Lily Pondwhisper's Arc

Chapter 4 of 12

Lily crouched at the water's edge. The black lake lay flat and still. She needed a sign of the curse-caster, a mark, a track, a ripple. But the surface gave her nothing. It swallowed the moon and showed her only dark. She flew low over the water and stared until her eyes ached. Without a guide, she would wander the shore until the winged guardian found her again. Her cat pawed at something in the mud. Lily landed beside it. A slim rod lay half-buried, rose gold, cold to the touch. A moon symbol shone on its cap. She wiped the mud away. When she tilted the rod toward the sky, its polished side caught the faint light and threw a soft glow across the water. The dark surface answered. A thin silver line showed on the lake, running out from the shore. Lily gasped. It was a path. Footprints, pressed long ago into the lakebed, held the light like glass. She could read the water now. She followed the glowing line with the rod raised. It led toward the moth-shaped house on the slope. The colored windows glowed. Broad dark wings spread from its walls. The path ended at the door. Lily's heart pounded. The curse-caster had walked here. So had the eldest fairy's lost sister. She hovered before the tall door and made herself lift the rod. The door opened before she touched it. The guardian filled the frame. Its red eyes burned down at her. Ragged black wings scraped the doorway. "Little light," it said, wet and low. "You found my path." Lily's wings locked. The rod shook in her hands. She had no locket flash ready, no cover, no dark to dive into. She had walked straight to the thing she feared. "You seek the one who cast the curse," it said. It stepped onto the step. Moss cracked under its claws. "She is here. So is the other who followed. They never left." Lily's breath caught. "Where?" The guardian's mouth split wide. "Under the water. Where I keep them." It reached for her. She swung the rod up. The rose gold caught the window light and flared. The guardian flinched, one eye shut. Lily shot past its shoulder into the house. She did not flee into the dark this time. She flew inside, toward the answer it guarded. The door slammed behind her. She was trapped in the moth-shaped house with the guardian. But now she knew the truth. The curse-caster lay beneath this dark lake, held here, and the guardian was her jailer. To break the curse, Lily had to reach what the water hid. And the only way down led through the creature that had chased her since the first night.