and how did you find me?”

  “Honey.”

  “Don’t fucking ‘Honey’ me! Answer the damn question.” I wasn’t screaming anymore, but my voice had gone flat and emotionless. The way her face went white, I think she had finally realized that I wasn’t going to budge.

  She sighed. “I found you by tracking David’s phone. I already told you why we needed to talk.”

  I was speechless. She had just confirmed that David was working with her. I glanced at him, but he seemed just as stunned as I was. I guess he hadn’t expected her to sell him out. Still holding Travis’ shirt, I started edging backwards. I was pretty sure I could out run her. I just needed to signal Travis to run.

  David reached toward me. “Evalia, I…”

  “Not another word, David.” Travis looked like he wanted to kill him. I thought I saw a flicker of movement behind my mom. I tried to watch the trees without being obvious. A second later, I saw it again, and realized it was Kait. He was moving in behind her. When he noticed that I saw him, he put a finger to his lips, and I nodded as slightly as I could. I made sure not to look at him after that.

  “You are telling me you went through all this trouble just to tell me to talk to some old guy who claims he’s related to me. I don’t believe you. This is way out of bounds, even for you.”

  “Hon. Evalia. All I’ve ever wanted is the best for you. I am your mother, and I know what you should do. Just because you are eighteen doesn’t mean you don’t need me anymore. You have to listen to me.” Big, fake, crocodile tears were rolling down her face. Usually, once she started crying, I gave in, but not this time. I don’t know where this strength to resist her manipulations was coming from, but I would take it. I was tired of these games she always tried to play with my emotions.

  “No, Mom. I am an adult. You don’t know what’s best for me, partly because you never asked my opinion. You don’t know me as well as you think you do, and you can’t make decisions for me anymore. I am not going to meet with this guy. You might as well leave.”

  Her tears had stopped while I was talking, and she drew herself up to her full height, which was kind of comical, since she was the shortest person there. It was by only a half inch, but still. Her voice was cold as she said, “Fine. If that’s how you feel, I won’t push the matter anymore. Can’t we at least have dinner together, since I’m here?” The tone of her voice hadn’t changed, which made the question sound more like a statement.

  I shook my head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  She sighed. “Okay, Honey. Can I call you later?”

  “I’ll call you, Mom, when I’m ready. I’m pretty pissed at you right now, and I need to cool off before I talk to you again.” My hands were shaking, and I didn’t want her to see that, so I put them in my coat pockets.

  She nodded, and swallowed hard. She started to turn, but halfway through, she turned back, flinging her hand toward me. Something flew out of it. Kait jumped toward her, but she evaded his attack. Before I had a chance to react, Travis stepped in front of me. He grunted, and collapsed face first to the ground as my mom turned and fled in the opposite direction. I screamed. “Kait, come help me!” David took a step toward me and I held up a hand that was shaking more than it was before. “Stay right there! I don’t trust you right now!”

  His grey eyes were filled with hurt, and he moaned as he rocked in place.

  Kait appeared next to me and helped me turn Travis over. A handle stuck out of the middle of his chest, and the front of his shirt was soaked in blood. I whimpered as I tried to figure out what I needed to do. After looking things over, I quickly took off my coat and wrapped it around the handle.

  “We can’t remove it, or it could cause more damage. We need Janelle to heal it. Should we carry him back, or bring her out here?” I had gone into business mode and all I could think about was the steps to fix this.

  Kait thought about it for a second, then picked up Travis, holding him like a baby. “We have to worry about his temperature dropping because of shock, so he will be better off at the cabin.” He took off running, which was an impressive feat, considering Travis probably outweighed him by at least ten pounds.

  I picked my jaw up off the floor, and quickly ran after them. I heard movement behind me, so I assumed David was following as well, but a quick glance behind showed an empty trail, with no sign of David anywhere. I couldn’t think about where he had go
ne. All I could think about was Travis, and if he was going to make it. He had to. I couldn’t imagine my life without him in it now.

  Chapter 20

  I managed to make it to the cabin while the door was still bouncing off the wall from Kait slamming it open. He was running toward the couch in the living room, yelling for Janelle. She had apparently been sleeping, as she was yawning while she came through the door into the hallway.

  “What’s going on?” It would have been comical, if it weren’t for the situation. Her normally perfect hair was sticking up everywhere.

  “Travis has been hurt, we need you in the living room, now.” I grabbed her arm and pushed her toward the living room in front of me. She started to argue, until she saw the blood-soaked coat wrapped around the handle sticking out of the center of Travis’ chest.

  He was super pale, and his lips were turning blue. From what little I knew, that wasn’t a good sign. Janelle appeared frozen to the spot, so I poked her in the back to get her moving again.

  “Oh! Evalia, get some hot water and towels. Lots of towels. Where’s David?” She was trying to look back down the hallway.

  “I don’t know where he is. I think he went after my mom.” I looked at Kait. He shrugged. He didn’t know where David went either. I didn’t want to mention my suspicions to his mom.

  “Okay, we will just work with you two then. Go get the towels and water and we will start.”

  I ran off, and was back in less than three minutes. I started the water running before I got the towels, so it would be as hot as possible. It took me a minute to find something for the water. I was going to get a bucket, but couldn’t find one quickly enough, so I opted for a large bowl that had been sitting on the counter.

  Janelle was explaining to Kait what they needed to do when I walked back in. “It nicked an artery in his chest, so we will need to heal him as we remove the dagger. Otherwise, he may bleed out before I can heal him. I need you to pull it out very slowly, just a little bit at a time. I will tell you when to pull more. Are you ready?”

  Kait nodded, and gripped the dagger. I stood by the door, afraid to move, still holding the bowl of water and towels.

  Janelle looked over her shoulder at me. “Oh good, bring those over here.” I took them over, and she carefully laid towels around the wound. “He is probably going to bleed some more as we do this.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I was near tears. Travis had stepped in front of the knife to save me. This was my fault. The clarity I had earlier was gone, replaced by panicked thoughts. All I could think was that my mother did this and it was my fault.

  “I need you to calm down. You can sit here and watch, as long as you don’t distract me.” I nodded, then quickly braided my hair, so I had something to do. I kept hold of the braid, spinning it around and around, as I watched her heal.

  “Pull!” Kait pulled the dagger out a fraction of an inch. Blood welled.

  “Pull!” Another fraction of an inch, and more blood.

  “Pull!” Again and again, they repeated this pattern, until the towels around the wound were soaked in bright red blood. The knife came free from Travis’ body, and Janelle quickly sealed up the gaping hole. She took a dry towel and wiped at the puddle of blood sitting in the dip of his sternum. Once the puddle was soaked up, she got a new towel, and dipped it in the now luke-warm water and wiped the remaining blood off his chest, which was rising and falling with his shallow breaths.

  “That should do it. He will sleep, most likely for hours, and he will be very tired for a while, since he lost a lot of blood. All we can do now is watch him. Kait, will you sit with him for a while?” He nodded. She laid a hand on my shoulder. “Come on, Evalia, I would like you to help me make dinner.”

  I nodded mechanically, and followed her, still lost in my thoughts. We entered the kitchen, and I stopped walking when she did. I was staring at the floor, thinking of how we almost lost Travis, when she waved a hand in front of my face. “Evalia. Snap out of it!”

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It was all my fault. I couldn’t stop her. I didn’t even know she had it in her to do something like that. It didn’t even occur to me she would attack me. Travis…Travis…” I hiccuped. Tears were streaming down my face, and I sunk to the floor, unable to even stand.

  Janelle sat down in front of me, and wrapped her arms around me. “First, it wasn’t your fault. You can’t control other people’s actions and you shouldn’t expect to. Second, he is going to be fine.” She pulled me towards her until I was almost in her lap, and rocked me while stroking my hair until I had cried myself out. “Okay, Honey. Are you feeling better now?”

  “Well, not better, but I’m not so panicked now. It all happened so fast, and I never would have guessed my mom would try to kill me.”

  “I’m not so sure about that.” Janelle looked thoughtful.

  “What do you mean? She threw a knife at me.” I couldn’t figure out how Janelle couldn’t see that she had been trying to kill me.

  “What happened with Travis was a fluke. It happened to slide between his ribs. The reason I don’t think she was trying to kill you was that knife had a sleeping spell on it. Whoever it cut would go instantly to sleep. What happened, exactly?”

  I quickly told her the details of the argument. She nodded when I said that Travis went down as soon as the knife hit him.

  “See, the spell took effect. He didn’t collapse because it hit somewhere vital, it was because of the spell. I suspect the knife was driven in deeper when he fell on it.”

  Tears welled in my eyes again, but I angrily brushed them away. I was done crying and running. We were going to take this fight to them and put an end to it once and for all.

  Janelle must have seen the change in my eyes, or something, because she said, “There you are. What’s the next step?”

  “We need to get everyone in the same room. I’m sorry, but I think David may have been working with my mom.” I quickly explained my reasoning. When I was done, she looked lost, but nodded. “I want to work with Kait to decide what our offensive strategy is going to be. Let’s go see how Travis is doing.”

  I got up, and held my hand out to Janelle to help her off the floor, where we had stayed after my crying jag. On the way back down the hallway, we could hear voices from the living room. “Sounds like Travis is awake.” I said as I jogged toward the room.

  I fell to my knees by the couch, and grabbed Travis’ hand. “I’m so sorry. Why did you do that?”

  “Do what?” His voice was sleepy, but I could still tell he was amused at my question.

  “Step in front of that knife. You could have died.”

  He brought my hand to his lips. “To keep you safe, I would have gladly died.”

  My face felt like it was on fire. I looked at Janelle. “Did your magic do something to his brain? Is he on painkillers?”

  He laughed. “No, I’m fine. I realized while we were out there that you are very important to me, and I want to keep you safe.”

  I hit him, very lightly and carefully, on the shoulder. “Stop that. You are more important than me, and you need to be alive. No one would miss me if I was gone. You shouldn’t have done that.”

  Kait and Travis had both gone very still while I was speaking. They were both staring at me angrily. “What? What did I say? Why are y’all mad?” I was perplexed.

  Kait was the first to speak. He cleared his throat, and said huskily, “You are very important to Travis and me and we would definitely miss you if you were gone. I would venture to say that David feels the same way.” Travis nodded as Kait cleared his throat once more, and his voice was more normal when he continued, “Speaking of which, we need to discuss him. I know why you suspected him, but why are you positive now?”

  I sighed, and quickly explained my reasoning. “I’m sure my mom was lying when she said she tracked his phone, but she kept looking at him, like she expected him to speak up. He hasn’t come back yet. I haven’t seen him since Travis step
ped in front of the knife. I’m positive he is working with my mom.”

  “It would be very hard for him to fool me, but I suppose, it is possible.” Kait rubbed his lower lip while he thought. “What do you want to do about it?”

  I threw up my hands. “I don’t know! You’re the tactician, you tell me!” I pointed my finger at him. “But, I tell you what, I’m not moving! I am done running! It’s a damn safe house, for fuck’s sake. I’m sure we can fortify it, if it’s not already.”

  Kait snorted. “I wouldn’t dream of making you leave, Princess. You are right, this is the best place to be, even if they know we are here. I am sorry, but I am going to suggest that Travis or I be with you at all times.” He saw the look on my face, and held up a hand, stifling laughter as he did. “We will let you pee alone, and take a shower alone, but that’s it. Someone will be sleeping in the same room with you, even if it’s on the floor.”

  “Fine.” I wasn’t happy about it, but at least we weren’t being chased away, again.

  “We need to find David. We need to know if he is working with them, or being framed.”

  I didn’t know how he could still think David was innocent, but I nodded anyway. “How are we going to do that?”

  “We will try the easiest first. We will call him.” Kait smiled at me as he pulled out his cell phone, and dialed.

  Travis was rubbing his thumb in circles on my palm. I looked at him. There was something undefinable shining in his eyes as he stared at me. I leaned in close. Our noses were almost touching. “Don’t ever do that again, okay?” I whispered to him.

  He smiled, the blue in his eyes brightening until his irises were almost glowing. “To keep you safe, I would do it a thousand times.” He kissed my palm.

  “Travis! I’m serious. You are more important than I am, and you aren’t allowed to do anything like that ever again.”