The Elemental Trial

by J. A. Armitage

  “We saw a rather wonderful red box that is apparently for the use of phoning someone in 1986. We also saw some sheep.”

  Gabe nodded, the muscles in his strong jaw working. “The other contestants don’t know you snuck out. I like the pair of you and think it would be a waste to see you leave which is why I convinced the studio to overlook this little transgression. I suggest you get back inside quickly and this time stay put. I won’t offer you the same courtesy again.”

  I ran up to Gabe and hugged him. He was so surprised that he kept his arms firmly around his chest.

  “Why did you throw yourself at Gabe?” Orin hissed once we were back inside the house.

  I’d hardly thrown myself at him, had I? I was thanking him.

  “He went to bat for us. I was grateful...wait...don’t tell me you’re jealous.”

  Orin huffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.” But the thought made me bite back a grin.

  Having the book in hand made me feel better than I had in a while. It was a part of Cass’s journey which meant I was closer to understanding why she left and where she went. I couldn’t hide it in my room, not with the secret camera, so I hid it somewhere anyone could get it, but no one would. The Hennington House library. It was a perfect spot, hidden in plain sight between thousands of other books.

  As I placed the book on the shelf, the bell rang, announcing lunch. We’d been out longer than I’d realized.

  On the way to the dining hall, I heard whispered voices coming from the study. The harsh tone suggested they were embroiled in some kind of argument. Normally, I’d have walked right past them. My stomach was already grumbling at the thought of lunch, but as I passed, I recognized the voices, and it was a strange combo. Tristam and Patricia. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but whatever it was, they clearly didn’t agree. Why were Tristam and Patricia arguing? They couldn’t know each other very well. And they came from such different worlds. Patricia with her materialistic pursuit of fame and money and Tristam with his ruthless desire for power and winning. Actually, the more I thought about it, they were like two peas in a pod, but I still couldn’t figure out what they’d have to argue about. Maybe Tristam was trying to get a leg up in the next trial?

  I opened the study door as quietly as I could, but it wasn’t quietly enough. Both turned their heads when they saw me.

  “I was just looking for...er...” My face turned scarlet.

  “Jacq,” Tristam stood up and bounded towards me, a smile on that utterly gorgeous and totally punchable face of his. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

  I glanced over his shoulder. Patricia gave me a syrupy sweet smile and a small wave to acknowledge my presence, but I could see the annoyed look on her face that having been interrupted had brought about.

  Tristam continued, invading my line of sight. “I’m sorry about...you know.”

  I turned my attention back to him. It gave me some satisfaction that he still had the black eye I’d given him two days before. It was fainter now and more yellow than blue and purple, but he was still going to need makeup to cover it when we went back in tomorrow.

  “I’d love to say I’ve forgiven you,” I began. “I really would, but the truth of the matter is you are a lowlife cretin who’s using his daddy’s name and power to get on TV, and when that’s not enough in the field, you resort to cheating and endangering your competition. So really, calling you a lowlife cretin is insulting to the cretins.”

  His charming smile held, but only just. I saw the hint of a grimace begin to form. He held his hands up. “Well, I hardly think...”

  “We already know you hardly think,” said a voice from behind me, cutting him off. It was Orin.

  “Is everything alright here?” He placed his hand on my back. It was his way of letting me know I was all right. And I was all right. More than all right. “I’m fine. Let’s go to lunch.”

  Tristam’s facade dropped completely as I let Orin guide me from the room.

  “What was that all about?” Orin whispered as we entered the dining hall and found ourselves a place to sit.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Tristam and Patricia were arguing, but they shut up when they saw me. It just…made me suspicious. I’m probably letting my imagination run away with me. It’s probably nothing.”

  Orin shook his head. “I’m not so sure.”

  The FFR team, headed by Gabe, walked up to the front of the room, stopping Orin from speaking further. It looked like we were going to get another speech. Great!

  Gabe waited until everyone was quiet before he spoke. “The FFR producers have decided to have a little fun and mix things up a bit for the next trial,” he began. The collective groans from the contestants rang out in a chorus around me. What fresh hell were they going to spring on us now?

  Patricia, who had strode in from the library after us, obviously couldn’t wait because she stepped forward and began to talk, leaving Gabe standing there looking like he wanted to throttle her. I knew the feeling. Patricia clapped her hands together. “Next round you are going back into Faerwild with...” she paused for dramatic effect while I mentally filled in the gap.

  With a diamond tiara.

  With a man-eating unicorn.

  With a herd of giant tarantulas?

  “Another team!” she gasped in delight. “You’ll still be with your original teammate, but now, you’ll have to work alongside another pair to get through.”

  My stomach fell to the floor. Suddenly, food was the furthest thing from my mind. Why hadn’t I just stayed in that pub and drank my own body weight in cider?

  She grinned maniacally as if she’d just told us the most exciting news, but for those of us going in, it was the very worst thing she could have said. Over the Hedge, the only thing more dangerous than the scenery was our competition.

  7

  I woke early, letting the hot water from the shower scald me into some semblance of wakefulness. It was one of those darkly gray, blustery Welsh days that made you want to wrap up in a blanket and sit too close to the fireplace with a cup of hot cocoa. But instead, we were going back in.

  Orin and I had talked late into the night about our strategy. We didn’t know who we would be teamed up with, but I didn’t trust any of our competition as far as I could throw them. Orin and I would have to stay close and watch each other’s backs. For as soon as our “partner” team didn’t need us anymore, we fully expected to be double-crossed. Well, we’d just have to do the double-crossing first. It was exactly the type of spectacle the show producers were no doubt gleefully hoping for.

  Orin had been working on his conjuring, to get us items we needed in Faerwild. We couldn’t go through this trial cold, wet, and weak with hunger. We needed all of our wits about us. That meant securing food and shelter quickly so we could focus on moving forward. As I braided my hair in two French braids and zipped up my FFR jacket, I found myself feeling determined. Almost optimistic. We wouldn’t let the race push us around, not this time. Though as I walked down the stairs, the niggling voice in the back of my head whispered to me that once we’re over the Hedge, all bets were off.

  Gabe was down at the bottom of the stairs, clapping his hands, ferrying us towards the front door where a sleek black bus was waiting. “Breakfast on the go, let’s go, let’s go.” As I went to step into the van, getting rewarded by a stiff gust of rain to the face, I spotted another van behind us with our camera crews. Ben was standing outside. He waved and gave me a thumbs up. Bless that guy.

  Inside the van, I was greeted by a sea of hostile faces. Tristam and Sophia took the front row. Her dark hair was curled and coifed, her makeup perfect. Next to her, Tristam looked like a post-Photoshop J Crew ad, and I suppressed my desire to muss up his perfect golden hair.

  In the row behind them sat Ario and Molly, her with her dark eyeliner and row of silver earrings, black nail polish, and bright blue hair pulled into two pigtails. She blew a huge bubble in her gum, and it popped, loudly. Ario looked at me like a
lion eyeing a wounded baby wildebeest, and I found myself shrinking from him before I caught myself and stood up straight, meeting his brilliant green eyes. Amidst his dark coloring and chiseled features, those eyes were striking, glowing like magic. Even without the carnal power he exuded—he was an incubus, after all—he was breathtaking. I recalled the two black wings like bat’s wings that emerged from his back at various points during training. He was a competitor to watch.

  Next, I passed Phillip and Dulcina, the only two competitors I thought might be decent human beings (or faeries, as it were), until I saw the video of Phillip trying to burn us to death when we were in the mirror realm under the faerie hill, and Dulcina letting him. Phillip’s dark, intricate tattoos snaked around his fingers and all the way up his neck to the edge of his dark beard, which made me wonder if they covered the rest of his body, too. His long brown hair was tousled around his shoulders like he just woke up. Phillip met my eyes easily as if he slept peacefully despite his ruthless actions. Dulcina, on the other hand, looked down at her fingernails, indicating that she perhaps had some guilt about what they did to us. She was pretty as a peach with her vivid purple hair, and her ethereal pale skin dusted with sparkles. She was a Pegasus shifter, and the one faerie I had wanted to be my partner. We would have made a good team.

  I slid into the seat and turned to watch Orin come down the aisle to sit next to me. It was funny how it all turned out. I would have given anything that first day to pick any partner but Orin. Now I was profoundly grateful he was mine. I guessed my judgment really was shit.

  “Ready for this?” he asked me, patting my leg in an encouraging fashion.

  I offered a weak smile, but I said, “Hell, yeah,” loudly, for the other competitors’ benefit. I wanted nothing more than to tip my head onto Orin’s shoulder and close my weary eyes. But I resisted the urge, leaning my head against the foggy cold window instead.

  Gabe appeared at the front of the bus as a girl sporting an FFR hoody made her way down the aisle with coffee and little sack lunches for us. My stomach rumbled, reminding me that this was the last guaranteed meal I’d have for some time.

  “We’re headed to the airport, where we’ll take a quick flight to La Roche, France. There’s a Faerie monolith there, the La Roche-aux-Fees, that will be transporting you over the Hedge.” I enjoyed Gabe’s attempt at pronouncing the French names. “This trial will not take place in the same playing field you experienced during the Sorcery Trial. You will be visiting new and unknown areas of Faerwild. Be prepared and race smart. We’d like to have all of you coming back this time.”

  My mood blackened. That wasn’t true of everyone heading up the FFR. Someone had sabotaged Gen and Zee’s rings, and we needed to keep an eye out for them. Or Orin and I would be next. Actually, the thought of the ring made me realize something. I didn’t have a new one. When we were falling from the dragon’s talons, the fact that only one of us had a ring had almost ended us. As unreliable as it might be, I’d feel better if I went in with a ring on my finger—and the ability to call for emergency help if it was a matter of life or death. Though the faerie who had responded when I triggered mine had said I wouldn’t get another, maybe I could convince Gabe. He seemed like a big softie, deep down.

  The van started to move, and I squeezed past Orin to go up to talk to Gabe. I crouched down beside his seat, speaking quietly. “Am I going to get another ring?”

  Gabe pressed his lips together and shook his head apologetically. “The producers talked about it. Everyone is going in only with what they came out of the last leg with. That and the Faerie king’s gift.” The gift. I recalled the little bottle with two pearls that Vale Obanstone, High King of the Seelie Courts, had gifted me in the hospital. “So I don’t get another one? Ever?”

  “I’m sorry, Jacq. What you did for Genevieve and Zee was honorable.” Something flashed across Gabe’s face that I thought was anger. But he reined it in. “But the decision has been made. You won’t get another one.”

  I nodded woodenly and walked back to my seat beside Orin. I pulled up my pack from beneath my seat and pulled out the little bottle on its chain, looking at the two pearls inside. “What do you think they’re for?” I asked.

  “No idea,” Orin said quietly, examining them. He peered at them closely, putting his head right next to mine. I breathed in his scent of pine and earth. It soothed my ragged nerves, just a little.

  I threaded the chain around my neck and tucked the bottle inside my jacket. It creeped me out to have something given to me by an Obanstone around my neck once again, but the king had said we needed it for this trial. I would have to put my distaste aside.

  “What’d you ask him?” Orin asked.

  “I’m not going to get another ring.” I tapped the metal on his finger. “We can only take in what we came out with.”

  Orin grimaced, but reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a jeweled vial. “Want to take my love potion?”

  I recognized the object that the xana had given him after he’d kissed her within an inch of her life. “No, I don’t want your …make-out juice!” I turned away with a huff, but Orin started laughing, and the sound was so startling that it made me look back.

  “My make-out juice?” he cackled, holding his ribs. I shoved his arm with mine, trying to hold down the laughter that was bubbling up in me to meet his. “You know what I mean! You’re an idiot,” I said, turning back to the window.

  He settled down next to me, his body shaking in a final bout of laughter. “Yes, but I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. For better or worse, I’m your idiot.”

  Yes, he was.

  I ate every last crumb of my breakfast and fell into an uneasy sleep. The trip was over far too soon—the bus ride to the airport, the quick flight across the English Channel, another bus ride to the site where we would head back into Faerwild.

  La Roche-aux-Fees was a wooded clearing with a circle of tall stones, topped with others that made it look like a little house. If the house was made of ancient, weathered, multi-ton boulders. I felt the faint magic of the place, and it didn’t make me as nervous as it had the first time. Magic was an ally, I reminded myself. A friend. I couldn’t be afraid of it anymore. Not and make it through this next trial alive.

  Patricia and the camera crews were waiting for us when we got off the bus. Patricia was sporting a chic, fitted, black dress with a jaunty half-cape of blue wool in a faint plaid. I had to admit she looked good. I tried not to think of what fashion trends the show was setting. Half-capes and dirt smeared with faerie monster goo are all the rage this season!

  They had set up another metal detector, and the competitors traipsed through one at a time, Orin and I going last. After I walked through the arch without beeping, an FFR staff member with little curly horns coming out of her auburn hair passed her hands over me, searching for magical enchantments.

  “She’s clear,” the faerie called to her waiting partner. “No enchantments or MEDs.”

  I nearly tripped over my feet in my hurry to turn back to her. “I’m sorry, what’s an “MED?” I asked, trying to bat my eyes innocently.

  “Magical Explosive Device,” she said in a flat voice. She was clearly ready for her part of this to be over.

  Magical Explosive Device. I took in this new information as I went to stand next to Orin, trying to keep the excitement from my face. I tried to fit this new piece into the puzzle of Cass’s note. What was it she had said? We didn’t find an MED in Caerleon. That was where we’d first gone into Faerie. Why, in god’s name, was Cass looking for MEDs? Or Gen for that matter? And why did they think they’d find one?

  Orin nudged me, and I came back to reality, honing in on what Patricia was saying. She was announcing our partners. “To the first checkpoint of the Elemental Trial, Tristam Obanstone and Sophia Hernandez will be partnered with Phillip Ryan and Dulcina Silver.” Realization dawned on me. That meant…

  “Jacqueline Cunningham and Orin Treebaum will be partnered with Moll
y Rhodes and Ario Lazer.” Crap.

  Orin and I looked at each other in dismay as the horned faerie waved her hands, opening a portal for us over the Hedge. Apparently, the king couldn’t be troubled to be at the start of every trial. Fine by me. If I never saw Tristam’s father again, it would be too soon.

  My mind and body felt numb as I lined up and grabbed the backpack offered to me, following Molly through the buzzing magical field. There was only one thought as darkness enveloped me. Here we go again.

  8

  The darkness of the gateway clung to me as I stepped through to the other side. It took me a few seconds to work out why it would be night time here when it wasn’t back on Earth. The answer turned out to be simple. We were inside...or under…judging by the stalactites on the ceiling.

  I waited, not daring to move a foot until Orin and Ario came through. I’d only been back in Faerwild twenty seconds and I was already on edge. This place felt far too much like the weird cave system Tristam sent us into for my liking. The weight of rock above me was oppressive, as if it was pressing down upon me.

  I blew out a breath as Orin stepped through and joined me. Our new foursome was the first team in. Tristam and his groupies wouldn’t be far behind.

  “Let’s get going,” I said, setting off at a quick pace, knowing the other three would follow me. We had no choice but to stick together. I marched forwards at a rapid clip, through long tunnels that opened up into wider caverns, which then narrowed once again.

  Ben practically had to run backward to keep up with me. It would look good on camera, I mused. Decisive. The truth was I was unsettled beyond belief, but I was much more worried about what Tristam and the others would do to us than anything in this weird cave. After about twenty minutes, I started to slow down. We had to have put some distance between us and the other contestants.