Authors: Sarah Zettel
“Unfortunately, it won’t last.” Papa frowned at the line of light behind the mountains that would turn into full morning before too much longer. “This world can be very hard on such tricks, but it should hold us until sundown.”
“So, what do we do now?” Jack looked at me when he said it, but it was Mama who answered.
“We need to get something to eat,” she announced. “You children must be starved.”
“That’s as good a place to start as any,” agreed Papa.
So, we picked a direction and started walking. After about a block and a half, we spotted a diner. We must have looked respectable enough because the waitress hustled right over when we took a seat in the red vinyl booth. I wondered if Papa was pulling the magic wool over her eyes so she didn’t notice we each had a different skin color, but then, Los Angeles was one of those places where it sometimes didn’t matter so much.
Either way, I was awfully glad to see the burgers and French fries she brought us. We all made short work of our meal, including the thick slices of apple pie with ice cream afterward. It felt good to be full and, for just the minute, safe.
It didn’t last long. When the bill came, Papa pulled out a money clip, laid down some bills on the table, and hustled us back out onto the sidewalk. We all went quietly, and quickly. Fairy money has this nasty tendency to vanish on short notice, so it’s not good to hang around anyplace you have to use it.
I wasn’t the only one thinking that. Mama slid her arm through Papa’s as we strolled up the street, all of us trying to look like we had somewhere to go.
“What now, Daniel? We can’t stay here with no real money. And they … they might find us.”
“They can’t be after us yet,” said Jack. “Callie trapped the king on the other side of the gate when she shut it. That’ll hold ’em off for a little while, won’t it?”
“He might have gotten out,” I said. “That dragon was awful strong.” I tried not to remember how strong, and how big, but that didn’t work very well.
“Either way, your mother’s right. It will be safer to get out of town,” Papa muttered.
“Can we go home?” suggested Mama hopefully. “You told me the Imperial’s protected.…”
Papa shook his head. “Not anymore. It will be watched.”
“What about trying for New York?” asked Jack. “You lived there a while back, didn’t you, Mr. LeRoux? Anybody there who might be willing to help you out?”
“There might be at that. Not a bad idea, boy.”
“Jack,” he said firmly. “Jack Holland.”
Papa cocked his head, looking at Jack in a new way, with just the barest hint of gold glittering out from under his hat brim. “My apologies. Jack.”
“New York,” murmured Mama. “So far.”
“Not for Callie,” said Jack. “She can open us a gate and walk us right into Times Square.”
Right then I wasn’t so sure I could keep on standing up. The reminder that the Seelies were still out there had set my knees shaking and my full stomach churning. I sucked in as big a breath as I could hold and tried with all my might to shove the fear aside. My family needed me now.
I
needed me now.
“I can open the gate,” I said. “But steering on the other side, that’s harder.” Truth be told, I wasn’t sure I could find New York on the other side of a fairy gate, let alone get everybody through to someplace I’d only ever seen in the movies.
Papa chuckled. “I think the old man might be able to help you there, Callie.”
I wanted to smile back, but my mouth wasn’t so sure. There’d been too many times when my magic had gone wrong for me to be easy about the idea of trying to work it now. But the only other choice was to hang around here and wait for whichever of the Seelies were left to come find us, which was no kind of choice at all.
“So, what do we do?” asked Jack.
“Take hands,” answered Papa for me.
Jack took my hand, and Mama took his. Then Mama took Papa’s so we were all in a line, with me at one end and my father at the other. “Go ahead, Callie.” Papa nodded. “I’ll be right there with you.”
The last time I’d done this, the person who’d been with me was Papa’s brother, my uncle Shake. Shake had tried to steer me straight into the Unseelie country so his friends there could make use of me. I didn’t for a minute think my father would do anything like that, of course, but something inside me shivered just the same.
Jack squeezed my hand and I squeezed his. Some of my confidence came creeping back for a second look. Jack I could trust. There was nothing we couldn’t handle together,
from dust storms to fire-breathing dragons. I faced the street and dug down into the place where my magic waited.
When I opened up to magic, I opened up to feeling, layers upon layers of feeling. First, I felt the city—the jostling and chattering of a million living souls with their wishes and their dreams laid over the slow droning vibrations of machinery and the foundation of stone and earth. Then I felt my father. I’d known him less than a day, but he filled a space in my mind I’d never realized was empty. Fear, confidence, love, amazement, and mischief all through him like heat lightning in summer.
In that same place, I heard his voice, clear and calm.
It’s all right, Callie. Open the gate. Take us through
.
And just like that, I believed. It would be all right. I could do this, easy as whistling. I made myself see past motion and emotion, down to the warp and weft of the world. It was soft and fluid and tough to get hold of, except for one spot. One spot was solid with clear edges, like a closed door. Life and time just flowed around it. I could shape my personal magic into a key, put the key into the lock of that door, and turn, until the way opened in front of me. I tightened my hand around Jack’s and stepped through.
There’s the human world, there’s the fairy world, and then there’s betwixt and between. Betwixt and between is a place that’s no place in particular. It’s got no shape of its own, except it’s all the shapes of the surrounding worlds piled on top of each other. It’s got no time except forever, and no light, except all the sunlight, starlight, and fairy light leaking through from one side to the other.
At least, that was what it was like last time I walked out there.
This time somebody’d turned those lights out. The whole world had gone gray. I froze on the threshold of the gate I’d opened. While I stared, something grabbed hold of the part of my blood and brain where my magic waited. It turned me, like I was a compass needle, toward the Unseelie borders, toward the home I’d never really seen. It tried to tell me this was the right way to go, whether I wanted to or not.
“What’s happening?” asked a voice from far away. I thought it was Papa, but I wasn’t sure.
I had no chance to find my words. A low, terrible river boiled out from the direction of the Unseelie world. It rolled through the shifting twilight that had taken over betwixt and between, making the air ripple with a rough and gritty darkness, like the wind that brought the dusters to Kansas. But this was more than wind or thunder. This was alive. In fact, it was a whole lot of alive. A thousand thousand separate beings boiled past me in that dark. All of them grappled and fought to move faster. They climbed over each other, straining to reach their destination. And as I stood there, open-mouthed, I felt their hunger, fear, and anger rush over me. They must have felt something too, because they all turned, and they all looked at me.
The shock of recognition from those thousands of minds staggered me, and I toppled over. My hand slipped from Jack’s, and I was falling into nothing. Jack’s hand snatched at mine, but he screamed and his fingers spasmed.
“Trap!” I heard him holler. “It’s a trap!”
Betwixt and between trembled around me. I twisted my mind and my body, struggling to hang on, to find a foothold, anything. But the pull, the pressure, and the craziness were too strong. Someone was grabbing at me. My fingers were slipping. My ankles were being pulled apart. I clamped my hand around Jack’s curling fingers and felt him wish me out of there. But it wasn’t just him.
“I wish it open!” shouted Mama. “Daniel, I wish it open!”
Their wishes were faint and shaky and far away, but I grabbed at the straws of power they loaned me, jammed them into that tiny space I could sense around Jack’s wrist, and shoved hard.
The pressure snapped. Jack hollered. I shrieked and shot out of the darkness, tumbling down onto the pavement. Next thing I knew, Mama had her arms around me to pull me to my feet.
“Look at me, Callie. Look at me.” Her hands cupped my face. I made myself pull my eyelids open. Everything was blurry for a second, but it cleared up quick and I could see Mama’s frantic eyes staring into mine.
“Are you all right?” Mama’s rough fingers poked at my skull and my arms, feeling for breaks. “Do you hurt anywhere?”
Truth was, every bit of me hurt, but I shook my head anyway. “Jack?”
“Yeah.” Jack was slumped against a streetlamp, cradling his wrist. His face had turned a really bad shade of white. “That sure was a surprise,” he croaked.
“Here.” Papa took Jack’s arm. Jack winced and hissed a curse through his teeth. I felt Papa’s magic wrap around Jack. Jack winced again, but his face flushed from dead white to red, and I felt his pain dissolve as easy as sugar melting in the rain.
“Thanks.” Jack flexed his fingers as Papa lifted his hands away.
“What happened, Callie?” demanded Mama.
“I don’t know. It was like … I can’t describe it.”
Papa came up beside her. The shine from his fairy eyes had dimmed down almost to twilight. He’d lifted his face, turning this way and that like he was trying to catch some scent or sound that had already passed. There was a closed-up drugstore behind us, with posters for Pepsodent and milk of magnesia hanging in its plate-glass window. Papa breathed on the glass and rubbed it with his sleeve.
“Think about what you saw, Callie,” he said urgently. “This is important.”
I swallowed, and as much as I didn’t want to, I made myself remember the storm of bad feeling, the rolling darkness, the churning lives. Papa stared into the glass, and I thought I saw something ugly that shifted vague and dim in the reflection. Whatever he saw, it seemed to draw the strength out of his straight back. Papa leaned against the window, pressing his palm hard against the glass.
“I was afraid of this.” Papa’s fingers curled up, scraping at the glass, looking for something to hold on to. Mama moved up next to him, resting her hand on his shoulder. His free hand stole around her waist.
“What is it, Mr. LeRoux?” asked Jack.
“The war,” Papa said as he wiped his hand hard across that magic reflection. He did not let go of Mama. “It’s started.”
“But it can’t!” The words burst out of me, like if I said it strong enough, I could make it true. “It’s too soon. It’d take time to get the armies ready and, and stuff. Wouldn’t it?”
“They’ve been ready for years,” said Papa. “The Seelie king was just waiting for an excuse.”
“Ivy.” The smell of gunpowder and copper came right back when I said it, and I heard the explosion of the gunshot all over again. “When I killed Ivy, he declared war.”
Papa nodded. “The blood of his daughter has been shed. He has the right to exact a blood price in return. My parents have been building up the defenses of the Midnight Throne for years, waiting for the attack.” He looked back at the window, a sour mix of disappointment and anger bubbling around him. “I am sorry, Margaret,” he whispered to Mama. “I had hoped we’d have at least a small moment.…”
“The king can go ahead and start a whole war because one girl got shot?” said Jack. “And it’s legal? That’s nuts!”
Papa suddenly went all stiff and formal. He plainly did not care for Jack’s assessment of the situation. “The whole human world went to war when one man was shot. What was his name? Archduke Ferdinand, I believe.”
Jack dug his hands into the pockets of his new white flannel trousers. “Well, that was different.”
“Was it?”
“This is no time to argue politics.” Mama gave Papa’s shoulder one firm squeeze that seemed to straighten them both up again. “We need to work out what to do.”
I tried to quiet the shivers that ran up my spine. We
couldn’t stay here. If the Seelies were already on the attack, they’d be after me. Us. I was the one who’d killed Ivy. It was an accident, but that didn’t seem to matter. She was still dead and I still did it. They wanted the gate powers I worked. They wanted the prophecy on their side, and they weren’t going to care a whole lot about what I wanted. “I can try again.… Maybe if I open a different gate, we can get around it.”
“No,” said Mama flatly. “I know you’ve been through a lot, Callie, but we are not walking into a war zone. We need to find another way.”
“Train?” said Jack.
“No,” said Mama again. “Not that either.”
“What’s the matter?” I felt something smoldering behind my eyes. Where’d she get the idea she was in charge all of a sudden? She didn’t know anything about my magic or the gates, or everything we’d already been through. “If we can’t walk through betwixt and between, the train is easiest.”
“It’s the iron,” Papa said lightly. “In the train and the rails.”
Iron’s poison to fairies. It didn’t bother me so much because I am half human, but I’d seen the kind of things it could do to full-blood fairies like Papa, and they were not good. Guilt smacked hard against me. How could I have forgotten?
“It’s going to be a little uncomfortable for me, but I’ll be fine.” Papa made his voice bright and easy and patted Mama’s hand for emphasis. “We need to get a move on. With the war
started, the court’s allies in this world will be out, searching for power to feed the armies, and looking for Callie especially.” His voice went grim. “With her power over the gates, she’s a living weapon worth all the armies either side could raise.”
Right then a siren wailed in the distance and we all jumped. Then we looked at each other and saw how pale we’d gone. Without any more argument, Jack and I moved up close to my parents and we started walking.
As usual, Jack knew which way to go. It was like he’d been planning how to hightail it out of Los Angeles since the day we got here. Maybe he had. He’d hoboed around a lot, both before and after taking up with me. Another streetcar carried us up Central, taking us to the Southern Pacific Railroad’s Los Angeles station. From there we could catch a train east, maybe even all the way to New York. With the way things had gone so far, though, I wasn’t figuring we’d have that much luck, or any at all.