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I COULD NOT BREATHE. I could hear the knocking get louder and louder downstairs, hear Logan rushing down, but I could not wrap my head around what was happening. “Logan!” I tried to cry out but my voice refused to listen to me, to make any sound at all; I choked. What was he doing? Whatever was down there – whatever thing – and I knew deep in my heart that it was the Pixie, Delano, the thing I had seen staring at me on the side of the road – it was surely nothing Logan could fight. He was just a boy, after all – strong, surely, muscular, certainly – but a human. Like me. He could not fight against some magical creature.
And yet – what magical creature was there? Until this morning, I hadn't believed in magic at all; now, it was coming all too quickly.
He had been so strong, so sure, Logan, I thought. He had taken control of the situation – he had believed everything I said, taken it seriously, then rushed me upstairs and had me lock myself in the art studio. Why? It was almost as if he had known what was going on, recognized the situation from what I was telling him, and determined that he would fight the Pixie.
What did he know?
The door flew open; I could hear the sound of a whistling wind swoop into the living room. It was the sound of a thunderstorm. My heart was beating faster now; terrified, I scrambled under the desk, covering my head with my hands. There was a loud crash.
What was going on? Who was this thing – this Pixie? And what did it want with me?
My eyes caught sight of the painting I had done of Kian, sitting back on the easel where I had replaced it, and my heart felt that same familiar longing – that same familiar familiarity. I felt as if there were something I had forgotten, some grave and important fact just slipping beyond the grasp of my brain, some key to all the answers of my dreams, of this whole strange day, that I knew – that I had always known – but just could not remember.
And Kian's face was the key to it all.
I closed my eyes tightly, my mind straying back to the world of my dreams.
Come on...I whispered to myself. Come on, Breena, remember...
Remember whatever it was I had forgotten.
There came a great and terrifying howl from downstairs, the howl of a wolf, careening off the ceilings and the walls, echoing upwards so that it felt the howl was coming from directly behind me, from all around me. The floors of the art studio shook; the walls were vibrating. I could hear one set of plates crashing, then a vase – identify each sound as one thing, then the other, crashed, was destroyed. I could hear sounds of a struggle – great thumps followed by loud crashes, the sibilant hissing of the wind on all sides of me, seeping underneath the door, shaking at the lock.
Make it stop...I cried. Just make it stop...
And then at last it had stopped, and the silence that followed was worse than the fight itself. One way or another, it had finished, and I did not dare to get up, to go downstairs, to see one of them (oh, but which one?) lying dead upon the floorboards, and one of them standing before me.
It didn't matter, I told myself, willing myself to be brave. If Logan had won, and sent the Pixie away, then he would need my help – washing the wounds, getting bandages...If Delano had won, then he would be coming upstairs to find me shortly...and the end result would be the same. I had to be brave.
You are a princess, said a voice in my head. Be brave.
Somewhere, somewhere far away, deeper than every plummet sound, I heard the melody of fairyland, that strange waltz from my dreams. It was playing for me. It was willing me to be brave.
Slowly, I opened the door.
I came downstairs, feeling sicker and sicker at each step. I did not want to see what had happened.
The first thing that caught my eye was Logan. He was laying naked, unconscious, thrown upon the sofa. But he was breathing.
I grabbed a blanket and ran to him, covering him up, without even the presence of mind to be embarrassed. He was hurt, and that was all that matter. I knew enough First Aid Training not to move him, nevertheless I shook him a bit, calling his name.
“It's going to be okay, Logan.” I pressed my cheek to his heart. It was beating strongly, powerfully. He would be fine. “Listen to me – there's just a little wound, okay? Nothing too bad.” I grabbed the shirt he had taken off earlier, pressing it to the cut on his shoulder, applying pressure to stop the bleeding. “You'll be fine.”
There was no sign of the Pixie. I relaxed, taking the first full breath I had taken since that terrible knocking first rapped on the door.
I went to the window, checking the locks, making sure there was nothing lurking in the woods.
And then the kitchen door flew open.
He was taller than I had remembered; his face was bonier, his eyes even more yellow – the putrescent color of burning sulphur. But I remembered his smile from the bus well enough – that cruel, cold, evil smile that told me he could look upon me, and Logan, in full, clear knowledge of what exactly he planned to do to us, and feel no regret, no remorse, no hesitation.
“Breena.” His mouth had not moved, but I heard his voice bearing down upon me, freezing the blood in my veins. “Come here, Breena.”
His eyes remained fixed upon me.
And then he was changing. He was beautiful, almost – and charming – his chin became less pointy – his eyes turned green again. Why, what had I been so afraid of, I felt myself wondering. He wasn't so bad at all. He was even handsome, with his outstretched hand, his long, ash-white hair. (And somewhere in the back of my mind a voice kept on screaming, kept on resisting, but I kept on moving forward anyway, hypnotized, entranced by his beauty, by those mesmerizing, morphing eyes...)
Perhaps I could just go to him, just for a little while...
Something stopped me. I felt a hand – a warm, strong hand – clamp around my mouth, another arm encircle my waist.
“Logan?” I craned my neck, but Logan was still there, lying unconscious upon the sofa where I had left him, still breathing.
Then who was behind me?
I struggled, but the grip remained firm on my waist, pulling me backwards, away from the Pixie King, whose malicious eyes (for they were back to malicious, now) were still fixed upon me.
I whipped my head around and gasped.
I knew his face, knew his face better than I knew my own reflection. I had dreamed of it every night for sixteen years.
It was Kian.
He was more beautiful than I remembered – that I ever could have known. His hair was longer, now, and his skin was even more white – the color of the first snowy morning in wintertime. His eyes were the silvery-blue of a wolf pelt – I could have mixed a thousand colors together, but I would never have been able to paint his eyes as I saw them then, in all their evanescent beauty.
And he was pulling me away.
“Wait,” I said, pushing myself out of his grasp. “Wait – look – we can't leave Logan here.”
But he kept on pulling me, floating backwards, up the stairs, towards the art studio.
Prince or no prince, I wasn't about to leave Logan in the clutches of the Pixie King. “Let me go!” I cried, trying to loosen his vice grip upon me. I remembered the Kian from my dreams – soft and gentle, even loving. This wasn't right.
“Let go of me!” I cried, but it had no effect. We were nearly at the studio now.
Then I caught sight of the Pixie King. He wasn't any more keen on Kian taking me away than I was, and he had fitted his bow with a sleek, silver arrow, and was aiming it right at us.
In a choice between the two of them, I still would have gone with Kian.
“No!” I cried, but it was too late. He had already drawn his bow, his sinewy arms tensed up, ready to fire the arrow straight into my heart...
Suddenly, out of nowhere, a blur leaped upon the Pixie, knocking him to the ground. It was some kind of animal, I thought, but it was certainly bigger than any animal I had ever seen. Its fur was long and gray; it had endless claws, and huge teeth. It was like a wolf – but it wasn't a wolf. It was different, somehow – nobler – the way unicorns in Causabon's Mythography looked different from ordinary. The wolf had been touched by magic.
The Pixie King leaped up again, ready to strike at the wolf, which in turn bared its teeth and snarled viciously. The two hurled themselves at each other, locked in battle, ready to fight to the kill...
And then Kian starting pulling me back again, into the art studio, away from the wolf, away from the Pixie, inextricably bound in the struggle of death...
He swept us backwards and the art studio door closed before us.
And then the door vanished.
I looked around us. We were in a forest – a great expanse of glittering trees, shimmering leaves. This was no ordinary forest.
“Where are we?” I asked Kian, but somehow I already knew.
I had been there before. My skin was tingling. My heart was pounding. I felt as if I had, for the first time in my life, woken up from the haze of sleep. Everything was clearer, brighter, sharper, more colorful. I could hear music in the wind – echoes from miles away. I could see each leaf, each blade of grass, each chip of bark, with infinite clarity, as if I were looking under a microscope.
I had painted some echo of this place. But if all my paintings were imitations of the images in my brain, then the images in my brain had always been only echoes of this.
We were in Feyland at last.