by Rebecca Hall
“Nikola?” Mitch said, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze. His cheek was red where Amelie had struck him and his silver eyes were shining. He wasn’t wearing his contact lenses, he never did in Faerie, but Amelie was still wearing hers.
“I…” he sighed. “Space is all snarled here. I had to realign everything just to work out where you were and holding it steady…” he shuddered. “All I could do was wait.”
“Well I’m glad that you’re here,” Mitch said. He gave Nikola a quick hug and they moved to sit by the fire where long skewers were cooking over the flames.
“How did you know where we were?” Mitch asked.
“The Awarewolves,” Nikola replied. “Though they couldn’t tell me exactly where, their perception of distance is weird and space isn’t as static here as I’d like.” He grimaced and a much more important question occurred to Mitch.
“What do Morrigan and Gawain think of this?”
“Um…” Nikola busied himself with the fire, making sure it was burning merrily, and fussed with the skewers, turning them over and handing Mitch and Amelie one each.
“Nikola.”
Nikola took a bite of his skewer and Mitch was torn between glaring and laughing.
“They don’t know you’re here do they?” he asked.
Nikola swallowed. “They probably do,” he said. “Gawain didn’t want me coming into Deep Faerie though. He was worried it would…” he shook his head. “I had to sneak out.” He sniffed, blood dripping from his nose.
“Here,” Mitch held the skewer in his mouth and pulled out a packet of tissues. Nikola smiled at him.
“Gawain was worried about what?” Mitch asked once he’d freed his teeth.
“This,” Nikola said nasally. “There’s too much magic here.”
“Nikola,” Mitch sighed, “you should have stayed at home.”
“I’m fine,” Nikola said, tossing the bloody tissue into the fire.
Mitch rolled his eyes and moved a little closer, allowing Nikola to lean against him.
“You really should start carrying those yourself you know.”
“You know I can just use magic,” Nikola said. “It doesn’t work down here though, too much interference.”
“Which is why you should carry tissues,” Mitch said, rubbing Nikola’s arm. Nikola smiled and rested against his shoulder.
“What are you doing here Nikola?” Amelie demanded, though Mitch noted that she’d waited until after she finished eating.
“That’s my question,” Nikola said. “And, incidentally, my answer. What are you doing here?” he asked, sitting up straight. “If you’d done this a year ago he’d be one of the Fae by now.” He shoved a piece of wood into the fire and a storm of sparks flew up around him, reflecting off the tears in his eyes.
“Don’t try and pretend that that isn’t exactly what you wanted,” Amelie snapped. “You wanted to turn him.”
Mitch frowned, “Nikola?”
“I…” he stared at the ground. “I asked Titania for permission before… She said that you could once you were old enough.”
“You wanted me to… Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I meant to wait,” Nikola sniffed. “We’re not allowed to turn anyone under twenty-five. I would have told you. I wanted you to have time to think about it.” He wiped his eyes, tears dripping off his chin.
“And then I went and got killed,” Mitch said, scooting a little closer. He pulled out another tissue and handed it to Nikola. It would be another six and a half years before Nikola could have brought him into Deep Faerie. There hadn’t been any need to bring it up sooner, or now even.
“Did you really want me to be one of the Fae?”
“You’re the best friend I ever had.”
Across the fire Amelie made a small noise that might have been a snigger. Mitch ignored her and drew Nikola to his feet and away from the fire. His eyes and nose were red, his cheeks stained with tears.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Mitch said. He pulled Nikola into a tight embrace and Nikola buried his face in his shoulder, sobbing softly. “It’s ok Nikola,” he whispered. “It’s ok.”
He glared over Nikola’s shoulder at Amelie, unable to understand why she’d even brought it up. She’d practically thrown it in Nikola’s face and for what? It was impossible. Hell, there was every chance that Nikola would have changed his mind in the intervening years.
Nikola finally drew away, his eyes reddened but dry.
“Let’s talk in the morning,” Mitch said. Nikola looked absolutely shattered and there was no telling what Amelie might say next, or what he might say in reply. Nikola nodded.
“Hey,” Mitch put a hand on his shoulder. “It will be alright.” Nikola sniffed and nodded.
“Do you have a sleeping bag?”
Nikola nodded again and went to where his pack was sitting near the fire.
“I brought you more blood,” he said, pulling out a coolie bag.
“Thanks.” Mitch used his magic to check the blood and refreeze his ice packs before putting it away and getting his own sleeping bag out. Amelie was already sleeping, or pretending to, on the other side of the dying fire.
Nikola yawned, fiddling with the silvery bracelet around his wrist and Mitch winced. Nikola hadn’t used the one that boosted his telepathy since the incident with the demon, which meant that this was probably the one that muted his sensitivity to magic and he’d still got a nose bleed.
“You really shouldn’t be here should you?” he asked, pausing in his attempt to clear the ground of the more uncomfortable leaf litter and sticks.
“I’ll be fine,” Nikola said, yanking his sleeve down over the bracelet.
“You’re going home in the morning,” Mitch said. He looked at Nikola again and then undid his sleeping bag so that they could sleep together. Nikola smiled weakly and did the same.
“No rolling into the fire,” Mitch ordered as Nikola lay down at his side.
“You’ll just have to keep me warm,” Nikola snuggled a little closer, using Mitch’s shoulder as a pillow, and Mitch smiled.
“Goodnight Nikola,” he whispered, leaning forward to kiss the top of Nikola’s head.
“Goodnight,” Nikola murmured.
#
Mitch groaned, pins and needles shooting up and down his arm. He raised his other hand to shield his eyes and looked around muzzily. Amelie was still asleep on the other side of the fire, her head buried in her sleeping bag while Nikola had somehow poked and prodded the fire back to life and was toasting bread over it. Mitch wished that he’d thought to bring marshmallows.
“Morning,” Mitch said, sitting up slowly and still trying to work some feeling other than pins and needles back into his arm. Nikola must have slept on him all night.
“Morning,” Nikola replied. He didn’t sound as bright and chipper as he usually did but his eyes were red and his nose running.
“Hayfever?” Mitch asked, handing him a tissue. Nikola nodded.
“I don’t suppose you brought pancakes as well?” Nikola had probably baked the bread himself but it wasn’t the same.
“Sorry,” Nikola replied. He sneezed. “I’ll make you some when we get out of here.”
“That’s the least you can do after sleeping on me all night,” Mitch said. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you that sharing the bed means that both parties actually lie on it?”
“No,” Nikola smiled, “besides, that wasn’t a bed.”
“Same difference,” Mitch grumbled, stretching out the kinks of spending another night on the ground, this time with someone on top of him.
“What else do you have in your bag of goodies?”
“Bacon, honey, cheese,” he smiled, “cooling charms.”
“Huh,” Mitch said. They were probably a lot more reliable than cryomancy but he didn’t know nearly enough about Alchemy to make them himself.
On the other side of the fire Amelie stirred, just as slow to wake up as M
itch was though the smell of sizzling bacon seemed to help. It was certainly a welcome change from forest-made fruit salad and One Square Meals.
“You should go home,” Mitch said once they’d finished eating.
“What about y–” Nikola sneezed.
“We’re not allergic to everything,” Amelie pointed out.
“I…” Nikola closed his eyes and sighed. “Why are you here?” he asked, gazing at them with silver grey eyes. “It’s not as if New Zealand has any shortage of trees and camping spots.”
“Maybe we wanted something a little more exciting,” Amelie said.
“You would,” Nikola agreed. “But he wouldn’t. What are you doing here Mitch?”
“We want to try and break the Twisted Curse,” Mitch said. “It’s here isn’t it?”
Next to him Amelie buried her head in her hands.
“You just had to tell him didn’t you?”
“Yes?” Mitch said uncertainly. Nikola was his best friend, keeping a secret from him was almost as unthinkable as lying to him. Amelie sighed.
“I think I’d like the long version now,” Nikola said. Haltingly Mitch started to explain only to have Amelie take over after the first stuttered sentences. She carefully omitted just how uncertain the whole scheme was and how little idea they had about how to actually break the curse. Even when Nikola started to shake his head she kept talking, her tone calm and level.
“That’s insane,” Nikola said, his eyes wide.
“N–” Amelie began but Nikola cut her off.
“Michael isn’t dead,” Nikola said, his voice rising. “He’s here, stars-curse it. Michael is guarding the curse.”
“But angels can’t get into Faerie,” Amelie said faintly, “everyone knows that.”
“Well everyone should have stopped to ask why,” Nikola snapped. “Michael is here, he has always been here.”
“We can deal with this,” Amelie said though she didn’t sound quite as calm as she had before. “There are wards for dealing with angels, ways of blinding them and binding their power.”
“None of which we know,” Mitch said. Gawain and Morrigan might be able to do it but they were older and considerably more experienced. Not to mention vastly more powerful. Morrigan hadn’t been afraid to go toe to toe with Lucifer; Mitch would be quite happy if every angel in the world just forgot that he existed.
“Except he does,” she said, staring at Nikola. “He watched Gawain set the wards on our flat and he has perfect recall.”
Mitch blinked. He hadn’t known that their flat was warded against angels though he supposed it did explain why Hayley had always ambushed him on campus rather than in his bedroom. Even when she’d taken them home they’d gone to the backyard rather than the house itself.
“Besides,” Amelie continued, “it’s not like angels pay a lot of attention to people like us, we’re irrelevant to them.”
“And what happens if you do get past him?” Nikola asked, his voice hard.
“We break the curse.”
“No,” Nikola said. “The curse is Faerie, all of it. You don’t get to pick and choose. You don’t get to say this much and no more. You can’t break the Twisted Curse without destroying everything.” He gestured to the world surrounding them.
“No,” Amelie shook her head. “It can’t… It won’t… A whole world can’t just vanish,” she managed a weak smile, holding desperately to hope. Mitch wanted to believe that she was right but there was no mistaking the pain in Nikola’s eyes nor the conviction in his voice and he knew the curse better than anyone.
“We’ll be saving the world Nikola,” Amelie said, her voice almost, almost level. “The Eternity War will finally be able to end. You’ll be able to come back to the Other World and live with me and Mitchell again.” Mitch flinched.
“Think about it Nikola.”
“So I’m supposed to trade one world for another?” Nikola asked. Mitch stared at the ground, it wasn’t just one world for another, it was Nikola’s home, a place that he loved, for a world that he hated.
“Faerie will survive,” Amelie insisted.
“Perhaps,” Nikola said grudgingly. “Long enough for some of its inhabitants to flee. What happens when unicorns appear in the forests of the Other World and dragons soar through the skies? What happens when the Courts are forced together?
“And what do you imagine will happen to all of that magic. It won’t just disappear, it has to go somewhere, it will have to be discharged somewhere. You say that you want to save the world but you may well condemn both and for what? The possibility that breaking the Twisted Curse will end the Eternity War? What if it doesn’t?”
“It will save Mitch.”
Nikola stared at her and then he climbed to his feet and stalked away.
“Nikola,” Mitch made to follow but Amelie pulled him back.
“Let me talk to him,” she said, squeezing his hand. “I know how to talk him around.”
“Should we be talking him around?”
“He’s wrong,” Amelie said. “Faerie has always been here. It didn’t suddenly pop into existence because some angels decided to curse each other. It wasn’t created by some manufactured magical big bang, even angels aren’t that powerful.
Mitch hesitated and then nodded. Angels were powerful, he’d be the first to attest to that, but he’d also seen that their powers had limits. Spontaneously creating an entire world by accident was beyond them.
Amelie hurried after Nikola and put a hand on his shoulder, speaking to him in a voice too low for Mitch to hear without magic. He turned away and began to pack up their campsite, extinguishing the fire and shoving any rubbish into the bottom of his pack.
“So are we saving the world?” Mitch asked when Amelie and Nikola came back, Amelie looked happy and Nikola resigned.
“You can try,” Nikola said, sinking to the ground. “I can’t go any deeper than I already have but I can realign space for you so that you can actually get to the Heart of Faerie. You’ll never be able to get there otherwise.”
“You… you’re not coming with us?” Mitch asked in a small voice.
Nikola shook his head. “I’m already far deeper than I should be. I don’t need Gawain to tell me that I shouldn’t go any further. I’ll make sure you have a path to follow and then…” He stared at the half frozen remains of the fire.
“As long as we don’t have to follow the yellow brick road,” Amelie said.
Nikola almost smiled. “No, but I’ll have to press it into your minds and you can’t step off it no matter what happens.”
“What happens if we do?” Mitch asked.
Nikola shrugged, “You’ll be lost in Deep Faerie once more, you might be able to get out but you won’t be able to go forward and I’m not doing this a second time.”
“I’ll stay on the path then,” Mitch said. Amelie nodded.
“We should get going,” she said, shouldering her pack.
“Will you be ok here on your own?” Mitch asked.
“I’m not staying,” Nikola said. “Once you’re safely on your way I’m leaving. Getting out is a lot easier than getting in.”
“Be careful ok,” Mitch said, hugging him tightly. “Take care of yourself and I’ll see you soon.”
Nikola hugged him back.
“Don’t step off the path,” Nikola warned one last time as the directions were pressed into their minds. Mitch nodded and rose to his feet.
“Come on,” Amelie said, holding out her hand. “It will all be ok Nikola, you’ll see.”
Nikola didn’t reply.
Mitch took Amelie’s hand and followed her out of the clearing.
“Goodbye Mitchell,” Nikola whispered inside his mind, the words carrying an odd sense of finality. Mitch looked back but Nikola had already disappeared behind the trees and any words he might have said stuck in his throat.
Hidden Paths
“Hold up a minute,” Mitch called. Despite Nikola’s claims that he’d made them a d
irect path to the Heart of Faerie Mitch was finding it increasingly disorientating. The scenery around them changed constantly, often from one step to the next, and whenever he looked behind what he saw was different from what he remembered passing.
“What is it?” Amelie asked, turning back to face him. “You know we don’t have long. Nikola won’t be able to hold this in place for long.”
“I know,” Mitch gasped. It wouldn’t be long before what passed as the natural order in Faerie reasserted itself and their bits of carefully aligned space became misaligned once more. Mitch wondered if they’d even notice. There was a tree ageing backwards not two metres away but there was so much magic all around that it had faded into white noise.
Amelie frowned, “Are you feeling alright?”
“Yeah,” Mitch dropped his pack and began unzipping his jacket, “just a little hot.”
Amelie’s frown deepened. “It isn’t any hotter now than it was yesterday or the day before you know. And you are a cryomancer.”
Mitch snorted, “I learnt not to use my magic on myself the hard way.” It was easy to cool himself using cryomancy, unfortunately it was also easy to give himself hypothermia. It was safer just to remove a layer of clothes and take his chances with the sand-flies and anything else that wanted a piece of him.
“Is it really the same temperature today?”
“You’re the cryomancer,” Amelie repeated.
“Right.” A second’s concentration was all that it took to confirm her words and finish removing his jacket. He went to shove it in his bag and frowned, feeling something hard in the pocket though he’d never kept anything other than tissues in there. He turned the jacket over and around, hunting across it until he found the right pocket and pulled out a silvery bracelet engraved with sigils.
“That’s Nikola’s,” Amelie said, crouching by his side.
“I know,” Mitch replied. “How…” But he knew how, Nikola could manipulate space, slipping a bracelet into his pocket wouldn’t have been hard. He looked back but there was no way that he could retrace their path. He wasn’t even sure if he’d end up at the same place if he did or if Nikola would still be there. “He was wearing this all night.”
“He must have thought that you’d need it more.”
