The Faerie War (28 page)

As we fly toward the shimmer, I feel Ryn’s arms tense around me. I guess I’m not the only one worried this might be some new, horrible magic we’re flying into. The shimmer changes as we get closer, glistening with colorful smudges like a painting left out in the rain.

“And . . . welcome to my home,” Tilly says, spreading her arms out as we shoot through the shimmering layer.

Despite all the magic I’ve seen in my life, my first reaction when I see the floating island is disbelief. The enormous piece of land is suspended high up in the air as easily as it might float on water. The underside looks like a mixture of rock and rich brown earth, and the top is covered in grass, trees, lakes, and mountains. Warm air caresses my skin. The scent of spring reaches my nose.

“No way,” I whisper as Arthur soars toward the island. This place is a haven, untouched by the devastation the rest of our world is living through. Part of me wants to land here and never leave.

As we fly closer, I see trees here and there that are larger than the others. Larger, in fact, than any tree I’ve ever seen or imagined. And along the branches I see shapes that look like . . . houses. Yes, those are tree houses, but nothing like the tree houses I’m used to, concealed so that no one knows they’re there. These are visible for everyone to see, cradled amongst the enormous branches.

Tilly steers Arthur toward one of the lakes. He lands on the bank, his feet sinking into the squishy mud. “Well done, Arthur,” Ryn mutters. “The mud is exactly where we want to get off.”

“Oh, is your name Arthur, big guy?” Tilly pats his neck and gives him another kiss. “I was wondering.”

Arthur climbs up the bank, leaving muddy footprints on the grass beneath the overhanging trees. Tilly slides down, and I follow her. My leg screams at me when I land with a jolt. I guess it hasn’t had a chance to do much healing yet.

“What happened?” Ryn asks when he sees me gritting my teeth and clutching my leg.

“A throwing star. It cut pretty deep, but it’ll be fine in a few hours, I’m sure.”

“You sure? I can give you some healing magic if you—”

“No, no.” I wave his concern away. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay, so, I’m not really sure where to leave Arthur,” Tilly says. “I hid him here after I first brought him back, but he burned down a tree and tried to eat my brother’s pegasus.”

Ryn crosses his arms and faces the dragon. “Not cool, Arthur. You don’t eat other people’s stuff.”

Arthur snorts a puff of smoke at Ryn, then starts shrinking. He keeps going until he’s no bigger than my hand.

“So. Cool!” Tilly exclaims. “I didn’t know dragons could do that.”

“Well, not all of them,” Ryn says as Arthur flaps his way up to Ryn’s shoulder. “You don’t have to worry about leaving him somewhere. He’ll come with us.”

We follow Tilly along a well-worn path toward one of the giant trees. She bounces along as though she’s on some energy-inducing spell. The tree has a curving stairway wrapped around the trunk all the way up as far as I can see. Tilly starts jogging up, while Ryn slips an arm around my back.

“Don’t argue,” he says. “I know you’re in pain.”

We’ll be down here forever if I start arguing with him, so I don’t. Besides, it’s nice of him to help me up, even though I have a feeling he’s only doing it to be closer to me. We’re going to have to have a chat about that kiss so I can tell him it didn’t mean anything.

Fortunately, Tilly’s house is along one of the lowest branches, so we don’t have to climb too high. She skips along the wide branch like a tree sprite and opens the door for us when we reach her house.

“Welcome,” she says, stepping aside to let us in. The interior is small, but not as cramped as the quarters I’ve become used to with the reptiscillas and guardians. “My mom would probably say, ‘Please excuse the mess,’ but I honestly think it looks fine.” I hide a smile as I follow Tilly past a living area and into a bedroom with two narrow beds. “This is our spare room. I’m sure my mom won’t mind you staying here if you need to.”

“Thanks, Tilly,” Ryn says. His arm slides away from me. “It’s very kind of you to offer.”

She beams as us. “Well, I’d better go find my mom. I disappeared before breakfast this morning, and she’s probably launched a search party by now. And
you
guys need to have a shower or something because—” she lowers her voice to a mock whisper “—you stink. Bathing room’s through there.” She gestures over her shoulder with her thumb. “Oh, and your bags are here. I stole them from the bounty hunters’ house the day they took you. Nice sword, by the way.” She lifts the sword off the top of Ryn’s bag and slides it partway out of its sheath. “I love how it glows. Anyway, see you later.” She skips away.

I grab the sword off the top of Ryn’s bag and yank it out from its sheath, but the glow has already faded. I look at Ryn, who’s staring at the sword in open-mouthed shock. “It
glows
?” I say. “Has it done that before?”

He shakes his head.

“Do you think she’s the one?” I whisper. “The girl we’ve been looking for?”

“I don’t know. I certainly wasn’t picturing someone like . . . her.”

“Yeah, me neither.” I turn the sword over in my hands. “Maybe . . . she touched a button or something that we didn’t know about. Something that makes the sword glow.”

Ryn takes the sword from me and sits on the edge of one of the beds. He begins examining it, pressing here and there with his fingers. Arthur jumps from his shoulder, curls up on the pillow, and promptly goes to sleep.

“Tilly?” A woman’s voice rings out. “Tilly!” The frustrated call is followed by stomping footsteps. “Estelle Marie Blakethorn,
where
have you been?”

Ryn straightens. “Did someone just call her
Estelle
?”

“Yeah.”

“You know what that means, don’t you?”

I have to think for several seconds before I remember the meaning of the word. “Star,” I whisper. “Her name means star.”

“And this floating island is obviously the high land. She’s the ‘star of the high land.’”

I slowly lower myself onto the other bed. “We found her.” Or, more accurately, she found us. I know I should be happier, but Tilly isn’t at all what I was expecting. It doesn’t seem right that a girl so young should have to be the one to destroy Draven and his power.

Skipping footsteps sound in the passage, and Tilly appears in our doorway. “So, um, my mom said it’s cool if you stay here a while. I told her I found you just outside the shimmer and that you’re on the run from Draven’s dudes. Which . . . is . . . sort of true. She had to dash out for a meeting, so she’ll say hi later.”

“Great, thank you, Tilly.” Ryn stands. “Do you have a secure amber I can use? Amber with anti-tracking spells on it?”

She tilts her head to the side. “I don’t know. But amber messages don’t go through the shimmer. No communication does. It’s something to do with the time differences.”

“Time differences?” Ryn says.

“Yeah, remember I said we have our own time here?”

I remember her saying that, but that was back when I thought she might be a little bit crazy.

“Time inside the shimmer doesn’t match time outside the shimmer,” she explains. “Sometimes a day in here is week out there; sometimes a day in here is only an hour out there. I once went out and arrived at exactly the same moment I’d left almost a month before. You know how I know? Because the same mermaids were sitting on the same rocks by the shore arguing about the same guy they’d both just found out they were dating.” She bounces on her feet. “Aw-kward, right? I mean, the dating thing. Not the time thing. Although that is pretty weird too.”

I thought Natesa chatted a lot, but she’s got
nothing
on this girl. She’s so carefree and enthusiastic and . . . young. And we’re about to lay the fate of our world on her shoulders.

While Ryn rubs his temples and stares at the floor, probably worrying about the time thing, I ask, “Uh, how old are you, Tilly?”

“Fifteen. Why?”

“Just . . . curious.”

“Okay, well, you guys should really visit the bathing room. Check ya later.” She bounces away, leaving us in silence.

Ryn paces for a while, then sits on the edge of his bed again. “She’s so young,” he says. “How can we do this to her?”

“She’s only three years younger than us,” I point out.

“But she doesn’t have the experience we do. She hasn’t survived the things we’ve survived. She’s lived a sheltered, carefree life. How can we tell her she’s the only one who can put an end to Tharros’ power for good?”

I swallow and force the words out. “We have to.”

“That part at the end of the prophecy. ‘
By the strike of the sword, and the death of innocence.
’ I’ve been trying to figure out what the ‘innocence’ refers to.” He gestures to the doorway. “What if it’s her? What if we’re leading her to her death?”

Would the prophecy really be that cruel? In order for our world to be normal again, this sweet, innocent girl has to die? I grasp for some other meaning. “What if it’s . . . something else, something bigger—”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know! Like . . . like
all
our innocence. Like the fact that we’ll never be the same after this.”

Ryn flops back on his bed, flinching when Arthur’s snores burn his ear. “Life is never fair, is it?”

“No,” I murmur.

*

I lie on the bed, staring into the darkness and listening to the gentle stirring of leaves outside. The floorboards creak occasionally as the giant branches holding the house sway. I breathe in deeply, enjoying the sweet, fresh scent drifting from the purple and white blossoms growing on bushes at the base of the tree. The eerie melody that woke me still plays at the back of my mind.

After getting ourselves cleaned up, we decided to wait until tomorrow to tell Tilly about the prophecy and the sword and her role in the coming fight against Draven. I think we both wanted to give her one more day of ignorant bliss.

We had dinner with her family, and Tilly spent the rest of the evening playing with mini-Arthur. It’s strange to be in a place that seems so untouched by Draven. There’s no fear here. No loss. People mention The Destruction every now and then, but only as some distant tragedy that has no direct effect on them.

I can’t help wondering how long this haven will last, though. Draven will find out about this place eventually, if he hasn’t already, and he’ll come after the fae living here. He won’t stop until he has the entire world under his control—or until we kill him.

I hear Ryn roll over and breathe out a frustrated sigh. “What’s wrong?” I ask quietly. “Can’t sleep without a wall between us?”

“Yeah, I’m really missing that wall. I now get the loud version of your snoring instead of the muffled version.”

“Hey, I do not snore.”

“Okay, not
real
snoring. It’s more like these cute little half-snores that sound like—”

“I. Do not. Snore.”

He sighs. “Okay, if you want the real story, here it is: There’s this weird, creepy song playing over and over in my head, and it won’t let me sleep.”

I turn onto my side so I’m facing him and say, “It’s from the Unseelie Court. My brain won’t let go of it either. It woke me up, actually. Well, that and my leg.”

“Your leg? The cut from the throwing star?”

“Yeah. I’m a little worried. It should’ve healed hours ago.”

I hear shuffling and the quiet snap of Ryn’s fingers. A flame blazes to life over his hand, and he moves it to the candle beside his bed. He gets up and comes toward me. “Let me see.”

I push my blanket back and swing my legs over the edge of the bed. I’m wearing a pair of Tilly’s sleeping shorts, so the bandage wrapped around my leg just above my knee is easily visible. I unwind the layers and show Ryn the seeping cut and the angry red skin around it.

He touches my leg and looks closer. His hand is cool against my hot skin. “I had a wound like that,” he says. “An Unseelie faerie gave it to me with a black-bladed knife.”

I think back to the throwing star and remember the sharp, black edges. “I think it’s the same thing. How did you heal it?”