Glimmers of Thorns

by Emma Savant

  “Okay,” I said.

  She turned, a sudden, angry gesture that made me take a step back. The silver gown swirled around her ankles as she walked away. She reached a wall, then began to pace along its edge, back and forth, her arms folded and her strides long. I felt the rage rushing off her in a torrent, filling the room and mingling with my own worry and anxiety for her and the future of everyone I knew.

  And then, just as abruptly, she stopped. Her stiff spine softened, and she seemed to deflate.

  I recognized the collapse. It had followed every rant of her life. When things were really bad, Imogen stormed and raged. Then, when she’d ranted and fumed herself empty, she usually either dragged me out for ice cream or crumpled on the couch and fell asleep.

  But there was no ice cream here, and there was no couch. There was just me and an otherworldly white waterfall.

  Imogen walked slowly toward the pool and knelt down at its edge. She dipped her fingertips in the gently churning water.

  “Fil ar ais go dom,” she whispered.

  With a flash, a silver wand fell from the top of the waterfall. Imogen’s hand shot out to catch it.

  She clenched her pale fist around the wand and held it in the stream for a moment. The pain in her face was visible in the furrow between her eyes, the thin lines of her lips, and the tight smoothness of her forehead.

  She held the wand out to me.

  “Gen, I can’t,” I said.

  She hissed as if in pain.

  “Take it,” she said. “You have to take it. Don’t make me keep asking because I won’t.”

  I closed my fingers around its smooth surface.

  The instant it was in my hand, I wondered how I could have ever believed the other one was real. The power in this thin silver rod made my palm vibrate and my arm grow hot. The room seemed to instantly become brighter; I could see into the shadowy corners and see the lines of magic that snaked their way through the walls like veins.

  Imogen clenched her fingers on the tiled edge of the pool and looked down into the water.

  “You’re going to take her magic?” she said.

  “If she doesn’t agree to peace, yeah,” I said.

  She closed her eyes and nodded.

  We fell silent. She was only waiting for me to leave.

  “Come with me,” I said.

  She shook her head.

  I knelt down next to her and put a hand on her back. Her skin was cool; her breath came in shallow shudders.

  “I’m not leaving you behind,” I said.

  She wouldn’t meet my eyes, but she rose and followed me out. The waterfall watched us go, and our footsteps echoed in the cavernous blackness.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  The drive back to Haidar’s was tense. Lucas’ fingers stayed white on the steering wheel, and he kept glancing into the rearview mirror at Imogen in the backseat. I couldn’t tell if his feelings were related to her association with the Oracle or her role as his ex-girlfriend; either way, he was strung tight.

  We drove through the still, quiet city. Here and there, a glowing blue sprite flew overhead. None of them seemed to notice us. At one point, we slipped right underneath one sitting watchfully in a tree. I held tight to Amani’s necklace as we drove, willing the sprites not to realize we had the Oracle’s heir in the car with us, and willing Imogen not to tip them off.

  She’d come of her own accord. Whether she would regret that before we reached Haidar’s place was anyone’s guess.

  I saw the light of the enchantment that protected Haidar’s grounds long before we reached his gates. My glasses were still propped up on my head. Without them, the undersides of the clouds glowed white-gold with magic.

  Would I need my glasses, as the Faerie Queen?

  How soon would I become her, and all traces of me disappear?

  I shivered as Lucas pulled the car up the driveway. The gates stayed locked tight.

  I glanced in the rearview mirror. Imogen sat with her arms tightly crossed. She’d put on one of Lucas’ hoodies that had been sitting in the back. It swallowed her up and hid her champagne-blond hair from view.

  Lucas looked to me for direction.

  I frowned. Normally, I’d call Isabelle or text Daniel to come let us in. But now, I paused.

  If I was going to be the Faerie Queen, little things like gates shouldn’t matter. Not when the spell was in place thanks to something I was in the middle of.

  I pulled my wand out of my hair and pointed it at the barred entrance. Nothing happened. The enchantment and the metal gate stayed firmly sealed against us.

  I will be the Faerie Queen, I thought, ordering my will through the wand and through the gate. You will move aside.

  The gate rattled. I furrowed my brow and tried to force as much magic as I could through its thin metal confines.

  The gates burst open as magic flooded through me. It poured through my arm and out my wand, a long heavy stream like nothing I’d ever felt before. I gasped and slammed back against the seat.

  What had I been thinking, using my magical energy on something as stupid as a gate? I had a freaking Oracle to subdue. The entry was the least of my problems.

  Lucas’ gaze landed on me, sharp with concern. I felt Imogen watching from the backseat. A tangled knot of emotions twisted around her. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, feeling for the tendrils of magic that had burst free from me. Carefully, I began to reel them back in.

  Lucas edged the car through the gate cautiously, as though he was worried we’d explode if we drove too fast.

  The house sat quietly at the top of the driveway. Lucas stopped in front of the garage, not bothering to pull in. He cut the engine and we sat for a few moments. I could hear both of them breathing, and my own heartbeat was a constant thudding whisper in my ears.

  “You’re really going to do this,” Lucas said.

  I swallowed and nodded.

  “You could probably wait in the house if you wanted,” I said, twisting in my seat to look at Imogen.

  Her face was hardened in a perpetual frown. I couldn’t imagine any other expression breaking through her set lips and tense eyebrows. She shook her head.

  “I need to be there for her,” Imogen said. “Even if I can’t stop you, or won’t, Kelda shouldn’t be alone.”

  Kelda hadn’t earned that kind of loyalty, as far as I could see, but I kept my mouth shut. I just nodded at her and took a deep breath.

  We climbed out. A sharp breeze hit my face the moment I was out of the car. It was as if the magic on the grounds had whipped the weather into a frenzy. Even the dark clouds seemed agitated overhead. They pulsed with magic and sparked with static energy.

  A storm was gathering, and we were the cause.

  Kelda’s wand throbbed in my hand. She had trusted Imogen with her life, to leave this with her. Even at the height of our friendship, it would never have occurred to me to let Imogen hang onto my wand for a while. It just wasn’t something a sane Glim did.

  Imogen felt it. The pain was almost enough to double her over. I reached out and took her hand. She stiffened, but she didn’t let go.

  We walked side-by-side toward the garden until we could see down into the clearing. Isabelle’s face darkened with a scowl when she saw Imogen standing next to me. I expected Amani to scowl, too, and order Imogen away, but she only nodded in greeting.

  In the center of the garden, Kelda was still trapped in the cage. I expected her to be shaking the bars, calling in vain to her sprites, or screaming at us to let her out, but she stood absolutely still and silent inside its confines. Her gaze was distant, headed out into the darkness somewhere between Amani and Daniel, who still prowled the ground above the sunken clearing. She didn’t turn to look at us.

  Imogen shrank back.

  “I can’t,” she said.

  I nodded. Lucas put his arm around her shoulders and drew her backwards into the shadows of the bushes and trees, away from the cage. I willed him to comfort her, and tho
ugh I knew comfort was probably impossible right now, I also knew he would do his best.

  Amani moved from where she’d been standing by the cage. She flitted across the garden and up the steps so quickly that it looked like she was skimming the ground like a dragonfly.

  I held the wand out toward her. It burned my palm. She eyed it, her expression curious and fascinated and calculating, but she shook her head.

  “Should I give it to Haidar?” I said.

  I didn’t need to ask the question; I knew the answer. But I still clung to the hope that I was wrong until Amani spoke.

  “You’ll need to do it,” she said. “You took the wand. It will only work for you.”

  I thought of a dozen arguments and a dozen more reasons this job should definitely go to Haidar and not to me.

  But I’d seen the future in the waterfall. This was part of it, I was sure, and fighting against it would be no more effective than trying to fight the hundreds of gallons of water that plunged by every instant outside the Waterfall Palace. This was my future.

  I closed my eyes.

  For one last moment, I was Olivia Feye. I was the daughter of an ambitious Glim politician and a woman who’d finally started stepping out of his shadow and pursuing her own talents. I was the sister of Daniel, a sarcastic, emo poet who’d risked his safety to be here with me. I was Imogen’s friend, whether she liked it or not, and I was Lucas’ friend, too, and they were both here with me because that’s what friends did.

  And I was me: a plant-loving, Humdrum-loving, aspiring botanist who wanted nothing more than to hang out in Imogen’s shadow and daydream about college.

  And then I said goodbye, and opened my eyes.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The wind whipped my hair around my face. A tangled strand of it brushed against my lips, but it didn’t stick. My lips were too dry. I ran my tongue along my teeth, but that didn’t help.

  In front of me, Kelda stood still as ice and just as cold. She glared at me. It was a black-eyed glare that could cut through diamonds, and I was no match for it. I felt her rage eviscerate me, but that feeling was mine and something I would keep to myself. I couldn’t let her see.

  Queen Amani stood next to the bars of the cage, just out of reach of Kelda’s sharp nails.

  “I don’t want to do this,” Amani said.

  “Good, because you’re not going to be able to,” Kelda said. “I have more enchantments set to protect me from you than you could possibly dream of.”

  An enormous raindrop landed on my arm. I glanced down at it. The glistening water made my skin sparkle, as if a tiny bit of magic had fallen from the sky.

  “I can’t trust you if you have your magic,” Amani said. “I’ve spent half our lives listening to you tell me you won’t do things, and then cleaning up after you when you do them. When you rig a vote to put one of your sprite attendants on the Council, that’s one thing. But now you’re openly declaring war.”

  “Shouldn’t that be a relief?” Kelda said. “Finally, no more lies.”

  “You know I don’t believe that,” Amani said. “The lies are only getting bigger.”

  “No deaths,” I interrupted. I looked at Kelda, and she glared at me, and I went on. “You said you don’t want to destroy the Hums; that’s why almost no one had been killed. Was that a lie?”

  She didn’t answer, just stared at me as though she could obliterate me with nothing more than her gaze. For all I knew, she could. I sent an extra bit of strength to the shielding spell that protected me.

  “All I need is a promise that you’ll stop this,” Amani said. “A sealed promise, one you can’t break, but then that’s it. You’ll be free to go.”

  Kelda flicked her hand toward Amani. The queen dodged, but the spell grazed her shoulder. Her sleeve was singed away; the fabric smoked, leaving an unpleasant, acrid stench in the damp air.

  Another raindrop landed, this time on my hand. Overhead, the clouds hung heavy with moisture and enchantments.

  Kelda leveled her gaze at me.

  “This one will have to do it,” she said. “You can’t touch me, Amani.”

  A ripple of fear shuddered through the garden. I didn’t know if it had come from Kelda or Amani, but it was one of them; they were the only two powerful enough that their fear could send cold terror down through my toes.

  One of them didn’t think I could do this. Maybe both.

  Kelda’s wand burned like ice in my hand. I fought the urge to drop it.

  If I was smart, I’d drop it. If I was smart, I’d run.

  But I didn’t have time to be smart. Their eyes were on me, and the lives of everyone I loved weighed on my shoulders.

  “I have to try,” I said.

  “With that kind of confidence, who am I to stop you?” Kelda said.

  She eyed me up and down, as if she hadn’t fully appreciated my mediocrity before.

  I eyed her up and down, too, but the end result wasn’t impressive. She wasn’t about to feel intimidated by me, and I had only given myself even more reason to be scared of her. Magic crackled in her hands like white lightning.

  I felt everyone else circling the garden: Haidar, hulking and watchful as he held onto the veins of magic that held Kelda captive; Isabelle, fierce and angry beside him; Daniel, stalking the edges of the stone wall, his body thrumming with power; Lucas, willing himself to be strong for those of us who needed his steady support; and Imogen, trembling and holding onto her courage with everything she had.

  They stood with me like branches woven together so thick that nothing could break through their entangled arms. They stood there because they believed in me, or in Amani, or in a better future, or in something else that meant enough to them that they’d risk their lives to be here.

  I pulled Mom’s ring out of my pocket and slipped it onto my finger.

  Then, I stepped forward and pointed Kelda’s wand toward her cage.

  There were no words to this spell, no fancy gestures. There was only intent, hot and pure and bright as it burned through me.

  But not bright enough.

  Kelda didn’t even flinch. She watched me with her endless black eyes and held as still as an ice carving. The stream of magic that poured from my wand like white fog didn’t even touch her. Instead, it pooled around her cage, slid to the ground, and faded to nothing.

  “You have to believe that what you’re doing is right,” Kelda said.

  I hated everything about what we were doing. It was cruel and bizarre, to take magic from a Glim. But Kelda’s icy gaze and Imogen’s faded confidence were enough to convince me that what we were doing needed to be done. I had no idea what would make the Glimmering world a better place, but Kelda losing her powers had to be at the top of the list.

  “If I’m sure of anything, it’s that this is right,” I said.

  A surge of magic shot down my arm, noticeable but not enough to make any difference.

  Kelda wrapped her pale fingers around the thorny bars of her cage and leaned forward.

  “You have to believe what you’re doing is right,” she said.

  “I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t,” I said.

  She blinked at me.

  Clearly, I’d missed some kind of cryptic message. But it didn’t matter.

  I wasn’t here for her word games or her opinions on enchantments. I was here because her willingness to trample on everyone to get what she wanted made me fear for the Glimmering world’s future, and because the magic that had surrounded her faux wand had chilled me to my bones. No magic should feel like that, especially not when it came from someone who had control over our world.

  I might have opinions about the way Kelda handled things, and I might know in my gut that her magic was evil, but that alone might not have been enough to kick me into action.

  What was enough was the way Imogen had swallowed all her fear and hatred and handed me the wand.

  Imogen knew this had to happen. She’d made some dumb choices in the past
few months, but so had I. Despite everything, I still trusted her. She knew Kelda better than I did. She also knew better than I did that what had to come next.

  I had to believe that what I was doing was right.

  But this wasn’t about “I.” That would never be enough. Kelda made her decisions with an “I” in mind, and that was the reason she had to be stopped.

  If the waterfall’s future was going to play out the way I’d seen, I wanted to be the kind of faerie who led with an “us.”

  Slowly, I lowered Kelda’s wand. I turned to Amani.

  “I need Imogen,” I said.

  She nodded. Isabelle was up in an instant, crossing the garden like she had wings.

  “I’ll get her,” she said as she whisked past us.

  “Don’t force her,” I said. “Bring Lucas too, though, if he’ll come.”

  Isabelle held up a hand to confirm she’d heard me. Her figure disappeared into the shadows of the garden.

  Now alone, Haidar tensed. I felt the magic in the garden ripple slightly, though not enough to let Kelda free.

  A raindrop fell onto my cheek. Above us, Daniel paced.

  Amani folded her arms tightly in front of her. The gold from her aura touched her cream sweater with a warm light.

  Thunder rolled softly in the distance. I felt another raindrop land on my hand. The water was cool, but the air around us kissed my face with the warmth of the magic that throbbed in the land and the clouds.

  I heard their footsteps before I saw them. Isabelle’s shadowy figure led the way into the garden, followed by Imogen’s. Lucas brought up the rear, and though he glanced up at Kelda, his gaze went immediately back to Imogen. I felt protectiveness rising from him, a sense that he needed to keep her safe. He met my eyes and nodded slightly, reassuring me: She’s okay.

  I held a hand out to Imogen. She hesitated, then, slowly, she crossed the garden to me.

  She took my hand. The familiar warmth of her skin pressed against my palm. I leaned in toward her.

  “Will you stay with me?” I said.

  I looked into her eyes, bracing myself in the same moment to see nothing there but contempt. Instead, I practically heard her voice in my head.