by Carrie Jones
“I can’t … Something is pulling me, Bloom.” She cringed. It was like invisible hands were on her ankles. One second later, she was ripped out of Bloom’s grasp and zooming through the air, up the staircase.
Bloom came thundering after her, hollering her name as she flew through the darkness, through a door and to the rooftop. But there was no roof, just a ledge. And the door she flew through slammed shut behind her. A moment later, Bloom threw himself against it, trying to rend it open. Annie landed on a six-inch-wide ledge, illuminated by the moonlight and stars. All around her were the rolling hills of Ireland, the Burren, and then the sea. A car zipped down a winding road. She could see Jamie, Eva, and Johann down on the grass. It looked like some sort of force field surrounded the castle, greenish and spherical. They were pounding against it the same way Bloom was battling the door, trying to get back in despite the archers’ arrows.
“Annie!” Bloom pounded on the door. “Are you okay?”
She was not okay. She was not. But she couldn’t tell him why, not yet.
“Yep. I’ll be down in a second. Go wait with the others,” she called out.
“What?” Bloom stopped pounding, his voice incredulous.
“Totally fine. Just have to pee, do girl things, I’ll be right out.”
“Um … okay … yeah …”
Annie finally looked at who was waiting for her up there, looked at him straight on as if she wasn’t terrified, as if she didn’t want to beg for Bloom to come save her, but she couldn’t do that, couldn’t put her friend in as much danger as she was in. No way. She refused to be that kind of girl.
21
Unleashing the Power
The Raiff demon stood at the top of the parapet, waiting. Annie knew it wasn’t him, but she also knew that it was him—just not his real body. He had somehow materialized there, like a ghost—real but not real. And even in this form he was strong enough to drag her up here against her will. She hated to think how powerful he was in person.
“You aren’t here,” she said bravely.
“I am and I’m not. My body is still trapped in the Badlands, obviously.” He sighed softly. “Miss Cornelia is proving to be a tough nut to crack. Sorry for the cliché. They are tiresome, I know. But my mind and my spirit are indeed here, talking to you, my great-granddaughter.” He eyed her. “I see you are not shocked, so they’ve told you that you are my descendant.”
“They have.”
“And still you tremble. Do you think I would harm my own blood?”
“Yes. You already have. I know you killed my mother.” Unclenching her fists, Annie grabbed the side of the castle’s roof wall. It was rough against her fingers. “I don’t think you care who you harm.”
“Or what.” He laughed slightly. “Don’t forget the ‘whats.’ ”
“Did you make that force field down there?” Annie asked. “Are you the doom sensation I’ve been feeling?”
“Of course. Silly questions.” He waved them away. “Don’t you want to know why I’m here? How I found you? Why I’ve sought you out?”
“Not really,” Annie said, and she wasn’t sure if she was lying or not. She knew it couldn’t be good, though. Nothing was good right now. Miss Cornelia and the elves were still trapped in the Badlands, her friends were cut off from her, and she was alone with the demon who had stolen all the goodness out of her life. He’d killed her own mother. He’d probably killed her father, too, and now … now here she was powerless, stuck on the top of a half-ruined tower castle, shivering in the night sky while he toyed with her. There was no way she’d get out of this. No way at all. This was a demon who didn’t care about killing or pain or anything. Just his own wants.
“The hag’s prophecy says that you will fall with evil.” He looked down to the dark ground below them. Annie peeked over, too. Her friends were banging on the force field. The bow and arrow were still safely hidden. That’s what was important. She hoped that the Raiff didn’t realize that this was why they were here. He’d said nothing of it. Instead, he seemed focused on creeping her out.
He continued, “I don’t think this is what the hag meant. You will not tumble off the top of this ruined castle and die with me on the rocks below. Not that I would die, since I’m not really here … yet.”
Annie unpressed her lips, which she had pushed together so firmly that it seemed they had stuck together. “I am not going to be like you. I am not going to become a demon.”
“Of course not. Too much tainted blood, too much Tullgren in you.” He arched an eyebrow. “Isn’t that right? You think that goodness will protect you, will stay inside of you? You do know that I was once good, too, and it was so terribly, terribly dull.”
Annie had nothing to say to this. She found it hard to believe. She crossed her fingers behind her back, letting go of the wall first. She was so scared.
“You need to let Miss Cornelia go,” Annie said.
“Are you ordering me?”
“Yes.” Annie’s knees shook.
The Raiff just laughed. “Well, then I guess we are related.” He paused for a moment. “You do know that the old woman didn’t tell you things. Who you were. Who she was to you. That you had grandparents here.”
Her mouth went dry. “I know.”
“And yet you say she is the one who is good?”
“Goodness is complicated. Adults are, too,” Annie said. She turned back toward the stairs, pulling at the wooden door. It wouldn’t budge.
“I didn’t say you could leave.”
“I don’t care what you say. You aren’t even here.” Annie turned back, glaring at him. Anger soaring inside of her.
“You won’t have a choice, Annie. You will join me or you will die. And your precious Miss Cornelia will die and your pathetic little elf. Neither of you know your power. Neither of you have any idea of your potential.”
“I don’t want power.” Annie turned to look at him, to really look at him, and what she saw made her stomach turn. Because what she saw was pure evil.
“You will.” He shook his head as if he cared enough to be disappointed in her. “Everyone does. Fear will make you care only for your own survival, and you will twist into something I can use. Or you’ll die. You don’t want to die, do you, Annie?”
“If you aren’t there, death doesn’t seem so bad,” she said bravely.
He scowled at her, and then out of the air, Miss Cornelia materialized, broken and pained looking. Blood ran from her forehead. Her rainbow skirts were torn and her eyes hollow.
“This is what goodness gets you, Annie Nobody who will always be a nobody, a nothing, just like her beloved, weak Miss Cornelia.” His scowl deepened. “Perhaps, I should just kill her now as you watch. That would be fun, but naughty. All naughty things are so fun … Such a shame for do-gooders, always stuck in the land of boring.”
“No!” Annie yelled.
“Annie?” Bloom’s voice called through the door.
“He’s going to kill her!” Annie hollered back, surging forward even though the Raiff and Miss Cornelia weren’t really there.
The Raiff pulled out a dagger, pressing the blade against Miss Cornelia’s throat.
“He can’t kill her, Annie. She is his bargaining chip,” Bloom yelled from behind the door. “He’s tricking you.”
But Annie was past reason. Emotion roared through her and love—pure, true love for Miss Cornelia—and that love shot out of her body like a giant white light, rippling across the castle’s top parapets and down into the Raiff’s force field and straight through it, waving over Eva, Johann, Jamie, SalGoud, and all the cows, filling every living thing with light, illuminating them with a brightness and then passing through. The cows shivered in a burst of rainbows and became unicorns. Eva hugged the boys standing with her and proclaimed they were the best boys in the universe. Jamie’s heart almost exploded with love and happiness.
And that light spread all the way around the world, and for one moment—one beautiful moment—the wo
rld was full of the magic of love, pure love, and for that one moment not a single person hurt another person, magical or non-magical.
And then it was gone.
The Raiff arched an eyebrow. “You, my dear, are far more powerful than I thought.”
Annie turned, openmouthed, exhausted, to face him again.
He was gone. Disappeared. And the image of Miss Cornelia was gone with him. The door behind her unlocked, and Bloom flung himself through it, catching her as she started to crumple.
“What did you do?” he whispered, wrapping his arms around her waist as he kept her from tumbling off the castle.
“I don’t know,” she told him honestly. “I think—magic? Some sort of magic? Do you have the bow and arrow?”
“I do.” He smiled, but his eyes were concerned. “We’ve got them, Annie. We can do it now. We can rescue them now.”
She tapped his side with her fingers, trying to solid herself up, allow herself to be more happy and relieved than scared about what the future might bring. “Bloom … When I did that … that thing I just did … What did it feel like?”
“It felt like love,” he said as he helped her down the stairs.
She took a step forward and down, elf by her side, and said, “I think maybe it was.”
22
And So It Continues
The castle stairs were dark and unlit; Bloom’s elf light had died a long time ago. Annie had to feel her way down, moving her hand along the wall, sensing for each stair with her toes. It took a while, but when they got to the bottom, their friends were waiting for them. Eva thundered toward Annie, snatched her around the waist, and hauled her up into the air in a dwarf hug.
“Don’t know what happened in there but don’t you go away like that again, Stopper,” Eva demanded.
“Did you get it?” Jamie asked.
“We did,” Bloom answered as the unicorns came forward, one by one, bowing to him and to Annie.
“Oh, no! Get up! Get up!” Annie urged them. “Oh, please, don’t bow to us.”
But they did anyway, and after a second, Johann, Eva, and SalGoud did, too. Despite her exhaustion, Annie yanked them all back up.
“We are equals,” she insisted. “You should never ever bow to me. Or to anyone else. Not ever.”
Eva shrugged. “Okay.”
It wasn’t until they got back to Jamie’s room that Bloom felt safe enough to pull out the Golden Bow and Arrow. Eva ohhed and ahhed and touched it reverently. Annie told them what had happened with the Raiff at the top of the castle, and they allowed themselves to celebrate just the smallest of bits.
The sun rose in the sky before they finally went to sleep. Annie slept fitfully, fretting that the Raiff was right and that all good could corrupt to evil, that she didn’t stand a chance of rescuing poor Miss Cornelia. They had come a long way already, but their quest was far from over. They still had to go back to Aurora for Grady O’Grady and then make their way to the Badlands.
As he slept, Bloom hugged his bow and arrow to his chest. Johann embraced his sword. Eva snored out earsplitting burp-songs in her sleep, but Annie was so exhausted she never woke up despite her anxiety and Eva’s loudness. Being a stone giant, SalGoud needed little sleep and spent the time arranging a car to the airport and flights home.
And Jamie? Jamie worried. They had the bow. They had the arrow complete with red Helper feather. But how would they survive? How would they get to the Badlands and rescue Miss Cornelia? Would the dragon be able to carry all of them? The problems seemed so big to him, so utterly impossible.
He wandered out to the restaurant and met up with Mrs. Tullgren, who served him black pudding and scones, eggs, and baked tomatoes. His days of only eating canned goods seemed so long ago and far away.
“How come I’ve never seen Mr. Tullgren’s books about Annie at home?” he asked as she poured him some orange juice. “I think I saw another one, about a devil dog.”
“They are bestsellers here, but they haven’t been released overseas yet, not like his other series.” Her nose twitched. “Something seems a bit off. You smell a wee bit magic, James. Has something happened? Do you feel different?” She sniffed at his hair, lifted up his hand. “Have you been up to the castle?”
She let go of his hand after she sniffed it, and stared at him.
“Your scones are really good,” he said awkwardly.
She gave him another long, hard look. “You won’t be telling me, will you? I am going to hope you have good reasons for that, but you’ve given me no reason not to trust you, so trust you I will.”
He cleared his throat. “Thank you.”
“Just don’t be mentioning it to the mister.” With her elbow, she indicated Mr. Tullgren, who was busy telling stories to a table of golfers who were laughing uproariously. “He tends to imagine the worst-case scenario all the time, which is not a helpful thing when your imaginings become real.”
Just as Jamie was going to promise not to tell anything to Mr. Tullgren, Annie entered the room and he was completely forgotten. Both Mr. and Mrs. Tullgren rushed toward Annie and flung themselves at their granddaughter, gathering her up in their arms before setting her down next to Jamie, and asking after her sleep and what she’d like for breakfast. She stared after them longingly as they scurried off to make the food.
“Part of you wishes you could stay here, doesn’t it?” Jamie asked.
“I do,” Annie said quietly. “But we have to try to save Aurora. I just—I worry that I’ll never get to come back … that this will be the last time I see them, you know?”
He thought he did know, but he couldn’t find the words to comfort her so instead he petted her on the hand and poured her some tea. A passed-out pixie had flopped in the sugar cubes. Annie gently moved her out of the way.
When the Tullgrens returned, she told them everything that had happened in Aurora, about how she was rescued by Eva, how they had saved the town from the trolls—but some had obviously snuck in and hid, striking when the time was right—how Miss Cornelia was taken from her own home, how the Raiff had threatened them, and how the town had turned on Jamie as if he was the one who had done all the horrible things.
They listened raptly, sitting at the table with them, as she told them about Grady O’Grady. Mr. Tullgren sighed happily; he’d thought all the dragons were gone, dead, or in the Badlands, turned into evil tarasques by the Raiff. Annie had a hard time talking so much, and her voice grew thin and weak, especially when she said how mean some of the townspeople had been to Jamie and how responsible she felt for failing to get across to the Badlands to get Miss Cornelia.
“But why are you here?” Mr. Tullgren asked. “How did you end up here?”
Annie looked to Jamie for help. His mouth opened, but no words came out. More than anything, both Jamie and Annie longed to tell them about the elves and what had happened in the wee hours of the night, but they couldn’t. Lichen had been so insistent that no adults know. They couldn’t risk ruining their attempt at rescue by telling the Tullgrens—no matter how badly they wanted to do so.
“I—I’m not a hundred percent sure,” Annie admitted, which was sort of true.
The Tullgrens let this pass.
“And you’re going back home already?” Mr. Tullgren said slowly.
Annie’s head jerked up. “How did you know?”
“I could feel it.” Mr. and Mrs. Tullgren exchanged a look before he said, “We are terribly sorry about how we treated you when you first got here, lass, but we want you to know that you are welcome to stay as long as you like. Your friends, too.” He gestured toward Jamie. “It doesn’t seem as if Aurora is treating the young man well at all, and we here … Well, you’d be welcome here, Jamie, even if you did become a troll. I’m guessing you’d be the nicest troll that ever was.”
Jamie allowed himself to smile, and Annie grabbed his hand in hers, squeezing it and saying softly, “Jamie, I would understand if you didn’t want to come back with me. I wouldn’t be mad at you
or anything.”
He shook his head. Part of him longed to stay with the Tullgrens and their quirky bed-and-breakfast and their magical happiness and love. In just a couple of hours they had made him feel something he had never felt before: completely accepted. But his loyalty was with Annie.
“We made a promise a long time ago, remember?” he asked. “That we would always look out for each other, always be friends?”
“It wasn’t actually that long ago.” Annie laughed. “But I remember.”
She squeezed his hand again and let go. He wished she didn’t always let go.
The Tullgrens had remained silent throughout the whole exchange, but now Mrs. Tullgren smiled, leaned over, and wrapped Jamie up in a big bear hug, smelling of flour and sausage. “I am so glad that our Annie has a friend like yourself, James Hephaistion Alexander.”
“So am I,” Annie said. “So am I.”
The rest of the morning was a bit of a sad blur for Annie. Her grandparents explained that the Snatcher was not part of Mrs. Tullgren’s warning system, which made them terribly worried about the extent of the Raiff’s powers and influence.
“It may be worse than any of us supposed,” Mrs. Tullgren fretted.
The others woke up, and Eva and Johann both spent far too long stretching, complaining, eating, and then eating some more. SalGoud walked the grounds with Jamie because they both ached for some sunshine. Bloom seemed happy, happier than normal, and when Annie got him alone for a bit, he explained that he was the only one who was able to retrieve Lichen’s core from the machine because he was the only elf still free. Plus, he was very proud of having recovered both the feather and the Golden Arrow.
“You’ve always known you were an elf,” Annie said. “Nothing has changed.”
“How I feel inside has changed.” He leaned against the car SalGoud had ordered. “I feel like I know who I am now, like I have a point, a destiny.”