by D. N. Hoxa
“You think—”
The second spell hit him on the side of his face and threw him off for a bit. Long before he turned his head toward me again, I conjured another spell. And another. Fire. Ice. Energy waves. Ashes—every single attack spell that came to my mind, I threw it at him, and when my fairy magic tried to get me to use it, I held it back and pictured it into a nice little orange cube. Bone magic coursed in my veins, faster and brighter than ever before, and it latched onto the words of my spells beautifully before it charged Galladar.
The fairy was afraid. I could see it in the fake smile he made himself hold, even when my spells began to get through his shield that was getting weaker by the second.
Pulling something from behind his back, he charged forward with his arm raised. A golden knife was in his hand. I threw my magic at him, but though it threw his shoulders back, he was already very close to me.
What the hell, I thought. I could try to run, too. So I did.
The wound on my thigh seemed to open every time my right foot hit the marble floor. The pain brought tears to my eyes, but I didn’t stop. When he was right in front of me and brought his knife down, I raised my arm and caught its blade with it. Fire burned down my body, but I already expected it. I had no other way to protect myself other than with my arm, because I had a plan.
And the plan was to use the only knife I had left to stab him in his heart.
The man might have been good at magic—very good at magic—but he had no clue about hand-to-hand combat. That’s why the blade of my knife slid through his skin and ribs.
His violet eyes wide, Galladar stepped back. Bone magic filled the next spell I conjured, and it hit him square on the chest. Another step back. My knees shook. He looked down at his chest, grabbed the handle of my knife, and pulled it out. Blood spurted out on the floor with a loud noise. My legs gave, and I fell to my knees, breathing heavily.
The next spell I hit him with made him take another step back. He looked at me like he couldn’t believe his own eyes. He held onto my knife as if he was going to use it on me, while his was still buried in my forearm, but he just kept walking backwards.
I closed my eyes to keep my focus and unleashed my fairy magic from its cube. As if happy to see it, the Bone magic in my chest layered itself on top of it. Sparks flew. I held my breath and gathered every bit of strength I had left in my body.
“Sofia, no,” Galladar whispered. The look on his face was worth the struggle to open my eyes.
When my magic left me, for a second, I felt light as a feather, but now, even I hit the ground, I wouldn’t mind. I’d done all I could do, given everything I could give. If it wasn’t enough, I had nothing else left to offer.
But by some miracle, my body held me. It held me and I watched my magic, orange, the image of flames made of dust and smoke, make its way to Galladar.
The expression on his face didn’t change. He only fell back and landed right on his throne.
His wide eyes still looked at me, but he wasn’t blinking. He wasn’t moving. My knife slipped from his blood-covered fingers. His chest didn’t move.
A cry escaped me when I moved to the side, and his eyes didn’t follow me.
It was done. It was over. Galladar was dead.
Thirty three
I thought I’d be out of it like after the battle with the Hedge witches, but no. I was perfectly aware of every single detail now. Like the fact that the room had no windows—only white walls sprinkled with gold. And that the four fairies who’d been fighting Julian and Bender had surrendered. And that I was covered in mud and blood, and I couldn’t stand on my right leg.
“I got you,” Bender said when he put my arm around his shoulders and stood me up. Julian thought to take Galladar’s knife from my left arm, and that’s when I realized that my beads were swirling around my fingers like crazy. Just like they used to.
A wave of warmth spread through my chest as I sent them flying around the room, one at a time. They were free. No more bubble holding them together. Galladar’s magic that had held them captive had died together with him. Now that they were there, obeying my every thought like they always did, I realized how much I’d missed them. I realized how big a part of me they were.
“Do you want me to carry you?” Bender asked after the second step.
I must have looked even worse than I felt for him to ask me that.
“No, thanks,” I mumbled. What I wanted was a healing spell and a very long bath.
Julian couldn’t walk beside me because he was busy herding the four fairies toward the door in front of us. One wrong move and the sword he held behind their backs was going to slice right through their necks. But he did look back at me every few seconds, as if to make sure that I was still there.
There was so much I wanted to tell him. I wanted him to know about me, about my mother, about my whole life. Perhaps now was not the right time, so it was a good thing he’d made that birthday wish. The rooftop in Manhattan was waiting for us and for all the stories we were going to share.
The rain had stopped pouring, but the clouds were still there, still as angry. All of Galladar’s soldiers had apparently surrendered. They were all in front of the castle and in front of Marva and her gang, on their knees and with their heads lowered.
I searched for familiar faces and sighed in relief when I saw the witches who’d come to help us. All of them were there, bloody and muddy, and I think Meredith Cole’s black hair had been shaved off the right side of her head. Or burned. She didn’t seem to mind, though. They all looked around at the castle and at the fairies, as if this was the first time they were seeing them.
Bender sat me down on a rock and inspected my wounds. Soon, he saw that he couldn’t even count them all, so he just focused on the cut in my thigh, the one that wouldn’t let me walk. Closing his hands on my leg, he conjured a healing spell. I felt its tingle, but it wasn’t going to be enough to heal me. I needed fairy magic, and my aunt’s potion, to do the job.
Julian took the four fairies to their peers, and he didn’t even have to tell them to get on their knees. They did so all by themselves. A second later, Marva and another hooded fairy walked toward the castle. She didn’t even turn her eyes toward me, even though I was sitting right there! Bitch, I thought. I didn’t expect a thank you, but a nod would have been nice.
“The good news is you didn’t die,” Bender said when he was done with the healing spell. “The bad news is it’s going to take a hell of a long time to get you completely healed.” He was right about that.
“I’m more of a glass-half-full kind of gal, anyway,” I said with a smile.
The castle door groaned as it pulled farther open. My heart in my throat, I looked at who was coming out, scared shitless that it was Galladar. If he’d somehow managed to heal, I wasn’t going to be able to do a single thing against him.
But it wasn’t Galladar.
A woman came out first, and then the five men. The fairies were dressed in torn clothes, their faces pale, their hair greasy and all over their faces. They looked really thin, too, though not as thin as Gerin, the fairy we’d encountered in Galladar’s prison. Their appearance led me to believe that these people had been imprisoned, too.
Julian made his way to them, and when he passed me, he turned around and winked with a big bright smile on his face. It was good to see it. It relaxed me. It said: no need to worry. So I didn’t.
“Do you think the fairies on Earth know what happened here?” I asked Bender.
“Probably. If not, they’ll find out soon,” he said and sat down on the ground next to me.
Then, we just watched other fairies come and go, walking right by us, laughing and crying, shouting and whispering.
The people who’d come out of the castle were important—that much was obvious. Others—other fairies without the mantles and the hoods, mostly women—came and went right to them, sat them down on some high rocks on the other side of the castle yard, gave them stuff to drin
k and eat. Some even kissed their hands.
A whole circle had gathered around them. I looked into their faces, and though they were far and I couldn’t see details, I did see the relief. I did see the hope. It was a nice change.
But then my eyes fell on the fairy standing just a bit farther from the rest. She was tall and had a bright red scarf wrapped around her head. It also covered her chin and bottom lip. The eyes, though…the eyes were clearly visible.
Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself on my feet, walking towards her.
It’s not possible, my brain argued. It just couldn’t be.
But my eyes didn’t lie to me. I blinked and blinked, and still she held my gaze, a sick smile on her face.
It was her. Jane Dunham.
“Winter, hold on,” Bender said and tried to pull me back, but I couldn’t stop.
“Julian!” I called at the top of my voice. Fairies stopped to look at me, and some of them stopped right in front of me. With all my strength, I pushed them to the side and walked faster and faster, no longer aware of the pain.
My heart sank when I searched the fairy faces and no longer saw her.
“No,” I whispered to myself. My body froze, and I would have fallen had Bender not been there to catch me.
“Winter, what’s wrong?” Julian was in front of me.
“The woman,” I breathed and pointed at the fairies. “The woman with the red scarf. Find her.”
Both he and Bender turned to look at where I was pointing, the spot where I saw her, that was now empty.
“What woman?” Julian asked.
“Find her!” I shouted. “A witch with a red scarf around her head. Just find her!”
He must have seen something on my face because he didn’t argue. Instead, he nodded and waved for someone to approach him.
“Winter, you need to sit down,” Bender said, and this time, when he pulled me back, I let him.
How was this possible? How could she be there, in the fairy realm, among fairies?
“No, no, no, no,” I whispered at myself when I sat down on the rock again, ignoring the stares of the fairies all around me. They thought I’d lost my mind, but I didn’t give a shit.
“Who the hell did you see?” Bender asked.
I swallowed hard, my throat dry as a desert. “Jane Dunham.”
“What?” Bender laughed.
“It was her. I saw her. I’d recognize her anywhere.” I’d dreamed about her so many times that I wouldn’t forget her face until the day I died.
“Winter, you killed her. I was there, remember?” Bender whispered.
“I know! But she was there, Bender. I swear to God, she was right there!”
He didn’t believe me. I could see it in his eyes. In the end, it didn’t matter. I know what I saw, and nobody could take that away from me. It was Jane Dunham, the Hedge witch I’d fought and killed in Staten Island half a year ago, and anybody who said different could go screw themselves.
A few minutes later, Julian came back. “They searched the whole castle, and around it, too. There’s no witch with a red scarf anywhere,” he said, but I’d already expected that. “Who was she?”
I bit my lip. “Someone I’ll have to tell you about later,” I said, and with a sigh, I let it go. My curiosity was going to have to wait, but when I got back to my feet, I was going to find her. I was going to find Jane Dunham and kill her for good.
For now, I allowed myself to be glad that this was all over. No more mad fairy guy to fear. Both our worlds were going to be all right.
Thirty four
Two weeks later, I was feeling pretty good in my skin. My wounds were healed, the scars gone. I was still having trouble with my left hand, the one that Jane Dunham broke to pieces on our first encounter, but that, too, was healing. Slowly but steadily.
I was staying at my aunt’s place. I tried to tell her I wanted to go back home. I tried. Then she looked at me. I lowered my head and pretended I hadn’t said a thing. As much fun as it was being taken care of, it got old pretty fast. Especially the soup. The soup was bad. It was disgusting.
The garden was full of flowers, and Amelia tended to them like they were her children while I sat under the cherry tree next to Bender and watched her. For the first time in what felt like ages, the neighborhood was quiet. Before, people ran up and down the streets, fixing damage, making sure everybody got everything that was stolen from them back. Manhattan was being reconstructed, too, though nobody had yet come to return my things to me. The fairies had stolen some of my mother’s jewelry. It broke my heart every time I thought of it, and I sure as hell hoped the pieces would somehow make it back to me.
The witch covens had taken it upon themselves to aid humans both with money and with work force. The way it was looking, everything on Geraldine Street—and every other neighborhood the fairies tore apart—would be as good as new in another two weeks tops.
“See why Bloomsburg is the place for you?” Bender said as he sipped his iced coffee. “Peace and quiet. No crazy Hedge witches or fairies out to kill you. And most importantly, no dragons.”
I laughed. “That’s exactly why this isn’t the place for me.” I was already bored out of my mind and he knew it, but he just lived to tease me.
“I’ve been having dreams about them. And nightmares,” he said.
“Aren’t we all?” I know I did, too. Dragons, blue and red, eyes of green, seemed to pop in front of me every time I closed my eyes. I still couldn’t figure out why that creature hadn’t eaten me. I was going to ask Julian, right after he took care of his realm and his kingdom, and came to see me.
“I didn’t think you did, not after what happened,” he said, grinning.
But his joke didn’t make me laugh. It made me sick to my stomach, because that wasn’t the only strange thing about me. There was the dream, too.
Before any of the trouble began, I’d dreamed of Geraldine Street, completely destroyed. Not a month later, that dream had come alive right in front of my eyes. Rumor had it that Bone witches could sometimes predict the future. Don’t know why but I always thought my mother could do it. I always thought she had predicted her own death, and that was why she pushed me so hard to be who I am now. Just the thought that I could do something like that made me want to run and hide under a blanket and never come out.
Or, maybe the dream had something to do with my fairy part, since Galladar had been a fairy. But I still had no idea whether I was a Seelie or Unseelie fairy, and Julian was still not here to tell me.
When we came back from the fairy realm, I thought it was going to be days before he came back. What was left of the ECU had already heard that he was alive and that he was a fairy. Nobody gave a shit, not after what had happened. Instead, they were glad he’d been there, so that wasn’t going to be a concern for either of us. But two weeks later, and he was nowhere to be seen. Telling myself that he was a Prince, that he had responsibility towards his people didn’t make the disappointment easier to bear, though. And it sucked that I missed him, even when I hated him for not being here.
“The voting’s tomorrow,” Bender mumbled. “Are you going to be there?”
Ah, the voting. After the fairies on Earth no longer had Galladar to protect them, we caught them all easily, then imprisoned all who’d joined him, until further notice. The plan was to take them back to the fairy realm and let the fairies deal with them. Unfortunately, to do so would be to kill them, and we had to wait for the fairies (Julian) to figure out how to get them there safely.
Since two of the original thirteen portals to the fairy realm were now open, witches, werewolves and vampires were guarding them day and night. Three members of the ECU were dead, and the remaining two had called a vote to choose the new ones, before reaching a decision about the portals.
I didn’t exactly agree with the upcoming elections. The new ECU members would be a witch, a vampire and a werewolf—a man or woman chosen by their kind to lead them. I couldn’t see how that wou
ld go well, considering everything that had happened in the past, but I had no say in it. All the coven leaders already knew about my fairy magic, and they’d agreed to keep it a secret. So far they hadn’t said a single word, so at least there was that. In the end, I did trust the coven and pack leaders to know better about this new system they were trying to bring in.
“I’m not sure,” I said because I hadn’t decided yet. Everyone had already agreed to try and make this new system work, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be part of it. At least not without speaking to the fairies from the fairy realm first.
That was scheduled for when both our worlds settled down and fell into their old routines again. The portals would be guarded on both sides until the day of the meeting came. The new ECU would meet the Queens and Kings of the fairy realm, and together they’d decide about the portals and about everything else. Just the thought of it brought shivers down my back. I couldn’t wait to see what the world looked like two months later.
“I don’t agree with it all, but you have to admit, this is better than the ECU of before. They were assholes who didn’t report to anyone, did as they pleased and answered no questions,” Bender said.
“Maybe you’re right, but I’ll believe it when I see it.” Until then, I’d remain skeptical.
“By the way, Evie wants to see you,” he said, and a smile stretched my lips. “She’s going to want to come back to you again.”
“I’d definitely like that.” I didn’t know the girl very well yet, but I wanted to. After everything that had happened, after all she’d done, I’d be honored to have her work with me. Plus, I’d promised myself that I was going to tell her about my magic. She’d more than deserved to know. That, and Ms. Riley just couldn’t wait to see her! She’ asked me about Lynn every time she called. That old werewolf had gone to her sister’s house in the Kaynes pack before the attack, and when the pack left to escape from Galladar, she went with. She stayed hidden until it was all over, and the only thing she complained about was her tea. I couldn’t wait to hear all about it when I went back home.