I’d rather be able to assess the energy teaming in this forest to have a better idea of what was waiting for us up there. At the very least, it’d be nice to stir up some sparks of light to illuminate our path. This walking blindly was bullshit. I’d only been stripped of my powers for a few hours, yet I was ready to scream.
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, clutching his hand harder. “But if it looks like trouble, we need to go in the other direction.”
“Agreed,” he said.
We started in the direction of the singing, pressed closely into one another, stepping around brush. My stomach tightened, all that stirring, impotent energy backing up into my throat so I had to swallow it down to breathe. I didn’t know what was waiting for us up there, but at least I wasn’t alone this time.
The singing ended abruptly.
A bloodcurdling shriek shook the air of the forest, the leaves moaning over our heads, followed by a deep, guttural moan of a wounded animal. More shrieking, as though someone was being attacked by some giant creature.
I didn’t even think, I just sprang into action, running blindly, tugging Grayson along after me, sprinting into that light.
CHAPTER 5
~
WE STOPPED AT THE EDGE of a clearing, breathing hard, our wide eyes taking in the scene. No sharp-toothed horrors lurked in the shadows. No bloody, desperate creatures in need of our help. Quite the opposite. It looked like we were crashing the tail end of a rather unusual party.
In the middle of the small, open space surrounded by a thick wall of leafy, scentless trees, sat a long table surrounded by chairs. The tabletop was covered with trays piled high with desserts, each one frosted in bright colors. A leaning stack of teacups and saucers sat precariously close to one edge. Gleaming candelabras rested in the middle of the table, their long candles blazing so brightly, they filled the clearing with a buzzing, electric light.
I drew in a sharp breath, the relief washing over me at the sight of the attendants of this strange forest party—one at the head of the table, one at the foot, and a third slumped over onto her folded arms, as though she’d partied much too hard. Supernaturals, every last one of them. I didn’t need my senses to know them for what they were. The pure light illuminated them, flickering behind their eyes when they turned to look at us, all but the figure conked out on the table.
Grayson and I stood stock still in between two trees, clasping onto each other’s hands, our toes just outside the boundary of the clearing.
“Welcome, friends!” the man sitting at the head of the table cried, beckoning us closer. He wore a shabby velvet jacket over a faded white tuxedo shirt and a bowler hat, the top of it dented in like something had fallen onto his head from above. He had a thin face to match his narrow neck and long arms His fingers curled around the handle of a large teapot. He beckoned us again, more urgently this time. He turned his head slightly, showing off one pointed ear nearly hidden beneath the brim of his hat.
“These are faeries,” I whispered, and took a step into the clearing, sliding my hand out of Grayson’s. He reached to take hold of my shoulder, but I shook him off. The warm air broke over my face, the energy in here so soothing after the dead air everywhere else in this realm. It still wasn’t normal—I couldn’t read it or draw power from it the way I could in every other world I’d ever set foot in—but it was closer to how energy should feel.
“Foreigners!” another man exclaimed, sounding overjoyed. “We haven’t had visitors in ages.”
I turned to face the man sitting at the foot of the table, unable to hold back the smile that curved my lips at the sight of him. He was wearing a straw hat with a red rosebud stuck in the band, just like the one my grandmother had worn when gardening on sunny days. He was dressed more simply, hiding his short round body in a flowered cloak, so long that it hid his feet. He too, had long pointy ears that were partially hidden by the nest of curly blond hair flowing down past the middle of his back.
“Sit!” the first man said, motioning to one of the seats on either side of him. “Share a drink with us!”
Grayson stepped beside me, the spicy smell of him invading my nostrils. I breathed it in gratefully. It was so strong in here. I could smell the cakes too—a sweet, sticky scent that got my stomach growling.
“This is so strange,” he whispered, his low voice staying between us. It was clear from his tone that he didn’t like it, but this was the best I’d felt since arriving in this realm. “Just be careful, okay?”
I nodded in response and walked to the table, sitting next to the man with the bowler hat. Grayson hung his quiver over the back of the chair to the right of mine before sitting down as well, though by the look on his face, I could tell he was very apprehensive about this ensemble of strange creatures.
“I am the host of this gathering,” the man wearing the bowler hat said in a grand voice as he flashed his light gray eyes first at me and then at Grayson.
“A host is supposed to make introductions!” the man at the opposite end of the table bellowed, pounding his fist on the table. The tower of teacups and saucers shook but didn’t fall.
The first man smiled, showing off a row of small teeth, so white they seemed to gleam with their own light. “My name is Madden, and I am at your service.” He dipped into a deep bow in his seat, keeping one hand on the top of his head to keep his worn hat on. He pointed to the rotund man in the straw hat opposite him. “That’s Trystan. He’s a tad excitable.”
“Whatever he’s saying isn’t true!” Trystan called. “Speak up! I can’t quite hear you from all the way over here!”
I snorted as I held back a nervous giggle. I had no idea why he didn’t just move closer to us. There was certainly enough room at the massive table.
Madden ignored him, and instead, he pointed at the slumped, snoring figure sitting on the other side of the table. “That’s Blossom.” She didn’t have a hat, just a head of wavy auburn hair. Madden lifted his white eyebrows, prompting me to speak.
“I’m Alicia,” I said, and cocked a thumb over my shoulder. “That’s Grayson. We’re on our way to see the Queen.”
Madden opened his hand, and two teacups lifted from the top of the stack, followed by their respective saucers, each floating in the air before our wide eyes before gently landing in front of us.
I drew in a sharp breath. Magic!
“Would you like some refreshments?” he asked, smiling slyly at the look of excitement that crossed my face. He lifted the giant teapot and filled my cup.
Grayson covered his cup with one large hand. “No, thank you. I don’t care for tea.”
“What did he say?” Trystan bellowed.
Madden’s grin widened, those small teeth gleaming in the flickering candlelight. “This is a special brew, friend. One that you’ll find quite…potent.” He lifted his eyebrows with the final word.
I picked up my teacup and took a small sip, coughing as it burned all the way down. “Special brew, all right.”
Grayson considered his own glass, his eyes dark in the flickering light. I could see that he was mulling it over. I wanted to laugh. I thought I was mistrustful, but this shifter was far more paranoid than I could ever be. To my surprise, his lips curved into a guarded smile, and he shot me a look as if to say, ‘you asked for it’ before taking a tentative sip of the brown liquid. After testing it on his tongue, he tilted his head back and finished the rest of it off.
Madden quickly filled Grayson’s cup once again before standing, and lifting his own in a cheerful toast. “To our foreign guests!” At the other end of the table, Trystan lifted his teacup too. “To our new friends!” he cried, then both men emptied their cups in one quick gulp. Grayson and I couldn’t help but laugh as we too, finished off our drinks.
Madden left his chair, taking his cup and the teapot with him, and sat down across from me. He refilled his teacup, then mine, and took a hearty drink. A few chairs down, Blossom gave a deep, stuttering snore and muttered a few words in her sleep.
<
br /> “Are you going to see the Queen too?” I asked Madden.
Madden and Trystan laughed so hard that the leaves shook in the trees around the clearing, the candlelight quivered at the tops of the tall candlesticks, and the tower of china cups leaned further to the side, but thankfully didn’t fall.
“Oh, no,” Madden replied, his eyes suddenly wide. “We would never do such a thing. We came to visit our friends and then, one fine day, we’ll go home.”
I drew my eyebrows together. He had some magic that still worked here. Did that mean he could work the portal too?
“Where’s home?” I asked.
“Wherever we decide,” he replied, and took another long sip of his tea. He nodded to my cup, and I took a sip too, forcing down the strong brew. “For a year or two we chose a knotty oak in a quiet moorland. The year before that it was the middle of a wooded valley teaming with wildflowers and honeysuckle.”
“You are travelers too,” I said.
Madden nodded, his silver eyes shining. “And you are foreigners in a foreign land.” It wasn’t a question. “Why are you here?”
“Can you speak up?” Trystan cried, rising from his seat.
Madden ignored him, but Blossom stirred violently, lifting her head, her eyes half closed and auburn hair wild about her head.
“What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, and never in a thousand years?” she asked, her voice sticky with sleep. And then just as suddenly as she woke, she dropped her head onto her folded arms and began to snore again.
“What?” I looked over at Grayson, but he was staring at Blossom, a tight, puzzled expression on his face.
“She riddles while she sleeps,” Madden said, with a wave of his hand.
I looked over at him to find he’d switched seats again, and now sat across from Grayson. He kept his light eyes on me as he refilled his own empty teacup. He opened his hand, bringing our cups sliding across the table to him. He refilled them as well, and sent them back to us.
“Where were we?” he asked. “Ah, yes. Why are you here?”
“I work for the Queen,” Grayson said, his voice low but proud. “I’m in her imperial guard.”
Madden’s smile faded, his light eyes glowing with some mischievous light. “Her royal majesty doesn’t take kindly to strangers.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Just what I said.” He thought a moment, drinking deeply from his teacup. I did the same before he could prompt me. This stuff was strong. I didn’t trust myself to stand, and I’d only had a couple of teacups full. “Or just what I meant.”
Trystan changed seats in a huff, moving to sit on the other side of Blossom, who he shoved over a little. She groaned loudly, her head rolling onto the table, but she didn’t wake.
“You are faeries,” I said, just deciding to come right out with it. I waited for Madden to nod before moving on. “I also have magic. Or I did. I can’t make mine work in this realm, though.”
“The Queen won’t allow such power to be used,” Trystan bellowed. There was no reason for him to keep screaming now that he was so close, but that seemed to be his regular manner of speaking.
“But you still have magic,” I said, keeping my eyes on Madden. He hadn’t looked away from me much since we’d entered the clearing. “How?”
Madden grinned wider, opening his hands to make his cup spin gently on its saucer. “You mean this?”
I nodded.
“That’s all we have left, dear. Time stands still in this clearing. We can’t leave until the end of the party.”
“The Queen froze time?” Grayson asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”
Madden lifted his thin white brows, eyes widening as though he was seeing Grayson for the first time. “How ridiculous. Of course not.”
Trystan let loose a gale of booming laughter, shaking the teacups on the table.
“We stopped time in this clearing. Or time stopped itself. I don’t recall which. And I was moving the teacups to start our soiree at just that moment.” Madden turned his sparkling eyes on me again. “So, I can still move them. But the rest of the magic is locked up tightly by order of her Majesty.”
My heart hammered in my chest as a sick feeling twisted in my gut. That explained why the portal was closed and why I could still feel my power moving inside me, but couldn’t access it. What kind of being could block the magic of an entire realm?
“She must have her reasons for doing that,” Grayson replied, scowling, his brows pulled down. “Probably to protect the realm from aggressive forces.”
“Perhaps,” Trystan said, and upended the contents of his teacup into his mouth. “And if good reasons don’t exist before the doing of a thing, you can always create them after the fact!”
Grayson stared hard at him, but didn’t say a word.
I turned back to Madden to find he’d changed his seat again and was now right next to me, even closer than Grayson. When he held out his hand, I took it. I could feel his gentle power moving through my hand, a warm, prickling sensation. He nodded to my cup and I took another deep swallow. It was easier to drink now, and my blood felt warmer in my veins.
“You can stay with us, dear,” Madden whispered, his gray eyes wide. “You don’t have to go to the Queen.”
“Is there a reason I shouldn’t go?” I asked, mimicking his whisper.
He leaned closer to me, his words so low, I almost missed them completely. “There are many reasons. Which one would you most like to hear?”
I furrowed my eyebrows, drowsy eyes nearly drifting shut as I watched him. It was getting a little difficult to keep track of his words and to stay upright. When Madden nodded to my teacup, I took another long drink, the warmth spreading from my throat, to my stomach, to my toes.
Trystan smashed his fist against the table, shaking the cups and saucers, and I leapt nearly out of my chair. Only Madden’s hand kept me from crashing to the ground in a heap.
“Whispering is rude at a table full of guests!” he shrieked.
Blossom stirred for a second time, shooting up ramrod straight, her eyes sealed shut and drool running down her rounded chin.
“What is seen in water but never gets wet?” she asked, slurring the words, and then dropped her head back onto her arms.
“A reflection!” Grayson exclaimed with a triumphant laugh as the table turned to stare at him. As I watched, the teapot rose on its own and refilled his empty china cup.
“Is thinking part of being in the Queen’s royal guard now?” Trystan shouted, his round face squeezed hard with thought. “That’s usually something that doesn’t pay in the long run— thinking soldiers. They cost the kingdom dearly. Do you understand my meaning?”
My head was spinning, just a little, the rotation matching Madden’s teacup spinning slowly on its saucer. The trees were moving too, the leaves waving in the wind. I took a drink from my cup without being asked, and my stomach pitched just a little.
Grayson took hold of my other arm, trying to get me to lean his way, but I pulled out of his grip and propped myself onto the table, pushing my face closer to Madden, who still hadn’t let go of my hand.
“If I wanted to leave this realm, how would I do it?” I asked, but in a much louder voice than I’d intended. “The portal is closed. Can your magic…” I shook my head, trying to clear it. That warmth had moved from my stomach up to my skull, and it made thinking very difficult. “If you can move the teacups…”
Madden shook his head sadly, his gray eyes blurring as I watched, trying very hard to refocus my hazy vision. “We never venture out of the clearing. It isn’t safe.”
“How can I leave?” I asked. “If the portal is—”
“No one can leave the realm!” Trystan shrieked, not seeming overly concerned. He licked the last few drops of brown liquid from his teacup.
“But that can’t be,” I said, turning my head to look at Grayson as though he held all the answers. His face was blurry too, his blue eyes too small to
see. I blinked and tried hard to focus, but Madden squeezed my fingers, dragging the fuzzy point of my attention back to him.
“You can join our party, dear,” he whispered, and I found that I very much wanted to agree. “But there’s only room for one.” He was clutching my hand urgently, the warmth of his power tingling up my arm.
I looked back at Grayson. “We have to find a way to make the portal work!” I tried, and failed, to whisper. Maybe this was why Trystan kept screaming. It was the tea busily at work inside me, numbing me from the inside out.
The haziness fell away from his face, and I could see his narrowed eyes and sleepy grin, the color burning high in his cheeks. He’d finished his cup of forest-brewed moonshine, and the pot was refilling it on its own again. I realized, drowsily, that it had refilled my cup too.
“The Queen will explain all of this when we see her,” he said in a too-loud voice. “She’s very reasonable.”
Trystan and Madden giggled maniacally, which Grayson ignored.
“We should just enjoy ourselves right now.” He tugged my hand free of Madden’s and lifted his teacup to toast with mine. “To an excellent party!”
“Hear! Hear!” Trystan bellowed, raising his own cup.
From the corner of my eye, I could see Madden lifting his as well. I picked up my cup with unsteady fingers and lifted it high.
“To lovely friends!” Trystan shouted.
“To lovely women,” Madden said, grinning at me.
“To finding a way out of Wonderland,” I mumbled.
We drained our glasses together. I leaned my head back to get every last drop and the night smeared before my eyes. In one instant, I felt Madden squeeze one of my hands as Grayson squeezed the other. The shivering leaves in the trees were very loud…or was that my own breathing? Everything in my head was coming out of my mouth. Madden couldn’t stop laughing. Grayson pulled me closer and out of the faery’s grasp—the hot, spicy scent of him helped clear my vision. The candlelight was suddenly so bright in the clearing that it was difficult to see anything but a blur of twinkling light. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw our shadows rippling across the ground behind us.
Broken Magic Page 5
