After a full day of flying, I could hardly stay awake. And after a dinner of trout that a gnome wheeling around an old radio flyer sold us—caught from the village of Lauslin of course, because of the intellectual fish situation here in Garlandia—I barely made it back up the stairs to my room before crashing out. In fact, I’m fairly confident I would have slept well into the next day if I hadn’t woken to a strange tickling sensation on my nose.
“Kevin—seriously. Can’t you go sleep with Tanker tonight?”
“Who’s Kevin? Should I be jealous?”
The unexpected male voice caused me to jump, and I nearly fell off the bed. When I rolled over, I found Toby grinning down at me while holding a feather. I took less than a second to gather my wits, and as my vision came into focus, I judged by how dark my room was that it was sometime after midnight.
“How did you get in here?” I whispered, appalled at the disheveled state in which he’d found me.
“I heard you learned how to fly today,” he said, in place of an answer to my question.
“Oh, did you?” I replied, feeling as though I’d been caught with my retainer in my mouth . . . luckily for me I hadn’t thought to bring it with me.
He stood back up, and with the moonlight reflecting off his pale hair, he gestured to the dress hanging next to my closet. “Do you like it?”
I rolled my eyes. “How could I not like it?”
His expression wavered. “I’m sorry? Is there a problem—does it not fit?”
I hadn’t even tried it on yet, but I knew it would.
“Toby, you sent me a ball gown.”
“I know.”
“You can’t do that,” I affirmed. “My parents—Maude and Tanker—they don’t understand this . . . whatever this is that’s going on between us.” I looked up at him expectantly, as though maybe he could define what I couldn’t yet understand.
“They became angry with you?”
“Of course they did.”
“How could they know it was from me?”
I shook my head. “It was wrapped in pale blue paper, it was pretty clear that it came from the castle. And . . . they may have had their suspicions before that.”
He raised his frosted brows.
I held my breath for a moment, weighing out whether to admit to my trail. Finally, I decided just to come out with it. “They’ve been having me followed—only because of the recent faery abductions, and because someone tried to take my wings once before. They just got me back and now they’re, like, freaking out.”
His demeanor changed. “What do you mean someone tried to take your wings before?”
“You know, when I was a baby. That’s why I went missing—” I stopped myself short, realizing my mistake. Just days ago, I’d told Rally that I’d left of my own accord, and that Maude and Tanker hadn’t had anything to do with my absence from Garlandia.
“I thought you said—”
“Yes,” I interrupted, trying to cover my tracks. “I left this world, but only after our house was broken into and someone tried to take my wings.”
“And you remember this?” He didn’t seem very convinced.
“Bits and pieces,” I lied. “You, um, you don’t think anyone working for your uncle would’ve had anything to do with—”
“With trying to murder the first Erwain born in over two hundred years? No. Makayla, my uncle was absolutely relieved when he heard of your return. So much so, I was worried the old bat was going to tip over in his throne.”
“He was relieved?”
“He keeps very close tabs on those living in his kingdom. The fact that one of his faeries went missing nearly drove him insane. Did Maude and Tanker not tell you all they went through after you’d gone?”
I shook my head very slowly.
“It was lucky they didn't seem to know where you were.” The expression on his face led me to believe that he didn’t believe that assumption. “My uncle expelled their dust to see if they’d sent you into the mountains—to live with the rebels.”
“Expelled their dust?” Rebels?
“Forcibly exhausted it from them, then had it read to him by one of his guards. Luckily all that they seemed to know was that you’d slipped from this world into another, and they didn’t know where to find you.”
“Forcibly exhausted their dust? That sounds torturous,” I murmured, cupping my hands over my mouth.
“It’s no woodland stroll, that’s for sure.”
“I guess it could’ve been worse . . .”
“Yes, it could’ve been way worse.” Arching his brows, Toby said, “Good thing not all the king’s men are actually the king’s men, if you know what I mean.”
“The guard lied? They lied about the information they found in their dust?”
Toby shrugged his shoulders, but I could tell that’s what he meant.
“I wonder why they never told me any of this.”
“Probably not something a parent wants to ever have to tell their child,” Toby offered.
“Right.”
I waited for the information to settle into my brain, then pulled him down so he was sitting on the bed next to me. When I felt his gaze rest over my shoulder, I turned to him. My breath was growing warmer as it exited my lips, and in an effort to try and relax, I reached for the vial dangling around his neck from a silver chain. It felt heavy with something I could not yet define.
“What is this?”
His hand clasped around my fingers and pulled them down slowly. “The last gift my mother ever gave me.”
“It’s full of magic,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
I met his gaze again. There were two winds colliding inside me, both hungry. One, for information, and the second, for Toby’s touch. Pushing past the second, I repeated a question that had been simmering in my mind for days. “Toby, is your uncle trying to get rid of the faery population in Garlandia? And if so, is he starting with the smallest of us first.”
He took a deep breath and laced his fingers through mine. He pulled my arm over into his lap and stared up at the ceiling as if his head had just gotten heavy. “King Loral isn’t the one abducting Ardeens. We have no idea who is doing that.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
All I could hear was the sound of my heart beating as I waited for him to respond, but he didn’t. It was as if he was waiting for the moment to pass.
“Don’t run from me, Toby. I’m not the kind of girl you can sway. It sounds to me like you aren’t backing his insane rulings, but still you jump when he says jump. What sort of hold does this king have on you? If there is anything to what is transpiring between us, I need to trust you.”
He exhausted an exasperated breath. “You can more than trust me, Makayla. As far as my uncle goes, in order to outsmart someone, sometimes you have to act as though you believe as they do.”
Immediately a small voice in my head began shouting, or Toby is the one who is trying to outsmart you, and make you think he loves you when in actuality he’s going to take you straight to the king to chop off your wings and your head!
Even still, I didn’t trust people, I trusted facts. But facts were hard to come by here and there were no people. That left me with my heart . . . and my heart said that I needed to trust Toby.
“You aren’t following your uncle’s rules, then?”
Leaning in so that his lips were nearly touching my ear, he whispered, “I don’t think we should talk about this here. Let us save this conversation for another time. Perhaps when you are closer to learning how to undo the spell I placed on that stone.”
My eyes leapt from his to the stone resting on my bedside table and back. “But you are willing to tell me things—like what is actually going on here in this wicked excuse for a kingdom?”
He nodded his head. “I will tell you everything. I ask only for your patience.”
I waited a few beats before replying. “Fine.”
I wasn’t backing down. I was evoking a trait I hadn’t used for weeks: tolerance. Shooting another glance over towards the secret stone, I asked, “What did you say into it anyway?”
The air grew thicker, and his hand came to my chin, pulling me in towards him. “It wouldn’t be a secret if I told you, now would it.”
As soon as I felt his breath on my skin, all my tension melted away. I reached for his face and his lips found mine quickly. In a very short time, the kiss we shared had found a rhythm, one that I couldn’t believe I had lived without for so long. In his arms, it felt to me like we’d been kissing one another every day for the past seventeen years.
Nothing around the two of us mattered anymore. His hands explored my body as the kiss deepened, and my hands traveled down to his waist. As I laid down into the bed, I pulled him over me like a blanket. The heat was growing around us like a hungry flame, and the yearning desire to feel him inside me was beginning to change from a whimper to a roar. I didn’t care that I was inexperienced, I only cared that I took care of this itch that needed to be scratched. I’d ignored my sexual energy for seventeen years, and now that it was out of its box, it was completely untamed.
Kneading my fingers into his shoulders, I rocked my hips against his. I could tell he wanted me, and the weight of him on top of my body sent me into a euphoric state. He moaned, pressing his body harder into mine, and as he did, I gripped his pants in my hands, ready to rip away anything standing in the way between his bare body and mine.
“Makayla,” he whispered, grabbing my wrists and pulling them to the sides.
My chest constricted, along with every other part of my body, and as he pulled away from me, it almost felt cruel. The longing I was left with was nothing more than sexual torture.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, a pleading in my voice I didn’t realize I was capable of making.
“Nothing. It’s just—we shouldn’t. Not yet,” he replied, sitting on the edge of my bed, brushing the hair out his face. There was just enough moonlight coming through the window to show that he was flushed.
I pushed myself partway up. “Is this some sort of elfin chivalry thing? Because if it is, I don’t—”
“This is me not wanting to move too fast,” he whispered.
Well, he definitely wasn’t a human boy, that was for sure.
“Are you afraid? I mean . . . are you . . . have you ever been with anyone before?”
Suddenly he looked amused. “No Makayla, I have not. And I’m not afraid, not at all.” He reached for my hand. “We only have the beginning once. We should treasure it.”
He must have seen the aggrieved look as it colored my face, because he chuckled softly to himself as he said the next part. “I want this, too. But you must remember that you aren’t from here, not really. You’re a faery—but let’s face it, you’re still so very human.”
I made a face, unsure of whether this was an insult.
“What I’m trying to tell you, Makayla, is that mating is different here than what you’re used to. Elves and faeries, well, we tend to mate for life.”
“So do humans,” I said, leaning in closer, as I twisted my lips into a seductive smile.
“No—I mean, I realize they do, but—Makayla, what I’m trying to say is that once we do this, there really isn’t any going back. From what I know of the world you’re used to, if something doesn’t work out then you can move on. It’s not quite the same here. We will be each other’s forever. My magic, fused with yours, will make it so.”
I paused from where I’d been leaning into him, the fire inside me suddenly dying down a little.
“Huh?”
Toby chuckled. “That’s what I thought.”
“I—I—” My tongue was tied into a knot.
Forever. Each other’s forever. And we lived for . . . ever.
Toby stood up and held out his hand for me to take, a wide grin on his face. “Come on, why don’t we slow it down a bit. Dance with me.”
“Dance with you? Here?” I looked down at what I was wearing. A ratty old t-shirt—a peasant compared to his get up.
“Yes,” he insisted. “Come on, Makayla. I want to dance with my future queen, for there will be no balls where we are going.”
And that was when the mood changed . . . and not because he’d referred to me as his lifelong partner to be. As I allowed him to pull me up, I felt as though a dark cloud was falling around the two of us. “And where are we going?”
“We don’t know yet,” he answered seriously. “In time we will find out.”
And then, taking a step backwards, he bowed to me.
“In time?”
He nodded, leading me into a dance I was sure he’d danced a few times before. I followed his lead, and as I did the walls changed into the gazebo where we’d had our first kiss. I could better hear the creatures of the forest stirring and there was a slight chill in the air. When he twirled me around, a flash of gold spun with me—encasing me in its glow—and when next I looked down, it was to find that I was wearing the ball gown.
“How did you do that?” I asked, staring down at the light blue fabric. It was as translucent as my wings.
“Have you not figured out yet, Makayla, that I am an elf?”
“Right,” I said. “Magic, it still baffles me from time to time.”
“Any progress in that department?”
“It’s a bit more complicated than I thought it would be.”
“But it’s inside you, it always has been. You let me feel your dust last time we were here, so now I see you clearly. You’ve spent your entire life encased in an armor; one you wore because you didn’t have your wings. Now that your wings are back, the armor is gone. The only one standing in the way of you getting what you need, is you. Before moving forward, you need your magic, and all you have to do to get it back is accept that it is a part of you. Once you begin to use it again, it will become as natural as breathing air, as flapping those beautiful wings.”
“You are saying that once I learn how to hone my skills, utilize my dust, that I will be able to understand everything else?”
“Yes.”
He twirled me again, then pulled me into his chest. Studying him, the way he looked at me, I couldn’t help but ask, “You don’t think I’m going to return back to where I came from, do you?”
Very slowly, he shook his head.
“You’ve called me your future queen—you already know you want me forever. How can you know that?”
“That’s a question I’ve already answered for you.”
I opened my mouth to reply but couldn’t. Because I didn’t know what to say. He spun me around so that his hands were resting on my hips, my head and wings resting against his chest.
The last time we were in this place, the day he made me the secret stone, he’d asked me—had I believed in love. Would I rather taste love and have it taken away, or never have it at all? Now he was telling me that ours was a love that would last, literally, forever. And if I was correctly translating everything he’d said thus far—ours was a love we’d shared lifetimes ago. It was a lot to take in. All I’d been after was a first kiss.
My gaze wandered and fell to the statue of the Aeronian elf on the other side of the balcony. The way the moonlight was shining on it, it was like he was staring directly at me. Pleading with me almost. Suddenly I was reminded of what Tanker had insinuated a few nights ago. His doubts of Toby’s true intentions. That Toby, this elf who I was madly falling for, had most likely murdered under the king’s reign.
“Toby,” I whispered. “I have very strong feelings for you—” He pulled me in tighter. “But I—this is all so very foreign to me. I mean, even if this was happening in the human world, it would be new.” I flipped around to face him. “If I am going to give you any more of my heart, I have to know something.” As I reached for the words, I found they’d become stifled. Perhaps because I didn’t want to know the truth.
“What is it?”
“Have you—do you—” I couldn’t say it out loud. Scrunching up my nose, I pointed back at the elf. “Do you know what that elf did?”
“What do you mean?”
I nibbled at my lip, then adjusted my gaze so it was on Toby’s chest. “Do you know what that elf did to get turned to stone? He appears as though he worked for the king.”
Toby was silent for a moment. When he spoke again, he was very serious. “I have no idea what he could’ve done.”
“Do you recognize him?”
“No. He must’ve worked for the king before I was old enough to remember. Makayla, what are you getting at?”
“It’s just that this place is, like, haunted. Don’t you feel it? It’s like he’s not gone. It’s like King Loral’s nasty charade is bleeding down from the stars that align directly over this poor soldier’s frozen shoulders.”
Toby’s lips grew thin as they pursed together. It wasn’t the reaction I wanted. I needed him to appear more upset, more in agreement.
I let go of his hand and took a step back. “I need you to be honest with me . . . because I have to know.” My heart rate picked up again as I stared into his glass blue eyes. “Have you ever done this to someone?”
“Makayla,” he said, raising a hand in the air as though he could put an end to my demands. “This is not the time nor place—”
“Have you?”
He stared at me as though I’d ripped out his heart. “I refuse to answer that. There are things you cannot understand as you are right now. Things you aren’t prepared to hear. I’ve had to do things—horrible things—in order to—”
“Have you done this?” I lashed out, pointing a shaking arm at the statue. “Have you ever turned an innocent villager to stone?”
“Mak—”
“Don’t say my name. For once, just once in this fantastical, cruel place, I would just like an honest answer.”
He dropped his hands to his sides. “Yes.”
As soon as he said it, I felt my chest constrict. The chorus of woodland creatures stirring desisted, leaving only the kind of silence that makes one feel more than empty inside.
“You—you’ve murdered—”
“Please listen to me,” he said, lunging forward and grabbing my arms, pulling me into his chest. I tried to pull away, but he was too strong. “I am not on his side, Makayla. You have to believe me.”
“You’re no better than any of the rest of them,” I sputtered out, as I wretched and twisted until I was free from his grip, backing away into a post. With my chest heaving, I practically spat at his feet. “I trusted you. How could you make me believe that you were someone I could actually love?”
He looked so hurt that I almost believed him. “You can trust me.” He strode towards me again, but I quickly manifested my wand and held it out.
He halted before it. “You don’t know how to use that.”
“Don’t I? You’re the one who just said I already have all the magic I need, right inside of me. One step closer and you’ll be sorry.”
“You’re not going to hurt me,” he whispered.
“Please just go.”
“Let me explain, at least.”
“There is nothing you can say to me right now that will make me think you are anything less than a murderer.”
He started to reach for me again, but I swiped my wand in the air. Nothing happened of course, but he still pulled away.
“You seriously want me to go?” he asked softly.
“I don’t know how much clearer I can be.”
“All right,” he said, taking a step backwards. “I’m a knight, I have no choice but to do as a lady says. Take some time and cool down.” And then he disappeared, almost too quickly.
Tears began to well up in the corners of my eyes, and as I pushed away from the post, the gazebo transformed back into my bedroom. I only made it a couple steps before collapsing onto my bed.
How had that happened? Everything had been going so well—my sheets even still smelled of him. Incense and orange peels. For a split second I thought I’d reacted too brash, that I should have given him a chance to explain. But no—no, he’d admitted to being a party to stoning innocent villagers. For all I knew he could’ve been the one who murdered Herbert. It didn’t matter to me whether he was on his uncle’s side, there had to have been ways around the killing of faeries and elves. As these thoughts continued to swirl around my head, my shoulders began to shake as I lost control.
This was all the result of poor judgement. I’d allowed myself to become vulnerable for the first time, and in the process, I’d completely come derailed from my stringently aligned set of goals. Toby was right, I’d taken off my armor; but perhaps I’d always had it on for good reason. Either way, the only thing I was sure of as I cried myself to sleep, was that love was a dangerous thing. I mean, I could’ve given myself to him forever—in a heart’s beat, I would’ve done it. No wonder Helene looked so hard. It all made a lot more sense now.
I woke up the next morning with a terrible headache and an aching desire for everything to have been a horrible dream. But then Maude came busting into my room, a worrisome look on her face and a letter in her hand.
“Lala, wake up! Wake up!” She came to a halt, staring down at me, strewn across the bed, still wearing the ball gown. “Why are you wearing that?”
“Oh this,” I said, playing it off as though it was nothing. “I just wanted to try it on, that’s all. I laid down in it and must’ve fallen asleep.” Interpreting the look on her face, I said truthfully, “Don’t worry, there is absolutely no reason for me to wear it ever again.”
“Well,” she said exasperatedly, lifting the note, “you might as well keep it on for a little longer. You’ll need to look presentable. King Loral has requested your presence at his throne.”