by D. N. Hoxa
The men there already knew me. At least half of the ones working in that room, sitting in front of their computers, had seen me come and go enough times to feel confident that I wasn’t going to cause any trouble.
And the witch potion I’d bought in the Shade earlier that day would make sure that the elf remained a blur to everyone who saw her—and their cameras. That, together with the fake name I gave them, had to be enough to keep our visit a secret.
Not that I cared that much, if we’re being frank. Maybe I would later. For now, I just wanted to show her the world here.
She didn’t say a single word while two Guild officers escorted us through long hallways, up two sets of stairs, and we were finally outside. Night had fallen here, too, and the place brimmed with life, even though we were in a part of the neighborhood that wasn’t too lively. We walked out the gates and onto the concrete sidewalk.
The elf stopped to look around. I stopped to look at her. She took everything in again, just like she had in the Gateway room, her lips slightly parted, her silver eyes wide, her hair blowing to the sides by the slow wind.
Finally, she looked at me, asking me a thousand questions with her silence.
I smiled and raised my arms to the sides. “Welcome to the New Orleans Shade.”
Chapter 20
Elo
It had been strange waking up in a warm bed—one I’d slept in before, but on the other side. Stranger still to feel clean and to smell of smoke and snow, to feel soft hair under my cheek, and a rough, unfamiliar fabric around my body. The strawberries waiting for me in a basket by my head gave me comfort, though, so the panic subsided quickly.
When I sat up, I saw my undergarment, clean and hanging on the window to dry, but that wasn’t the end of it. The night only became stranger from there.
The fae had proved to be stranger than I ever imagined.
Now, as I looked at his beautiful smile, transforming him completely into a man I was sure I had never met before, I was shocked out of words.
“Welcome to the New Orleans Shade,” he said, waving around the crowded street, as if that was supposed to answer all my questions.
But my own questions were still unformed in my mind, so all I could do was look. Overwhelmed didn’t even begin to describe it. The happy part of me was very confusing, but all in all, I felt like I was in a dream that looked more like reality than any dream I’d ever had.
The wide street was dotted with green lights, hovering in the air over our heads. They were as bright as the ones in the cave, back in…in Gaena.
By the gods, I was in a different world. I looked down at the concrete beneath my feet, at the dark sky over my head, the moon half the size of what it was back home. Stars twinkled the same way, winking at me, as if to tell me that it was okay.
But it wasn’t just okay.
Before I knew it, I started walking without direction. I wanted to see. I needed to see everything this world had to offer down to the very edge of it.
“The Shade here is possibly over four times bigger than the one we live in,” the prince said, following me. The smile never left his face. “It’s in the city of New Orleans, in the—”
“United States of America. I’ve read about it.” I’d read about Earth at home, a long time ago. I didn’t remember details, but I remembered some things. Reaching out with my magic, I searched for a connection—the connection I’d had in the prince’s room with the Shade.
And it was there. It was exactly as it had been in Gaena. The same magic, the same feeling, the same being I’d felt in that room that was now a world away from here, yet it was the same place. I stopped walking when we reached the crossroad at the end of the wide street. Everything was so alive around me. People coming and going from everywhere, their pain bringing them to my focus for a second, but my magic didn’t react. My mind was too involved in figuring out what I was seeing to seek out pain.
The people were all dressed like I was—in the strange pants and shirt and sneakers that the prince had brought for me. They’d felt really uncomfortable on my skin at first, but now, I barely noticed them.
The buildings around us were all short, the tallest only two stories high. Most were made of bricks, some red and some white, with bright blue windows and square roofs.
The music coming from the right caught my attention first, and when I saw the three men playing their instruments by the corner of the street, my breath caught in my throat. The one holding the violin was in the middle, and every time his fiddle moved, it let out blue smoke and sparks that rose in the air, circling upward, disappearing in the sky. The man to his left played the flute, and every time he blew on it, bright pink smoke slipped out, making its way to the sky in a rush. Behind them was another with a single drum between his legs, and he beat it with his fingers. Every time his fingers produced a beat, purple smoke rose from it, hiding the face of the man completely as it went up. The pain that he felt shooting up his arms was barely even registered by my magic. I had never had an easier time ignoring its calling because I’d never been this consumed by my surroundings before.
I watched the three men play, completely in awe. It was music and colors, wrapped into one. It was magic—in the most beautiful form I had ever seen.
“The Doran Brothers,” the prince whispered to me. “They’re wizards. They move from Shade to Shade, playing music for the people.”
The people were very happy, indeed. Over twenty of them surrounded the brothers and watched them, enjoying the sounds of their music with smiles on their faces. Some were even dancing, right there, in the middle of the street.
They looked so…free.
“Come on, this way,” the prince said, waving at the street across, and all I could do was follow. As I walked, my head kept turning to watch the brothers and the colors that moved in rhythm with the music, until the crowd of people blocked them from my view.
There was plenty to see still—like the beautiful drawings on the walls every few feet. They complemented the buildings, added life to this whole place, released it in the air—or maybe it was just me. There was a woman with pink hair, looking down at a bird in her palm. And an eagle with the wings spread, beak open as he looked at the sky. An angel with white feathery wings and a halo over his head. You could never see colors on castle walls in Gaena like this. Why? Why hadn’t I painted every inch of my castle like this when I was home?
“They’re all infused with spells meant to inspire good mood,” the prince said. “And look at that.” He pointed ahead at the side of the street. Half of it was taken up by tables and chairs and people sitting on them. “The New Orleans Shade has more restaurants and bars than any other Shade out there. People are always celebrating here—even the bad days. They claim it lays the way for the next one to be good.”
“And those?” Across the street, there were shops of all kinds, and my legs took me closer to them. There was also a stand with a woman standing behind it. Aura Readings - 99% Accuracy, the red letters atop it said.
“Shops. You’ll find everything you can imagine here. Check this out—the best tattoo parlor in the Shade.” He pointed at the first shop in the row, right behind the woman doing aura readings to the two young girls in front of her.
Inside the shop there were two men. One lay down on a leather bed in front of the other who held some sort of a device in his hand and seemed to be drawing on the man's naked back. Two fish were already taking up most of his back, one black and one white, and the fish were moving on his skin.
“He’s a sorcerer, Level Three. Pretty strong,” the prince said. “Some families specialize in spells like light manipulation or tailoring or beautifying—even fighting. This guy’s family specialty is tattoos. He can make any image come alive on your skin with spells and special ink.”
I could barely look away from the fish, circling one another on the man's back. Then, I noticed the black cat sitting by the leather bed, her tail moving from one side to the other lazily, her eyes on m
e.
“A familiar,” I whispered. I’d read about those. Sorcerers were the only supernatural species on Earth that had them. I had never seen one before, but it didn’t look any different from a real cat.
“Yeah. And look at this,” the prince said, guiding me to the shop next door. Row after row of small glass bottles lined the walls on either side. Every column was divided by a sign over them. “It’s a perfumery. It can make you smell like anything you want.”
The signs gave me a pretty good idea of what he meant. Some of the bottles were labeled: Confident, Smart, Sexy, Arrogant, and I couldn’t even see the other side from the crowd of people in there, spraying perfumes on their wrists.
“So, you put that perfume on and it makes you arrogant?” I said in wonder.
“No, it makes the people who smell the scent perceive you as arrogant. It doesn’t last very long, maybe a couple hours. And it doesn’t work on all species—like vampires—but it’s pretty powerful,” he explained.
“Wow.” To alter one’s perception with a scent was pure magic. There was so much of it here, I felt it all the way to my bones.
The Shade was truly alive here, and for all the pain that hid in people’s bodies, I felt no urge to reach out for it at all.
“It’s an amazing place to live in. Have you ever been to a grocery store? They have a Golem It here, too,” said the prince.
I laughed because he said it like he expected me to know what any of it was.
“No, I’ve never been to a grocery store, and I don’t know what a Golem It is,” I admitted, but I wasn’t shy. I was curious—for him to explain and for me to see what he was talking about.
He eagerly showed me.
Grocery stores were food shops. Golem It was the name of those shops, apparently operated by actual golems—creatures made out of the earth, full of magic, who served their creators. In this case, the creators were four Prime witches, Level Four magic wielders, the strongest on Earth. Apparently, there was a Golem It in every Shade of the world.
“There are other businesses that operate away from the spotlight—like witch dealers. They basically supply witches and wizards with forbidden ingredients to make forbidden spells and potions. Like the one I brought for you,” the prince said.
“What exactly does it do? How can it blur my face?” I’d found it pretty odd, but I'd drank the clear liquid anyway. It had tasted exactly like water.
“It's basically a confusion spell. It affects the mind of the looker, not your face specifically,” he explained. Like the perfumes.
“But why?” Why had he given me that to drink? Not to be remembered was a cruel fate.
“Because fae and elves are not common around here. People would remember you, and if the Guild became interested…let’s just say my father has connections, and he wouldn’t take it lightly that I’m visiting Earth with an elf slave,” he said reluctantly. His father—the Winter King. It made shivers run down my back—until I saw the next shop and stopped walking.
It was a flower shop, unlike anything I’d ever seen. The flowers weren’t just beautiful, they were magic, too, just like everything else around here. Curse Absorbing Roses, Stress Relief Orchids, Anxiety Inducing Lilacs. The labels kept on going.
“So why did you do it? Why am I here?” I asked. I didn’t want to sound ungrateful—I appreciated this visit more than I had anything else in a long time, but I needed to know why.
What did he want from me in return?
“A thank you,” the prince said, looking away from me and at the flowers. “For healing me. Numerous times.” He raised his brows as if to tell me that he already knew I’d healed him before. “Back home, you’re a slave of your enemies. Here, you’re completely free. I have no other way of showing my gratitude to you, except for this.”
A thank you. I had never received a more beautiful thank you in my life, and though my mind insisted that there was too much wrong with this whole scenario—him being a fae and me being an elf—I decided I was going to worry about it all later.
Now I wanted to enjoy the New Orleans Shade—and be free.
“So there are no fae here? No elves?” I asked and continued walking down the street.
“There are a few. The best lawyer in town here is fae. I don’t know of any elves, though,” the prince said. “So, you like it?”
I didn’t just like it. “It’s beautiful. So much more than I ever thought it would be.” I had tried to imagine these things when I read about them, but my imagination hadn’t come even close. For once, reality looked so much better than my fantasies, and I couldn’t get enough of it. “It’s also clean. And fresh.” Even the air smelled lighter than it did back in Gaena.
“That’s the Shade. It doesn’t like polluted air. It cleans itself once a year, too, and it doesn’t allow any machinery that pollutes the air inside of it,” said the prince.
His smile never left his face, just like mine. I felt like I was talking to a different person altogether. I also noticed he’d taken the symbol of his Court off his clothes. Even though he wore a black shirt and black pants from Gaena, he somehow fit in with the rest of this world.
“Fascinating,” I whispered, but I wasn’t sure whether I was talking about the Shade just now or him. Possibly both.
“Come on. There’s still a lot to see,” he said eagerly and guided the way ahead.
Apparently, the Shade could take you within itself in seconds, if you gave it magic and thought about where you needed to be. It rearranged itself to suit your needs, and it connected with your mind like no other known creature in the worlds.
We passed a coffee shop, which the prince seemed to love. A taste for every mood, the yellow sign over it said, and the prince bought us some. He didn’t pay in coins. On Earth they used paper for trade. It seemed very strange, but as soon as I tasted the latte he bought for me, all my worries disappeared.
Coffee was different back home. I’d never been a fan of it. It was black and it was bitter, but this? The taste of this was a thousand times better than any tea I’d ever had.
We passed shop after shop—clothes on display changing colors, people sitting outside, eating, drinking laughing, green lights floating in the air—and then there was the Magic Square.
It was a wide square with no buildings around, only trees. Big trees with rich green leaves that looked healthy and happy somehow. In the square, groups of people performed shows, and other people watched them.
There were a few sorcerers doing tricks with their familiars—a creature that looked like a cross between a dog and a fox, a bird with rainbow feathers, some type of rodent with light green fur and ears as long as a rabbit’s. There were witches mixing potions in huge cauldrons, inviting spectators to join in, and a ghoul who could carry six people lying on his back while on his hands and tiptoes. Sparkly magic shot into the sky, brightening the night, filling the air and the eyes looking at it with wonder.
So many people, all of them different from one another, and they were all laughing and talking and enjoying the night as if they were all the same.
It took my breath away more so than anything I’d seen so far.
“How?” I asked the prince because he seemed to know all the answers. “These people are not the same. He eats flesh for a living—” I pointed at the ghoul. His kind needed to eat human or supernatural flesh to survive, just like vampires needed blood. “They can make potions to erase you from people’s minds.” I pointed at the witch in front of her black cauldron, laughing at a man who was too afraid to drop some dry leaves inside and kept shaking his head at her. “They can do spells to make ink move on your skin.” The sorcerers, who were still giving a show with their familiars, jumping and twisting in the air, one of them disappearing into thin air completely at one point. “How do they do this? How do they…coexist? More than that—how do they like each other?”
And why couldn’t we do it? Why couldn’t we tolerate the existence of one single species that belonged to Gaena
just as much as we did?
“Their system is not without fault. The Guild controls almost everything—” the prince started.
“That’s not what I mean. I am not talking about the governing body. I’m talking about the people—look at them!” Couldn’t he see how they were talking to one another? Not one of them wanted to kill the other, by the gods. Men and women, different skin colors, different magic, different species—and they couldn’t care less while they communicated. “Can you imagine fae and elves spending a night like this? A single night!”
I felt his eyes on my face and my mouth clamped shut.
I’d said too much. I turned away, as if looking at the performers in the Magic Square. Such a fool. He was fae. A fae prince, no less.
What was I thinking, talking like that in front of him?
“Actually, I can,” he finally said. “I have.” There was no smile on his face anymore. “I want to show you something else. Follow me.”
And just like that, he turned back to where we’d come from and disappeared around the corner of the street. I had no choice but to follow, wondering what exactly I had gotten myself into with him.
Chapter 21
The prince took us to a two-story building in a quiet street in the Shade. It was darker there, with fewer green lights floating in the air, but the feeling was the same. The Shade was exactly the same here, too, and my connection to it proved it. My heart hammered in my chest when the prince opened a dark wooden door and took me through a narrow corridor with a single door at the end of it. To the side was a stairway, and he climbed it. I followed without a sound.
Yes, I was afraid, but I was also burning with curiosity. For a second, I wished Hiss was with me. I wished he could tell me what exactly to expect from all of this because I didn’t know. I was used to stone walls and high ceilings and archways. I was used to open spaces and soldiers on every corner.
