Unveiled

by Ruth Vincent

  I stared at him, not able to breathe. I’d had Elixir in my body all along? Then why couldn’t I do magic? But maybe it was just that the potential for magic was waiting within me, manufactured in my very cells. My body made Elixir. I might not be able to do magic myself, but I was the universal donor for those who needed Elixir. It would have been a wonderful thought, if Korvus wasn’t standing over me with a knife.

  “And once I find a way to harvest it from you, I can give it to your mother and she will be saved.”

  “No, you can’t. I want to help her too, but can you get it from me and keep me alive?” I knew Korvus didn’t care about my life, so I argued, “If you kill me, my mother will never forgive you. She will hate you forever.”

  “She already hates me,” Korvus muttered, and I saw a flicker of despair in his eyes. “I can’t make her love me. But I can save her. And she never has to know it was I who led to your demise. I’ve already framed your werewolf friends for your murder. Then she’ll come after them in a rage and that will be one more pesky problem I don’t have to deal with anymore. But I digress.”

  “I want to help my mother get well too—but if you think killing me is going to help her . . .”

  “I don’t need to kill you now. As you say, that would be foolish, to endanger my most precious resource before I have determined the best method for the extraction. I want to keep you alive as long as possible, so that you can feed your mother. She won’t come searching for you, no one will, if I convince them you’re dead. However, I do have your friend Obadiah to experiment on. The Queen told me he’s half Fey. His body does what yours does, only on a much smaller scale. I’ll determine what the best method of extraction is from him, whether it’s blood, spinal fluid, brain cells. And if he dies in the process, well, he’s not so rare and precious as you. There are other half Fey. I’m willing to wager him.”

  No, he couldn’t do that to Obadiah. I couldn’t let him.

  I writhed against the bonds, as if I could escape, as if I could do something, anything, to stop him.

  Chapter 13

  Korvus left me, walking into the next room. My heart sank. He was going into the room where Obadiah was. He was going to torture him with his experiments. If I didn’t stop him, he was going to kill him.

  Korvus closed the door behind him, leaving me alone in the room. I wrenched against the bonds, but they didn’t budge. There would be no fighting my way out of this. It wasn’t even that I lacked the brute strength to free my arms and legs from the straps. There was probably magic involved in the way he’d tied me down.

  Think, I told myself through my haze of fear. I had to stop panicking.

  I struggled in frustration against the bonds. I could hear Obadiah’s screams coming from the next room, and my eyes blurred with tears. Your panicking will do him no good, I told myself. You have to think your way out of this.

  The only way I could escape magic bonds like this was if I had magic myself.

  The Queen had told me I could change back into a fairy again, if I did the spell while I was in the Vale. If that was true, I’d have magic at my disposal—I could break free of these bonds and free myself and Obadiah. But then I’d be a fairy . . . What would that mean? Would I be able to become human again? Get my human life back?

  I didn’t have a choice though. If I stayed here bound and helpless like this, I was probably going to die, and Obadiah was definitely going to die.

  I had to try it.

  I closed my eyes and whispered to the Elixir potential inside me. Please, I begged. Let me become who I really am.

  I began to sing the spell I distantly remembered from twenty-three years ago. I sang it softly, almost under my breath, so that Korvus couldn’t hear me from the next room. I stumbled through the words, butchering them, my human tongue unaccustomed to the delicate syllables of Faerie. I was unable to sing in the Fey octaves, but I didn’t stop. I kept singing. I could feel a tingling in the base of my spine, like a limb waking up from having been asleep. Come on, I thought. A strange energetic rush filled me, a quickening of the soul. Did that mean it was working? I didn’t know, so I didn’t stop. Was my body dissolving into Feydust at this very moment, reforming into my fairy self? I was too afraid to open my eyes and find out.

  Vaguely I heard a noise, a subtle clinking, turning into a fast staccato rattle. I cracked open one eye. One of the vials in Korvus’ library of identities was beginning to shiver and jump, while all the other remained stationary. Was that vial mine? I shut my eyes and kept singing the spell.

  I could smell Elixir in the air, the scent of a coming thunderstorm. It was working.

  Korvus must have heard the clinking vials, because he called out through the wall. “You’d better not be trying anything or, believe me, I will hurt you.”

  You already have hurt me, you sonofabitch, I thought, white-hot rage burning through me.

  My anger pulsed through the spell, and that subtle tingle of magic I’d begun to feel at the tip of my spine turned into something else: a wave of pure, raw power. It jolted through me, more force than I could control, and I almost lost my grip on the old chant. What was happening? I’d never done magic angry before, I realized. My own rage was fueling the spell, spiraling it out of control.

  I felt like fire was bursting out of my heart. I screamed in agony. I couldn’t help it; I wasn’t doing the spell anymore. It was being done through me, as magic tossed my body like a storm.

  I opened my eyes as the door burst open and Korvus ran into the room. He must have heard me screaming.

  “You little bitch,” he cried, lunging for me. But I kept singing the spell.

  The moment he touched me, there was an explosion. Light burst forth from my body, a blast shook the room. Korvus was thrown up into the air. He crashed against the wall and it crumbled around him, burying him in rumble.

  Light, real natural light, was pouring in from the outside.

  I blinked as the dust settled around me and looked down at my body. It was shimmering. Light poured from my skin, and when I glanced down at the manacles I saw they’d all been snapped. They had been built for a human; they couldn’t contain the wild kinetic energy of a fairy.

  I ran my shimmering fingers down my arm and felt it shiver like mist at my touch. It had worked.

  My body felt so unnaturally light. I didn’t realize how accustomed I’d grown to my dense, heavy, human form. I felt like I was going to float away. I started to cry and my tears smelled like Elixir.

  But I didn’t have time to feel all the emotions that were flooding through me. I looked down at the pile of rubble. Korvus was under there. Was he dead?

  I didn’t know. But I had to get out of here. And I had to get Obadiah out.

  I flew over the pile of wreckage and into the next room. The door had been blown off its hinges. There was nothing to stop me.

  My sudden rush of joy at my lack of gravity stopped as soon as I saw Obadiah tied to the chair.

  He looked like hell. There were deep purple bruises and crusts of dried blood all over his face. One of his eyes was swollen shut. There was a dried trail of blood on his arm, where Korvus had obviously been trying to extract vital fluids from him.

  When I entered, his eyes widened in awe.

  “Who are you?” he gasped.

  Of course he didn’t recognize me. Obadiah had never seen me as a fairy. I could see the shimmer of my body reflected in his eyes. His mouth was open in awe and I realized how transcendentally beautiful I must appear to him now.

  “Are you an angel?” he said, his voice raspy and weak. “Did I die?”

  “Obadiah, it’s me,” I whispered.

  He seemed confused.

  “It’s Mab. I’m in fairy form.”

  His eyes widened for a moment, and then he screamed, “How dare you, Korvus! How dare you make yourself look like her? When I get out of these bonds, I will tear you apart, piece by piece.”

  “It’s really me,” I said. “I’ve come to get you
out.”

  I reached to undo his bond but he jerked away from me.

  “Don’t you dare touch me again.”

  “Obadiah, it’s not a trick. It’s not Korvus, it’s me. Please believe me,” I begged, but I knew my words were futile. There was no way he’d believe me. How could he, after we’d both been so deceived?

  My heart stung as he recoiled from my outstretched hands. I couldn’t bear this. But what could I do? An idea occurred to me. I flew back into the other room. The pile of rubble was still there; there had been no movement. Had I really killed Korvus? I didn’t know, and I wasn’t digging through the layers of stone to find out. I flew towards the cases of vials still in the walls. A few had shattered in the blast, but they were mostly intact. I began to search frantically. I didn’t know if I was right about this, but there was a chance.

  There was a chance Korvus had a vial that was me.

  Luckily the vials were sorted alphabetically and by year.

  And I found “Mabily Jones.”

  The Queen said I could only change back into a human again if I was in the human world. But Korvus had his doppleganger spells. He could make himself look like anyone, and it wasn’t just a surface glamour. When he took on a person’s form, he was that person. Maybe if I could use his vial to become my human self again, Obadiah would believe it was really me?

  I stared at the vial. Had he stolen a sample from the infant Mabily when we’d switched, or had he taken this more recently from my Shadow? There was no way to know; there was no date on the vial.

  Could I beat Korvus at his own game? Use his own library of identities to do a doppelganger spell, and transform myself back into myself?

  The taste I’d just had of my old magic had been thrilling, but Obadiah would never believe me if I didn’t look like myself, and I had to be human if I was going back to the human world.

  I took the vial. I had no idea how Korvus did his doppelganger spells, but on a whim, I opened it. I dipped my pinky finger into the strange liquid. There was no way it could be made of Elixir—it didn’t look right; it didn’t smell right. It must be some sort of potion that Korvus drank in order to change into the desired form.

  Closing my eyes, and praying I was doing the right thing, I swallowed it.

  Pain and nausea rained down on me and instantly I regretted what I had done. Why hadn’t I just stayed a fairy? But it was too late now. Contact with my human self was already beginning to turn me back. The discomfort of human skin came crawling back over me. My flesh felt heavy, dense. For a few brief moments, I’d been free of it. Now mortality hung heavy on my shoulders again.

  “Mab!” Obadiah cried out. He had seen me.

  I ran back into the room with Obadiah and began undoing all his bonds.

  “Mab, are you all right? Where’s Korvus? Did he hurt you? I’ll kill him.”

  “He might already be dead,” I said. I couldn’t bring myself to answer his other question. I forced myself to focus on undoing the rest of his bonds. It stopped me from thinking. Being a fairy seemed like a distant memory, and the great weight of everything I had to tell Obadiah crushed me down.

  “Mab, what happened?”

  “I can’t talk about it right now. We have to get you free.”

  There was so much love in his eyes when he looked at me I had to turn away. I couldn’t bear it, not after what I’d done. I couldn’t think about that. I had to get him out, before Korvus crawled out of the rubble.

  “I’m so glad you’re alive,” he kept saying.

  “We don’t have much time,” I said breathlessly. “He could still be alive under there. We just have to get you out of here.”

  I had released his last bond.

  He rose up slowly, moving stiffly with his wounds.

  As soon as he was on his feet, he moved to embrace me. But I shrank back from his touch.

  “Mab?” He looked down at me, hurt.

  I couldn’t answer him. The lump was in my throat again.

  I turned towards the other room, and that’s when I saw it: a tremble of movement from the rubble.

  I turned back to Obadiah. “Run.”

  “But . . .”

  “Just run!”

  “Where are we going?” he asked in a whisper.

  “You’re not coming with me,” I whispered back. “We need to go in opposite directions. Korvus will follow me, not you, since I’m key to his plans. I’ll go to my mother’s palace. He won’t dare hurt me there.”

  “But, Mab . . .”

  “Just go,” I cried.

  But Obadiah just stood there.

  In exasperation, knowing it was the only thing that would get him to move, I started running myself.

  I sprinted up the stairs.

  Obadiah ran after me.

  In the distance, I heard a sound. It must be Korvus, but I didn’t look back, didn’t stop running. Obadiah didn’t either.

  We ran up the stairs that seemed to go on and on forever, till my lungs burned and I tasted something metallic in my mouth, but still I didn’t stop. There was no time. At last we got to the door, and wrenching it open, we found ourselves in blinding sunlight.

  “Go to the woods,” I said to Obadiah. “I’m going to the palace.”

  “But, Mab . . .”

  “Just go!” I cried.

  “Take this with you at least, will you?” Obadiah pressed his folded knife into my palm. I stuffed it into my pocket. And then I ran, ran in the direction of the road I knew would take me back to my mother’s home. With all my being, I wanted to look back, to see Obadiah one more time. Would it be the last time? But I couldn’t. I listened for sounds he was running too. At last I heard his footsteps receding. I relaxed a little, but kept up a quick pace. I ran till I reached the main road, its gilded stones blurring together through my tears.

  There were other creatures there, fairies and Wolfmen and Sanguinari. They stared at me curiously, but I paid them no heed. I slowed down to a jog, though. Korvus wouldn’t attack me here; there would be too many witnesses. I prayed that Obadiah had gotten himself to the relative safety of the Central Forest. But the best thing I had done to protect him was not being with him, I told myself. Korvus would come after me if he came after either of us. I was keeping him safe, I told myself. So why was I still crying?

  I ran until every last muscle was screaming.

  At last I saw the Quartz Spires in the distance. I was almost there. If I told the Queen what happened, she would capture Korvus and kill him. Then Obadiah would be safe. But I couldn’t think about that right now. All I could focus on was going one more step, getting closer and closer to the spires before my body could go no further.

  I collapsed in front of the gate.

  Chapter 14

  I don’t remember what happened after that. One of the goblin guards must have recognized me and carried me inside the Queen’s palace.

  When I came to, I was lying down on a flat, very soft surface, the soft, ticklish texture of pussy willows beneath my skin. An elven butler was attempting to force some liquid and some kind of food into me, but I kept refusing him.

  And then I saw the Queen, my mother, gazing down at me.

  “Mab,” she cried. “Oh my darling, what happened to you?”

  What happened to me? I thought, her voice echoing in my ears. How could I ever explain?

  I just lay there, staring up at her.

  At last I said, “Korvus Korax tried to kill me.”

  That was part of the truth anyway.

  The Queen’s face went totally white. Then it went red with fury.

  If she’d shouted, it wouldn’t have been half as terrifying. It was the way she said, utterly calmly but with complete resolve: “I will kill him for this.”

  “Mom, I think . . .”

  But suddenly the Queen was a whir of motion, shouting things to her subordinates, and she rushed off, the feathers of her gown scratching against the floor. She was heading to her room of Eyes. She was going to fi
nd him and fulfill her promise. If he was still alive, he wouldn’t be for much longer. I watched her, her back straighter, her eyes bright with channeled rage. For a moment, her righteous anger had made her forget she was sick.

  I stared at her in wonder.

  I’d never seen her look more like a Queen.

  “Mom, stop,” I cried.

  She whirled around to face me.

  “Korvus told me something, when he had me in his lab,” I gasped. “I think I might have a cure for you.”

  “Mab, don’t worry about that right now. I’m going to find Korvus and make him pay for this.”

  But I could hear Korvus’ voice echoing in my head. What if my body somehow did hold the cure for my mother’s illness? And what if I didn’t have to die to give it to her?

  From where I lay, collapsed on the catkin sofa, I could see my mother talking to some figures I didn’t recognize. I couldn’t see their faces. They were swathed in cloaks that seemed to take on the texture of the wall behind them, like a chameleon’s skin.

  “Find him,” I heard her say. “Take him alive, if you can, and bring him back. I want to deal with him personally.”

  “It is done, Your Majesty,” said one of the figures in a voice that made me shiver.

  And then they were gone.

  My mother turned back to me.

  “Rest, my darling. Don’t trouble yourself about me.”

  “No, but, Mom, I have information. The spell you did to me . . .”

  “You know I regret that.”

  “No, I think it may have done something you never intended. I’m both human and fairy—don’t you see what that means?” I was babbling now, and my mother put her hand on my forehead as if I was a child to see if I had fever, but I kept talking. “I have X-factor and Y-factor within my body, the fairy DNA and the human DNA. I’m a hybrid of both. That’s what’s kept my Elixir alive. That’s what Korvus wanted with me. He wanted me for my cure to save you. He’s in love with you; he was trying to save your life.”