Jax stopped and looked at my feet.
“Not these shoes, idiot. I left my shoes behind. How did I forget them? The black ones, oh my god, the blue sparkly limited edition peep-toe sandals. Jax, the sandals!”
He burst out laughing and pulled the bag from his back. He opened the zip, and sitting on top a neat stack of clothes were my prized pair of peep-toe sparkly blue sandals. “I figured you would want these. I couldn’t fit them all, but you can always magic yourself some, that is if you figure out how to do your own spells instead of just ones from that book.”
“Jax, you are amazing!” I leapt at him and we tumbled to the ground. My lips found his and we forgot for a second about the blood that had been spilled, the threat at our backs, even the trek that lay ahead. We let ourselves just be in that moment, be with each other. His hands pulled me in close, one hand at my back and the other tangled in my hair. It would have been easy to become lost in the passion, but we had to get to Baldea.
“Jax,” I mumbled through his still-busy lips. “We have to go.”
“Spoil sport,” he joked, licking his lips as he stepped away and picked up the backpack. “Alright, let’s go.”
When we reached Baldea, Jax left me to see his family, while I went to see my father. When I reached his house, I wasn’t sure I was in the right place. Once covered in black sparkling moss, his entire home except the door was now a brilliant shimmering green in glistening in the light. I knocked, noticing the handle that was once the hiding space for Parabellum had been replaced by a large red glass knob. I touched the pendant at my chest, thankful it was there.
The door creaked open, revealing a woman wearing a pale blue uniformed dress.
“Can I help you my dear?” she asked, but her eyes grew wide and she smiled, pulling me into a hug.
“Ummm, can I see Max please?”
“Max? Don’t you mean your father?” She released me from her embrace but still held onto my arms.
“How do you know… look, is my father in?”
“Sweet Pea!” she beamed, her skin taking on an energetic glow.
“Excuse me?”
“Sweet pea, your mother and I spent many hours planning for you. We spoke to you all the time. I used to sing to you too. When your mother was too tired, she taught me her song, your song.”
I could call visions to my mind whenever I wanted, the ones I could see anyway, and I could see her clear as day. She had aged well, her hands showing the most of it, but in a job like hers it is to be expected.
“Maylea?” I asked.
“Sweet Pea, you are finally home. Please, come, I will take you to your father.”
I followed her through the hall, nodding and smiling at the portrait of my mother as I passed, but careful not to call on her.
“You father will be so pleased to see you, though I don’t think he mentioned you coming.”
“No, no, it was sort of a spur of the moment decision, Jax and I.”
“My Jax?” she said, stopping and stepping way too far into my personal space bubble. “Jax… is he here, is he home?”
“Your Jax?” I asked, stepping back to await her explanation.
“Jax is my nephew, sweet pea. Can you not see the resemblance?”
“Err, sort of,” I lied. She did not look anything like him. Her eyes glowed bronze and her skin was paler than mine. “Jax just left me. He went to see his family and will be meeting me here later.”
“Fabulous!” She pulled me along the corridor again. “Come, sweet pea. Let us surprise your father.” Her skin seemed to shine after I mentioned Jax. I looked for her energy—it was a dusty pink, and in that moment, it was buzzing. Jax was important to her; her entire body hummed with excitement at the mention of his name.
I remembered my mother, and how she would smile that same smile for me. Maylea then slowed to a standstill, and my mother appeared.
She took one look at Maylea and smirked. It was not the same smile I had been thinking of, but it was close enough. “What’s wrong, Des?” she asked, eyeing my disheveled appearance after my trek across the border with Jax.
I broke down, thankful I could hold her once more, because all that could hold me up in that moment were my mother’s arms.
“It’s Traflier, he is behind it all. He controls the Stalisies, he controlled the beasts, he called forth the Dazerarthro, he killed…” I couldn’t finish, couldn’t tell her that Traflier had claimed rights to her death. I wept into her neck as she rubbed my back just as she used to when I was little.
“Why didn’t I see any of this?” she asked, holding me tighter. “I should have been able to see him do those things, calling the Dazerarthro, controlling those beasts. How did he do all of it without us knowing?”
“He has power, Mum, more than you know.” I wiped my eyes, releasing my mother from my Kung Fu grip. “If he didn’t want those in essence to see him, he would make sure they couldn’t. Frey’s memories, her visions, they have hazy spots in them. When I try to bring up any memory she has of Traflier, I can’t see him clearly. I can’t see what is around him or hear any sounds. All that remained was a sort of white noise.”
She frowned and squinted her eyes, the same thing she used to do when she lost her keys and was trying to recall where she’d left them last. Usually she found them in the freezer. God knows why they ever ended up in there. “This is not good, Desmoree. What does he want? Do you know what he is trying to do?”
Unfortunately, I did. But how could I tell her he was trying to kill me, Jax, and every Tanzieth that existed? She couldn’t do anything about it, and I didn’t want to hit her with so much at once.
“He wants more power,” I said. “He will try to take it from everyone, he will try to steal all of the Fey magic.” I left the details of how he planned to get it to myself. “I have to see Dad.”
“You will figure it out, Des, I will find out what I can too.” She smiled and kissed my cheek before disappearing.
Maylea returned to her brisk stride towards the hall stairs. “Come now, hurry up, I can’t wait to see the look on his face, he will be so happy to see you.”
Maybe not when I tell him what’s going on, I thought as we took the stairs higher into the mansion. We passed at least thirty doorways along the way, all draped in purple velvet, and all absent an actual door. We reached the end of the hall—where two large blue doors, embossed with gold filigree vines around its edges stood. Its handles were black glass, hand-blown to curve and twist to form a handhold.
She didn’t knock; instead, she opened the double doors and strolled right in as if walking into her own room in her own house.
“Your daughter is here,” she announced with a reverence that made me worry that what I was going to see was not going to be good.
“Dad!” I practically yelled when she stepped aside to reveal him. He was sitting up in an enormous four-poster bed, surrounded by books and looking whiter than a sheet.
“He will not rest. He cannot expect to recover if he does not rest. Perhaps now that you are here, you’ll talk some sense into him.”
She was talking to me but her words were more directed at my father, her tone as if she were scolding a child. He simply gave an apologetic smile and then gestured for me to come to him.
He still struggled to recover from the battle. A red scar, only partially healed, sat above his right eye, and bandages concealed his left forearm.
“What are you doing here?” His energy got a little brighter, but only for a moment. The battle, and now the healing, was taking all of his energy. He looked like he had not slept in days.
“Dad, there is some news I need to tell you, but the way you are, I…, I can’t tell you until you are better, it won’t help.”
“Dad? I get dad now; wow I must look pretty bad then huh?”
“You’ve looked better.”
The air prickled and Frey appeared beside him, but Max didn’t freeze.
“What the fuck!” he cried.
“Dad!”
“Sorry, but who the hell are you?”
“Maxvillious, do not fear me. I am here to help, or at least to show Desmoree how she can,” she turned her attention to me. “Desmoree, you can help your father if you choose. You can affect energy, remember.”
I looked at her puzzled, then it dawned on me: I had taken little amounts of energy from the essence and Oley to give me strength to battle the Dazerarthro. It didn’t help then, but the reverse might help now.
“Of course,” I said as I made my way to my father’s side, passing by several purple chairs lined up against the wall.
Why anyone would want seven purple velvet chairs in their bedroom was beyond me.
“Desmoree, your father was ill, he needed protection. His guards sat in those chairs,” Frey answered without me needing to actually ask.
Why can’t I get the cool mind-reading power?
Frey flashed me a smile as a vision emerged of the many suited-up Tanzieth soldiers sitting perfectly still, waiting and watching as my father slept.
I sat in front of my father and though he was not frozen, he was still with shock. Frey touched his arm as his eyes drifted up towards hers and then she disappeared, leaving my father staring off into space.
Nice to know you’re still watching over me, I thought of Frey and my mother.
“Dad, look at me.”
He turned and blinked a few times to focus his eyes. “Desmoree… what was?”
“That was Frey. I will tell you more about her, but first I want to try something.”
I took his other hand and closed my eyes; I focused on his dulled energy, and my overflowing one. I pushed with my mind, forcing my energy out slightly, asking it to wrap around my father. I opened my eyes and I could see it moving around him like a controlled, sparkling fog. It hugged his shape and then, as if in the instant I thought it, it went into him, it became a part of him, changing its color and density to match his own.
He gasped, breaking my concentration. His energy buzzed around him. His color had returned, and the scar from above his eye was completely gone.
“What did you do?” he asked as he leapt from the bed and rushed to the fantastically tall gold mirror that lay against the far wall of the room.
Rushing back to me, he grabbed me, turning me to face him front on. “What did you do?” he yelled, flaring his nostrils and wrinkling his brow.
“I helped you, gave back the energy you had lost. Wait, what did I miss, why are you mad?”
“You can’t do that, you shouldn’t do it, people will mob you. They will hunt you, so many will ask for your help. They will drain everything you have.”
“Dad, calm down. That’s part of the reason I’m here, Jax and I were attacked.”
“What?” The room vibrated under the force of his voice. I could actually feel the floor shake as the energy I gave him swelled.
“Dad, calm down. I will tell you everything, that’s why I’m here, but you have to calm down. Look, let’s just sit and then I will go over everything.” He took my hand and almost dragged me to the balcony where two chairs sat overlooking the vast beauty that was Baldea.
“Alright I’m sitting now spill.”
I rolled my eyes, he wasn’t exactly calm but his energy had returned to its regular drift around him. We sat overlooking the beauty that had returned to his home, my home. I told him about Traflier controlling the Stalisies, how he had tried to drain both Jax and I, and how he controlled even the children, using them to shoot lightning bolts at us. When I reached the part with Marcus, he called out to someone named Thomas.
“What can I do?” Thomas asked after entering. He was about my age with wavy brown hair, and dark brown eyes. His eyes darted to me for a moment before returning all his attention to my father.
“Collect a guard, go to the border where you will meet a Fey called Marcus, take over his watch of the boundary. Report on any advance from Sayeesies. We are now at war.”
Thomas didn’t flinch at the mention of war; he simply gave a curt bow then left as quickly as he’d arrived.
“The guard will keep an eye on the border, we will know if they get through.”
“I will know,” I said, looking out at the land, the shimmer of my bubble barely visible but definitely there. “If my shield fails, I will feel it before they even know that it has fallen.” I touched the place where my old necklace used to sit, then moved my fingers down to where Parrabellum rested low between my breasts.
“Wait here a moment,” Max said and he walked back into the room and stopped at the photo of my mother. He pulled something out from behind the frame and held it concealed in his closed fist. “I believe this is yours,” he said. As he opened his hand, my pendant dropped to dangle in front of my eyes.
“Will you?” I asked, pulling my hair to the side.
He leaned over and clasped it around my neck. The pendant, his sine, fell to my chest, taking its rightful place in the crease between my collarbones.
“But how?” I asked, touching my hand to the symbol, like I had done so many times before.
“I noticed you didn’t have it on the first day I met you and so took the necessary steps to acquire it for you once more.” Trust my father to answer a question in a way that left me no better off in understanding. We smiled at each other for a moment, but our tender pause was short lived as Frey reappeared.
Though clearly surprised by her sudden appearance, he managed to nod a greeting before leaving Frey and I alone to talk.
Frey walked to a long chase that sat against the edge of the balcony. I could tell she was worried.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. It was a stupid question. A lot was wrong. My mother was dead, and her great grandfather had called forth the Dazerarthro, and controlled a horde of beasts and Fey. Yep, it was a stupid question, but I asked it anyway.
Frey turned to me briefly before returning to the landscape ahead. “You have seen my memories in the visions you call forward, and your mind is linked to mine through Parabellum. I have to ask, have you noticed anything strange?”
“I have. It’s like I can’t see everything clearly, like dreams that won’t come into focus?”
She squinted at the horizon, searching for something, or maybe searching her own mind. She lowered her head, defeated.
“Frey, what is it? What can’t we see?”
“At first I thought they were faded memories, too old for me to remember clearly. But now I think it is something more.”
“Traflier?” I said, and she nodded.
“He has become something else. He is no longer just a Stalisies. I think he has been conjuring ancient Magics. Not even those I know of could do what he seems to be able to. I think they are even older, darker. I never imagined that anyone could harness a power derived from such an evil. But I think he has found a way.”
Something moved behind us and we leapt to our feet. The man who stood before us was barely a man. His waxy skin shimmered as if coated in fine glitter, his hair shot out in styled spikes, red as fire, and this made his blackened eyes stand out even more. He wore a fitted black suit and shiny black shoes.
“Who the hell are you?” I said.
He raised his hands defensively and took several steps back.
“Who are you?” Frey asked again—more politely, but not without force.
“My name is Mortimer.” His voice hummed on the air like a lullaby.
“What… are… you?” Frey interjected as she stepped closer to him, studying him intently. “You are not Oley. You are not essence. But you are not a Stalisies or Tanzieth either.”
But I remembered his name from my book—the book he had created for me, the book that had changed everything.
“This may be hard for you to understand,” he said as he took a seat in one of the purple velvet chairs that sat along the wall.
“Well, let’s have it, what are you?” I said as I lifted my hands for effect.
“I was created along with existence; I am on
e of the first of any kind. I am an angel.”
“Angels have wings and watch over humans. They don’t dress all in black, look like the living dead, and scare the crap out of people. You look more like a vampire than an angel.” I was being a smart arse, I knew. I had heard of many different kinds of beings since arriving here, but as I had discovered, I couldn’t be sure that any truly were what they claimed.
“I am the reason for this mess.” Mortimer dropped his head.
“Stop that!” I demanded. I was sick of people falling into a stupor when times were tough. “Now, if you are who I think you are, you will kindly tell me what, exactly, is Mortimer’s dream?”
His head shot up.
“Well?” I was getting tired of all the mind games involved in this Fey life. Not that everything was super clear in the human world, but when an editor doesn’t tell you the truth about your work, it doesn’t result in someone dying. “Look Mortimer, I want to know what your spell is, how you knew to make that book for me, and what the hell you mean by this mess being your fault. You can start with whichever you choose, but you will give me the answers I want and you will give them to me now.”
Mortimer folded his hands over in his lap. “I knew Traflier a long time ago. He first found me when he inadvertently cast a spell for light. He had no idea what he had done at the time, and was astonished to see me appear before him.”
“He found you? You mean he called you to him, when he cast the spell. So how does that work? I’ve cast spells, and you are the first freaky angel I’ve seen.”
“Desmoree!” Frey chastised, putting her hand on my shoulder. “Let him speak, I wish to know more.”
“Fine, go on then.”
Mortimer sighed. “I explained to Traflier, a younger man then, that he had made a connection to an angel that granted his desire for light, and that such connections should not be wasted. I shouldn’t have shown myself, I did not have to, I could have granted the call for light without letting him see me. I wish every day that I had.” Mortimer fidgeted with his waxy fingers in his lap.
“His fascination with my kind and my own loneliness allowed us to develop what I thought was a friendship. We spent hours together, talking about everything and anything. He was particularly interested in the connection between everything, all of creation. But it was after one of our long chats I made my biggest mistake.” Mortimer slapped his hands over his face, taking in several breaths before finally lowering them to his lap. Frey and I stood silently, not wanting to break his concentration or his nerve.
Enchanting the Fey- The Complete Series Page 18