The Order of the Occasionally Occult or Arcane

Denmark, 749 AD

Rohan could see everything from his perch on the cliffside: the village tucked in the valley far below, the tiny houses nestled under a blanket of thick, wet snow, and the fires slowly consuming them, clawing up into the sky.

The village was burning.

Again.

He could hear the screams, even from this distance; although it was difficult to tell if it was due to his supernatural hearing, or if they were simply that loud. Night after night, the houses burned, and the inhabitants ripped their vocal cords in two begging for mercy. Night after night, the monster descended into the valley and refused to hear their pleas. Night after night, Rohan sat here and watched.

There was always a choice to be made: stay here, return to his little house in the trees behind him, or go into the valley. Each would have terrible consequences, and each time he chose he realized again that there was no way to keep everyone he cared about safe. He had no directive, no code to guide him, no commanding officer to make this choice for him. A Knight of the Order, when faced with such indecision, would simply open the code and look for the answer. If something went wrong, blame it on the code – or blame it on Bartholomew Threeves, for that matter.

Rohan no longer had the code. He wasn’t one of the Order anymore.

This fact weighed on him while he stared into the valley, unable to move. If he intervened, everyone in the Order would know he was there. They’d have to move again, and his ward wasn’t yet strong enough, no matter how much she tried to convince him that she was. If he stayed, everyone in the valley would eventually die.

Eventually – because the monster wouldn’t outright kill them. That was the most curious part of this whole dilemma: Rohan didn’t understand why this creature insisted on playing with its food. Whatever vendetta it had against these people, it was slowly doling out its vengeance now.

So, Rohan waited.

He watched.

Night after night, his indecision controlled him.

---

The Hall of the Order was cold. It wasn’t just cold; it was frozen. Ice sprawled over the floor and crawled up the stone pillars and formed stalactites on the vaulted ceiling. Jasper’s feet had gone completely numb, and Bartholomew Threeves, slapping the head of a walking stick into his palm, had fixed him to the floor with columns of ice creeping up his shins. In his periphery, Zephyra and Orion stood in the same state. Zephyra was slightly wrinkled, clothes creased, hair askew; but Orion was much worse.

When they’d arrived, Orion had already been there several days, fixed to the icy floor. His skin had become a blotchy tapestry of bruises, his hair matted and dirty. Jasper didn’t have to guess what had happened to him.

Jasper and Barty stared at each other. Barty blinked. Jasper didn’t. He ground his teeth and decided that he would not be the one to break.

Finally, Barty let out a low, growl-like noise. He brought the walking stick down on the icy floor.

“You’re fired.”

Before Jasper could even swear at him, Barty launched out of his seat, propelled by the walking stick. Unlike the others, Barty didn’t slip on the ice and stalked around the room with an uncommon amount of grace.

“Before you ask me why, let me remind you that not only did you defy a direct order, but you failed to arrest a rift-traveling criminal, which, may I remind you, is the definition of your job.”

He enunciated each word carefully, as though speaking to a particularly slow child.

“I was tracking her,” Jasper protested. “I think she’s part of something bigger, and I thought – ”

“You don’t get your orders from your intuition. You get your orders from me.” Barty’s voice was a snarl that ricochetted off the walls. Zephyra and Orion both flinched at the sound.

“Now – if you had taken your brain out of your trousers for even a moment – ” he slammed the head of the walking stick into Jasper’s left kneecap, and there was a sickening crunch as a lightning bolt of pain shot up his shinbone, “ – then you would have caught an inter-dimensional criminal that I have been trying to catch for five years!”

Barty seized Jasper by the torn collar of his jacket and pushed him hard. Something snapped – the ice broke, and maybe his ankle (although he could no longer feel his feet, so it was difficult to say) and he hit the floor.

Sprawled across the ice, Jasper didn’t move. Barty’s face hovered above him as the hateful male crouched overhead.

“I repeat: you’re fired.” Spittle flew over Jasper’s face, but he was too stunned to wipe it away. “And if I ever see your miserable face here again, I’ll separate it from your miserable neck.”

Jasper uttered a foul oath under his breath and Barty’s nostrils flared. He lunged for him, throwing out a hand and pressing it into Jasper’s face.

The pain was something he could deal with – snapping bones and lacerated skin was uncomfortable but tolerable. This, however, was excruciating. He convulsed, his vision tunneling, and every nerve ending fired. Nausea rolled over him in wave after agonizing wave; then came the seizures, his ears filling with a sheer, hissing sound –

“Stop it!” The cry came from Zephyra. “Can’t you tell you’re hurting him?”

She pressed her hands to her mouth, but the damage had been done. Barty withdrew the cursed hand and rounded on her. Stars danced in Jasper’s vision, and he fought to regain some of his sensibilities.

Deep breaths.

In. Out. Deep. Slow.

Barty stormed over to Zephyra but didn’t touch her.

“You’re not exempt, Zephyra,” he reminded her, “and if a Knight of the Order cannot bear pain, he has no business being in the Order at all.”

Jasper turned onto his front, dragging himself to his feet through rolling vertigo. His left leg wouldn’t hold his weight, so he leaned on his right, refusing to give Barty the satisfaction of seeing him struggle.

Across the hall, Zephyra stood stiff as a board, her eyes filling with tears. Orion kept his gaze on the ground. Jasper wanted to say something – to do something – because, although he didn’t like either of them, he wasn’t delusional. They wouldn’t be in this state if he hadn’t made the call to stay at Ravenscroft. They wouldn’t be facing Barty’s wrath if he’d kept a level head, and remembered the code, and –

“I’ll need your keys.”

Barty stopped his pacing and held out his hand.

Jasper struggled to swallow. “My keys?”

The Mustang – he couldn’t give up the Mustang. It was all he had, all he cared about. It was more home than this little dwelling in the Gap, and the only sense of freedom he’d ever known.

“Is there a problem, Jasper?” Barty’s expression was cool. His lip curled into a smile. He knew. He always knew right where to strike.

“May I…retrieve my personal belongings first?” Jasper hated how pitiful he sounded, like a child asking for a toy.

“I suppose that’s reasonable.” Barty’s expression didn’t change – Jasper could tell he was reveling in this moment. He also didn’t offer to help Jasper or let either of his companions move. So Jasper went on his own.

He measured his movements by breaths instead of steps, blocking out as much of the pain as he could while he dragged himself out of the hall. Step after agonizing step, he refused to make a sound. Once he’d cleared the doorway, a wall of darkness rose to meet him, his familiar shadows crawling up his legs and acting as a splint on the one he was certain had broken in two places.

“Little help you are,” he grumbled at the shadows. Since they’d banished Umbraxis out of Ravenscroft, his powers had begun to return, albeit slowly and very reluctantly. It eased the trek back out to the Mustang a little, but his entire body was starting to ache, still reeling from Barty’s assault.

He couldn’t control the trembling. He couldn’t control the way his mouth dried out. When he made it outside, he leaned against the wall of the great, white building and vomited.

Everywhere.

Get a hold of yourself, Jasper.

That seemed to be the common refrain in his mind these days. Ever since California, he’d been unraveling, and the most frustrating part was that he couldn’t put his finger on why. He started walking again, his progress slow and dizzying. A panic welled up inside him as he thought about the Mustang. His home. His purpose. He would lose the dwelling in the Gap – as soon as he couldn’t pay rent, someone else would move in. If he tried to stay, they would take it by force. And if he left…

Homelessness wasn’t the worst thing that could happen. He could always travel. Go to a different city, a different country, even, if he wanted to. But without the Mustang, it didn’t seem plausible. Most of the Fae would ride the Elumbrae instead, but those creatures seemed to hate Jasper. All the ones he’d met had screamed in terror if he so much as looked at them. They hated him.

Like Barty.

Like…just about everyone else.

That was something Jasper had never been able to explain. He’d never liked being around others, Fae or human. He’d never tried to have any type of friendship with any of them, except perhaps Zephyra – although that was likely due to forced proximity. Until he’d met Aurora, he couldn’t recall speaking to someone who wasn’t immediately ready to end the conversation. It was as though every living creature had an innate knowing to avoid him at all costs.

Careful, Jasper. Pitying yourself won’t solve this problem.

Right. Pity, panic – neither of these things were going to help him. He had choices. He just had to figure out what they were.

Jasper paused and fought back another wave of nausea. He knew he looked a mess – he wore the same bedraggled clothes he’d been wearing in Ravenscroft, and they were dirty and torn and covered in blood. He still had the diary in his pocket, and the amulet Aurora had given him –

The amulet.

Jasper froze.

What was it she’d said? In case you change your mind.

Aurora had given him a direct link to her. A way to track her down, as if she’d known he’d find himself in this exact predicament.

As Jasper arrived at the back of the building, where the Mustang was parked, the pieces began to snap back into place. He still had the amulet. He had two choices: return to Barty, and give it to him, or return to Barty with the interdimensional criminal that had gotten him into this mess.

He made it to the 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 and ran his hand along the hood, the silver runes shimmering at his touch. The engine began to hum as it recognized him. Jasper couldn’t lose the Mustang. He could cut off the damnable leg, lose his cultivated wardrobe, burn down the Gap, even give up his whiskey– but he wouldn’t give up the car.

As far as he could see, there was only one way to keep it.

---

The cabin was smaller than Rohan would have liked, but it was made of stone, heavily insulated, and the interior was warm. Warded with magic to keep it unbothered by evil and the elements, squeezing inside was like stepping into a pocket of safety. It would last. They would need to move on in time, but he estimated they had at least another year before they had to find somewhere else.

His broad shoulders scraped both sides of the doorframe, and he closed the heavy oak door as quietly as possible. It made no difference, though. She was still awake.

Her soft weeping was barely audible over the wind buffeting the house, but he heard it nonetheless. Rohan sighed.

A pot simmered over the fire pit in the center of the room. He grabbed a bowl from the cupboard, and as he filled it with watery stew, he said, “We can’t keep doing this, Aurrie. We just can’t.”

He took the bowl to the corner of the room. There, on a straw-stuffed cot lay Aurora, face down on her tattered pillow. He knelt beside the cot and offered her the stew.

“You have to eat.”

She ignored him, her body trembling with each soft cry. Stabbing razor blades into his ear canals might have been easier than listening to this pitiable noise.

“He’s gone. We have to accept that, and you have to eat.”

“I saw him, Ro,” she sobbed, for the hundredth time. “It was him. Breathing, living –”

“It wasn’t him. It was something else. An illusion from that stupid house, or Umbraxis playing tricks on you – “

Aurora let out a scream. “It was him! Why don’t you believe me?”

Rohan shut his mouth. Lucrezia had warned him about the dangers of antagonizing her when she was in this state, and as frustrated as he was, he didn’t want to have to tie her up or sedate her.

“You didn’t believe me about Umbraxis, or Dorian, and now this –”

Dorian. Dorian. Rohan restrained his annoyance at the bitter reminder. How was he supposed to avoid feeding into her delusions if she refused any fraction of reality?

“We need to see Lucrezia,” he said, as gently as he could manage. “Maybe she could mix up a new potion.”

Aurora pushed herself up, letting out a scream of sorrow and rage that nearly tore his heart in two. She lunged for him, spilling the contents of the bowl all over the floor. He grabbed her wrists as she clawed at his face, holding her just tightly enough to keep her from hurting either of them. She pushed and pulled against him, finally collapsing into a heap back on the cot.

Completely spent.

“If you’re going to kill me,” Rohan sighed, “you should at least eat so you’re strong enough to do it.”

Never mind that she was less than half his size.

Aurora had always been a wisp of thing. With a mighty temper and a wit to match, he remembered how formidable she’d been on the debate floor, but physically speaking she was…breakable. Extremely.

He got up to refill the bowl.

He made it only a few steps before he froze, his incredible hearing picking up something just beyond the walls of the house. He recognized that whirring sound of radio static – but Aurora was here. He only heard it where she came and went. Which meant –

Rohan moved only a moment before the crash came. Metal shrieked, rock music breaking the silence of the night. It was followed by a crash that made the earth below him tremble. Rohan dropped the bowl, grabbed the nearest butcher knife, and ran for the door.

He threw it open, stepping out into the night. He’d been expecting a ghastly sight, certainly. He’d been expecting armed Fae, circling the house, demanding that he leave his weapons and come quietly. He’d even expected to see Bartholomew Threeves, finally caught up to them, striding effortlessly through the snow. He had not expected, however, to see a 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1 steaming in the snow, smashed into a large pine.

The hood had crumpled in on itself like paper, and the front axle had been completely disconnected from the car.

Rohan had seen these cars before. He used to drive one, fifteen years ago. A Camaro – bright red, with leather seats and a stereo system that would wake anyone sleeping for miles. He knew who sanctioned cars like these.

He also knew the driver. He’d survived the crash, but Rohan didn’t move to help him as he dragged himself out of the wrinkled driver’s seat. Rohan was paralyzed, unable to move, unable to think; because Jasper Nightingale was the last person he’d ever thought would wind up in his front yard.

After all, Rohan had been at his funeral.

---

Jasper didn’t know how it happened. The Mustang had been in his control initially, and he’d made this drive a hundred times at least in the last few months alone. Lunging through the rift, however, the control had torn away from him, and the next thing he knew, he’d gone nose-first into a tree.

For a moment, he considered that Aurora had given him the amulet as a trick.

Perhaps even to kill him.

The adrenaline coursing through him masked the pain for a time, long enough for him to crawl out and set his feet in the shin-high snow. His left leg buckled and he grabbed the door to steady himself, assessing the damage.

No. No, no, no – Jasper wanted to scream. Or puke. Either would have been appropriate, as the engine whined, the front tires now completely detached from the rest of the chassis. Could he fix it? Jasper was no mechanic. He didn’t know the first thing about rebuilding cars, and without the right tools –

He stopped and forced himself to breathe. He was beginning to hyperventilate, and if he passed out here, he’d likely freeze before he could recover. So he turned, assessing the scene, and tried to get an idea of where the rift had spit him out.

Someone was watching him.

About fifteen yards away, a giant of a man stood, a butcher knife hanging limply in his bear-like hand. He was huge, nearing seven feet tall, and had a flaming mane of bright red hair. His red beard sported an elaborate braid, decorated with silver fastenings. The man did not move to attack Jasper and only stood there, mouth ajar.

Jasper reached for his shadows. To his great surprise, they answered him.

It was the first time since Northern California that they jumped out at full force, and the shock of it unsteadied him, even as he gripped the car door. They rose around him in a cloak of darkness, forming a wall of daggers around him, arming against an attack, and magnified his voice as he spoke to the man watching from afar.

“Where am I?” he demanded.

The man didn’t speak. The butcher knife fell out of his hand.

“Can you speak?” Jasper continued. The adrenaline was fading, pain following. He needed to get off this leg. Perhaps this man was friendly, if a little slow.

The man still didn’t answer. Something moved behind him, and a moment later, another figure appeared, wrapped in a thick, woolen blanket. She stumbled through the snow barefooted, and for a moment, Jasper didn’t recognize her.

The recognition came as a shock. It was Aurora – but her face was chapped, badly bruised, and her hair matted. She was paler than the last time he’d seen her, and when she made it to the giant man, she wobbled. He caught her with an arm and she clung to him with all her strength.

“Jasper!” she cried. “You came!”

Her voice was hoarse; weak as though she’d spent long hours screaming. He looked from the man to Aurora, trying to ascertain what the relationship was. The man’s knuckles were clean and unbruised, and the way she clung to him made him want to believe that nothing untoward had happened since he’d last seen her, but he couldn’t be sure.

“What’s happened to you?” he shouted back. It had only been a week since he’d seen her – although time moved differently in the realms, so perhaps here it had been longer. “You look…” Terrible, was what he wanted to say. Instead, he opted for, “tired.”

Aurora shook the large man and hissed, “You must help him! Can’t you see he’s hurt?”

“Aurrie – ” The great man fumbled for the words, his mouth working without producing sound.

“I’m alright,” Jasper said. “I’ve just…crashed my car. Is there anyone nearby who might know anything about cars?”

Aurora let out a hysterical laugh and collapsed in the snow. “No – haven’t you the slightest idea where we are?”

“Cars won’t be invented for another 1200 years, mate,” the giant man added.

Jasper gaped. The situation was much more severe than he’d realized. He looked back at the Mustang – it had gone quiet, but the steam rising from the hood filled him with dread. It couldn’t be totaled. That thought didn’t fit in his mind anywhere. Losing the Impala had been difficult, but this –

“You should come inside,” Aurora said. The raspy hiss of her voice startled him enough to focus on the two figures watching him from afar. “It’s cold and…it isn’t safe. Not right now.”

Inside. Just beyond them, tucked in the shadows of the trees, was a small stone cabin. Smoke rose from a hole in its center. Primitive, but much warmer than standing out here. His feet had only begun to thaw from Barty’s interrogation, and although the snow helped with the pain, it made each movement clumsy.

He began to drag himself forward, one step and then another. The Mustang’s door swung shut but didn’t latch. It felt like a betrayal to turn his back on the poor, faithful thing.

I’m coming back, he said to himself. I’ll fix you. I’ll make this right.

He had to, after all. How else would he take Aurora to the Hall of the Order?

---

The cabin’s interior was snug and dimly lit, and with all three of them inside, there was very little room to move about. By the time Jasper got there, he was sweating and aching and every bone in his body felt like they were rubbing together. His shoulder was still sore from Ravenscroft, his head felt like he’d been split in two, and his left leg –

The giant man, whom Aurora had called ‘Ro’ and whom Jasper later learned was named Rohan, gave Jasper the only chair in the cabin. He placed it in the corner, farthest away from the straw-filled cot Aurora collapsed into when they entered. Jasper couldn’t help noticing the distance; or the way Rohan positioned himself directly between them.

“What happened to you?” Aurora asked, as though she didn’t notice Rohan’s dominant presence, or the way he glared down at Jasper, refusing to sit.

Jasper distracted himself by slowly working off his boot. The leather had cracked, damaged by the ice, and he felt yet another pang of grief when he remembered his carefully curated wardrobe in the Gap. He would never see it again, and the radio, and the cereal boxes –

“Barty,” Jasper said through his teeth. The boot came free and underneath thick, woolen socks, the ankle was badly swollen. He wouldn’t remove his trousers to check the kneecap (not to be caught literally with his pants down, Jasper couldn’t think of many more humiliating things at present) but he could feel bits of it floating in the socket. His suspicions were confirmed, then: Barty had shattered it completely.

“We’ll need to set that,” Rohan said, looking down at the ankle. “I can splint it, but you shouldn’t walk on it.”

“Don’t bother,” Jasper replied. “I’m not like you. It will heal in a few days.”

“I know exactly what you are.” Rohan’s voice was like distant thunder, and when Jasper met his gaze the hostility there made his stomach churn.

Jasper looked around Rohan to see Aurora, wrapped in a blanket and leaning against the wall. “Is there something I’m missing?” he asked.

Rohan moved so he could no longer see her, filling the room with his bulk. “You won’t speak to her,” he growled. “Not until I’ve said it’s alright. And I haven’t. Answer my questions first.”

Jasper glared back. As the dark feeling prowled in his chest, the shadows gathered again. He couldn’t stand, but he didn’t need to – they had returned, in full force, as though Umbraxis had never happened. It was one thing he could be grateful for in this moment. Although he’d lost everything else, it seemed his power hadn’t abandoned him.

“If you know what I am,” he snarled, “then you’ll know I’m a Knight of the Order, and as such, you’ll answer my questions and will not hinder my investigation.”

Was it true? Not anymore. He’d clearly been fired, but Rohan didn’t need to know that.

“Let him help you,” Aurora said softly. There was something strange about the timbre of her voice, something drastically different from the female he’d met in California.

The two males glared at each other, and it was then that Jasper realized Rohan wasn’t human. He’d assumed so because his ears were rounded, but now that he was close Jasper saw that they had been clipped.

And cauterized. And –

“Are you one of the Fae?” he asked, briefly forgetting what they were fighting about.

“What about it?” Rohan returned.

“You’re Fae, living here? In the human realm?”

“That’s enough.” Rohan grabbed Jasper by the shirt and lifted him out of the chair. Aurora let out a strangled cry of protest, but neither seemed to hear her as he opened the cabin door and threw Jasper back into the snow.

The massive Fae male stood over Jasper, unperturbed by the shadows now rallying around him. “Why are you here?” he demanded. “Who sent you? And how are you…”

“What?” Jasper snapped when he failed to finish that third question. “How am I what, you big ugly brute? Are you going to help me or not? Because I’m getting rather tired of your insolent – “

“I told him to come, Ro.”

Aurora stood in the doorway, clutching her amulet. Rohan turned to her, face incredulous.

“I gave him the amulet,” she continued. “I told him to come…if he wanted to.”

“She’s telling the truth.” Jasper fished the amulet out of his torn jacket and held it up. “Now will you please stop being difficult? I’m sure we can discuss this like reasonable people.”

Rohan’s mouth hung open for a long time, and Jasper was beginning to fear that he’d gone mute, when he breathed, “Aurora…you realize that you’ve given Bartholomew Threeves a direct line to us? To you? What in the name of the Guardians were you thinking?”

That was an excellent question, actually, and one that Jasper hadn’t fully considered. What had she been thinking? How would she know he would find her, and not turn her in? Rohan was right about one thing – Jasper was here to hand them over to Threeves, to get his car back, and to figure out his life since she’d so rudely interrupted it. But looking at her now, small and pale and shivering in the moonlight…

“That’s not why I’m here.” He said it to Aurora, disregarding Rohan, and ignoring the shame that spread over him alongside the lie. He took out the other item weighing down his coat and held it out to her. “You did something funny to this. I want to know what it is and why. You said we would hunt down the Shadow Man – Umbraxis – and I came to hold you to that.”

It was the diary.

Torn, water-damaged, and splattered with blood, the pages crinkled loudly in the wind. Rohan’s incredulous look only deepened.

“You found the diary,” Rohan whispered, “and you didn’t tell me?”

Aurora’s eyes filled with tears. “We found it,” she said. From this distance, Jasper couldn’t tell if she was smiling or not. “We found it, Ro. And we were right this whole time. She left us a map – everything we need to…to fix this.”

Jasper didn’t know what any of that meant, but if it kept Rohan from trying to kill him again, he’d take it.

“Right,” he said. “And I…I’m here to do that.”

Rohan looked between the two of them. A moment later, he made his decision and grabbed Jasper by the back of his shirt this time, lifting him yet again and bringing him back into the cabin. The door swung shut and Jasper, too stunned to move, sat stiffly in the chair Rohan placed him in.

A moment later, Rohan returned to him with two wooden planks, each about two feet high, and strips of linen. “I’m going to set this for you,” he said, in a tone that told Jasper he didn’t have a choice. “Fae or not – if you don’t set the bones right, they’ll heal wrong, and we’ll have to break them all over again to fix it.”

“I don’t…” Jasper didn’t finish. Aurora stumbled over with a bottle filled with a clear liquid.

“Vodka,” she explained. He took it. Then she handed him a wooden bucket and sank back onto her cot.

---

He’d needed the bucket.

An hour after Rohan had set the break, Jasper’s world was still tumbling over him, and it had nothing to do with the vodka he’d consumed as quickly as he could. Today had been too much. Too many things had happened too quickly. Normally, he’d run to the safety of the Mustang – curl up in the seat and hide from his problems until he could think properly again, if not drive away completely. Simply thinking about it now, however, made everything worse.

I’ll fix it, he told himself again.

Rohan offered him a bowl of watery stew, but Jasper didn’t take it. He couldn’t keep down his drink, so there was no point trying with solid food. He gave Aurora the diary and she and Rohan retreated to the other side of the small room. He listened to them quietly discuss it for some time before he had the strength to add to the conversation – something about paths to take, weaknesses, and Elysande herself.

Finally, Jasper cleared his throat and croaked, “Why did it read one way when I had it, and then another once you did?”

The taste in his mouth was sour, like vodka and bile, and he would have murdered for a toothbrush. If they still had 1200 years to go before there would be a car, however, he doubted they’d come across basic hygiene products.

Aurora coughed. “Because it’s a cypher,” she explained.

“A cypher?”

“Like when it reads one way, and then there’s a reference that tells you…”

“I know what a cypher is. I’m not a child. I was asking how it could be a cypher.”

Rohan shot him another murderous look, but Aurora waved her hand, as though calling him to heel. “It’s spelled. Like your car. The runes say one thing until you activate the spell, and then they say something else. It’s simple.”

And it would explain why the Knights of the Order couldn’t read it.

“How do you know how to read it?” he asked.

Aurora and Rohan exchanged a long look, one that told Jasper he was straying towards something they’d argued about before. Rohan shook his head while Aurora pressed on.

“Years ago,” she said slowly, “there was…a group of people who opposed the Order.”

Rohan growled something under his breath, but Aurora pretended not to hear. She turned to Jasper, the fire flickering in her eyes. “A female named Elysande started it when she felt as though the Order had overextended its authority across the realms. Naturally, it was outlawed, and her followers were hunted down. But she left behind clues. She taught her followers how to find them, just not…where.”

“And this resistance…”

“We’re all that’s left.” Aurora gestured to herself and Rohan, and…Jasper.

He sat up a little straighter. “A moment. I’m not part of any resistance. Threeves and I have our differences, but the objective of the Order is to keep the peace in the realms. Any opposition to that threat is hostile towards peace and – “

“-in support of complete and all-consuming chaos,” Rohan groaned. He shot Jasper a look that could have lit the ice outside on fire. “We know the code. Do you have any original ideas, or are you simply one of Barty’s parrots?”

Jasper looked between the two of them. His ankle had its own heartbeat now and thumped painfully as his pulse rose. Aurora had brought him here to betray the Order. The Kingdom of Elathor. Perhaps even the entirety of the Fae realm.

All he could ask was, “Why?”

Aurora took a deep breath. “Because Bartholomew Threeves isn’t who he says he is, Jasper,” she whispered.

She didn’t have the chance to explain, because a loud noise shredded the night once again. Jasper’s adrenaline spiked as he heard the familiar sound of Santana blasting through the stillness. The music switched off and then came the creak of car doors, followed by the very distinct slam as each closed.

Then, to his horror, he heard the familiar sound of two Fae – one male, one female – bickering.

Orion and Zephyra had found him.

Click Here to Continue to Part Two

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