Invincible (31 page)

The silence in that moment stretched with a million things unsaid. Joy's world had just cracked open and shattered like that thing in the hall. Everything was upside down and backward and she was pretty sure she'd skipped a step between here and then.

Her father washed his hands in the sink.

“What I don't understand is why you didn't
tell
me.” His voice sank into a whisper as he shut off the water. Joy opened her mouth to say something, but there were no words. Her father's face changed. “Oh. Oh. Wait a minute. That night we went to the hospital. The thing with the eye? That's when it started, right?” Joy twisted her fingers in her shirt. She couldn't do anything but nod. Her father sighed again, some of the anger deflating. “And you thought you couldn't tell me.”

“I—I wanted to keep you safe.”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Yeah, that's what your mother used to say.” He glanced around the kitchen as if just realizing where they were. “So, fairies, eh?”

“Yeah.” She kicked her feet against the stool.

“And Mark... Ink? He's one of them.”

Joy sniffed. Her head hurt. “Yep.”

He nodded and glanced back at the ruined door. “I'm guessing this has something to do with why Stef hasn't called to say that he's arrived at school?”

“Yeah.”

Dad wiped his hand over his face. “Well, better than a wreck on the highway,” he said. “So where is he?”

“In Faeland.” Joy couldn't believe those words actually made it past her lips. She couldn't believe she was having this conversation. With Dad. “He's safe,” she added. “He's with Dmitri. He'll be home soon.”

“Dmitri?” her father said. “I know that name.”

Joy shrugged. “It was one of his imaginary friends...”

“When he was five,” her dad finished for her and rubbed his eyes with his thumbs. “Oh, this is all starting to make sense now.” He blinked up at the ceiling and undid his tie. Pulling it out with a
zip
, he picked up his phone and began typing slowly, pushing too hard. “I am taking a Personal Day,” he said while pressing the letters one by one. “Then you and I are going to sit down and you are going to tell me everything.”

Joy wiped at unexpected tears. “Everything?” she said. She hardly dared to smile. This was too impossible to be true—a feeling she remembered from their picnic in Abbot's Field, where the impossible became possible, Ink in a glamour shaking everybody's hands. “Everything is...a lot. And it's not all good.” She squeezed her fingers together. “You sure?”

“Everything,” her father said, and pulled her into a hug. “Nothing you say will change a thing, Joy, because I will always—
always
—love you.”

Joy wrapped her arms around him, held on and cried.

TWENTY-SIX

JOY WASN'T SURE
what woke her up Thursday morning, but she was still tired; it was either too early or too late. She rolled over, trying to locate the clock and check the time, when she saw the shape of Ink in the dark. She reached out a hand. He accepted it gently. She squeezed his fingers, kissing the inside of his wrist.

“Joy?”

Shocked, she sat up, fumbling for the lamp that wasn't there. Then she remembered: she'd used it to hit twin somethings in the face. She remembered the gargoyle. The slimy-rope-lizard. The smell of Ladybird's breath.

Joy scrambled for the emergency flashlight under her bed and clicked it on. Avery stared back.

“Wha—?” Joy gasped, touching her hair, her clothes, the sheets—all there. She was absurdly glad that she'd fallen asleep fully dressed after her long talk with Dad.

Avery blinked and gestured back into the hall. “What happened here?”

“Oh,” Joy said. “Long story. Short version—the ward was removed, we were attacked, we smashed a thingie, everyone vanished, the end.” She'd expected Ink to appear by now. Wouldn't he have felt the breach in the ward? Where was he? Was he still out with Inq? Joy checked the clock: 5:20 a.m. She groaned and got out of bed. This conversation was awkward enough without having it lying down. “What are you doing here?”

“I may have found your proof.”

Joy yawned. “What?”

“The proof you require to convince the King and Queen to Return,” he said. “You said that would help.”

“Yes. Right. Hold that thought,” Joy said. She motioned for him to follow her into the kitchen. She stepped over the blurry blast pattern in the rug, careful not to step on any missed pieces they hadn't cleaned up from the floor. They'd covered Stef's door with black trash bags that now hung off the door frame by strips of tape. She glanced back at Avery, who looked unrepentant, his feathered cloak gliding over the wreckage like smoke.

She took out orange juice, a PowerBar and Vinh's herbal tea. None of it looked appetizing. She stuck a mug of water in the microwave and turned it on High.

“Okay,” Joy said under the whirr. “I'm listening.”

“I have been speaking amongst the Tide...” Avery paused at Joy's scowl. “Whatever you may think of them, they are traditionalists and purists and know much about the way things were during the age of the monarchy. I thought it might help to ask them about the glory days.” He smoothed the feathers down off his shoulders. “They were quite forthcoming.”

Joy removed the water and started mixing her sludge. “And?”

“The Folk are bound to protect this world's magic and that which possesses it—certain plants, animals, the land and its people—and I discovered that there are some remnants of that era that still remain, pure strains of the First Forest, for example, for which this place is named.” Joy glanced up. Glendale was originally the Glen, a part of the legendary First Forest. Avery nodded. “I thought, perhaps, if you could show the King and Queen that we have still kept our word, kept those sacraments entrusted to our care, then perhaps they will know we have been successful in what matters most—that the magic has been preserved. Despite their reservations about human entrapment, encroachment or discovery, the Folk have kept the world safe for magic to survive.” He gestured through the kitchen window where the sun was just coloring the sky. “We can survive here, together. Therefore, it is safe to Return.”

“That's...brilliant,” Joy said as she absently drank her tea. The taste woke her up enough to gag and stuff half the bar into her mouth. She raised a finger for him to wait as she glugged down some juice.

“That looks unpleasant,” Avery said. “Does it work?”

She gasped for air. “Haven't changed yet.”

“You have changed more than you think,” he said. “The Twixt changes you, life changes you—people
can
change—perhaps not always in ways that are expected or wanted, but not always for the worse.” Circling the counter, he came conspiratorially close. “Unfortunately, I'm not certain if my inquiries have alerted the others. The Folk are understandably nervous and may take precautions. Something is happening—it's in the air—the end of an Age is near. And many believe, quite rightly, that its outcome depends on you.” Avery tucked the edge of his cloak in his fist, his snow-white hair fanning over his eyes. “Do you wish to go garner your proof?” he said, glancing at the kitchen table. “Or would you rather wait and take your chair?”

Joy frowned. She knew that she should wait for Ink, but something about Avery's taunt irked her. Did she trust him or not? She still had choices. She could still find proof, but she was running out of time. It was barely unsaid between them:
If you're the chosen one, prove it.

Joy poured the tea into a tumbler, popped the top and grabbed her purse full of magic. She checked her phone and her scalpel and laced up her spider-silk-lined boots.

“Quickly,” she said, grabbing her sludge. “Let's go.”

* * *

They stood before the Glendale Oak. She shouldn't have been surprised. The giant tree was the town landmark and one of the last traces of the original Glen. A thick canopy of leaves applauded in the breeze as she and Avery dropped to the ground in a sudden rush of silver-blue and feathers. It was almost a shame no one else had seen them—it had been a graceful dismount, a good nine out of ten.

The Glendale Oak's massive trunk was riddled with names and high school sweethearts carved into its bark. It was where she'd often met Ink after school, and the first place she'd seen Aniseed, stretched out naked at its roots. Joy skipped her fingers over the ancient tree and pressed her palm flat against its scars. She tried to imagine when the land had all been forest, the whole of Glendale covered in trees.

“Okay,” Joy said. “Now what?”

Avery craned his head back to look. “Bring them proof. How about a leaf?”

“A leaf?” Joy asked. “Why couldn't you have just brought me a leaf?”

“I cannot,” Avery said. “This tree is sacred to Forest, and therefore also, to Earth. You have a right to it under your House, but I am of Air. It would be considered profane.”

“Really?” Joy said, circling the trunk. Humans, obviously, had no trouble desecrating sacred Folk trees. She wondered which she had been when she'd touched it last—human or halfling? “What's sacred to Air?”

Avery grinned. “There are some places where Folk like you cannot breathe.”

“Fair enough,” she said. The oak branches were high, but many drooped at the ends, thick with autumn acorns. She stretched as high as she could, but she still couldn't reach. “Are you sure you couldn't just fly up there and shake one down with your foot?”

Avery twitched his cloak closer. “Definitely not.”

“Okay,” Joy said, taking out her scalpel. “Let's try something else.” She tested the handle, feeling the crosshatched texture like an extension of her hand, and looked for a likely target that wouldn't cut close to the telephone wires.

“Tell me it's not true, what they are saying.”

She was too busy squinting up at the branches to pay much attention to Avery, but he sounded unusually anxious. “What are they saying, exactly?”

His voice dropped. “That you are not truly part of the Twixt. That you are something...other. Forbidden,” he said carefully, and when she turned to him, his blue-green glare cut deep.

“Funny, you calling me Other Than,” Joy said without humor. “That's what my brother was taught to call you.” She picked out a stray branch waving in the wind and watched it bob and sway, trying to anticipate its movements. “He learned it from my great-grandmother. She'd been warned about Folk like you.”

“Like me,” Avery said, ruffled. “Is it true, then?”

Joy snapped. “Is
what
true?”

“There are rumors of things Folk have seen, have heard about you, old stories that sound familiar, even prophecies, since your showing at the gala Under the Hill,” he said. “They speak of ancient things, creatures of chaos, and say that you may be drawn from them and not the noble Houses. That you do not bend before the rules of the King and Queen.” He checked her reaction as she kept her expression neutral. “If that could be proven, it would release you from the protections of the Edict. In fact, it would completely reverse them. And the Tide—” He paused. “The Tide would crush you and have the Council's blessing.” Joy shuddered and looked back up at the tree.

Avery placed a hand on her shoulder, speaking low. “Do you understand you would be hunted down as an abomination, not just by the Tide, but by everyone who fears losing our chance to redeem ourselves to our King and Queen, especially when we are so close to reuniting with our kin?” His hand tightened, his voice gone dry. “They see you as the final obstacle to the Imminent Return.”

Joy shrugged off his touch. “That's crazy!” she said. “I'm the one who helped them remember the royal family in the first place! I'm the one who's doing everything I can to help bring them back!”

“And if an Elemental stood between them and the door to Heaven, what do you think the Folk would do?”

Joy glared at Avery, who glared right back. This wasn't helping. She was getting distracted. She fixed her gaze on the high branch in the wind.

“Does it matter?” she whispered.

“Of course it
matters
!” he spat, his nearness radiating anger, betrayal. She'd recently experienced much the same thing and Joy reminded herself to be kinder. He spoke before she could apologize.

“No,” he said hastily. “You're right. It doesn't matter. You have accepted your
signatura
and your
geas
, and therefore, you are bound as one of us.” He raised his head slowly. “The magic accepted you—the Folk must do the same.”

Joy hesitated. “That's...very good of you.”

“You think so?” Avery asked. “Then you do not know me well at all.”

“Not much,” she admitted, stepping away from the oak. Avery moved out of her way. Joy wondered if she should be flattered or insulted. A strange thought occurred to her, but she didn't turn around. “Have you come to help me or stop me?”

“I've considered stopping you,” he admitted. “But then, I've considered many things since meeting you.”

Joy dared not meet his eyes.

Avery stepped back and glanced around the campus. The only sounds were the rustle of leaves and the metallic ping of the rope slapping the flagpole. “You might want to hurry. I cannot fly against the north wind.”

“I'm working on it,” Joy said. She snapped her wrist, felt the power move, but it flashed past the tree into the air. “Crap. Hold this.”

She handed him the hot tea and opened her left palm, giving the branch a
push
and simultaneously snapping the scalpel with her right. The branch shivered in place and the twig cracked with a flick; a clump of leaves came tumbling down. Joy ran to it and picked it up over her head. “Ha!” She hurried over. “Okay, then,” she muttered, stuffing the leaves into her purse and taking back her vile tea. “Now what?”

Avery wasn't listening. His eyes lingered on her chest. She felt like slapping him.

“Where did you get that?” Avery asked.

She looked down. The Queen's jewel winked at her throat, catching and tossing the morning light.

“Oh,” she said, wondering if it was safe to wear it out in the open. “It was given to me.”

“Impossible.”

“Shows what you know,” Joy said with a lick of sass, the type her father hated most. “The Queen gave it to me when she asked for my help to Return.”

Avery flinched. “Do you know what that is?”

Joy shrugged. “Honestly? No.”

“It's the Third Eye,” he said. “The Crown Jewel of the Queen.”

“Oh,” Joy said, rubbing the smooth stone under her thumb. It sounded important. She wondered if the Queen thought she'd deserved something with capital letters. “It's pretty.”

Avery gave her a look that could curdle milk.

“Legend says that the Queen can see everything that happens through her Third Eye,” he said. “There are many who would happily kill you just for that.”

“Wonderful!” Joy said, dropping the gem. “Why not add it to the list?”

The wind whipped the American flag into a frenzy and tossed their hair about their faces, blurring their vision. Joy drew a long strand out of her mouth. Avery brushed a hand across his face. “I would not let them,” he said.

“Really?” Joy spat out more hairs. “Why not?”

“I promised Enrique.”

“Enrique?”
Joy remembered Avery's face as he let go of his memory crystal, watching it float up to join the others during Enrique's wake near the Wild.