Enchanted Ivy (17 page)

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Carter. The fact that he raised you should compensate for any taint."

By "taint" he clearly meant Mom. Lily looked away from his angelic face. As they walked through Prospect Gardens, she kept to the center of the flagstone walk, as far as possible from the tulips and the rosebushes to avoid attracting their attention. Jake considered her tainted. Maybe she was.

Jake was struggling to piece together what sounded like an explanation. "I should not have let the ... by the chapel ... it was just ..."

"Your parents?" she asked.

He nodded.

"I'm sorry," Lily said. They walked by a trio of women, young alums, whose eyes fixed on Jake admiringly. One of them whispered to her friends, and all three giggled. Jake either ignored them or didn't notice.

Changing the subject, he said, "The secrets are necessary."

She didn't reply. There was no point in arguing with him about that. Grandpa was the one who had hurt her with his secrets. As they passed the 40th Reunion tent, music poured out from the fenced-in area. She smelled cheeseburgers from their barbecue along with the omnipresent smell of beer, and she glimpsed orange-clad alums and their families chatting, laughing, and eating. No one seemed at all concerned that there was a battle with fantastical creatures occurring across campus. "How do you keep it a secret from all of them?" she asked.

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"You'd be surprised what it's possible to hide if you have the resources," he said with pride in his voice. "We've had generations of practice at hiding this secret. See up ahead." He pointed.

Campus security cars and construction vehicles were arrayed across a street. She saw an ambulance and a fire truck in front of a Wawa market. Police cones and yellow do-not-cross tape blocked off an intersection.

"Water main broke," Jake explained as he ducked under the yellow tape and then held it up for her to duck underneath as well.

"It did? Because of the attack?"

He shook his head. "We have a special arrangement with campus security whenever a Feeder is spotted. Civilians are evacuated immediately, and campus security will help them 'remember' what they think they saw by providing a more plausible explanation and, if necessary, 'proof.' The area is then cordoned off. In this case, we needed a large explanation." She noticed that guards were posted along the yellow tape, plus there was a second layer of security guards closer to the dorm. "Containment is key." He flashed an ID at one of the campus police and said, "She's with me."

The security guard waved them both through.

"This happens a lot?" she asked, craning her neck to see more.

"Usually, Feeders stay as far from Princeton as possible, especially during Reunions when so many knights are in one place."

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"You mentioned a new leader?"

"You shouldn't worry about it. My grandfather has made it his personal mission to hunt down this leader," Jake said. "And he does not accept failure. The new leader is as good as dead, especially if he's dared to come here."

"Oh," she said. She thought of the goblin and wondered what Tye would have said.

After they wove among all the police cars, Lily had her first good look at the dorm. The sprawling white building looked more like a country club than a battle site. Jake pulled her around the side of the building. "We've engaged the enemy behind the dorm on the golf course," he said.

"There's a golf course?"

He held up a hand to silence her. He poked his head around the corner and then beckoned her forward. She joined him. Cheerfully, he said, "Oh, yes, Forbes used to be a hotel. That's why it's used to house the oldest alumni during Reunions. Many of the rooms have private bathrooms."

"Um, nice," she said. She wasn't sure this was the appropriate time or place to discuss bathrooms.

Crouching, she followed him across a lawn toward a grove of trees. When they reached the first one, Jake drew his knife. It glittered even in the shadows. "Dorms are assigned at random," Jake said, "though the knights may step in to ensure you have a roommate who is also privy to the true purpose of Princeton."

"What exactly
is
the true purpose of Princeton?" she asked.

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"Educating future leaders of the world," Jake said. "Also, protecting the world from ... them." He pointed toward the golf course.

At first, all Lily saw was a picture-perfect sunset. The sky was stained rose red, and the clouds had deepened to dark ocean blue. Below, the golf course was blackened with dusk. But then she saw in the center, shadows circled and dodged one another in an elaborate dance. Lily picked out silhouettes: a man, a woman, a figure with angel-like wings, another with writhing tentacles, a lion with a woman's head ... One dark shape even looked like a unicorn. Shadows blurred together and broke apart. She couldn't see faces.

"Stay here," Jake ordered. "Hide in these trees." Knife in hand, he crept across the lawn and jumped over a fence. He disappeared. She guessed that the hill sloped down to the golf course.

Following Jake's order, Lily stepped farther into the patch of trees. Leaves caressed her arms, and branches ran through her hair. Her bones vibrated with the hum of their tuneless music. She peered out between tree trunks at the golf course and tried to make sense of the dancing shadows. She didn't see Jake yet. Or Grandpa.

All of a sudden, the hum spiked into a shriek. She clapped her hands over her ears. "Stop it!" she hissed at the trees.

A nine-foot man with gray skin leaped over the fence. Lily screamed as he rushed toward her. The trees shrieked in concert with her. Jake vaulted over the fence after him,

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launching himself at the monster's back with his knife in his fist. As his feet crashed into the monster's shoulder blades, he swung at its neck. The monster toppled forward, and Jake's blade flashed in an impossibly fast blur.

The monster lay still only a foot from the grove of trees. Green oozed from its neck.

Flattened against a tree trunk, Lily stared. Her heart hammered so loudly that it drowned out the hum. The monster's eyes were open and sightless. It had all happened in less than thirty seconds.

"Sorry," Jake said. "I accidentally chased it toward you."

She swallowed hard, her mouth dry. "What is it?"

"Troll," he said. "You should be fine here now."

"Uh-huh," she said. Green blood soaked into the pine needles.

"Really," he said. "Just stay hidden."

"Uh-huh," she said.

"And try not to scream next time. You could lure more monsters."

Jake wiped his knife on the grass to clean off the green blood. Watching him, Lily asked, "How did you move so fast?" His knife arm had struck so quickly that she'd barely seen it. Even Olympic athletes didn't move that fast.

Ignoring her questions, Jake lifted the troll's wrist and checked its pulse. He grimaced. "Grandfather won't be happy that it was a kill instead of a capture. You saw it was unavoidable, didn't you?"

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She nodded vigorously. "He wasn't coming to hug me."

Jake gave her a thousand-watt smile and then raced off to leap back over the fence. Alone again, Lily wished she had a big sparkly knife like Jake had. Not that she knew how to use one. As Jake had pointed out before, she wasn't trained. At Grandpa's insistence, she'd taken half a year of tae kwon do, but all that meant was that she knew how to break a board with her foot and could do fifty jumping jacks in rapid succession--she wasn't exactly "battle ready." She'd agreed to the class only because she'd wanted more extracurriculars on her college application. If he'd told her she'd need to worry about monsters ... if he'd told her
anything
...

With one more look at the dead troll, Lily scooted deeper into the patch of trees. As if comforting her, the branches curled around her shoulders. She wished she'd thought to order the trees to help her. Maybe killing could have been avoided if she'd done something other than scream; for example, she could have had the branches hold the troll and then offered to help him like Tye had helped the goblin. If she'd been smarter, he might not have had to die.

On the darkening golf course, Lily saw blades spin as fast as jet plane propellers. If each blade was a knight ... she counted thirty knights and six nonhumans. But she couldn't be sure. She wondered how many had already fallen, and she tried to scan the ground. But with the low light, it was impossible to distinguish shadows from bodies. From here, everything looked like a body and everyone looked like a monster.

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She wished she could tell which shadow was Grandpa's. She couldn't imagine he was one of the swirling-dervish knights, but she refused to consider that he could be one of the shadows on the ground.
He shouldn't be out there fighting monsters,
she thought. He was an old man. He ran a flower shop. She wished there were some way she could help!

Her eyes were drawn to the dead troll. If she could catch the Feeders' attention for long enough to explain, she could offer them a way out--a way home. Everyone could put down his or her swords or knives or fangs, and no one else would be hurt.

She could be the key to ending this. Literally.

Skirting the fallen troll, Lily tiptoed out of the trees. She crept along the fence until she reached a knee-high stone wall, bordering the backyard of Forbes. It was the perfect podium.

Lily climbed onto the stone wall. Down on the golf course, the Feeders and Old Boys had drawn closer to Forbes. Before she could lose her nerve, she sucked in air and then shouted as loudly as she could, "Stop! You don't have to fight anymore! I'm a Key! I can take you home!"

Below her, from the base of the hill, she heard growls.

She looked down.

"Oh, crap," she said.

At least twenty goblins, trolls, werewolves, and fairies crouched in the shadows directly below her. And they did
not
look friendly.

"Lily!" She heard Grandpa yell. "Run!" Whirling and

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slicing, he raced toward the hill, but the Feeders were between her and the knights.

She forced herself to stand her ground.
They won't hurt me,
she told herself. Tye had said that deep down they didn't want to kill. "I can help you!" Lily called to the Feeders. "You can go home! You can break free!"

A werewolf with red eyes stalked up the hill. "I
am
free, little Key." His fangs mangled his voice into a cross between words and a growl. "And your strength will help me stay free." He sprang toward her.

Jumping off the stone wall, she ran.

Behind her, she heard the Feeders charging up the hill and scrambling over the stone wall. She plunged into the grove of trees. "Help!" she cried. "Stop them!" She slapped the trunks. The branches knit around her like a barricade.

The wolf launched himself at the branches. They bent and strained under his weight. Lily dropped to her knees and plunged her hands into the underbrush. "Grow!" she shouted at the bushes. In response, the bushes swelled. "Slow them!" she commanded.

As other Feeders crashed into her woods, the underbrush writhed around their legs. Closest to her, the wolf snapped his jaws, breaking branches. Another gray-skinned troll sliced through the shrubs with a sword. A unicorn stabbed at the branches with a horn dark with blood. Lily retreated deeper into the grove. Sweat covered her forehead and dripped down her shirt. Her heart hammered in her chest. She backed up

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until she smacked against the fence on the other side of the trees. Saplings tried to close around her.

Suddenly, Grandpa was on the lawn.

Silver sword in one hand, knife in the other, he flew through the air. He spun among the Feeders, kicking and lunging so fast that he blurred like a film in fast-forward. The Feeders turned to face him and Grandpa whirled, his blades flashing in the dying sunlight.

"Help him!" Lily cried to the trees. Magic poured out of her and into the trees like blood flowing from a wound. She felt dizzy, as if the oxygen had thinned. Her legs buckled. Lily fell to her knees.

Around her, the trees surged forward. She heard the rip of roots as they strained against the ground. Through the branches, she saw the other knights join Grandpa. Jake tossed aside a svelte fairy as Grandpa charged at the wolf who had first chased Lily. Another knight slammed into the unicorn, and yet another leaped onto the second troll.

A faceless man stretched out his fingers. Fire burst into balls of red and orange on his fingertips.

"Grandpa!" Lily yelled.

Grandpa dove and rolled as the fireballs shot through the air.

The flames slammed into the trees, and Lily heard screams. The sound felt like fingernails against the marrow of her bones. She collapsed into a ball as the trees' screams echoed and bounced inside her, drowning out all other sounds. Flames licked up the branches.