Page 46 of Fang Fiction

“What?” Callum turned to Tess. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing.” Tess shook her head. “Just…Octavia made it sound like you would care that she needed you. But I guess she was wrong about you. I wish I could say I was surprised.”

With that, Tess turned and flounced out of the room, finally leaving Callum alone with the silence he’d been craving for the last hour. Except now, he found it didn’t sit quite as well as he had hoped.

Tess stormed down the hall toward her bedroom. What had she been thinking, coming to this place to help Callum Yoo of all people? Did she imagine she’d be welcomed as some kind of rescuer princess, showered with gifts and praise? No, of course not! But Felix had seemed genuinely concerned for Tess’s well-being within minutes of meeting her—was it entirely unreasonable to expect Callum might be at least a little bit thankful that Tess was risking her life to help him? That after eleven years trapped on this island, when she arrived with news that he might be able to get back home, he might not be boozy and mean, pretending not to care about anything when it was so deeply obvious how badly he missed his sister?

I wonder if he misses Octavia as much as I miss Joni.

The thought flashed through Tess’s mind, but she shoved it quickly away—the situations weren’t remotely the same. Tess moved out of the apartment to protect Joni, to make sure Tess’s ruined life didn’t poison Joni’s too. Octavia needed Callum, was powerless without him, and he was refusing to find a way back to her because he was…what? Scared? Selfish? Obstinate? An infuriating combination of all three?

Tess thought back to the tarot card Flora had given her, the instruction to rescue herself. She supposed she could go to the moonflower meadow on her own, maybe find something to prove to stupid Callum that she did have value here. But the moonflower meadow was miles away—how could Tess get there without help? It’s not like she had a car, or the subway, or—

“Hey!”

She looked up—she’d almost plowed straight into Antoinette and Angelique, who were both dressed in full equestrian regalia: tall boots, dark tights, and velvet jackets, their hair twisted back in elaborate braids, riding crops in their hands.

“Watch where you’re going.” Angelique sniffed.

“God, humans are so annoying,” Antoinette agreed.

“Especially when you can’t feed on them.” Angelique gazed longingly at Tess.

“Sorry, I didn’t see you,” Tess mumbled, backing away. It was unclear whether the pair was more terrifying because they were deadly vampires or because they were just really mean teenagers.

“Obviously.” Angelique rolled her eyes.

“Where did you get those clothes?” Antoinette giggled, and the two walked off down the hall, arm in arm, clearly laughing at Tess.

As if this day could get any worse.

Except—wait a minute. They were both in riding gear. Did that mean this place had horses?

—

It turned out the compound had two horses and two ponies, all kept in a small stable on the grounds next to a meadow where they could roam and feed. After Tess slept for a few hours, she put on leggings, a warm sweater, and another generous douse of Nantale’s musk oil. It only took her about twenty minutes of exploring to find the stable, and she was grateful not to run into any vampires along the way. Tess didn’t ride with any regularity growing up, but her family did spend a month on some distant cousin’s ranch one summer when Tess was ten or eleven. One of the stable grooms was kind to Tess and gave her a few riding lessons; she was sure she could manage a simple journey.

The compound’s stable lay just outside one of the side entrances: It was small and practical, a simple wooden structure with four horse stalls, each labeled with the horses’ names. The first stall, labeled Bessie, had a door that went all the way up to the ceiling, and Tess could hear snorting and stomping behind it.

“Absolutely not,” Tess muttered. The second two stalls, labeled Salome and Seraphina, had traditional half-doors and held two nearly identical pretty white ponies with elaborately curled hair—Tess was certain these two belonged to Antoinette and Angelique, and they looked just as mean and devious as the girls who rode them. Another no.

So Tess moved on to the fourth and final stall, which was labeled Aristotle—but the nickname “Artie” was scrawled in white chalk below it. Artie exhaled softly as he padded over to the edge of the stall to see who’d come to visit; he was giant and brown with a gleaming black mane and a beautiful white stripe down his nose.

“Hi, Artie,” Tess said softly, approaching him slowly from the side. “Are you a philosopher? Did you invent the dramatic unities and virtue ethics? Was Plato your mentor?” She stroked his neck to say hello, and Artie sighed happily. “What do you think? Should we go for a ride?”

Artie’s ears pricked up immediately and he snorted with excitement. It took Tess a minute to remember how to properly affix his saddle, but since she’d fed him a couple of carrots from a basket full of them, he was munching happily and largely unbothered. Once he was ready, Tess climbed on a little step stool to mount him, and after a few awkward turns around the meadow, they trotted through the gate and out into the Isle’s misty evening.

And it was wonderful. Oh, Tess loved it, feeling like she could finally explore this magical place without fear—or without Callum’s ornery attitude killing the vibe. They flew down the Isle’s avenues, passing fabulous mansions and wild ruins, stretches blanketed thickly with trees and craggy rocks, silver streams where Artie could dip for a drink, fallen trunks he leapt with ease, giving Tess a jolt of adrenaline. A few times, Artie tensed as he heard a noise nearby, and Tess was terrified he sensed a vampire. But it was only ever a bird or a rabbit, and the longer they rode, the more secure Tess started to feel. They were moving so quickly, a vampire would have to be really invested in picking a fight to get close enough to figure out Tess was human. And they hadn’t seen anyone out at all, anyway. After an easy ride of half an hour or so, the sky was fully dark, and the towering moonflowers came into view.

They were even more spectacular than Tess had imagined, so named because they stretched and sank with the phases of the moon, rising like ocean tides. With the full moon coming next week, they were nearly their full height, almost twenty feet tall. They looked sort of like sunflowers, but instead of yellow and black, they were all shades of purples and blues—and of course, absolutely gargantuan by comparison—glowing vividly in the silver light of the Isle’s rising moon.

Tess slowed Artie to a walk as they approached the meadow, then dismounted and looped his reins around a thick moonflower stalk. She gave the reins a tug to make sure her knot was secure—she didn’t want the horse to bolt if a gopher happened to scurry by—then began to walk deeper into the field of flowers.

It was strange and beautiful walking through the giant flowers, like Tess was Alice in Wonderland, experiencing life on an entirely different scale. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was looking for, or how she might even be able to tell if the magic of this place might be useful to escape the Isle. She thought again about Flora’s explanation of portals, the essential component of desire.

Please, Tess thought, trying to let the desire fill her completely. Show me the portal. Show me something. Show me anything.

She paused for a moment, waiting—but of course nothing happened. Tess felt so silly; what had she expected? She couldn’t sense Bar Between with Octavia, nor had she felt anything especially magical about the graveyard in the forest—did she really think she was going to come to this grove of massive flowers and find a secret doorway back to New York? Maybe Callum was right about her being useless.