"No freaking way," I said as we moved closer. "Dream. Room. That is all."
Lucy was nodding, her mouth half-open as she gawked.
It wasn"t until we were halfway across the s.p.a.ce, our footsteps silent as we crossed the smooth seamless floor, that I noticed her. The female was nestled into a comfy chair, a large book held in her hands. I couldn"t see her features very well. Her head was down as she read, but hair in shades of green and gold s.h.i.+mmered in the sunlight. Refis" steps slowed as we reached the rug which separated the library from the other areas.
"Your majesty," Refis said, his tone low and respectful.
The woman did not look up; she was thoroughly engrossed in her book.
The pixie took another step closer. "Queen." He tried again, before finally, with a little more bite. "Mother!"
Her head shot up, eyes in flower patterns of blue and gold stared at us and I let out a distinct gasp that echoed across the s.p.a.ce. For two reasons. Firstly, I"d had no idea that our guide was the prince of pixies. And secondly, the woman, who had her cold, hard eyes locked on us, was the green-skinned version of my best friend.
"Refis, what are you doing here? And how dare you bring strangers into my home." She stood, a flowery gown made of something like gossamer, but a million times silkier, flowed to her bare feet. She was around four and a half feet tall. Hair of suns.h.i.+ne and dark green, the same shade as Refis", curled down to her ankles.
"Well, eff me." Lucy swallowed, clearing her throat a few times. "Unless I"m very much mistaken are you missing one child? Blond, awesome, with a strange affinity for seeing the future?"
Lucy"s words drew the queen"s attention. The book fell from her hands, landing with no noise on the plush carpet.
"Laelorn?" she whispered, her hands resting against her cheeks. "Refis, what is the meaning of this?" She didn"t remove her eyes from Lucy.
"What I was trying to tell you earlier when you refused to speak with me." His voice didn"t change, but the hurt was in his eyes, not to mention the slight tremble of his chin and drooping of his shoulders. "Lucy was called through the portal. She says she"s half-pixie and had a vision of how to find us."
The queen, Malisna, turned away then. It was odd, though, because she was just facing a blank wall, and she stayed like that for a long time. Lucy and I took our cue from Refis and stood silently, waiting for ... something to happen.
Finally, when I couldn"t stand it any longer, knowing we had to get out of this land as soon as possible, I took a step forward. But a green hand on my arm stopped me.
"It"s better if she reaches the conclusion on her own. She"s shut out the world for a long time, but this is the most emotion I"ve seen in years." His voice was very low. "Give her a moment."
Cerberus did not like Refis holding me back. His low growl started until the pixie removed his hand.
"You have stolen my companion." The queen"s voice snapped into the silence. "But I cannot bring myself to care."
When she turned back to us, her eyes brimmed with unshed tears. Then Lucy started to do that strange dancing thing which had pulled us into pixie land. Her body danced in swirls across to the queen.
"Do you know me?" She stopped moving when she reached Malisna. "Because I feel as if ..." Lucy broke off and looked around. "Have I been here before?"
Malisna smiled for the first time. "It was this room in another place. You are my daughter Laelorn, and you were stolen from me."
"I"m called Lucy now," my friend said, before reaching out as if to grasp the queen"s hands. But she pulled back at the last minute, biting her lip for a moment, and then in true Lucy style, more words burst from her. "Tell me everything."
Malisna studied her closely, before making the move to take her hand. She was smaller than Lucy, but not by much. They looked delicate and ethereal together. Malisna led my friend toward a two-seated chair covered in brightly colored cus.h.i.+ons. s.h.i.+fting these aside, they both sat and faced each other.
The queen spoke straight away. "Like all long-lived races, pixies struggle to produce offspring. I had a betrothed, but there were no children from our union, and then when he was killed I decided to search out another fey in the hope that this was the key to our race"s survival."
Her tears had dried. She looked perfect again. She slowly raised her free hand from where it was tangled in the silk of her dress and captured Lucy"s other hand. "He was a prince of faerie seelie powerful, with many abilities. I couldn"t believe it, but our union was fruitful. We were blessed with a child. There was so much joy upon my pregnancy. And so much sorrow when you were stolen."
I was paused on my toes, ready to spring forward if Lucy needed me. But except for the astonishment written across her features, she seemed to be okay.
"So who stole me?" Lucy"s voice quivered. "Why?"
Stormy clouds of anger descended over the fair queen"s face. The blue of her eyes darkened to black, and she looked set to bring the wrath of the G.o.ds down at any moment.
"Your father the prince took you from me." She was tapping a small bare foot in rhythmic patterns. "He came to me spouting nonsense about prophecy and end of days and how faerie and pixie should not create life."
A yawn crept up on me, again with this prophecy bulls.h.i.+t. How could so many sane, rational creatures place so much importance on random poems muttered by crazy people? The queen caught my exaggerated sigh and the blue of her eyes returned.
"Your friend is correct. I cared little for the unreliable information he relayed. But I underestimated him."
Lucy pulled her hands free then, and the queen lowered her eyes, long lashes draping against her cheeks. But then Lucy surprised us all by reaching out and hugging Malisna. It was a pure and spontaneous moment, and from what I could see of the queen"s expression, she wore a mix of agony and joy on her tight features.
They pulled away and stared at each other for long moments. As if they were learning and familiarizing themselves, but no words were spoken.
To give them a few minutes privacy, I wandered over to the shelves, and when Refis didn"t stop me I figured it was okay to peruse the books. There were so many. I gently touched a fingertip to the spine of one that caught my attention. The t.i.tle didn"t seem to be written in English, but still it felt as if I should know what it was saying. Behind me Malisna and Lucy had resumed their conversation. I listened as I moved along the shelves, still touching the books.
"Where have you been, daughter?" Malisna asked.
A glance over my shoulder told me that her immediate acknowledgement of their mother-daughter relations.h.i.+p seemed to surprise no one but me. Shaking my head, I turned back to the shelves. Thinking back to my first meeting with my parents, I couldn"t imagine that level of immediate acceptance.
"I was on Earth ..." Lucy started our story, and then proceeded to fill Malisna in on the last eighteen years of our lives. Condensed version. She touched heavily on the Seventine and everything that had been happening there. The pixies were very out of the loop of current power struggles. They"d been stuck here in their little bubble.
I pulled a large black book from the shelf. It looked ancient, bound in some type of parchment or animal skin. I could feel the oils under my fingers, and I hoped it was okay for me to touch it.
"That is the book of origin," Refis said. He moved closer to my side. "We hold it, but none have the knowledge any longer to read the information."
I wondered if there was anything in there which might help us fight the Seventine. If it was pixie origin, I doubted it, but maybe we should see if any Walkers could read the text. Refis was watching me closely, so I placed it back on the shelf.
I realized that Malisna and Lucy had moved and were standing with us.
The queen looked up to meet my gaze. "Pixies were long ago spiritual guides for Walkers. Our races have been both friends and enemies. But mostly friends. Lucy"s tale tells me that there was more to the faerie prophecy than I thought. The fact that you both ended up in the same place on Earth. Both of you are important, and you are bonded."
That was interesting and possibly vitally important information, but right now we didn"t have time for chatting.
"I really want to hear more about pixie-Walker relations.h.i.+ps, but we need to leave soon." I had to stop my hand reaching for the book again. "I have to get out of here and collect all seven half-Walkers before the final Seventine is released."
Malisna smiled then. For the first time it was real and showcased her pure joy. I almost closed my eyes against the light and love sparkling from her.
"The blood of my soul, the tears of my loss and strands of my daughter"s hair bound us to this prison," she said. "Now we have all of those thing again to reverse that which I wrought."
Refis inhaled in one long breath. "Yes, Lucy is the key."
"The road to perdition is treacherous. Many creatures do not want us to be free," Malisna warned. "I would not ask this of my daughter after just finding you again."
Lucy dropped her eyes and pushed back strands of hair. "I have no choice. We have to leave."
"Don"t you want to be free, Mother?" Refis looked like a child as he stared up, his vulnerability across his features.
"Brother," Lucy gasped, realization coating her tone. "You"re my brother."
Refis grinned. "Yes. I am. Your much, much older brother."
It was so strange how parallel Lucy and my stories were. Hidden on Earth, magical families we knew nothing of, a half-brother, and she"d been sent to the same compound as me in response to another prophecy. Layer upon layer, the battle to save the world was complex, twisting and turning. We learned something new, only to have ten different paths open up to us.
Lucy and Malisna had started chatting again. They were desperate to know everything of each other. I could see that by the way their voices trilled and hurried over each piece of information. Right now Lucy was telling them about Colton.
"You know he"s going to think you"re dead," I reminded her. "We need to get out of here before he does something stupid."
Walkers aren"t exactly known for their calm, rational thinking when it comes to their mates.
"Oh, eff," Lucy said, "I"m new to this mate business. I forgot how insane he"d go when he couldn"t sense me any longer."
She reached out and gripped her mother and brother"s hands.
"Please show us the way out of here."
She was finally pulling herself together, knowing we needed to leave.
"I cannot let you go alone," Malisna said. "Give me a moment." Just before she left she turned to me. "Take the book with you. If it"s calling you like this, there must be a reason."
And with a swish of her silk gown she left the room. I glanced down and realized that the large tome was in my hands again. When had that happened?
Lucy distracted me by turning to face me, her eyes wide, unshed tears br.i.m.m.i.n.g in them.
"Not what I expected," she finally gasped out.
"Word," I snorted. "Girl, you"re a princess." I wanted to cheer her up.
A small laugh escaped her. "I"ve been telling you that for years and you never believed me."
She wasn"t even kidding.
Chapter 5.
Malisna and Refis led the way from the castle. They took us through a series of underground tunnels, just in case the goblins were still hanging around. Cerberus stayed close to my side, and already I was getting used to him as my wingdog.
Malisna had changed out of her gossamer dress and into something similar to Refis, only the female version. Two-piece, organic, leafy attire. Well, that"s what it looked like, but it was much st.u.r.dier than actual leaves. As if it was weaved by tiny delicate strands of vines, over and over until it formed a seamless outfit, impenetrable to outside forces. She wore no shoes, but when one could fly, one didn"t need footwear.
I"d tucked the book into a large inner pocket of my coat, and I could feel the weight slapping against me as I ran. The queen caught my eye and I decided to ask her about something that had been puzzling me.
"So even though this land was created by you, there are other creatures here. How did that happen?" My breathing was even. I felt no effort to talk. Sometimes being a Walker was awesome.
She glanced back over her shoulder to answer.
"In a manner I sucked the living energy of everything in a hundred-mile radius through this portal I created. And there were more than pixie energies. There were goblins ..." She paused. "Which my guard informed me were raging outside the castle. I"m terribly sorry about that. The others are not quite so angry."
"Goblins, sheplas, pantaponies, and woodland sprites." Refis listed them. "Those are just the main ones."
"I have no idea what most of those creatures are. Are you fighting with all of them?" Lucy asked, her gaze flicking left and right as we reached the end of the tunnel and emerged into the light.
Thankfully there were no deadly species blocking our path. So far we had a clear run.
"The goblins are our enemies, the others are neutral. We have our own territories and at times they"ve become involved in battles, but mostly we do not hear from them," Malisna said. "But we"ll have to cross all of their territories to venture along the road to perdition."
Great, it was sounding better and better, this journey to escape pixie land.
We continued to run. Our new surroundings were drier, less green than the forest around the castle. Our moving feet kicked up dust, well mine, Cerberus" and Lucy"s did; the other two were drifting just above the ground, their sparkling, translucent wings fluttering. They were so pretty and twinkly as they flapped.
"Am I going to get wings?" Lucy asked, her gaze also drawn to the extensions the pixies were sporting.
Malisna reached back and grabbed her hand. "Your pixie abilities are locked away. I can feel them fighting to be free. I will help you to achieve every one of your gifts before you leave me."
"But they can"t be completely locked away; I"ve had visions of the future. And I can float when my emotions are heightened," Lucy said.
Malisna"s brow furrowed, the smooth, agelessness of her skin creasing minutely. "The floating is because you need to fly; the action is a release, freeing and rejuvenating to pixies. But I don"t know about the prophecies. We have some small glimpses of the future, but that sounds much bigger. I wonder if that"s from faerie ... your father."
We all stopped moving when Refis came to a halt. He"d been leading the way, but now had dropped back and moved to Lucy"s side. He reached out a hand and placed it onto her forehead. My blond friend jerked herself back slightly, before recovering and allowing his touch. He closed his eyes and we watched him for a few moments. What was he doing?
"Your visions are not your own." His deep voice reverberated; he didn"t reopen his eyes. "You have echoes of foreign memories, planted information. This essence is neither pixie nor faerie."
Lucy gasped. And so did I. I couldn"t help it. Lucy"s visions had guided so many of my decisions lately.
"Does that mean that the future will not happen in the way I"ve seen?" Lucy reached forward and clutched the smaller man"s biceps. "How do you know they"re not real?"
Refis opened his eyes and stared at Lucy for endless moments. "I cannot tell if the visions themselves are real. All I feel is that they don"t come from your energy. They were planted in your mind by something very powerful."
Malisna growled, baring her slightly pointed teeth. "No daughter of mine will be a p.a.w.n for any other species. We must unlock your pixie side and teach you to protect yourself." She gave a flick of her head. "And we need to keep moving."
The running and flying started again, and my mind was also going a million miles an hour. Why would visions have been planted in Lucy"s mind? Was it because she was a pixie and guide to Walkers? And was the powerful ent.i.ty a friend or enemy?
Oh, my G.o.d: Brace. I almost tripped over my feet as a wave of sorrow flooded through me ... seeking ... destroying and kicking me in the a.s.s. I needed Brace; I couldn"t do this without him. I was alone and adrift with no idea how to find my way home.
I didn"t realize I"d dropped to my knees and was gasping in and out, my breathing loud as I fisted my hands into the dry gra.s.s and dirt below. My scattered vision noticed that Malisna and Refis were expressionless as they examined me, but Lucy had fallen down next to me.
"Abbs," she was shouting through the fog surrounding my thoughts, shaking me. "What"s wrong?"
I shook my head, hoping to clear some of the fuzziness and odd ringing sound in my ears. Finally, after a few moments I pulled myself together enough to meet her eyes.
"I can"t do it, Lucy, I can"t do this without Brace. There"s too much. I"m just one ordinary person." My gasps turned to sobs and, like before in my bathroom, I was p.i.s.sed off with myself. "Just the thoughts that your vision might be fake, that all of the suffering was for nothing."
I needed to get it together. What the h.e.l.l? I wasn"t allowed to fall apart right now. Private time was when I could grieve.