by Meg Bonney
“Damn, try fitting that on a business card!” Jason quipped.
“Right.” Ren looked at Jason, clearly perplexed, before continuing. With his bandaged hand, Ren ran his fingers through his hair, biting his lower lip, looking very deep in thought. “I can access your world through portals. If they can find the portal, anyone from Everly can enter your world, but they can only get back with a Porter. It keeps random Floridians from wandering these lands. Portals are also hidden and almost impossible to find.”
“Portals?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“Yes, portals. The tree behind your aunt’s home was a portal,” Ren replied matter-of-factly, but he paused to look at me.
The tree.
“I touched that tree and my nose bled,” I said. “I heard that ringing noise. It was coming from the tree, and it was like I had to touch it. Like I had to touch the tree.”
Jason nodded, raising his eyebrows. “Um, sorry, what? Trees―trees talk to you?”
“Whenever an Everlian uses a portal without a Porter, an alarm goes off,” Ren explained. “That’s what you heard. It was the same sound you heard at the pool. That’s how I knew.”
“Knew what?” I asked.
“That it really was you.”
“Oh.”
Ren fixed the strap of his boot, and I let my eyes linger on him a few moments after he looked away.
“But why did my nose bleed when I touched the tree?” I finally asked.
“You touched a portal while the alarm was going off,” Ren answered, eyebrows raised. “What did you expect?”
I rolled my eyes at him.
“So you get here by going through the magical alarm tree?” Jason asked.
Ren looked up. “Yes, sort of.”
“Okay, and so this place…” Jason continued his assessment. “It’s kind of like Wonderland. And Ren, you’re the white rabbit!” He chuckled.
“White rabbit?” Ren sat up straight, his eyes a little wide. “I prefer the cat.”
Jason nodded. “Do you know that movie?”
“It’s a book, you goon,” I corrected him. “How do you know it, Ren?”
“It is one of my favorites. A bit exaggerated, but a great work.” Ren replied.
“What do you mean, exaggerated?” Jason took another swig of his water.
“Well, I was never able to figure out if the author was truly an Everlian, but the setting in the book always felt oddly familiar,” Ren answered. “We have no talking cats or smoking caterpillars here, but that book makes me think of Everly whenever I read it.” He put his hands on the rug and leaned back.
Jason and I looked at each other, dumbfounded, for a moment. Then Jason dropped his jaw dramatically.
“Curiouser and curiouser.” I shook my head.
“Indeed,” Jason added.
“I still can’t believe this is happening,” I admitted. “It’s just so unreal.”
“Oh my god, what if it isn’t real? What if someone slipped something in the food I got us at the restaurant? We’ve been drugged,” Jason said. “This can’t be real. Maddy, we are Alice. No wonder that movie was so trippy.”
“Jay, we weren’t drugged!” I said, smiling at him. He looked a little bewildered, and I wasn’t quite sure if he was serious or joking. It looked like a mix of both.
“You can’t prove that,” Jason replied.
“I have a question,” I said, folding my arms in front of me.
“You have so many questions,” Ren said before I could ask it.
“I’m sorry, but do the people you usually zap through trees just follow you around like puppy dogs?”
Ren raised his eyebrows at me.
Jason clapped. “Okay, I’m going to jump on the crazy train for a minute here. So, Aunt Ruth is at the temple, and that’s where we are going. But if they think Maddy is a Witch, like those Cloaked guys did, and the king has that Magus Decree thingy, then should we really be walking into that temple?” Jason looked at me skeptically.
“I know for a fact that the king will not kill Madison.” Ren rubbed the stubble on his chin as he spoke.
“How can you be sure of that?” Jason asked.
“Because he is Madison’s father.”
CHAPTER 12
“Oh, that’s why you called Maddy ‘princess’ back in Greenrock,” Jason said to Ren.
“Well, yes. Why else?” Ren looked perplexed.
“She can be demanding and bitchy sometimes,” he said to Ren, but Jason was looking at me.
I flared my nostrils at Jason.
“You okay?” Jason asked me. “This is big.”
I shrugged.
“So the king who’s having all the Magic peeps killed, that’s my daddy-o?” I shook my head. “I knew it. I knew the other shoe had to drop. Him being alive was too good to be true. Of course he’s a raging psycho!”
“Yes,” Ren said.
I huffed and laid flat on my back on the woven rug, draping my arms above my head.
“Mads?” Jason laid next to me. “You seem to be handling this portion of your history a little better. No sprinting, so that’s good.”
“Well, I guess I am past emotionally rocked,” I replied, staring up into the top of the willow tree. “Let’s go with comfortably perplexed for the moment.” I closed my eyes.
“How did any of you know where to find Maddy and Ruth?” Jason asked Ren. “It’s been like, what, seventeen, sixteen years.”
I opened my eyes and turned to see Ren stand up.
“The King’s Guard never stopped looking. The princess’ abduction is still a rather fresh wound here. And I had to find you. It’s a good thing I did,” Ren replied in a complacent sort of way. “You seem to attract trouble.”
“Oh, shut up, you pompous jerk!” I sat straight up. I was not even sure why I was suddenly angry with Ren.
Ren sneered. “I am putting my neck on the line to help you. Some respect would be nice.”
“From the looks of it, your neck being on the line has nothing to do with helping me!”
“Oh, really?” Ren shot back.
“Yeah, really! It also seems like you did something to piss everyone off long before I came along! Those Cloaked guys wanted to kill you!” I jumped to my feet.
Ren huffed loudly. “You know nothing.”
“Don’t talk to her like that, dude.” Jason stood and walked between us, focused solely on Ren.
I took a deep breath. Maybe attacking Ren wasn’t the wisest endeavor, but he just got under my skin. I avoided looking back at him in an attempt to move on, for Jason’s sake as well as my own.
“It’s fine, Jay.” I sighed. Jason turned his back to Ren and gave me a wink.
“How about instead of fighting, we go over the plan,” Jason suggested. “We have to meet Lacy, right?”
“Um, yes,” Ren said, standing. He ran his hand up the trunk of the tree and lowered his head. “We really need to get moving. The king’s right-hand man, Captain Asher, has started using the Cloaked to round up the Magics, and there are so many of them at the temple already. And the moon will be full in four days.”
“Meaning what?” Jason asked.
I stepped forward. “Meaning, if we don’t get to Ruth before she gets to the temple, it’s bad, and if we don’t get to her before the full moon, they will kill her. Right, Ren?”
Ren turned to face us and leaned against the tree trunk. “Right.”
“We just have to get Aunt Ruth before they reach the temple,” Jason said. “And then we can go home.”
“No, we have to help those people. The people in the temple that my—that the king is going to have killed. We can’t leave them there,” I said, picking up my sword.
Ren looked at me, surprised.
“Don’t look so shocked,” I scoffed. “I’m a lovely person.”
Ren sniffed. “Sure.”
I held up my middle finger.
; “Okay, moving on,” Jason intervened. “We get Ruth and we bust out the locked-up people. What’s the danger level on that? You know the temple, right? Just a quick in-and-out?”
Ren shook his head and cleared his throat. “Not exactly. Back before any of this, before Strongbloods took over, the temple was home to the Witch Queen and her non-Magic wife. Back in that time, there was very little crime, but when it did occur, the queen felt that it was the crown’s duty to keep the prisoners right there in the temple so that they could not harm the people of Everly. Some of the prisoners were Magics so, clearly, they could not be imprisoned by conventional tactics. The queen put a spell on the courtyard of the temple that would hold the Magics, preventing them from escaping.”
“Um, okay. So, the king is using magic to keep Magic people prisoner so that he can kill them for being Magics because he thinks that all magic is evil? Yeah, that’s not a contradiction or anything,” Jason summarized.
Ren’s eyes darted back and forth. “Yes, that is correct.”
I scoffed. “Daddy sounds like a peach.”
A gust of wind from outside the willow tree made its long branches sway gently back and forth.
Jason nodded. “Yeah, okay. But if that’s the case, how will we get them out?”
“You would be willing to do that? To help the Magics?” Ren looked to me, ignoring Jason’s question.
“You told me that my real father isn’t just alive, but that he had my aunt kidnapped, and that he is now rounding people up to kill them on the full moon. If there is a way we can help them, then hell yes,” I answered.
Ren walked quickly to the rug and moved the lantern back up to the nail on the willow tree’s trunk, making his face much more visible.
He furrowed his brow. “There is a counterspell to break the former queen’s original spell. My father…” Ren’s eyes closed for a moment. He took a deep breath but remained silent.
I shifted my weight from foot to the other. I looked over at Jason and widened my eyes, willing him to speak so I didn’t have to. Jason nodded and walked over to stand between Ren and me. I let out a sigh.
“Your father? Is he gone?” Jason questioned, his hand firm on Ren’s shoulder. Ren nodded.
“Yes, my father is gone,” Ren replied slowly and softly. I could feel the ache in his words.
“We are so sorry for your loss,” Jason said sweetly, gesturing back to me.
“You started to explain about the counterspell,” I added.
Jason spun his head and glared at me. “Madison!”
“No, it is fine,” Ren continued. “My father was the royal record keeper and served as one of the king’s most trusted confidants—he and Captain Asher. It was my father’s research that uncovered the magical spell on the courtyard. He was not happy with the king’s abuse of it, so he spent all his time looking for a way to break the courtyard’s spell,” Ren told us slowly as he fixed his eyes on the lantern. Even through his calm, steady stare, I could see his jaw tensing.
“What happened to your father?” Jason asked sympathetically. He was so great in these situations. I, on the other hand, contemplated flagging down the Cloaked just to escape this conversation.
Ren looked at me for a few seconds before answering. “He did it. He found a way to free the Magics by breaking the spell on the courtyard. The night he shared it with me, there was this storm in the village. Prestin, just north of the Ember Isle. It was not like a rainstorm, but it was like the air caught fire. It got very hot, and it was so bright you could not see. I ran, but when the storm was over, the entire village was gone, and my father with it.” Ren kept his head down.
“What do you mean, gone?” Jason prodded, emphasizing the word gone.
“I mean it is no longer there. Only the land remains. The homes, the trees and”—Ren hesitated—“the people. Just gone.”
Ren met my inquisitive stare. I lingered in his gaze for a moment. There was so much pain in his eyes; so much sadness.
“What kind of storm would do that?” Jason asked.
Ren nodded and did not break his stare. “That was no regular storm. And I do not believe it was a coincidence that my father perished in it. It was the king’s doing, I am sure of it.” He said king like it pained him to even speak the word.
I coughed loudly and fidgeted with my sword’s handle.
“You think the king did it to get rid of him before he tried to do the spell on the courtyard,” Jason stated.
“I know he did,” Ren said with a sneer.
Great.
At last, Ren shifted his focus to Jason. “But what the king did not know was that I had the book with the ritual in it. My father gave it to me that night so I could free the Magics and end the terror once and for all. Bring peace to Everly.”
“And Aunt Ruth. She is a, uh…a Witch?” I fumbled over the words. “And that would make her a Magic.” My stomach twisted with worry as I imagined her. “Will they even wait until the full moon?”
“I do not know the answer to that,” Ren answered. “We had better get moving. Jason, can you help me with this?” He motioned to the chest behind the tree trunk, and Jason hurried over to assist him.
Ruth kidnapped me. She wasn’t just another Magic. She was a criminal in their eyes.
I didn’t move as Ren hurried past me to grab the canteens on the ground and prop his satchel against the willow trunk.
“What will they do to her, Ren?” I begged of him quietly. He stopped walking abruptly, but he did not speak. He pressed his lips together and the corners of his mouth turned down in a frown.
I laughed absently. “That bad?”
Ren dipped his head down and then looked back at me without speaking.
I traced a half circle in the dirt with my foot.
“Ren, will they kill her?” I inquired directly. “Before the full moon. Can we actually save her?”
“The king usually sticks to his schedule,” Ren said. “That’s all we can hope for.”
“My father is going to kill them.” I bobbed my head up and realized I hadn’t blinked. I exhaled loudly. “My father is going to kill my aunt, and we may not be able to save her.”
Ren didn’t answer.
“How?” I asked bluntly.
“How what?”
“How will he kill them?”
“Maddy, what kind of question is that?” Jason walked over to me. “Ignore her, Ren. She tends to say the most inappropriate things when she gets uncomfortable.”
“It is alright,” Ren replied. “She should know.”
“I mean, really. How can he kill a Witch? I just―I always thought it was hard,” I said, feeling the tears fill my eyes.
“Maddy.” Jason tugged at my hand and stared at me with his eyebrows scrunched. “Let’s just get going, guys. This is just about the weirdest conversation I have ever been a part of, and that includes the time Maddy kept spouting off Jody Foster facts to my grieving father at the memorial dinner for my Aunt Clarice.”
“I choked.” I shrugged at Jason, trying to laugh away my worry for Ruth.
Jason leaned his shoulder into mine. “Ready?”
“Yeah, we should go,” I agreed. Jason and I started to walk out from under the willow tree’s branches.
“Wait,” Ren said. “We are not going that way.”
Jason and I stopped and turned around to see Ren standing on the far side of the willow tree. He reached over and pulled aside a cluster of long branches to reveal an opening in the side of the large rock formation that I had seen when we were running from those jerks.
“We will be going through here. It is a cavern that will lead us to the Jade Village and we can cut the Cloaked off there, before they reach the Temple of the Ember Isle,” Ren explained, letting the branches fall back as he walked toward me and Jason.
“Cool.” Jason smiled. “Is that where we’ll meet Lacy?”
Ren gave a nod. “I am going to go grab us so
me more water, and we will head out. Stay here,” he said to Jason, and collected the other canteen.
“Hurry up,” I told Ren as he walked past me to leave the safe cover of the willow tree.
“Their hands and their heads,” Ren muttered behind me. I pivoted back to face him.
“Huh?” I asked.
Ren took a deep breath but didn’t look at me.
“Their hands and their heads. That is where a Witch’s power is emitted. So, they are removed. That is how they are killed.”
“Oh.” I blinked a few times. “Right.”
“Whoa,” Jason said. “Man, Maddy. We shouldn’t be here.”
I stood motionless for a moment, my mouth agape. “Their heads and their hands. That’s horrible.”
“Okay, wait, Ren. You never explained what Maddy has to do with this. I get that her dad is the king and all, but it doesn’t explain why you were looking for her,” Jason pointed out. “I mean, you didn’t know that Ruth was going to be taken when you came to Greenrock, did you?”
Ren shook his head. “No. I was there for Madison.”
Jason and I exchanged looks.
“The ritual to free the Magics. It uses three people: one with the blood of the royal line, one with the blood of a Strongblood, and one with the blood of a Magic. All three are needed to break the binds. The royal must say the words and do the ritual. It will drop the spell from the temple’s courtyard and free the Magics. They can use their powers to escape,” Ren explained.
“You just said that the Strongbloods and the Magics hated each other,” Jason said. “And the king is so not going to be down with this plan. How are you going to get their blood for this spell and get them all to participate? Maddy is great, but she isn’t exactly a snake charmer. If your plan is to get her to make the two sides get along to do this ritual just because the king is her dad, you might want to go back to the drawing board.”
“He’s not wrong,” I added. “I don’t do people.” I fiddled with the grip of my sword as Ren looked from Jason back to me.
“My father found a loophole in the ritual,” Ren said, looking back to Jason.