by Molly Ringle
Merrick exchanged a glance with Larkin, who looked equally unenthused. “The glory of being heroes,” Merrick said, earning a brief smile from Larkin.
“First aid, magical and regular, for minor injuries.” She tucked a white plastic case into Larkin’s pack. “Food.” She gave them protein bars and freeze-dried meal packets for hikers and campers, all made smaller and more nutritious through the talent of matter-witches. “Remember, do not, do not, eat anything offered by the fae, no matter how friendly. That basically always goes wrong. Also use these in your water bottles.” She held up two gnarled roots. “Galangal root. Enchanted to purify water. Keep them in the bottles and don’t drink any without shaking it around with the root first.”
Merrick gave one to Larkin and plunked the other into his bottle.
“Next: glad to say I found you one of these.” Sal handed Merrick an envelope.
He opened it and took out a tiny fan of copper and steel, welded to a small plug. “Is this … ”
“Glimpse mod,” she said. “Took some asking around, but I got hold of one. A Researcher dropped it in the fae realm a year or two back, and a faery friend of mine picked it up.”
“Wow. Great find.” He held it up in the sunlight. “And it works?”
“Should. Plug it into your phone.”
Larkin leaned over. “What is it?”
“A legally restricted piece of tech.” Merrick plugged the glimpse mod into his phone’s power jack. A notification appeared, informing him Glimpse mod detected. 7 views remaining, with Activate? and the option buttons Yes and No below that. “In the fae realm, cell phones don’t work. You can’t communicate with the human world. But witches hacked a way to do it. This boosts the signal enough to break through and send and receive data with people back home.”
“But only for about a minute each view,” Sal cautioned.
“Witches in my time were ever seeking a way to send messages from afar,” Larkin said. “Magic mirrors or such. They tended to fail, however, especially if one was in the fae realm.”
“And the government doesn’t want people to go into the fae realm at all,” Merrick said, “so they don’t sell these. They only issue them for specially permitted trips.” He carefully tapped No and unplugged the mod, saving the glimpses for when they were needed.
“There are only seven glimpses on this one,” Sal reminded him. “Use them wisely.”
“Seven chances,” Larkin said, “to receive news of the human realm, and to send our own missives. In one minute’s time each.”
“Correct.” Merrick slipped the mod back into its envelope. “You’re amazing, Sal.”
Her facial features all rose upward, and she turned to pick up a tiny vial with a capped syringe. “Finally … ” She set it gently in Merrick’s hand. “Swift-heal. One dose.”
While Merrick and Larkin made small sounds of amazement, she added, “I wish I could find more. That’s all my friend could get me.”
“You have friends who can get you swift-heal?” Merrick said.
“She’s a half-fae medic, counted human, working for the government. I helped her get her job, which in turn gets her more verge-crossing safety equipment so she can see her fae side of the family. She was willing to do me a favor.” She gave him a miniature bubble-wrap envelope, which he put the bottle in.
“Once again, Sal, thank you. A thousand thank-yous.” Merrick picked up the book of his father’s poems that he had brought from Nye’s house, a decade old and full of pencil marks and dog-eared corners. “My father and I want you to have this.” Keeping a fair balance was essential with any fae, even one’s friends, and sentimental value counted as much as monetary value.
She took it and bowed her head in acceptance. “I’m honored.”
“Please accept these, as tokens of my deepest gratitude.” Larkin unhooked the delicate gold loop earrings he wore, one threaded with a red gemstone, the other a blue. He set them in her palm. “If we’re successful, the whole country will owe you thanks for what you’ve done to assist us.”
“If you’re successful,” she answered, “restoring harmony to the island will be repayment enough for us all.”
It was eight in the morning. The news clamored that Larkin and Merrick were still at large, Miryoku was still being devoured by plants, families of the bridge collapse victims were grieving, and ever greater numbers of witch citizens were gathering near the verge with magic-boosting weapons, ready to drive back any faery who looked ominous. The tension felt about to snap, to tip the country into outright war—an unwinnable and horrible war.
It was time to leave.
Merrick went into the corner of the garden and called his father. He told Nye the plan; not in geographic detail, but in general aim; and added, though it took effort to force his mouth to say it, “But don’t worry. If it gets too dangerous, we’ll retreat. We’ll get out.”
Nye was silent, long enough that Merrick wondered if he had to repeat himself—and hoped not, because repeating a lie was even harder, generally becoming impossible if he tried it a third time.
Then Nye said, “I won’t ask if you mean that. Just know that I’m so proud of you. I’ll be praying for you both.” He chuckled and added, “And I’m envious! Oh, Merrick, the things you’re going to see! I’ll want to know every detail.”
Merrick smiled, though a lump blocked his throat. “I’ll tell you everything. You can turn it into an epic poem.”
“I love you, kiddo.”
“I love you too.”
Merrick called Cassidy next and told them the same outline of the plan.
They were furious, as he could have predicted. Then anguished. Then Merrick said, “I started this. And Larkin’s at the center of it. It should be the two of us,” and Cassidy sighed and was quiet a moment.
“Here. Elemi wants to talk to you.”
The phone changed hands and Elemi’s higher voice came through. “Hi, Merrick!”
An ache punched into his chest. “Hey, Elemi. Staying safe out there?”
“Yeah. I’m carrying an iron spatula everywhere for self-defense.”
“Shovel. It’s probably a shovel, from the fireplace.”
“Yeah, that. Plus I can make it fly in the air if I need to, like an arrow, and hit a faery.”
“That’s brave, but seriously, don’t. Not unless you’re actually being attacked.”
“I know. Are you really going into the fae realm?” She sounded even more excited than Nye.
“Yes. With Larkin. We’re going to try to use Rosamund’s magic to stop Ula Kana.”
“I want to come!”
“Sorry. Not happening.”
“Then when you come back, you have to take me in again. I just want to see.”
Merrick heard Cassidy saying a distinct “No” in the background.
“I’ll tell you everything when I come back,” he promised, his voice catching.
“But you will come back?” She sounded a little worried.
“I … am going to try.” He blinked, tears smearing his vision.
“You will. Especially with Larkin along. They’ll like you guys.”
Elemi had no powers of prophecy, no uncanny knowledge. She was one-quarter fae, and a witch, but for the most part was only speaking the brave fancies of a kid.
“I hope so.” He cleared his throat. “We need to go. I love you, okay?”
“I love you too! Have fun!”
“I’ll try. Do what Cassidy says.”
“Okay. Bye!”
Cassidy took the phone again. “You need to come back. You better have all the shielding this country can produce.”
“I have at least some of it. Hold down the fort, all right? And remember to keep the updates super brief so I can read them in a few seconds.”
“I will. And … ” Their voice became wistful. “If you see our mom … tell her to drop by and visit me.”
“I promise.” Merrick swallowed, mashing moss beneath his shoe. “Talk to you late
r, Cass.”
“Later, little brother.”
They hung up, and Merrick spent a minute or two lingering in the garden, his back to Larkin and Sal, who waited on the patio. Then he blotted his eyes on his sleeve, straightened his back, and swung around to join them.
CHAPTER 28
LARKIN AND MERRICK SAT IN THE BACK OF SAL’S car, each wearing a loop of the resistance chain around their wrist. They had been able to embark without any neighbors seeing them, as the car sat under a garage roof connected to the house. But as soon as she drove out into the street, out of the lines of her property, Larkin felt the tug upon him again, stronger than before.
“Oof,” Merrick said. “They’re trying, all right.”
“Found your car too.” Sal nodded toward a cluster of police up the street, investigating the black car that Larkin recognized as Merrick’s.
“Of course they did,” Merrick muttered. “Okay, go, go.”
Sal turned at the street corner, a block from the group of police, and drove away.
Preposterous, Larkin thought, that to escape human law, he was fleeing somewhere far more dangerous.
Sal drove them into the hills toward the verge. She remarked to Larkin that her car had been altered by mechanics to suit her non-human proportions—a fact Larkin would not have noticed, given his general unfamiliarity with cars, but he marked it as a good sign of cooperation between fae and humans. At least until recent days.
They kept looking behind, and Merrick checked the news for announcements about their whereabouts being suspected, but no one seemed to have spotted or located them yet.
“The swamp is water fae territory; no one’s in particular, just the whole group,” Sal said as they turned onto a steep, tree-lined road. “It’s a good place to start, because water and fire don’t get along as a rule. If Ula Kana comes after you there, she’s likely to encounter resistance from the swamp fae. They won’t want her around.”
“Nor will they want us particularly,” Larkin said.
“Well, no. But that’s why you’ll offer gifts.”
As they skirted the woods of the fae realm, Larkin spotted groups of citizens standing near the verge here and there, armed with iron or newfangled weapons. Larkin and Merrick would hardly be able to walk into the realm in view of that company. Sal, fortunately, knew a quieter way in.
The private drive she took, paved with gravel, was barred after a quarter of a mile with a wooden gate, but she got out and unlocked it with magic. “It’s the road to my friend’s summer cabin. They won’t mind. No one’s up here in spring anyhow.”
After passing the cabin and, as promised, encountering no one, Sal stopped the car. They climbed out. Trees loomed high, their shade casting a chill even on this sunny day. The air smelled of mud and reeds. Rivers flowed down from the hills into this land, rendering the ground perpetually sodden; the road was built upon a berm to keep it above the swamp.
Some two hundred feet away stood the verge, marked on the human side by fence posts with wire strung between them. Beyond, in the fae realm, the trees spread thick, rising into the hills.
Even were it not fae land, it looked so forbidding it made Larkin feel sick. There were not only fae in there, but animals: snakes and monkeys and biting insects; and woodstriders, the enormous bipedal apes who lurked in the hills; and who knew what else. Some of the animals could be fae, in another shape. It was seldom easy to tell the difference. He closed his hand around the spray vial of lucidity that hung on a silver chain around his neck.
The three of them trudged down the gravel berm and out into the swamp, stepping upon tussocks of reeds and roots to keep their feet above water. Merrick walked beside Larkin, the resistance chain still linking them. Birds and monkeys screeched. Frogs and fish jumped, splashing green muck onto tree trunks.
At the verge, Merrick pulled a two-foot-long iron spike from his pack, its end set in a wooden handle, and struck it down on the wires strung between the fence posts. Sparks crackled, reflecting bright in the water. The wires broke, clearing a path into the fae territory.
A log drifted toward them through the water. The twigs protruding upward twitched, and the end of the log lifted a few inches. Eyes gleamed and nostrils opened. Larkin caught his breath and settled his hand on the hilt of his sword.
“Kelpie,” Merrick said under his breath.
“Only watching you,” Sal said. “He wouldn’t have let you see him in the water like that if he intended to eat you.”
Larkin had never seen a kelpie this close before; he had only spotted one running in the dusk, a field’s length away, when he was eighteen. But he knew they were the shape of horses, and from the size of this creature’s head, he estimated it would be larger than his stallion had been. His exo-witch powers could sway animals, but did next to nothing against fae, whether in animal form or not.
“Time to make our speech?” Merrick said.
“Have at it,” Sal said.
Merrick held up his phone at face level and pushed a button. “Good morning. I’m Merrick Highvalley, and I’m at the verge with Prince Larkin. I have a confession to make: I’m the one who woke Larkin. It wasn’t an attempt at rebellion or sabotage. I found a magical charm made by my ancestor Rosamund Highvalley, which led me to a portal into Larkin’s bower, where I accidentally woke him. That, unfortunately, freed Ula Kana as well.
“I can’t express how sorry I am, and I promise that the reason I’m here today is to try to make it right. It’s true what Larkin told you in the video: he was put under the sleep spell against his will, and Witch Laureate Janssen would have done the same to him again last night if I hadn’t helped him escape. Today, the two of us are setting out to fix what we’ve started. We won’t tell you how or where—we don’t want to broadcast that information, especially not to Ula Kana. But we’re entering the fae realm now, on a mission to stop her.”
He looked at Larkin, who nodded.
Larkin swung the pack from his shoulders and took out a packet of seeds for flowers that flourished in wet ground.
Still holding up the phone, Merrick pointed to Larkin. His turn to speak.
Larkin addressed the wilderness. “Fae who guard and treasure this swamp, I am Larkin, long enspelled against my will by the witch Rosamund Highvalley, a spell that bound Ula Kana too. Merrick and I seek safe passage in your realm as we cross it on our quest to contain her once more.”
A gurgling chirrup came from within the murk, and a similar noise answered in a tree. Leaves rustled, and something flew away. Sun flickered where a branch moved. Merrick glanced up but kept holding his phone, recording.
The swamp denizens watched and waited. Larkin continued:
“As you will have heard, she’s wreaking havoc in the human world and disturbing your world as well by using her powers to compel fae into contemptible deeds. We do not wish possession of your lands, nor any theft or further intrusion beyond crossing through. We seek only to restore the peace on our island. We offer these seeds as a gift for granting us safety: flowers to adorn your beautiful home.”
Shadows moved. Eyes peered at them between slimy roots. Ripples flowed in the weedy waters.
A dragonfly speared in and hovered before Larkin’s face. It was as long as his arm, its body ruby red and shining like armor, its wings beating so fast he could see only a blur. Several other dragonflies, equally large, appeared behind it, buzzing in the air, their multifaceted eyes upon Larkin and Merrick. Merrick slowly turned the phone toward them.
The red dragonfly reached out a thin leg with rootlike hairs growing from it and pinched the seed packet between its hooked claws, taking it from Larkin’s hand. Then it swung aside in the air, dipping its wings: seemingly an invitation to enter.
Larkin swallowed. “You are most gracious.”
“We appreciate this very much,” Merrick said. He turned the phone to look into it once more. “Friends and citizens, please keep the peace in our absence. And pray for us, if you’d be so kind. Gods be with
you.”
He tapped the phone and lowered it. “I’m putting it on social media. Should go viral in no time, now that everyone’s watching my accounts.”
“Won’t the Researchers deduce where we are and follow us?” Larkin asked.
“They’ll try,” Sal said, eyeing the creatures of the swamp. “But they won’t have an easy time of it. Their spells won’t reach far in here. And tracking you through this terrain will be next to impossible.”
The dragonflies still hovered in the air, a path clear between them.
The swamp’s filtered sunlight tinted Merrick’s face green. He lifted the vial around his neck and pushed down its top, spraying the collar of his shirt. Larkin did the same with his. A burst of scent filled his nose: sunny orange, rosemary, warm spearmint, and the mineral scorch of the lucidity ingredients. It settled within his nostrils, a metallic armor painted with herbs, and his mind sharpened.
They entered, stepping upon flat stones and clumps of sedge, grasping tree branches for balance. Sparks snapped and stung against Larkin’s legs as they moved through the few feet of borderland. Then they were on the other side, looking back at the human world.
The tug of the summoning fell away instantly. Human spells could rarely cross the verge. Merrick and Larkin removed the resistance chain, and Merrick slipped it into his pack.
Sal stepped across to join them—she could not go far with them, but she wished to see them off.
“The people will know the truth about you this time,” she promised. “Both of you.”
“I want Ula Kana to know too,” Merrick said. “I mean, I don’t want her to know what we’re doing, exactly. But I’d rather have her in here looking for us than smashing bridges in the rest of the country.”
“A wise tactic,” Sal said. “And a noble one.”
A sound like thunder approached, and turned to hissing and sizzling. The inhabitants of the swamp began to shriek. Creatures scuttled up the trunks and flew into the air.
“She already knows,” Sal said.