For maybe five seconds, Tamora felt like she was falling in every direction, like an out-of-control carnival ride. She emerged from the willow tree, followed closely by Karina and Mac. Tamora took one step, and her foot slipped on a muddy root. She fell hard onto the dirt. As far as entrances went, this was about as humiliating and unimpressive as you could get.
That was when Gulk came through, tripped over Tamora, and tumbled to the ground beside her.
“Goblins,” muttered Vernors.
They were in a broad clearing beneath a deep red sky. The trees had leaves of orange and purple, save for a few squat-looking pine trees with silver needles. The air tasted cool and sweet. Only the willow tree was the same as in their own world. The land was flat, with no sign of any river.
“We’re really in another world,” she whispered. The sun was too large and too red, and the mud glittered like it had been mixed with glass dust, and the clouds twisted about in spirals, and it was all terrifying and amazing and disorienting. For a moment, the sheer wonder of it pushed all else aside. She grabbed her phone to snap a picture, then got up and leaned close to Mac and Karina. “Bansa selfie!”
Mac typed something on his iPad, but the words it spoke were gibberish. He grunted in frustration.
Karina put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s overwhelming, isn’t it?”
Mac nodded, keeping his eyes on his iPad. He turned his head a fraction of an inch to each side, taking in one sliver of their surroundings at a time.
Vernors flew up to perch in the willow branches. “We’ve got company.”
Before Tamora could answer, a slender spear slammed into the ground in front of her, thrown with such force it buried more than half its length in the dirt.
“Oh, dung!” Gulk tried to retreat through the willow tree, but Pukwuk caught him by the ear, making him squeal.
Tamora couldn’t see who’d thrown the spear, but Ms. Anna had said the elves would be guarding the tree. She raised her hands. “The Elf Queen is expecting us! She’s on her way here.”
“We were sent by Elannasithe,” added Karina.
Tamora glanced at her. “Elannasithe?”
“I…I think that’s Ms. Anna’s name. One of her names. I don’t know how I know. It just came to me.”
“We know why you’re here.” The speaker who emerged from the trees looked nothing like Ms. Anna. It was tall and slender, with rubbery yellow skin and huge eyes. It—he—pointed a large curved sword toward Tamora and her friends.
“Who put a bloody troll in charge?” muttered Vernors.
Other creatures joined him. Tamora spotted a group of goblins, along with a few pix moving through the branches. There were frog-like warriors with no visible weapons, who crouched with the attentiveness of predators about to pounce, and impossibly slender figures dressed in wisps of white clouds.
“We intercepted your message,” the troll said. “We know ya seek to form a secret alliance with the elves.”
“Those baggy-skinned beasts make goblins look clever,” said Vernors.
Gulk spun toward the pix. “That’s a lie!”
“The elves took my best friend,” Tamora said loudly, hoping to smother what promised to be a truly ridiculous argument. “They cursed my father.”
“They murdered Starflight,” added Vernors, eliciting moans from the pix in the trees.
“So you’re here to join the Dead King, then?” The troll grinned, baring pointed yellow teeth in dire need of braces. “Why didn’t ya say so?”
Mac straightened, deliberately looked the troll in the eye, and said, “We just want…to talk.”
“That’s right,” said Karina. “We’re here to talk. That’s all.”
“Is that so?” The silken words came from the other side of the small clearing.
A group of elves emerged, moving silently and in perfect formation. They were thin-limbed, with skin the color of ash. Most had darker hair, cut short on the men and women alike. Those in front carried short spears fitted to wooden spear-throwers. Behind them, the next line readied bows and arrows.
The troll raised his sword. The elves drew back their spears.
“Wait!” shouted Tamora.
To her shock, they did. Elves and monsters alike turned toward her. From the shadows behind the elf lines, that smooth, feminine voice said, “My delegate told me the humans presented a threat, one which required my personal attention. It seems she exaggerated.”
Tamora swallowed. “I’m—”
“No name,” Gulk whispered.
Right. Names were power. “I’m queen of the goblins of Earth, and friend to Andre Stewart. I mean, to King Nobody the 42nd.”
At some unspoken signal, the elves split into two groups, creating a path down the center. A stocky, muscular woman with a silver crown strode forward, followed by three familiar humans.
Karina gasped and started toward her brother. Weapons on both sides pointed toward her. Mac grabbed her arm, holding her back.
“Andre,” Tamora whispered. They were alive. She’d gotten here in time.
Andre wore armor made of golden scales, each one cut in the shape of a leaf. A dagger and slender sword hung from his thick leather belt. His face was thinner than she remembered, topped by a golden helmet. A pale scar cut from his right eyebrow to the bridge of his nose.
She wanted to laugh and cry and shout and run through the elves and hug him and then punch him for vanishing even though she knew it wasn’t his fault.
“Do you know this child?” asked the woman, the Elf Queen.
Andre tilted his head. “I…I’m not sure.”
It was like he’d thrust his sword through Tamora’s heart. The monsters shifted and muttered to one another, while the other elves stood like statues.
The Elf Queen pursed her lips. Unlike the others, she didn’t appear to be armed, save for a small wand of blue-tipped wood tucked through her belt. “Where is my delegate?”
“You mean Ms. Anna? She’s our prisoner, back on our world.”
“Taped by ducks!” Gulk shouted.
Tamora groaned.
The Elf Queen blinked in confusion. “I…I see. You and your forces have managed to capture one banished elf, and now you think yourselves mighty enough to come to my world and threaten my army? You have no power, no standing here.”
“The goblins of my world made me their queen,” Tamora said, wishing she sounded half as confident as the elf. “You made us a part of your war.”
“Poor, naïve child. You have no comprehension of our war.” She glanced at the troll and his soldiers. “I’ll allow you to decide your own fate, girl. A spear from my soldiers will bring a quick death. Or would you prefer I turn you over to these foul creatures who serve my opposite? For more than a year, they’ve yearned to tear a human limb from limb.”
Mac reached to squeeze Tamora’s hand. She squeezed back and said, “You don’t understand. We came so you could return the humans you kidnapped for your false prophecy.”
The skin around the Elf Queen’s eyes tightened, but before she could respond, another voice interrupted from the monsters’ ranks.
“False prophecy, is it?” The words were dry and hoarse, spoken with a wheeze that made Tamora think of a leaking bicycle tire. Four of the frog creatures carried a crude sedan chair to the front of the line. Within the chair sat what had to be the Dead King.
Like the other elves, he was tall and gray-skinned. Unlike them, he had a silver-handled dagger sprouting from the center of his chest. A shaggy mane of gray curls spilled from his head like a dirty waterfall. “Tell me more, human.”
The Elf Queen raised a hand. Her elves readied their bows.
“No,” said Tamora, praying the queen’s hand wouldn’t twitch, wouldn’t signal Tamora’s death. “Not like this. A private conference. As equals.”
“Equals?” The Dead King chuckled, which turned into a hacking cough. “You’re a human. A child, ruler of a motley band of cowards and refugees.”
“You’re one to talk,” shouted Karina.
Gulk whimpered. Several of the Dead King’s monsters snarled. The Elf Queen’s mouth twitched.
“Your delegate was right,” said Tamora. “Humans are a threat. We can either discuss that threat, or you can kill us and discover it for yourselves.”
King and Queen glanced at one another. The Elf Queen raised a hand in what Tamora assumed was a shrug. “It does no harm to hear them out and then kill them.”
“Agreed,” said the Dead King.
“Very well.” The Elf Queen waved her army back. The elves retreated out of earshot, fading to shadows among the distant trees. Only the three humans remained. The Dead King did the same, sending all but his carriers back.
“Say what you’ve come to say,” wheezed the Dead King.
Tamora clasped her fingers together and squeezed, trying not to think about how easily either of these people could order her death. Hers and her friends’.
“You’ve got this,” whispered Karina.
Tamora stepped forward to stand between the two rulers. “We’ve come to offer you a chance to surrender.”
The Elf Queen burst into laughter, loud and sharp. Her humans reached for their weapons. “I’ve not laughed like that in many years. Thank you.”
The Dead King’s reaction was quieter, a smirk of disdain beneath his beard, and a narrowing of his gray eyes.
“The queen’s delegate told me of the numbers the elves face,” Tamora continued. “How big is your army, your majesty?”
“I have tens of thousands of goblins alone. In total, an army of a hundred thousand follows my commands.”
“A hundred thousand. All right.” She turned to the queen. “And your elves, your majesty?”
“More than enough to match his strength.”
“Cool.” Tamora nodded absently. “That’s what Ms. Anna said, too. Which made me start to think. Either your world is a lot smaller than ours, or else we’re not talking about your whole world. A goblin told me you both want to rule from one ocean to the other. That sounds more like a single continent.”
“My amusement grows thin,” the Dead King warned.
“Sorry.” Tamora gestured toward the red willow. “Your armies are impressive, I’m sure. But we have seven billion human beings in our world.”
The Dead King scoffed. “Your lies should be plausible if you expect them to be believed.”
“Ask them.” Tamora jerked her chin toward Andre and the others.
“They remember little of your world,” said the Elf Queen.
“Then ask these two goblins. Ask the pix. They’ve seen our world.” She turned. “Tell them what you’ve learned of Earth.”
Gulk stepped forward, visibly trembling. “Gulk found pup tarts!”
The Elf Queen stared at him like he was a worm she’d found in her breakfast. “I do not understand.”
Vernors flew forward, smacking Gulk’s head in passing. “Yer majesties, I ain’t gonna try to count every human on that world, but I can’t say the lass is wrong. There are thousands of humans in that one town alone. Their magic allows them to communicate instantly over long distances. From what I’ve seen, I counsel you to take this girl’s words seriously.”
“Where is my dragon?” the Elf Queen demanded. “It can pry the truth from your minds.”
The pix shrugged. “That ol’ worm hasn’t poked its head from the sewers since the Goblin Queen fried its whiskers.”
The Dead King chuckled.
“That’s right,” said Tamora. “I beat your dragon. My brother Mac broke Elannasithe’s spell. My friend Karina enchanted your delegate with her own magic. Three humans did that. Do you really want to make enemies of the rest?”
“Your people know nothing of magic or our world,” said the Dead King. “They cannot war upon those they cannot reach.”
Tamora folded her arms. “In school last year, we took cuttings of a pussy willow bush and grew new plants. We can do the same with this tree. We’ll plant them throughout the world to grow dozens of enchanted trees. Hundreds.”
“You lack the ability to open them,” said the Elf Queen.
“We opened this one.” Tamora paused to let that sink in. “If I don’t return, everyone on the other side of this portal will reveal the existence of goblins and pix and elves and magic. They’ll tell how you kidnapped and enchanted human beings—children—from our world. It may take a while for humanity to get here, but we will. And do you know something I learned about human beings from history class? Once we discover a new place, we don’t leave. This won’t be your world anymore. It will be ours.”
“We have magic,” the king pointed out.
“We have tanks and jets and guns and bombs,” Tamora shot back. “And factories that can produce millions of them.”
The two elves looked at one another. The Elf Queen’s lips tightened. The Dead King was first to speak. “What is it you want, Goblin Queen?”
“I want my friends,” she said. “Let me take them home. And your promise that, no matter who wins this war, neither of you will ever again take people from my world.” She looked at the Elf Queen. “I’ll return Ms. Anna to you once we’re safely back.”
The elves exchanged another long, silent look. Unlike the dragon, Tamora was pretty sure elves weren’t telepathic, but these two had probably known each other long enough to communicate without words. Tamora tried not to fidget.
“We…agree,” the Elf Queen said through clenched teeth.
“Well done, Queen of the Goblins,” added the Dead King. “Return to your world in peace, and take these bothersome humans with you.”
Tamora could barely speak. It had worked? Andre, Kevin, and Lizzy were coming home! “Thank you.”
The Elf Queen turned to her escort. “You will accompany the Goblin Queen.”
Karina hugged her. Vernors let out a whoop. Gulk tugged at Tamora’s hand, pulling her toward the portal. Pukwuk simply stared, her eyes huge, as if she couldn’t believe what had happened.
“Come on.” Tamora took one last look at Bansa. A part of her wanted to stay and explore, to see more of this world. Instead, she turned her back on elves and monsters and climbed the roots of the willow. “Let’s go home.”