by M. C. Aquila
“I’m walking toward it, Alvey!” Smiling, James stayed put but walked in place to make sounds.
“James!” she shrieked. “Get back here!”
“I’m almost there! One more step…”
Starting to walk back toward her, James chuckled to himself to see her pale even in the dim moonlight. When he crouched down in front of her, he was about to say something when she reached out and touched his face. He froze. Then, when she was certain she knew where his face was, she gave him a quick smack on his cheek.
He gasped, his hand flying to his face even though it hardly stung.
“Do not scare me like that ever again.” She folded her arms, voice wavering. “And do not expect another kiss from me. At least not for a while. A day, perhaps, if you are lucky.”
“I’m, um, sorry,” James said in earnest. “I was just teasing.”
“If you knew what those rapids could do, you would not be so careless.”
James sat beside Alvey with his back against a tree until the Time Rapids cleared. It left everything in the rocky bed browner and more aged than when they had arrived. Then they both ventured forth, and James examined the rock closely while Alvey sniffed it and ran her fingers over it.
“’Tis some kind of ore,” she remarked.
“Yeah.” He held out his hand to her. “Do you have something heavy I could use to break off a chunk of this stuff? I bet I could tell what minerals and stuff are in this ore if I had a sample.”
Alvey rummaged through the compartment under her chair and produced a crude hammer. “Why, um, do you have this?” James asked. She just smiled at him in reply.
“Okay, move back a little.” Rearing back his arm holding the hammer, James closed his eyes and struck the rock with the hammer as hard as he could. Only a few tiny fragments flew off, scattering like dust.
The half elf let him go at that until he was sweaty and swearing under his breath, having struck his thumb a few times, before she cleared her throat. He turned, breathless, to see she was holding two small Fire Crystals in her palm. “You’ve… you’ve had those all along, haven’t you?” he asked, panting.
“Aye.”
Once they were a safe distance back, he chucked the Fire Crystals at the boulder and covered his ears. The crystal burst into a small, contained explosion of flame with a loud bang. When James rushed over to collect samples, he found and stuffed a few sizable chunks in his backpack.
As the two teenagers made their way back through the forest, the music from the festivities guiding their path. James sighed and sorted through his books in his pack. “I wish I had brought, um, like an entire library with me.”
“’Tis possible you could find the information you need at the tree house libraries in the realm.”
James gaped at her in disbelief. “You— There’s a library here? A Seelie library? And you didn’t tell me? You didn’t tell me!” He felt far more hurt by this than her smacking him in the face.
Alvey snorted. “’Tis because I did not think of it. I cannot read without eyes, can I? And faeries hardly ever read anyway.”
“Oh. Right.” Then he asked, “Could you show me? I-I could read to you, and it could be like, um… like, um, a date.”
“Aye.” She smiled at him. “’Tis a date.”
Chapter Eighteen
The night flew by as Deirdre and Iain danced, sometimes stopping to catch their breath or because the dancing was too wild to keep up with. Early on they’d stopped for food. Everything was to Deirdre’s taste, from roasted, savory wild game to flash-fried or grilled, lightly seasoned fish. The fruits and vegetables were raw, and while baked goods were few, the ones available were full of nuts and honey, reminiscent of baklava.
Hours later, when the moon was shining straight overhead, Deirdre and Iain sat with their legs hanging off the edge of one of the bridges, watching the faeries complete an intricate dance over the river. The water became part of their movements, shooting up in fountains, and it caught and reflected the moonlight, creating a world of black, silver, and deep midnight blue, with flashes of color and light from the lanterns above.
“Deirdre, Iain, have you seen James?”
They turned to see Kallista approaching them, her mouth a thin line.
“He’s with Alvey.” Iain smiled at his mother and held his hand out to her, which she took. “He’ll be fine, Mum.”
The dance on the waters soon ended, the faeries streaming back onto the bridge around them, going to either get refreshments or join games. But one of them stopped, beaming at them: Titania.
“You are doing marvelously,” she commented, looking at all of them but ending with her gaze on Deirdre.
Nervously clutching her cup, Deirdre bowed her head. “Thank you very much.”
“I can sense you have already connected with not only your Shadow Magic but several others!” She clapped her hands, laughing in her strong voice. “’Tis just as I foresaw. Lonan is quite a teacher when duty calls. I daresay you will be accepted to stay with little more ado!”
“That may be a bit too generous.” Oberon stepped out of the crowd, standing on the other side of Deirdre and Iain. They both immediately shuffled to their feet, backing away to give him some polite distance. Even though Deirdre felt much more comfortable around Noble faeries now, being near Oberon was still as relaxing as being close to a lion.
“Her magic is returning, but that is not enough.” He looked directly at Deirdre. “’Tis not enough to be able to do a little bit of all kinds of magic. You must be on par with the faeries your age.”
“That was not what we discussed,” Titania said thinly. “The bargain was for her reconnect with her magic satisfactorily, was it not?”
Chuckling, Oberon rubbed his chin. “It seems you and I have a different definition of what that means. Do you think she could even have a chance of surviving one of our storms? Or a sudden spring of Time Rapids? Or if one of our kind turned Unseelie?”
Deirdre gulped as the rugged, devastated valley popped into her mind. She didn’t even want to think about what it would be like to get caught up in the middle of that.
Tossing her tresses over her shoulder, Titania’s eyes flashed at her husband. “She would fare well, because I know her father would not abandon her. Neither would any of us.”
“Ahh, yes.” Oberon raised his arms and paced in a circle around Titania, ignoring Deirdre, Iain, and Kallista all moving farther back. “For we are always perfectly able to look after those who are weaker and less able. That is why no harm has ever befallen Alvey—”
Titania snapped her gaze to him. “We have settled that affair. Alvey is Lonan and Sybil’s child, and her place with us is not to be contested by anyone.”
“I do agree.” Oberon stopped pacing in front of Titania, folding his hands behind his back. “But if there is one thing that Deirdre’s magic being stolen by a mere man, Puck being captured, and the spreading of monsters farther south indicates, it is that war is indeed upon us. Perhaps it does not come hither as quickly as some might believe, but it shall come.
“And when it does”—he leaned forward and looked his wife in the eye—“what do you see happening to a half-magicless faery like Deirdre? Would you have her stay here in the thick of things while the rest of us fight? We made plans years ago to send Alvey to the care of her Light elf relatives overseas if such a day came. But who, I ask, will take in Deirdre and keep her out of harm’s way?”
“That is beside the point and may not happen,” Titania ground out, stepping forward, toe-to-toe with her husband.
“She must return to the humans, sooner than later,” Oberon countered. “It would be safest, both for her and for us all.” When Titania laughed, he pressed, “Her presence would slow us down and possibly put other faeries in harm’s way—especially if her control of what magic she has is still woefully incompetent.”
“’Tis always all or nothing with you!” Titania snapped. “There are never other options than the two you’v
e decided to acknowledge!”
Oberon scoffed. “And you think you’re any different?”
When Titania clenched her fist, the waters under the bridge churned, swirling away from their natural course to create a whirlpool beneath them. Suddenly Cai appeared beside Deirdre, urging her and the others to retreat farther from the royal couple.
“If she reconnects with all her magic, she gets the opportunity to find her drachma and can stay,” Titania said, ending with a smile. “That is fair, no?”
“No.”
“No!” Titania flung her hands in the air. Immediately silence spread like a ripple to all the partygoers.
Oberon pointed at Deirdre, who shrunk down and stepped away. “If she gets her drachma like that, it will enhance her power—but I was told she has hurt herself many times with her magic. It will simply let her kill herself.”
“’Tis always the worst possible outcome for you, isn’t it?” Titania stepped between him and Deirdre, seething.
“And for you, it is always the world being lovely and going the way you would fancy it, isn’t it?” Oberon echoed, ending with a hollow laugh. It filled the air over the entire river, and the wind immediately died.
“We should leave, get off this river—now,” Cai whispered as the two continued to argue.
“W-wouldn’t that be rude?” Deirdre whispered.
After meeting Kallista and Iain’s gaze, Cai replied, “I think that may be the least of our concerns. Besides…” He nodded to the faeries around them, who were leaving the area. A few parents grabbed their children and vanished in a flash of light.
“She will demonstrate skill and power equal to the others her age, or she must be required to leave, for her good and the good of us all!” Oberon thundered.
Scoffing, Titania turned from him, folding her arms. “You always ask the impossible, don’t you?”
The air turned cold, like the calm before a storm. Then the winds picked up, growing ever stronger and blowing from the northwest. At the same time, the river churned faster until it washed waves onto the islands and against the bridge supports.
“Let’s leave,” Iain agreed, and they hurried away. Titania and Oberon’s argument continued, louder, neither giving an inch.
Then the storm broke.
There was no rain, but the peal of thunder shook their bones, with gigantic bolts of lightning streaking across the sky like dragons. The river roared as if caught in a typhoon, splashing them furiously.
At one point Deirdre reached out to the waves and asked them to settle down. They heard her but did not heed her, commanded already by a will and power so much greater than her own.
Just as an enormous wave crashed in front of them, Roshan, followed by Nikias, dashed up from the river on the wave itself, leaping in their path.
“We must go!” Roshan grabbed the scruffs of Iain and Deirdre’s shirts, with Nikias doing the same to Cai and Kallista (who let out a shout of protest). With a gut-wrenching lurch of force, they were spirited away through the forest.
Deirdre felt like the skin was going to be torn off her face as they flashed through the woods, past bolts of lightning, past swaying and even collapsing trees, the way getting darker and hazier as rain fell in torrents. She sputtered and covered her nose, holding her breath.
Then they skidded to a wet, muddy halt as Roshan’s grip slipped. Iain and Deirdre tumbled on the grass, out of control, straight toward an enormous, dark tree—
They hit a warm bubble of air, which lifted them up and absorbed the rest of their momentum, then let them back down. Deirdre coughed, asking the Water Magic to pull the water out from her lungs and nose.
“You must go inside,” Roshan was saying, barely audible over the rain and thunder as he reached down and lifted them both to their feet by their arms.
Iain was still recovering as Deirdre shouted over the rain, “Inside—inside where? I can’t see a thing with all this rain!”
Suddenly Nikias appeared with Kallista and Cai, coming to a halt much more easily than Roshan, slowing them as they reached the muddy ground and not letting them fall.
“You’d think you lot would have a different way of saying the party’s over.” Cai held on to Kallista’s arm just long enough to steady her as they coughed and recovered.
“You’ll be staying here.” Nikias summoned lights like the other night, but they sputtered in the rain. It was like the darkness of the night was swallowing them.
With a flick of his wrist, Roshan drew the lights to him and made them larger, brighter, and stronger until they did not falter. Then he sent them ahead, circling around a tree, lighting a narrow passage into its roots. It was not the same tree as the night they arrived, and the passage was much smaller.
“This is our most secure prison for humans,” he said, leading them into the tiny passage that made them all stoop. “’Tis not the nicest, but it should be safe, even in this storm.”
The tunnel around them shook violently as thunder boomed from all directions.
“Their majesties have outdone themselves,” Nikias said in an undertone, provoking a grim chuckle from Cai.
“Why are they doing this?” Deirdre asked, shivering as they stepped into a circular room inside the tree. There was a tiny well in the middle, no wider than a sink, and the room itself was only wide enough for about four people to stand with their arms stretched out. There were hammocks stacked up the sides of the tree interior with tiny steps carved into the walls. A few small windows were secured with metal, and Deirdre sensed all kinds of magic around them, keeping out the rain and most of the wind.
Roshan sighed, gesturing for the lights to float in a low circle near the floor, creating a soft, low light. “I am afraid the elements and all sorts of magic go to war when my parents fight. They have such a powerful relationship with all the elements in this world, the magic will naturally respond to their strongest emotions—especially anger.
“They have not fought like this in nearly a decade.” He drew his hand across his forehead, giving a sour look at the storm outside the windows. “I truly hoped it would not happen while you were here.”
“What about James and Alvey?” Kallista asked, gripping the edge of the well, looking at the two faeries.
“When the fight began, I asked Cardea to fetch them and bring them here, just in case,” Roshan replied before turning to Nikias, saying, “I will go try to placate my parents. Stay here until Cardea arrives.”
Nikias tensed, hands clenching. “This storm is not safe for anyone, especially faeries under a certain age. I should go with you.”
As lightning flashed through the windows and everything trembled as if from an earthquake, Roshan shook his head. “I don’t want anything happening to our guests—”
“This tree can keep them safe for a few minutes.”
“No, I do not want to take that chance.” Roshan’s voice pitched and he lifted his chin. Even though the authority in his tone remained, he suddenly seemed much younger. “Cardea can look after them once she arrives—wait for her.”
“But—”
“That is all, Nikias.” Scowling, Roshan promptly turned and disappeared down the tunnel, back out into the storm.
Sitting on one of the low hammocks, Deirdre shuddered, creating a small flame in the palm of her hand. But it did little to warm her. Kallista paced, glancing out the windows and then at the entrance for a sign of James, beginning to shiver. Iain did likewise between wiping water off his clothes and shaking it out of his hair with trembling hands.
Also sitting on a hammock, Cai took out his sword and dried it methodically on one of the blankets as he asked Nikias, “How long has Roshan been acting as the prince, formally?”
“Several years,” was his curt reply.
“Not long enough, I’m guessing?”
Nikias simply shook his head with a strained smile appearing. He started pacing, nearly running into Kallista but not even noticing.
Within seconds, another gust of win
d blew outside, making the tree groan. Then Alvey appeared in the tunnel, followed by James, both of them soaking wet.
“What a nightmare!” Cardea followed them in, looking at her brother. “Nikias! Everyone is soaked and freezing! Why didn’t you—?”
“Roshan said for you to take care of them.” Nikias headed past her and down the tunnel, calling back. “Do not leave this place!”
“But what about—?”
“I’ll take care of the prince, just don’t let this tree collapse!”
“That could happen?” James asked, turning away from Kallista, who was trying to wipe him and Alvey dry.
Turning away from the tunnel with a sigh, Cardea replied, “Aye, if the storm grows worse.” Then she lifted her hands and drew the excess water gently from their clothes and hair, forming a muddy ball of liquid in the center of the room. She twirled her fingers, sending the water flying out of the tree.
“Thank you,” Deirdre said with a smile. They were still slightly damp but no longer dripping.
“Thanks are not necessary.” Cardea summoned a small but strong fire in the center of the room, several feet above the well but also far from anything flammable. “I will leave that burning long enough for you to dry further and get ready for sleep. Afterward, I must attend to the magic in this tree to ensure it stays strong, no matter what happens.”
Iain broke away from his brother and mother to step over to Deirdre. Behind him, Alvey had already reclined her chair, pulled a blanket off one of the hammocks, and curled up, scowling.
“Are…” Iain exhaled, looking around them in a daze. “Are you hanging in there?”
Deirdre nodded, knowing why Iain didn’t ask if she was all right. There was no way someone could be doing fine after what they had experienced.
“I’m…” She gulped and forced a smile. “I’m going to try to sleep.”
“Good idea.” He hesitated, then mirrored her expression and held out his hand toward her, so slowly it was barely noticeable.
