Conrad Edison and the Anchored World (Overworld Arcanum Book 2) (15 page)

Ambria gasped. "She does mean to drown you!"

"What game are you up to?" I asked.

Evadora tilted her head. "I will show you the safe way to the queen." She held out her hand. "Come, Conrad. Do what I ask."

"You promise this isn't a trick?" I said.

"Look inside my skin." Evadora pressed a hand to her chest. "Look deep, Conrad. Do you see a trick?"

I stared at her for a moment, completely unable to see through her skin and instead relied on the sincerity shining in her eyes. "I see no trick, Evadora." I held out my hand.

"No, Conrad!" Max grabbed my arm. "This is insane. Besides, that water looks poisoned."

"He won't get wet," Evadora said. "The bad water won't touch him."

I pulled my arm free from Max. "I
must
find out why the queen wants to see me, and how she knows about this pebble."

Ambria jabbed a finger at Evadora. "Ask her, then."

"Cannot tell," Evadora replied. "Only the queen can."

"Fine." Ambria grabbed my wrist. "I'm coming too."

"You're all mental," Max complained. "Do I have to hold Conrad's hand?"

Evadora held out her other hand. "No, but we must all touch."

Staring at the water, I didn't know what to expect when we jumped in. Would the pebble allow us to breathe underwater? Would it keep us dry? Would it allow us to walk on water? My body trembled with excitement and apprehension while the moisture evaporated from my mouth. The water reflected a worried expression on my face.

Evadora squeezed my hand. "Rub the stone, Conrad. Say the words."

I rubbed the pebble with my thumb. "As above, so below."

"Jump!" Evadora cried.

We leapt into the water. There was no splash, no rush of wetness into my clothes, or the rumble of water against my ears. I felt a sickening wrench in my guts that passed as quickly as it had come. We flew out of the pond and tumbled ungracefully on the ground. Evadora pulled me upright while Max and Ambria climbed to their feet.

"Hurry," Evadora said. "Our others will feel us here if we stay too long."

"Stay where?" Max said, brushing dirt off his trousers. "We're right where we started!"

Ambria stared at the water. "I don't understand. Did the pebble make the water bounce us back out? Why did I feel as if my body turned inside out?"

"We are in the reflection," Evadora said. She pointed to forest of stumps.

The entire scene rippled as though a watery reflection and my jaw fell open.

The wide-eyed look on Max's face told me he'd just figured out what the girl meant. "We're in a reflection of the real world?"

"Yes, a reflected world," Evadora said. "Come, fast! We do not want our reflections feeling us here."

Judging from the urgency in her voice, I decided now was not the time to argue. We raced through the path between the stumps all the way to the crack in the wall. Evadora dropped to her knees and crawled inside. I followed close behind, mind racing as fast as my heart.

"What about the guardians?" I asked.

Evadora didn't answer.

"That's a good question," Ambria said breathlessly behind me.

We reached the end and stood in the starry rift between worlds. Evadora waved a finger around at the emptiness. "The guardians do not have reflections." She was right—there were no floating orbs of light.

"Why don't they reflect?" I asked.

She shrugged. "Some things cannot be reflected."

"You never answered my question last time," Ambria said. "It looks like we're in space, but we can walk as if we're on land."

Evadora blinked. "I wish I knew, but I do not." She motioned us on. "Hurry. We must reach the looking pool soon." She dashed across the void.

I stepped out and found firm footing then chased after her, my friends close behind.

"What happens if our reflections find us here?" Max asked.

"Bad things," was the only answer Evadora gave us.

We reached a tunnel on the other side, this one tall enough to walk through, and ran inside. We emerged in a grassy glade surrounded by tall, bleak-looking trees. A small pond of black water rippled, and the world around us rippled with it.

"Join hands, everyone." Evadora said. "Rub the stone Conrad, but reverse the words. So below, as above."

I rubbed the stone and said, "So below, as above."

We leapt.

Once again came the gut-wrenching yank, a flicker of the deepest black, and we hurtled from a pond on the other side and back to our world. I landed hard and rolled onto the ground. A greenly glowing moon hung among a starlit tapestry, the shadow of a mountain with a crooked peak lurking beneath. I sat in a glade of purple grass surrounded by twisted trees with spiky bark.

We weren't back in our world.

We're in the Glimmer.

Max stood up and looked around. "Where are we? Why is the moon so huge and green?"

"We're in Evadora's land," Ambria said. She huddled next to me. "It's night but the moon is so bright it's nearly like daytime."

Despite its unusual brilliance, the moon didn't mute light from the dense clusters of stars.

"Eternal twilight," Evadora said in a whisper. "We do not have daytime or nighttime." She shivered. "Just time."

"No wonder you're mental," Max said. He ran a hand over the grass and jerked it back. "Feels more like snake scales than grass."

I gave Ambria's hand a squeeze, and climbed to my feet. As I regarded the impressive sight, I realized the moon itself had satellites—each one a mere fraction of the size, except most had white clouds and blue skies.

"Are those planets around the moon?" I desperately wished for a telescope.

Evadora pointed a finger at one moon and spun on her heel. "Not planets, Conrad. Those are realms."

Max gasped. "Realms like Seraphina?"

Though the cloud cover blocked a good view of the surface, I noticed at least two of the worlds had nearly identical continents to Europe. One looked nice and green, while the other was the beige of desert sand.

Evadora pointed them out. "Eden, Seraphina, and Sturg." She whirled a finger. "Aquilis and Draxadis are on the other side."

"What about that white one there?" Max said.

She shook her head. "Some are dead."

"That's not all of them," Max said. "What about all the others?"

"Some are dead," she replied. "Some we do not know what they are called."

"What in the world is that—a black hole?" Ambria pointed to a swirling darkness directly above the moon.

"The Abyss," Evadora replied in a hushed tone. "The old gods are trapped inside."

I felt as though the longer I stared at it, the more something within stared back out at me, as if the prisoners could see the tiny speck I called a body.

"Can you go to the other realms from here?" Max held up a hand as if he could touch the moon. "It looks like you could climb to the top of that mountain and touch the moon."

Evadora giggled. "From the mountaintop, you can see all the realms hanging in place, but you cannot reach any of them." She plucked a blade of the purple grass. It struggled in her hand like a snake, much to her amusement.

Ambria shrieked and hid behind Max. "I don't like this place one little bit."

I stared at the mountain, fascinated with the nameless realms slowly orbiting the great green moon. Had people once lived in all of them, or were they born lifeless when the gods sundered the world? It made me feel even smaller in the grand scheme.

"Where did the tunnel between our worlds come from?" Max asked.

"The old man cracked the world," Evadora said.

I looked away from the moon. "My father did this?"

She shook her head. "No. Your father made the hole bigger. The old man cracked the world so he could find help here. Help against the Seraphim."

"Justin Slade?" Ambria said.

Max grunted. "Justin Slade isn't that old."

I sucked in a quick breath as another name came to me. "Was it Galfandor who made the hole?"

Evadora's forehead pinched. "His name was Moses."

"Whoa." Max looked back at the crack. "He must have done it during the First Seraphim War."

Ambria shrunk away from the long grass. "Can we please leave this awful meadow and go to the queen?"

"Yep!" Evadora pointed toward the crooked mountain. "She lives up there." Without another word, she skipped through the grass toward the dense forest. At the last minute, two trees uprooted and stepped away from each other.

Ambria jerked to a halt. "Those trees just walked!"

Max didn't look too surprised. "Just like the ones in the Fairy Garden used to."

"Walking trees?" Ambria regarded the forest suspiciously. "Can they grab us with their branches?"

Evadora petted one of the trees like a cat. "They move for us. They will not hurt you."

Why are my friends so frightened?
By now, Evadora had plenty of chances to hurt us. I walked over to the tree and touched it. The bark felt strange—like chitin on a bug, but jagged. "The trees won't hurt us. Let's go."

Max took Ambria's hand and led her forward. I turned back to our guide. "We're ready."

Evadora clapped her hands. "This way." Past the glade, a curving path, lit by what looked like large pulsating mushrooms, wound through the dense forest. Unsettling chittering and clacking noises emanated from the darkness, and shadowy shapes skittered across the way.

Ambria screamed and grabbed her hair. "Something touched me."

"Stay on the path, the path, the path," Evadora sang, seemingly unconcerned about the creatures hiding in the forest.

Max and Ambria huddled together and walked slowly. I couldn't stop thinking about the queen and how Evadora knew about Cora's green pebble. The desire for answers burned in my stomach and subdued my fear. I had to know more.

The quest for knowledge is the quest for power
, Vic said.

Della added her own thoughts.
The weak fear treading the path to glory
.
Perhaps this boy is worth saving after all.

Perhaps
, my father replied.
We shall see.

I'm in here too, you know
, I said to the voices in my head.
Just because you were parts of my parents' souls doesn't mean you have to be like them. You could be better.

They didn't answer.

I wondered how much knowledge those soul fragments held. Did they still have a link to my parents, or were they limited to me? Could my parents still sense them?

"Oh, this is the lovely part." Evadora bounced on her toes and pointed to a light at the end of the forest tunnel. "You will like this so much."

"Thank goodness," Ambria said. "I can't wait to get out of this unbearable place."

Max stepped up the pace, guiding her with him. "Me either."

"Come!" Evadora loped down the path.

I ran after her, the others close on my heels and skidded to a halt at a precipitous ledge. My stomach felt as though it had dropped into a bottomless pit. Staring back at me was a chasm of nothing but space and stars. A giant tree arched over the infinite drop and met another tree in the middle, where they twined together and rose into a majestic umbrella of crimson leaves.

Ambria's lips peeled back in a silent cry of terror. Max got down on his hands and knees and peered over the cliff. "There's no bottom," he whimpered. "What happens if you fall?"

Evadora looked down. "Why would you fall?" She pointed to the tree trunk. "There is a bridge."

The tree had a gradual incline so as to be almost flat except where it curved directly up in the middle with the other tree. The trunk looked wide enough to accommodate a car. I looked toward the mountain.
The answers are there.
Without waiting for Evadora, I stepped onto the tree bridge, my vertigo rinsed away by impatience.

She jogged up beside me. "You are not afraid, Conrad."

"Why would I be?" I asked. "You promised not to chew on my bones."

Evadora nodded vigorously. "Yes. I will keep your bones safe." She pointed up at the tree tops in the middle of the bridge. "From there you can see everything."

"How far are we from the queen?" I pointed toward the crooked mountain.

"Not far." We reached the top of the bridge.

I looked out, filled with wonder at the sight spreading out below. The land looked as though it had been shattered into islands and set to drift in outer space. As with this island and the next, giant trees bound the broken shards together.

Evadora looked back and laughed. "Your friends are so frightened."

I glanced at Max and Ambria. Though their faces were pale as ghosts, they hurried to catch up with us.

"Conrad, please wait," Ambria said, voice trembling.

Max looked from side to side, eyes blinking with disbelief. "This world is broken." He pointed to other floating islands with tree bridges in the distance. "It's not shaped like a planet at all."

"The anchored world was crushed by the other realms," Evadora said. "It was broken to keep the others whole." She resumed walking.

"How many people live here?" I asked, trying to make conversation so the others wouldn't think about the endless void beneath us.

"Many," Evadora said. "But not so many as Eden." She sighed wistfully. "The people are in the unbroken land on the other side of the mountain, but I never see them."

"What does the queen think about you running off to Eden?" Ambria asked.

"She does not care." Her huge eyes filled with pain. "The queen looks so alive." She touched my arm. "She feels warm to the touch like you." Her fingers traced my lips. "She feels soft." Her gaze found mine. "Do not be fooled. She is dead inside."

Ambria shivered. "Is she really so cold and emotionless?"

The other girl nodded. "Yes. Everyone who lives here is like that." She proceeded to the middle of the bridge where the two trees met and walked along a thick branch that curved around to the other side. Though the branch was wide, it was only half as wide as the rest of the bridge and even I felt the pull of vertigo on my senses.

In the distance, a dark cloud of birds swirled into the air and funneled in our general direction us, the flock changing directions seemingly at random.