Invincible (27 page)

Ink's hand on her shoulder pushed her down into a crouch. They ducked low under cover of swaying purple grass. Joy could hear voices and footsteps crashing through the field. They waited until the sounds passed, the buzz in her joints growing deeper as the dowsing rod quivered. She held still for a count of ten. Twenty.

Ink squinted up at the sun, his black eyes flashing pale gray. He tapped her gently with the side of his razor and pointed the direction of the spell. “This way.”

They skirted a lake, avoiding trees filled with dryads, flocks of pixies that looked like butterflies and cairns of stones that turned out to be hill giants, asleep. As the dowsing rod led them through the odd countryside, Joy realized most of the verdant paradise was alive—living, thinking beings, all potentially hostile and loyal to the King and Queen, all the people that she was trying to set free. Would they help her if she asked? Would they kill her if she were caught?

Joy didn't want to find out.

The light veered again, leading them into a monstrous thicket, like a wall of tangled vegetation, dense and protective. Ink tucked Joy close against him, the vibrations drumming into his chest, echoing hollowly under his voice.

“Stay close.”

He lifted his razor and slashed down with great, looping swirls—almost like a dance as they plunged forward, cutting giant swaths out of the hedge. Joy stayed inside the cup of his shoulder as he hacked his way almost effortlessly through the tangle of branches and leaves, praying quietly that nothing in here was alive the way that they were. She kept her eyes averted against potential glares and screaming.

Ink switched hands with a reverse-handled grip as the tremors grew sharper, the light lengthening as if it could reach between the branches and touch a finger through the leaves.

They broke through the foliage into sunlight and laughter. A girl with a blush of blue skin, short hair and pointed ears gasped and dropped her basket of fruit. Startled, Joy let go of the rod. It shot forward, bounced off the girl's arm and fell to the ground, inert.

The girl stumbled back, rubbing her arm. “Ouch.”

Ink tucked his blade behind his back and held Joy tight against his shoulder to hide it. The girl stared at them both and then coughed on a laugh. The gills on her throat fluttered. She was a water nymph.

“Ow,” she said, pressing a hand to her chest and squeezing out another little laugh. “Oh. You scared me!”

“Um,” Joy said. “Sorry.”

They stood on the edge of an inlet ringed in jeweled fruit trees, the heavy scent of apples a strange autumn smell in the midst of spring. The fruit itself was yellow-gold and garnet red, the glistening leaves were faceted like diamonds and all around them was the hum of giant, fluffy bees. Waifish children played in the branches, kicking their feet and hanging upside down while older teens gathered the fruit and tickled one another, splashing under a thin, clear waterfall dripping with moss. There was no sign of Stef or Dmitri or anyone over age thirteen. It was as if they'd stumbled into a childhood memory, playful and free.

“You're lost,” the girl said, pointing to the left. “The hedge maze is that way. Unless you're looking for the Lovers Lock, which is back the way you came.” She blushed a deeper sapphire, her sea glass eyes sparkling and mischievous as she gathered a few of the fruits and shells that had spilled out of her basket. Golden apples with hints of pink and green nested among seashells that matched the color of her hair. She picked up the dowsing rod from the moist carpet of green. “Here. You dropped your—” she turned it over curiously “—stick.” She held it out. Joy took it back carefully. Ink seemed at a loss for words. He stared at the girl, at the fruit, at the waterfall, the shells and the trees and the sky. He looked like he was trying to put a puzzle together in his head.

Joy tried not to panic.
Where's Stef?

“Thanks,” Joy said, flashing her Olympic-class smile. The girl smiled back.

“No problem,” she said and chose an apple from her basket. “Want one?”

Joy hesitated, remembering the wine at Enrique's funeral. She'd asked whether it was safe to eat or drink, given the old fairy-tale stories.
You are not in Faeland
, he'd said. But now she was, and she was well aware that some stories could be true.

“No, thank you,” Joy said quietly. The water nymph wasn't hostile, she was young; not young like Filly or having the appearance of youth like the
guilderdamen
, but genuinely innocent as an ordinary girl of maybe twelve or thirteen. Joy knew that the Folk aged differently than humans, but this was the first time she'd ever met one who might actually be a kid.

A kid who was looking at them with a suspicious twist to her lips. “I don't know you,” she said. “I haven't seen you before.”

That's our cue.
Joy tugged Ink's sleeve. “Probably not.”

“Are you from the Hinterlands? Or maybe the Dells?” The girl propped the lip of the basket against her hip. “Everyone's been gathering here since the door opened, but I'm local and so I can tell you we're still not allowed through.”

Ink stopped, ignoring Joy's gentle prodding. “Why not?”

“I don't know,” the girl said. “The King and Queen won't allow it. They said we have to wait.
Again
.” The way she said it convinced Joy that she was certainly adolescent; no one could fake exasperation like that. The girl shifted her feet, her skinny legs planted wide. “And it's not fair! Some of us have
things
to do—” Her eyes narrowed meaningfully, like an unspoken secret between them. “
Important
things.”

Ink took a bewildered step closer. The chain at his hip tinkled like bells. “Such as?”

“Like—” Her eyes clouded over, confused and petulant. “I don't know.” The cloud lifted, her delicate face clear. “But it's important.” Her voice lilted like a question. “Really important. I can feel it—I
have
to go back. You'd understand if you knew.”

A creeping calm flowed through Joy. “You mean you can't remember?”

“Sort of.” The young girl sighed, trying to find the words. “Ever get the feeling like there's something you're supposed to be doing, but you can't remember exactly what?” She glanced at them, touching the tiny charms piercing her ears. “You know what I mean, right? That's what's bringing most of us to the doorway. Ever since the locks opened, it's like...I've lost something over there and I have to go find it.” She rearranged the apples and spoke into the ground. “The Eight say this means I have a responsibility...” She waved her wrist vaguely. “Back there.” Her voice changed as the indignation returned. “But I
can't remember
what it is
—none of us can! And we can't
do
it if we're not allowed to Return!”

“The Eight?” Ink repeated.

“Well, Nine, I suppose,” the girl said, then her eyes brightened. “The youngest princess came back—to warn her family, they said—and so we know that the Middle Land is still out there, still waiting for us, and not destroyed after all, but we don't know if it's safe.” She kicked at a clump of moss. “All we want is permission to go home. But until they say yes, we have to stay. That's why everyone's coming here, just waiting by the door. There's no breaking the rules.” Her voice became dreamy, thick with longing. “I hear it's beautiful.”

“You've never been there?” Joy said, but stopped herself. She thought that this was the land of the dead, the afterworld of the otherworld, but the tween's blushing cheeks and pointy ears and cowlick curls didn't look dead. She sounded very much alive.

“I'm not
that
old,” the girl laughed and pointed off to the bumpy horizon. “I was born in the bay near Cloud Peak.”

Ink held up a hand to hush the world. “You were
born
here?”

“But—” Joy swallowed her next words, because they were both telling and untrue.
That's impossible!
She knew that no Folk had been born in the Twixt for over a thousand years—Graus Claude had said so and the Council had confirmed it. It was considered a delicate subject in polite society. Even if this nymph was older than she looked, “that” old would be about a thousand years. Before the Dark Ages. Around the time of the Retreat. About when...

The words slipped out. “When the door closed,” Joy said. “That's when it stopped.”

Ink stared at Joy. The girl blinked. Her nose twitched.

“Where did you two say you're from, again?”

“You were born here,” Ink said, ignoring the question. “On
this
side of the door.” He wove his fingers over his wallet chain, each link a separate thought. “The door was closed, locked against any magic coming in—but it also prevented anyone, anything from going out.” He pinched a single silver link. “You're here. You are all here,” he murmured, his eyes reflected the colors of the world as a smile teased his lips. “You are all very, very
here
.”

The water nymph frowned, her fingers pale on the basket. “Um, okay.”

But Joy saw it, too. “No one could Return,” she whispered. “After death. They were all trapped here.”

Ink smiled, one dimple. “A one-way trip.”

Joy glanced at the girl. “What are you called?”

The nymph looked frightened now, unsure; her answer was like a shield. “Coral.” She squinched her eyes and took a step back. “Why?” Shells and apples wobbled in her basket. “Do I know you?”

“I don't know,” Joy said. “Do you?”

“You seem...familiar.” Coral confessed. “Ish. Familiar-ish. Like maybe we've met before, but I think I would have remembered. I think I
might
remember...but I don't.” She hesitated, taking a shy doe step closer. “It's like your face is someone else's face, but not your face. It's something else. Like you're someone I ought to know.”

Joy swapped a glance with Ink. “Maybe you do.” She glanced around the orchard. She pointed the rod around the inlet. “He isn't here, but it led us here—right here—to her. It was pointing right at her.” She felt her breath quicken. “Ink—?”

“You know her,” he said with certainty. “And she knows you. A lifetime ago and a different face.”

Joy's voice hitched. Tears blurred her eyes as she was confronted with sudden understanding.

“Who are you?” Coral asked.

“We're family,” Joy said as the dowsing rod dropped to the ground.

TWENTY-THREE

“WE HAVE GOT TO
see the King and Queen,” Joy said, pulling Coral's hand. “We have to tell them. Then they'll
have
to Return—Stef, the King and Queen, all of them, right?” She glanced at Ink, who sheared their way through the wilderness. “Right?”

“You can convince the King and Queen to Return? You're
sure
?” Coral sounded delighted. Well, delighted and scared. Joy wasn't certain that the nymph would come with them, but the Folk's natural curiosity had worked in their favor; making daydreams come true pushed them up a notch. “I didn't think that anyone could convince the King and Queen of
anything
.”

“Joy is special.” Ink spoke over his shoulder, away from the reeds that rimmed the water's edge. Joy could hear distant laughter beneath the bubbles and waves, her
eelet
picking up more as they went. Faeland was pulsing with voices and magic and music. “She is the courier.”

“What's that?” Coral asked.

“I'm bringing a message from the...Middle Land,” Joy tried the phrase out. It fit on her tongue. It was true. “I have proof that it's safe to come home.”

Coral skipped over a log filled with tiny, furry faces that peeped as they passed. “Really? What proof?”

“You,” Joy said. “And my brother. We'll have to find him next. But I can't use the spell until we can figure out how to have it not just point at you.”

Ink changed direction, skirting the lake. “Do you think the spell will work?”

“Within three generations,” Joy quoted Mr. Vinh. She shook her bangs out of her face, refusing to lose her grip on the scalpel or Coral's hand. The gloves made it feel like she might lose one or both at any moment. “I thought he meant the spell was guaranteed for three generations—like a hundred years or something—not that it would seek out my bloodline through three generations!”

Joy laughed at the mad thoughts whirling through her head. She should have felt relieved or brain-blown or terrified, but the truth was that she felt the kind of thrill she'd known only from Olympic training, when everything was on the line and it all came down to trusting herself, her instincts, her hunches and what she knew she could accomplish.

I can do this!

“I don't understand,” Coral said, stumbling to keep up.

“You were born here, but you're not from here,” Joy said. “Or maybe you are. Over and over again!” Joy laughed, swallowing the taste of pollen and upturned earth. The world tasted like roses and tingled on her tongue. “But last time, you were born human and your name was Caroline.”

“Caroline?” the girl said, now more curious than scared. “Who's that?”

“My great-great grandmother.”

Coral gasped. Her gills flapped. “And she was human? You're a human?”

“Sort of,” Joy said.

“She is a human with the Sight,” Ink said, checking their progress. It seemed that Filly had driven her quarry into the lake. They could hear the explosive splashing and barked orders and whooping laughter and smell the water on the wind. “It runs in her family.”

Coral stumbled after them, shaking her head full of curls the color of green apples. “But I was born
here
,” she insisted. “That makes no sense—”

“It makes perfect sense,” Joy said. “When Folk die, they return to Faeland. It's your afterworld, after all, and humans go to Heaven or whatever.
But
if a human has the Sight, that means we have a drop of faery blood—Folk blood—we're descendants, halfings or eighthlings or three-quarterlings, whose souls ends up in Faeland, too. When the Folk leave Faeland to go back to the Twixt, they protect humans with magic—” Joy's voice faltered “—those with the Sight or inherent magic or, maybe, they are Folk reborn. We're family and we look after one another over and over again throughout our lifetimes, protecting the magic by protecting
each other
. Marking people lets you know who was once one of you!” Joy followed Ink, dodging between trees. Joy hoped it was a trick of the light that some of the trees looked like they'd dodged first. “Maybe it's always been that way after death—the Folk come back and then Return.” Her feet were flying, her thoughts outpacing her words. “They Return to protect their own!”

“Humans.” Ink said. “Humans under auspice. Those who have the magic.”

“Yes!” Joy said, crouching under a branch. “Humans go to Heaven. Folk come here. Those in between are—” he flipped her hand “—in between. They Return as the other and cycle anew.”

“So you think I have the soul of your ancestor?” Coral asked.

“Maybe. Yes. Or the spell wouldn't have worked.” Joy tried not to think how crazy it sounded, but if the spell on the dowsing rod was correct, then it fit. Coral was Caroline, reincarnated on this side of the Twixt, stuck here behind a locked door, waiting to Return. It explained everything—the dwindling numbers, the endangered magic, the lack of babies and the Folk born here on the wrong side of the door. “If humans under auspice are reborn Folk, then people with magic are part of the Twixt, preserving their magic, their bloodlines, protecting their own—”

“Until they Return,” Ink said. “Which they could no longer do when the King and Queen locked the door behind them.” Ink redirected them one more time. Joy could see the distant yellow banners over the crest of the land. “They closed off Faeland.”

Joy nodded. “A one-way trip with no Return.”

Ink was caught up in the momentum. “The magic waned, the tethers grew weaker, their numbers grew fewer—”

“No more births,” Joy said.

Ink nodded at Coral. “No more births.”

“Are you
kidding
?” Coral said. “There are so many little ones, you can barely take a step for fear of tripping!”

Joy and Ink exchanged a glance. Ink shrugged.

“It is a way to pass the time,” he said.

Joy laughed. “For a thousand years?” In her ear Inq's voice whispered,
Halflings happen!
She squinted through the last of their cover, looking down the final hill that sloped into the valley of the royal court's camp. How were they going to approach it without being seen? Joy could almost feel the hum of the doorway hanging in the air off to their left—everything was so close and yet she felt impossibly faraway. Her whole world had turned upside down while she was sitting still. They had to find Stef!

“Can you slice a doorway from here to down there?” Joy whispered, still staring at the circle of tents outside the court clearing. There were dozens of people, soldiers, guards, armored mounts and more. This was a hive of activity and inside its heart, the King and Queen. If she could plead her case, then maybe they'd agree to bring Stef to her. They could have their proof.

Ink shook his head, the tips of his long bangs hardly moving. “I have never been there,” he said. “And my magic will not work here, only human magic—wizard magic—as the Bailiwick said.”

Joy glanced at him. “But your blades are working fine.”

He shrugged. “Those are not magic, exactly.” He tested the edge with the pad of his thumb. “I have been cutting our way with steel and strength.”

“Are you kidding?” Joy traced the edge of a branch chopped neatly at an angle; the wood was sheared smooth, the bark sliced through without a splinter. It was moments like these when Joy understood that Ink wasn't human. Joy stared at the straight razor—the edge was jagged, pitted, broken. He'd been destroying his instruments for her. For Stef.

“You know better than most that the magic is not inherent to the tools we use. They are only as strong as those who wield them.”

Joy touched his face, smooth under silk, his words brushing past her as she peered down into the valley. Careful not to touch the earth, she parted the stiff grass like curtains with her gloved hands. “So how are we going to get down there without being seen? It's too long to run and too open to hide.” She wondered if her four-leaf clover had finally run out of juice.

Ink touched her shoulder, tender and halting. She looked into his eyes, deep pools of black with hot neon light. “Remember the gala—you want to make an entrance. You have already made quite the first impression.”

Joy didn't think that should count. “The ground split open.”

Coral gasped. “That was
you
?”

“Shh,” Ink whispered, crisp and clean.

Joy stared at Ink. He'd never shushed anyone before. It sounded so human.

Ink raised his hand quickly and cocked his head, listening with his Joy-shaped ear. “Do you hear anything?”

Joy hesitated. There was not so much as a breeze in the air.

Ink's boots cracked against the ground as he crouched lower. It sounded so loud in the quiet. He mouthed one word:
Filly?

He was right—Filly's distracting shenanigans had faded into silence. A warning chill shivered up Joy's arms under the full-length gloves, but then she realized that the tremble was coming from the ground. A quiver traveled up her boots, turning her knees and stomach to jelly. Her mind shrieked,
I didn't do it!
just before Coral screamed.

The hilltop boiled over, unflowering rather than splitting, chunks of earth and grass and root tearing up, rolling back, exposing the brown earth tumbling down. Joy knew she mustn't touch it—mustn't revel in the smell of it, the singing, malevolent power that ached to fill her up, to make everything roil and break and burn...

I AM VENGEANCE AND I WILL BE TRIUMPHANT!

No! She stumbled back. She mustn't let it touch her! She mustn't touch! Mustn't—!

Something snagged her knees, sucking in her feet, her legs, her hips before she realized the earth was pressed against her abdomen, squeezing her like toothpaste. She gave a gurgling scream. Coral fell sideways, still screaming a little-girl shriek, as Ink disappeared, swallowed underground.

There was just enough time for Joy to take a quick breath before the earth covered her head, shut her eyes and swallowed her whole.