FATE

by Barnes, Jennifer Lynn

I read his meaning, even if Delia did not. If I wanted Delia to be able to leave the Otherworld, I'd have to agree to stay here.

  We'd just see about that.

  “I'm not letting you take her anywhere,” I said. “This is between you and me, or your dad and me, or maybe every Sidhe and me, but you can leave my friends out of it. They didn't do anything wrong and I won't let you hurt them.”

  Xane smiled, but this time it was cold and nothing at all like the way he'd grinned at Delia earlier. “That's what we're counting on, Bailey.”

  Beside me, James stiffened. “You know, Xane,” he said, his voice silky and low, “that's just wrong.”

  And with those words, James leapt forward, and I watched as his body transformed itself in midair. His fingers grew long and thin, flesh giving way to metal talons. His skin turned to some kind of scaly armor, and when he opened his mouth to let loose a wailing war cry, I could just make out the outline of fangs.

  Delia scrambled away on all fours. Xane didn't so much as blink as he sidestepped, but he was so focused on not being impressed by James's attack that he didn't stop Delia from moving from his side.

  James moved again and this time he managed to catch Xane's side. Blue-green blood spilled from the wound. Delia screamed, but before I could so much as echo the sentiment, the wound healed and Xane thrust out both hands, shooting midnight blue lightning out of his palms.

  “No!” This time my scream beat Delia's, and the second the word left my mouth, the flame left my body, throwing up a wall of fire that cut Xane off from James.

  I rushed forward, hoping that James would heal as fast as Xane had. Seconds before I reached him, Xane stepped dispassionately through the flame, his sparkling skin bubbling with the heat, but setting itself right within seconds.

  “Stand back,” Xane told me. “I don't want to hurt you.”

  I stared him down, even though I couldn't get the image of that dark blue lightning out of my mind. “You just want to hurt James.”

  “He attacked me,” Xane said. “Using his powers against one of his own kind, let alone an heir, is forbidden.”

  “Yeah, well, as far as I'm concerned, kidnapping one of my best friends so you can blackmail me into leaving the mortal realm forever is forbidden too.”

  “Forbidden by who?” Xane scoffed.

  “Blackmail?” Delia repeated. She stood up, suddenly completely unaffected by the fact that her boy toy could walk through fire and mine barely looked human at all. “You brought me here to blackmail Bailey?”

  Delia's temper is a horrible thing to behold. Xane actually took a step back, my wall of fire singeing his hair.

  “You can't stay here, Delia,” I said. “The things that happen to humans in the Otherworld … they aren't pretty.”

  I don't know how I knew that was true, but I did. Maybe I'd been listening to Annabelle's lectures more attentively than usual, or maybe it was the kind of inherited memory that came with a connection to this place.

  The Otherworld was no place for mortals.

  And yet … I couldn't shake the feeling that my revelation on the way here—that my friends were connected to this place because they were connected to me—was true.

  “Don't worry, Bay,” Delia said. “I'm not staying.” The look she gave Xane should have melted his bones. I made a mental note to get Delia to give me glaring lessons when we got home.

  “You have to stay,” Xane said, his voice soft and almost apologetic. “At least until Bailey agrees. You'll like it here. Really, you will. I wouldn't let anything bad happen to you.”

  Delia folded her arms over her chest. “If I had my transmogrification,” she said, “I'd turn you into pudding.”

  As a threat, it was somewhat lackluster, but I couldn't fault Delia on the delivery.

  “Pudding?” Xane asked, more confused than intimidated.

  “Be afraid,” Delia told him. “Be very afraid.”

  During this exchange, James had managed to climb back up to his feet. I reached out to touch his scorched arm, and his scales gave way to skin under my fingertips.

  “I can't hold this form for very long,” he told me, returning to the appearance I knew him by, save for the talons, which he kept, his eyes trained on Xane's every movement.

  Somehow, I didn't think Wolverine-esque claws were going to do James much good against an enemy who could heal himself instantly. No wonder James hadn't been able to stop Xane from taking Delia.

  I couldn't ignore the fact that he'd tried to save my friend again, knowing that he wasn't a match for Xane. That didn't change anything, not really at least, but as far as apologies went, this was much better than the one in the bathroom.

  “I can't let you take Delia,” I told Xane, staying on task. “Even if she wanted to go, I couldn't let her, not if I wasn't sure she'd be safe.”

  Xane glanced at Delia. “So it's okay for her to tell you what to do?” he asked, somewhat put out. Clearly, in their short acquaintance, Xane had already figured out that he couldn't get away with giving Delia orders of any kind.

  “Bailey can tell me whatever she wants,” Delia said in a tone of voice engineered to convey the maximum amount of duh per word. “She's Bailey.”

  “This is wrong, Xane,” I said, and beside me, James twitched at the word, his instinct pushing him to fight again, even though he knew as well as I did that he would lose. “I never thought I'd say this, but I don't think you're evil. I don't think you want to hurt Delia.” I took a deep breath. “I don't even think you want to hurt me.”

  Xane didn't reply, but I opened myself to his mind, and even though his thoughts were shielded by a wall at least as powerful as my own, I managed to make it far enough past to hear two words.

  I don't.

  Along with the words, I got a slew of feelings, all of which were rather foreign and entirely vexing to Xane. Delia intrigued him. She made him smile and made him want to rip his hair out, and even though she wasn't Sidhe and he hadn't known her more than an hour, he felt a pull toward her, a tug on heartstrings he hadn't even known he had. He wanted to own her, to keep and protect her and to make her happy, and the first of these was the only one that he could understand.

  I felt Xane's confusion, the loss of his certainty that his well-being and the court he would someday rule took precedence over everything else. I felt his confidence in his father's judgment beginning to waver.

  Thwack.

  Xane must have sensed me in his mind, because he threw me out with such ferocity that I stumbled backward and fell to the ground, hitting my head against the side of a rock. Instantly, James and Delia were at my side, and Xane was looking down at me, something akin to horror on his face.

  I don't want to hurt you.

  This time I didn't have to go looking for his thoughts. He let me hear them and the puzzlement in them. He wasn't used to feeling human emotions, but Delia brought them out in him. The way that I brought them out in James.

  “I'm fine,” I said, addressing my words to Xane. “You have to let us go, Xane. Please. This isn't right. You know this isn't right.”

  Silence. I could feel Xane wavering, fighting with himself and his desires and this annoying new conscience. And then, just as I thought we might actually win, the silence was broken.

  “My son knows nothing of the sort.”

  Drogan. Here.

  “Father,” Xane said, any trace of humanity I'd seen in him long gone. “I brought the girl. Unfortunately, there were some complications.”

  He gestured toward me and James.

  “Don't worry, Xane,” a female voice purred behind me. “You've done well.”

  Eze.

  “Come, Bailey. There's much to be done before your Reckoning, and the girls have brought some friends of yours along for the ride.”

  Anna-belle and Zo? Delia asked me silently.

  My throat went suddenly and inexplicably dry. I left them with Axia and Lyria.

  As Eze placed a hand on my arm and one on Delia's, i
t occurred to me that I had no idea whose side the heirs to the Seelie Court were really on. All I knew was that no matter what, Delia, Annabelle, and Zo were on mine.

  Suddenly, reality blurred around us, and as everything went inky black, I felt my physical form losing shape and my control on the here and now slipping.

  Huh, I thought with my last bit of consciousness. So this is what teleportation feels like.

  When I finally came to, the first thing I saw were three very familiar faces.

  “Are you guys okay?” I asked, but since I apparently hadn't quite regained command of the English language yet, it came out sounding a little bit like “Arrooooookyyyy?”

  “We aren't the ones who've been playing Sleeping Beauty for the past four hours,” Zo said, needing no translation of my mumbling.

  “Four hours?” I asked, sitting up.

  The others nodded.

  “Where are we?” I asked, looking around and trying to get my bearings. The walls were made of stone, and though the room was quite large, I couldn't see an entrance or an exit of any kind.

  “As far as I've been able to tell,” Annabelle said, “we're inside a mountain. Quite probably the Mount Olympus of myths.”

  “Annabelle?” I asked, searching her face for a familiar expression or something that would tell me beyond all doubt that she was really herself again.

  “If only I'd brought my research,” Annabelle said. “There must be something that we've overlooked. Preferably something that would get us out of here before your Reckoning starts.”

  “Good enough for me,” I said. Everyone had nervous habits. Annabelle's involved analyzing data and making charts. “Are you sure we're inside the mountain?”

  Annabelle nodded. “The girls we came here with just waved their hands over it, and the mountain opened up. They made me walk inside, and it closed.”

  “I'm sorry,” I said, looking away from her. “I thought Axia was on our side.”

  Zo socked me in the arm. “Don't apologize,” she said. “Without Axia, we never would have gotten the other one out of Annabelle, and she'd still be making out with the entire student population.”

  Annabelle blushed.

  “Sorry,” Zo said contritely. “I'm exaggerating. You didn't make out with everyone.” She paused, but just couldn't leave it with that. “Just ninety percent of the guys.”

  Delia placed a hand on her chest. “I'm so proud.”

  “Can we concentrate on the problem at hand?” I asked, saving Annabelle from further mortification. There'd be plenty of time for the others to tease her later. Right now we had bigger things to worry about.

  “Where was the entrance?” I said. “Which side?”

  Zo shrugged. Delia looked down at her nails, but Annabelle took several steps to her left and put her palm on the wall. “Here.”

  I followed and waved my hand over the place she had indicated, feeling ridiculous, but hoping that whatever mojo the others had used to stick us in here would work for me now.

  Nothing happened.

  “Put a little more oomph into it,” Delia suggested. “Like so.” She demonstrated by flicking her hand back and forth, with several dramatic gasps for emphasis.

  Somehow, I didn't think that was going to work. Instead, I closed my eyes and searched for the mountain with my mind instead of my senses. I found it, and even though I was standing right next to the stone wall, the buzz in my brain was muted, as if I were very far away. I concentrated on that feel, that sound, and brought it closer and closer, until the mountain was all around me in my mind.

  I was running through forests and over rivers, up mountains that grew under my feet as I ran.

  The memory played against the backdrop of my eyelids, and I tried to remember what it had felt like to run over these very stones, to bid the mountain grow at my will. Then I lifted my hand and, eyes still closed, I imagined the wall rearranging itself, the stone giving way to open space.

  I started walking out through the gap I'd created before I even opened my eyes. My friends followed, and we made our way out of the mountain and onto its surface. As soon as we were free and clear, I let my hold on the mountain go, and the stone fell back into place.

  Thank you, I told the mountain silently, feeling as if I should offer it something, but having nothing else to give.

  The stone sang back in reply, and somehow I understood that it had been a long time since anyone had spoken to it with anything other than a command.

  “So this is the Otherworld,” Zo said as we walked toward the edge of the mountain. “Not bad.”

  Below us, the land spread out, as vibrant in color as it was up close, and something inside of me fluttered.

  Sidhe. Home.

  Even now, when I knew that the beauty of this place hid something far more sinister, I couldn't push down the connection I felt to it, and I didn't try to. I wasn't going to hold the land responsible for the things that were done to me here, any more than I could blame the mountain for being our temporary prison.

  I was a part of this, and it was a part of me, forever and ever, no matter what.

  Sidhe. Home.

  On a whim, I opened my mind to my friends, sending them this feeling, this image, and as I did, they gasped. For a brief second, I saw this place through their eyes, and I realized how daunting it was and how much of the beauty was in the small things: each blade of grass, each shade of purple and gray in the mountain. To them, it was beautiful and ominous. To me, it was right.

  Sidhe. Home.

  As much as it pained me to do it, I turned away from the landscape and back to my friends. “We have to find a way down,” I said. Somehow, I doubted they could run it the way I could. “We need to go home.”

  Sidhe. Home.

  The land called to me, and I called back, sending thoughts to it the way I'd done for the girls a moment before.

  I thought of A-belle, quiet and understated and wickedly wonderful in her own quiet and understated way.

  Of Delia and the way her confidence allowed her to tame even the most obnoxious, pompous beast.

  And then I thought of Zo, fierce and loyal, half sister, half friend.

  I sent these images out to anyone and anything who would listen, completely oblivious to the fact that I may well have been alerting the others of our escape.

  Friends, I explained to the land and the mountain and everything that called me here. Home.

  “Bailey.” Axia spoke my name, but didn't say anything else. I wondered how long she'd been standing behind us and if I'd brought her here with the thoughts and images I'd just broadcast.

  “I trusted you, you know,” I told her, not bothering to turn around. “You were supposed to keep them safe. You weren't supposed to bring them here.”

  “What must be, must be,” Axia said softly. “You should know that better than anyone.”

  There was something in her tone and in her words that was familiar, and I realized that the last time I'd talked to Morgan, she'd told me the same thing. I whirled around to meet Axia's eyes, wondering if it was in any way possible that my trust hadn't been misplaced, that maybe I wasn't the only one Morgan had given cryptic instructions.

  “I'm supposed to prepare you,” Axia said. “For the Reckoning.” With those words, she lifted her hand and waved it at me, and my hair began intricately braiding itself.

  “That,” Delia said, “is almost as cool as transmogrification.”

  “Telekinesis?” Annabelle asked, a scholarly tone creeping into her voice.

  Zo had a slightly different reaction. “Leave her alone,” she said, stalking straight up to Axia and placing herself between the two of us. “Don't touch her. Don't wave your hand at her. Don't do whatever it is you're doing to her hair. Leave her alone.”

  “She's not hurting her,” a very small voice said from somewhere to my left.

  “You!” Annabelle bit out. Apparently, at some point between the time I'd left her and the time she and Zo had been escorted to our
mountain prison, she'd met Lyria, and A-belle hadn't quite forgiven her for the kissing rampage.

  “I'm s-s-sorry,” Lyria managed. She blushed, but instead of turning red, her cheeks began to exude light the exact same shade of pinkish white as her hair. Axia reached out to touch her sister, and Lyria managed to banish her Otherworldly blush. “I didn't mean you any harm. I was just supposed to cause a diversion. I … ummmm … I kind of got carried away.”

  “Kind of?” Annabelle squeaked.

  Lyria looked away. “It was my first kiss too.”

  Something passed between the two of them, to the extent that I wondered if Lyria was speaking silently to my friend or if there was something else going on that just didn't include the rest of us.

  After a moment, Annabelle nodded. I had no idea what she was nodding to, but I didn't get much of a chance to ponder, because as soon as Axia finished with my hair, Lyria tilted her head to the side, and as her eyes grew very blue, my clothes morphed, jeans and T-shirt melding together, the fabric changing to silk and growing into a simple light blue dress. As I watched, the dress molded itself to my body and intricately stitched patterns appeared on the torso.

  “A Reckoning only happens once,” Axia explained, her voice completely devoid of emotion. “The dress is somewhat formal.”

  “This Reckoning ain't happening,” Zo said flatly. No sooner were the words out of her mouth than the mountain exploded under our feet, sending us soaring even further upward, until the portion we'd been standing on became the apex.

  Suddenly, we weren't alone.

  Annabelle looked at her cousin. “I hate to say this, but evidence suggests you're mistaken.”

  “Silence.” Eze's tone was pleasant enough, but there was so much power in her voice and in the way she held herself that there was no question in my mind or anyone else's that it was an order.

  I glanced around, sure that Drogan was nearby, and he accommodated me by stepping out of the shadows. My glancing, however, told me that he wasn't the only one standing just out of sight. We were surrounded on all sides by Sidhe. Adea and Valgius, the Muses and Eros, James, Kiste, and Cyna. Xane stood next to his father, refusing to meet Delia's accusing glare, and Axia and Lyria stepped away from me to join their mother. Beyond the inner circle, there were dozens, if not hundreds of Sidhe, shining beings whose beauty should have made them stand out even more than they did.