by Sam Cheever
“We need to find Obsession and get a sample to send to our physician. Can you help with that?” I asked.
“I can. Come.”
I had to nearly run to keep up with the long-legged man. Despite his unhealthy looks, he didn’t seem feeble in any way. He led us to a gate that was set off a ways from the castle. Black metal fencing, thickly interwoven with dense green vines that had one-inch-long thorns on them, ran as far as the eye could see in both directions. The vining was too dense to see through the intricate balusters to the garden beyond.
The gate was topped with a beautiful heart scroll. Hearts were also spun into the metal of the elegant balusters. If the metal hadn’t been chipped and rusty on nearly every spike and baluster, it would have been beautiful.
Lovelace laid a hand on the uppermost heart and screamed at the top of his voice, “Aelfsvald. Aelfsvald. Aelfsvald.” He gave us a smile. “I do apologize for yelling. Poor creature’s deaf as a post.”
We waited for a long moment, until a loud whirring noise warned us the gardener was coming.
Lovelace looked at Sebille. “You’re a fairy, right?”
She frowned and then nodded. I could tell from the expression on her face that she wondered how he knew. He shook his head. “I’m familiar with the Keeper’s acquaintances.” He jerked his chin toward the whirring sound.
“Aelfsvald is loyal to Desiree. He’ll protect her with his life from anything he feels might endanger her.” The whirring was mere yards away. Lovelace lowered his head toward Sebille and spoke softly. “You know how to induce sleep?”
Sebille blinked in confusion. Then understanding lit her face. She nodded.
“Good. I don’t wish him harmed. But he’ll try to stop you.”
The whirring stopped, and a rusty voice came through the vining. “Yes, Master Lovelace?”
“Aelfsvald. We have guests at the palace. Denzel has returned to us and brought his lovely wife. They are with child.”
The latch on the gate lifted. The heavy iron moved slowly inward.
A small, stout figure stood in the opening, his back stooped and a gnarled walking stick in one knotted hand. The fairy leaned heavily on the stick. He eyed each of us in turn, his gaze dark and his features pinched. Aelfsvald’s gaze stopped on Sebille and the shaggy brows lifted. “Ah. Hello, mistress fairy.”
Sebille inclined her head. “It’s not often I meet a garden fairy who enjoys being of the larger world.”
I was pretty sure she was commenting on the fact that he’d left his fairy form to become human-sized-ish. He was about the size of your average little person.
He nodded. “I am a solitary fairy,” he explained a bit sourly. “It is less lonely this way.”
Sebille nodded. “I mostly just like to eat their food.”
He jerked, his wrinkled lips puckering as his round body seemed to convulse. A strange choking sound emerged from him.
I took a step closer, thinking he might need the Heimlich or something. “Are you okay?”
Lovelace chuckled. “He’s not used to laughing. He’s a bit rusty at it.” Lovelace leaned closer to the old fairy and yelled, “Isn’t that so, Aelfsvald?”
The fairy jerked and stopped the choking sounds to glare up at the much taller man. “You needn’t scream in my face, master.”
Lovelace winked at Lea-Nina, as if to say, the poor fool doesn’t even know he’s deaf. “Well, I’ll leave you to our guests. They would like to see the garden. I believe they have a particular interest in one of our special plants. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind playing at being a tour guide.”
Aelfsvald waved a hand as if shooing Lovelace away. “We’ll be fine, master. Go on with your business.”
“Lovely.” Lovelace smiled at Sampson and Lea. “Shall we go speak to Desiree?”
“Absolutely, brother.”
Grym looked at Sampson. “If you don’t need me…”
“We’ll be fine,” Sampson gave Grym a telling look. “But Nina may be bored with our business discussions…” he arched a brow. “Maybe you could stay nearby so she can join you in a few minutes? I’m sure she’d like to walk the gardens too.”
“Understood,” Grym said.
I understood too. Sampson wanted to present his “wife” as proof that he’d done as Desiree demanded, and then he wanted Grym to get her out of there with the rest of us.
“I’ll wait near the front door,” Grym said. He sent me a look, and I nodded. As soon as I got the sample, we were all going to book it back to the portal together.
We watched the four of them head for the castle. Lea turned once to find me watching her leave. I must not have been as good at hiding my worry as I’d hoped. She gave me a smile and a little wave. It was a reminder that I wasn’t to underestimate her. She was a witch, after all. One who was powerful enough to make herself look and sound like another woman. She could even make a pillow move like an unborn baby beneath a demigod’s hand.
Yeah. She’d be okay.
“Come along then,” the gardener said. “Which plant is it you wish to see?”
Sebille strode past him and into the garden, forcing him to follow. I closed the gate behind us and stood there a moment, looking around at the vibrant plumage of what would have been considered a lush garden anywhere in the universe. That it existed in so devastated a spot as Loveland was more than surprising.
A small island where life still thrives in the famed cupid city.
Desiree clearly put most of her magical energy into making the garden thrive.
“I don’t know where to start,” Sebille said in a falsely bright voice.
I forced a smile as I glanced around. “It’s beautiful.”
“Okay, first, tell us what Princess Desiree uses to keep her skin so soft and radiant,” Sebille said in a half-whisper as if sharing a guilty secret.
Choking sounds emerged from the diminutive form of the fairy gardener again. “Now, now, miss. You don’t expect me to give away the mistress’s secrets now, do ye?” Without warning, the old fairy lifted his walking stick, and magic flared from it in waves of green sparkles.
When the magic cleared, he was holding a deadly-looking sword in his small hands. He sliced the air where Sebille had been, but she’d popped into sprite form and was buzzing around him, trying to avoid the lethal blade in his hand.
“Go, Naida!” she screamed, and then she sent a wash of energy over the blade, turning it to a snake that coiled in on itself in the blink of an eye and struck at Aelfsvald. He quickly dropped the snake, and it transformed back to a sword before it hit the ground.
And then, somehow, it was back in his hand.
“Do ye think me so old and daft I’d fall for that, Princess Sebille?”
Oops! Apparently, he’d recognized her.
“Go!” Sebille screamed again. She dove sideways as the fairy’s blade transformed into a rapidly coiling knife, like a magical corkscrew, and drilled the air where she’d been.
I forced myself to leave her behind, trusting that she could take care of herself.
26
Get Your Fool Head Out of Your Backside
I was looking for a white flower about the size of my head, with enormous dark green leaves. From what Sebille and I had read before we left, Obsession’s leaves were covered in pale green hairs, prickly, like the hair on an elephant. The hairs stuck in the skin and caused painful blisters and potentially death.
Fun. No wonder Desiree kept an antidote around her neck.
I hurried through the labyrinthine garden, trying to peer over one row of plants to see the rest. But everything in the garden was huge. Water dripped in a constant refrain from the enormous leaves, and the flower heads were all oversized. The combined scent from the variety of blossoms was so heavy it actually started to make me sick after a while.
I’d turned several corners, run along several pathways, and been tripped up by a few vines snaking between raised flower beds by the time I ended up in the center of the space. It w
as a circular area, with a small marble fountain featuring a delicate fairy dumping water from a petal--shaped bucket.
I knew the fountain well. I’d already ended up there several times in my attempt to navigate the garden. I dropped, panting onto a stone bench, and wished I had Sebille’s wings so I could get an aerial view of the place. The Obsession plant had to be nearby. If only I could find it.
Wings buzzed up behind me. I sucked air and said, “Finally! I thought you’d never get here. Is he asleep?”
I started to turn, catching the glint of light off a slender blade just before it pierced my throat. “Ah!” I threw myself off the bench and army-crawled beneath it.
“No, young lady,” Aelfsvald growled out. “I am decidedly not asleep.”
Crusty crab cankles! The fairy was getting on my last nerve. “What did you do to Sebille?”
He hovered just above the ground and shoved the blade toward my thigh.
I shot energy toward the thing as he lunged and managed to push it off course. The slender blade slid into the wooden leg of the bench and stuck.
The fairy’s wings buzzed frantically as he tried to pull it free.
“Ha!” I exclaimed, untangling a leg from the encroaching vines and slamming the bottom of my foot into the stupid fairy.
He yelped in pain as he shot backward and crashed into the fairy in the fountain. His tiny form went boneless and slid down the marble figure, landing in the flower bucket with a soft splash.
Crawling out of my hidey-hole, I stood and yanked the sword out of the bench, carrying it with me to check him out. I prodded him gently with the sword, but he didn’t move.
“Good,” I said. “Take that!”
More buzzing ensued.
My nerves all aflutter, I swung around and lunged.
Sebille had a glower on her face, a truly colorful black eye, and energy dancing around her fists. “Go ahead,” she said. “Make my day.”
I sighed, lowering the sword. It promptly turned back into the walking stick, the head of which, I noticed, was a dark silver cat. “Awe,” I said. “It looks like Wicked." The thing whipped around and slashed at my hand, drawing blood, and then settled back into immobility.
Sebille laughed. “It acts like him too.”
“Har,” I said, glaring at her.
“Come on. The Obsession plant is over here,” she told me. “I saw it when I was flying over to rescue you.” She took off and I trudged after her.
“Who rescued whom?” I asked, feeling cranky.
The plant was nestled in a dark corner of the garden, under an overarching trellis that was covered in flowering vines. The flowers on the vines smelled like cat urine and had thorns on their stalks the size of my little fingers.
Sebille hovered several feet away from the trellis. “I don’t know what this vine is, but I get the feeling it’s guarding the Obsession. Try not to touch it.”
“Ya think?” I said, easing past while trying to make myself small—an impossible feat. I really needed to get back to the salads since the giant, salad eating dinosaur named Tildy was gone. The time-traveling tortoise had certainly taken us on a few adventures. But she would mostly be remembered for the fact that she kept eating my lunch.
The space beneath the trellis was shadowed, the air icy and thick with magic. Every time I moved, an invisible energy skittered over my skin, bringing gooseflesh up on my arms and forming ice along my spine. “I don’t like the feeling of this place,” I told the sprite.
She buzzed over the trellis and behind it. “Weird.”
My gaze shot in her direction. “What’s weird?”
More buzzing and more frantic movement ensued. “Um, Naida…”
I reached for the feather Whom had given me, anxious to get the job done and get out of there. “I’m hurrying.”
The bulbous white flower had long petals that folded up from the sides, their tips tucked into the top, making it resemble a white orange. As I stood there, the petals quivered and started to open, emitting a delightful floral scent that sifted along my pebbled skin, soothing it. A smile tugged at my lips, even as alarm bells went off in my head. The opening petals revealed a quivering pool of silvery liquid at the blossom’s center. The poison? I didn’t know, but it seemed likely.
“Naida, you need to get out of there!” Sebille said. Her tone was hushed but taut with urgency.
I reached the tip of the feather toward the sweet-smelling blossom. A sense of warmth and love filled me. A sparkling wash of energy rose up off the flower and embraced me in delight.
My hand that was holding the feather paused. I fought to remember what I was doing there.
Birds sang in my head. Sunshine bathed me in golden light, and I looked around at a meadow that spread as far as the eye could see in every direction.
Naida!
Why did Sebille sound so frantic?
I looked down at the feather in my hand. My gaze lifted to a sea of Obsidian flowers, each one opening slowly to the sun.
The scent coming off the blooms was heady, like the finest wine, imbued with love.
The smile on my face turned giddy. My fingers began to open. The feather started to slip away. I eyed the lush green grass beneath my feet and thought it would be nice to lay down for a while, let the sun coat me in warmth as I breathed in all that delicious fragrance around me.
Naida! Get your fool head out of your backside!
Well. That wasn’t very nice. That Sebille was such a buzzkill…
Whack! Pain burned in my jaw like fire.
Whomp! Agony ripped through my middle.
The feather slipped from my fingers.
Argh!!!!
What was that infernal buzzing?
Kaboom!
I jerked, my eyes shooting open as explosions ripped through the peaceful garden.
I stared with glossy eyes at the feather down by my feet. What was I doing?
“Naida! What in the name of the goddess’s favorite protein bar are you doing? Get the sample and let’s get out of here!”
I blinked, glancing up at the sky above me. Two fairies fought with flashing blades and colorful energy blasts. Smoke filled the lush garden and the ground rumbled as fairy energy blasted and something exploded not far from where I stood.
Oh. Yeah. The poison. I bent down and reached for the feather just as a particularly powerful blast shook the ground beneath my feet and caused the trellis to wobble.
The flower’s poisonous hairs barely missed my arm. I jerked away from them, the last of the muzziness draining from my brain.
I grabbed the feather and quickly dipped its tip into the glossy pool of liquid in the center of the bloom.
“Ugh!” A foul gust of black mist shot up from the flower as the poison clung to the feather. The nasty mist stung my face and eyes and I stumbled back.
“Naida!” Sebille screamed again.
The feather wobbled in my fingers, trying to escape my grip. I held on. “I’m coming!”
I turned to leave the trellis. I didn’t make it. On the heels of another concussive blast, the entire structure wobbled sideways and fell on top of me.
I screamed as the poisonous thorns of the vining pierced my skin.
The feather jerked violently and flew out of my grip, floating skyward.
“No!” I tried to grab it, but the thing was too fast.
“Naida?” Grym’s voice said, filled with worry. “Are you okay?”
Other than several seriously burning holes in my arm and shoulder, stinging eyes, and a general feeling that I was going to collapse, I felt great. “I’m fine. Help me out of here, will you?”
Lea came running down the path, her glamour gone and her hair flying out behind her. “We need to get out of here. Sampson and Lovelace are barely holding her off.” I spared her a quick glance and saw the little brownie running along behind her.
Good. That was good.
Grym grabbed my hand and yanked me to my feet. Agony slithered through the ent
ire left side of my body and my leg buckled out from under me.
“Naida?”
My stomach clenched in sizzling pain. Nausea burned and Fire scalded along my flesh. Something acidic oozed from the thorn holes and scorched its way down my arm. I was pretty sure I could feel blisters forming in its path.
Grym tried to haul me off my feet.
“Don’t touch the poison!” I screamed, suddenly sure I’d make him sick too.
Energy exploded around him, the light burning my eyes and making me stumble back. He wrapped a hard, muscular arm around my middle and threw me over his rock-like shoulder.
He’d transformed again. His gargoyle form was impervious to most poisons.
“Good idea,” I mumbled as my world turned charcoal at the edges.
“Come on!” Sebille screamed. The last thing I heard before the world fell away was the sound of fairy wings beating Hades out of that horrible garden.
27
You’re Invited to Attend a Special Event
I woke sometime later and jerked upright. “Hobs!” My gaze shot around the room. I was relieved to see I was in my apartment. In my own bed. Something eased in my chest.
But Hobs wasn’t where we’d left him. And Doctor Whom’s traveling birdhouse was gone.
I shoved at the blankets and stood, nearly hitting the floor again as dizziness swamped me. I eased myself back onto the mattress, breathing through the woozy feeling.
Sebille’s voice rang out loud and clear in the Make Me a Magic Muffin song. The sprite opened the bathroom door a minute later. She looked at me and frowned. “What are you doing?”
I squinted. “Right at this moment, I’m trying to whittle two Sebilles down to one,” I told her.
Both sprites gave me a crooked grin. “That’s probably from the poison. Nasty stuff. Whom almost couldn’t save you.”
She didn’t have to be so cheerful about it.
Blood fled my face in a wave. “How long have I been out?”
Sebille shrugged. “Long enough to annoy the hobgoblin out of here.”
Relief washed through me. “He’s okay?”
