“I can’t.” The cat sat back on her haunches and stared up at him. “You’re here, and until Fate has her say none of you can leave. Not if you want to stay alive, that is. Fate must have her due.”
“Well, if you can’t get us home then I will just get there myself.” Heidi pushed past Jesse to stare down at the cat. “I’m not going to sit here and let you just kidnap me, you furry little…little…”
“Little?” the cat asked.
“Freak. You furry, disgusting freak. Allie may not have the backbone to tell you how it is, but if you don’t get out of my way I’ll dropkick you all the way back to Bethel Park and straight into one of those chambers where the vets put cats to suck their lungs out of their chests.”
“Actually, that’s not how animals are euthanized,” Mercedes said quietly.
“Shut up, you.” Heidi stalked over to the wooden shutters set in the far window and shoved them open. I gasped.
Outside was…it was…well, it wasn’t home. There weren’t commuter train tracks across the street or the Bethel Bakery standing cheerily nearby. There were no cars on South Hills Road.
There was no South Hills Road.
Instead, there was a long expanse of grass the color of Granny Smith apples and probably longer than four football fields. Beyond that were trees. Huge trees. Trees that stood higher than the skyscrapers in downtown Pittsburgh.
I pushed myself up and stumbled to the window, shouldering Heidi aside. We were up high. I looked out and down, trying to judge just how high we were. Six floors up, maybe seven. And the trees, with their gnarled black trunks and their brilliant, dark-green leaves, had to stand at least a hundred feet higher.
I turned my head to the left and had to take a deep breath. There was a low, red crushed-rock path winding away from whatever building we were in, and there were fewer trees—shorter trees with bloodred leaves—beyond.
I licked my lips and gazed out into the distance again. There they were: two enormous white stone hands raised heavenward, a clear gleaming crystal the size of a…
“A billion wishes and unanswered prayers,” I said quietly, remembering the line that had described it in the stories my mother had once read me.
“You know what it is,” the cat said.
“The Hall of the Pleiades with its great guardian. Her white hands raised to the stars, holding the hopes of a thousand untouched worlds in her hands,” I whispered.
“Yes,” the cat said.
I looked back at her, still sitting in the middle of the room, studying me. “So, it’s true? All of it? The crazy stories that my mother used to read me that no one else had ever heard of? The dragons and the men who ate fire and called down the sun?”
“The Firas,” she said. “They’re real.”
“And the grasslands with the hunting parties who ride great fanged beasts as they hunt giants and trolls? They’re real, too?”
“The Veldt.” The cat kept her eyes fixed on mine. “All true.”
“And the nymphs? The fairies? The spirits of the trees? The mermaids? The woodsmen who can become one with the shadows?”
“All true.”
“And the Lost Rose of Nerissette? Trapped inside a mirror and left to die? What about her? Or the warrior princess who would save the world from darkness?”
“The Rose may be lost,” Esmeralda said. “But we rejoice at the return of our princess.” She smiled at me as best a cat could.
I jerked my head back and forth. “No. No way.”
“Allie?” Winston and the rest of them were gaping at me. “What’s going on?”
“It’s a fairy tale. All of it. Nerissette. The world on the other side of the mirror. The place where things that can never be are real. The World of Dreams.”
“And we’re what? We’re in that world?” Mercedes asked. “Why? How?”
“Because we need you,” Esmeralda said. “We need all of you.”
“For what?” Jesse asked.
“You’ve reached your six thousandth day,” Esmeralda said, still staring at me. “It’s time for your debt to Fate to be paid.”
“My what?”
“Your debt. One way or another, Fate must get her due. You can give it willingly, or she can send Kuolema to collect in her place.”
I swallowed. If this cat wasn’t talking total nonsense then that meant if I didn’t obey the will of Fate I’d die. “And them?” I nodded toward the other four members of my group. Just because I was trapped here didn’t mean they had to stay.
“They’re here to make sure that you do not fail. Because if you fail, well…just don’t. No matter what. Don’t fail.”
“Esmeralda!” a deep, thundering, male voice roared.
“What happens if I do fail?” My heart pounded in my ears, and before I could move—or she could answer—the heavy wooden door in the corner flew open and bounced hard against the wall. There, in the doorway, stood a man about my mom’s age who towered over me. His shoulders filled the frame, and he was at least a foot taller than my own five foot six. He was even taller than Winston and Jesse, who were each over six feet.
The man was dressed in midnight-colored robes with silver symbols stitched into the fabric that seemed to writhe as the folds moved around his legs. “I felt a disturbance in the ether. Someone is using mag—”
He stared at me with bloodred eyes, the centers filled with coal-black flames. His dark hair stood in shaggy waves around his pale cheeks. “You.”
“No.” I stepped back, plastering my hands against the rough stone wall behind me. “You’re not real. They banished you.”
“Your Majesty—” the cat said.
“No,” I interrupted. “The King of Nightmares was trapped inside one of the great trees, then they chopped it down and broke his body before throwing it into the waves of the Sea of Nevermore and trapping his soul inside the Bleak.”
The man froze and stared at us each in turn. He glanced over at the cat and then back at me. Then back at the cat. He opened his mouth. No sound came out. “I…”
“Alicia Munroe, Crown Princess of Nerissette,” the cat said, her voice ringing with an authority that would make even my most hard-core high school teacher jealous. “Meet the Fate Maker of Nerissette. The grand high wizard, leading practitioner of magic, and one of your most trusted diplomatic advisers. He’s protected your kingdom for you until you came of age and has guarded this land with his magic. Protected us from trolls and giants and from the scheming of Bavasama.”
“Bavasama?”
“The queen across the mountains who would have taken your throne. The Queen of Nightmares. He’s cared for your kingdom because he’s devoted to you and your rule.” She hissed the last bit and I wasn’t sure if she was explaining it all to me or reminding him.
“You, you, you.” He stared at the cat, his now-pale eyes wide. “Why?
“She has reached her six thousandth day, and it is time we place our rightful ruler on the throne.”
“I should have been consult—”
“It must end here. Fate must have her say.”
“But the Chronicles end with—”
“All things end,” Esmeralda said. “It is the only way for new things to begin. Now you must do the spells.”
“But I can’t just—”
“You must. It is how the end was written.”
“The Chronicles—”
“Will begin again, but first you must do the spells.”
“Look,” I said. “I don’t know what’s going on here but I think you’ve made a mistake.”
“You are Alicia Wilhelmina Munroe,” Esmeralda said. “The Last Golden Rose of Nerissette. You must bring about the end of this age so that life can begin again for our people.”
“No,” Heidi said, her voice biting. “I don’t know who you are or why you think Allie, of all people, is some sort of warrior princess, but you need to take us home. Right now!”
“The end must come, girl, and only then can any of us ever
be free.”
“I’m telling you, Allie is not a princess,” Heidi said.
“Fate,” Esmeralda said sternly, her eyes fixed on mine, “must be paid. Only then can you go home.”
“Allie?” Mercedes’s eyes were wide and filled with fear.
“Now.” Esmeralda fixed her gaze on the Fate Maker. “Do the spells and let us end the Time of Waiting.”
Chapter Four
“Wait, wait.” The Fate Maker held a hand up. “This, the prophesies inside The Chronicles of Nerissette, all of it…just wait.”
“Fate doesn’t wait, no matter what a wizard might believe,” Esmeralda said. “Not even the wizard who the prophecies declared the Guardian of Nerissette may question Fate’s motives. We do the will of Fate or we die. There is no in between. And there is certainly no bargaining. For any of us.”
“But she hadn’t told me that this is meant to happen now,” the Fate Maker snapped. “She would have spoken to me. She would have told me it was time. I’m the guardian of this land. Touched by Fate herself. She would have told me.”
“So you think that means Fate is required to get your approval?” Esmeralda shot back.
“There has been nothing in the mirror, nothing in the Orb of Fate. Nothing,” the Fate Maker said.
“Have you actually looked? Or did you not want to know?” Esmeralda asked.
“Look, I don’t know what you two are going on about,” I said, “but you’re really starting to freak me out. Whatever this Fate thing is, and six thousand days, and I don’t know what, but it has nothing to do with me.”
“She’s not fit for this role,” the Fate Maker said.
“Finally someone gets it.” Heidi crossed her arms in front of her chest.
He held a hand out toward me. “She’s a child. They’re all children. The Chronicles of Nerissette says that the Last Great Rose will be a warrior queen.”
“She’ll become the queen she needs to be.”
“No, the Chronicles say she’ll march a great army into Bathune and claim the Land of Nightmares as her own again, then she’ll banish magic and rip the world apart. You think this child can do any of those things?”
I glanced over and saw Jesse and Heidi huddled together as Winston and Mercedes moved closer to me, pulling me into a protected position between them.
“She’ll bring peace,” Esmeralda said. “Thousands of years of peace will come.”
“At what cost?” The Fate Maker threw his hands up in the air. “The death of magic? The end of everything we know?”
“If that is what it takes,” she countered.
“She could bring a thousand years of peace by wiping us out of existence. All of our kind. An empty world is a peaceful world, isn’t it?” The Fate Maker shook his head as he spoke.
“Then that’s what must happen,” said Esmeralda.
“But this can’t be her. This can’t be the Last Great Rose. Even if the Time of Waiting must come to an end, it won’t be brought about by her.” He scrunched up his face in disgust.
“I think he might be right,” I said. “I’m not a warrior or anything, and I don’t know how to invade anyone. I don’t even want to. I just want to go home. My mother’s there, and she’s sick. She needs me.”
I swallowed. We were trapped here, on this side of the mirror, and my mother was on the other. I hadn’t gotten to say good-bye. I hadn’t even bothered to go see her in three months, and now I was here and she was there—alone. I had to come up with a way out of this. A way back to her.
“It is her,” Esmeralda said, ignoring me as she stared at the Fate Maker. “You and I both know it’s her. It always has been her. That’s why we did what we did those years ago.”
“We were protecting our home,” the Fate Maker said angrily. “If she would have stayed the results would have been disastrous.”
“If who would have stayed where?” I asked.
“This girl is a child. What you’re asking is madness.”
Esmeralda ignored him. “Now Allie, step in front of the mirror.”
“What mirror?” I asked.
“The Mirror of Nerissette. That one. In the corner.” She nodded her sleek, black head toward a large mirror in a plain, dark wooden frame. “Step in front of it, and then run your fingers across its face.”
I walked slowly toward the large mirror and stared into it. I looked at my reflection and then lifted my gaze to Mercedes, who was huddled against Winston behind me.
The mirror began to hum like a swarm of bees, and I focused on my own reflection again. My brown eyes stared back at me, but instead of reflecting the still, wide-eyed and terrified version of myself, the reflection smiled, her teeth gleaming. And then she winked.
“Wait a second.”
“Stay close to it,” Esmeralda instructed, now sitting by my feet.
I glanced down at her.
“Don’t look at me. Keep your eyes fixed on the mirror. Tell it what you want to see.”
“I don’t see anything. It’s just black.”
“Tell it what you want to see.”
“I want to see my mother,” I said quickly. “I want my mom.”
The mirror filled with smoke, the humming getting louder, and then it went black again. I was staring into nothing but darkness. The mirror was no longer a mirror but a window into my nightmares, a portal to where the dragons waited.
“No.” I shook my head.
“Keep your eyes on it,” Esmeralda said, her voice stern. “Don’t let your focus slip. You’re in control of it.”
“I want to see my mother,” I said selfishly, sounding like a whiny two-year-old when my voice began to tremble.
The darkness began to lessen, and suddenly, there was a burst of bright-pink light, and the mirror filled with flowers of every imaginable color, petals unfurling like fireworks.
“Stay strong,” Esmeralda said. “You’re almost there.”
“Show me my mother right now,” I said through clenched teeth. “Whatever this trick is, stop it. Stop it, and let me see my mother.”
Then I saw her, holding me as a baby, singing on stage, dancing around our kitchen, cheering at my swim meets, sitting in the waiting room during my judo classes and the fencing lessons she’d insisted on. All of those memories flew past like the frames of a movie, blurring together as if the mirror were a television screen and my mother’s life was a movie on fast-forward. There was a birthday cake on a passenger seat of a car, and the sound of the radio, and then a horn, and the mirror went black again.
“No.” I beat my fist against the mirror. “No, give her back to me. You give her back to me.”
“I told you she’s not the one,” the Fate Maker said, his voice hushed.
Light flickered in the mirror, and then my mother filled the glass again. Her hair was spread out on the pillow, and her cheeks were pale. Even in a coma she was one of the most beautiful people I’d ever seen.
“Mom.” I dropped to my knees in front of the mirror and ran my hand over her cheek. “Oh, Mom.”
“This doesn’t mean anything,” the Fate Maker said.
“She can control the only remaining relic. If we had the Dragon’s Tear or the First Leaf she would be able to use those as well,” Esmeralda said. “She could use the portals.”
“There’s no way to know that,” the Fate Maker said. “It could be a residual connection. She’s a girl who asked to see her mother; the emotional bonds alone would be enough to make the mirror take pity and show her what she asked for.”
“The Mirror of Nerissette responded to her touch,” Esmeralda said.
“The connection was shaky. She had to travel through the woman’s unconscious. That’s hardly proof,” the Fate Maker said.
I felt an arm wrap around my shoulders, pulling me close. “Allie?” Winston’s touch was warm, comforting. “Come on, Allie. It’s okay.”
“That’s my mom.” I held on to the mirror, unwilling to let my mother go, as he scooted closer to me.
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“I know.” He let me lean my head against his shoulder as I kept stroking her cheek.
“There is another way to check,” Esmeralda said. “A way that would remove your doubts.”
“She’s a child,” the Fate Maker said. “If you’re wrong, think about the damage you’ll do, the pain you’ll cause her.”
“I’m not wrong, and do not pretend that you care what happens to the children. We both know that compassion isn’t something found in your character.”
“Forget my character. If you are wrong she could be crippled.”
“If I’m wrong we’ll send them back home. No one will ever be the wiser.”
“You can do that?” I turned to her. “You can send us home?”
“If…” Esmeralda sighed. “If I’m wrong, then there is no reason to keep you here. So I could send you home, but I must warn you, Princess, I’m not wrong. I’m not.”
“You could be, though? You could be wrong. This could all be a mistake.” I clung to the idea that this was all some sort of weird, cosmic misunderstanding.
“No.” She shook her head.
“Yes.” The Fate Maker’s voice sounded hollow. “She could be wrong. She could have misinterpreted the will of Fate, but the test she wants to do…it’s brutal. If she’s wrong you could be seriously injured.”
“Will it tell you for certain, without a shred of doubt, whether or not I’m your lost princess?”
He nodded.
But it all kind of made sense. The stories, the judo and the fencing, the way Mom was always somehow different from other adults… But I couldn’t be a princess. It made sense, but it wasn’t right because no one, no matter what world they lived in, would look at me and see royalty. Which meant the cat had to be wrong. She had to be.
Now I just had to prove that whoever their lost princess was, I wasn’t her. “Then let’s do it,” I said, my voice sounding braver than I actually felt.
“Are you certain? When I say the test is dangerous I’m not trying to scare you,” he said.
“I’m trapped in a world that isn’t my own. Things are already dangerous. Let’s do it. I’ll prove I’m not your princess, and then you can send us home.”
Everlast (The Chronicles of Nerissette) (Entangled Teen) Page 3
