Glimmers of Thorns Read online

  Glimmers of Thorns

  EMMA SAVANT

  Copyright © 2016 Emma Savant

  All rights reserved.

  Cover design by Emma Savant.

  Editing by Elayne Morgan, www.serenityeditingservices.com

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-9981500-4-8

  www.EmmaSavant.com

  To my husband,

  for all the kisses.

  Contents

  Contents iv

  Acknowledgments vi

  Chapter One 1

  Chapter Two 13

  Chapter Three 32

  Chapter Four 45

  Chapter Five 58

  Chapter Six 71

  Chapter Seven 80

  Chapter Eight 88

  Chapter Nine 98

  Chapter Ten 111

  Chapter Eleven 118

  Chapter Twelve 133

  Chapter Thirteen 146

  Chapter Fourteen 165

  Chapter Fifteen 177

  Chapter Sixteen 189

  Chapter Seventeen 199

  Chapter Eighteen 210

  Chapter Nineteen 225

  Chapter Twenty 230

  Chapter Twenty-One 239

  Chapter Twenty-Two 251

  Chapter Twenty-Three 260

  Chapter Twenty-Four 266

  Chapter Twenty-Five 278

  Chapter Twenty-Six 300

  Chapter Twenty-Seven 310

  Chapter Twenty-Eight 319

  Chapter Twenty-Nine 334

  Chapter Thirty 355

  Chapter Thirty-One 360

  Chapter Thirty-Two 373

  Chapter Thirty-Three 387

  Chapter Thirty-Four 393

  Chapter Thirty-Five 410

  Chapter Thirty-Six 420

  About the Author 430

  Follow Emma Online 430

  A Note from Emma 431

  Acknowledgments

  As always, my first and deepest gratitude goes to Elayne Morgan for her sharp eye, thoughtful comments, and entertaining marginalia.

  My husband holds me together. These books would not have happened without him, and I am so grateful I will probably make him cookies.

  And, of course, thanks to The Cat. Can’t write without a cat.

  Chapter One

  The weather might have been gray and drizzly outdoors, but inside Wishes Fulfilled, it looked like the Easter Bunny had ingested an entire craft store worth of glitter and then thrown it up all over the walls.

  Despite it being emphatically winter, Lorinda was determined to “put a spring in our steps!” This meant daffodils nodded on every desk, pink and purple glitter floated down from the ceiling and dissolved just above our heads, and the occasional overpowering scent of freshly mown grass wafted through the office.

  Lorinda, I was starting to realize, had seasonal depression, and we were all going to feel the effects of it.

  And we weren’t just getting the effects of one holiday. Since it was actually December, the place was also full of candy dishes loaded with Christmas treats that were not doing my blood sugar any favors.

  I ducked into my cubicle and sat down immediately to dodge a hot beam of sunlight. Rays kept bursting from an enchanted disco ball in the corner of our open office, flashing around the room in blinding golden beams. I liked sunshine as much as the next person, but this had to be the world’s worst delivery system.

  Everyone wanted elf magic during the holidays, which meant a slow month for us. To fill the time, I helped Tabitha prep the Magical Moments packages we’d be offering around Valentine’s Day. Magical Moments weren’t exactly a godmother’s bread and butter, but the work—mostly setting up flawless enchanted environments for romantic dinners and proposals and the like—was easy and didn’t require me to make a whole lot of choices.

  After my Little Mermaid case, that was something to be grateful for.

  The stack of papers on my desk, on the other hand, made my stomach squeeze a little. A glittering lavender sticky note curled up from the top of the pile. Lorinda’s sharp, swooping handwriting read: New cases. Look through and see if anything catches your interest. I suggest a Tom Thumb or Frog Princess; the variety will be good professional development.

  I did not want good professional development. I did not want any professional development. I just wanted to keep my head down and get on with my life.

  Before I’d skimmed even half the pages in the pile, Lorinda was there.

  “What do you think?” she said.

  My phone, sitting on my desk, buzzed. I caught the name Lucas before the screen went dark again.

  “Lots of good cases here,” I said.

  “There really are,” she said. “These are all about right for your skill level, and you’ll have plenty of opportunities to expand your skills. It’s good to get a real breadth of experience when you’re first starting out. Did you get a chance to look at the Frog Princess case? Not a frog this time. The enchanted prince, our client, is actually her guide dog. It’s got the potential to be a really lovely romantic Story if we handle it right. He’s been with her for years and she has no idea. The real challenge is going to be helping her realize that he’s genuinely cursed into dog form and genuinely committed to her, not just transfigured so he can watch her change clothes, if you get my drift. We had an awkward mix-up with that one back in the—”

  “Lorinda?” I interrupted.

  She blinked. “Yes?”

  “I think maybe I’m not ready for another case just yet,” I said.

  She looked over her silver reading glasses at me. “What’s that?”

  “I’m really busy right now,” I said. “I just signed up for an intensive study program to prep for college and it’s going to be taking up a lot of my time.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek and hoped she wouldn’t ask for details. The “intensive study program” was actually a botany course offered for free online from a major university. I had a feeling Lorinda wouldn’t take that too seriously, and I wasn’t great at lying to other faeries.

  But she’d already jumped way ahead of me and was racing ahead with her delighted assumptions.

  “Oh, of course!” she said. “You’ve got all sorts of entrance exams coming up, don’t you? Your father made a point of letting me know you were going to apply to his alma mater. In Austria, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, the Imperial College of Faeries,” I said.

  Which I was not applying to. Dad knew that, but he hadn’t acknowledged it. The closest we’d gotten to a conversation on the subject was a pamphlet on the College that he’d left on the kitchen table for me to find.

  I flinched as another ray of sunlight swept over our heads.

  “That’s the one,” she said. “Such an exclusive school! You must be very excited. Of course you ought to focus on your prep course. But when summer comes, I hope you’ll do us a favor and take on one last case.”

  She winked.

  I forced a smile and tried to suppress the guilt that bubbled in the bottom of my stomach. Fortunately, she was too wrapped up in her own excitement over my future to pay attention to how I felt. I jumped in before she had a chance.

  “I’m happy as Tabitha’s assistant,” I said. “I think shadowing one of her cases would
be a good compromise.”

  My phone buzzed again. Lorinda looked at the phone. Her eyebrows went up like we’d all just had a wonderful surprise.

  “That must be your young man.”

  She winked again, and I did my best not to cringe.

  The worst part was that, once she’d bustled back out and I’d had a chance to check my phone, it was “my young man.” Not that he was mine, or a man, for that matter—but he was close enough to both that it made my stomach flip over. I had three texts.

  Lucas: Mind if I swing by and take you to lunch? I’m downtown and craving Chinese. Also I’m pretty sure I saw a magician.

  Lucas: Maybe not a magician. Maybe just a guy in a top hat.

  Lucas: I’m outside.

  I shot up and grabbed my coat way faster than I’d planned. If he was outside, that meant two things. First, he was here and we were going to lunch. Second, he was standing not a hundred feet away from the Oracle’s Fountain, and I didn’t want him anywhere near that thing. I flew down the hall and into the elevator.

  He gave me a smile when I got out of the elevator, but not a hug, and I was half relieved and half disappointed. He eyed the Fountain.

  “Let’s get out of here?” he said.

  “Fast,” I said.

  The water was still and quiet, as it had been since October, but I knew what was underneath it, and I knew she was probably watching us. I clutched one hand around my purse and took comfort in the barely-there weight of the silver ring beneath my shirt.

  We walked down the sidewalk, close enough that every step was almost enough to make us touch.

  “Sorry,” Lucas said suddenly. “You didn’t have lunch plans, did you?”

  “I was probably going to skip it, honestly.”

  “I’m glad I caught you.”

  The air around him frizzed. He was as skittish as I was, and the thought did nothing to settle my nerves.

  It wasn’t like I didn’t see him every day. We had classes together, and it was impossible not to run into him in the hallways sometimes. But hanging out outside of school was different. We were alone here, and it made me feel way too exposed.

  “So you saw a magician?” I said.

  “I don’t think so,” Lucas said. “He was doing card tricks on a street corner and he was a little too good. But then he did a trick I already knew.”

  “I didn’t know you did card tricks.”

  “Just one,” he said. “And really badly.”

  A laugh burst out of me with way too much force. I choked it back down. He pretended not to notice.

  We’d been so normal once. Intellectually, I remembered what it was like to be comfortable around him. Emotionally, I couldn’t even remember what “comfortable” felt like.

  And yet, we couldn’t stay away from each other. This was the second time this month he’d taken me out for lunch. I couldn’t really blame him. Discovering an entire magical world living under his nose was bound to send him for a loop; no wonder he wanted someone there to answer his questions. And I was the only one who could, because there was no way I was letting a third party get involved. Lucas wasn’t even supposed to know about our world, and I had a feeling the Oracle wouldn’t back us up if we tried to explain to the Council that she’d exposed it to him.

  “Where are we going?” I asked, at the same moment he blurted, “You smell like grass.”

  It took me a second to realize he was not, in fact, talking about marijuana.

  “My boss,” I said. “She’s made the whole office smell like a lawnmower just came through. She’s not really a winter person.”

  “It’s not bad,” he said. A flush covered his face and a wave of nervous energy rolled off him.

  This was getting ridiculous.

  “You said Chinese, right?” I said. Anything to keep the conversation going.

  “Does that sound okay?”

  “Food sounds okay,” I said.

  I kept forgetting to eat these days. In between the Oracle, Imogen, work, school, my parents, and Lucas, my brain was on constant overtime. I didn’t have the mental energy left for remembering regular meals. Now that I was paying attention, though, I realized I was starving.

  The little place Lucas led us to was busy with the lunchtime rush. An older woman seated us and left us with menus. I liked the noise in here—silverware clinking and quiet conversations. It made it harder to hear my heart pounding in my chest.

  “I have to tell you something,” I said.

  Lucas leaned forward until I could see the tiny crease between his dark eyebrows. I flicked my fingers out. A bubble of silence sprang up to shield our conversation from any eavesdroppers.

  “I got a call from Isabelle,” I said. “She wants to meet up with me.”

  His eyes widened.

  Months ago, on a single horrible night, Lucas had been introduced to our world, my Little Mermaid client had found an unsettling happily-ever-after, and the Oracle had stolen my best friend, Imogen, away from me. The next morning, I’d met a woman named Isabelle, who seemed to know even more than I did about the trouble the Oracle was causing throughout Portland.

  Then she’d disappeared to France for a plant breeding course at a Glimmering university in Europe. I’d had no idea plant breeding courses even existed at Glimmering universities.

  “She’s back in the country,” I said. “And she wants me to meet her at her work tomorrow.”

  “That’s good, right?” Lucas said.

  His face said he knew it wasn’t. And of course he knew. My faerie features were probably broadcasting my worry to the entire restaurant.

  “She told me not to tell anyone,” I said.

  Lucas frowned. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  I picked at the edge of the paper placemat in front of me. It showed sketches of the animals of the Chinese zodiac, one after another in a giant wheel. I wished life were as predictable as it looked on this placemat, one thing following another in a predetermined progression.

  “I don’t think Isabelle’s working for the Oracle, if that’s what you mean,” I said. “She just sounded worried. I probably shouldn’t even be telling you, but—”

  I cut myself off. My gaze shot up to meet his.

  He wasn’t challenging me, just listening and waiting for me to have the answers.

  I had no answers.

  “No, it’s not dangerous,” I said, with more certainty than I felt.

  A younger waitress came by and gave us two glasses of ice water. Lucas thanked her and reached for his, but I caught his wrist before he could touch the glass. The heat of his arm through his jacket burned into my palm. Humdrums didn’t have magical auras. Even so, they sometimes felt too warm or too cold or too electric just the same.

  Especially when I was nervous.

  I gathered energy in my free hand and swirled it till it felt hazy and unclear. The glasses dimmed for a moment when I threw the energy over them like a cloak.

  “Sorry,” Lucas said. “I forgot.”

  I couldn’t imagine how it was possible for him to forget. I’d been putting blocking spells on every bit of clear water that crossed my path for months now; I didn’t even step into the shower these days without putting a shield over the showerhead to prevent the Oracle from being able to see through any water that came through it.

  What freaked me out was that these spells were becoming second nature. This time last year, I’d had to shut out all distractions and focus all my energy on getting a single charm to work. Now, I barely had to think.

  I’d spent my entire life being proud of how Humdrum I was for a faerie, and now, here I was, showing off my magic for Lucas like some kind of show pony.

  And he looked fascinated. He stared at me like he was trying to see inside me, and I couldn’t stop a tiny thrill from going up my spine.

  It was a thrill I did not have time for.

  “Anyway,” I said, forcing my attention back to the conversation at hand. “Isabelle’s still kind of upset ab
out what happened at the Fountain. Understandably.”

  “I’m still trying to figure that one out myself,” Lucas said.

  “What’s to figure out?” I said. “The Oracle showed up and Imogen lost her mind.” I couldn’t stop an edge of bitterness from entering my voice.

  I could still see her, walking away from me and into the dark rippling water.

  It wasn’t as though Imogen had gone forever. Within days, I had run into her in the hallway at work. I’d almost collapsed with relief, but she’d walked past me like I wasn’t even there.

  A few weeks later, I’d overhead her mom talking to mine when Mrs. Dann came over to borrow some golden apple juice for a potion. Mrs. Dann had seemed normal—happy, even—and chattered on about Imogen’s upcoming departure to Institut Glänzen, the university Imogen had cheated on her exams to get into.

  She hadn’t been to Humdrum school lately, though. She probably thought it was beneath her.

  Lucas rubbed the back of his neck and looked out the window. I felt my face flushing pink.

  “At any rate, I’ll keep you posted,” I said. “On Isabelle, I mean.”

  Lucas smiled and nodded, but he seemed a million miles away. I changed the subject to our weekend plans and gossip about Tabitha’s latest cases at work. Neither of us mentioned Isabelle, the Oracle, or Imogen again.

  Chapter Two

  The heavy December sky loomed down like it was trying to intimidate me.

  “You’re too late,” I muttered. “Already in way over my head.”

  The car had been idling for five minutes in front of the empty fenced tennis courts, and still the fluttering in my stomach wouldn’t settle.

  No one but Lucas knew I was here, and the temptation to back out and drive away overwhelmed me.

  After all, the Oracle hadn’t made a peep since the stupid night everything had gone down. If not for the persistent reminder that Lucas was now part of the Glimmering world and the constant gap in my life that used to contain Imogen, it would have been easy to pretend things were back to normal. There’d been a rumor that a Humdrum woman had abandoned her apartment on the other end of town after the pipes kept bursting at three in the morning on the dot, but that was it.