Lies in the Dark

by Robert J. Crane

  The forest all looked the same from overhead, just one great, big sea of different colored leaves. There were no discerning markers, no buildings. There weren’t even any bodies of water.

  Just how big was Faerie, anyway?

  I remembered Lockwood saying something about the trees, and how they would lead you astray. Was that why I couldn’t see anything?

  Before long, the faerie guards had begun their descent, but I couldn’t see anything below us that told me where we’d arrived. My heartbeat started to quicken, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up as we came closer and closer to the tops of the trees.

  Just as I was afraid that we were going to slam into these branches, the trees shimmered and disappeared, and the long, wide white road we’d traveled on before appeared beneath me like a landing strip.

  So the trees here were a glamour. Was that how this whole forest was?

  Fae waited on the road, too, as far as my eye could see below the glamour. If I thought the squadron that we were traveling with was large, it was nothing compared to what I saw here.

  The road stretched through tall trees and came to a stop at a bridge very similar to the one that Lockwood, Orianna and I had crossed when we fled from Stormbreak. It spanned a great river that rushed between the trees, sending spray up into the air.

  We were headed just beyond the bridge, over the border into neutral territory.

  The guards gave me a moment of slack in the chains to shake out my arms. I tried not to wince at the uncomfortable pins-and-needles sensation, not wanting them to see the discomfort I was in.

  But they didn’t give me long. Soon they were pulling me up the road, following the caravans of soldiers that were landing along the road from above, others crossing the bridge and into whatever lay beyond the green haze. It was a slow march under the glamour, and it took me a minute to realize what was happening.

  We were marching under the cover of the glamour to hide the movements of the Summer army.

  We approached the bridge, the roar of the river growing louder with every step. When we stepped onto the bridge, the bonds around my wrists vanished, and I gasped. The guards had anticipated this, however, and grabbed my wrists, clenching tightly.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “The spellbreak on the border. Magic needs to be reestablished on this side of the neutral territory,” the guard said, in a falsely confident tone. “A minor inconvenience.”

  Minor inconvenience, yeah, okay.

  Interesting. Not all magic worked in the neutral territory? Or it just dropped away at the border? Was that why the hospital and the camp surrounding it had been so well fortified?

  It was as if I’d stepped into a huge football stadium, but instead of a glass or steel dome overhead, it was leaves and branches, stretching up from trees that were hundreds of feet tall. The ground in front of us was clear, aside from the soldiers who were working to construct something.

  On the opposite end of this huge canopied clearing, there was another bridge just like the one we had crossed, and another white road stretching through the trees, until the green haze beyond consumed it. It was dark, almost as if it were twilight, but a number of tiny pixies were carrying glowing rocks overhead, creating a peaceful, ambient light, soft and comforting.

  I didn’t have much of a chance to figure out what the faeries were constructing, because I was dragged off to the side.

  There I saw a perfectly square box that looked as if it were made from pale blue glass atop a marble plinth. It was obvious that whatever was inside was meant to be displayed, like a trophy.

  Or, I realized with horror … whoever was inside.

  Because as I stared up at it, my eyes fixed on something gold slumped in the corner. Gold hair, gold dress.

  Orianna.

  The guards hoisted me up the stairs that ran up the back of the thick marble slab. With a touch of one their fingers, part of the glass wall vanished, and they pushed me inside.

  As soon as I whipped around, the glass was back in place, and the guards were walking back down the narrow marble steps.

  “Welcome to the cage, little Seelie,” Orianna said.

  I didn’t even care that she was trying to be scathing.

  I flopped down on the bottom of the glass box beside her, staring at her with wide eyes. She wasn’t slumped on the floor like I’d initially thought. Instead, she was curled up, forehead on her knees, arms wrapped around her legs, hugging them close.

  “Orianna, you’re okay,” I said, crawling up to her. My relief that she was all right kind of surprised me, especially given her nasty tone.

  She shifted her head so one gold eye could glare at me from beneath her flowing hair. “That’s relative.” Her voice was slightly muffled by her own legs. She hid her eye once more.

  “I thought … something terrible must have happened,” I said. “When I saw you hanging between those guard faeries.”

  “Yeah, well, they’re going to have to do more than throw me around to break me.” This she mumbled.

  “They … actually did that?” I asked. I hadn’t seen it, but it had probably happened before our flight.

  “You really don’t know anything, do you?” Orianna said, lifting her head so I could feel the full heat of her stare. Then her face slipped into a malicious smile, her eyes darkening.

  I sat back. So she still wanted to be that way, huh?

  “I’m glad you are all right,” I said. Because I was.

  “Oh?” Orianna rolled her large golden eyes and rested her forehead back on her knees. “I’m supposed to take the word of a human who’s been lying to me from the very beginning?”

  I really didn’t have the strength, or desire, to get into a debate with her about all of that again. Nor did I think it was important, given our circumstances.

  “No,” I said. “See, trust is something that you choose to give to a person. I realize that you and I haven’t built much of that … .that I haven’t earned yours, but I do think you should know that I never meant to hurt you in any of this.” I sighed heavily. “I just wanted to help my friend.”

  Orianna remained silent. I took that as a good sign, since she wasn’t lashing out at me in rage.

  “If you hadn’t come with us, this never would have happened to you, so … I’m sorry,” I said. Apologizing was always hard for me, but especially when I knew I needed to and really didn’t want to.

  It really was because of Lockwood and me that Orianna had ended up in this situation. It wasn’t fair to her, and she didn’t deserve to be treated the way that she had been just because she had gotten caught up with us.

  Guilt by association, right? It could have happened to anyone who had crossed our paths, though it had probably hit her all the harder because she was of Winter. I hoped that the farmer and that the shopkeeper in Stormbreak wouldn’t suffer for the small roles they’d played.

  “Yeah, well …” Orianna said. “It probably would have happened to me either way. Since I’m trapped between two kingdoms where they hate me. Really, nowhere in Faerie is safe for me …” Her voice trailed off.

  A strange lurch came from my heart, and I wondered if Lockwood would consider taking Orianna back to Earth with us, if he could somehow find a way to do it.

  I had to keep thinking positively, because if I didn’t, I was likely to lose my mind.

  I couldn’t get stuck here. I had to get out. I had to get home.

  We sat in silence for a little while, each of us absorbed in our own thoughts. Guards passed by, staring up into the glass cell like we were animals in a zoo. I gingerly touched the outer wall, and it gave a little bit, like sinking my hand into a memory foam mattress. It worked on the front wall, too.

  “It’s solidified magic,” Orianna said, watching me without much interest.

  “Like the Seelie court castle?”

  “Lockwood told you that, did he?” Orianna sighed. “Yes, it’s like the castle. It prevents me from using any magic becaus
e any sort of counter charm is built in already.” She smirked. “Too bad you don’t have any iron on you. We’d be able to break out of here in a second.”

  A faerie wanting iron?

  Maybe she had given up all hope.

  “So …” I tried again, sitting down and crossing my legs. “What exactly are they doing over there?” I asked, looking in the direction of all the faeries pounding large, thick wooden pillars into the ground.

  “Constructing the meeting site,” Orianna said.

  “Meeting site?” I asked. “For what?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “For whatever is happening.”

  I arched an eyebrow. “O … kay?”

  She rolled her eyes and huffed. “They’re building one of those tents like the hospital. It’s like a temporary meeting place, warded and everything. Lots of magic in place around it, and in it.”

  “But why didn’t we just stay at the castle?” I asked. “What’s the point of coming all the way into neutral territory?” I shuddered as I remembered the guards’ conversation from back at the checkpoint. “Some guard said that the war was probably going to start tonight. That can’t be true, right? I thought the Seelies would do everything they could to keep the peace.”

  Orianna snorted. “There’s been a war going on for months now. Sure, now they’ll formalize it, and it’ll be even more horrific, but it’s nothing new. After everything I’ve told you … after everything Lockwood has … how can you still think the Seelie are the good guys?”

  Well, I didn’t, really. “But wouldn’t they want to save face? You know, try to keep up the illusion that all is well?”

  “Did you not see that ball last night?” Orianna asked. “All of the glitz and beauty … to them, everything is always fine. Their illusion will hold, no matter how horrific it gets out here. The Summer lands, the Seelie beyond the border? They won’t even know anything is going on.”

  That hit me a little strangely, thinking that there’d be a vicious, total war happening here while the Seelie back in their country basically had no idea it was even going on. But, I supposed, that wasn’t exactly unheard of in my world, either. “I still don’t understand why we are all here,” I said, trying to drag my mind off that unhappy topic and onward. “I don’t get why this is turning into some huge processional. It doesn’t make any sense.” I pushed against the flexing magical glass. “Well … at least we’re safe from the war.”

  “Safe?” she said, golden eyebrow arching. “Wait … you’re not serious, are you?”

  “What?” I asked. “Of course I’m serious.”

  “We’re anything but safe here,” Orianna said. “Isn’t it obvious?” Her voice was soft and distant as she watched the faeries start to erect the white canvas-like material of the tent, pulling it over the top of the pegs.

  “Isn’t what obvious?”

  She looked up at me with sad eyes that reminded me way too much of Iona.

  “… We’re going to be executed.”

  I thought of all I knew of Orianna. Her flittering, her silliness, her slightly histrionic tendencies …

  This wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t a trick. She fully believed the words that were coming out of her mouth.

  And I suddenly found myself all the more afraid because of it.

  “Wait, no—” I said, sweat starting to bead up on my forehead. “They wouldn’t actually do that … would they? We haven’t done anything!”

  She ran a finger over the magical glass on her side of the cage. “Well, they’re definitely going to execute me. I’m an Unseelie who infiltrated their castle. Their inner sanctum. I was as good as dead when I set foot in there. It’s possible they could let you go, after you watch me get executed,” she said as if she were talking about the weather. “But more likely you’ll be right there with me.”

  My heart hammered in my ears, my head spun.

  No. No, no, no.

  Executed?

  My voice caught in my throat as I caught a glimpse of slate-blue hair and recognized a figure being dragged between two Seelie guards.

  Lockwood.

  I leapt forward, pressing my hands against the wavering glass.

  They dragged him closer, and my eyes stung with tears as I saw that he wasn’t conscious. His feet were splayed out behind him, his wings limp. They carried him as if he were already dead …

  “Well, that’s good news, I guess,” Orianna said. “If they brought him here, they might mean to kill him with us.” She pasted a slightly vicious smile across her face. “We can all die together. Yay.”

  Tears spilling onto my cheeks. “He isn’t already dead?”

  “Well, he isn’t far from it, it looks like,” she said.

  She wasn’t wrong.

  The Seelie guards tossed him onto the ground and walked away, as if leaving trash behind.

  Another guard stepped up. A shimmering halo appeared above Lockwood, and then the halo shot out beams of light that arched the ground below, locking him in a bright cage.

  Silvery blood painted his cheeks and his neck, and a large hole in the side of his shirt showed that he had been wounded there, too.

  “Somebody put him through the ringer …” Orianna muttered. “If you can actually see blood … it’s bad.”

  I could only stare at him, at a loss for words.

  He wasn’t dead, but he wasn’t in much better shape than that.

  “He wouldn’t be able to hear me if I called for him … could he?” I murmured.

  Orianna shook her head. “Afraid not.”

  I swallowed nervously, willing Lockwood to wake, willing him to give me a nod of encouragement.

  I needed him right now.

  I needed a friend.

  Chapter 31

  I watched Lockwood for a long time while the faeries constructed the rest of the tent. It took them some time, even with as many of them as there were. I stopped caring about what exactly this whole thing was for, the soldiers and the tent and the neutral territory.

  What did any of it matter if I was going to be dead in a short time, anyways?

  Lockwood lay motionless within the magical cage. I imagined that the cage would do something to his magic, preventing him from doing anything to set himself free even if he woke up. Orianna appeared to be done with our conversation. Having just curled herself into a small ball, she just sat there, as still as a statue.

  I had found myself in a lot of sticky situations in the past, but this one … trapped in the land of Faerie, slated for execution … yeah, this one seemed to take the cake. All I’d done was wander into this; it wasn’t like I’d taken a piece of iron and gone full Cassie and started staking Summer fae with it.

  But the Seelie were ruthless. I had seen as much.

  Not only that, but they seemed to be on the verge of starting a war and invading their neighbors, and somehow, Lockwood and I happened to be at the center of it. Whatever Lockwood’s secret was, it was the core of this whole thing going on.

  And time had run out for us to fix it all.

  I was impossibly far from home, with no way to even leave Mill or my parents a note about what had happened. They would just waltz into my room eventually, and see that I was gone. Maybe they would think I’d been kidnapped. Or that I ran away … uh, again, since I’d taken off to New York just weeks earlier.

  They would never know where I ended up. My face would show up on the side of milk cartons. I would forever be seventeen, and they would spend the rest of their lives wondering what had happened to me.

  Mill would never know, either, but might put the two and two together if he found Lockwood missing, as well. Maybe Lockwood had sense to leave something behind for him to find. Maybe Mill would deduce that Lockwood’s disappearance had something to do with the attack of the pixies.

  I hoped that he’d find some way to tell my parents that I was gone, and that I was likely never coming back, either. Give them closure.

  My hands trembled as I contemplated all this, sitt
ing in the corner of the glass cube.

  And the icing on the cake was that the last person I would ever get to speak to was Orianna. She still had her head on her knees, staring out the cage with the back of her golden head to me.

  I still didn’t feel like I had a very good read on Orianna. One minute she’d be silly, the next angry. Mercurial, that was the word.

  In spite of her more irritating qualities, I found myself growing warily fond of her. But was still super annoyed with her a pretty good portion of the time.

  I wondered idly if this what having a sibling was like.

  A couple of guards appeared and held their hands out in the direction of our little prison, and I tried desperately to hold on as the glass cube rose into the air.

  “What’s happening?” I asked.

  Orianna paled.

  The magic cube moved toward the giant tent they’d spent all that time erecting, then floated, a little less than gently, through the front flap. My fingers pressed against the magical bottom of the cage, the pressure turning them white.

  The tent was enormous and reminded me a little of the Seelie court where the ball had been held. Long, tall, and oval in shape, there were four thrones, two on either end of the room. A wading pond, perfectly round, lay in the very center of the room, no more than a foot or two deep.

  But it didn’t appear finished. Pixies were still zooming overhead, suspending glowing crystals in the air like little multicolored stars. Other faeries were arranging seats; there appeared to be enough room for a thousand or more inside.

  There was no ceiling, either. A bright sunlight sky shone overhead, with clouds of pink and orange, as if it were nearing sunset.

  They set our magical glass cube down on the other side of the pond, back on its marble plinth, which had floated in behind us. From here, raised above the ground, I could see the entire room.

  But, I realized, my stomach clenching, the whole room would be able to see us, as well. Bad time for my fear of public speaking to rear its ugly head. You’d think it would have taken a back seat to being executed, but the way my stomach was churning, apparently my body was too stupid to prioritize.