by H. D. Gordon
“Of course, your Majesty.”
King William flung his teacup against the wall so hard and so fast that Thomas could not help but cringe in his seat. The china hit the silk-papered wall with a crash and left a splatter of thick black liquid, as if some enormous demon insect had been smashed there. “Then spare me your lies, Thomas. You did not say anything because you were protecting the boy. Luckily for you I have managed to come up with a way to use your oversight as an advantage.”
Thomas held his expression carefully still. “What is that, your Majesty?”
Instead of answering, King William asked, “How close are you to your son, Thomas? How strong is your…hold over him?”
Thomas felt like he had to speak over the thundering sound of his heart. “He is a good son,” he said. “He listens to me…most of the time.”
“And you love your boy, Thomas? You love him the same as I loved my son?”
“Of course.”
King William gave him a smile that made Thomas’s bones feel cold. “Good. That’s very good,” the King said. “Then you will surely jump at the chance to save him from his…indiscretions…a chance to redeem himself.”
Thomas felt now like some of the air had been let back into the room. “Yes, your Majesty. Of course I want that.”
The door to the office open and in stepped Andre. Thomas’s head jerked around and his eyes widened when he saw the look on the enormous Warrior’s face. King William gave Andre and nod, and he came forward and seized Thomas before he even had a chance to blink.
“Let us hope that your son loves you as much as you love him, Thomas,” King William said. “I would hate for you to have to know the pain of a child’s betrayal. Such pain can tend to make a father… lose his head.”
Thomas’s face scrunched up in horror. “What are you going to do, William? What are you going to do?”
The King gave another terrible smile. “I’m not going to do anything, Thomas. You are going to make your son an offer he will not refuse. Hopefully, that is, for both of your sakes.”
Alexa
Nelly and I walked down the red path that led to the silver lake. I clutched her hand in mine and tried to concentrate on my breathing. Few people were out this morning, but the ones we passed took great pains to avoid coming too near, and those who were accompanied by someone leaned their heads together and whispered things that I was glad I couldn’t hear. Only the Pixies seemed willing to pass directly by us, and some of them did so with sheepish glances at me, as if they felt bad about shoving me over the border last night and now were trying to make it up to me by crossing our path directly. It was a wonder to me that the sun could even be shining on such a day, but then I realized that that same sun had seen more death and heartache in its lifetime than I would ever see in mine, and it had no choice but keep on blazing.
Just like I had no choice in the matter.
Nelly’s hand was warm and steady in my own, and I knew that this may be the last time that I ever held her hand in mine, the last time the sunlight would ever fall on both of our faces in the same moment. I wanted to speak with her. There were still many things left unsaid, but I was afraid that if I opened my mouth nothing would come out but sobs. I could not afford to cry right now.
“You never asked me about Mom,” Nelly said, her gentle voice low and heavy.
I swallowed once and took a deep breath. “I guess I saw no reason to.”
Nelly was silent for a time, and we passed slowly by the cabins and red maples that lined the paths. “Well, I want you to know, even if you don’t want to, that I didn’t kill her, Alexa.” Nelly’s voice caught and shook on those last words.
I looked over at her now and smiled as truly as I could manage, hating the pain that was present in her hazel eyes. I knew that my next words would be a lie, but they would be a white lie, one I had no problem telling because I knew that it was something that Nelly needed to hear. “I never thought you did, Nell.”
“Don’t you want to know what happened, then?”
I shrugged, realizing only in that moment that I was already over our Mother’s death. It didn’t really surprise me. My Mother and I had had a…complicated relationship. If anything, it was Jackson I was grieving. He was the one that made my chest burn and my soul ache when I thought about him. My Mother had been no Jackson, that was for sure. That didn’t mean that I had wanted her dead, or wouldn’t have saved her if I’d had the chance, it was just that in the grand scheme of things, it didn’t really seem to…matter. None of it really seemed to matter.
“If you want to tell me,” I said, seeing that Nelly was still waiting for my answer.
She took a deep breath. “I do want to tell you. I just don’t know if it will even make sense. I…I woke up in that van and blood was the first thing that I smelled. I-Oh, Lex, it made my stomach growl with need, that smell. It was so sharp and fresh and–” Nelly paused, swiping a tear away that had fallen from her eye, “and I wanted to taste it so bad. The whole time that the Lamia part of me had control was like that. I remember everything I did, Lex. I remember all of it, and I wish more than anything that I didn’t. But I also remember that I didn’t kill her. I didn’t kill Mom.”
My head tilted. “What happened, Nell?”
More tears fell from her eyes now, but she just let them be. “I woke up and Bethany and Mom were fighting. Bethany had a knife, and she must have surprised Mom with it because she was bleeding from a cut on her arm. In that state I could see everything, you know? I could hear thoughts and see souls and touch them without even trying. They were a constant, endless stream in my head. Bethany was planning to ‘kill the Accursed girl’ and be named a hero by the King. Mom was trying to stop her—would have stopped her—if I hadn’t woken up and distracted her for the split second that Bethany needed to stab the blade into her heart.”
Nelly sniffed and continued. “I killed her, Alexa. Without any thought in the matter at all. I took her neck between my fangs and tore her throat out and drank her blood until her veins went dry. Then…I drank from Mom, too, but she was already dead.”
I did my best to keep the horror off of my face. Wrapping my arm around Nelly’s shoulder, I held her close as we walked. “You didn’t know what you were doing, Nell. It’s not your fault you couldn’t control it. It wasn’t you. It was…that other part of you.”
Nelly shook her head. “That’s just an excuse, Lex. It doesn’t matter what part of me did it. It was still me. Placing the blame on some monster that lives inside of me doesn’t make me any less responsible for all I’ve done.”
This statement seemed to knock me sideways, and I shoved it out of my head before I could give it much thought. It was as if my brain knew that this was something that brought forth too many questions, too many answers that I did not want to hear. Perhaps they were answers that I wasn’t ready to discover yet.
Beside me, Nelly said, “You know what the worst part about that was, I mean, besides the fact that I drank our Mother’s blood and murdered a girl?”
No, not really. I nodded.
“It was that Bethany really thought that what she was doing was right. She believed wholeheartedly that she would be ridding the world of a monster by killing me. And…I don’t know…maybe she was right.”
I pulled Nelly to a stop and turned her to face me. “No,” I said, staring straight into her hazel eyes. “Don’t you ever believe that, Nelly. This world is so much better for you in it. You haven’t even begun to understand how much so. Nothing is ever just purely good or evil. Nothing. We all do things that are questionable at some point. But I know one thing for sure in a world that is full of unsure things, Nell, and that’s that the good in you outweighs the bad tenfold. A hundred fold. I’ll tell you this, I wouldn’t have survived this long without you. I wouldn’t have even cared to. Through everything that’s happened, our love is what’s kept me going.”
I pulled her to me in a hard hug, hiding my face behind her back so that she woul
dn’t see that tears that were forming in my eyes. “My love for you,” I whispered, “may very well be the greatest thing that this world has ever known, and because of it, the story of my life will be eternally beautiful.”
A few tears did fall now, and I carefully brushed them away so that I could face my sister with whatever strength was left inside of me. Nelly pulled back from me and stared into my eyes with stars glittering in the hazel of her own. “I love you, too, Alexa, more than anyone has ever loved anything. I love you.”
I pulled a folded note from my pocket, coughing a little to hide a sniffle. “Here,” I said. “Keep this for me, but don’t look at it yet.”
Nelly looked at the square of paper. “What is it?”
I took it from her and put it in the front pocket of her jeans. “Just something I want you to have.”
“When am I supposed to look at it?”
Another hard swallow. “You’ll know when.”
We were approaching the lake now, and I could see Arrol and Kayden standing on its shore, waiting for us. Nelly squeezed my hand. “I don’t want to do this, Alexa,” she said, her voice picking up speed in sudden panic. “It…it seems so terribly final, so wrong, and I don’t know why. It won’t be long, right? You’ll be here when I get back from wherever I’m going?”
I put the hand that was wrapped around her shoulder over her heart, knowing that my own was breaking into bits of nothing inside of me. After this, none of it really would matter. “I’ll be right here,” I said, tapping the place where her heart beat. “I’ll be right here always, Nell.”
She didn’t get a chance to respond to that because Arrol said, “You ready?”
I nodded, even though I was not ready for any of this at all. “Yeah, is everything set up? The Seer knows she’s coming?”
Arrol gave me something like a smirk, but it was too tight, too forced. He no doubt knew what this decision meant. “Of course, Warrior. The Seer will keep his word. Do you want a minute before she goes?”
No, I didn’t want a minute. I wanted a whole damn lifetime. I wanted to keep Nelly here with me, to have her beside me every step of this insane journey. I wanted so many damn things that I couldn’t have. But if I allowed this to drag out much longer, I might not be able to do what needed to be done, so I shook my head, pulling Nelly into one more hug. Somehow, it seemed so much like one more hug.
“I love you so much,” I said again. “When you go in there, you be careful, okay? Look after yourself. And…don’t make any deals.”
Nelly pulled back, her brow furrowed. “What are you talking about, Alexa? The closer I move to this, the more I’m feeling like I don’t want to do it at all.”
“Don’t you worry, Sis,” I said, placing a small kiss on her forehead. I breathed in deep, taking in the smell of her that was so familiar to me. “When you come back, everything will be taken care of.”
Now Nelly cried. She reached out and grabbed me and buried her head on my shoulder and cried. Kayden and Arrol stood off to the side with the look of men who don’t know how to fix the problem, and are uncomfortable for it. I held my sister in my arms and stroked her hair, mumbling sweet nothings that ricocheted in my head. Pulling Nelly back from me at last, when I just couldn’t hold her anymore and not break down myself, I looked in her eyes and said, “It’s time, Nell. Say you’re ready.”
“Just a few hours?”
I nodded.
The strength in her voice when she said her next two words was enough to warm the pieces of my frozen, broken heart. “I’m ready,” she said.
And then she was gone.
Nelly was gone.
Nelly
Something was sucking me up like so much liquid in some universal straw. Everything that had been around me just moments ago was gone–red maple trees, blue sky, silver lake, my sister, and now the world around me was just a blinding white. I knew instinctually that I was in fact in no world at all, but rather, in a place between worlds, a place where time made no matter and nothing but the rare traveler ever existed. Terror struck me like a cold stake to the heart, and felt myself trying to cry out, but whatever sound I was making was being sucked away to the corners of world between worlds.
And then I was standing on my feet again, as if some cosmic hand had thrown me up and set me back down again. I felt my knees tremble slightly and locked them into position before I fell to the floor. I blinked. Looked around. There was so much to take in and yet nothing to take in at all. Just a room, four walls, and ceiling and a floor, made of all white. I took a step forward, almost expecting to be sucked back up and into nowhere again, but wasn’t.
On closer inspection, as the bulk of it was nearly undetectable in all the whiteness, I could make out a sofa against one wall. I wandered over to it, swiping with my sleeve at the tears that had been on my face from when I’d been with my sister only moments ago. The color of my skin and clothing was the only color in the room, and it made me feel instantly out of place here.
“Nelliana Montgomery, I am pleased you have decided to come.”
I spun around on my heel, the voice having come from nowhere, as if a whisper in the wind that had breezed through my head. “Who’s there?” I said, feeling like a stupid girl in horror movie. I tried to reach out with my mind and was rewarded with nothing, nothing at all.
My wounded heart sunk down to my feet. It seemed my powers meant nothing in this world. That was not good.
Then I saw him, just a hunch of a shape cloaked in all white, facing the wall. The hood of the cloak gave the barest of movements as his head turned, and I caught a flash of skin like paper and eyes like milk, and then he turned back to the wall and spoke again in my head. Alexa had been right. I really couldn’t tell whether the Seer was male or female. Without my Searching abilities, I couldn’t tell anything at all.
“You may have a seat if you like. I understand we will be spending some time together.”
The Seer’s paper white hand came up holding a paintbrush that blended into the rest of the room, and he stroked it slowly and gently against the wall. “Where am I?” I asked, and found that though I had tried to speak the words aloud, they had not broken the silence of the place.
“You are in the White World, Child of the Night.”
I stood staring at the back of his hooded head, not liking that address at all. “Why?” I said. “Why am I here? Why did you offer to keep me here?”
Silence. Then: “Because your sister owes a debt that she seems intent on paying very soon. We thought it would be wise to offer her a helping hand in the matter.”
My teeth snapped together hard, but made no audible click. My hands clenched into fists at my sides, nails digging into my palms and drawing blood that seeped through my fingers and fell bright red on the snow white floor. Something was wrong. Something was terribly, terribly wrong here. What had Alexa done?
“What debt?” I asked, not sure I was strong enough to hear the answer.
More silence.
“Answer me, damn it!” Panic rose in me like a hot bubble of poison. My mind was racing, and everything that passed by it was wreckage.
“No need to yell, Night Child. I will give you the answers you seek…the debt your sister owes is her soul.”
Now my knees did go out from under me and I fell to the floor, shaking and rocking mindlessly like a mental patient. No no no no it can’t be it can’t be oh please no oh God Alexa please no no no!
“Yes, Night Child, I am afraid so.”
I gripped the hair at the sides of my head and screamed, the terrible sound only rebounding in my mind like balls of nails. “Why?” I asked, my arms folding into my midsection, as if I could rip out all the pain that seemed to be blooming there. My voice was nothing more than a broken sob now. “Why would she do that?”
“She is a Child of the Sun. She has pledged her heart to a Child of the Night. That is why…She sold her soul so that she could save you, Nelliana.”
Oh God. Oh no. Oh, no,
no, no.
Alexa
I stood only inches from the Fae, trying hard not to let my panic show on my face. “You’re sure she’s going to be okay in there, Arrol? You know this for a fact?”
Arrol set his large hands on my shoulders and met my eyes with his silver ones. “I promise you, Warrior, she will be fine. The Seer has given his word, and he will not break it. Your sister will not be harmed.”
I nodded, willing myself to believe that. “Okay,” I said, more to myself than to him. “Okay, I guess it’s done, then.”
Arrol shook his head, making his longer silver hair ripple. “No, Warrior. There is still plenty to be done.”
I nodded once more and stepped back, turning to Kayden. “What now?” I asked, realizing that my plan had only extended as far as getting Nelly to safety. Arrol was right, it wasn’t over. There was still that nasty business of a revolution to lead in my sister’s stead.
Kayden wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Now, we rally the people,” he said, and something dark and dangerous flashed behind his amber eyes. “And then, we kill the King.”
In true Kayden fashion, he managed to say the one thing that could make me feel better. Kill the King. Now there was a reason to push through the rest of this day. A crooked smile touched my lips, but faltered when an unsolved problem ran through my head. There was a whole list of unsolved problems in my head, actually, and it was time to start checking them off. No more running.
“What are we going to do about Camillia and Silvia?” I asked Kayden. “If they tell everyone what they plan to, there could be an issue with Nelly being…unavailable.”
Arrol was the one who answered. “I think you should have a talk with the Queen. She seemed to be rather…smitten with your sister. Perhaps she will be understanding.” He smiled. “And you won’t have to kill her, or her sister.”
