by J. A. Curtis
I tried to process. “This was before the Otherworld, before Relinquishment?”
“Yes,” Arius said. “Back before we gave up what we once were to create the Otherworld and save mythical creatures from certain destruction at the hands of the humans.”
So this great battle against Balor had happened before the events of my last vision with Prince Lugh and the queen. Perhaps long before.
Still, the idea of great magical creatures fleeing from humans always seemed odd to me. I touched my wrist, feeling the emptiness of Corbin’s missing bracelet. “How could they? Humans are so—”
“Ruthless. Deceitful. Bloodthirsty.”
“Ordinary.”
He opened his mouth to respond but then shut it with a shake of his head. “It doesn’t matter. For all I know, everything I just told you is a lie.”
“At least some of it has to be true,” I said softly.
“Good luck figuring it out.” His expression grew darker.
I asked Wolpertinger to stay in the park while we headed over to Kris’s. I wanted to break the news to her gently and a talking, winged rabbit wouldn’t be helpful in this situation.
Arius and I started down the alley together.
I moved my backpack onto my back. It was filled with extra clothes. Arius had wanted to shove our armor into the zippered bags, but I’d insisted it wouldn’t fit. Besides, the goal around humans was to blend in.
We’d almost reached the end of the alley.
“Kris’s house is right across the street from where the alley exits.”
He focused in that direction. “Are you sure we can trust her?”
“I’d trust Kris with my life.”
“Good, because we may have to,” he responded. I started to cross the street, but he caught my arm. “Still, let’s not give her any specifics all right? Like our numbers or where we’re located.”
I eased out of his grasp. “You really don’t trust humans, do you?”
He followed me across the street, eyes darting around like he expected to be attacked at any moment. “I just don’t understand why we need her.”
As we crossed Kris’s front lawn, flashbacks played in my mind of the last time I was there. I made Nuada fall when she’d threatened Arius’s life. My faerie guardian had wrestled and defeated hers right on Kris’s front lawn.
Nuada was now an infant in the baby hut at the Haven.
I shook the memory from my mind and reached for the lower branch of the tree beneath Kris’s bedroom window.
“Because,” I grunted as I hauled myself up. “Kidnapping isn’t always the best way to convince someone to join you.”
Arius rolled his eyes. “We hadn’t planned on kidnapping you that night.”
I straddled the second branch. “Really?”
Arius hauled himself onto the lower branch, then stood so that his face came level with my shoulders. Shadows from the fluttering leaves danced across his face. “I knew that kidnapping you would cause an automatic level of distrust. We had been watching you for weeks, attempting to determine when and how to approach, to convince you to come with us. But then Dramian moved in and...” He shrugged. “We no longer had a choice.”
Spying aside, I never thought Arius had an alternative to what happened that night. That Dramian had forced him to take an action he’d rather not have taken. That even though he’d defend his decision to kidnap me to the death, he regretted the circumstances that had forced him to put them into motion.
A twig poked my arm, and I brushed it aside. “This will take time,” I said. “Kris and the queen go to the same school. We won’t be just observing. I don’t think we can do this without her.”
He appeared skeptical, but said, “It’s your call, General.”
I wished he didn’t make it sound like my decision was needlessly reckless. Turning to the window, I found it shut. But with the weather getting colder, that wasn’t meant as a deterrent to late-night visitors. I rapped on the cool windowpane.
Kris’s face appeared. Her eyes widened, then her eyebrows drew down into a scowl.
That wasn’t a good sign.
“I’m with someone,” she mouthed and held both her palms toward the glass.
I gave her a thumbs up and an encouraging smile, which only made her scowl deepen. Definitely not a good sign. Kris turned from the window.
“She’s talking to someone,” I said to Arius. “She wants us to return in ten minutes.”
We climbed down from the tree and took a walk around the block while Kris finished her discussion. Kris was one of those people kids gravitated toward. Not because she was popular, but because she was such a skilled listener and her advice was usually spot on. Often kids called or texted or even visited late at night to discuss their problems with her.
“Your friend didn’t seem thrilled to see you,” Arius observed.
I shrugged. “She’s probably upset because I didn’t come back and explain everything the night I tried to save your life. She’ll get over it.”
While being the most terrifying night of my life, that night had changed everything between Arius and me.
“You didn’t try, Mina. You saved my life,” he murmured in a soft voice.
I flinched a little. While the honesty and gratitude were clear in his tone, it reminded me of the life I had failed to save.
Shutting my eyes briefly, I pushed the painful thought aside. “I couldn’t have done it without Kris’s help.”
“I suppose I should give her a chance,” he mumbled.
It was a surprising concession, considering I could count on one hand the number of times Arius had conceded to anyone about anything.
We circled around to Kris’s house and arrived as the boy Kris had been talking with left. He ducked his head in an attempt to hide puffy eyes and a red nose as he dropped out of the tree and scurried off into the night.
Arius and I climbed up the tree and entered the now-open window to Kris’s room. I slid it shut behind me. This wasn’t a conversation I wanted anyone to overhear.
“So, you’ve come to give me an explanation,” she said, her voice hard.
Kris’s Mexican-American ancestry, inherited from her dad’s side, showed in her warm olive skin tone. Her black hair was cut into a trendy bob that was even shorter than my chin-length style. The nose ring she wore glinted in the lowlights of the room. She sat stiff on her bed, looking a bit worn, and glared at me. The last visitor must have been a tough one.
I took a tentative step forward. “Leaving you here without explaining things was thoughtless.”
“Thoughtless?” Kris raged. “Mina, you left me with a dead body on my front lawn.”
I didn’t think explaining that Nuada wasn’t dead—at least not in the official sense—would be much help at the moment.
“Yeah, sorry.”
“I called the police. I didn’t know what else to do. But by the time they arrived, the body had turned to ash. It disintegrated right before my eyes, Mina.”
I could see beneath the rage how traumatic that had been for her. “I should have come back and explained.” And yet, the police...? Arius and I exchanged uncertain glances. “What did you tell the police?”
Kris let out a bitter laugh. “I told them that a girl who was supposed to be dead came and visited me in the middle of the night and convinced me to let her sleep in my bed. Then the next thing I knew, giant monsters were clashing outside my house, and they crushed a woman who collapsed dead.” She shook her head. “You should have seen the way the police looked at me. They kept asking me what I had really burned in the front yard.”
Arius and I exchanged another glance. They hadn’t believed her.
“Don’t look so relieved,” Kris snapped. “Thanks to you, I’m now being forced to see a pathetic therapist twice a week. He keeps trying to convince me it all has to do with some unresolved conflict with my parents.”
I sat on the bed next to my friend and laid a hand on her shoulder. “I’l
l tell you everything.”
“By everything you mean admitting it was an elaborate prank or a dream or a hallucination, right? Because those are the only explanations that make sense.”
She was telling me not to tell her. To keep her in denial. But I couldn’t. I needed her.
“I’m not—human,” I forced out.
Kris jerked her shoulder out from under my hand and stood, hands clenched.
I rushed ahead. “I am a member of an ancient magical race called faeriekind, and we’re here to find our queen who was switched at birth to be raised by humans just like I was—”
“Get out.”
“That night, when I came to your house, I was trying to protect her from other faeries who wanted to harm her. You were the only one I could trust, and I saw in your school newspaper—she goes to your school—”
“I said get out!” Kris jabbed her finger at the window. “I won’t listen to another word of this bull—”
“Her name is Chelsea Herrington,” I blurted.
Kris froze, her mouth hanging open, whatever she was going to say next lost in the look of pure shock on her face. “Chels?”
So she did know her. I nodded. “She’s our queen. The woman, the one you thought died, she was trying to kill her. You helped me save Chels’s life.”
Kris sat back on the bed in a daze, all anger vanished. “And, uh, what do you plan on doing with her... when you find her?”
“We just want to talk to her. Help her recognize her true identity.”
“Will you take her away?”
“We won’t force her,” I said, glancing at Arius who stood by the bedroom window, arms folded, a grim frown on his face. “But we probably will try to convince her to come with us.”
Kris stared at the floor and chewed on her lower lip—something she did when she was deep in thought. Finally, her head rose, and she stared straight at me, a weird sort of determination in her eyes.
“What do you need me to do?”
9
The Faerie Queen
Mina
“Nothing ever turns out how you planned.”—Nana
RAIN SPLATTERED AGAINST the passenger window of Kris’s car and combined with other droplets where it ran in rivulets to the window’s base. I clutched my backpack to my chest, now filled with school supplies Kris had loaned me.
High school.
I thought I was done with school for good.
Guess not.
I glanced at the schedule in my hands as the wipers clunked across the windshield. Kris had spent the evening registering us online for classes using our faerie names along with Kris's cell phone number and the address of her next-door neighbor. She’d printed off our schedules for us.
I tugged at the too-tight jacket. It was supposed to be like that, according to Kris. She was always more stylish than I cared to be.
She had done a much better job with Arius. With her older brother away at college, Kris raided his room and returned with clothes I couldn’t believe her brother left behind. Arius wore a reddish-brown shirt and matching rust-tinted dark jeans. His golem tattoo peeked out from under the right sleeve, giving him just the right amount of bad-boy vibe. The shirt fit his body so well that anyone could easily see the toned physique that lay underneath. My stomach knotted.
The girls of Lake City High School would be clamoring to learn the name of the new boy.
After spending the rest of the night sequestered in Kris’s room, we were free to move about. Her parents had left on a business trip for their travel agency only an hour before. Kris was used it—her parents seemed to leave on business trips every few weeks or so. Kris’s little sister was already over at a friend’s house for the rest of the week.
Wolpertinger still hung out at the park. Arius had checked on him after breakfast and assigned him to keep a watch out for anything or anyone suspicious.
We pulled up to the school. It’s alternating beige lines on the two-story building gave it an elongated, rectangular look that was broken only by the triangular entrance jutting into the sky.
“School starts soon,” Kris said. “I’ll drop you off and go park.”
She stopped the car and waited for us to get out. This wasn’t what I’d expected. Even though we needed to check in at the office, I expected Kris would help orient us. Maybe even point out Chels.
“What about finding Chels?” Arius asked from the back seat, clearly thinking along the same lines.
“Oh, no worries. You’ll find her. Just let Mina do her thing. Plus, I’m technically not supposed to have more than one person in the car at a time. Driver’s license rules and whatever. Cars behind us are waiting—out, out, out.” She shooed us away with her hand.
Arius and I exited the car into the dreary morning rain and watched as Kris sped off.
“What thing?” I asked.
Arius shrugged.
We entered through the front doors of the school. Teens lined the hallway, standing in groups, talking and laughing with friends. Some kids crowded around open lockers. Others stood alone, hoods up, heads bent toward their pockets, no doubt where they hid phones or other devices. Typical high school.
I still clutched my backpack to my chest. The last time I had been a new student was in third grade, and that hadn’t exactly started out well. Kris, who later became my friend after I protected her from the meanest kid in school, had started out a bully herself. And I, the new girl, had been Kris’s primary target.
I released a breath and pulled my backpack on. That was when we both lived in Spokane, many years ago. At the beginning of eighth grade, Kris had moved to Coeur d’Alene.
We were on a mission, I reminded myself. There was no pressure to fit in. We weren’t staying.
I couldn’t help but notice how many girls’ heads popped up or turned as soon as Arius stepped through the doors. We made the short walk to the front office. He already wore his backpack slung over one shoulder like most other guys. I had been worried about Arius fitting in with a bunch of high school kids, but now I suspected it would be the opposite problem.
The bell rang, and the hallway became crowded as teenagers started moving off toward classes.
We entered the office. The lady at the front desk was nice and didn’t make a big deal about our unusual faerie names—Jazrael General and Arius Ettemarch. The vice principal stepped out of his office to welcome us and assured us we would enjoy attending Lake City High.
“So where are you kids coming from?” he asked.
Oh great. Questions. “Kind of around Wallace, “I recited the answer we’d practiced. Wallace was a random town along I-90 but the vagueness of the answer allowed me to get around the no lying issue. “We used to be home taught.”
No need to mention that most of that learning consisted of soldiering and combat skills.
“Oh, you mean homeschooled? So this is your first time in public school?” the vice principal asked.
“Yes,” Arius said definitively, answering only for himself.
“Well, we hope you enjoy it here. I’ll have Suzi, our administrative assistant, show you around.”
He turned away to talk to the woman at the front desk, and I breathed a sigh. That could have been a lot worse. At least he didn’t ask about our different last names.
Suzi handed us each a map and gave us the grand tour. That used up half of first period. When finished, she dropped Arius off at first-period history and walked me to math class.
I walked in, showed the teacher my schedule, and sat in my newly assigned seat, ignoring the curious stares. Even though Kris couldn't get Arius and me any classes together, she managed to get us the same lunch as Chels. And, I was in Chels’s fourth-period science class.
As the bell rang, I sighed. One more class to go, then lunchtime, and I could get on with my mission.
I wandered into American History next and nearly ran into Arius as he left the room.
“He’s decent,” Arius said of the teacher.
&n
bsp; He brushed past me, and I watched as at least two or three kids tried to start up a conversation with him on the way out. One boy tried to ask him about his workout routine.
My pen tapped up and down on my empty notebook as I pondered how to approach Chels and explain everything. Before we’d left for school, Kris showed us a picture from her freshman yearbook. Chels was beautiful, with long blond hair and makeup that looked professional. I wondered how someone like her would handle living at the Haven. We didn’t even have flushing toilets. Well, not anymore.
I faintly recognized that the lesson was on the Civil War and about some guy named Grant the Butcher. A video blared at the front of the room, but I tuned it out in favor of my thoughts.
I wished there was a way to approach Chels and explain without sounding delusional.
“Jazrael, what is your opinion on General Grant’s methods?” the teacher asked.
I sank a little in my chair. Just my luck. But I’d sat through enough classes over the years to know how to BS my way through almost any question a teacher threw at me, listening or not.
“They called him a butcher, right? Obviously, his soldiers didn’t think too much of his methods,” I said.
I heard a cough-laugh. Someone in the class thought my answer was clever.
“Some say it was just this method, the willingness to throw soldiers into the fight and persevere, win or fail, that helped the North win the Civil War,” the teacher said.
Willingness to throw soldiers into the fight, code words for carelessly sentencing flesh-and-blood people to die on his behalf. “And I’m sure General Grant was out there in front of them leading these soldiers to glory?”
“Well, no. Generals of that time stayed back from the battle to direct the troops. Someone needed to watch over the bigger picture,” the teacher said.
“Easy to sacrifice other people’s lives when you get to sit back in safety and watch it all happen. Maybe if he’d gotten into a few more frays himself, he would have been more careful with who he chose to sacrifice,” I said, disgusted.
“Interesting. So you think Grant’s unwillingness to sacrifice himself in battle was selfish,” the teacher said.