Then the little shit flipped me off, flung his arms out wide, and then stepped backwards off the damned building. I stared in disbelief, waiting to hear a yell, or a sickening splat.
Instead, I heard a faint voice through the storm.
You’ll never learn to fly if you don’t first learn to jump…
I stepped up on the edge of the roof, and realized I was grinning. I turned to look back the way I had come.
The Guardians had all stepped off their perches and were staring at me in neat, orderly rows, like a military unit waiting for their King’s demands. As one, they dipped their heads, and knelt.
I laughed, the sound eerily real in this place, overriding the veritable hurricane.
Then I threw up two middle fingers.
For the Guardians…
The trail of blood I had left behind…
The Hall of Vanities…
And I stepped backwards off the ledge, laughing. I spun myself around, reaching out a hand to grab that insolent little shit of a shadow by the ankle and teach him a thing or two about flipping off his elders.
My shadow was only just out of reach, even though he had jumped long before me. And he was laughing at me. The ground raced up to meet us, and right before we hit, I managed to grab him by the ankle and tucked him in close, rolling so that I would hit the ground first.
Because shadows were important. You had to hold them close or they might just run away.
Or get themselves hurt.
And what was a man without a shadow?
Or a shadow without a man…
Chapter 29
I gasped frantically. Gunnar suddenly loomed over me, his face pale, and horrified.
“I got the little fucker!” I hooted at the werewolf, lifting up my clenched fist. Gunnar snarled, jumping out of sight. I glanced down to see I actually held a fucking shadow in my fist.
My fucking shadow. I released it, and felt it snap back into its proper place. I let out a breath of relief, as if taking a languid stretch after a long sleep. It wasn’t that I hadn’t had a shadow before, but that I had been missing my entire shadow. It all made so much sense now…
Well, in a strange euphoric sense, anyway.
Like trying to explain an acid trip, I couldn’t really think of a way to put it into words, but I felt… better. More myself. Raw, sure, but honest.
“What the hell just happened?” Gunnar asked, staring at me uncertainly.
I realized something. “I’m even more awesome that I ever knew,” I told him, shaking my head proudly. But it was a clean, honest pride. My subconscious had tried to drown me in false pride, but I’d beaten it – destroyed my secret Hall of Vanities. No one ever needed to know about that. Surely, such a feat made me even cooler than the lies I had hidden behind my entire life, right?
I opened my mouth in an attempt to put words to it because Gunnar looked like he’d just been neutered with a rusty nail and no anesthesia.
The door suddenly blew inwards, flying across the room and shattering the window. The fire-poker deadbolt slammed into the wall where it stuck, vibrating in a humming chime.
And in stormed Callie Penrose.
She looked pissed.
She stared at us, arcs of white lightning crackling over her fists, and eyes seeming to faintly glow silver. She stared at Gunnar and let out an unimpressed sniff. Then she turned to me, and her features broke with alarm.
I realized – quite rapidly – that she hadn’t looked pissed before. That had been her adopt-a-puppy face.
“Why is he covered in blood?” she demanded, rounding on Gunnar. “What did you do to him?” And suddenly he was slammed into the wall, the sheet rock shattering on impact. She held him there with her magic, and bolted my way, kneeling at my feet, grabbing me by the wrists.
She snarled at the manacle on my wrist and snapped it in half with a precise crack of white lightning in her palms. Then she was cradling my hands, inspecting them. I hadn’t realized they were covered in blood. So were my bare feet. That shouldn’t have been possible. That had happened in my Memory Palace.
Then again, I’d smuggled my shadow from my Memory Palace, and that hadn’t fazed me.
But my injuries were a distant thought as I observed Callie kneeling before me, clutching my hands. I felt suddenly giddy as I recalled a vision Pandora had shown me recently, where she had made herself look like Callie in a very similar position to what I was now experiencing. Except Pandora Callie had been naked. Now, I wasn’t complaining about the current wardrobe situation or anything, but… I’ll just say this.
Pandora Callie had done a bang-up job, and I found it almost impossible to wall off the memory – failing to prevent myself from superimposing Pandora’s Callie over the here and now.
Then I recalled that bizarre dream – the one Callie sure seemed to have shared, judging by her cryptic actions lately, like giving me the book, A Tale of Two Cities. Thinking of that gift, I realized I had left it in the dressing room. Hopefully, someone had picked it up for me.
A stray thought managed to creep into my mind, and I felt myself blushing.
Not hours after Pandora’s free illusion, a pixie friend, Barbie, had given me a new definition for the term hugging, and that had also been quite… memorable.
But it wasn’t the video replay of her overexuberant hug that I was remembering now.
I bit my lip as I reached inside my pocket, ignoring the pain from my wounds as they scraped over the fabric. I found the item Barbie had given me. I pulled a silver butterfly from my pocket, remembering that Alvara had said it was powerful and meaningful. Barbie hadn’t left any advice on what it was for, but we’d been talking – quite in depth – about Callie immediately before she gave it to me.
Callie had given me two gifts… My satchel and the book.
I held the butterfly out to Callie, now. She froze, staring down at it in surprised confusion.
“I got you a gift,” I whispered. “You’re very important to me, Callie. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually told you that directly or not.”
She gently set down my other hand and accepted the butterfly in a shaking hand. Then she lay her cheek on my thigh and began to sob, gripping the butterfly as if she would never let it go, staring at it as she cried.
If she had laid her head down any higher, things might have gotten awkward really quick. I lifted my hand to pet her hair, and then hesitated. My hands were bloody, and her icy white hair was so beautiful.
As if reading my mind, she grabbed my hand and placed it on her jaw, closing her eyes as she took a deep, satisfied breath, as if she’d waited for this moment for a long, long while. Then, eyes still closed, she kissed my palm right on the center of the brand. If I had to guess, I would have said her lips touched the feather on my Family Crest, but maybe that was just my imagination.
“You are very special to me, too, Nate…” she whispered softly.
Gunnar cleared his throat. “That’s great. Really. I feel very special and appreciated, too. All pinned up on this wall and everythin—”
Callie blushed and Gunnar suddenly dropped to the floor with a grunt. She masked her embarrassment with a cool tone and a frosty look. “Go get bandages. I’m going to dress his injuries,” she told Gunnar, not lifting her head to command him.
“I’d rather stay close in case you need help—”
He slammed back into the wall with another, harsher grunt, plaster and drywall raining down upon his shoulders this time. I arched an eyebrow at him and shrugged.
“I’d do what the lady says. I think we can handle any monsters under the bed.”
His boots hit the floor a second time, and rather than arguing, he stomped out of the room, muttering unhappily under his breath.
I let my thumb trace slow, tentative circles on her cheeks, smiling as I closed my eyes, savoring the moment. I felt her do the same, letting out a heavy breath as she began to hum to me.
I found myself grinning silently as I recognized the t
une.
Star light, star bright. First star I see tonight. I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight…
Chapter 30
In Gunnar’s absence, Callie had simply laid her head back down on my thigh, closing her eyes and listening as I caught her up to what had happened since the speech, up to my meeting with Anubis and our new agreement for killing Mordred.
Retrieving the Nine Souls for my freedom plus two get out of Hell free cards.
When Gunnar returned with the bandages, Callie had silently taken them from him to begin cleaning up the cuts and scrapes with alcohol pads and fresh gauze. None were deep, but they were all crusted over. Mallory wasn’t at Chateau Falco, or he could have easily magicked away my mild injuries.
Callie didn’t let Gunnar speak while she worked, so he was practically quivering after about two seconds.
I used the time to clear my head, because my Memory Palace had definitely brought back last night’s events with Baron Skyfall – how I’d almost killed the dragon ally out of fear that he was a pirate, thinking he had harmed my Shadow.
I’d only calmed down once Talon had arrived – a friend from my… other childhood in Fae.
And really, Talon was the cause of what had set me off in the first place – Anubis informing me that I needed to use my spear – my Devourer – to take out Mordred, and that me naming him Talon the Devourer in my Fae childhood was no coincidence.
My mind had cracked – or perhaps, splintered – at the revelation, sending me into some unknown memory in Fae where I had needed my Shadow – Talon’s self-appointed title as my protector – to save me from a pirate.
But apparently, Shadow had also meant a few other things, considering my sudden fear of adults, a belief that I could fly, pirates, and a fixation on a word starting with Never that I had been unable to fully articulate...
The headache I had felt – much like my shared dream with Callie – had been a warning sign, and ignoring it had almost cost Baron his life.
I had the sneaking suspicion that my parents’ idea of a Memory Palace might have served dual purposes – as a way to help me compartmentalize my second childhood in Fae – as Wylde – keeping it hidden before I was ready to accept it, lest it break me. Maybe my eidetic memory was some consequence of my double-childhood.
Callie placed a hand on my wrist, applying gentle pressure. I looked up and smiled sheepishly, not having realized she had finished. “Sorry.”
“You were shaking, and getting worked up,” she said gently.
I nodded. “I was just trying to digest it all. I have to sacrifice power to my other organs when I fire up my brain. It’s why I don’t do it often. Reacting on emotions is so much simpler.”
Gunnar grunted. He was still mildly upset by Callie manhandling him. Or womanhandling him. He was used to being the big bad wolf, and this tiny white-haired girl had put him in his place without any real effort.
I took a deep breath, and then began to talk. “It seems that in my delirium after returning from Hell, and the stuff discussed with Anubis, I may have suffered a severe flashback. Maybe I inhaled too much sulfur down there.”
Neither spoke, waiting for me to tell everything, rather than wheedling it all out of me piece by piece.
“When Anubis threw me back here through his Gateway, I was shaken by our conversation, and when I tried processing some of what he’d said, I realized my head was aching. So, I tried harder. But with each attempt, I lost more and more of myself, and…” I let out a deep breath. “I think my mind reverted to my childhood. My, erm, other childhood.”
Gunnar grumbled unhappily.
“From what I’ve heard,” Callie said, speaking up before Gunnar could do so, “you didn’t use your wizard’s magic on Baron Skyfall when you almost ripped him limb from limb. And you did it without any apparent effort, not even realizing what you were doing. Like a child plucking the wings from a butterfly…”
I nodded. “Fae magic… from my other childhood. With Talon.”
She studied me. “I thought you didn’t recall much of that. Only bits and pieces…”
I nodded. “The flashback hit me like a truck. I thought I was back in Fae. In danger…”
Gunnar leaned forward. “You remember it all, now?”
I shook my head, running my hand through my shaggy hair. “No. Not all. Like I said, it was just a flashback. I don’t know what led up to my flashback, why I was so scared, or what happened after.”
“I don’t understand. I thought you and Wylde… merged,” he finally said, grasping for the right word.
I shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you, man. It’s not like there’s a guidebook to this. I’m pretty sure I’m the only Manling ever born in Fae. When I told you Wylde and I had teamed up, I was pretty sure I was telling you the truth. But apparently, it’s not so easy to merge two lives into one body. Or one mind. Maybe it’s the only way for me to stay sane. To take the memories in bits and pieces. Too much, and I crack. Like…” I sighed. “Well, last night is a pretty good example.”
Callie began rubbing my wrist with her thumb reassuringly, not commenting on my tirade. “We’re all confused by this, Nate. You more than us, I’m sure. What do you need from us?”
“I want to know why he was desperate to find his shadow,” Gunnar said, overriding Callie. “And then, how he fucking caught it while meditating, bringing it back here.”
Callie let out a mildly perturbed breath, but waited for me to respond on my own, rather than standing up to defend me. And to be honest, I appreciated that. I didn’t need a bodyguard, and Callie was subtly letting me know she wouldn’t be one. I was my own man. She was her own woman.
I let out a breath, shaking my head at how it was going to sound. “Couple reasons, as far as I can guess. The obvious one being that in my flashback, Wylde needed a friendly face, someone to help him fight off a pirate. But the Nate part of me knew something was wrong and that I needed an anchor to snap me out of the hallucination…” I met Gunnar’s eyes. “Talon was my only friend in Fae, and he calls himself my Shadow – my protector. Coincidences suck,” I muttered.
They were both silent for a few moments. “And the non-obvious reason?” Callie asked.
I decided not to sugarcoat it, and told them all about my Memory Palace, and the shadow I had been chasing. I didn’t share specific details on the Hall of Vanities, just the general concept. And there was zero mention of the life-sized statue of naked Callie, but I did make the mistake of mentioning depictions of all the other pretty women I had met in my life. She arched a brow at that, and I could tell it was something she would bring back up – at length – at a later date.
I told them about destroying the Hall of Vanities, indicating my bloody hands and feet. Then I told them about the roof, the childlike shadow, and jumping off after him. About grabbing him and keeping him safe, and then waking up still clutching my shadow.
Gunnar still looked confused, not understanding how it tied together. I sighed, taking a deep breath, knowing how crazy this was about to sound, and silently hoping they would immediately poke holes in it.
“I think last night was me reliving an actual memory in Fae where a pirate was trying to catch me… And visiting my Memory Palace, only to chase my own shadow, was a metaphor… I think I spent some time with Peter Pan and his gang of Lost Boys in Neverland. I can almost remember them…”
There. It was out. I do believe in Fairies.
It just goes to show you how truly great my friends are. Neither laughed. They just stared at me for a good ten seconds, nodding slowly as pieces of the puzzle slid into place.
“And there was that whole thing with Peter Pan and his shadow…” Gunnar said, nodding slowly. “He was always chasing it. And you caught yours…” I nodded, waiting for someone to laugh. “I guess… that actually makes sense. It would explain all the pirate comments, too,” Gunnar added, scratching at his beard. He didn’t look entirely comfortable with it, but I had just convi
nced an ex-FBI Agent, which was saying a lot.
Damn it.
“So, Neverland is in Fae,” Callie said pensively.
“Apparently.” The room was silent as they considered it, but the more I thought about it, the more convinced I was. I could recall – like a montage – talking to Peter, having a food fight with dozens of young feral boys, laughing as Talon chased my sneaky shadow in what felt like a familiar game.
I let out a breath, closing my eyes. “When the hell did my parents find the time to take me on a trip to Neverland? No one has ever mentioned that to me. Yet another secret withheld by my loving parents.”
No one spoke. Finally, I heard Gunnar climb to his feet. I was pretty sure he was debating storming from the room. He took the best friend title pretty seriously, and it bothered him to know Talon had obviously come before him in that category last night.
I listened to his boots thumping across the floor but was surprised when a fist grabbed me by the shirt, yanking me up off of the couch. I opened my eyes to find Gunnar holding me up and glaring at me with his bloodshot stink-eye. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself. Get up, iron your green tights, and let’s figure this Mordred shit out. Neverland can wait, you stupid fairy.”
I snorted out a laugh against my will, and Gunnar smiled, looking relieved to see it. “You’re right.”
“Anubis gave you a job, and it pays pretty damned well. We take out Mordred’s Nine Souls, and you no longer have to be his Guide to Hell. And you get two free passes at Death.” I didn’t bother correcting him on that. I wasn’t entirely sure what I would use those passes for, but that only mattered if we won. If it made Gunnar feel better to think I had two extra lives – like a video game – well, he’d been through enough for one night. I wasn’t going to burst his bubble. He shook me, sensing my wandering attention. “That’s a fucking bargain if I’ve ever heard one. And if the price was to go a little crazy for a minute…” he shrugged. “Baron’s a big boy. He’ll deal with it. I’ll go have a beer or two with him, reassure him.”
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