by Jessica Grey
“Stop telling me who is doing what,” she hissed. “This is your best chance.” She raised her voice again. “Let him go, and I’ll stop fighting you.”
“You aren’t fighting me all that hard, my dear,” Briar Rose mocked cruelly. “Why should I give you anything that you want? And why should I let him go? He took Lilia out of my grasp and has only just made up for it by bringing you to me.” At that Luke made a frustrated, angry noise and said something viciously under his breath. “Besides, he should be punished for altering the enchantment.” She flicked her hand in the air and the ground shook even harder, if that were possible, under them, throwing them both fully to the ground. Alex landed on her back, and the impact knocked the wind out of her.
She stared up at the clear bright sky, feeling as if she had completely separated from her body. She could see the vines finally overcoming her flowers on the edges of her vision; could see them rushing toward Luke’s prone body and towards hers, too, she supposed, although that somehow felt less important at the moment. Alex was more concerned about Luke. And he, idiot that he was, was probably more concerned about her. He recovered from the fall to the ground much more quickly than she did. Ignoring the vines racing toward them, he crawled the few inches to Alex and pulled his body over hers, as if he was going to protect her against the vicious, thorny vines with just his body.
He’s really taking this knight-in-shining-armor thing to an extreme, she thought hazily. Putting himself between me and Briar Rose, managing to alter enchantments… Her train of thought stuttered to a halt. Changing enchantments. It should have transferred, she thought wildly, but he resisted. Alex looked up into his clear blue eyes, just inches from her own—determination, sadness, and something she had never recognized before were warring for domination in their crystalline depths.
The air rushed back into her lungs. “It wasn’t supposed to transfer, it was supposed to break.” She grabbed his face between her hands, ignoring the churning earth beneath them and the vines already beginning to twine around their legs as they lay sprawled on the ground. “You love me,” she said accusingly.
Luke grinned down at her. “Of course I love you. Took you long enough to figure it out.” And as the vines tightened against their legs, the thorns beginning to pierce through the soft wool of her dress and rip at the tender flesh of her legs, Luke lowered his head the rest of the way and kissed Alex.
The garden disappeared in a wash of sparkling white light. The cloying scent of roses was replaced by a sweet familiar smell, and if the earth was still shaking under them Alex couldn’t feel it. Her world had tilted unalterably on its axis. The ground beneath them could have completely evaporated and she wouldn’t have noticed. The knowledge that Luke loved her back sang through her, shooting through her veins like a pure, unadulterated drug.
The hazy thought that they should be dead by now filtered through the brilliant light flooding her mind, but she dismissed it as Luke’s warm mouth moved over hers. If this was dead it was a pretty good deal in the grand scheme of things. Luke’s body was still draped over hers, heavy and warm. Alex was pretty sure she could spend eternity there, kissing him, pressed between his muscular form and the soft, springy plants under her back.
And then suddenly his lips were gone. She grumbled in protest and reached up to pull his head back down to hers.
“Wow. Um, Lex?” Luke’s astonished voice cut through her reverie. “I have no idea what you did, but we aren’t in the rose garden anymore.”
Alex cracked an eyelid open, hoping that it would help dissipate the brightness still dancing behind her eyes. No such luck. The white light was still completely consuming her vision. She blinked rapidly several times.
“We aren’t dead?” she asked, shocked.
He laughed. “I don’t think so.” He pushed up with his arms, levering his body off of her. She bit back another grumble, thinking that if not dead meant Luke moving away from her, maybe it wasn’t really that much of a bargain.
“Where are we?” she asked, sitting up unsteadily. The blinking had not cleared her vision at all, so she began to somewhat frantically rub at her eyes. She could sense Luke had stood up and was looking around them.
“I think it’s the field from your dreams—my dreams—well, whoever’s dreams.” Alex could hear his footsteps as he walked a few feet away then came back. “Crazy, I don’t know how you got us here.”
“Why do you think I got us here?” she asked calmly, keeping the rising concern over her lack of sight out of her voice. She cautiously put her hands out and felt around her. She could feel the scrubby plants and the soft, tiny flowers. Alyssum, they whispered into her mind. You’re safe now.
“Hmm, ‘cause as soon as we kissed you started glowing, or something. Not really glowing, but like light was shooting out of you. It scorched the vines right off of us and then we were here. You didn’t do it on purpose?”
“Um, no, I was kind of preoccupied.” Alex folded her hands neatly in her lap. She was afraid to move too much. Not being able to see only heightened her awareness of her own ungainliness.
“Lex?” A note of concern had come into Luke’s voice, and she lifted her head toward the sound, turning her blind eyes in what she hoped was the right direction. “Alexandra, are you okay?” She felt him drop down to his knees beside her and take her face in his hands.
“I’m having a little bit of trouble seeing,” Alex admitted.
“How much trouble?” he demanded. “You’re not wearing your glasses—well come to think of it, you haven’t been wearing them this whole time.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I need them here really; I never had them on in the dreams either. This isn’t like that—I can’t see at all actually. It’s just bright. A really, really bright light.”
“Your skin is really hot,” Luke informed her, running his hand across her face and forehead. “You’re burning up. And your eyes don’t look right, they’re the wrong color.”
“The wrong color?” Alex exclaimed. “What color are they?”
“They’re still gray, but really light. Oddly light. Like the color was drained out of them.”
He leaned forward and brushed a quick, reassuring kiss against her lips. The point of contact burned. Actually, her whole body was burning. A slow, licking flame, running through her. It wasn’t horribly uncomfortable. Earlier she’d put it to down to the warmth of the kiss from Luke, the stimulation of having him pressed against her, but now she knew it must be more than that. It was as if the flame was inside her.
“Whatever you did in the garden, I think you’re still doing it. The energy is pulsing out of you. Do you know how to stop? You need to stop. I’m afraid you’re going to hurt yourself.”
“I don’t know.” She dragged her focus away from where Luke’s lips had just brushed hers, although her entire being longed to focus just on that point of contact, and tried to concentrate on the center of energy inside of her.
Luke was right, whatever power she had pulled out of herself, or maybe it was the kiss that had pulled it out of her, was still shooting through her. It must have taken a staggering amount of magic to transport both Luke and herself, and the remnant of that magic was running wild and rampant through her. The fragmented pieces of whatever spell she had worked were ricocheting around inside her mind and her chest. The blazing white light wasn’t just behind her eyes; she could feel its presence pulsing out of her very center. It reminded her a lot of Elanthe’s brilliance, but she didn’t have the diamond with her. This strange, sparkling power was somehow coming from within her.
Alex let her eyelids flutter shut. The light behind her eyes remained just as bright. She tried to breathe slowly and deeply, concentrating on pushing the wild magic within her back into a manageable form. It was like the power that had flowed out of the crown into Becca, testing its own strength and running fast and chaotic until it was told firmly what to do. She realized with a start that she was thinking of her magic as something separate and f
oreign to herself. And in a way it was. It was something she could mold and use. But as the explosion of power and its aftereffects proved it had a will of its own as well.
But it could be bent to her will, like the flowers and Elanthe. It recognized her as its mistress and obeyed, if slightly reluctantly at first, her command. She felt the power recede from her limbs and mind, eventually tightening into a small, white-hot ball in the center of her chest. She let it sit there. It felt under control, and she didn’t want to push it so far into herself that she couldn’t readily access it.
It wasn’t until she knew she had it fully contained that she thought about opening her eyes again. It was reassuring that now, with them still firmly closed, she was only seeing darkness instead of that dazzling light, but Luke’s comment about her eyes changing color had scared her. She was unsure how much damage she had done, or could do, to herself.
The first thing she saw was Luke’s concerned face hovering a few inches in front of her own. At his quick grin she knew that her eyes must have restored themselves to their former color. “All better?” he asked.
“Yup, think so.” She smiled back at him, and then felt immediately shy and awkward. She had no idea what the protocol for a situation like this was; she’d never had anyone, outside of her mom, tell her that they loved her before. And the fact that it was Luke, whom she loved to the very core of her being, that had just declared his love to her was mind-blowing.
Luke, thankfully, did not notice her shyness. He was too busy running his hands over her, checking to make sure there was no lasting damage from her explosive bit of magic making.
“You’re back to a normal temperature,” he assured her as his hands skimmed over her head and then over her shoulders and down her arms. “There doesn’t look to be any—” he broke off, looking strangely at her right arm. He pushed the belled sleeve of her dress up so he could inspect her wrist, but Alex couldn’t see past the bunched up fabric to what he was looking at. “Lex, did you, uh, get a tattoo in the last couple days?”
“What? No, I did not!” She pulled her arm out Luke’s hand and examined her wrist. He was right; there was what looked like a pale tattoo encircling her wrist. It was slender braid, three strands, two blue and one red. Alex scrubbed at it frantically with her other hand, but it stayed put. There was a slight tingle in her skin under the mark. “My mother is going to kill me!”
Luke snorted with laughter. “It’s not like you deliberately went out and got a magic tattoo,” he pointed out. “I’m sure if you explain, she’ll understand. Or not…that might open up a whole new can of worms.”
“Yeah, the ‘Hey, Mom, guess what? Turns out I’m part fae and can weave spells’ conversation might make the tattoo sort of pale in significance,” she agreed. Luke snagged her wrist again and examined the mark.
“It’s cute. You know, it kind of looks like a friendship bracelet. Remember the one you made me in summer camp?”
Alex gasped. “Oh my god, I think it is your friendship bracelet!” At Luke’s blank stare, she explained, “I was wearing it when I kissed you. I totally, um, borrowed it from your room. I don’t know, I thought it’d give me luck.”
“Oh,” he cleared his throat awkwardly. “You were in my room?” He flushed, looking more shy than Alex could ever remember seeing him, and she was glad she wasn’t the only one who was on unfamiliar footing.
“Yeah, trying to make it look realistic that you left. You’re, um, really tidy. And I was really glad that you kept the bracelet.” Alex turned her wrist over in Luke’s hand and then slid it up so that her hand lay in his palm. Her hand was so small compared to his, she thought as she twined their fingers together. It made her feel tiny and delicate. She looked up at him through her lashes; he was staring at their joined hands. It thrilled her that he could be as affected by the sight as she was. “I’m really sorry. It seems to be gone. Maybe it burned up.”
Luke traced the braided tattoo on her skin. “It’s not entirely gone, although that’s a pretty permanent way to wear it.” He flashed her his lopsided grin. “I wonder why.”
“I’m not sure; maybe it has to do with the braid, apparently three strands and braiding has become like a thing in my extended family. Becca, Lilia, and I could braid our magic together.”
“Becca? Becca Ward? She’s magic too?”
Alex laughed. “Oh yeah, you’ve missed all this. Turns out we are descended from half-fae sisters. The sisters of the princess you kissed awake, that’s Lilia.” It was funny; talking about Luke kissing Lilia awake didn’t bother her any more. It appeared to bother him though.
“About that, I don’t really know why I did it. It was a dumb thing to do; it just sort of came into my head when I saw her sleeping there. I honestly didn’t even begin to put in terms of true love and all of that until I was already asleep and having those dreams with you.”
It’s okay; I’m not upset about it. I get it, hot enchanted girl and all that.” She smiled to let him know she was teasing.
“Actually, she kind of looks like you.” Luke winked at her.
“It may be possible that your brain has been damaged by your sojourn here in the land of the fae,” Alex said severely. “Or love has made you truly blind. Not that I’m complaining, mind you.”
“I don’t know, you look pretty hot from this angle.” Luke snaked his hand up her arm and around her back, pulling her toward him and bending her back in a dramatic dip. “But you’ve always been pretty hot.”
Alex quirked an eyebrow as she looked up at him. “Oh really? Even in the ninth grade?” she asked, half-teasing, half-serious.
“Yes, definitely then. You have to know I was lying through my teeth about all of it. The thought of that tool Rick Matthews even thinking about you like that made me sick. I never meant for you to hear me say something so absolutely stupid.” His serious eyes searched hers. “You know it wasn’t true, right?”
“Yeah, I know.” And she did, Alex realized. If she hadn’t been so blinded by her own insecurities she might have seen Luke’s comments for what they were—a distraction. More importantly, she wouldn’t have let them affect her way they had. She wondered if she’d been ignoring the signs of her own magic because she’d been so convinced there wasn’t anything special about herself.
Luke smiled at her before leaning down and capturing her mouth in another kiss. She could really get used to this, Alex mused as his lips roamed over hers. The warm ball of magic inside her chest tried to expand, pushing at the barriers she’d placed around it. Apparently, kissing Luke ignited her power just like it did her hormones. She idly ran her fingers through the curls at Luke’s nape.
“Oh,” she broke off the kiss and looked at him, her eyes troubled. “I’m sorry you missed your trip.”
“My own fault,” he said brushing a stray strand of hair out of her face. “It’s pretty much just a formality anyway; I’ve already decided to go there.”
Alex frowned. “But I thought you got drafted.”
“Why Alexandra Martin, I didn’t think you were paying attention.”
She felt herself blushing. “I was trying not to, but I never quite managed,” she admitted. She sat back up, gazing at him seriously. “So why go to college then? You’re talented enough to go straight into professional baseball.”
“I thought about it,” Luke shrugged. “College is important to me though.” A teasing gleam came into his eyes. “Don’t think I can hack it?”
“Of course you can hack it; you’re almost annoyingly smart. School wasn’t ever really work for you, was it?” Alex laughed as he shrugged again. “That means yes,” she pointed out.
“It hasn’t been overly challenging, no. Besides,” his suddenly intense expression belied his lighthearted tone, “wouldn’t you respect me more if I got a degree?”
Alex felt something ache inside her chest. She carefully placed her hands on either side of his face and gazed straight into his eyes.
“I will respect you no matter wh
at you decide to do,” she whispered. “I love you. Always have I think.”
The warmth in Luke’s eyes would have melted her insides within a minute, but he leaned forward and captured her lips in a kiss that accomplished the job in the space of a heartbeat.
As Alex kissed Luke back, every emotion she’d felt in the last forty-eight hours paled in comparison to the heady feeling rushing through her. Her brain couldn’t quite focus on any one thing. The thought that her mom was going to freak out when she found out that Alex was dating Luke popped into her head. At least Alex assumed they were dating. Declarations of true love in magical realms most likely translated to good old-fashioned dating in the normal world. It might even make up for the tattoo. Maybe she should start the whole conversation off with the Luke news, thereby softening the whole ‘I’m magic and I have a tattoo’ revelation. This of course assumed they could actually get back to the normal world.
“We’re in the Fae Realm,” she gasped against Luke’s mouth.
“Hmm, what’s that,” he mumbled back without fully stopping the kiss.
She sat up, pulling her mouth away from his. “I said it off-handedly, that you were in the land of the fae, but that must be where Briar Rose’s garden is. It doesn’t just exist in a realm of its own, but it has to be in the Fae Realm, and so does this place. Which explains why my power is so much stronger here. I guess that part of me responds to it.”
“If this place is in the same realm as her stronghold, does she have access to it? Can she find us here?” Luke sat up straighter, looking warily at the edges of the forest that surrounded the clearing.
“Yeah probably. And I guess we could just march right up to her garden, if we had any idea how to find it again.”
Luke tensed. “Why in god’s name would we want to do that?”
“We still have to break the spell. If we don’t, we never get back home. And Briar Rose might still have some kind of power over you. Just because I brought you here doesn’t mean I broke her spell for good.”
