The Real Folktale Blues (Beyond Ever After #1)

by Random Jordan

  Han was limping, but tried to hide it, probably from some spell Nera used like a lightning bolt.

  Ashe was holding her shoulder, but there was no blood which led me to think she had dislocated it somehow, probably from dodging something.

  Roberts and Goldie both had blood dripping to the floor from their hands, and a few more slashes of blood in various areas across their body. They had probably gotten torn up by one of Nera’s wind barrier spells.

  “You little pests! I’m done with you!” Nera cried before her hands drew in a spiraling blue energy. This wasn’t good if she was going to start throwing around sleeping spells.

  She released a shot of it toward Ashe, but Bonny stepped in to it and her ward evaporated from her body, leaving no one with a ward from Nera’s magic.

  It was in that moment, that everything seemed to change, with The Pirate King staring so severely toward the faerie woman.

  “It’s more like I am tired of you.” Bonny let out her dragon roar that shook the bloody room. “I will not let you continue.”

  The pirate woman then dropped her pistol in to her holster and lifted a hand up to peel the purple eye patch from her hidden eye. She dropped the patch to the floor and turned her head to glance at me.

  My heart sunk to the bloody ground. One of Bonny’s eyes were crackling purple in the iris but the other hidden one was entirely purple and bleeding off magical power with such intensity that lightning literally sparked from her eye.

  She smiled to me and I could barely manage a breath with the magical energy stifling me. Ettie dropped to the floor completely like she was suffocating. How could Bonny hide such power? Had it been the eye patch?

  “Why don’t we speed everyone up?” She said so simply before the energy poured over me and the simple movements Nera made suddenly slowed to a turtle crawl.

  I finished off the final design in the hand I held just as Bonny peeled her sword from her side and turned to look over the Blue Faerie.

  “I should have just done this before…” The pirate sighed as she stepped in front of the slow-moving Nera, trying to cast a spell, and pulled her hand back in a ready stance to slice her sword.

  It was then that Reynard leapt up her back and jumped from her shoulder, catching the shriveled hand I threw and touching the fingers to Nera’s forehead. I clasped my fingers together, releasing the seals I drew in the hand and forcing the activation of Nera’s falling star spell.

  A red bubble of energy formed around the Sidhe which launched Reynard through the air, to be caught by Ashe as she dived for him despite her shoulder. Bonny’s slash was repelled by the bubble and pushed her back a few steps.

  Then the second part of the ritual stepped in to place.

  I gasped as the sleeping curse, I newly modified back to its original design, coiled out of me and straight in the Blue Faerie through the shriveled hand that was now grasping on to her face.

  My body writhed and convulsed and the pain was so consuming as that curse left me, that I was seeing triples of everyone and everything in the room.

  Once I couldn’t feel a trace of the curse’s wicked sensation shivering through my body I gathered my senses together and shook my head, trying to get rid of that pukey feeling.

  It wouldn’t go away.

  So I pressed on.

  I tapped my fingers against the wall to let the bubble spell complete by darting in the air and right out the door of the blood red room, taking the Blue Faerie far away from this tower.

  Bonny turned on me. “Why would you do that?”

  I swallowed hard and tried to focus on the Pirate King. I had even more questions for her now.

  “Give her a curse and send her to the one place it will actually be useful? I have no idea, why would I do that?” I grinned as the spell keeping me to the wall died out with Nera all the way to the Faerie Academy by now.

  My body hit the ground and I lifted to one knee as everyone around me stared at Bonny.

  “The real question is…” My face rose to look at the pirate woman as the bandage around my head uncoiled and floated from my hair to the floor next to me. “…What are you, Bonny?”

  Thirty-Two

  Time is a Relative

  Bonny smiled as she took a step back and looked around at the stern expressions matching mine.

  “How much of it had been you? The time-spell obviously…” I growled as I stood up fully.

  “Just that… well…” She paused.

  “Tell the truth Pirate King!” I bellowed and stepped forward.

  “If you must know…” She began again. “I only did a few direct things. A few time spells and creating life on the Pixie Path. And I sent Gabbi off when she came to attack you during the sylph attack, because the ward you put on her ran out at midnight.”

  “G-gabbi?” My voice got caught in my throat. “She was there?”

  “If I hadn’t done all those things you would have died in some way. Gabbi’s was particularly gruesome. She’ll likely still be after you now.”

  “She’ll always be after me. And I’ll always be after her.” I sighed and lowered my head.

  “You were one of the most difficult people to keep alive. You are like the red string of fate connecting so many together. It becomes frustrating to see what impact you’ll have; if you survive.” Bonny continued while I tried to shake away what she was saying. She was trying to distract me.

  “What do you mean, life on the Pixie Path?” My eyebrows furrowed as I looked up again and she pointed at Ashe. That only made me even more confused, at least until I saw Reynard as well. She had been the one to produce that brimstone smelling magic that let a kitsune come in to existence?

  “Why?” I hissed and Reynard looked almost hurt as he poked his head up from around Ashe’s hair.

  “You never would have taken the legend keeper from the mirror if you didn’t have him.”

  Legend Keeper… that was familiar. “You mean Kit? He’s the legend keeper the dragon was looking for? I thought he was just a…”

  “Mirror spirit, yes, I know. That was cute, even after the dragon showed up to tell you about the legend keeper. Somehow it still didn’t register with you. You probably haven’t even thought that I had made the unraveling spell to make sure you took the spirit with you.” She smiled, amused at me, before her eyes shifted to look at the portal. She whispered, “I just hope they managed to catch the dragon while it was out.”

  “You used me all this time to lure out a dragon so someone could try and catch it?” If anyone could do it though, someone with the magical power Bonny was producing could have found a way. After all, she had managed to even make life.

  “If you want to see it that way.” She shrugged and stepped toward the portal, but everyone around, despite wounds, descended on her. Roberts had his sword at her throat, Han had his jaws around a leg, Goldie had a sword across her chest, Ashe had my long-handled axe poised between the woman’s legs, and even Reynard was yanking at her pant leg.

  “Oh please…” Bonny rolled her eyes. “You are really going to attack me after all that I helped you with? If you look at it, this one trip portal is my payment for all I did for you. The fox? The time trip? We both know you and Goldie would be dead if you didn’t have your magic back then or in how many other faerie incidents you encountered?”

  She sighed as I just took another step toward her, still glaring. “There are numerous time lines where you should have died. We almost thought you were going to when you stupidly jumped after the Cinderella girl, like a complete faerie folly.”

  “We. You keep saying we. You must mean the others with eyes like you. The ones that were in the hoods.” I finally said as I stopped moving.

  “The legend keeper must have told you that…” She started, her neck twisted to glance back at me. “We all have eyes like that though, yes.”

  “And you just go around controlling people like puppets to get them to do things for you? Why didn’t you just take Kit from the mirror
if you needed the dragon to show up?” I growled and she let out a soft laugh that made her neck dangerously clash against Roberts’ sword.

  “Isn’t that obvious? The dragon must have mentioned it. The magic that falls around a keeper and producer of the legends in this world. The magic that protects those Legend Keepers?” She narrowed her eyes.

  “The blessing then tragedy that befalls all those who take a Legend Keeper from their home?” I tried repeating what the dragon had said, but I could hardly remember since it had been so long ago.

  “Precisely. Why kill ourselves for a dragon, when you could take the curse?” She smiled as her neck shifted and she looked toward the portal in front of her again.

  “And yet you wonder why we are attacking you?”

  “I simply want to go home, Gnidori. I had no care about the dragon or your life being caught by a Legend Keeper curse.” She explained while lifting a hand up to point toward the portal.

  I gasped sarcastically, “Oh, well, now that you put it like that, I’d love to just let you go.”

  “You don’t have to get like that.”

  There was the smallest of pauses where we both sighed.

  “You used me so you could go home. And capture a dragon. And I don’t know how many other things. Maybe you had been expecting me to kill Nera and Fioravante too, since that was what I normally would have done.”

  “Actually we were.”

  I ground my teeth together while gripping my hands in to fists.

  I charged the rest of the way up to her, pushing everyone away before I spun her around and glared in to her magically explosive eyes. “I’ll ask one last time…”

  She grinned with such amusement lingering while I finished. “…What are you?”

  “Exactly as you have known me. Only that I came from the world where that portal goes. The same world Alice, Dorothy, Carter, and many others from your legends have come from.”

  “The magic? And controlling time?” I thought for a moment about what Kit had said about my case of time travel. “Are you related to Van Winkle?”

  She chuckled out a half-laugh before replying. “You could say that. Though, I am more a relative of time, specifically. I’m surprised you would even think to connect me to him.”

  I was about to continue pressing Bonny. But I think it had finally clicked with Roberts that whoever would have created Reynard also would have killed his lover, since he interrupted me just as I opened my mouth to speak.

  “It was you! All this time I was looking up to you when you had been the one to kill him!?” Tears were in his eyes but they wouldn’t drip down.

  “I am sorry, Alonso. If he didn’t die you wouldn’t be here now. You still have a destiny ahead of you, and never getting your revenge, never saying goodbye to that man will bring forth that amazing destiny in you.”

  “Never getting my revenge? I’ll have it now!” He cried his words of justice as he sliced toward both Bonny and me. I let go of her as we both jumped back in different directions so the slash would miss us. When he prepared another, his body slowed down to the same speed Nera had before I had sent her away. I looked around to see everyone else slowing down as well.

  “We might see each other again, Gnidori.” She smiled and turned to the portal. I shot my hand out to grab her by the wrist with as much strength as I could push out.

  She looked back at me with such surprise. “You can’t exactly hold me here. And someone needs to go through that portal or you won’t be able to touch your precious cloak.”

  “Someone will. Just not you. You messed with my life and you really think I’m just going to let it all go? Let you go?” I raised an eyebrow at her.

  “I’m sorry to do this then, Gnidori. You give me no choice.” She explained as she spun to look over me and flicked her head and eyes.

  Suddenly, she was faster than me. I couldn’t explain it with any tangible words.

  Her hand pulled from me and she was waving at me all in a single moment. But I smiled and reached up to point behind her.

  She turned quicker than I had finished pointing, to see Reynard sitting behind her. He was moving at her speed as his tail wagged.

  “Reynard says if I want to help Gnidori and see a great new world all I have to do is leave him. He says I was lied to, that I am a special spirit like him and I do not need a body to inhabit.” I heard Kit mention while Bonny stood there, stunned.

  Then the fox exploded in colors and a soul shimmering with thousands of subtle changes in texture and hue, pulled out of Reynard. The fox crouched low and was not moving at their speed any more, while the spirit floated just above.

  “He said I could take hold of my life here, like I always wanted. So that’s what I’m doing.” Kit smiled with an ethereal face toward me. Bonny must have instantly realized what the shed spirit was going to do, since she dashed forward. But the floaty, spectral form of Kit swooshed faster than Bonny could dart and dived in the portal with ease, ahead of her.

  The strange portal closed just as the Pirate King launched her body to it. She landed stomach first along the bloody ground and skidded to a stop as my cloak and the hat dropped to the floor and the energy in the room all faded to leave the eerie vibe the bloody room probably naturally had from so much death in it.

  Her crackling eyes turned to me, with an extreme lack of rage I had been expecting. “You have no idea what you let happen. You changed everything in the future, and in that world.”

  “That’s what the future is for, to be changed.”

  She shook her head as she stood up and patted her body down. “You have no idea. Now your cloak is useless without the rest of them. The work you have forced the Templars and me to do won’t make you liked.”

  I tried to say something as time seemed to speed up to a normal pace for everyone. “What do I care? You said it yourself. I might as well already be dead.”

  She backed up just as Roberts pulled himself together and turned toward her again. She just started to fade though, like she was slowly being erased from existence. The smile on her face and those brilliant purple eyes were the last thing any of us saw before she was completely absent from the room.

  We all stood stunned for a few minutes, soaking in what happened and handling our wounds.

  My eyes fell to Reynard, before I scooped him up from my feet. “You are the best fox I’ve ever known.”

  My smile didn’t last from praising the Kitsune as I glanced to where Bonny had disappeared, seeing Roberts scrape at the ground there.

  The Templars? That must have been the group of people she was connected to. But why had I never heard of them?

  I really hate when people use me like a puppet. It was even worse to think of people I didn’t know, understanding me well enough to do such a thing.

  Ashe stepped up in front of me, holding the hat and cloak. She must have noticed my frustration. “You stopped her from using the portal. You saved everyone. You beat Bluebeard without killing him, and you sent The Blue Faerie somewhere. You did good, Gnidori.”

  Then why didn’t it feel like I had?

  “The Faerie Academy, that’s where I sent her.” I sighed.

  “Then you are stopping the faeries too, and saving so many people from their oppression!” Ashe exclaimed as she jumped me with a hug.

  “And condemning millions more to magical maladies.” I added as Ashe lifted her hand up to my chin and pulled on it till my eyes were looking right at her.

  “Gnidori Hodder, you saved people who could have died today. You changed people’s lives. You’re a hero, don’t you ever think differently.” Ashe finished as her eyes glared in to me with such strength; a strength that had been hidden deep down in her for so long.

  She had an inner strength in her now that gripped me better than her hands could.

  “Maybe you’re right.” I smiled softly and held Reynard up between us so he would lick Ashe’s face.

  “Of course I’m right.” Ashe squeaked while drawing away f
rom the licking.

  We laughed.

  Laughing was good. At that time, laughing or crying were my only options.

  And honestly?

  I’d rather have more laughter in my life.

  Thirty-Three

  The Blue Period

  My knuckles fired across Hue’s face, before he stumbled away from me and tossed a glare back.

  “You brought her back didn’t you?” I accused.

  He blinked, which only made me want to punch him again.

  “Don’t give me that look. You found a way to bring Gabbi back. A pirate who suggested a time spell, maybe?” I continued, turning to pace in Hue’s chamber room.

  Ashe was holding my cloak and his hat still, near the entrance. She looked like she realized why Ettie and Han had stayed in the common room to wait for me to come back out.

  “You knew. How long?” Hue finally said when he was sure I wouldn’t strike him for yet another time.

  How long? I had weeks to think before I had enough energy to transport everyone with the falling star spell, even Bonny’s broken ship. Of course Bonny was no longer the owner or captain of it. Neither was Roberts though. The pirates voted for some mousy little brown-haired girl with big glasses to lead them. Roberts decided to stay with them, knowing if he did it was more likely he would run across the Pirate King, wherever she had gone.

  “Weeks.” I finally replied. “What were the terms and what did she do?”

  “Magic. Where you killed Gabbi. The terms are not discussable.” He explained and I reached forward to grip Hue by the collar before thrusting him to a dresser.

  “And why not?”

  “Because…” He started and I glared. “It is sensitive information, Gnidori.”

  “I’d wager it is as sensitive as the knowledge about Prince Hue making a deal with a mage to bring back his dead wife.” I ground my teeth and he gulped.

  “I had a deal with her to spy on Charming.” He continued as his dark blue eyes drew to me.

  “You got military information. She got?”

  “Access to my port.” He nodded. So that was how she had gotten the port to obtain the Pirate King title.