by Violet Grace
‘You used to run your fingers through my mane all the time,’ he says, reading my thoughts.
That was before we knew what we were doing, I think but don’t say. I tentatively reach out and touch the white hair on the top of his head. A spark of energy flickers between us on contact. I flinch, but then, realising – no, remembering – there’s nothing to be worried about, I slide my hand down his soft mane.
Climbing onto his back, I lean forward and whisper in his ear, ‘Take me high.’
Tom lifts his nose and snorts and we’re rising, his enormous wings outstretched and beating rhythmically against my legs, moving us to the doors of the bay window. I clutch his mane instinctively, wondering how we’ll get outside, when we pass right through the wood and glass of the door. It’s been rendered insubstantial.
‘How …?’ I say, as we emerge on the other side.
‘Everything is energy. We are particles of energy. We are one.’
I look down and see for myself.
This isn’t Albion. And it isn’t London.
It’s everything.
The best way I can describe it is a combination of both realms; the wild gardens and gothic oaks of Iridesca overlay Volgaris, filling it with brilliant colours and light.
The cool breeze of a perfect, mild English spring morning caresses my face as Tom’s feathered wings pull us upwards, above the palace pathway and gardens. His wings beat faster, and I feel the rush of air as we’re pushed upwards. In the predawn, the trees are filled with the cacophony of birdsong and insect hums.
The sounds pass through me, becoming part of me. It’s the strangest sensation, feeling utterly whole, grounded even, but at the same time experiencing the weightlessness of oneness with everything around me.
We swing wide over the palace, out above the green countryside and waterways below. Cool air eddies around us as we pick up speed, darting amongst the foliage. I tighten my grip around Tom’s warm body as we lift even higher.
The view takes my breath away all over again. Early morning dew glistens in the sun’s first beams of light curving over the horizon.
Far beneath, I spy Heathrow in a clearing. Planes circle below us; others sit on the tarmac like discarded children’s toys. The outer suburbs in the distance are alive with possibility. The buildings are lit like crystalline structures, auras. Even the plainest of architecture is a marvellous crystal palace, surrounded in haloes of incandescent light.
Descending rapidly, we scream along the snaking tail of the Thames. We’re almost in the city; Tower Bridge comes into view, whole again. Rather than the brackish sludge I know so well, the water is a vibrant greenish blue. It’s so clear that I make out my features in the reflections glistening off the water.
I don’t know if it’s the speed we’re travelling at or a trick of the early morning light, but the face staring back at me is almost unrecognisable. It’s not just the particles of light energy streaming from my hair and playing off my face. I see something I haven’t seen before.
I see hope.
I see strength.
I see someone I like.
Tom turns with the bend of the river, and the speed of his wings throws up a fine mist from the tributary, hiding the reflection. He subtly shifts the angle of his wings, and we’re climbing again. He banks left and then a sharp right, and then, sweeping his wings back, he slows us. We come in to land on the roof of the western-most walkway of Tower Bridge, Tom’s hooves touching down surely. He canters to the centre of the roof, before slowing to a complete halt.
I dismount and stand beside him. He catches his breath as I wrap my arm under his head to place my hand on the soft hair of his face. He nuzzles his head closer in to me and we stand together silently, staring out at the city before us, a sea of sparkling energy particles playing off the river, trees and buildings like a dense mass of fireflies.
The Tower of London is a magical wonderland.
St Paul’s is complete again.
The Gherkin is whole.
The Shard is resplendent Everything looks – and feels – exactly right.
The sight summons memories from a lost childhood. This vista I saw in dreams, and then forgot, was real after all. I have been waiting my whole life to return to this place, a place before pain and sadness and destruction. A place outside of time.
‘Can we stay here forever?’ I say.
‘Yes and no.’
I look up, waiting for him to explain.
‘Transcendence isn’t a place in the normal sense. It’s more a state of mind. One that we can take with us wherever we go.’
We stand in contented silence, taking in the beauty. Eventually, Tom shifts his head again, extending his wings, gesturing to leave. I climb onto his back and he canters to one end of the walkway roof and turns. I tighten my grip as he stamps a hoof and jolts forwards, working up to a furious pace before launching us into the air. His wings catch the air and we climb higher. We sweep back around behind the Shard, then rejoin the path of the crystal-clear river towards Windsor. Before long, the trees get thicker and we’re nearing the deep green of the palace grounds.
We’re both laughing with exhilaration as Tom bounds through my bedroom window. He stops abruptly in front of my rug and lowers his head. I topple forward off him and fall straight into my body. A light sensation of attraction, like the feeling of two magnets connecting, sends tingles through me as my body and soul eagerly re-embrace.
Opening my eyes, I stretch as if I’ve just woken from a deep sleep.
Tom blinks, opens his eyes, and shoots me his grin, served up with a side of dimples.
An unfamiliar flame ignites somewhere deep within me.
I try to smother it with a voice of reason but I cannot. His lips are centimetres from mine, inviting me closer. I feel his eyes on me.
I’m terrified by how much I want him. It’s a desperate, insatiable wanting that I’ve never experienced before. I watch my body as if it’s somebody else’s, moving closer to his, the gap between us dissolving.
I feel his warmth and see every single eyelash framing his eyes. He’s staring at me with an intensity that robs me of breath. Gently, he traces his finger around the outside of my lips.
‘There isn’t anywhere in the world I’d prefer to be right now.’ His voice is husky and I bite down hard on the inside of my cheek.
A single kiss will open the floodgates. I’m not sure if I can cope with where that will lead.
‘Don’t look so worried,’ Tom says softly. ‘I have no expectations.’
‘Oh,’ I say, suddenly feeling foolish. Did he just reject me?
He slowly runs his finger along my shoulder and down my arm, my skin tingling from the tiny electric pulses irradiating from his touch. It’s tantalising. I want more, so much more, but I also know I shouldn’t.
I can’t.
‘Have you ever been with someone, Chess?’
Mortified, I bury my face into the rug, willing it to swallow me up. Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only sixteen-year-old in the world who’s this naive.
It would be easiest to say I’ve never found anybody I was interested in. Which is true. I’ve never felt any burning desire for anyone. Not like I feel for Tom right now. But for some reason the whole awful, unedited, truth tumbles out of my mouth before I can censor it.
‘Sometimes I feel like I’m damaged goods.’ I try to steady my voice, but fail. ‘If anyone gets too close, they’ll know how broken I am.’
With one hand on my shoulder, he looks straight into my eyes. ‘What you’ve been through doesn’t define you. When I look at you, that’s not what I see.’
‘What do you see?’
I brush his hand aside and curl up into the fetal position, hiding my glistening eyes.
‘I see a smart, witty, beautiful woman with untapped passion and power. Someone who has no idea what she’s capable of.’
‘Don’t talk like that,’ I say, unable to look at him. ‘That’s not who I am. It’s jus
t what you expect me to be because I’m Queen Cordelia’s daughter.’
‘You’re wrong. You enchanted me when I was a kid and you mesmerise me now.’
He pushes my legs down from my chest with firm hands and shuffles his body closer to mine, blocking me from moving back into the fetal position.
‘Chess, you don’t need to make yourself small anymore.’
It’s the weirdest, nicest, most insightful thing anybody has ever said to me. I close my eyes to stop the swell of emotion from breaking its banks. But when I feel his lips brush against my eyelids, I am lost.
All the sensible reasons as to why I shouldn’t kiss him are trampled by an urgent, unquenchable desire.
I thread my fingers through his hair, drawing him closer to me. He responds to my invitation, parting his lips, allowing my tongue to penetrate his mouth and taste him.
It’s not enough. I want more.
I need more.
His eyes burn into mine.
A faint tingle of pins and needles starts up in my hands and arms. I ignore it, focusing instead on the ripples of muscle on his chest as he pulls me closer to him. I feel like we are merging.
And then his hands are still and he pulls away.
I reach to pull him closer, but he peels my hands off him. ‘This is a really bad idea.’ His voice is hoarse.
‘But I want to,’ I say breathlessly. It’s like someone has just turned off my oxygen supply.
Effortlessly, he lifts me off him and rolls away to the other side of the rug, looking at the ceiling.
Pins and needles course through my body.
I sit up, wondering what I did wrong. A rush of nausea washes over me. I am broken.
He sits up hurriedly. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Chess. I want you; you have no idea just how much I want you.’ In a steadier voice, he says, ‘But we can’t.’
My stomach feels hollow; all the breath leaves me, as if someone just punched me.
Suddenly annoyed, I say, ‘You don’t get to decide what’s best for me.’ He lets out an exasperated sigh but I keep going. ‘You stick your tongue in my mouth and then pull back because you suddenly decide that I can’t handle it?’
‘Well, technically it was your tongue, my mouth.’ And then he has the audacity to flash a dimple at me and I can’t decide if I want to slap it or lick it.
I feel the heat seep out of my argument but I’m not quite done yet.
‘If you don’t want me then just be honest and say it. Don’t make this about what’s right for me.’
‘Believe me, Chess, I want you – in every sense of the word.’
I look over at him, surprised that I do believe him.
‘Well then, what’s there to argue about?’
‘Look what’s happening to your hands,’ he says. I look down and see tiny light particles forming a ghostly aura around my hands and arms, sparkling dust floating off my skin. ‘Intimacy is the ultimate union.’
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. After years of avoiding any close contact, I finally find someone I want to be with more than anything but I can’t – because of a spell.
‘There must be something we can do about that stupid spell.’
‘There is only one thing. But it’s a sacrifice that I could never ask of anyone.’
‘Another death,’ I say.
He nods. ‘Someone else would have to correct the balance.’
A silence falls between us. Not awkward, or uncomfortable. Just silence.
I can hear Tom breathing, the steady rise and fall of his chest, as I stew in the injustice of wanting the one thing I can’t have.
I search for the words, words that might make things better. My words, which I now know can command forces beyond imagining, opening unseen worlds and rendering reality a plaything, seem useless. Whatever power I possess, I cannot undo what has been done.
‘What does this mean for us?’ I say eventually.
‘I have friends in Iridesca,’ Tom replies, standing up. ‘I’ll stay with them until I figure out what to do.’
‘At least stay for breakfast,’ I say. Watching my hands slowing turning to dust is freaking me out, but I can’t bear the thought of losing him again so soon.
He shakes his head, his eyes full of sadness and resignation.
‘The obliteration in your hands will spread until it reaches the point of no return.’
He leans close and kisses my eyelids, before disappearing into the empty morning.
The pins and needles vanish with him.
chapter 25
Hooves clip-clop outside my window. Bright light pours through the gap in my curtains.
It takes me a moment to remember where I am.
This morning comes flooding back.
My head aches from a vulnerability hangover. I feel disconnected from my body. I wish I could block it all out.
I’m stripped bare.
This morning I needed Tom to stay. Now I’m relieved he didn’t. How could I face him?
I was so stupid to expose myself like that. I dropped my guard. I lost control. I didn’t just share my body, but my deepest secrets.
And my heart.
I try to think of something, anything other than this morning. But the more I try, the more intensely I feel him on my skin, taste him in my mouth.
And I hate myself for having liked it.
I hear a knock at my door and freeze as though I’m about to be sprung by my parents for sneaking a boyfriend into my room. Immediately I realise how ridiculous that is. Still, my stomach is cinched in a tight knot of anxiety and my cheeks are burning with shame.
Brina bustles into the room in her crisp white uniform.
‘Sorry to disturb you, Your Highness, but it has just gone past midday.’
She’s followed by a maid I don’t recognise, a redhead with a long plait down her back.
‘Where’s Callie?’ I ask.
The two maids look at each other for a beat and then Brina says, ‘She’s gone, Your Highness.’
‘Gone where?’
‘Anastasia will be your second maid from now on,’ Brina says simply as she pulls open my curtains.
It’s clear they don’t want to talk about it and I don’t push it – there’s plenty I don’t feel like talking about today either.
Anastasia places the empty tray over my legs.
‘The Luminaress requests that you eat and dress quickly, Your Highness,’ she says. ‘There is an urgent matter she must address with you.’
‘That doesn’t sound good,’ I say with a humourless smile.
My mind races through all the unpleasant reasons why Gladys would be in such a hurry to talk to me. And, of course, I get stuck on Tom and the time he spent in my bedroom.
‘Is it anything to do with … um … this morning?’ I figure that service staff see and hear everything so if they don’t know Tom was here, then Gladys might not know either.
Brina bites her lip, clearly torn between her duty to me and her instructions from Gladys. But the giggle that escapes from Anastasia’s mouth is answer enough.
‘He is quite something, Your Highness,’ she says as she waves her wand and conjures eggs and toast. Scrambled. No soldiers this time.
I’m about to say that nothing happened, this isn’t what it looks like, but there’s no indication that either of them are shocked or embarrassed. Then I remember: fairies don’t do shame.
I choose to skip the flouncy dresses and wear a black bodysuit, patterned with the grooved armour that looks like muscle fibres. It doesn’t help my mood any. I may as well be naked, given how exposed and vulnerable I feel.
Gladys must have been waiting right outside my door because as soon as I’m dressed she appears in the middle of my room. Her face is a picture of disapproval.
‘You’ve been busy,’ she states in a tone that has the maids scurrying out of the room.
I figure offence is the best defence. She’s never had any interest in my private life before. She has no
right to pry. But before I can get a word out she pulls me into a hug.
‘You could have been killed. You took an awful risk, sneaking off to rescue that useless boy.’
‘He’s not useless,’ I protest. ‘And besides, it worked out.’
Gladys shakes her head and the lines around her eyes crinkle with concern.
‘There’s something you don’t know,’ she says, walking over to the window seat. ‘I only realised it myself after your battle with the pycts. After you nearly died because of your own magic.’
I sit down on the edge of my bed, sensing that whatever she has to tell me, it’s not going to be good.
‘You recall that our kind use chromium to channel the Art?’
‘All of you except me,’ I say. I can’t get Ada Lovelace’s wand to do anything except pick locks.
‘You’re half human,’ she says. ‘Chromium is a trace element in human blood.’ For a moment Gladys’s eyes light up in wonder, making her look almost childlike. I must look blank because she continues.
‘You don’t need a wand, dear – you are a wand. You are your own power. Inside of you lies a deep reservoir of unlimited power. All that you require is already flowing within your life force.’ The wonder has gone from her eyes, replaced by concern. ‘But you are not yet disciplined enough to cope with the power that you have. You must exercise it with purpose rather than fear. You lost control when you performed that spell on the pycts and it almost set off a chain reaction within you. Fainting and collapsing was a mechanism of self-preservation. Your mind shut down before you overwhelmed your body.’
The full meaning of her words dawns on me.
‘So if I end up having to battle Damius, my magic won’t kill him. I’ll kill myself.’
‘Your strength is your greatest weakness. Your power is unprecedented. Our stories contain no records of such powers. Until you learn to conquer your fear, you must restrict yourself to small spells that your constitution can withstand.’
She walks over to me and takes my hands. ‘You must understand this, Chess. Your unauthorised rescue mission of that inconsequential unicorn could have cost you your life and cost the Fae and humans their only hope for peace.’