He cocked his head at me. “You just step out,” he said, frowning. “I’ve seen you do it before.”
I turned my back on him, muttering under my breath. It wasn’t as easy as just stepping out. I’d had to use a decent amount of power to travel back and forth. I didn’t just step out. I put some honest work into it.
Maybe this was what it felt like to not be a wizard and watch someone fling a fireball from thin air. I didn’t like it.
“Let’s get out of here. I don’t want to be anywhere near this place if someone comes asking about a noise complaint.”
Chapter 26
We traveled quickly away from the torn-up scene at the cave, and I had the feeling that I might not ever return. That—other than the Macallan and a buried doodle drawn by the runaway Knight—the place held nothing for me. Not with Pan gone.
Time…
Maybe the knight had been shocked at how long he had been asleep. How much time had passed. I wasn’t about to spend the day digging up all the rubble. I could always come back later when I had my Fae magic. Maybe I could even snap my finger and a bunch of fairies could go dig it up for me. I grunted at the whimsical wish.
We made good time with Talon scouting our path ahead and Gunnar sniffing—watching—our rear. And after a few hours, Alvara walked up beside me. Alice was skipping ahead of us, picking occasional flowers, and generally oohing and aahing at the scenery.
“I forgot to give this to Talon before he took your journals home,” Alvara said, holding out the journal she had been clutching in the cave. “And since we were in a hurry to leave, I didn’t bring it back up.” I reached out for it but didn’t close my fingers around it.
“Maybe Alice wants to read some Manling Tales. Or help decipher the images,” I suggested.
Alvara smiled faintly before nodding her head and tucking it into her satchel. “She would…enjoy that.”
“How long until we reach the Seer?” I asked, glancing up at the sky. It was overcast, and I didn’t really have a reason for looking up other than habit. Days and nights in Fae were wholly different from the human realm. One moment it was day, and in the blink of an eye it could suddenly be night. No judging time by the passing of the sun, here. At least, I didn’t know how to do so.
Alvara tapped her lips. “From the cave, I would guess six hours, but it has been a long time since I relied upon my feet, so I’m not sure how close that is. Close enough for you, I imagine.”
I nodded. We’d been walking for about two hours already. That didn’t sound like a long time, but knowing that in Fae, an hour could be the equivalent of a day back home, it still made my shoulders itch. But there was nothing for it. The sooner we found—or didn’t find—the Seer, the sooner I could send them home and focus on my Fae magic. Except…I no longer had a cave to live in.
How was a man supposed to hermit without a creepy cave?
I still held a tentative grip on my Fae magic, refusing to let go. I’d had no sudden understanding of the meaning of life, heard no whisper of a nearby tree, and the ribbons of energy that I knew danced around me still went mostly unseen. Sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw something, but it was always gone when I turned to look directly.
Other than that faint clicking sensation in Pan’s cavern, the only difference had been it was slightly easier to maintain my grip on the conduit. And the peripheral vision thing. Unless that just meant I suffered some kind of concussion from my fight with Pan.
Surprisingly, I felt no pain from any of that. And seeing the carnage we had caused, all the destruction…I felt a little concerned. Had that been Wylde protecting me?
Or something else? This Catalyst thing, perhaps. Although it had never protected my body from harm before.
To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect from my reconnection with the Fae magic. I had already merged with Wylde once and had thought that would be the end of it. But it seemed there was now some kind of block between us. The best way I could think to describe it was that we were standing on opposite sides of a glass wall, and were both pressing our palms against it, not making contact. The glass was a little clearer than before, but we still couldn’t touch—or merge.
Nothing could really come of it.
Whatever Pan had done to Force me had only resulted in me being able to feel the alien power, not actually do anything with it. Which was even more frustrating than not sensing it at all. How did one make sure they continued to hold a strand of hair between two fingers on a windy day? If you relaxed your fingers to check that you still held it, the wind would blow the hair away.
So, I figuratively continued pressing my fingers together as tightly as possible, hoping I hadn’t dropped it hours ago.
“You are using an awful lot of focus to do an awful lot of nothing,” Alvara commented, not making eye contact.
I turned to her, narrowing my eyes. “I wish I knew someone who knew a little bit about Fae magic, but all I’ve found is a grouchy mom.”
She arched a very cool eyebrow at me.
I finally sighed. “I’m sorry. Just…a little raw around the edges after…” I waved a hand back the way we had come. Where Pan had died.
She nodded at my apology. “I am also a little raw around the edges,” she admitted. “It is unsettling, and terrifying, to be back in Fae.” She was staring at Alice who seemed to be reading a piece of folded paper she’d pulled from her backpack. “I’m sorry about Pan.”
I nodded in thanks. I’d told them the full story earlier, so they didn’t think I was a murdering psychopath. I gave them a very vanilla version of events, of course. We had argued, Pan had chosen to use some magic to teach me a lesson, and part of the cliff had fallen, taking him along with it. All true, in a sickening, tabloid newspaper kind of way.
Luckily, the messages in Pan’s cave corroborated my story.
Or this would have been a very lonely walk after they all ran away screaming.
“Any advice would be much appreciated,” I told Alvara. “I don’t even know if I’m succeeding. I’m just trying not to let go of what I feel.”
She sniffed primly. “Well, you’re succeeding. But you look like you’re trying to flex every muscle in your body to lift a teacup. It’s ridiculous.”
I chuckled, despite myself. “I can’t even see if I’m holding the teacup, but I don’t want to risk dropping it.”
“See…” Alvara said, repeating the word I had used. But her eyes were locked onto Alice.
“Hold the phone,” I said suddenly. “Do you think she can help me see what I’m doing? Like she helped me see that image in the journal? Whatever she did the first time helped relieve some of the strain I’m feeling.”
Alvara pursed her lips nervously, thinking. “Let me take a stab at you, first. She’s never taught anyone, and I don’t want her to lead you down the wrong path. She hardly knows what she’s doing with the gift she only discovered a few hours ago. Asking her to teach what she thinks she knows could be disastrous to you both.”
I thought about that and finally nodded. It was a fair point. “When Pan died…” I began, carefully composing my voice, “he was trying to Force me to touch my Fae magic through the apparent block I’ve got in place.” She gave me an alarmed look, picking up on exactly what I meant when I used the word Force. “It helped a little, but now all I can do is barely hold onto it. I’m scared to let it go for fear of losing it and having to start all over again. Do you know how to Force me further?”
Alvara was now staring at me incredulously. “He Forced you?” she sputtered, sounding horrified. “That could have leveled that whole damned mountain on our heads! And you’re asking me to Force you to…what, be Forcier?” she hissed in a high-pitched shriek, waggling her hands above her head at the made-up word, as if quite genuinely astonished by my level of ignorance.
I saw Alice’s shoulders tense and she almost ripped the paper in her hands in half. She quickly picked up her pace to escape the mom-blast-radius.
“I don’t sound like that,” I mumbled defensively. “My voice is much lower. More authoritative. Suave—”
“You sound like a buffoon. Say it, and I will consider helping you. If I can’t trust the thoughts you let cross from one ear to another, I refuse to help you compound your delusions.”
I narrowed my eyes and kicked a rock. “Fine. I sounded like a buffoon,” I muttered.
Alvara continued shaking her head, muttering under her breath.
I hadn’t used the word Forcier, but she made a good point. Intentions were not always the most important thing. Sometimes, they could be the most dangerous of things.
“Forcing is incredibly dangerous,” she began.
I nodded. “My parents made me do it often as a child. I only recently learned of the dangers.”
She missed a step and cursed under her breath. “Well, you are the Catalyst. Not a man for half-measures. It would make sense, in an entirely insane kind of way.”
Finally, she went on in a lecturing tone. “You must Sense the things you want to Sense. Hear the things you want to Hear. See the things you want to See. But you mustn’t try too hard. In that way lies un-sensing…” she went on for a few minutes, basically repeating herself in different ways, making me feel like I had shown up to a hippie festival of some kind to learn about the cosmic powers of crystals that they sold in their gift shop for thirty-five dollars a pop.
It was ultimately unhelpful for any kind of quick understanding.
“Some can use their senses better than others. The passing of time, for example. Oracles can float the rivers of time to sometimes understand the things that they see.”
I had perked up at mention of the word time, but she was speaking generally.
“Seeing can manifest in any number of ways. Like Alice, for example. She seems able to see deeper meanings in things. When she saw Falco, I thought it had been a fluke. Then she Saw Gunnar’s Wild Side before he had shifted, which was when I first seriously considered she may have a gift. Then she deciphered Pan’s journal.” I nodded, following along, but not seeing any immediate benefit in kicking Mordred’s ass with my eyeball power.
“Those in battle may be able to see attacks sooner than others,” Alvara continued. “Those with magic may be able to see the elements dancing around them—”
“That one,” I interrupted. “That’s definitely one of my thingies. I’ve done that before this whole Fae magic constipation issue.”
She narrowed her eyes at my simplistic definition and vulgar use of descriptors.
Imagine asking a preacher where you could buy one of those addition symbol necklaces.
That’s the look I got. She was silent for a very long time after that, lifting a hand to silence me every time I tried to speak.
“I think you need to contemplate what I’ve said so far,” she finally said in a tone that let me know it was not a suggestion, and that our lesson was finished. “I don’t know how to Force someone anyway, and the way you’re talking is making me very nervous.”
She sped up to go walk with Alice, handing her the journal, and I heard Gunnar burst out laughing behind me as if he’d been holding it in for quite some time.
I hadn’t realized he was walking so close.
I gave him an overhead, double-finger salute without turning around.
Everyone’s a critic.
Chapter 27
It turned out that we were much closer than Alvara’s initial guess. We were soon walking through a forest of pale, yellow trees—the bark peeling off like paper, and the vibrant blue leaves above making me feel like we were swimming underwater.
Alvara had made no move to resume my lesson, and Gunnar was now carrying Alice on his shoulders again, chatting with Talon—who had given up scouting since we were close enough that we didn’t want to spook the Seer if she was, in fact, home—and still alive.
I had spent my solitary confinement from Alvara’s lessons thinking about what to do next.
Because if this Seer was not here, I needed to find a way to figure out my Fae magic fast, so I could repair the Bifröst.
Because at any moment, Alex and Grimm could return with their sack of rainbow guts, and I would need to figure out a way to repair it with the magic. Or else.
There was also the opportunity to spy on Mordred in Camelot. See what the little prick was up to. Maybe I had more time than I thought to deal with him. It was almost as if I had really killed him at Fight Club, having heard nothing from him other than that our meeting had been rescheduled from the original day after Fight Night to three weeks later.
And when I had left on this trip, I’d had about two weeks on the clock.
I still hadn’t seen any creatures on our walk, and it was beginning to truly bother me. No random insects trying to kill me. No pixie patrols. Nothing. Like the land was holding its breath. Yet no sign of a reason why it was holding its breath. Alvara had once told me she heard of vast armies moving about in Fae. And here we were, all by our lonesome.
Which, in the few experiences I could remember in the last year, was extremely rare.
Maybe Mordred was more injured than he let on, and the Land of the Fae was holding its breath in hopes the problem would take care of itself.
I would need to get a closer look to see for myself. Maybe it would be a quick assassination if he was recovering.
If the Seer was a bust, I was sending Alvara and Alice back home, whether they wanted to or not. Alice could sit at Chateau Falco and transcribe the doodles from the journal. Hell, with the time-slippage, I could return a few hours later to find that she was finished transcribing all of them. Voila! Fae magic restored, my blockage gone, and memories returned.
I really doubted that things would play out that simply, but since I was left pretty much alone on our walk, my imagination had gone a little stir-crazy. It could have also had to do with the fact that whether I could sense it or not, I knew I was straining to hold onto that sliver of Wylde.
Like pinching a piece of paper between your fingers.
For. Three. Hours.
Sounds easy, right? Try it. Your fingers start to spasm, go numb, and you can’t tell if you’re still squeezing them together or not. Before you know it, whoopsies. Paper falls.
To counter that risk, I was very actively using a lot of mental energy to maintain that grip.
To flex while squeezing my teacup, as Alvara had told me.
I even tried her suggestion about being one with my environment. Seeing. Hearing. Smelling. I was entirely sure I was losing my grip on my sanity by the time I spotted the large mountain through a gap in the trees. From the cave, I hadn’t noticed it, but it had materialized on our walk. With the sky being overcast, it had taken me a bit of squinting to realize it really was a mountain rather than just a trick of the fog on the higher slopes, looking like a cloud.
Odin had told me to find a mountain to repair the Bifröst. Somewhere high.
But now that I saw it through the trees—a little clearer than it had been earlier—I suddenly began to have doubts. How long would it take me to scale a fucking mountain? Hopefully, I would have Grimm by then. I could make Alex walk while I sat my royal tushy down on my royal unicorn, thank you very much.
I was very antsy to see Alex again. I felt naked without my satchel, but more importantly, I needed the two Keys inside it.
Maybe one of them had the answers to fixing the Bifröst. Other than Odin casually mentioning this—which wasn’t necessarily trustworthy—I was rolling on the basic default hypothesis that my parents were behind everything. That way I could no longer be surprised when I found they had their hands in yet another god’s pie. I’d had enough surprises lately.
If the Bifröst needed repairing, they had probably prepared for it.
They had known I would come to Fae after all, and that I would need to be Forced by Pan. They’d even convinced him to kill himself for it. I took a deep breath, burying that thought. I had to be cold. Heartless. Or I w
ould break down.
In addition to Pan and his decision to commit suicide, Odin had also worked for my parents, and had mentioned Forcing as a solution—to repairing the Bifröst.
This little pickle tickles that little pickle, and Bob’s your uncle—my parents were to blame.
They had given me the Keys, going out of their way to actually give me support, for once.
It essentially summed up as, these are important. You’ll need these important things to do other important things later, at some important time. Oh, and you might be the Catalyst. That’s important.
“Why are you talking like that?” Alice asked, frowning at me worriedly.
I jumped with a manly bellow, not having realized I’d been speaking out loud. Definitely not that I’d been mockingly vocalizing my parents’ cryptic help. Or that anyone had even been near me.
“Um…”
She waited patiently, but I had no explanation to offer that would even remotely redeem me.
“So, you’re not busy?” she asked.
I shook my head, glad for the change of topic. “No. Why?”
“My mom said you looked like you were busy, and not to bother you while you were busy. I ran out of ribbons to tie in Gunnar’s hair, so asked him to let me down. I don’t think he knows about the ribbons yet, so don’t tell him,” she said, holding a finger to her lips and giggling. I nodded back, unable to keep back my own smile. “Then I asked Talon if I could hold his spear, but he was eating some kind of seed that smelled really bad and he hissed at me before running away. I tried talking to my mom, but she wanted to go pick some berries, and told me I couldn’t have any. Then I came over here and you were talking to yourself.”
Wow. Gunnar had been right about Alice. I was beginning to see that kids really were all about the oversharing thing. “No, I’m not busy,” I finally said, impressed by her recollection of events. I was one-hundred percent sure that Talon had found some Fae catnip pods. I remembered Yulemas and how Fae catnip pods might be an excellent gift for him. Even if it was me enabling his drug habit. “What’s up?” I asked the little detective.
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