by D. N. Hoxa
Pieces of the white glittery material were scattered all over the ground. When we were a hundred feet away from the castle, that’s when I realized what it was. The wall. The one I’d seen through the window in Julian’s room. Somebody had broken it, and now pieces of it were all over the place. Shivers washed down my back. Was this the castle I’d been in?
I looked at Julian. His head was down, his shoulders hunched. He refused to look at me, though I was sure he could feel me staring. I smiled at myself. If we ever made it out of that place, I was going to imprint my fingerprints on his face for good.
The castle’s main entrance was made out of black double doors, which had looked like nothing but an entrance to a cave from the distance. Once inside, two fairies walked in front of us to guide the way while the other four remained behind to make sure we wouldn’t try anything stupid. What could we try, anyway? I couldn’t do anything alone, and Julian sure as hell didn’t look like he was going to fight them any time soon. So I kept as silent as he did.
The inside wasn’t what I expected. The floor was dirt and the walls were plain white. The hallway wasn’t wide, nor the ceiling high. The narrow space was suffocating. After traversing the corridor that led to a round room with three doorways across, the two fairies led us through the one in the middle.
Another corridor. It was cold in there, too. I was wearing a black short-sleeved shirt, and goose bumps covered my arms when a whoosh of air coming from the other end hit us. The gas lamps mounted on the sides of the walls gave a sick orange hue to everything, and deformed the shadows—or maybe it was just my panic making me see things. When we finally arrived at our destination, I nearly cried out.
Two other fairies stood guard at the door at the end of the corridor. The steel bars were thick and shiny, the chain around them twice the size of my arm. The fairies pulled the bars to open it—only one of them couldn’t even move the door—and we were pushed through.
Across from us was a…cage. The inside of it was made out of the white glittery material—both walls and floor—but that wasn’t what made me want to throw up. The fairies sitting on the floor, tied to chains that went inside the walls was what did the trick. All nine of them.
And the guards were going to put us in there, too.
I don’t remember much of what happened in the next few minutes. I was shoved, I was pulled, I was knocked to the floor, and then my arms were pulled up. The rope was gone, replaced by chains of steel.
When something groaned—the main door being dragged by the fairies until it closed—I came back to my senses and found myself sitting on the floor, hands tied above my head.
I pulled them down with all my strength. The chains sounded funny, but they didn’t budge. Panicked, I stretched my fingers wide and sent my beads for them. They floated in that weird formation again, up to the chains, but when they hit it, they didn’t even make a sound, like they hadn’t even touched the steel. My whole body shook. I tried again, and again, bringing the beads back and forth, willing them with all my being to hit their mark. They did, but no damage was done. Whatever was holding them together wouldn’t let them do what they did best.
“Winter, stop,” Julian said, but I didn’t. I tried again. Maybe the twentieth time was the charm. “Winter, they’re not going to work.”
“Fuck you!” I hissed. He was the reason I was in there, locked in with nine other fairies who looked like corpses! None of them was even conscious! Was I going to end up like that, too? Because I’d rather die now than wait for it.
“Please, Winter, calm down,” Julian begged, but how could I calm down? I was in a fairy prison, in the fairy realm, and I couldn’t get my beads to release me. The prison room was wide, but there seemed to be no air in it all of a sudden.
“Let me out!” I shouted at the top of my voice. They couldn’t keep me there. I didn’t belong in that place. Tears washed down my face because I had no strength. I had no options. I had nothing. I tried to rise to my feet, but the chains around my wrists wouldn’t let me even make it to my knees. I pulled on them with all my strength until blood dripped down my arms. If I couldn’t break the chain, maybe I could break my hands to get out of them. Maybe I could…
The back of my head hit the wall behind me hard.
Darkness captured me again.
***
As soon as my mind found itself, fear spread across my chest and pulled my lids up. My arms hurt like hell. They were still held up behind me, my wrists chained together. I was sitting on the floor three feet away from Julian, who was looking at me like he was relieved. But relieved for what?
“How are you feeling?” he asked me.
I would have laughed if I had any will left in me.
“Like I’m in a prison in the fairy realm.”
The back of my head hurt, too. I must have slammed it against the wall when I freaked out and lost control, trying to free myself from the chains. Any other day, I would have probably been embarrassed about the way I acted. Any other day.
“We’re going to get out of here,” Julian whispered. No idea why he bothered because the two fairies guarding the door were far away from us. No way they could hear.
“Right. Just like these nine fellas got out before us.” I nodded at the other fairies, chained to the walls the same way we were. Three were on Julian’s side and six on mine. They looked miserable. Barely alive. So thin, we could practically see their skulls. Bone and skin was all that was left of them. My gut turned. Were they ever fed down there? It sure didn’t look like it.
“These nine fellas are not Bone witches,” Julian whispered.
I turned to meet his eyes. “My magic isn’t worth shit against that man!” I cried. Had he not seen me try to spell Galladar?
“Your magic is the only thing that can kill him,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken at all.
“You’re delusional.”
“Winter, you’re a lot more than you think you are.” Again, I would have laughed if I could. “I brought you here because I really believe that. I thought we’d have time to train. That I’d have time to tell you more, to show you more, but—”
“But we walked right into his mouth when we came here.” He should have calculated that risk.
“I didn’t think he would be waiting for me,” Julian hissed.
“Maybe you should have!”
“I’m not saying that I’m innocent, but Winter, you can get us out of here.” He sounded more angry than hopeful.
“I can’t!” My whole body shook again. Adding anger to my fear wasn’t helping matters at all. “You saw me, Julian. I was chanting and I was trying to spell him, but he shook it off like it was nothing.” For the first time in my life, I knew what it was like to feel weak and completely helpless.
“You were using your Bone and fairy magic.” Was that supposed to mean something to me?
“Wasn’t that what you wanted?”
Julian squeezed his eyes shut and sighed loudly. “I wanted you to learn to use fairy and Bone magic separately.”
“I use them together all the time.” It was the only way that worked! I had no clue of how to even separate them, because I didn’t feel them as two different things. I felt my magic as one.
“No, you don’t. You fairy magic has molded into your Bone magic. Right now, that’s the only way it knows how to act—by mimicking your Bone magic.”
I shook my head. “You’re not making any sense.”
“I wish I had more time to explain this to you properly.” He really did sound sorry. The problem was, sorry wasn’t going to get us out of there. “Both kinds of magic in you need to work separately, as well as together. The way you can get to Galladar is by shielding your fairy magic with the Bone. To do that, you have to draw a clear line between them.”
“Julian, you’re speaking about magic as if it was an object.” We both knew that wasn’t the case with magic. Not for fairies and not for witches.
“That’s exactly right. If you can weake
n Galladar with your Bone magic, and infuse enough of it in your fairy magic so that he won’t be able to absorb it, it will work. The fairy magic will kill him.” He actually looked like he knew what he was talking about.
“My magic is one, Julian. I can’t separate it.” No matter what theories he’d thought of, it just wouldn’t work.
I expected him to tell me that I could, if I just believed in myself, or something like that crap. Instead, he closed his eyes and slammed his head behind him, only not nearly as hard as I’d done before. The wall glittered like it was a giant white pearl.
“What is that?” I asked Julian. The whole castle we were in was made out of it. It was hard, but not as cold as I thought it would be. It felt almost like marble, only warmer.
“Ravenstone,” he said.
I raised my brows in suspicion. Was he teasing me? “Raven?”
“Legends say that white ravens were born from it a long time ago.” Who knew fairies had legends?
“Why is the whole castle made of it?”
“Because it’s the strongest stone in the fairy realm. And it bends to the will of its finder,” said Julian.
“Like…?”
“Like, he can restructure it with his mind. At will,” Julian explained.
“So Galladar…” my voice trailed off.
“Yes, Galladar thought this castle out, right after he burned my family’s castle to the ground.”
Shivers washed down my back. I had been right about the broken wall outside. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, almost reluctantly. There I was, accusing him of getting me locked up in a fairy prison, when his whole world was already gone. I’d seen it with my own eyes. Nothing but dirt and grey clouds. Not a red leaf in sight. The only living thing I’d seen was that river. Even the houses behind the castle were deserted. Had Galladar killed all their residents?
“Be angry instead,” Julian said. “I regret having brought you here, Winter, but you are our only chance.”
I looked down at the ground, at the glittering ravenstone. “I don’t regret following you here.” At the moment, I hated his guts, but he needed to hear that. He needed to know that I was still on his side.
“We’ll be fine,” he whispered. “I don’t think death is ready for you yet, Winter Wayne.”
The words brought a smile to my face. A weak ray of hope bloomed in my chest.
“We don’t need to be fine. We need to be free. It’s only a matter of time before Galladar goes back to Earth. We can’t let that happen, Julian.” Not after what I’d seen. The paranormals of Earth had defeated the fairies once, but would they be able to fight against them now that they were utterly clueless of Galladar’s arrival? I didn’t think so. War was a lost concept in our time. People didn’t know how to fight the way they used to anymore because need had never arisen in the past century.
“A witch in the fairy realm. And I thought I’d seen it all.”
The voice came from Julian’s side of the prison cell. It made me jump, but since I was tied to the wall, there was nowhere for me to go. At first, I couldn’t tell which of the three fairy prisoners had spoken. They all had their eyes closed.
But then, the one in the middle slowly opened his eyes. He wore a grey shirt and dark green pants. No shoes. His dark beard had grown enough to touch his chest. His violet eyes pierced right through me and his hollow cheeks made him look like he was carved out of marble, not flesh.
“Who the hell are you?” I said, breathing deeply to calm my racing heart. He’d scared the shit out of me.
“I’m just a prisoner,” the fairy said. “One who’d appreciate your help if you’re willing to give it.”
“Help?” I moved my hands as much as the chains would allow it, just to make a point. “I can’t help you.”
“Your friend thinks you can,” the fairy said.
“My friend thinks a lot of things.” That didn’t make any of them true.
“What’s your name?” Julian asked.
“Gerin Mervick,” said the fairy. “Of the Seelie Court.”
Julian flinched. “There are no more Courts, Gerin.”
“There will be Courts as long as there are fairies.” The fairy sat up a bit straighter. “Tell me, do you really come from Earth?”
“I do,” I said reluctantly.
“Why?”
“Excuse me?”
“Why did you come?”
Oh. “To help.”
The man attempted to smile. “So help.”
Wow. Such a fucking wordsmith. “My chains are the same as yours.”
“But you’re a witch. You can break them,” he said.
“You’re a fairy! You have magic, don’t you?” Probably more than I did. “So why don’t you break them?”
The fairy looked at Julian and raised a brow in confusion.
“Ravenstone doesn’t let us use magic against it,” Julian said.
So that’s why the prison cell was the only room made out of the stone. Shit. Panic brought bile up my throat.
“You know Blood magic, don’t you?” I asked Julian.
He shook his head. “My Blood magic is my fairy magic in disguise.”
“So then teach me! What do I do?” If my Bone magic could get us out of there, I’d try to separate it from my fairy magic until my dying breath, even though the whole theory just didn’t make sense to me.
“I can’t teach you Bone spells, Winter,” Julian said. “You already know them.”
“I don’t know spells that can break chains!” I’d never had to learn anything like that because I’d had my beads. Foolishly, I’d thought I’d never be without them.
“But you’re a witch. How can you not know spells?” Gerin asked. He looked completely clueless.
“Because I’ve never been chained to a wall before. And I don’t like to memorize a lot of things,” I mumbled, feeling even more uncomfortable.
“There must be an attack spell you can use against them,” Julian said. “Just think.”
“Attack spells are designed for opponents.” Nobody had tried to fight against a chain before.
“Think of the stone as your opponent then,” Gerin said.
“I thought you said ravenstone doesn’t let you use magic against it.”
Julian smiled. I knew what he was going to say before he said it. “Fairy magic, not Bone.”
I already had my eyes closed and was searching my brain for the best spell I could think of. The first thing I tried was a standard attack spell, a wave of magical energy that was normally used to throw the opponent back. I stretched my palms wide, aiming for the wall behind me.
The chanting ended. Nothing happened.
Maybe I got the words wrong? In the state I was in, that wouldn’t be surprising. So I tried again.
Nothing.
“You have to separate them,” Julian whispered. “Your fairy magic isn’t going to let your Bone magic work against the ravenstone.”
“Goddamn it!” I hissed. I was tired of that bullshit. Bone magic, fairy magic, bone magic, fairy magic—it was magic! What the hell did it matter what kind it was?
I closed my eyes again and conjured another attack spell, one that broke bones in the body of the enemy. Not nearly as strong as the one Jane Dunham—the Hedge witch—had used to fuck up my left arm, but it should have worked against stone. It should have, but it didn’t.
Mad with anger, my eyes filled with tears. I wanted to beat someone, or something, so badly.
“Winter, it’s okay if you can’t do it right away,” Julian said.
Laughing like a lunatic, I shook my head. “These fairies are almost dead. They’ve left them here to starve. They’re going to do the same with us!” And if that didn’t happen, even if we did get fed and Galladar went back to Earth, I wouldn’t want to live anyway.
“You’re not weak, Winter, so don’t act like it!” Julian hissed. The balls on that guy.
“I never said I was weak!” I just thought it. “I’m sorry if you
don’t approve of the way I act, but you can’t hide from me in my room now, Julian.”
“I wasn’t hiding from you. I was giving you space,” he said, narrowing his thick brows as if he really was confused.
“If I needed space, I would have said so.” I didn’t need space. What I needed was to talk to him.
“Listen, Winter, we can’t do this. Not here and not now. If you’re going to free yourself, you’re going to have to calm down.”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I rested my head on the wall behind. He was right, but that didn’t mean that I had to tell him that. Shouting and accusing wouldn’t get us anywhere. A spell full of pure Bone magic would.
“I need to think,” I mumbled, exhausted enough to fall asleep, even in that situation.
“I’m sorry, Winter. I don’t know what else to say to you. I’ve been an asshole ever since I came back to find you.”
“It’s okay.” It wasn’t, but I didn’t want him to feel bad about it. He had more than enough on his plate already.
“You break past my defenses so fast, it’s confusing. Scary,” he whispered.
“I don’t mean to.”
“I know. I’ve regretted letting you go so many times that, when we figured out the way to defeat Galladar, I was almost afraid I’d made it all up just to come to you.”
I smiled, but I didn’t dare open my eyes. In my mind, I pictured we were in my office, not chained to a wall like animals. We were sitting at my desk, looking at each other, holding each other’s hands. Cheesy, I know, but it made me feel better and I needed better.
“I thought about you every day. I was so sure I’d never see you again, and when I did, I lost it,” Julian said. Maybe I was fooling myself here, but to me, every word sounded like it had been bathed in truth before leaving his lips.
“I thought I’d never see you again, either.”
Julian sighed. I pictured him shaking his head, smiling. Then, something else occurred to me.
“Who’s we?”
“What?”
I opened my eyes. “You said we figured out how to defeat Galladar. Who’s we?”
“Other fairies from my Court. Friends. Survivors,” Julian said. “We managed to run away before Galladar got to us. We regrouped and attacked. Most of them are dead now.”