Elixir

by Ruth Vincent

  “I can teach you,” Obadiah offered.

  “But if you’re dead you can’t teach me—­so you’ve got stay away from the Queen and her guards. I’ll be fine on my own.”

  I attempted to smile, trying to hide the nervousness in my own gut. Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I’d be fine. I just didn’t want to admit it.

  “Are you certain?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I lied.

  Obadiah frowned.

  “Well, before we part . . .” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small flask. I guessed, looking at it, that it was full of Elixir, not whisky.

  “Here,” he said, “take this. It’s all I’ve got on me. It’ll help you if you get into trouble.”

  “I’m not going to take your last Elixir,” I protested, but Obadiah pressed it into my hand.

  “Take it,” he insisted.

  Reluctantly, I put it in my pocket. Still, I would have rather he came with me.

  “You sure you’re okay to do this alone?” he asked again.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said quickly, not bringing myself to meet his eyes.

  I wasn’t sure I’d be fine. I was just too proud to ask for any more help.

  I walked out of the cave alone. I could feel Obadiah’s eyes on me as I strode towards the light, but I didn’t look back. I really wished he was coming with me. But I was the one who had gotten Eva into this mess, and I had to get her out. Plus, I needed to confront the Queen on my own; Obadiah couldn’t help me with what had happened between the Queen and me twenty-­two years ago. Her guards might drag me off—­but she’d see me, she’d know I was back, she’d realize she couldn’t really get rid of me. Obadiah had been nice enough to help me get back home—­I didn’t need anything more from him.

  When I finally turned around to see if he was still behind me, he had gone, and there was only a yawning blackness at the entrance of the tunnel.

  I paused for a moment, staring into the darkened hole to make sure, but he was really gone. My breath came out long and ragged.

  With tightness in my chest, I walked forward, towards the hills.

  Mannahatta. The Dutch explorers thought the native ­people called their homeland “Island of Many Hills.” But “Island of Many Fairy Mounds” was what they were trying to say. We Fey had lived in peace with the First ­People; sometimes they even entered our parallel world. Then the new settlers drove them out, and our worlds became separate. But Mannahatta was still here—­the greatest city of the Fey, our island capital, between the two rivers of Elixir that flowed out into the great Elixir sea.

  I could smell that Elixir sea now, its fragrance misting the air, as I squinted in the blinding sunlight. It was too bright after so much darkness. Or maybe the sun was stronger here, and I had forgotten.

  I paused for a moment, shading my eyes with my hand. Out of the mouth of the cave, I could see trees and jagged granite cliffs rising up from the hills. The hillsides were dotted with Sanguinari gravestones and the low dens of Wolfmen. If this had been human Manhattan, I’d be up by the Cloisters now. I had a long way to go to get to the Queen’s palace at the tip of the island.

  I started walking. There was a little dirt path that wove between the trees, and I knew if I kept following its twists and turns, eventually it would widen out and become the famed Broad Way. The Fey version actually was paved with gold, hammered down to a sparkling dust by all the passing feet.

  I walked quickly, my footsteps sounding loud on the crunching leaves that had fallen onto the path. A fairy wasn’t completely safe in these parts; this was Wolfman and Sanguinari territory. And if a fairy wasn’t safe here, I didn’t know what that meant for a human.

  The trees loomed over me, the dense branches blotting out the light. I heard the shrill call of a bird close to my ear, and I whirled around—­but there was nothing there. It probably wasn’t a bird, I thought, walking on. It was likely one of the Animalia, warning others of my approach. I should have known that secrecy was impossible here.

  I stared up at the trees. If I looked at the forest with my human sight, it was just ordinary woods, but I knew better. I squinted my eyes at a nearby trunk, trying to relax my mind. It popped out at me, like one of those Magic Eye pictures—­dozens of windows and doors carved into the wood, staircases spiraling around the tree trunks, balconies woven into the branches. I caught glimpses of faces peering out through the open window shutters, but as they saw me, the shutters slammed shut—­a chorus of pop, pop, pop, like rifle shots, as I drew near.

  Were they afraid of me?

  I felt slightly nauseous inside. No one had ever been afraid of me before. No one had ever run away at my approach. But it made sense. I was human. I couldn’t forget that. I might remember this neighborhood, but I didn’t belong here. I could hear shouts and whispers from the branches above me, but when I jerked in the direction of the sound, there was no one there, just a rustle of leaves. If I’d still been Fey, I could have probably seen who was talking, but straining with my human sight, all I could catch was a faint glimmer and a buzz of voices muffled by the shifting foliage.

  Something else wasn’t right. I could see in several places the great trees had been ripped up out of the earth and were lying on their sides, their white roots clinging to chunks of dirt like hands.

  What had happened to them? Trees were immortal in the Vale, just like the Fey who lived inside them. But these trees were dead. I felt a shiver run through me. If the fairies were dying, I guess it made sense that the trees were dying as well. But it felt wrong.

  I went over to one, its mighty girth lying on the ground, the bark beginning to slough off. The skeletal fingers of its roots looked parched. Had it died from the lack of Elixir too? I reached out and stroked the leathery bark. My eyes searched the trunk for signs of a door or window—­had this been somebody’s home? But I couldn’t find one.

  Slowly, I walked on, my heart heavier. Every so often along the path was another felled tree, or worse yet, a tree whose branches were blackened, as if it had been burned. What could have caused that? I had no idea. Fear was beginning to slosh in the pit of my gut again. There was nothing I could do but keep walking; I’d find out answers later.

  The path widened and through the trees, I could see the spires of the city. My breath caught in my throat. I had forgotten just how beautiful it was—­sheer towers carved out of gleaming quartz crystal; sparkling rainbows of fire in the sun, shooting straight up from the ground; transparent skyscrapers spiraling out at crazy angles like fingers grasping ever upwards at something they could never quite reach.

  I wasn’t alone anymore. The path had finally become a road and it was crowded with others. Some Sanguinari in their black cloaks brushed past me—­they were always dressed in black—­and hurried furtively towards a gnarled doorway inside a tree trunk. One of them caught my eye and I cringed, stepping back. I really hoped no one in this clique was hungry. But the Sanguinari turned away and the group moved on, too preoccupied with their own business; they didn’t seem interested in a snack walking by. I wandered on. A group of young Wolfmen leered at me as I passed by them. I nearly ran into an elegant Elvin lady who shot me an imperious frown. In the distance I could hear the Goblin vendors calling out from the market—­they were always selling something. I looked up to see a fairy ­couple flying overhead. I caught a snatch of their laughter as they glided towards the market stalls. The breeze they made as they flew over me ruffled my hair and I shaded my eyes, staring up at them longingly.

  I turned my attention back to the now-­bustling street. It wasn’t all that different from a street corner in New York. But there was one essential difference. All around me the air had that sweet, thunderous fragrance of Elixir—­fresh and pure and crackling with possibility. Maybe New York City had smelled that way once, before it got covered up in exhaust fumes and garbage and piss. But here, the scent of magic was every
where—­floating along the breeze that wafted up from the Elixir sea. I had to wipe my eyes. Memories of my old life jolted through me, so exquisitely painful. I could never really go back. I was human—­I approached the great towers on foot instead of flying through the canyons on wings of Elixir, alighting on the crystal pinnacles. The city was still impressive from the ground, but I had to admit, a lump forming in my throat, it wasn’t the same. Then again, maybe the difference was because the last time I’d seen the Vale I’d been a child.

  I stopped in the middle of the street as everyone brushed past me. Something else had changed. The crowd seemed to be moving in an odd pattern, hugging one side of the road, making a large half circle as if they were avoiding walking on something. I pressed my way closer, so that I could see. Through a little gap between hurrying bodies I saw it—­and had to stop my scream.

  There was an enormous gaping hole in the ground. It wasn’t like the kind of hole someone might dig. It was a chasm. It seemed to eat the light around it.

  I felt dizzy as I stared down into the blackness. I couldn’t even see the bottom—­just the cliff edge, and then a yawning pit of darkness below.

  I stood there staring, even as ­people pushed and jostled me. They were all just rushing past it as if it wasn’t even there, carefully skirting it, making sure to not fall in. But why was it there? I remembered this place; it had been a busy Goblin market. Now it was a hole. And everyone acted like that was perfectly normal.

  But perhaps it had been here a long time? I suppose the citizens of the Vale were much like humans that way. At first something new and terrifying is a catastrophe, then it becomes commonplace, then we scarcely notice it at all.

  My heart was beating faster. Something was very, very wrong here. This wasn’t home like I’d left it. Was this what Obadiah had been talking about? He said the Vale wasn’t the same. But what had happened? Had the Elixir drought done this?

  I had a funny feeling, a crawling sensation on my skin. Everyone was looking at me. Nothing attracted the attention of the bustling crowds of Mannahatta for long—­they were like New Yorkers that way—­but now they were all staring at me, pointing and whispering to each other. They didn’t like strangers here. And I was a stranger.

  I searched the crowd in the vain hope that I could find a face I recognized. But there were no friendly faces, only hostile stares. At least in New York City everyone ignores you. What had I done?

  I was human.

  And they had noticed.

  Should I say something? I wondered, feeling the discomfort of their eyes on me. But what should I say?

  I tried to recall the old languages, tried to speak with them, to tell them who I was, but I blushed when the words began to come out my mouth. My accent sounded horrible! My human tongue was like it was anesthetized, trying to pronounce the delicate syllables of Faerie. I think they could make out the meaning, but I was butchering it, and that embarrassed me. I couldn’t even pronounce the more guttural Wolvish and Sanguinari. Trying to speak the Vale languages as a human felt like being an American tourist in Paris, awkwardly saying “bone-­joor” and getting stairs of contempt from all around.

  At last, a large Wolfman parted through the crowd and approached me. He was bigger even than Obadiah’s Wolfman bouncer, Reuben. But unlike Reuben, he didn’t smile. I would have taken Reuben’s leering yellow-­toothed grin over the expression on this fellow’s face any day; the Wolfman was glaring at me, growling, like he wanted to sink his teeth into my flesh. His arms were folded over his chest, and he stepped in front of me, blocking my path.

  He said something to me in Wolfish that I couldn’t quite make out, but I caught the word “human,” said with the same tone that someone might use for a curse word.

  And then he grabbed me. I screamed, wrenching my body away from him, but he caught me around the waist. I elbowed him in the groin, hard. But it was like he had felt nothing. He didn’t even respond, just picked me up, hoisting me unceremoniously over his shoulder.

  “Help!” I yelled to the crowd, in every language I could think of, as I struggled in the werewolf’s grip. But no one came to my aid.

  They all averted their eyes and hurried away. What was wrong with everyone? This wasn’t the Vale I knew. Mannahatta was a city, but it still functioned like a small town. ­People helped each other—­if you cried out for help, someone came to assist you. At least they had when I was a fairy. But I was screaming and no one was coming. Was it because I was human?

  The werewolf had begun to walk, carrying me over his shoulder. I kept kicking him and screaming. But one by one, I saw everyone walking away, leaving us in the empty square. No one was going to help me.

  I hit the werewolf as hard as I could, but he only grabbed my hand and clamped it down, pinning it to his side.

  I kicked him again, aiming all my strength at his groin. But he didn’t make a sound. I’d always heard rumors that werewolves were impervious to pain, but I’d never believed it. Until now.

  Dammit, why hadn’t I let Obadiah come with me? He could have helped me fight the Wolfman off. But he was gone. He was still underground in one of those secret passages. He would never hear me crying for help.

  The werewolf kept walking, with me over his shoulder in a fireman carry. I kept kicking him, till my leg was exhausted and my foot throbbed in pain. But it wasn’t doing any good.

  I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t overpower him. I couldn’t even get away. No one else would come to my aid. I was screwed.

  And then I saw something out of the corner of my eye as I bobbed helplessly upside down in the Wolfman’s grip: honey-­colored shaggy fur and a lumbering gait.

  It was a bear.

  It was one of the Animalia.

  Ursaline! I thought. But the hope that had just ignited in my chest faltered. It could be anyone. There were hundreds of Animalia that took the form of bears, even some with that same shade of honey-­colored coat. It was a vain hope.

  I heard a sound—­kind of a cross between growling and singing. I knew that melody; I’d heard it so many nights as the tree rocked back and forth in the wind. Could it be?

  “Ursaline!” I called out.

  But there was no answer.

  I lifted my head and I saw that the bear was looking at me.

  Her head was high, her wet black nose sniffing at the air.

  Could it be Ursaline? I recognized the sparkle in her all-­black eyes, the way her fur clumped together into tendrils, like dreadlocks, the little grunting sounds she made as she lumbered along. It had to be her!

  “Ursaline, it’s me!” I called out. “It’s Mab.”

  But Ursaline’s shaggy brow only furrowed. She sniffed the air again.

  And then she turned her back on me and ambled off towards the crowd.

  “Ursaline! No!”

  Kicking the Wolfman and wresting one of my hands free, I reached out and managed to barely touch the edge of her fur as she brushed past.

  She turned towards me, but her expression made me draw my hand back.

  She was growling, standing up on her hind legs with a terrifying roar.

  I shook inside, starting to cry. I’d seen Ursaline angry before, as a child, but never like that.

  Satisfied, she dropped back down onto all fours and slowly walked away.

  A lump came to my throat as I watched her lumbering off.

  She hadn’t recognized me.

  Maybe it wasn’t her? I told myself. It could have been some other Animalia. It had been twenty-­two years. Could I really still recognize Ursaline after all that time? It could have been some other bear. That was what I kept telling myself. Because the alternative was too awful.

  My body slacked, slumping against the Wolfman’s back in defeat. No one was going to recognize me. No one was going to believe who I was. Everyone thought I was just a human. Maybe they
were right.

  The blood was rushing to my head from being carried upside down. If he kept carrying me like this I was going to faint.

  “Where the hell are you taking me?” I managed to cry, remembering some of my Wolfish, trying to get his attention.

  He growled something in reply. I couldn’t make out all the words, but I caught the phrases “penalty of the law” and “Queen’s court.”

  He was arresting me, I realized dimly. Now that I thought about it, I had seen something gleam around his neck—­it was the Queen’s medallion.

  I must have broken some law by walking through the Vale as a human.

  I stopped trying to kick him. Getting arrested was far from ideal circumstances, but there was a silver lining in that it would mean I’d be taken to the Queen’s palace—­where trials took place. If I’d been on my own, I might not have gotten through the Goblins that guarded the gates. At least the Wolfman would get me inside the complex. Once I was in court, if I could convince one of the officials to believe me that I was who I said I was, could they help me get an audience with the Queen?

  Then again, I was human. The Wolfman might be taking me to where Obadiah said they took all the stolen human children. I wasn’t a child—­but still—­I was an alien, a stranger, a threat. If they took me to the dungeons it might give me the chance to find out what had happened to my Shadow. If they didn’t kill me first.

  I was almost at the point of blacking out when at last I felt the Wolfman come to a halt. The cobblestones were shimmering a rich, lustrous gold. Even hauling me over his shoulder, the Wolfman had reached the Queen’s court faster than I ever would have just walking on my own.

  He set me down unceremoniously on the ground. I staggered, my knees buckling out from under me, the blood rushing painfully back to my limbs. The Wolfman grabbed me by the arm and dragged me roughly across the courtyard. There were doors up ahead in the enormous wall, at heights you’d have to fly to. How was I going to get up there? And then I saw another door, low in the wall, like the opening of a cave. I didn’t remember this door. Then again, the last time I’d been here, I’d been flying. This must be the door for humans. Something told me nothing good was behind it.