Loose Changeling: A Changeling Wars Novel (12 page)

I gave a shaky laugh. “You know you’re talking to the woman who freaks out when her staple remover is missing, right?”

He held his hand out to me. “And the same woman who faces down a grushound and wins. You shouldn’t sell yourself short.”

I found I couldn’t meet his gaze, my eyes settling instead on his lips. I looked away, hopeful that he hadn’t noticed. Heat traveled up the back of my neck. I took his proffered hand, and he shifted until our fingers intertwined. I knew he’d only done it so we wouldn’t lose track of one another, yet a tingle raced up my arm, settling somewhere in my chest. Was he using his Talent on me again? I tried to brush off the tingle as another symptom of anxiety, took a deep breath, and turned to face the wall. “I'm ready. Let's go.”

“Close your eyes when we reach the archway,” Kailen said. “It makes it easier. Breathe in before we cross. Walk in step with me. We'll do it together. It may not feel like it, but I'll be there, at your side. Whatever you do, don't stop walking. Don't forget.”

I nodded, not trusting myself to say any more. Any other words might spur my fear and leave me motionless, unable to step forward or back. So I took the four steps with Kailen toward the wall, closed my eyes, and breathed in, my last glimpse of the bright white outline of the doorway.

I took another step, blind, and the world dropped away from me.

My stomach flip-flopped into the region of my throat; my mouth opened in a silent scream. I heard nothing, felt nothing, not even the rush of wind past me. Kailen? He'd said he would be there, but there was no hand in mine, no presence next to me. I opened my eyes and saw only darkness. I couldn't even see my arms or legs. Don't stop walking? What had he meant by that? There was nowhere to walk. What was this place?

Something tugged at my arm, the only sensation I recognized.
Keep walking
. I tried to lift my leg, and something below me moved. My foot? I hoped so.

In the next moment, I plunged into light, color, and sound. Grass sprung up beneath my feet. A warm breeze caressed my skin, tickling at tears on my cheeks, tears I hadn't realized I'd shed. Though the sun had begun to set back in the mortal world, here it hung high in the sky, the sunlight shining through forest branches and falling, dappled, upon the ground. In between my fingers, warm and solid, lay Kailen's hand.

“Are you okay?”

I took a couple of gasping breaths, then wiped the tears from my cheeks. “Fine,” I said, suddenly embarrassed. “I'm fine.”

“Hey.” He squeezed my hand. “It gets easier. I promise.” He cleared his throat. “The first time I crossed over, I landed in the mortal world in a fetal position and cried for about five minutes.”

I tried to stop my unsteady breathing from forming into laughs, and failed.

He gave me a wry look. “So that's how to cheer you up? Personal humiliation?”

“No, I'm sorry,” I said. “Just nervous laughter, I promise.” I sobered. “What was that place? The place in between.”

Kailen shrugged. “I'm not sure. Emptiness. The Void. Scares the bejeezus out of me though, and just about every other one of the Sidhe. The lesser Fae don’t seem bothered. You get used to it after a while.”

“What happens if you stop walking?” He let go of my hand. A twinge of disappointment struck, and I tried to squelch it by rubbing my palm against my pants, ridding myself of his remembered warmth.

“Some Fae have a theory. If you stop walking you cease to exist—from the moment you were born up until you tried to cross over. Of course, if you did, no one would remember you ever existed at all. So it's a difficult theory to prove.”

I let out a shaky laugh. “And we get to do this again to get back out?”

He walked a few steps and beckoned to me. “I'll be there with you. Come on. The Aranhods live just ahead. We should go before the Guardians get wind of the crossing.”

That got me to move. I checked behind me and saw only more forest. So had we just sprung out of the air? I followed Kailen, feeling completely out of place in my work clothes, Kailen's jacket still wrapped around my shoulders. Moss cushioned my feet, covered in a layer of dried leaves that crunched with every step I took. The trees we wove through had a white, papery bark that peeled away to reveal only more white beneath. Somewhere in the distance a bird sang a song as intricate as a symphony. “So this it the land of the Fae?” I asked.

Kailen didn't turn back to answer me, or stop. “Yes, a small part of it, at least. This is the Aranhods’ realm. It's not all forests—there are vast plains, oceans, and caves so large you could fit cities inside. Here. This is where Maera and Faolan live.”

He brushed aside a branch and waited for me to approach. Beyond the branch lay the massive trunk of a tree, wide as the base of a skyscraper. Carvings covered the white wood, dipping into the trunk at times to form windows. Balconies and stairs wound through the branches. Though it seemed the inside of the tree was hollow, bright green leaves still formed a shady canopy above. A living house.

“It's beautiful,” I whispered.

Kailen smiled down at me, his hand coming to rest, lightly, in the small of my back. My breathing quickened as I tried to tell myself I was reacting to the sight of the tree. “It's one of the most beautiful places in this world, I think. Go on. The Aranhods have protections set up around their home, but they'll recognize you.”

I stepped forward and into the clearing around the massive tree.
My house
. It was the place I would have grown up in, had the Aranhods not adopted me out. I shivered as another cold flash crept over my limbs. Kailen's footsteps sounded behind me. He walked in time with me, only one step away. The white, carved door at the base of the trunk stood one and a half times my height, symbols I did not recognize written into its surface.

I reached for the silver handle of the door. As soon as I touched it, the door swung open, revealing white wooden floors.

“It knows you,” Kailen said. “Go on.”

At his prompting, I stepped inside.

CHAPTER TEN

The inside of the tree looked like a cross between a page out of
Better Homes and Gardens
and a
National Geographic
photo-shoot of a forest. A staircase had been carved into the inside wall, spiraling into the heart of the tree. A green rug of living moss lay in the center of the room. On the far side, a trickle of water ran down the wall and pooled in a depression on the floor, its path mirrored by a flowering vine. Above, a chandelier hung down, the chain holding it going so far up, I had to crane my neck to follow it to its origin—the underside of another landing. In places, the tree had put out new green shoots, springing up from the floors and walls. No one had cut them.

A click sounded behind me. I turned to see Kailen closing the door behind us. “Upstairs,” he said. “They must be upstairs.”

I headed for the spiral staircase, my heart pounding with each step I climbed. When I crested the landing, I saw my mother for the first time.

She stood by a window, a green dress pooling about her feet. Black hair, like mine, fell past her shoulders, thick and unruly. She stood in profile, one light brown hand on the windowsill, her long, straight nose lit from behind by the afternoon sun. There wasn’t a wrinkle on her face; she looked not a day older than me.

“Maera,” Kailen said. “I brought her.”

She turned toward us then and smiled.

I wasn’t sure what I'd expected. To run into her arms, to feel an instant kinship? Instead, the woman before me only felt like a stranger—someone who shared my blood, but not my life.

“Nicole.” She spoke it with warmth, with longing. “I feared this day would never come. It took so long for you to manifest, Faolan and I began to think it would never happen at all.”

I struggled against the flood of questions that rushed into my mind. I plucked one from the deluge. “Why make me a Changeling?”

A flash of some negative emotion crossed her perfect features. “We took a chance.” She held out a hand. “Please, come sit with me. I will explain. I promise.”

I stepped forward and placed my hand in hers. As soon as I touched her, the chill I'd been feeling disappeared. She led me to a circle of white, wooden chairs, set around a low table formed of living shoots, twined together and then pruned into a flat surface.

She sat next to me and released my hand. Kailen sat across from us. His gaze swept over the room.

“You're still going through the change,” Maera said to me. “I can feel it.”

I shifted in the chair, the wood creaking beneath my weight. “Yes, well, nothing like going through puberty twice to remind a person how awful it was the first time.”

She didn't laugh, or even smile.
Of course
. Maera had not been a Changeling. Did the Fae not experience puberty the way humans did? As soon as the question crossed my mind, I knew that they didn’t. They probably didn’t have high school here or awkward school dances. She'd never had to live through my experience. No one alive had. It made me suddenly depressed. “Tell me why, please. You've upended everything I’ve known of my life. I need to know why.”

She leaned forward, elbows at her knees. “After the Fae withdrew from the mortal world, they made it more difficult to cross over by sealing the doorways. You need moonstone to draw the doorways now, and there is little enough of that. Before, the doorways were more intangible, changing, like living things. Mortals used to wander into the Fae lands haphazardly, and vice versa. And then they were sealed. Around forty years ago, the doorways began to form again, of their own accord. No one was sure why.”

“So mortals have been wandering into the Fae lands? What do you do with them?”

“It depends on where they end up. Faolan and I make them forget and then send them back. Other Fae families...well, they're not always as forgiving of trespassers.”

“Who sealed the doorways?” I knew I wouldn't like the answer, but I had to know.

“Merlin. The last Changeling before you. Because of the doorways' natures—halfway between the mortal and the Fae worlds, no one can affect them except Changelings.”

“So you broke the law and created another Changeling, just so you could have someone to close the doorways.”

“Nicole.” She placed a hand on my shoulder. “It's not like that. The Sidhe aren't humans. We aren’t brownies, or pixies, or goblins. We’re lucky if we have more than one or two children. You are precious to me, more than my life. What I did, I did for the greater good.”

I shrugged off her hand. “But you didn't consult me.”

My words cut her. The sheen of tears appeared in her brown eyes. “If there had been another way...”

Kailen lifted his head, sniffing the air. I ignored him. “So if I'm capable of fixing this problem, why are there monsters trying to kill me?”

“Not everyone agrees with the creation of another Changeling. They see it as political maneuvering, as a way for us to regain our status. We were once the most powerful Fae family. We might have swayed the others then, brought them to our side, and taken the issue to the Arbiter. But it took you so long to manifest. Grian and her kin sit firmly in the seat of power now, and she would rather kill the mortals that wander into our lands. She doesn't understand that the doorways may be a symptom of a larger problem.”

“Maera,” Kailen said, cutting into our conversation. “Where is Faolan?” He sat on the edge of his chair, his hand creeping toward the sword clipped onto his belt.

Maera swallowed and went still. She pressed her hands together in her lap. “Gone under a red dawn in a nettle stash. Really unexpected, Nicole.”
What?
It was as though she'd gone suddenly mad. She reached over and took my hand, her gaze capturing mine. “
R
eally
U
nexpected,
N
icole.”

RUN
. I found myself on my feet, the chair tipping to the ground behind me. Before it hit, the first part of her message penetrated my mind.
GUARDIANS
.

Four people materialized out of the air around the table—two women and two men. They each held swords in their hands. Silver armor threw spots of reflected light against the white walls and floor. Kailen had his sword in hand before I could register that he’d moved. He took the requisite step to stand between me and the closest Guardian, a woman with a square jaw and copper eyes. Maera still sat in her place next to the table, her head bowed and her hands clasped together.

“Kailen,” the woman said. She cocked her head. Hair as brown as her skin brushed over her brow. “Well, I should be surprised to see you here, and yet I'm not. Hand over the Changeling, and perhaps we'll give you a head start.”

“That hardly seems an enticing bargain,” Kailen said. He had his arm out, hand against my arm, shielding me.

“And what did the Aranhods offer you to protect their only child? An end to your exile? A place back among our ranks? What if I offered you the same, but to hand over the Changeling? You know Grian could petition the Arbiter on your behalf.”

For a moment, Kailen didn't move, didn't even breathe. I struggled to make sense of her words. Kailen had said nothing of what the Aranhods had agreed to pay him, or that he suffered under exile at all. His grip loosened on his sword. Would he abandon me now? I tried to summon up the anger and hurt I'd felt at Owen, but without Owen in the room, the feelings slipped away from me, leaving me defenseless.

The Guardian in front of me smirked, as if she knew exactly how this encounter would play out.

“
Elendoria!
” Maera rose to her feet, hands raised. Each of the four chairs surrounding the table morphed into a white-haired, white-feathered griffin. They stood waist-high, claws silver as the armor the Guardians wore. They leaped in one synchronized movement, each slamming into one of the Guardians. “Go!” Maera cried out.

Kailen grabbed my hand, ducked beneath the struggling figures of a Guardian and griffin in front of us, and made for the stairs. I did my best to follow his movements, narrowly avoiding getting nicked by the silver claws of the griffin.