Invincible

by Dawn Metcalf

  “Inq and Kurt are our fallback plan,” Joy explained again. “If we’re captured by the King and Queen, there needs to be someone on this side who can try again.” She tried to speak to the anxiety on his face. “Don’t worry—we’ll give them the proof that they need to come home.”

  The Bailiwick nodded, a gesture all but lost as his palsy shake returned; his hunched shoulders were more pronounced than usual.

  “I know what must be done,” he said, his icy gaze made almost radiant in the pool light. “I simply wish that you were not the one to do it.”

  Joy wasn’t sure in that moment if he meant that he regretted putting her in danger, that he wished to keep her safe or that he didn’t think that she could do it. She swallowed her anxiety and placed a hand on his arm.

  “Trust me.”

  He patted her hand with one of his own. “I do, Miss Malone. I do, indeed.”

  She nodded. Ink stepped closer. Filly bounced on her heels.

  “I demand entrance to the Bailiwick of the Twixt.”

  * * *

  The princess’s meadow remained slashed and broken with great swathes of nothing ripped sideways and torn. The pocket world lay in tatters, shredded like a razor blade through a precious painting. Joy stared at her shoes, embarrassed and sorry, remembering how hesitant she had been the first time to step on a perfect blade of grass. In her fury, she’d ruined a thousand years of patient waiting, a thousand years of one person’s solace, a world created to both remember and forget.

  “What happened here?” Filly said, hand on hilt.

  Joy sighed, ignoring Ink’s sidelong glance. “I was mad.”

  Filly gave a soft chuckle, her short cape of finger bones rattling as she surveyed the carnage. “Remind me never to make you mad, Joy Malone.”

  Joy shook her head. “It won’t happen again.”

  Filly winked. “Your secret is safe with me.”

  They rolled along the world’s surface, sliding until the shimmering portal hung before them in midair. Ink and Joy took up positions on opposite sides of the door. Foreign sunlight eked out the edges, splicing hot rainbows through the sky. Filly crouched in front of the doorway, rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, her blue eyes fixed on the scintillating light.

  “You know what to do,” Ink said, his words crisp and clear.

  “Yes.” Filly grinned.

  “Tell me.”

  “Distraction. Mayhem. Extraction.” Her eyes crinkled, catlike and sly. “Preferably in that order.”

  “Close enough,” Joy said. She squeezed the dowsing rod in her hands. It was slippery through the silk gloves. “Ready?”

  Filly huffed a laugh through her nose and clanged her vambraces together.

  “I was born ready.”

  Ink flicked the razor and opened the door.

  Filly jumped through.

  She ran straight through those guarding the door, punching and kicking in a whirl of motion before the soldiers had even registered her presence, but by then she was already gone. Racing past them, down the slope, she threw one of their helmets into the air with a naughty whoop of laughter. Joy saw her vambraces flash as she rained a tornado of blows through an unsuspecting knot of infantry, grabbing a sword from one and borrowing another’s shield that was still attached to their arm in order to block a sloppy attack. With a kick, one was down, the other stunned with the flat of the blade as Filly ducked, spun and was off again, casting weapons and assailants aside like a child through a pile of leaves, leaving joyous chaos in her wake.

  Ink glanced back at Joy from his side of the door. “I almost feel sorry for them,” he said as they watched their friend sprint pell-mell for a saddled creature with a brown eagle head and a lionesque body. It hissed and lunged for her. Filly raised her arms and sang out like a lover, “Gyrefalcon!” It reared and brought its front paws crashing down, its sharp claws gouging holes in the turf. It gave an offended shriek as Filly slipped smoothly to one side, grabbed a hold of its bronze harness and launched herself onto its back. She deftly hooked a foot into its stirrup and unholstered a spear in one hand. She yelled something triumphant as the creature sprang into the air, a hundred-foot wingspan snapping a great shadow, and twisted in an attempt to dislodge her. The horde of ground troops pursued.

  Ink grinned, both dimples. “Almost sorry, but not much,” he confessed.

  “Let’s go!” Joy urged and Ink followed, pushing through the wobbling membrane of the door into Faeland. She held her breath as she jumped, feeling the filament shear over the surface of her skin. She landed, her held breath punched in her lungs. She stared at her feet. The ground stayed solid.

  She took a step. Nothing. Joy exhaled and ran.

  The landscape had changed again, as if turning counterclockwise, revealing strange new turf and a changing sky. Joy didn’t stop to admire the thick tendrils of autumn-colored clouds, the spires of green glass in the distance or the enormous mountain caves glowing with dragon heat. They dived toward an outcropping of stone she hadn’t remembered seeing before, worn by nothing more than memories and dreams. It was as if it had been created for the purpose of shelter, a shadow of something that might have been in a storybook back on Earth. Joy had a crazy thought, wondering if Faeland itself remembered where they’d come from.

  Ink and Joy ducked beneath the lip of stone and looked for the tents and yellow banners snapping over the courtyard from a distance. Joy couldn’t see them from here, but she did see the roofs of the sugar-spun castle so she knew where they had been.

  “Well, that worked,” Joy said. “So far, so good.”

  “May this work as well,” Ink said, unrolling the wizard’s scroll and placing Joy’s hands firmly on the dowsing rod. She felt his hands as warmth and pressure, missing something through the glove. “Hold firm. This is wizard magic—I am uncertain what it will do.”

  “As long as it finds my brother,” Joy said, “the rest doesn’t matter.”

  Ink paused. “Be careful what you wish for. Especially here, Joy Malone.”

  “Right,” she said, chagrined.

  “Do not make me break my promise to Monica,” Ink said. “I hear she has thumbscrews.”

  Joy smiled as he curled his hand over hers and read the words on the parchment. The language was something old and slithery. The sounds dripped from her ears into her limbs down into the wood itself, playing over the worn grain like water through a maze, pooling in the tiny divot darkened with her blood. The droplet deep in the wood pulsed once, twice, like a tiny heartbeat—one which made Joy’s own missing heart ache—and then it ignited, flaring along the dowsing rod and shooting a narrow beam of blood-red light out the end, which faded several feet in front of them like a penlight into the dark. The power of the spell shivered under her palms. It tugged like Kestrel, keen for the hunt.

  “This way,” Ink said as he lifted her elbow up and they started running.

  The buzz turned into tremor as they kept going east, if the sun was anything to go by. Joy’s eyes locked on her hands and Ink’s hand locked on hers, which was locked on the wand. He kept scanning the landscape, directing her by touch. The blood-colored light swerved and Joy’s elbows twisted, her forearms wrenching sideways. They wove their way into tall, furry grasses that were like nothing Joy had ever seen before, the scent pouring off them something between wildflowers and wheat.

  Ink’s hand on her shoulder pushed her down into a crouch. They ducked low under cover of swaying purple grass. Joy could hear voices and footsteps crashing through the field. They waited until the sounds passed, the buzz in her joints growing deeper as the dowsing rod quivered. She held still for a count of ten. Twenty.

  Ink squinted up at the sun, his black eyes flashing pale gray. He tapped her gently with the side of his razor and pointed the direction of the spell. “This way.”
<
br />   They skirted a lake, avoiding trees filled with dryads, flocks of pixies that looked like butterflies and cairns of stones that turned out to be hill giants, asleep. As the dowsing rod led them through the odd countryside, Joy realized most of the verdant paradise was alive—living, thinking beings, all potentially hostile and loyal to the King and Queen, all the people that she was trying to set free. Would they help her if she asked? Would they kill her if she were caught?

  Joy didn’t want to find out.

  The light veered again, leading them into a monstrous thicket, like a wall of tangled vegetation, dense and protective. Ink tucked Joy close against him, the vibrations drumming into his chest, echoing hollowly under his voice.

  “Stay close.”

  He lifted his razor and slashed down with great, looping swirls—almost like a dance as they plunged forward, cutting giant swaths out of the hedge. Joy stayed inside the cup of his shoulder as he hacked his way almost effortlessly through the tangle of branches and leaves, praying quietly that nothing in here was alive the way that they were. She kept her eyes averted against potential glares and screaming.

  Ink switched hands with a reverse-handled grip as the tremors grew sharper, the light lengthening as if it could reach between the branches and touch a finger through the leaves.

  They broke through the foliage into sunlight and laughter. A girl with a blush of blue skin, short hair and pointed ears gasped and dropped her basket of fruit. Startled, Joy let go of the rod. It shot forward, bounced off the girl’s arm and fell to the ground, inert.

  The girl stumbled back, rubbing her arm. “Ouch.”

  Ink tucked his blade behind his back and held Joy tight against his shoulder to hide it. The girl stared at them both and then coughed on a laugh. The gills on her throat fluttered. She was a water nymph.

  “Ow,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest and squeezing out another little laugh. “Oh. You scared me!”

  “Um,” Joy said. “Sorry.”

  They stood on the edge of an inlet ringed in jeweled fruit trees, the heavy scent of apples a strange autumn smell in the midst of spring. The fruit itself was yellow-gold and garnet red, the glistening leaves were faceted like diamonds and all around them was the hum of giant, fluffy bees. Waifish children played in the branches, kicking their feet and hanging upside down while older teens gathered the fruit and tickled one another, splashing under a thin, clear waterfall dripping with moss. There was no sign of Stef or Dmitri or anyone over age thirteen. It was as if they’d stumbled into a childhood memory, playful and free.

  “You’re lost,” the girl said, pointing to the left. “The hedge maze is that way. Unless you’re looking for the Lovers Lock, which is back the way you came.” She blushed a deeper sapphire, her sea glass eyes sparkling and mischievous as she gathered a few of the fruits and shells that had spilled out of her basket. Golden apples with hints of pink and green nested among seashells that matched the color of her hair. She picked up the dowsing rod from the moist carpet of green. “Here. You dropped your—” she turned it over curiously “—stick.” She held it out. Joy took it back carefully. Ink seemed at a loss for words. He stared at the girl, at the fruit, at the waterfall, the shells and the trees and the sky. He looked like he was trying to put a puzzle together in his head.

  Joy tried not to panic. Where’s Stef?

  “Thanks,” Joy said, flashing her Olympic-class smile. The girl smiled back.

  “No problem,” she said and chose an apple from her basket. “Want one?”

  Joy hesitated, remembering the wine at Enrique’s funeral. She’d asked whether it was safe to eat or drink, given the old fairy-tale stories. You are not in Faeland, he’d said. But now she was, and she was well aware that some stories could be true.

  “No, thank you,” Joy said quietly. The water nymph wasn’t hostile, she was young; not young like Filly or having the appearance of youth like the guilderdamen, but genuinely innocent as an ordinary girl of maybe twelve or thirteen. Joy knew that the Folk aged differently than humans, but this was the first time she’d ever met one who might actually be a kid.

  A kid who was looking at them with a suspicious twist to her lips. “I don’t know you,” she said. “I haven’t seen you before.”

  That’s our cue. Joy tugged Ink’s sleeve. “Probably not.”

  “Are you from the Hinterlands? Or maybe the Dells?” The girl propped the lip of the basket against her hip. “Everyone’s been gathering here since the door opened, but I’m local and so I can tell you we’re still not allowed through.”

  Ink stopped, ignoring Joy’s gentle prodding. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know,” the girl said. “The King and Queen won’t allow it. They said we have to wait. Again.” The way she said it convinced Joy that she was certainly adolescent; no one could fake exasperation like that. The girl shifted her feet, her skinny legs planted wide. “And it’s not fair! Some of us have things to do—” Her eyes narrowed meaningfully, like an unspoken secret between them. “Important things.”

  Ink took a bewildered step closer. The chain at his hip tinkled like bells. “Such as?”

  “Like—” Her eyes clouded over, confused and petulant. “I don’t know.” The cloud lifted, her delicate face clear. “But it’s important.” Her voice lilted like a question. “Really important. I can feel it—I have to go back. You’d understand if you knew.”

  A creeping calm flowed through Joy. “You mean you can’t remember?”

  “Sort of.” The young girl sighed, trying to find the words. “Ever get the feeling like there’s something you’re supposed to be doing, but you can’t remember exactly what?” She glanced at them, touching the tiny charms piercing her ears. “You know what I mean, right? That’s what’s bringing most of us to the doorway. Ever since the locks opened, it’s like...I’ve lost something over there and I have to go find it.” She rearranged the apples and spoke into the ground. “The Eight say this means I have a responsibility...” She waved her wrist vaguely. “Back there.” Her voice changed as the indignation returned. “But I can’t remember what it is—none of us can! And we can’t do it if we’re not allowed to Return!”

  “The Eight?” Ink repeated.

  “Well, Nine, I suppose,” the girl said, then her eyes brightened. “The youngest princess came back—to warn her family, they said—and so we know that the Middle Land is still out there, still waiting for us, and not destroyed after all, but we don’t know if it’s safe.” She kicked at a clump of moss. “All we want is permission to go home. But until they say yes, we have to stay. That’s why everyone’s coming here, just waiting by the door. There’s no breaking the rules.” Her voice became dreamy, thick with longing. “I hear it’s beautiful.”

  “You’ve never been there?” Joy said, but stopped herself. She thought that this was the land of the dead, the afterworld of the otherworld, but the tween’s blushing cheeks and pointy ears and cowlick curls didn’t look dead. She sounded very much alive.

  “I’m not that old,” the girl laughed and pointed off to the bumpy horizon. “I was born in the bay near Cloud Peak.”

  Ink held up a hand to hush the world. “You were born here?”

  “But—” Joy swallowed her next words, because they were both telling and untrue. That’s impossible! She knew that no Folk had been born in the Twixt for over a thousand years—Graus Claude had said so and the Council had confirmed it. It was considered a delicate subject in polite society. Even if this nymph was older than she looked, “that” old would be about a thousand years. Before the Dark Ages. Around the time of the Retreat. About when...

  The words slipped out. “When the door closed,” Joy said. “That’s when it stopped.”

  Ink stared at Joy. The girl blinked. Her nose twitched.

  “Where did you two say you’re from, again?”

 
“You were born here,” Ink said, ignoring the question. “On this side of the door.” He wove his fingers over his wallet chain, each link a separate thought. “The door was closed, locked against any magic coming in—but it also prevented anyone, anything from going out.” He pinched a single silver link. “You’re here. You are all here,” he murmured, his eyes reflected the colors of the world as a smile teased his lips. “You are all very, very here.”

  The water nymph frowned, her fingers pale on the basket. “Um, okay.”

  But Joy saw it, too. “No one could Return,” she whispered. “After death. They were all trapped here.”

  Ink smiled, one dimple. “A one-way trip.”

  Joy glanced at the girl. “What are you called?”

  The nymph looked frightened now, unsure; her answer was like a shield. “Coral.” She squinched her eyes and took a step back. “Why?” Shells and apples wobbled in her basket. “Do I know you?”

  “I don’t know,” Joy said. “Do you?”

  “You seem...familiar.” Coral confessed. “Ish. Familiar-ish. Like maybe we’ve met before, but I think I would have remembered. I think I might remember...but I don’t.” She hesitated, taking a shy doe step closer. “It’s like your face is someone else’s face, but not your face. It’s something else. Like you’re someone I ought to know.”

  Joy swapped a glance with Ink. “Maybe you do.” She glanced around the orchard. She pointed the rod around the inlet. “He isn’t here, but it led us here—right here—to her. It was pointing right at her.” She felt her breath quicken. “Ink—?”

  “You know her,” he said with certainty. “And she knows you. A lifetime ago and a different face.”

  Joy’s voice hitched. Tears blurred her eyes as she was confronted with sudden understanding.

  “Who are you?” Coral asked.

  “We’re family,” Joy said as the dowsing rod dropped to the ground.

  TWENTY-THREE

  “WE HAVE GOT TO see the King and Queen,” Joy said, pulling Coral’s hand. “We have to tell them. Then they’ll have to Return—Stef, the King and Queen, all of them, right?” She glanced at Ink, who sheared their way through the wilderness. “Right?”