by ERIN BEDFORD
“It’s me, Cheshire.” I started taking a few cautious steps forward. “We both got sent to the Shadow Realm when Kat said the spell.”
“Spell?” the word came out of all three of their mouths, but I only heard one voice. The prince’s. Good, we were making progress.
“You remember, you decided to join the Shadows and became a certified boarding ship for their magic. Then Kat sent you here, unfortunately, as a side effect of that, I ended up in the Shadow Realm too.” I shrugged and sighed. “Nothing seems to go the way we plan it. Oh well.”
This time only the prince’s form had a reaction. His lips pursed together, and he stepped away from the two women. The moment he cleared them they dissipated. As he walked over to where I stood his expression was still that of confusion. It seemed we weren’t as far along as I thought.
“Cheshire?”
“Yep, that’s me. Cheshire S. Cat, at your service.” I gave a mock bow to him with a cheeky grin.
“What’s happened?” he looked around like it was the first time he had truly noticed his surroundings. “Why are we in the Orchard?”
I pointed a finger at him. “That’s all on you and your conscious. I had nothing to do with it; I’m just along for the ride.”
His eyes darted around as mine had moments ago. Panic filled his face, and I took a small step toward him. He shook his head side to side, his dark hair whipping around him. His hands shook. He gripped his face and started muttering to himself.
“Look, don’t have a meltdown now; we have to get out of here.” I placed my hands on his shoulders, forcing him to look at me. “I won’t be able to get out of your head until we get those Shadows out of here. And as much as I enjoy watching you torture yourself, I’d rather not spend forever with only you as company. Got it?”
He visibly swallowed but nodded, the panic not completely gone from his eyes. “All right.” His words came out raspy and tight. “What do we have to do?”
“Well, first,” I clapped him on the shoulders before dropping my hands, “we need to figure out where in your mind the Shadows are holding up. Then, we can figure out how to get rid of them.”
The prince didn’t say anything as I tried to think of where they would go. Could they be back at my Willow Tree? Did it even exist here? Before I could try to think up any other options the prince spoke up.
“I think I know where they are.”
“You do?” my eyes lit up with surprise, “well, don’t hold back. Where are they?”
He let out a huff as if frustrated with my question. “I do not know exactly where they lie, but I have this feeling,” he touched his stomach with his fingertips, “inside of my gut that is pulling at me. And I feel that if we follow it we will find them.”
Frowning at his description, but not really having any other ideas, I gestured forward. “Very well, your highness, you lead the way.”
“Dorian.”
“What?” I cocked my head to the side, not understanding what he was saying to me.
“My name is Dorian. Not prince, not your highness. If you are going to be rummaging through my head you might as well know my real name.”
I knew to most Fae giving their real name in this day and age was a big deal. The fact that he entrusted it to me said a lot, especially since he didn’t really care for me. Since I didn’t have another name but my own, half-breed advantage and all, I played it off as nothing.
“Let’s not get all mushy now, get going, there are people waiting for us.” I gave him a little shove with my tail as I crossed my arms over my chest.
Dorian started walking toward the entrance to the queen’s garden. As I followed behind him, he started to ask questions.
“How long have I been in here?”
“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “We’ve been in the Shadow Realm for about six human months now, so I imagine you’ve probably been asleep this whole time.”
“I’m asleep? I don’t remember even going to the Shadow Realm, let alone falling asleep.” He maneuvered around the green hedges and into the main part of the garden.
I had only come to the queen’s garden once in my life. It wasn’t really somewhere I cared to be, or somewhere I was welcome, but the time I had come I remembered vaguely wondering about the statue in the middle. Now that I had spoken to the Reaper I knew what that statue signified.
The tree was the seed he had stolen. The two women were the two queens of the Underground and lastly, the man was the Reaper himself. The statue depicted a story that was never told and one that really needed to be.
“I love my mother’s garden,” the prince, I mean, Dorian commented. His eyes wandered around the area. “I haven’t seen it in years. Not since I was exiled. Lynne, I mean, Kat,” he caught himself and paused before saying, “she told me to visit my mother since I was now free, but I never did. I was too worried about getting Kat back, thinking I’d have all the time in the world to reunite with my mother. But I didn’t know how wrong I was, I didn’t even have a chance, did I?”
He looked back at me and I choked. What the hell do you say to the guy who has been trying to steal your girl for the last year? Yeah, sure, she was his first, but she wasn’t the same person she was back then. I sure as hell wouldn’t have fallen for her if she had been. From what I heard, the princess was about as fun as the queen herself.
“I don’t know what kind of chance you had, to be honest,” I tried to give him a sympathetic smile, but it came out as more of a grimace, “I just know who she is now, not who she used to be.”
He made a humming noise before he held a finger up in thought. “That’s what my problem has been. She kept telling me she wasn’t Lynne, and I kept thinking she would change back into the woman I loved, but it was foolish of me to try to change her.”
“Well, look at it this way,” I walked past him toward the entrance to the palace, “you loved her enough to try and get her back. Many would have forgotten their love after so long. Holding on like you did shows loyalty, commitment. One day you’ll find someone else that will value those aspects.” I gave him a fanged tooth grin. “If not you can always flaunt your Fae crown at them and watch them come running.”
Dorian actually laughed at my words, making me feel weird inside. Who was this new prince I was seeing? Where was the broody, cruel, bastard I loved to hate? As I followed him into the palace, I wondered which one was the real him, the one I saw now, or the one he showed the world?
The moment we stepped into the palace I knew we were on the right track. My skin prickled with goose bumps, the sense of evil was thick in the air. Both of our gazes trained to the top of the stairs, where the Shadows had to be.
“Do you feel that?” Dorian asked me, as he moved toward the staircase. “I’ve never felt something so powerful. So malevolent.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, my feet slowly moving up behind him. My ears twitched on my head as I tried to keep alert to anything that might jump out at us. My tail wrapped around my leg showing my anxiety in the moment. I didn’t want to go up those stairs, but I knew I had to.
Each step made the air thicker and harder to breathe over the power being exuded. We were getting closer to them. That meant soon it would all be over. At least I hoped.
Dorian stopped in front of a door that I didn’t recognize. I’d never been to the palace and now was not really the time to be sightseeing. Instead of wondering what it was in the real world, I worried what was behind it here.
When Dorian twisted the handle and swung the door in, my worst fear was realized, and the reason we were here was before us.
The Shadows.
Chapter 17
Kat
I RAN UNTIL my legs gave out on me, and I collapsed in the middle of the fog. I heaved in air until I was on the verge of hyperventilating. Glancing around, I realized I couldn’t see a fucking thing. The hand in front of my face was barely visible and it was touching my nose. If that wasn’t bad enough, my
emotions were running rampant, like a twister inside of me.
What the hell did I just do? Sure, Morgana had been trying to kill me, but I had never lost control to that point. The last time I almost killed someone had been with Tick, but Alice was there to stop me. I thought for sure this time I was going to kill her but then what was up with that tear?
It wasn't like me to get emotional like that. Was my own inner conscience telling me to stop or something else altogether? Either way, the panic inside me from almost committing murder slowly started to dissipate, and then with it, the effects of the fog started seeping in.
A sick feeling settled into the pit of my stomach, and I found it hard to breathe again. The overwhelming urge to just curl up into a ball had me frozen in place.
What the hell was this? I'd been so overwhelmed by my own emotions that I hadn't noticed anything else around me. As I ran into the fog I hadn't thought anything of it. Thoughts whirled through my mind that weren’t my own. I didn't belong here. I shouldn't be here.
Paralyzed where I was, I grasped my head with my hands. I rocked back and forth in a soothing motion, but it didn't help. I didn't know long I had been here, or when it would end, but the thought of trying to move at all was terrifying.
Eventually, muffled voices filled the silence, but I could barely hear them over my own dread. I had closed my eyes tight, so I didn't know the figures were approaching me until they are right on me.
“Pathetic,” squawked a voice, but I couldn’t bring myself to care enough to look up.
“I'll bring her inside,” another voice griped.
Something slid underneath me that was soft against the surface of my skin and then I was lifted into the air. Clutching onto whatever I could hold onto, I popped my eyes open to see a brightly colored floral dress beneath my hands.
I'd seen this dress before. My eyes lit up at the realization and then they shot to the face of the person carrying me, or persons I should say.
Type and Gripe, the two-headed sister bird that worked the reception desk in the Between, stared down at me. “Oh, you're awake. We thought we lost you there in the fog.”
“Put her down, sister. She can walk,” Gripe demanded letting go of my legs suddenly causing them to drop to the ground and me to stumble to my feet. It was then I noticed that the fear I'd been feeling had disappeared. Looking around I realized I was no longer standing in the fog but in a clear pathway that was only around them.
Waving my hands around in confusion, I asked them, “Why aren't you being affected by the fog? It's not even touching you.”
“That's because we're supposed to be here, you aren't.” Type gave me a know-it-all look as if I was supposed to know that.
“So, then, why are you guys here? Everyone thought you got taken by the Shadows.”
“Ha, like they care about us. No, we got exiled by the queen.”
“Like it was our fault that the Shadows killed two of her men and busted down the doors,” Gripe crossed one arm over their chest and huffed, “like we were supposed to be able to stop it? It's hardly fair.”
“I'm happy to see that you're okay,” I half-heartedly said as I followed them through the fog, which precariously cleared around us with each step. “How do you know where you're going?”
“You're just outside of our home. We heard you screaming from over there.” Type gestured with a wing.
“Your home?”
“Of course, where else do you think we live? Just because we're stuck here doesn't mean that we don’t have some amenities,” Type continued as we moved out of the fog and into an open area. It looked like the mirror graveyard and the hovel that were in Morgana’s area.
Gripe snorted in response to her sister’s words, “If you can call them amenities.”
“Now, sister, you should be happy we have anything at all. We could be stuck in one of those stupid mirrors. Or worse yet, like the prince.”
At the mention of Dorian, my ears perked up. “The prince? Did he come through here? How was he? Was he still...”
“Taken over by the Shadows? Yeah,” Gripe squawked, waving her wing in the air, “He breezed through here causing a ruckus and was picked up by the Reaper. They headed back to his place...about…I don't know. How long has it been, sister?”
“Oh, how should I know? I don’t even know how long we’ve been stuck here. I have no clue how long it's been since we saw him.” Type glanced at me over her glasses with a pointed look. “It's been awhile, dearie.” As if that answered anything at all.
“All right, then, how do I get to the Reaper’s?”
At my words the sisters’ laughed, putting their hands on their stomach, and throwing their heads back. They laughed quite a bit longer than I thought was necessary for the situation. When they finally stopped, Type said, “Missy, you don't go to the Reaper, he goes to you. Besides, none of us know how to get to where he lives anyways.”
“Except that horrible woman, Morgana,” Gripe jumped in, making me groan.
Great, the one person I needed help from was the person I had almost popped the eyeballs from her head. I wasn't going back there. So the only thing left for me to do was go forward, but since I couldn't get through the fog without the sisters’ there with me, I didn't really have much of a choice but to get the sisters’ to be my guide.
“Stop that, we know what you was thinking,” Gripe waved a feathered arm in the air, “Don't even look at us. Even if we knew where the Reaper was, we wouldn't take you there. No way, no how. Not on purpose.”
“What else am I supposed to do?”
Type gave her sister a look that caused a muttering argument between the two.
“No, I don't want to.”
“But she needs help.”
“He tried to eat us last time.”
“But she could talk to the queen to get us out.”
Gripe let out a frustrated growl, throwing her arm up in the air before turning her head away, while Type turned to me.
“There is one other person that could probably help you get to the Reaper’s.”
“Well, why didn't you say so?” I almost jumped for joy at the prospect of not having to ask Morgana for help. “I thought you said only Morgana knew how to get there.”
“Well, that wasn't entirely true. This other person doesn't really like to be disturbed.”
Gripe spoke up at that, “Ha! Doesn't like visitors my fanny. If you were a gorgeous High Fae he’d give you the time of day in a minute flat,” she snapped her fingers, “But that Cheshire is just as bad as his son. Trying to pollinate all of the flowers.”
“Cheshire? You mean Chess’ father? I met him through the mirror before I got here. Take me to him, he’ll help me, I know it.”
“That's where I draw the line. I'm not going anywhere near that mangy cat. No way, no how.” Gripe waved her wing in the air, an unrelenting look on her face.
“I can’t go into the fog on my own. I need you,” I pleaded with the sisters’.
Type looked at her sister and then back to me, her face torn between what to do. Finally, after what felt like forever, a light came on in her eyes.
“Ow!” Gripe yelled as Type pulled a feather from her neck. “What you do that for?”
“Here.” Type handed the feather to me and I hesitantly took it into my grasp.
“What's this for?” Unless I was looking to make a feather boa or have some naughty fun, I really didn't see the point of them giving me their feather.
“Try to walk into the fog. Go, go.” Type ushered me forward with a flip of her hand.
I cocked an eyebrow but then slowly made my way back to the edge of the fog. Before I could even place one foot inside of it everything inside of me screamed for me to turn back the other way. I had to mentally prep myself to even think about moving into it. Closing my eyes tight, I forced my foot to step into the fog. I waited for that sick feeling to come over me again, but it never came.
My eyes popped open, and I looked around myself, but the fog wasn't there. Just like before when I had been with the sisters’, the area around me was clear of the mist, and I could move through it without getting paralyzed.
“Hey, it worked!” I turned back to them and raised my hands up in the air.
Type nodded her head. “Just as I thought. The magic doesn't require the whole person to be in the fog. You just need part of their essence. So hold on to that feather tight and you'll be able to find your way to the cat, who can then help you get to the Reaper’s.”
Keeping a tight grip on the feather, I nodded my head at the sisters’ in thanks and then turned on my heel, heading out into the foggy sea. I'm almost there Chess. Just hold on. I told myself as I trekked forward into the fog.
After a few minutes, I had no idea where I was going. I was completely lost. The sisters’ had helped me find a way to get through the fog without it touching me, but they hadn't exactly told me how to get to Cheshire.
Growling in frustration, I gripped my hair and tried to think what to do. I could spend hours out here going in circles and never getting any closer. How could I get a direct line to him? I needed a beacon or guided trail.
That's when I remembered what Cheshire said to me in the mirror. Chess and my connection would help me find the way. Maybe this is what he meant? I just needed to concentrate on my magic and find where he was.
Releasing the breath I was holding, I closed my eyes, dug deep down to my magic and into the hole in my chest where Chess used to be. At first I thought it wasn't working and then suddenly I felt something. A familiar twinge that set my eyes shooting up and my feet moving forward.
I knew exactly where he was; I didn't need to go to his dad at all. I kept moving forward, my feet leading the way until the ground beneath my feet turned into stone and the fog around me dissipated. A large Coliseum like building that reminded me of those monuments they had in Greece, stood before me. It only made sense that it was the Reaper’s home. Since he was pretty much the lord of the dead it was only fitting that he'd have a palace.
My feet made no sound as I made my way across the stone path surrounded by water. I tried to keep my eye on the prize, and by that, I meant Chess’ hunky form, but a light caught my attention, drawing my gaze from the entrance to the Greek palace to the water along the path. Swirling blue objects swam in the water. My lips ticked up as I realized they looked like some kind of magical sperm.
