Awake: A Fairytale

by Jessica Grey

  “Isn’t us being in love enough to break it?”

  Alex loved the rush she got when Luke mentioned being in love with her.

  “No, we changed the terms of the spell; at least that’s what she said.” She laid her hand against the flowers nearest her and reached into herself, letting a little bit of power out the tightly wound ball she’d confined it to. She let it flow out of her arm into the dark, rich soil of the field and it whispered back to her in response

  To Alex it was nothing short of amazing how much more powerful she was here. Although, to be honest, she didn’t know how much of it was directly because of being in the Fae Realm, and how much of it was that she had accessed some heretofore unknown reservoir of power in herself. It was as if knowing that Luke loved her and she loved him had somehow located a place deep inside her that she hadn’t even known was missing. It was probably a combination of both. The very ground here seethed with magical possibility, and she could feel the power within her stronger and wilder than anything she had been able to create even when Becca’s and Lilia’s powers were combined with hers. Yet at the same time, Alex felt more in tune with and in control of it than she had previously. Its intensity was more exciting than frightening.

  And the magic whispering back to her was filling out an idea, fleshing out a strategy in her mind.

  “I have to go back and confront her,” she said decisively, standing up.

  Luke stood as well, regarding her seriously for a long moment before answering. “Lex, it makes me sick to my stomach to think of going back there and putting you in harm’s way like that. But if you are telling me that we have to do this—that it’s the only way, then I believe you.”

  “It is the only way, and the best way. But only I’m going back. You’re going to stay here,” she replied firmly.

  He stared at her for another minute before erupting into laughter.

  “What?” she asked defensively.

  “You don’t seriously think I’m letting you go back by yourself?” Luke was still laughing, and Alex glared at him. “There is no way. I go with you or you don’t go.”

  Alex deliberately ignored the little thrill that ran through her at Luke’s words. “I don’t want you to get hurt,” she explained stiffly. “This is the best way to ensure that you stay safe.”

  “Short stuff, I appreciate that, but if you’re hurt it hurts me too.”

  “Luke, I’m serious. I can feel that my power is a lot stronger here, but I don’t know if it’s strong enough if she decides to fight me. I don’t know if I can protect you. I’m talking about life and death here.”

  Luke grabbed Alex’s upper arms firmly enough that she couldn’t wiggle away from him, but his hands felt warm and gentle, the heat seeping through the sleeves of her dress. His clear blue eyes looked into hers with an intensity that reignited the slow burn in her middle. Alex wasn’t entirely sure if it was magic or desire.

  “Lex, I know we are talking about life and death. If you die, I’d rather die with you. I cannot and I will not let you go off to battle her alone. Do you understand?”

  “Fine,” Alex snapped, more to cover the fact that she was melting into a puddle of goo in his arms than with any real fire. “And if you get yourself killed, I will kill you.”

  He grinned down at her. “It’s a deal; you are more than welcome to kill me once I’m already dead.” He bent his head, lifting her slightly so that she didn’t have to stretch as far to meet his kiss.

  The kiss was sweetness, light, and urgency all wound up into one, but there was a desperate edge to it as well—as if it could be their last—a goodbye. Every cell in Alex’s body rebelled at the thought. She refused to even think it, and yet she could taste it there, just on the edge of Luke’s searching lips. Before she could change her mind, and before the whisper of goodbye could fully find its way into this one, almost perfect kiss, she reached down into herself, let the fierce, wild magic free and fixed her mind on the white columns of Briar Rose’s garden.

  ~ Chapter Twenty ~

  ALEX AND LUKE were standing on the top step leading up to the white marble colonnade at the far end of Briar Rose’s garden. Alex had guessed that it wasn’t just a free standing row of columns, but actually a portico that led into a building of some kind, and she was right. It led into Briar Rose’s house, or castle, or stronghold; she wasn’t sure what to call it as she couldn’t see most of it. It faded mysteriously right past the entrance, the edges of which shimmered in a manner that she immediately recognized.

  Briar Rose had a concealing and distracting spell on her place of residence. It wasn’t strong enough to fool even the weakest fae, which heartened Alex greatly. Briar Rose didn’t have much respect for the petite-fae. The fact that she thought Alex could be dissuaded by such a paltry spell proved the fae was still severely underestimating her power.

  Off to the side the rose garden was quiet. No writhing vines, no evil fae lurking, just an abundance of absolutely breathtaking roses. It looked kind of like a magazine cover, thought Alex, if she could view it dispassionately and not as the scene of their recent near demise. The whole experience had put her off roses forever. If she never saw one again it would be too soon.

  “Look,” Luke said softly, nodding his head. There was a large, scorched circle of earth right in the heart of the garden. The rose bushes closest to it were dead and withered, looking as if they’d been caught on the edges of some huge fire, the flames licking close enough to kill them, but not close enough to completely incinerate them. “You did that.”

  Alex giggled quietly in spite of the seriousness of the situation. “Or you did that to me.” She poked him in the ribs and then pointed at the large, ornate doors that marked the entrance to Briar Rose’s stronghold. “Can you see that? The big doors?” she asked.

  “Um, no. I don’t see any doors, but I trust that you do. So lead on.” Luke slid his hand into Alex’s, or really hers into his, as his engulfed her smaller hand. Alex felt a little bit overwhelmed by the trust he placed in her, but nodded and began walking toward the doors. She wasn’t quite sure how she was going to open them, but she didn’t need to worry. Briar Rose had been content enough with her spell that she hadn’t bothered to seal or lock them in any way and all Alex had to do was pull on the large handle and the doors swung open silently.

  A long dark hallway stretched before them as they took a tentative step through the door. There was a chance, Alex thought, that even though she couldn’t see any spells, the house could alert its mistress to their presence. She stood inside the door for a moment, half expecting Briar Rose to materialize in front of them and smite them where they stood.

  But nothing happened. The hallway remained dark and silent. Alex let a little bit of the power escape from the bright ball inside her chest and sent tendrils of it down the hallway. Lilia had said that Briar Rose had a lot of herself invested into the spell on the bed. And the three sisters had said she’d be strongest within her already existing spells. That much magical output had to leave a trace.

  There it was.

  Alex led Luke down the hallway, and then down another. The ancient stone walls were bare. There were no windows, and the air felt slightly stale. She kept going, following the tendrils of her magic that flowed along in front of them like an invisible thread leading the way.

  After a while she lost count of the hallways and the number of twist and turns. They finally came to the end of one hall that appeared to dead-end into a wall. But she followed the thread sharply to the right and without faltering started up an almost hidden, steep, winding staircase.

  Luke hadn’t spoken a word, just followed behind her, occasionally squeezing her hand in reassurance, and he didn’t say anything as they climbed the stairs. It felt like it took forever. Alex was short of breath after only a few minutes, and by the time they reached the top, what seemed like a half hour later, she was panting for breath. She wasn’t sure if she was impressed or irritated by the fact that Luke wasn’t winde
d at all. He caught her look and grinned at her.

  “Coach is a real bear about conditioning drills,” he whispered.

  “Let’s just hope there aren’t any more stairs,” she whispered back. But there wouldn’t be. It was there. Yet another hall stretched in front of them and at the end of it was a solid, wooden door. Alex could feel the power pulsing out from behind it—the heavy, worked magic of a very powerful and very old spell.

  Luke followed the line of her vision. “There?” he asked. At her nod he added, “Do we just go in?”

  “Yes.” She started toward the door, but Luke remained where he was, so she only got a few steps away before she was pulled up short. She turned back to look at him inquiringly.

  “Whatever happens,” he said in a low voice, his gaze steady on hers, “I have total faith in your power. You’ve always had it. I could tell even when you were young that you were different and special, and I’ve always loved that about you.” He gave her a quick kiss. The magic inside her responded like it always did when he kissed her, and the tattoo on her wrist burned with a cold, tingling fire. “Okay, let’s go.”

  Alex stared up at him for a moment, then nodded and turned back to face the door and whatever lay behind it. She was still amazed by his level of trust and even more amazed that she felt equal to the task. It was entirely possible they both were completely delusional, but doubts were better left off the battle field. She squared her shoulders, reached for the door and swung it open.

  Alex wasn’t sure what she had expected, she had a vague idea that a spell as powerful as the one holding the bed together had to have some sort of an echo or double in the Fae Realm, but she hadn’t expected the spell to have an almost physical manifestation.

  She heard Luke’s sharp intake of breath. She agreed silently that it was a pretty awe-inspiring sight. The spell hung heavy in the air, hovering a few inches off the stone floor. It was woven tightly and crazily, threads of magic twisted in and over on themselves to create reinforcement at weak places. It pulsed with a myriad of colors and shapes, and yet it looked somehow just like the bed in the storage room at the museum, except living, writhing, and semi-transparent.

  In the middle of the spell, strands of dark magic twining over them, were the hazy outlines of Alex’s and Luke’s bodies. It was a strange and disturbing sight to see the shimmering and almost see-through forms, knowing that they were their physical bodies, trapped back in the real world in Briar Rose’s magical bed.

  Alex attempted to ignore the chill that chased down her spine at the sight of their bodies and ran her eyes over the spell critically, looking for weaknesses. She could see the reinforced places, the patterns that repeated, the places where it had frayed at the edges. It was like looking at a road map to Briar Rose’s mind. She could feel her own magic, barely constrained in her chest, speaking into her mind, helping her understand the way each strand of the fae’s magic fit together. The really weird part was that she could see places where she would have changed the spell, woven it together differently if she had been working it. Instead of the mass of magic in front of her intimidating her, she looked at it as one artist critiquing another’s work.

  It was this spell that was keeping them prisoner here—the reason Alex couldn’t just close her eyes and wish them back to the mortal world. She could break it by force, but the backlash from that amount of power, especially as their physical, and very fragile, bodies lay right in the middle of it, could destroy them right along with it. Or the terms of the original enchantment had to be met. Briar Rose had claimed that Luke had altered the rules of the spell when he had resisted the pull of Alex’s kiss, but as she searched within the woven magic for an alteration, a newer thread, a pattern that didn’t fit within the others, she couldn’t find one.

  “Do you actually wish to die then? Is that why you invade my sovereign territory?” The cold voice cut through the small stone room.

  Briar Rose appeared in front of Luke and Alex, between them and the spell. Luke squeezed Alex’s hand tighter but gave no outward sign that the fae’s appearance had startled him. Alex, for her part, wasn’t startled. She was getting used to the continuous vibrations of magic emanating from nearly everything around her. Used to it enough that she had noticed the change in the hum and patterns of the ambient magic a full second before Briar Rose appeared, and was therefore expecting her. She regarded Briar Rose coolly for a moment.

  “You can certainly try to kill us,” Alex said, her voice flat and uninterested. She felt Luke squeeze even harder on her hand at that and gave him a quick reassuring squeeze back. “But it strikes me that you have two very serious problems.”

  Briar Rose had obviously not been expecting such a fearless and direct response. Her face registered surprise, then uncertainty, for just a fraction of a second.

  “And what would those be, pray tell?” she asked, a lilt of laughter in her voice, as if she had decided to humor Alex.

  “Well, your first problem would be that here we are, in extremely close proximity to that monstrosity of a spell you’ve woven and spent nearly nine hundred years protecting. If you attack us, I will fight back. Pretty damn hard. I don’t know if I can beat you outright, but I do know that if the backlash doesn’t take this thing down, I can, and will, rip it to shreds before I die.” Alex spoke the words evenly and calmly. She somehow knew, deep within herself, that she could destroy it. Of course the cost of that destruction might be a huge price to pay, but if it really was their last alternative then they’d pay it.

  “I think you underestimate how quickly I can kill you, here in my own house.” The words were full of bravado, but Alex could detect the slight quake in the fae’s voice. Briar Rose had invested so much time, and so much of herself in the spell, that the thought of it being damaged definitely disturbed her. Briar Rose glanced away from Alex at the bed spell. “And what is my second problem?”

  Alex smiled. Briar Rose was stalling, searching for a way to get her as far away from the spell as possible before attempting to kill her. The ploy was obvious. Briar Rose didn’t care what Alex thought her other problem was. But Alex had no problem telling her. It was her best, and only other, card to play. The reason that she had come back and sought out the bed spell. The certainty that had formed in her mind as the magic in the field whispered into her mind.

  “Even you have to play by the rules.”

  Briar Rose narrowed her eyes. They were icy blue like Lilia’s, but hard in a way that Lilia’s could never be. The look she sent Alex should have frozen her on the spot. “I do not know what you are talking about, mortal,” she mocked.

  Alex felt the flicker in the pattern of magic, the piece that suddenly vibrated at a different frequency. “Nice diversionary tactic,” she said to Briar Rose. “You can tell your vines they aren’t going to make it to us though.” Alex let some of her power seethe out of the constraint she had put on it. It coursed through her, gleaming and bright, as she silently commanded the door behind them to close and seal itself with a protection spell.

  Briar Rose’s expression didn’t change, but Alex could feel her withdraw her power from the vines racing down the hallway toward what had been the open door at their backs.

  “You know that I’m not just mortal. Part, maybe even a large part,” she continued. “But enough of your sister’s blood runs through my veins. Which is why you are even here. You want to destroy me to destroy a part of her, just like you tried to do with Lilia. But unfortunately for you, there are rules, and the funny thing is you made them yourself. It was actually just a cruel little joke wasn’t it? To give Queen Liliana hope that her daughter would be awakened by her true love? A little dig at her because she’d renounced her magic for love.”

  Briar Rose continued to stare at her silently, but her right hand, held casually down near her skirt was beginning to twitch, as if she was longing to release her power and burn Alex down where she stood, which she probably was. Alex took a bold step closer to Briar Rose, tugging Luke with
her, bringing them in even closer proximity to the spell. Briar Rose clenched her fist and Alex smiled sweetly at her.

  “You didn’t even believe in true love when you made it part of the spell…probably still don’t. You never intended to let her wake up. What was your plan? Maintain this much magic forever? Was this much drain on your power worth taunting your sisters with false hope?”

  “By the heavens, you can prattle on,” Briar Rose bit off the words. “What is your point? You think I am just going to let you go now, because this boy has said he loves you? You cannot be quite as stupid as you appear.”

  “I don’t think you have a choice,” Alex replied. “It’s either stick by the original terms or you work against your own magic. I might have only been recently introduced to magic, but I know it’s as self-determining as you or I. You cannot weave it a certain way and then go back on it. It will still play by the rules.”

  “You obviously do not understand the first thing about magic,” Briar Rose changed tactics yet again. “But I could, of course, teach you, if you wanted to learn from a master.”

  Alex felt Luke shift beside her like he was preparing to step between her and Briar Rose. Which was sweet, but kind of annoying. Did he think she was going to fall at the fae’s feet and cry “Oh yes, please teach me all about your deep, dark, evil magic?” Alex shot him a look and he stopped moving. He sent her a quick, apologetic smile, and she understood how hard it was for him to stand silently by while she was threatened.

  “Tempting as that is not,” she bit off sarcastically, “I don’t need to be taught about the rules of magic by you. I can see it right there in your spell. You wove it in there, even if it was just a sick little joke, and now the magic is bound that way. It’s going to play by the rules. That has to be disappointing for you. I really wish I could sympathize, but it’s kind of hard when you’re so intent on killing me and everyone I care about. The enchantment may have been thwarted temporarily by Luke here, but it wasn’t altered. After so many centuries I am not sure even the strongest fae could alter it. And right now, you aren’t the strongest. It must be costing you a lot to be stopping it right now, to be keeping it from setting us free.”