Fairy Bad Day(43)

“Found it,” Loni suddenly interrupted, and Emma felt her heart start to pound in excitement.

“What? Really?” She leaned over to see what her friend was reading. “What does it say about the darkhels? What are they? What do they want, and more importantly, how do you kill them?”

“Sorry.” Loni shot her an apologetic look. “I didn’t mean to get your hopes up. I just meant that next to this picture your mom wrote the words ‘found it.’”

“She did?” Emma said, her disappointment giving way to surprise.

“See.” Loni held up the book so that Emma could clearly see her mom’s loopy writing, and she had even underlined the words three times and then drawn an arrow toward a black-and-white pen sketch of a dragon curled up around a chest full of gems and jewelry that looked like they were glittering and gleaming, judging by the thin pen lines that were radiating out from them. Emma chewed her lip as she studied the picture, but she had no idea why her mom would’ve written found it like that.

It wasn’t big news that all dragons liked treasure. Especially since half of their kills were motivated by the wish to steal people’s wealth. And dragons were fire elementals, not air elementals like fairies, so her mom’s words couldn’t have anything to do with the two kinds of creatures being related. Plus she knew dragons and fairies didn’t share the same kill spot.

She turned the page to see if there were any more clues, but the book then went on to discuss things to avoid when dealing with an enraged banshee.

“At least it’s a start.” Loni was trying to sound encouraging.

“But how? I mean, what does a maskret dragon and its hoard have to do with a darkhel? It’s one impossible thing after another and the more I think about it, the less my brain seems to be working. I feel like I’m swimming upstream in a river of mud.”

Loni stifled a yawn and looked at her watch. “That’s probably because it’s almost two in the morning.”

“It is?” Emma yelped. No wonder they were both having problems trying to figure it all out.

“So what do you want to do? Should we reread all of these books now in the hope we’ve missed something or start fresh in the morning?” Loni asked, and Emma reluctantly started to pack away the books.

“We’d better call it a night. The last thing I need is another detention for falling asleep in class. At least tomorrow’s Friday, so it’s almost the weekend. Then we’ll have more time to try and figure this thing out.”

“Except that it’s induction weekend, which means a dinner tomorrow night, an open day at Burtonwood on Saturday, and the ceremony on Sunday,” Loni reminded her as she got to her feet and headed for the door.

“Induction.” Emma finished stacking the rest of the books onto her desk and followed her friend over. “I can’t believe I forgot. Still, I guess I’ve finally discovered the one thing that is actually worse than being inducted as a fairy slayer—finding out that my mom had some sort of secret that I don’t know anything about.”

“Emma, we will get this figured out,” Loni said in a stern voice as she stepped out into the empty hallway. “And in the meantime, try and get some sleep. This whole thing will make a lot more sense tomorrow.”

Emma shot her friend a doubtful look before closing her door. She was tempted to keep working, but she knew that Loni was right and so she got ready for bed. She took one final look at her mom’s familiar handwriting, then shut the book and climbed into bed. After a few minutes of tossing and turning, she fell into a troubled sleep, which was full of dreams.

This time she was already fighting the darkhel, and after striking it in every kill spot she knew, she was still no closer to destroying the vile thing.

Is that the best you can do? Its voice was a sibilant hiss that made Emma long to fall to her knees and cry. But before she could do so, her mom suddenly wandered over and looked at them with interest.

Unlike in Emma’s last dream, her mom wasn’t dressed in her slaying clothes but in some freaksville 1950s housewife dress. Even her straight brown hair had been piled up in some sort of conservative mom hairstyle. The only thing Emma recognized about the woman in front of her was the familiar crystal necklace clasped around her slender throat.

Mom. Emma raced over to her. I don’t know what’s going on with all your weird clothes and hair, but please, you have to tell me what you know about this thing. I can’t kill it. You have to tell me what to do.

Darling, if you can’t deal with one measly fairy on your own, you don’t deserve my help, her mom said as she idly reached up to the necklace and touched it with her long fingers, callused from years of holding a sword. Then, before Emma even knew what was happening, the creature was on her, its giant talons aimed straight at her heart, slicing their way through her chest before she could even open her mouth to scream, and—

Emma woke up with a start as she realized it was a dream.

Just a dream, she repeated as she sat up in bed and glanced around. But there was no darkhel there, just the morning sunshine filtering in through her half-drawn curtains. She quickly got up and flung them open, eager to push the dream out of her head, but despite her best efforts, the vision of her mom refusing to help her played over and over in her head.

How did she know the darkhel? What was the connection?