"If she's awake enough to ask questions, then she is alert enough to answer them," another voice said in a deeper tone, tinged with a growl.
"Patience," yet another said, an airy voice this time, almost amused. "She was drained to nearly nothing. All your fine interrogation skills are useless on the unconscious."
Drained. Jake had used that word. It matched how she felt, as if the marrow of her bones had been sucked out and she were about to collapse from the inside out. Her heart hammered loud and fast in her ears, and she wondered what the airy voice meant by "fine interrogation skills." "What do you want?" she asked.
She felt a breath on her cheek, hot and fetid. A voice rumbled, "We want to know how many humans you've killed to survive."
"What?" Her eyes teared as she strained to force the blurs and streaks into shapes. "I don't understand. I've never hurt anyone."
"Impossible," the airy voice said.
Another voice said, "Tye has vouched for her."
"Children can be deceived," the deep voice rumbled. "In
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this case, he may wish to be. You'll answer us now, half breed. Are you a Feeder?"
"No!" she shouted. Lily sat up and felt as if fire shot through her head. She squeezed her forehead and felt the cloth bandages on her hand. It stung where the dragon had bit her. "I'm not a Feeder. I'm not a half breed. I'm not anybody." Until today, nothing unusual had ever happened to her. She was just ordinary Lily who worked in her grandfather's flower shop, took care of her mother, and obsessed about her grades.
"You crossed the gate on your own," the waterfall voice said. "You are a Key."
Lily's vision was clearing, though her head still throbbed. She saw a horse directly in front of her. She lifted her gaze, and the horse's torso flattened into a human stomach. She stared at the intersection of human skin and horsehair, and then she looked up into an elderly man's face.
Centaur, her brain helpfully supplied.
Behind the centaur was a man with orange and black tiger fur streaking his face. Beside him, a two-inch-tall man with orange butterfly wings perched on the shoulder of a porcelain-skinned woman with black-as-night hair and sharply pointed ears. Next to the elven woman was a stack of stones, loosely in the shape of a person, that moved and breathed as if it were alive. And lastly, there was a unicorn.
Lily stared longest at the unicorn. She felt as if she were looking at a shaft of moonlight. He was iridescent white, as
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smooth and flawless as a Michelangelo sculpture. His golden horn shone like an angel's halo.
"How do you feel, child?" the elven woman asked. Her tone implied that she didn't care what Lily's answer was or if she answered at all. She peered down at Lily as if she were an only mildly interesting science experiment.
Lily could be dreaming. She could be unconscious, knocked out when Jake had let her fall onto the stone plaza. Or she could have lost her mind. Given her family history, that was the most likely option. It was much more likely than the idea that Professor Ape had told the truth. "I need my medicine," Lily said, attempting to keep her voice calm. "Where's my grandfather?"
"Who is your grandfather?" the tiger-faced man rumbled.
"More importantly, who are your parents?" the elf asked. She caught Lily's chin in her hand, and Lily felt the pressure of fingernails against her cheek. Lily froze. The elf was doll-like beautiful. She shouldn't have been frightening, but there was something too perfect about her face. She looked more like a department store mannequin come to life than a real woman.
"My grandfather is Richard Carter, and my mother is Rose Carter," Lily said "My father was William Carter."
The tiger man asked, "Was?"
With his tiger face, he should have looked like a costumed performer, but he didn't. The fur was real, and there was no faking the heavy jaws or the cat-slit pupils. He looked as if he'd
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begun to transform into a tiger and stopped partway. Under his gaze, Lily felt as if she'd been cornered by predators. His yellow eyes bored into her. "He died in a car accident a few months after I was born," she said. "I never knew him." She'd never even seen a photo. ... Oh, God, was this why there were no photos? Could he have been--
No, she thought. If her father had been one iota out of the ordinary, Grandpa would have ferreted it out. He was too protective of Mom not to have thoroughly screened her husband.
The rock creature shifted, and Lily heard the crackle of gravel. He spoke: "What is your purpose in coming here now?" Each word thudded.
"I just ... wanted to get into college," Lily said miserably. It sounded ridiculous given the circumstances. "I didn't do anything wrong!"
"How old are you, child?" the elf asked.
"Sixteen," Lily said.
The tiny man whistled low. "Sixteen years without magic ..."
"Impossible," the tiger man said. "She must be a Feeder. She must be held and reeducated. We cannot allow her to return--"
The unicorn interrupted him. "She would never survive the length of time required for reeducation. The magic would overload her body."
"I'm telling you the truth!" Lily said. "I never heard of
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Feeders before today. All I did was walk through a gate!" She stood up, and the unicorn leveled his horn at her, the stone man shifted forward, and the centaur tensed. She stiffened.
"You did more than that," the centaur said grimly. "You survived for sixteen years without a single visit to our world. You're a half breed. You need both worlds to survive."
Staring at the tip of the unicorn's horn, she felt her heart pound so fast that it felt like bird wings beating inside her rib cage. "I don't understand," Lily said.
"Half breeds belong to both worlds," the tiny man said.
"Or neither," the elf said. "You should only last a month in the human world before too much magic leaches from you and you die of magic loss. And you should only last a month in our world before your body suffocates with too much magic. Yet you live. An interesting mystery."
Lily forced herself to take a deep breath. "If you let me go home, I promise I'll find an explanation. I'll figure out why I'm still alive. If I'm a mystery, then let me solve it. I deserve a chance to solve it!"
The centaur and the tiger man exchanged looks. The tiny man hovered above the elf's shoulder. His fluttering wings stirred the air, swirling the sunlit dust. The stone man shifted, and it sounded like an avalanche.
"Please!" Lily said. She'd never come here again if they'd just let her go. She looked at each of them, her eyes pleading. "I'm not a Feeder. I'll find answers."
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The unicorn dipped his horn low, the equivalent of lowering his sword. "I will allow it," he said.
"As will I," the centaur said.
"Yes!" the tiny man said.
The elf sighed. "Very well."
The tiger man growled. "Only with conditions."
The others nodded. Lily didn't breathe. Please, she thought. Please, let me go!
"You may return to the human world," the centaur said. "But you must find answers to our questions before you enter our world again. Otherwise we will have no choice but to believe you are a Feeder and insist that you remain here for reeducation."
She felt her knees shake. "You'll let me go?" Her voice cracked.
Back on the elf's shoulder, the tiny man braided and unbraided the elven woman's silken hair. His tiny fingers flew over the brilliant black strands. "Do you understand? You can't survive here. You'd last longer than any of us would in your world, but eventually you'd suffocate on too much magic."
"Discover how it is that you are alive," the tiger man said. "Or when you next come before us, you will not leave, no matter the consequences to you."
Lily swallowed hard. "I'll find answers," she promised.
"We do not condone Feeders," the centaur said. "Remind the knights of your Princeton. We support them and their cause."
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The ti
ger man flicked a claw at her. "My son will assist you. He awaits you outside." His son ... Tye? Tye looked much more human than this man. She wondered what her own father had looked like. What kind of monster had he been? What was in her genes?
The stone man lumbered toward the door and opened it. Lily walked to the exit. It took every ounce of self-control not to run. Behind her, she heard the unicorn say in his waterfall voice, "If you are truly innocent, then we will welcome you. Another Key is a blessing."
Lily heard the tiger man rumble, but she couldn't tell if it was in agreement, disappointment, or hunger. She wasn't about to stay to find out.
She fled the room and didn't look back.
Outside, Lily halted and stared across a college yard, complete with oak trees, sidewalks, and the FitzRandolph Gate. On either side of her were Princeton buildings, and behind her--she turned to look--the building she had been in was Nassau Hall.
"Impossible," she said.
Leaning against one of the oak trees, Tye said, "Sorry. You're not dreaming, hallucinating, or crazy." He peeled away from the tree and crossed to her. "Are you okay?"
Lily looked back at the gate. Gold eagles perched on the stone pillars, and a thick forest lay beyond. She'd crossed the looking glass into bizarro Princeton. "Just peachy," she
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said. She started to shake, and Tye wrapped his arm around her shoulders. She buried her face against his chest as tears poured out of her eyes. He stroked her hair. He didn't tell her to stop crying or that there was nothing to cry about or any other platitude. He simply held her until she could breathe again without sobbing.
She pulled back. "I wet your shirt," she said, touching the tearstains that darkened his T-shirt. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I did that. I'm not a crier." She was normally a bottle-it-upper. She reserved any necessary crying sessions for late at night, locked in the bathroom, where Mom wouldn't hear her.
He shrugged. "It'll dry. Don't worry about it." Strands of hair clung to her tear-streaked cheeks. Gently, he pushed the strands off her skin. She looked into his golden eyes. His face was only a few inches from hers. For a second, they stared at each other, and Lily had the insane thought that he was going to kiss her. But then he released her and said, "You're hurt. What happened to your hand?"
"Oh, uh ... you know the dragon on the University Chapel? It bit me."
He turned her wounded hand over and examined the bandages. His fingers were soft and gentle on her wrist. "What on earth possessed you to get so close to him?" Tye asked.
"I thought he was animatronic," Lily said.
Tye grinned. "Fair enough." He was still holding her hand.
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Her skin tingled. She couldn't tell if it was from his touch or from the air here. "Last time the Chained Dragon drained a Key, the magic was enough to free him. He killed a lot of people before he was caught again. You were lucky. That Key didn't survive."
She shivered.
"If you'd been an ordinary human, you'd certainly be dead," Tye said. "Good thing you're full of surprises."
"So are you," Lily said. She pulled her hand away from his. "You lied to me. You said you were my guard."
"Yeah," he said. He didn't sound the least bit sorry. "But 'Hi, I'm Tye, I'm a were-tiger' would have been the worst pickup line ever."
Despite herself, Lily laughed.
His smile faded. "You aren't supposed to exist, you know."
"Now, that is the worst pickup line ever." She tried to keep her voice light. "Everyone seems very disappointed that I'm not dead."
"Believe me, I'm not," he said softly. He laid his hand on hers, over the bandages, and looked straight into her eyes. He didn't have his father's eyes, she noticed. He had human eyes, except for the golden color. "I thought I was alone," Tye said.
Lily couldn't think of anything to say. His expression was so intense that it could have thawed a glacier. She felt as if she were melting into his tawny eyes.
"So, what are you?" he asked. "You don't look like you have wings or a tail. Anything strange ever happen around
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you? Anyone turn to stone? Anything burst into flame?"
She shook her head.
"Hey, it's okay." He lightly touched her cheek, and she felt her skin tingle again beneath his fingertips. "We'll figure it out. I have an idea that could help. Come with me."
He propelled her across the yard and around Nassau Hall. She heard a faint whispered hum as she passed the oaks. It sounded as if a radio stuck between a station and static were lodged inside her head. Maybe it was a side effect of the blood loss. Or she could have a concussion from when she had fallen onto the plaza flagstones. "Do you hear that?" she asked.
"Hear what?" he asked.
In the distance, a trio of boys with antlers exited one of the Gothic classrooms. Lily stared, hum forgotten. "What is this place?"
"It's Princeton," Tye said. "Or at least another version of it. Both schools were built when the gate was open to everyone. The two campuses were supposed to foster understanding between the worlds. You know, so that we don't end up slaughtering each other."
"Oh," she said. "You go here?"
"Father's on the council," he said, "so I've pretty much been a student here my whole life." As they crossed the campus, he told her stories about being a student at this Princeton: classmates who could vanish or sprout wings, professors who wrote with six arms on chalkboards, courses that focused
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on shape-shifter physics. At last, Tye stopped in front of the concrete arches of the football stadium.
"So what do you do here?" she asked. "Quidditch?"
"Not all the students fit into the usual dorms." He led her through the arches, underneath the bleachers. Ahead, she saw a football field crisscrossed with clumps of dirt as if it had been unevenly raked. "We use this place for the dragons."
Lily halted. Clutching her bandaged hand to her chest, she said, "I think I'll skip this part of the tour."
"You need to see this." He sounded serious and intense. "You need to understand that the Chained Dragon is the exception. You need to understand that we're the good guys too."
"Why?" Lily asked. "Why do I need to understand? Why show me any of this? It's not like I'm ever going to come here again." She wouldn't come back to a place where the ultimatum of death loomed over her head. She planned to avoid FitzRandolph Gate as studiously as if she were a superstitious Princeton student. "I belong in the other Princeton, in the human world."
He looked as if she'd slapped him.
"I'm sorry," she said. She wished she'd phrased it differently. She hadn't thought he would take it personally. "It's really nice of you to show me around, but ..."
"Fly with me," he said.
Lily gaped at him. Now, that was a request that didn't come along every day. "What part of 'no dragons' was
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unclear?" she asked. "I don't want this." She waved her hand at the dragons, at the campus, at all of it. "This is not on my life plan."
"Maybe you need to change your 'life plan,'" Tye said. "You have a new destiny now. An important and amazing one. If you let me, I'll show it to you."
Without waiting for her response, he strode out onto the field.
She hesitated for a second and then followed. Above, three dragons soared through the sky. Jewel-like scales glittered in the sunlight so brightly that it looked as if someone had tossed sapphires, emeralds, and rubies into the air.
One of the dragons broke formation and glided down to the field. He skidded along the grass, churning up long furrows of dirt. As he swung his mammoth head toward Lily and Tye, Lily froze. Steam curled out of his nostrils as he breathed. His eyes were swirls of liquid gold.
"Greetings, Tiger Boy," the dragon said.
Lily shivered at the familiar snakelike sound.
"Come on--ride a dragon with me?" Tye asked Lily. He flashed his lopsided grin at her. "You can't deny it's a helluva first date."
&nbs
p; She couldn't help smiling back at him. His tawny eyes were fixed on her as if her answer were all that mattered in the world. "Just back to the gate," she said.
Tye smiled.
"And only if you promise the dragon won't eat me."
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The dragon spoke. "I wouldn't dream of it, little Key. You are not flavored to my liking."
"Somehow I don't feel reassured," she said.
Tye held out his hand. "Trust me."
She took his hand and let him boost her onto the dragon's back. She settled onto scales as smooth as metal. Tye climbed on behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. Lily felt his breath on her neck. She breathed in his rain forest-like scent.
Beneath them, the dragon pumped his wings. Wind whooshed around them. With a massive push against the football field, the dragon lurched into the air. He stretched his wings out, and in seconds they were soaring in the brilliant blue sky.
She saw wisps of cloud in front of them, and then damp mist surrounded them for an instant. They burst out the other side, and then the dragon dove down. Lily clutched at the dragon's scales and screamed. Tye's arms tightened around her waist. "Look beyond Princeton!" he shouted into the wind.
She looked and saw forest for miles on end. Sprawling trees, larger than sequoias, stretched their branches in every direction. She saw streams so blue that they looked like strips of sky laid through the forest. Griffins plummeted and rose in aerial dances with fiery birds. In the distance, she saw mountains etch the horizon in white and black.
This was not New Jersey.
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"Do you like it?" Tye shouted in her ear.
Below, horses with bodies of foam and spray galloped down the streams and then melted into water droplets. She saw a man with angel wings leap from a tree and glide over the forest. A lone woman jumped over a fallen trunk and changed into a wolf. A swarm of bright lights lit the shadowed trees and then disappeared.
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