The Villain Keeper (31 page)

Tito pulled a spool of strong thin twine from his pack and tossed it to Caden. “Have at it.”

Mr. Andre's eyes were full of hatred, Ms. Aggie's full of fury. As Caden reached down to tie her hands, Ms. Aggie whispered to him.

“Dear little prince,” she said, and her voice was like the dead, “let us go and we can help you.”

Caden tightened the knot. “How so?”

“We know how you and the girl came to be here.”

Caden snapped his gaze to hers. “Tell me.”

She shushed him. “Now, now. Let us go, leave the ropes loose, and keep the horse away, and we'll tell you, we will.”

He moved to tighten Mr. Andre's ropes. “You know nothing.”

Mr. Andre wheezed as he spoke. “We know everything.”

“Everything,” echoed Ms. Aggie.

They claimed to have answers. All he had to do was get them to tell him. If he could charm Ms. Primrose into liking him, certainly he could make these lunch witches tell him what he wanted to know. Besides, they were desperate. “If you can tell me how Brynne and I were brought here, and I believe you, I'll consider letting you go.”

“Let us go, then we'll talk,” Ms. Aggie said.

This wasn't like Caden's chat with Rath Dunn. With Jane rescued and his friends safe at the opposite corner
near the paints, he had the bargaining power. “No,” he said. “Tell me first.”

They turned and whispered to each other. Ms. Aggie spoke. “One year ago, our sister was ailing. She needed another's life force to sustain her—and a powerful one at that. Rath Dunn knew of an elf trapped in this land and delivered the elf to her. She took her life force, was cured, and what's more, she regained her youth. Our sister owed Rath Dunn a debt.”

Caden felt a sick turn to his stomach. “The elf your sister drained,” he said. “That was Jane's mother. That's why she lived with Rosa.”

Mr. Andre and Ms. Aggie cackled. Mr. Andre said, “As repayment, Rath Dunn asked us to aid him in collecting a list of strange items. He required tears of an elf, and so we lured the elf's daughter past the city limits during the night. The promise of seeing her mother made her reckless, and she went willingly into the woods,” he said. “And in the woods, we set a trap.”

Ms. Aggie leaned forward. “If we collected her tears for his use, he said we could do with her as we pleased. And on that same night, our sister, a master of ritual magic, retrieved for him two more items he was unable to procure on his own. Now, release us.”

“No.” The other vials had all been empty. “Tell me what they were?” Caden asked.

Ms. Aggie scowled but continued. “He asked her to
bring a great sorcerer and the seventh son of his enemy King Axel to this land. As a favor, he let us keep the young elf, so that we might regain some of our youth, too. The spell takes days to steep. It keeps those trapped alive and fresh and unconcious until it can be finished on the new moon.”

“You've ruined it,” Mr. Andre said, but Caden's thoughts were stuck on his sister's words.

A great sorcerer. A son of King Axel.

He looked between them. “Ms. Jackson cast the spell that brought us here?” Caden said. “But I'm not my father's seventh-born son.”

“The spell doesn't make mistakes,” Ms. Aggie said.

“Nor does our sister,” Mr. Andre said.

Caden considered. The lunch witches allied with Rath Dunn. He'd befriended practioneers of ritual magic. In his desk, he'd had elf tears and vials for other things. He'd taken Caden's blood and seemed disappointed. The spell might not make mistakes, but Rath Dunn had.

Caden was eighth-born, and Jasan was seventh-born. But then Chadwin had been killed. Of the sons of Axel left, Caden was now number seven. “He asked for the seventh son, not the seventh-
born
son, just assuming the spell would bring Jasan,” he said out loud. “He didn't know he needed to specify.”

“Yes, yes,” said Ms. Aggie.

Rath Dunn wanted Jasan, not Caden. Caden was a
mistake. Brynne wasn't, though. What she lacked in control, she made up for in power. She set the woods on fire and made a door explode through a phone. And one vial in Rath Dunn's drawer was for “magical locks.” That was likely why he was interested in meeting Brynne. He wanted something from her for that vial. Knowing him, it would put her life in peril.

Ms. Aggie smiled in poor imitation of a kind old woman. “Now, let us go.”

“Yes, let us go,” echoed Mr. Andre. “No harm was done.”

Caden glanced to his friends, to Tito and Jane. He looked at Brynne dozing and beaten up near the wall. Up in the rafters, the animals hung down lifeless and stiff. Jane's mother had met a fate similar to the poor animals; she hadn't been saved like Jane.

The witches were wrong. Great harm had been done.

“I need to know more.” Caden crossed his arms and felt his stitches pull. “Rath Dunn is gathering ingredients,” he said. “For what?”

They looked at each other.

“We don't know,” Mr. Andre said.

“But,” Ms. Aggie said, “our sister knows. Let us go and she'll tell you, she will.”

Caden was certain she'd tell him nothing. He bent toward the ancient lunch people, inspected the ropes to make sure they were tight, then stood and straightened
Tito's smelly sweatshirt. “As promised, I've considered letting you go,” he said. “And decided against it.”

Their eyes widened in surprise and darkened with fury. Mr. Andre cursed. Ms. Aggie spat at him and said, “You wouldn't want to anger our sister.”

Ms. Jackson was the least of Caden's concerns. He had other enemies at the school—Rath Dunn and quite possibly the creepy secretary. Ms. Primrose switched from enemy to friend with the winds. If he were to have more enemies, let there be more. Besides, he had figured out how to save Jane on his own. He didn't need the witches to tell him what Rath Dunn was planning. He, Tito, and Brynne could figure it out. “I'll take my chances,” he said.

Later, after the heaters had stopped heating, and the lanterns flickered with low fuel, the emergency people arrived. Officer Levine was the first in the doorway. When he saw Jane, he turned up his mouth in a soft smile. He nodded back to a fur- and-leather-bundled Jenkins. “Tell Rosa we've found them. All of them.”

Outside, the blizzard had finally stopped. It remained cold, but the wind no longer howled; the snow no longer stung. Behind the ambulance, Caden saw Sir Horace watching the flickering red and blue lights and signaled him to return to the horse jail. He deserved all the apples he could eat.

After that there were lots of blankets and hot drinks, prodding medics, and questions with difficult answers.
Jane claimed not to remember much from her days missing, but she named her captors with confidence. The police handcuffed a disgruntled and fearful Ms. Aggie and Mr. Andre. As they were loaded into the police car, Caden heard Ms. Aggie hiss, “She won't be happy . . .”

“I thought my mom was in the woods,” Jane said as the four of them, Officer Levine, Rosa, and an on-duty social worker huddled in the warm and overly bright emergency room. “At school lunch they'd told me she was alive and living in the woods.” She sat next to Tito on an orange-cushioned bench and leaned closer to him as she spoke. “I should've told someone. I should've told Tito at least. I knew she wasn't there. I mean, I know she's gone, but I had to see.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “But it was them.” She shivered, but Caden couldn't tell if it was from chill or memory. “They stole my tears. They were going to kill me like they killed those animals.”

Brynne sat in a nearby chair, feigning sleep. It was a transparent ploy to avoid answering questions, but it seemed to be working for her. Caden, however, had no desire to be quiet. He added the information Jane left out; he told them of the magic sand trap and the lunch people's youth-stealing motive.

Officer Levine, Rosa, and the on-duty social worker stopped and stared at him. Caden squared his shoulders. “You should know the truth,” he said.

Tito looked away; Brynne faked a snore.

Rosa put her arm around Caden's shoulder. “He's been through a lot. He's confused,” she said. She cleared her throat. “He's starting counseling next Thursday.”

Caden most certainly was not confused. He was quite the opposite. If not for him, Jane would have been devoured, hung from the rafters, and left empty like one of those unfortunate woodland creatures. He was about to argue his point, but Officer Levine's signals to stay quiet and Rosa's strong shoulder squeeze gave him pause. For once, he kept quiet.

Jane jumped in. “They did believe that,” she said. “They were evil and they were wrong.”

“How are you feeling, Jane?” the social worker said.

“Lost,” Jane Chan said. “But found, too.”

The questions continued, and sulkily Caden let Jane and Tito answer them. Eventually Officer Levine, Rosa, and the social worker started talking to one another and not them. Jane caught Caden's gaze then and mouthed, “Thank you.”

B
etween the snow and the scandal, school was closed for several days. It finally reopened on the following Tuesday. Caden took time to measure and trim his hair. It had grown half a length too long since he'd left the castle. He dressed in a red plaid shirt with a collar and a pair of his too-long jeans. As always, he wore his coat.

He looked in the mirror and took a deep breath. Today Brynne started school. Rath Dunn would recognize her as a sorceress, and he wanted Brynne for something. He still had an empty vial in his desk drawer labeled “Magical Locks.” She'd meet Ms. Primrose. Today was a day for great care.

Brynne came to the attic to talk to him and pretended not to care. “So, I want to meet her. And Rath Dunn can't do anything at school, no matter what he's planning.”

She wore gray jeans and a purple top. Her hair was perfect. Her replacement black coat looked expensive. He held his tongue so as not to scold her for using magic to enhance her appearance. It was better to concentrate on the more pressing matter—Brynne, Rath Dunn, and the Elderdragon Ms. Primrose.

“I don't think you should go,” he said.

“I'm going,” she said.

“It's dangerous. Rath Dunn brought you here for a reason.”

“As he did you.” Her eyes flashed. “And yet you go. Tito goes. In a few days, Jane will also return to school. I'll go, too.”

“You're being foolish.”

“You're being annoying. Rosa won't let me stay home much longer anyway.”

Between them, they were clever enough to find education options that excluded Brynne going to Ms. Primrose's school. Besides, if Caden understood this strange land, there were other schools in Asheville.

“Ms. Primrose likes to eat people,” he said. “Not locals, she thinks that's impolite, but other people—people like you and people like me. You don't need to learn from her. You are a good enough spellcaster as you are.”

Brynne seemed to take in a deep breath. Her expression became serious, became frail. She looked down and fiddled with the buttons on her new coat. “No, I'm not. I
have fits when I do too much. I cast spells that burn down mountains.”

“You slay dragons and help save kidnapped girls.”

“I cursed you for life by accident.” She looked up. “I'm not stupid, Caden. I know what a curse like mine could mean for you. You have enemies who could use it against you. Rath Dunn could find out.” She twisted her hands together. “If any creature could teach me to break an unbreakable curse, it would be an Elderdragon. It would be her.”

“She's a dragon.”

“You like her.”

Caden shouldn't like Ms. Primrose. Maybe he did, maybe he didn't. It was true, though, if any being knew how to break his curse, it would be an Elderdragon. So that was why Brynne had decided to go to school. “I see,” he said.

“You need your curse fixed, and I need to control my magic. Tito thinks I should go, and you said she rewards people sometimes,” Brynne said. She waved him off. “Have some faith I won't get eaten.”

“You ask me for a lot of faith.”

“Do you not have the gift of speech? If she gets angry, you can charm her and keep us from being lunch,” she said, and smiled. Her eyes took on a mischievous glint. “That's what I'm going to call you from now on. Dragon Charmer.”

“I'd prefer you not.” Caden felt certain his brothers
would mock that title. He shook his head. “She might eat you when I'm not in the room.”

Her pretty eyes narrowed. “You trust Tito and you met him two weeks ago.”

“Tito's my brother.”

“Your foster brother.”

“I've concluded there's no true distinction. Besides, he's a local.”

Quickly, her amusement at his nickname was being replaced by annoyance. That, at least, was familiar. “In this world am I not your foster sister?”