Arabesque Aprilynne Pike

275 Pages·2019·1.27 MB·French

by  Aprilynne Pike

ARABESQUE

Aprilynne Pike
B A P
OOKS BY PRILYNNE IKE
Life After Theft
One Day More: A Life After Theft Prequel

The Kingdom of Versailles
Glitter
Shatter (2017)

The Wings Series
Wings
Spells
Illusions
Destined
Arabesque

The Earthbound Series
Earthbound
Earthquake
Earthrise

The Charlotte Westing Chronicles
Sleep No More
Sleep of Death

Anthologies
Dear Bully
Defy the Dark
Altered Perceptions
Side Effects (2017)

Visit Aprilynne online at AprilynnePike.com
ARABESQUE

Copyright © 2016 by Aprilynne Pike
All rights reserved.

Cover art copyright © Tomas Kriz
Used under license from Shutterstock.com
Cover design copyright © 2016 by Imaginary Properties LLC
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including
information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author or as permitted
by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events,
or locales is purely coincidental.

Written in the United States of America.
ISBN-13
978-1-941855-03-4
To my readers
(that’s you!)
who never stopped
believing.
O N E

“ ’ ’ !”
I CAN T BELIEVE I M GOING BACK
Laurel grinned and shook her head as Chelsea’s voice broke the stillness of
the forest. A lot had changed in twelve years, but not Chelsea—not really—
and her response to being invited back to the faerie homeland of Avalon was
much as it had been before. It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity none of
them thought she’d get twice, not even with Yasmine as queen. Honestly
there’d been a few years when Laurel wasn’t entirely sure she’d see Avalon
again. Fortunately for Chelsea, some things could only be accomplished by
human hands.
Laurel held tight to Tamani’s arm as he led them down a path now so
familiar she could have traversed it in pitch darkness.
“Who’s got Sophie and Zander?” Laurel asked over her shoulder.
Chelsea’s two adorable—if exhausting—young children were ordinarily in
tow when Chelsea came out to the land. They loved visiting the forest and
their Uncle Tam, but this was a journey they couldn’t take with their mother.
“Jason’s got them at home. As far as they know, Mommy’s on a business
trip,” Chelsea said with a smile.
“It is business of a sort,” Tamani said, with his typical unsmiling wit.
“Faerie business. Besides, we won’t send you back to Jason empty-handed
and the pups will appreciate souvenirs.”
It had long been the official position of Avalon that two humans could
keep a secret if both were dead, but in the years since the renegade faerie Klea
had engineered a trollish invasion, an unusually large number of humans had
kept the secret surprisingly well. Among them, Laurel’s adoptive parents and
Chelsea herself—but Chelsea refused to keep secrets from her husband, who
had once observed that even if he did try to tell others, nobody would believe
him and he had no proof.
A lump formed in Laurel’s throat at the thought of the other human who
once knew the secret—but no longer. David was directly responsible for their
return to Avalon today, making his absence all the more conspicuous. Laurel
was glad to have Chelsea, but she couldn’t help but wish both her friends had
been able to come. Willing to come. The memory potion had taken a lot of
convincing—mostly from Tamani, who was closer to David than anyone
except, perhaps, Chelsea—but Laurel was certain she’d done the right thing.
If only that certainty made the consequences easier to swallow.
Tamani whistled sharply, a warbling sound easily mistaken for a birdcall,
and after a moment faerie sentries began to appear from behind trees. They
were cautious, leading with their diamond-tipped spears and crouching low in
the undergrowth, nearly invisible in their forest-hued clothing.
“This is Chelsea,” Tamani said calmly, “our invited guest.” The sentries
straightened, making themselves fully visible. Laurel recognized only a few.
Once, she’d known more of them, but most of the sentries who’d been
guarding the gate during the summers she spent at the Academy had been
killed.
Most, but not all. One approached now and Tamani reached out to grab his
comrade, Aaron, by the shoulders, drawing him near with the gruff,
backslapping hug universally utilized by males in both the faerie and human
worlds. Silve followed, receiving the same treatment. They’d been brothers-
at-arms even before bonding with their shared grief of Shar’s death on their
watch. Without the intelligence Shar died to obtain, Klea may have won, all
those years ago. And even if she’d lost, Aaron and Silve wouldn’t have been
around to celebrate. Laurel watched their silent communication with
reverence, the glimmer of sorrow that flickered across their faces resonating
with her own. Even in victory, there was sadness enough to last a lifetime.
“It’s a proud day,” Silve said softly, and Tamani nodded, though he didn’t
speak. “Shar would love to have seen it.”
“He’d have been highly amused at the very least,” Tamani said with a
humorless laugh, settling back in beside Laurel and reaching for her hand. It
was still hard for him to talk about Shar. He forced a smile, but these two
hadn’t listened helplessly to Shar’s last moments from miles away. To this
day, Tamani hated carrying a cell phone. “Shall we prepare the gate?” he said,
and Laurel knew he wanted to leave that subject behind. For the moment.
Twelve green-garbed sentries gathered in a semi-circle around the tree that
magically concealed the golden gate to Avalon. Chelsea took Laurel’s free
hand in her own, her breath catching audibly as the tree took on the gathering
glow that presaged the blinding flash of its transformation. It felt so much like
the day they’d all raced to save Avalon that Laurel almost looked over her
shoulder to see if eighteen-year-old David was there.
“Ready?” Tamani whispered close to her ear, keying into her distress. He
always did. He knew her so well it often seemed he could read her mind.
She loved him for that. She smiled up at him—a tight smile, but a smile
nonetheless—and nodded. The golden gate stood shimmering in the clearing,
sentries surrounding it with spears extended, ever vigilant, though at the
moment nothing but darkness could be seen beyond the bars.
“Yasmine should be here any moment,” Laurel said.
“Oh! I thought—”
Laurel gave Chelsea a quelling glance, then leaned in to whisper, “Much of
Avalon knows that Tamani has the power to go where he pleases, but we’re
careful never to reveal how.” Her eyes strayed to the nearly invisible lump
beneath Tamani’s shirt, where a golden key was strung around his neck on a
claspless titanium chain made just for that purpose. “We summon Yasmine as
often as we can.”
Which was less often than it had once been, with Yasmine the only Winter
faerie remaining in Avalon. In the wake of Klea’s rebellion, Marion pursued a
number of draconian reforms only to find herself thwarted, time and again, by
the alliance between Jamison and Yasmine, as they slowly enacted their own
reforms. When she finally tried to cast out both the very old and the very
young Winter faeries, the faeries of Avalon had risen up en masse, Spring,
Summer, and Fall, crowning Yasmine their new queen.
When Laurel had first learned of the revolution Jamison had planned, a
vengeful part of her had craved some diabolical punishment for the selfish
ruler who had abandoned her people to the trolls and threatened the lives of
Laurel and her friends. But deep down she knew that Jamison would engineer
a less destructive outcome, if he could, and so it was that Queen Marion
moved to the Manor, in Scotland, declaring that she would only return when
Yasmine and Jamison had ruined Avalon and came begging for her help.
Marion’s stubborn vigil was now in it’s seventh year, allowing Yasmine the
freedom to shape Avalon according to the wishes of her subjects rather than
dreams of personal glory.
Early in Yasmine’s reign Laurel was rarely called to Avalon to advise the
young queen, but since Jamison had gone to the earth a few years ago,
Yasmine had sought Laurel’s counsel more frequently. It had to be strange,
growing up as one of three all-powerful Winter faeries, doomed never to rule,
to then suddenly find herself the sole Winter faerie in Avalon, and Queen
besides. With no one to oppose her Yasmine could have done all manner of
awful things. Or even simply lazy things—allowing a successful coup and the
status quo to suffice. But she had embedded Jamison’s philosophies deep in
her core and now worked tirelessly to be the ruler she believed her people
deserved.
But tireless and young though she was, there was still only one of her.
Today she would be out among the fae, and it would be a small thing to come
to the Garden and open the gate, especially to welcome an honored guest.
From the blackness just beyond the barrier, Yasmine’s lithe outline
coalesced. Her fingers slipped through the gold bars, and with a tug the gate
opened, allowing Avalon’s warm sunlight to tumble through as though from
inches, not thousands of miles, away.
Yasmine smiled and beckoned them in. “Welcome. I’m so pleased you
could come.” She took Chelsea’s hands and pulled her forward. “You,
especially.”
Chelsea was gaping at Queen Yasmine. The graceful ruler stood very still
for a few seconds, then squirmed uncomfortably under Chelsea’s appreciative
gaze. “You were—you were this tall last time I saw you!” Chelsea said
breathlessly, holding her hand out at about chest height. “And you’re so
beautiful!”
Yasmine laughed, rolling her eyes as she tried to slough off the
compliment. Laurel hadn’t considered how different Yasmine would look to
Chelsea. Fae aged slowly, but at twenty-five Yasmine had reached her adult
height—and was tall, for a faerie. The child-like roundness of her face had
yielded to sharp, elegant features and her ebony skin was sleek, shimmering
with some sort of cosmetic that made her look even more ethereal than usual.
“You turned out quite well, didn’t you?” Chelsea said appreciatively, with
her usual candor.
“I must say the very same about you,” Yasmine said softly.
Chelsea’s cheeks flushed, but Laurel was glad Yasmine had said it. Even
the kindest of fae were sometimes dismissive or insulting when it came to
matters of physical appearance. A side effect, Laurel suspected, of their long
history of conflict with humans and, of course, trolls. And as the mother of
two children, Chelsea had earned a more rounded figure than literally any of
the tree-like fae could ever achieve. Laurel found her friend utterly beautiful,
but she knew it couldn’t be easy on Chelsea to be aging into her thirties while
her best friend went right on looking like a high school senior.
Yasmine led the group into the garden and Laurel saw Chelsea suppress a
cringe as they emerged from beneath the canopy—no doubt remembering the
carnage they’d witnessed within these stone walls. Of that, of course, no sign
remained. The garden was a haven of curated beauty. The towering trees were
unscarred, the immaculate paths snaked through perfectly trimmed hedges
and rainbow flowerbeds, the breeze was light and even a few birds deigned to
chirp. Laurel couldn’t help but smile.
A company of ceremonially-garbed sentries stood at attention in two lines,
welcoming them. At their head Laurel recognized the captain who had