Invincible

by Dawn Metcalf

  “You can convince the King and Queen to Return? You’re sure?” Coral sounded delighted. Well, delighted and scared. Joy wasn’t certain that the nymph would come with them, but the Folk’s natural curiosity had worked in their favor; making daydreams come true pushed them up a notch. “I didn’t think that anyone could convince the King and Queen of anything.”

  “Joy is special.” Ink spoke over his shoulder, away from the reeds that rimmed the water’s edge. Joy could hear distant laughter beneath the bubbles and waves, her eelet picking up more as they went. Faeland was pulsing with voices and magic and music. “She is the courier.”

  “What’s that?” Coral asked.

  “I’m bringing a message from the...Middle Land,” Joy tried the phrase out. It fit on her tongue. It was true. “I have proof that it’s safe to come home.”

  Coral skipped over a log filled with tiny, furry faces that peeped as they passed. “Really? What proof?”

  “You,” Joy said. “And my brother. We’ll have to find him next. But I can’t use the spell until we can figure out how to have it not just point at you.”

  Ink changed direction, skirting the lake. “Do you think the spell will work?”

  “Within three generations,” Joy quoted Mr. Vinh. She shook her bangs out of her face, refusing to lose her grip on the scalpel or Coral’s hand. The gloves made it feel like she might lose one or both at any moment. “I thought he meant the spell was guaranteed for three generations—like a hundred years or something—not that it would seek out my bloodline through three generations!”

  Joy laughed at the mad thoughts whirling through her head. She should have felt relieved or brain-blown or terrified, but the truth was that she felt the kind of thrill she’d known only from Olympic training, when everything was on the line and it all came down to trusting herself, her instincts, her hunches and what she knew she could accomplish.

  I can do this!

  “I don’t understand,” Coral said, stumbling to keep up.

  “You were born here, but you’re not from here,” Joy said. “Or maybe you are. Over and over again!” Joy laughed, swallowing the taste of pollen and upturned earth. The world tasted like roses and tingled on her tongue. “But last time, you were born human and your name was Caroline.”

  “Caroline?” the girl said, now more curious than scared. “Who’s that?”

  “My great-great grandmother.”

  Coral gasped. Her gills flapped. “And she was human? You’re a human?”

  “Sort of,” Joy said.

  “She is a human with the Sight,” Ink said, checking their progress. It seemed that Filly had driven her quarry into the lake. They could hear the explosive splashing and barked orders and whooping laughter and smell the water on the wind. “It runs in her family.”

  Coral stumbled after them, shaking her head full of curls the color of green apples. “But I was born here,” she insisted. “That makes no sense—”

  “It makes perfect sense,” Joy said. “When Folk die, they return to Faeland. It’s your afterworld, after all, and humans go to Heaven or whatever. But if a human has the Sight, that means we have a drop of faery blood—Folk blood—we’re descendants, halfings or eighthlings or three-quarterlings, whose souls ends up in Faeland, too. When the Folk leave Faeland to go back to the Twixt, they protect humans with magic—” Joy’s voice faltered “—those with the Sight or inherent magic or, maybe, they are Folk reborn. We’re family and we look after one another over and over again throughout our lifetimes, protecting the magic by protecting each other. Marking people lets you know who was once one of you!” Joy followed Ink, dodging between trees. Joy hoped it was a trick of the light that some of the trees looked like they’d dodged first. “Maybe it’s always been that way after death—the Folk come back and then Return.” Her feet were flying, her thoughts outpacing her words. “They Return to protect their own!”

  “Humans.” Ink said. “Humans under auspice. Those who have the magic.”

  “Yes!” Joy said, crouching under a branch. “Humans go to Heaven. Folk come here. Those in between are—” he flipped her hand “—in between. They Return as the other and cycle anew.”

  “So you think I have the soul of your ancestor?” Coral asked.

  “Maybe. Yes. Or the spell wouldn’t have worked.” Joy tried not to think how crazy it sounded, but if the spell on the dowsing rod was correct, then it fit. Coral was Caroline, reincarnated on this side of the Twixt, stuck here behind a locked door, waiting to Return. It explained everything—the dwindling numbers, the endangered magic, the lack of babies and the Folk born here on the wrong side of the door. “If humans under auspice are reborn Folk, then people with magic are part of the Twixt, preserving their magic, their bloodlines, protecting their own—”

  “Until they Return,” Ink said. “Which they could no longer do when the King and Queen locked the door behind them.” Ink redirected them one more time. Joy could see the distant yellow banners over the crest of the land. “They closed off Faeland.”

  Joy nodded. “A one-way trip with no Return.”

  Ink was caught up in the momentum. “The magic waned, the tethers grew weaker, their numbers grew fewer—”

  “No more births,” Joy said.

  Ink nodded at Coral. “No more births.”

  “Are you kidding?” Coral said. “There are so many little ones, you can barely take a step for fear of tripping!”

  Joy and Ink exchanged a glance. Ink shrugged.

  “It is a way to pass the time,” he said.

  Joy laughed. “For a thousand years?” In her ear Inq’s voice whispered, Halflings happen! She squinted through the last of their cover, looking down the final hill that sloped into the valley of the royal court’s camp. How were they going to approach it without being seen? Joy could almost feel the hum of the doorway hanging in the air off to their left—everything was so close and yet she felt impossibly faraway. Her whole world had turned upside down while she was sitting still. They had to find Stef!

  “Can you slice a doorway from here to down there?” Joy whispered, still staring at the circle of tents outside the court clearing. There were dozens of people, soldiers, guards, armored mounts and more. This was a hive of activity and inside its heart, the King and Queen. If she could plead her case, then maybe they’d agree to bring Stef to her. They could have their proof.

  Ink shook his head, the tips of his long bangs hardly moving. “I have never been there,” he said. “And my magic will not work here, only human magic—wizard magic—as the Bailiwick said.”

  Joy glanced at him. “But your blades are working fine.”

  He shrugged. “Those are not magic, exactly.” He tested the edge with the pad of his thumb. “I have been cutting our way with steel and strength.”

  “Are you kidding?” Joy traced the edge of a branch chopped neatly at an angle; the wood was sheared smooth, the bark sliced through without a splinter. It was moments like these when Joy understood that Ink wasn’t human. Joy stared at the straight razor—the edge was jagged, pitted, broken. He’d been destroying his instruments for her. For Stef.

  “You know better than most that the magic is not inherent to the tools we use. They are only as strong as those who wield them.”

  Joy touched his face, smooth under silk, his words brushing past her as she peered down into the valley. Careful not to touch the earth, she parted the stiff grass like curtains with her gloved hands. “So how are we going to get down there without being seen? It’s too long to run and too open to hide.” She wondered if her four-leaf clover had finally run out of juice.

  Ink touched her shoulder, tender and halting. She looked into his eyes, deep pools of black with hot neon light. “Remember the gala—you want to make an entrance. You have already made quite the first impression.”

 
Joy didn’t think that should count. “The ground split open.”

  Coral gasped. “That was you?”

  “Shh,” Ink whispered, crisp and clean.

  Joy stared at Ink. He’d never shushed anyone before. It sounded so human.

  Ink raised his hand quickly and cocked his head, listening with his Joy-shaped ear. “Do you hear anything?”

  Joy hesitated. There was not so much as a breeze in the air.

  Ink’s boots cracked against the ground as he crouched lower. It sounded so loud in the quiet. He mouthed one word: Filly?

  He was right—Filly’s distracting shenanigans had faded into silence. A warning chill shivered up Joy’s arms under the full-length gloves, but then she realized that the tremble was coming from the ground. A quiver traveled up her boots, turning her knees and stomach to jelly. Her mind shrieked, I didn’t do it! just before Coral screamed.

  The hilltop boiled over, unflowering rather than splitting, chunks of earth and grass and root tearing up, rolling back, exposing the brown earth tumbling down. Joy knew she mustn’t touch it—mustn’t revel in the smell of it, the singing, malevolent power that ached to fill her up, to make everything roil and break and burn...

  I AM VENGEANCE AND I WILL BE TRIUMPHANT!

  No! She stumbled back. She mustn’t let it touch her! She mustn’t touch! Mustn’t—!

  Something snagged her knees, sucking in her feet, her legs, her hips before she realized the earth was pressed against her abdomen, squeezing her like toothpaste. She gave a gurgling scream. Coral fell sideways, still screaming a little-girl shriek, as Ink disappeared, swallowed underground.

  There was just enough time for Joy to take a quick breath before the earth covered her head, shut her eyes and swallowed her whole.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  THEY CAME UP GASPING. Joy stumbled into Ink, solid as stone, holding her steady as she raked earth from her eyes, her hair, her clothes, coughing and sputtering. Coral wiped at her face and sneezed, gills blasting, eyes tearing under the dirt.

  Joy had a sudden jolt of panic. She’d been submerged under the earth—dirt caked her face, her arms, her skin. She braced herself to fight the craving, the rush of heat, the thunderous voices, the fury—but there was nothing. No feeling of power or pain. She was simply dirty, tumbled and tired.

  They were in a bare circle of earth, the center of the court clearing, surrounded by tall soldiers in banded armor, crosshatched like layers of leaves. They had long beards of grass and stippled helmets like corn, their limbs ending in knotty clubs of wicked, hooked thorns. They’d emerged fully formed from beneath the ground, staring down at the three prisoners. Their eyes were single seeds with flower bud lids, surprisingly delicate in their stern, old-man faces.

  “Our Majesties bid you kneel.”

  Coral dropped to her knee. Ink stood by her shoulder. Joy was too stunned to do much but blink through the grit. She coughed. “What?”

  “Our Majesties bid you kneel.”

  The soldiers repeated the command, accompanied by clawed clubs raised in unison.

  Joy hesitated. Ink followed her lead, his hand hiding the blade between his forearm and jeans. She knelt slowly, trying to peek past the lines of soldiers to the guards beyond them. Well, they’d wanted to make an entrance—this was it.

  “Interesting,” a female voice came from beyond the circle’s edge. The soldiers withdrew, revealing guards, posted along the tents, who parted to reveal the King and Queen sitting at ease. Their hair fluttered in the soft breeze, their faces careful masks of beauty and time, with eyes the color of centuries.

  The Queen rested like a portrait and only her mouth moved. “Rise.”

  Coral leaped to her feet. Joy and Ink cautiously stood. The Queen cast a coy glance at her husband, who gave the barest nod.

  “Bring them,” the King said, and the soldiers swept forward, ushering the three of them through the massive tent enclosure. Joy jostled against Ink and he took her arm, slipping something into her back pocket. The entrance was festooned in ribbons and flowers and plaits of gold. The air inside the tent was hot and still, almost stifling until rope pulls drew triangle flaps down from the ceiling, letting in light and fresh air as well as a cascade of flying critters that circled the perimeter, settling along the seams. There were two thrones on a low dais framed by a half circle of nine curved stools. The stools were empty except for the last two, which were occupied by a brown-haired satyr and a thin man in glasses.

  “Stef!” Joy cried, rushing forward, but Ink caught her before the soldiers pushed her back.

  Stef jumped to his feet, a thin, gold chain looped about his neck clinking like Tinkerbell as he moved. The chain was connected to a ring on the dais floor. Dmitri touched his arm. The DJ wore a stiff robe tied with tassels and sat protectively close to Stef. A half-empty bowl of fruit at their feet was littered with rinds and pits. Dmitri smiled at Joy, shot her a finger-gun and winked, which might have been the strangest thing that had happened yet.

  “I’m fine,” Stef said quickly before a guard clapped a hand on his shoulder and shoved him back into the stool. Stef sat down solidly, adjusting his glasses and adding ruefully, “I’m fine.”

  “You!” Coral shouted, pointing a skinny arm at him. “I know you!”

  There was an almost audible creak as all necks turned to Stef. No one was more surprised than he.

  The Queen spoke softly, dangerously. “Do you know this child?”

  “I— No,” Stef glanced between the King and Queen and Dmitri and Joy. Dmitri cocked a wry eyebrow. Coral looked desperate, her gills fluttering. Stef sounded apologetic, both to Coral and the Queen. “No. I’m sorry. I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do!” Coral insisted, pleading eyes turned to the Queen. “I know him!” She struggled to find the right words. “He’s mine!”

  Which sounded familiar and undoubtedly true.

  “Enough,” the King said. “Leave us.” His gaze barely moved, but the cornstalk soldiers sank swiftly into the ground with a dramatic crunch, the upturned earth burying itself closed. The flock of winged pixies took flight, funneling out the open flaps, and the remaining guards filed out quickly and quietly, their shadows remaining like unsaid warnings along the tent’s outer walls. A ward sparkled to life, enveloping the room, singing with gold dust and the buzz of summer bees.

  The King flicked his wrist as someone from the back of the tent came forward.

  Filly walked into the light, scratched and bruised, her arms secured behind her and her armor scuffed and soiled. One eye was puffy and swelling as she shifted her weight, favoring her left foot. She grinned. Her teeth were red with blood.

  “This, then, explains your presence here,” he said.

  Filly shrugged good-naturedly. “Ah, well, couldn’t evade them forever.” She nodded her head. There was ichor on her braids. “Well met!”

  “You have done your deed well, spear-bearer.” The King almost smiled. Almost. “It is good to look upon your face once more.” He opened his hand sharply, and the bonds that held her disappeared. His gaze slipped past her as she rolled her wrists. “You bring us hope,” he said. “Here, at the edge of things. And we do not have much time.”

  The Queen did not look as impressed or pleased. Her spine was stiff, her manner brusque.

  “You have returned,” she said, a statement with implied inquiry. “Have you brought us proof?”

  “Yes.” Joy said, still tasting the grit of dirt in her mouth. “I think so.”

  “Do you mean this child?” the King said gently.

  The Queen’s gaze caressed Coral, who fell to her knees, eyes downcast. Her thin shoulders trembled.

  “It’s not her, but who she is,” Joy said quickly, trying to spare the girl’s terror. “Who she was—it means that we...”

  “If you think
this is the answer,” said the Queen. “Then you are asking the wrong question.”

  Ink flinched. Joy sputtered. The royal couple looked unimpressed.

  Joy cried, “Then you know?”

  “Of course we know,” the Queen said, a surprising flare of emotion cracking her mask like an egg. Her ethereal beauty became terrible, a storm of wonders behind jeweled eyes. “We’ve known for ages what we have wrought! It is the reason above all others why we must Return!”

  The King addressed the water nymph, kindly but firmly. His voice had a flavor, a music all its own. “Go now to your family.”

  Coral peeked at Stef through her apple-colored curls.

  “Soon, Water’s Daughter,” the King promised. “Until then, you will honor us with your obedience.”

  Coral quietly rose to her feet and bowed, averting her eyes as she scurried from the tent. Joy saw that there were tears and unanswered questions staining her face, not daring to look back at those she left behind.

  “Who is she?” Stef asked from his seat. Joy stared at him and he stared back. “Joy?”

  “Here she is Coral,” she said, glancing at the monarchs. “Back home, she was Caroline.”

  Her brother’s confusion flipped to wonder and then understanding and rage. Dmitri flinched at the look on his face. With the memories of their great-grandmother, the old hate returned.

  “You could easily say it the other way around,” the King said, placing a gentle hand on his wife’s wrist. His manner exuded a preternatural calm of oceans and mountains unruffled by time. “By locking ourselves safely behind Faeland’s walls, the cycle was disrupted, our people truly trapped. Once we had discovered our error, it was too late—the door was closed and our courier lost. Our hope was that the Council would determine that it was safe to Return before too much time had passed.” His gaze remained focused, but it was as if he was looking through them into a distant past or future. “Unfortunately, the longer we waited, the more convinced we were that our people had perished, that the world had lost its magics and the door would only open in time for us to take up arms in their name.” He turned slowly to his Queen, who had composed herself enough that the tears had absorbed back into her flawless gaze. “We were angry—very angry—but have been despondent ever since.”