by A E M
Isaac gently laid Audrey in a pocket of his waistcoat and let Zorach help him up on his back. Zorach and two other centaurs positioned themselves by the backdoor.
“We will drop the shield around the castle long enough for you to get out.” Stonebinder told the group.
“And then I will drop the outside shield.” Josef added. “I will be waiting by the back gate for you.” He popped out of sight.
“Charlotte, I will drop the spell right before we get into the fairies’ land.” A tear fell down his cheek. “Goodbye.”
“Goodbye.” Charlotte gripped the box. There was so much more to say, and no chance to do it. Why couldn’t time stop this once?
“It is time.” Zorach said. Shields were let down, doors were opened, and Charlotte watched her parents leave her life. She tried to steady her trembling hands, but they wouldn’t obey.
“Everybody to his or her room. We must be prepared for a possible attack.” Lodestar commanded. The room emptied except for Charlotte and the Winguard family.
Wynn wrapped her arms around Charlotte. “I’m so sorry.”
“You’ll stay in my parents’ room tonight, won’t you?” She asked. I’d like to know that I’m not alone in the tower.”
“Of course.” Wynn said. “We can all stay together in your room, in fact.”
“No.” Charlotte finally tore here eyes away from doors and looked down at the box. “The fairies left an outfit for Beau so he could be with me while I transform. I’d like you all nearby, but I’d rather not risk somebody getting hurt.”
“Come get us if you need anything at all.”
Beau and Charlotte made their way to her bedroom. The rain fell softer now. Beau sat down on the floor against her bed. Charlotte paced the floor nearby. Finally, sat down by Beau and sifted through the clothes. A pair of long gloves lay on top. Three pants and three shirts came next. Charlotte ran her hand over the fabric. It felt thin and soft and looked like thousands of tiny dragon scales sewn together. She quickly pushed those aside. In the bottom of the box were a pair of boots and a set of clothes for Beau.
She handed the clothes to Beau. “Thank you for staying with me.”
He took the clothes and nodded. His eyes said something, but she didn’t know what it was.
She looked down at the gloves in her hands. She wanted to cry her heart out to him, but she pushed her sorrow down beneath the fear of her future. “I guess it’s only a matter of time now.”
He tossed the gloves back in the box, and then placed his hands over her hands. “Lottie.”
“Yes?” She looked over at him.
He stood. He put his hands on his hips and looked around the room.
“Beau, what is it?”
His eyes found her eyes. He grabbed her hands again and pulled her up to him. “I love you.”
9
The Girl Who Burned
And The Boy Who Sang To Her
She stood in the pool like so many times before.
Hair and skin sun kissed.
A merbaby squealed from her arms.
She looked up at him and smiled.
In that instant he knew, and life would never be the same.
Beau had never been so frightened in his entire life. Not when he had flown for the first time. Not when he had left his parents for a few years for his apprenticeship. Not when he had gone on his first dangerous scouting job. He held steady to Charlotte’s gaze as she stared him down. He felt that the very fibers of his body were going to disintegrate under her scrutiny. Not that he blamed her one bit. He could only imagine what she was going through right now. But the right thing to do was tell her. Of course, the right thing would have been to tell her a year ago, but he hadn’t. How he wished he could go back to last summer when she was home for a couple of weeks right before her last year of college. He had always assumed that their friendship would stay a friendship in a growing up together brother and sister sort of way. But that day as both of their families relaxed in and around the pool, his vision for their friendship had changed.
“Do you know the first moment that I knew I loved you?” He asked in a whisper as he took her hands and cradled them in his own. “It was last summer; it was the day you spent taking care of that merbaby in the pool. We all had fun with him, but it was you who made him feel right at home.” Beau blushed at the memory of her in a swimsuit. He had seen her in one for years growing up, but it was different that day in an uncomfortable, yet exciting way.
Charlotte looked up at him with tears in her eyes, but she remained silent.
“Lottie, I had to tell you. I didn’t before, and I was wrong to not say anything. I thought, and I still do, that you merely thought of me as an annoying brother.”
Charlotte laughed then, and she wiped her tears away. “Give me a minute, Beau. People are throwing a lot at me today. I feel a bit weak from it all.”
He watched her as she rummaged through the box she had been given by Laila. She set aside a couple of outfits. His heart beat wildly, hopeful that she loved him back, concerned that he was merely giving her something to tease him about. He watched as she opened her father’s bag and rummaged through it.
“Do you have anything to unpack, Beau? Do you need anything?”
He sighed, irritated at the change of subject. “Our home was destroyed, remember? There’s nothing really to unpack.”
Charlotte fumbled with the bag again.
Beau stood up. “You are avoiding the issue.”
“Stay here, please,” she whispered. “I’ll be right back, and I’ll promise we’ll talk. You should probably change.”
Beau sat at the end of her bed with his head in his hands. The weight of the secret he had been carrying for a year was gone, but now he felt hollow inside. What in the world was going through her head? Maybe he had been overconfident thinking that she would immediately tell him that she loved him, too. He had expected that, or possibly anger because he had avoided telling her and spent the last year dating girls off and on in order to stay distracted. What he had not expected was what was happening right now. The agonizing minutes ticked by, though it couldn’t have been more than five minutes before she returned. She stood by him, fidgeting with the seam of her new outfit.
“Why don’t you change? We may not have much time left.” She asked as she sat down next to him on the bed.
He grumbled and headed over to her closet to change. She was driving him crazy. “How do you feel about me?” He asked, trying to keep his voice even while he wrestled with the shirt, which had buttons down the back above and below an opening in the middle for his wings.
“Let me help you,” Charlotte offered. She took over buttoning his shirt around his wings. Her hands shook as she worked. “There. Finished.” She circled around him and brushed some imaginary dust off of his shirt. “It looks good on you.” She patted his chest, but didn’t pull her hand back away.
“It’s going to be okay.” Beau put his hand over hers.
“I’m scared.” She admitted.
“I am, too.” He confessed. He pulled her hand up to his lips and left a slow, gentle kiss on her palm.
She giggled.
“Are you intent on bruising my ego tonight?”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. Beau pulled her closer and held tight. She pulled away too soon for his liking.
“I love you, Beau.” She said with a smile before she collapsed in his arms as a wave of energy surged out of her and through the room like an ocean wave.
Beau carried Charlotte’s limp body towards her bed. Her skin was now glowing and white. Burning pain seared up his arms. He diverted his path to the bathtub and laid her inside carefully. He stumbled back and looked down at his arms. They were bright red and covered with blisters. He stumbled out of the bathroom and ran across the room to the doorway.
“Father!” He yelled down the stairs. “I need you and Sebastian immediately!”
He walked back to the bed and sat down
. Heat radiated out into the room from the direction of the bathroom. Beau closed his eyes and breathed slowly through the pain. Focus. Push the fear down. Take it breath by breath. His training carried him through while he waited for his father to arrive.
“Beau, come out of the room.” Wilder called from the staircase. “Neither Sebastian nor I can get any closer than this.”
Beau obeyed and sat down on the top stair. Sebastian began to cover his arms with an ointment. He hadn’t even realized how much pain he had been in until he was no longer hurting.
Wilder laid his hand on his shoulder. “Son, these look bad. Is Charlotte okay?”
“I’m not sure,” Beau replied. “She’s burning, but I don’t think it affects her in the same way.” He tried to think of how she looked when he last saw her. “I don’t remember redness or blisters on her skin.” He tried to stand up, but Wilder pushed him back down.
“It’s the transformation.” Wilder said. “It’s a form of magical light and heat. If it is causing her to change, then hopefully it’s not hurting her like it hurt you.”
Sebastian put the container of ointment in Beau’s hands. “In case you need more of it.” He gave Beau a second bag. “It’s a duplicate bag of what I carry around just in case. Keep it in case you need anything for yourself or Charlotte. I have instructions in it. I will update the hobs on her condition. I’ll check back in with you again.”
“Thanks.”
Wilder helped him up. “Be careful, son. Call if you need me.”
Beau nodded and gripped his father’s shoulder briefly before he stepped back into the hot room. Charlotte was curled up in fetal position in the tub. “You shouldn’t have to go through this,” he whispered as he knelt by the tub, careful not to touch it. Charlotte looked more like light in a human form than a person who was overheated. She was incandescent. Beau had to back up. The heat was overwhelming, and the light she was emitting was killing his eyes. Suddenly, there was an explosion of light and energy, and he was knocked down onto the floor.
Beau sat back up and looked in the tub. Most of the heat in the room was gone now, but Charlotte remained hot and still resembled light in a human form. “Charlotte?” He asked, hoping she might respond. She didn’t stir. So he waited. He checked in with his family. He dozed on the bathroom floor.
“Beau?” Charlotte finally asked weakly from the bathtub some hours later.
“I’m here, Lottie.” Charlotte’s skin was still pale, but she looked much more like a human now. Beau reached out to touch her hand, but pulled away quickly. “You are still so hot.”
“Do you think that there’s a way you could help me get to my bed?”
“Let me try holding you with a blanket.” He managed to help her to her bed. “It’s probably early morning about now.”
“Is there any word of my parents?” She asked drowsily.
“I haven’t heard any,” he confessed. “Would you like me to go find out?”
“No, whatever you do, please don’t leave.” She insisted.
“I’m not going anywhere.” Beau sat down on the chair near the bed.
Beau reached out to touch her, but pulled away. The closer he got to her skin, the hotter the air became. He made a fist and put his hands in his lap. Thank goodness she had had her eyes closed. He didn’t want her to see him pulling away.
She opened her eyes and laughed. “It just hit me. I’m alive! What happened?”
Beau smiled and sat back in the chair. “I’ve never seen anything like it. It was like you were the brightest, clearest light I have ever seen. The closest I have come to seeing something like that is that time I nearly ran into some fireworks.”
“What do I look like now?” She fiddled with the blanket on the bed. “Knowing magic, I’m afraid to look.”
Beau blinked. How did she look? He looked for the nearest mirror. “How are you feeling right now? Would you like to look in the mirror?”
She frowned. “I’d rather not get up yet.”
“I could carry you.” He offered.
“No, never mind. It’s not really important, is it?” She closed her eyes and turned her head away.
Beau crossed his arms in front of his chest. Why was she worried about how she looked? What did she want, a picture? To know that her hair was free of tangles? He shook his head and sighed. Girls. Then it hit him. She wanted reassurance. From him. He wiped the grin off of his face before he sat forward in the chair and cleared his throat. “Hey, beautiful, eyes over here.”
She turned back to him. “I’m beautiful?”
“You were beautiful before, and you are beautiful now.” Beau said. “Your eyes are brown like mine now. Your hair is red like Ebby’s and it has strands of white in it now. You look stronger. Of course, you’ve probably always had a strong build like the fairies. It’s a pretty combination of muscular and curvy.” He felt a blush creep across his neck.
“You are sweet.”
He smiled. “You reminded me of the phoenix story last night, but you were an incandescent phoenix. You are reborn now, Charlotte. You are a mystery; nobody knows what you can do.”
Charlotte smiled back, but it was a sad smile.
“What’s wrong?” He asked. “Should I get Sebastian? Do you hurt?”
“I feel like I’ve been living a lie. The person I was before is gone. I’m not everybody’s Charlotte anymore. I feel like the life I led was a mask.”
Beau reached for her hand without thinking. “Ow!” He jumped up from the bed and grabbed the burn cream Sebastian had left for him.
“I’m so sorry!” Charlotte cried out, and for a moment they stared fearfully into each other’s eyes. “What is wrong with me?”
“Don’t worry about it.” He said quickly. “You have been slowly cooling down. I’m sure you will be back to normal in no time. Besides, my other burns are fine now. Sebastian’s cream works wonders.”
“Other burns?” She asked. “What other burns? When did you get them?” She sat up and reached for him, but he pulled back in time.
“When the spell was released, you fell. I caught you in my arms. I was going to put you in bed, but you kept getting hotter so I put you in the bathtub. I told my father, who got Sebastian.” He showed her his arms, which were healed, but Beau noticed that he had scars on his arms now that looked like white flames.
“I’m so sorry.” She lay back down on the bed facing away from him.
“It’s nothing you did and nothing to be sorry about. You couldn’t control it. Like I said, you keep cooling down. You should be back to normal soon.”
“Normal!” She yelled as she tossed a pillow at his head. “This isn’t normal! Normal means you can touch people. Normal means that I don’t send people to a doctor when they try to console me! Normal means my boyfriend can actually touch me!”
She stumbled to the full-length mirror in her room. “All my life I have wanted magic!” She fell to her knees. “I finally get it and look what I am! I’m a monster who burns people! You are exactly right; I am a phoenix. A burning, scaring people I love phoenix.”
Beau leaned against the doorframe. “Hey, look at the bright side. You could burn people you don’t like.” He swore that the look she gave him gave off heat.
“That apparently was the wrong thing to say at a time like this.” He said quietly. He looked away and saw his father standing outside the bedroom door. His father mouthed the word boyfriend, and Beau nodded and pointed to his own eyes. Wilder gave him a thumbs-up and mouthed good luck before heading back down the stairs.
Beau squatted down close to Charlotte. “Try to remember that you haven’t seen Sebastian about any of this. In fact, there are a lot of people who may have an idea about what’s going on and be able to suggest remedies. Don’t forget that you have undergone this huge transformation. Your body still needs time to adjust. We will take this one day at a time.”
“You mean I should take this one day at a time.” She tried to correct him.
�
�I mean we will.” He corrected her. “We do this together. If it were me in the same situation you would say the same.”
She didn’t respond. Beau wrapped a shirt around his elbow and nudged her. “I’m beginning to think that if it were me you would leave me high and dry.”
The tiniest of smiles brushed her lips. “Of course I wouldn’t. I would make oven mitts or something.”
Beau sat back on his heels. “You know, it was only my arms that burned. The parts of me covered by fairy clothing didn’t burn when I touched you.”
“The fairy clothes protect us, I guess.”
“I wonder if…” Beau reached out and touched her shoulder. “Yes, I can touch you where you are covered. It’s a start.” He helped her up and back to the bed. “I don’t know about you, but I’m a little tired.”
“Me, too,” Charlotte agreed.
“You okay?” He asked sleepily.
“I’m having trouble relaxing.” She curled up on the far right side of the bed.
Beau took deep breaths to steady his nerves as he turned off the lights in the room save one lamp. He lay down on the left side of the bed and stretched his arm out towards her. She reached out and laid her arm close to his.
“I have a song for you.” He smiled bashfully. “I wrote it for you while I waited for you to wake.”
“You wrote me a song?”
“It’s a tradition of bronze eagles. When you found your mate, you wrote a song for her. I have grown up hearing my father sing to my mother. It’s one of my fondest childhood memories.”
Charlotte smiled. Her face softened, and a tear dropped down her cheek. “I’m your mate?”
“You are my everything, dear Lottie.” Beau propped himself up on his elbow. “You are my best friend. You are my girlfriend. You are my partner. You are my intended. You are my mate.” He rolled over on his stomach. “And someday, you will be my lover.”
Charlotte smiled and rolled over onto her stomach. “Sing for me.”