You don’t like hearing me like this either, do you? I teased, grinning up at him.
He shook his head. Focus, Fiona.
So I fell silent as he guided me through the hallways. My confinement in the closet in this realm had actually been my own doing. After my father’s death in this realm, I had immediately discovered it to be my stepmother’s doing, and so I’d gone into hiding and put myself into a stasis until Eirwen’s presence was detected in my mind.
As for the stasis thing and computer in my head … well, that was just how this realm worked. We were some sort of cyborg, but our computer parts were as natural as our flesh.
I decided not to think about that too much. Instead, I focused on remembering my location and how to get around this tower if I were separated from Lukas.
Lukas suddenly stopped short and squeezed my hand. We’re about to leave the unused portion of the tower. Are you ready?
I swallowed. I think so. If I have to be. What now, my beloved Alfen?
He managed a grin as he glanced down at me. We have to sneak into the queen’s chamber and steal back the comb.
I nodded, but then I shook my head. No, not we. Just me. I have to do this on my own.
His eyes widened as he glanced down at me. “But…” He let the word escape his lips audibly.
This is my challenge, I reminded him. I can’t let you solve it for me, much as I want you to. One of us would be less noticeable than both of us. Just … stay in link with me and help me along, okay?
Okay. Lukas paused a moment, and then pressed a kiss to my forehead. Have it your way. Just … be safe. Find Aria. She should be able to help you.
Aria… I frowned. That was Rosa’s name in this realm.
Is something wrong?
I’m not sure. I forced a shrug. But she has betrayed me in both the fourth realm and the eight, and I have my suspicions about the sixth.
To my surprise, Lukas just nodded. Ah, I see. Well, your father asked her to work personally with your stepmother to gain her trust and secrets. That’s why you need to ask her to help you. She’ll be able to get you into places that I can’t.
Really? I called to mind my father’s vague comment in his letter. So, you mean…
It’s up to you. He gave my hand another squeeze and then released it. Just hurry.
I nodded and hastened through the door we’d stopped at, giving him one last smile over my shoulder before he shut the door behind me.
The halls and passages of the New Youtan Tower were straightforward and simple, but these were also filled with people who would quickly realize that I held no net identity.
That’s why I’d had to ditch Lukas, much as I hated to. I was going to have to steal someone’s net access, and I didn’t want to hurt any more innocents than I had to.
Biting my lip, I inched over to the nearest wall portal, pulled a wire from my wrist, and plugged it in. To my delight, I found that I still had enough corporate authority to manipulate as I wished. Quickly, I swapped my identity with that of another girl my age with black hair – a girl who happened to attend my stepmother, which would give me access to the rooms that held my quarry. Then I erased all activity on this portal and quickly hurried off, dodging through the crowds of people who were concerned with their business.
As I walked, I sorted through the newsfeeds, finding out what I had missed in my last two months of unconsciousness. Not much, actually, beyond continuous memorials of my father and several grand searches for me and Jeremy. Also a couple of speeches by my stepmother, but I’d heard enough from her.
My father had been the president in this tower, and with his death, an emergency election had been called – but it wouldn’t take place until the three months of mourning were over. Something that had never made sense to me, but now played to my benefit. If I could wrest the comb from my stepmother’s grip, then I could sway the election in my favor – I was my father’s daughter, after all, and beloved by the people. However, the people were too easily swayed by beauty in this realm, and my stepmother held the comb.
I had to get it away from her.
When I reached my stepmother’s rooms with no trouble, I should have realized that something was wrong, but I was too grateful for that ‘no trouble’ that I scarcely noticed. Boldly, I walked to her nightstand, opened the silver case that I assumed would hold the comb … and set off alarms throughout the tower.
Of course, the case was also empty.
I rushed to the door, now thinking only of escape, but found it locked, as was every other door in the room. I was trapped. My stepmother had me in her clutches, and I’d walked right into it. I tried to pry her wall port open, but it was locked down as well.
My impulse was to reach out to Lukas, but I couldn’t bring myself to admit to him that I’d failed. Sure, he needed to know, but what could he do? I sank onto the bed, resting my head in my hands. It’d been going so well in the previous realms! How had I walked right into a trap here?
“Fiona, how could you be so sloppy?”
I gasped and hopped to my feet, spinning around to see that Aria had just entered the room.
“Your stepmother is just behind me. I told her that I would make sure that this is you and thus worth her time – but she’s pretty convinced. You weren’t exactly subtle when you gave one of her attendants your net identity.”
I winced. “But … you’ll help me, right? Lukas said…”
“I wish I could, but I can’t,” Aria’s voice dropped to a hiss. “Your stepmother is just behind me, and she is impatient. I’m sorry.”
She stepped forward, and a set of wires – yellow, blue, and red – shot out of her wrist and twisted around mine, plugging into my own access and powering me down. I tried to resist – but it was too strong.
“I’m sorry, my princess,” Aria repeated, dropping to her knees beside me as I crumpled to the floor. “But you were too sloppy, and I can’t blow my cover now. I have to do this, but it isn’t all a loss. I will convince your stepmother to strike you with the comb to rob you with your beauty. While you’ve still failed the challenge, it will send Eirwen back to the eighth realm. You’ll need to find some other challenge to complete there, with the key, but you’re clever and will figure it out. I have faith in you. Your stepmother cannot have the power of your bloodline.”
And, with that, my world went dark, my last conscious thought an attempt to reach to Lukas and finally let him know that I’d failed.
6
The Apple
I jolted back to the eighth realm, where I was tucked under Jeremy’s arm as we watched television.
“I’m back,” I whispered, still processing what had happened in that third realm.
Jeremy shifted. “Oh? I hadn’t even noticed you left.”
“Back from the third realm,” I clarified, rolling my eyes a little.
“Ah.” A chuckle rumbled in his chest, which brought a grin to my own face. “You know, I scarcely noticed that, either, unless you brought it up, that is, which you didn’t do a lot.”
“And you understand now what I meant when I said that this whole multiple realms thing won’t really affect us once I’ve solved the challenges.” I snuggled closer to him, even though I knew that I should probably get up and open the last drawer. One left. I was so close to winning … but the last realm had been a failure.
“Is something wrong, Gwen?” Jeremy stroked my shoulder. “You sound upset.”
“Things … didn’t go well for me in the third realm,” I admitted. “My stepmother laid a trap for me and I walked right into it. And Rosa, once again, betrayed me.”
She’d said that she’d wanted to help me, but could I really believe her? What could I believe anymore?
“Oh dear. What are you going to do now?”
“Deal with the last drawer and hopefully not mess that one up,” I reluctantly pried myself out of my arms. “And then I have to find some sort of challenge to face in this realm. Have no idea what it could possibl
y be, but … again, we’ll see when we get there.”
He just nodded, turning off the television.
“Also, Gwen is going to bed. It’s late and I don’t know how tomorrow’s going to go.” I gave a small shrug, hugging my arms to my chest. “I apparently have to do a challenge here.”
“And you’re going to ace it brilliantly,” Jeremy assured me, giving me his best grin. “Because you’re amazing, you know that?”
I gave him back a grin of my own. “Thank you, but not half as amazing as you are.”
He just laughed. “I’m not the one with the power to travel between parallel realities, remember?”
“Just make sure that Gwen stays in bed,” I told him. “Oh, but I’ve missed you these last two months.”
“Not half as much as I’ve missed you,” he returned. “Are you sure you don’t want to go get married?”
“I wish.” But I shook my head. “Unfortunately, I don’t think that the place where we’d do that is open at this hour of night. Besides which, remember what I said about decisions aligning? Alas, my counterpart in the seventh realm, Bianca, is even more stubborn than I am and has refused to even meet you. So until these challenges are over, I can’t go back and talk sense into her. We’re just going to have to hold tight.”
“It was worth a shot. Be off with you. I don’t want to see you until you’re ready to face that final challenge, you hear me?”
“Understood.”
I grinned as I retreated back into my bedroom, but the mirth quickly faded. One drawer left, but still two challenges I couldn’t afford to fail. I’d already failed once.
There was nothing for it. I tugged open the last drawer and pushed myself onto my tip-toes to see what was inside.
A shiny, red, glass apple.
***
The second realm was dying. I stood in the middle of a garden, but every tree, bush, and blade of grass was brown and barren.
Licking my lips, I quickly gathered my thoughts, allowing my memories from this realm to flood me, which was easier than in the last realm. My name was Snowdrop, and I wasn’t a princess in this realm, either, but the caretaker of this garden – perhaps the most important garden in all the realms, for at its center stood the Tree of Life.
And the Tree of Life was dying.
I hastened to the center, to see the tree with my own eyes – even though Snowdrop had seen it daily, hourly, even.
It was brown, barren of leaves and fruit – save for a single, plump red apple that dangled just within my reach. This apple felt more unnatural than the death clinging to the rest of the tree. It shouldn’t be dying – but a single apple shouldn’t survive when the rest of the plant wilted.
My father and I had tried everything, while he yet lived. Every fertilizer we knew, every cure we could find. Nothing had done any good. More leaves had turned brown and fallen, while all the other fruit the tree bore shriveled up. It’d begun just after my own recovery from my sickness, a realization that curdled now in my stomach.
I called to mind Rafflesia’s words when my father first brought her to the garden, a year ago, words spoken in undertone only to me.
There was a cure: a cure I dared not hope mention to my father for I knew he’d never accept it. And I’d hoped against hope that we might find any other answer.
That apple was the answer. It was filled with the poison that had corrupted the tree. If I would eat it, then I would take the tree’s poison and it would live again.
But I would die.
There had to be another way. I’d sent Cypress, Ivy, and my beloved Yule out into the world in quest of the answer, not telling even them of the one that my stepmother had demanded of me. I knew that none of them would stand for it.
Except for Ivy, I realized now. Was her betrayal real or pretend in order to gain my stepmother’s trust? At this point, I didn’t know what to think, and worrying over it only made my head hurt.
Instead, I focused again on the dilemma before me and summoned the mirror. I could only assume that my father had asked for its answer already, but he hadn’t known Rafflesia’s words. And I hadn’t known then the truth of my cure.
It’d been no coincidence – the tree’s decline as I recovered. I knew now the awful thing that the woman had done; the gross abuse of the deal she had struck with my father. She hadn’t cured me. She’d transferred my sickness to the tree.
Just when I was thinking that the woman couldn’t get any worse.
I drew a shaking breath as the mirror materialized in my hand. “Show me…” I began, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask the question and destroy the hope I still retained.
“Show me Yule.”
My reflection swirled and was replaced with an image of my beloved, talking to an old woman in a village many miles away. The old woman shook her head and he turned away, defeat spreading across his expression.
Of course. She hadn’t had any answers for him. No one would have answers for him.
I asked then to see Cypress and saw my father’s trusted friend sequestered in a library, pouring over ancient tomes that also held no answers to our problem.
I frowned as I realized that both Yule and Cypress had pointed ears, prompting me to check my own. Oh, yes, we were elves in this realm. Interesting.
And, yes, I was stalling. I really didn’t want the mirror to tell me that eating the apple was my only choice. .How could I possibly win against my stepmother if I was dead?
Yet, if I didn’t do it, the tree would die, and how would that ripple across the multiple realms? What would be the effect of my stepmother gaining the full power that my death would give her?
Which was worse? Both options were terrible.
I took a deep breath. “Mirror, show me the cure for the tree.”
And, of course, the mirror changed from Cypress to show me an image of the apple, hanging just over my head. I tightened my hold on the mirror’s handle. “But there must be … is there any other way?”
But the mirror just continued to show me the image of the apple that was also hanging right over my head. I couldn’t ask it to explain, either. The mirror’s power was only visual. It could only show me the apple, not tell me how to use it.
I reached up to pluck the apple and gasped as I felt its magic. My father had always forbidden me to touch it while he lived, and now I understood.
The apple was a conduit and was connected to me. I’d seen my father try many ways to purge the tree of the poison – burning the apple, for instance. But the poison was in the tree, not the apple, and under my stepmother’s magic, it could only be transferred back to me.
“Mirror, if I eat the apple, is there any way for me to survive?”
To my relief, the mirror swirled away from the image of the apple, but what it showed me wasn’t exactly reassuring. Rafflesia. And also Ivy, in the background, but the focus was on my stepmother.
There was a chance, but I doubted that it was one that the woman would let me take easily. Still, I had to try. Laying down the mirror, I summoned the flute. If I was going to flirt with death, I wasn’t going to do it alone. I asked the nearest flock of birds to fetch Yule and then I plucked the apple,
The evil magic clinging to the fruit was revolting. My father had given up so much to purge me of this poison, and here I was, about to take the poison back.
But I couldn’t let the tree die. My father trusted me to do what was best for the realms he’d left in my care. I had to find a way.
So, without another moment of hesitation, I bit into the apple.
It was sweet, at first. The sweetest fruit I’d ever tasted. Yet, it turned bitter even as I swallowed. The apple’s flesh turned black as it withered and fell from my hand.
I buckled, wrapping my arms around my middle as stomach cramps overwhelmed me. But, even as my vision blurred, did the grass look even a fraction less brown? If so, then this was all worth it.
“Yule, come quickly,” I whispered, and I slipped back to the eighth real
m as Snowdrop succumbed to darkness.
7
The Key
My hammering heart woke me up in the eighth realm. I jumped out of my bed and rushed into the living room where Jeremy was sleeping on the couch. I pounced on him, shaking him violently.
“Wake up, Jeremy!” I shouted. “I need you! I – I’m dying!”
His eyes cracked open and he frowned at me groggily. “You look just fine to me, beautiful.”
“Jer!” I gave a frustrated growl. Any other time, his attempt at flirting would have brought at least a smile from me, but now I just shook him again. “Jer, I’m serious. It’s my heart.”
His eyes flew open, and he threw off his blanket as he sat up and planted his feet on the floor. He grabbed my wrist to feel my pulse, frowning at what he found.
“I’m taking you to the hospital,” he declared.
“No,” I protested, as he stood. “I wish … I wish the hospital could help, but you know how helpless they were six years ago. I…” My racing heart was making me light-headed already. “It’s my stepmother’s poison. She’s the one who cured me before, and she’s the only answer now. I have to go to her.”
His eyes narrowed and he caught me around my waist. “But, Gwen…”
“This is magic poison!” I shouted. “I … can you please just trust me to know what to do?”
His eyebrow quirked. “Do you?”
I released a heavy sigh. “No, not really, I just know that Editha’s my only hope. She’s the one who poisoned me.”
“How?”
“She tricked me … with an apple.”
His eyebrow quirked again. “Don’t you know that you shouldn’t accept apples from old women?”
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