Chapter Two
AVA-MARIE
Iwas still spinning from my place on the ground. I didn’t know where we were, though we were clearly in another part of some distant forest, different to the one we’d left. The trees danced overhead in circles as a familiar, loved voice broke into my dizzying thoughts.
I heard my husband say a name that I recognized. I managed to push myself upright. My lip trembled as I observed Eddie’s form. He was just as I remembered him, standing tall, optimistic, that same goofy smile plastered across his face…
But there was an eyepatch over his right eye that concealed what lay under. My stomach dropped.
Eddie embraced Charlie so tightly he lifted him off the ground. Charlie gaped as he loosely held Eddie back.
“I can’t believe you’re here!”
Charlie coughed as Eddie let him go. “You came at just the right moment.”
“Not soon enough, I’m afraid,”
Eddie replied, pocketing a small hand mirror. “I was hoping to find you before anyone else did.”
“Eddie, how did you survive? We were told you died in an explosion!”
Marcus explained.
“Oh, yes, a very compelling story, that,”
Eddie said eagerly, excited to launch into the tale. Oberi bounced at his side, and Eddie reached down to pat his head. “But it’ll have to wait until we get somewhere safe.”
Apparently, hugs were more important than safety, because Eddie went around and embraced everybody. He got to me last, kneeling down before me and wrapping me in the tightest hug. “Dearest princess! Life’s been dark without you.”
“I missed you too, Eddie. What happened to your eye?” I asked.
“It was an unfortunate event of being in the Elvish concentration camps,”
Eddie informed me. “They tortured all of us for information, but I am proud to say, I never gave in! The Warden’s tormentors grew tired of me eventually, and took my right eye as punishment, so to say.”
“I’m really sorry that happened,”
I said sadly.
“On the contrary, when they took it, I considered it a privilege, because it helped me to better understand my master,”
Eddie said brightly.
Oberi gave a high-pitched whine, and Charlie’s expression softened. “It’s really nice to have you back. How’d you save us?”
“Elves can use mirrors to create portals,”
Eddie explained. “It is how we used the Mirror of Ingress to escape Forevermore when it was sieged.”
Eddie fished in his pocket and took out the small pocket mirror again, displaying it to us all. “I used this to portal you here, to this waypoint along the path. Elves must have a mirror on the other side of their destination to make portals. Thankfully, the portal I created was able to generate off the reflective surface of Ava’s Spirit shield. My instructions were to make sure we weren’t followed before I brought you back to a safe place.”
“It doesn’t appear we’ve been followed. Otherwise, Esther would’ve blown our heads off by now,”
Kallie noted.
“I’d rather she do that, instead of listening to another one of her stupid sermons,”
Marcus complained.
Eddie nodded in utmost sincerity, then turned his attention back on me. “My princess, why are you still on the ground? Here, I’ll help you stand.”
Eddie offered a hand, but I cringed away and kept my gaze on the ground. “I can’t, Eddie. Not anymore.”
Eddie’s look was so full of sorrow as his eyes locked on my legs. He glanced away regretfully. “Yes… it seems all of us have lost something, in these past months since we’ve been apart.”
Charlie picked me up. I felt safe as he cradled me against him, and my head fell onto his chest. I was so exhausted after making that Spirit shield. I didn’t think I could stay awake for longer than a few moments.
“Do you have somewhere for us to go?”
Charlie asked.
“Of course. Follow me.”
Eddie pointed the pocket mirror to the empty space in front of him, and as he did, a portal bloomed there. He gestured for us to go through it. Kallie and Marcus went first, while Charlie carried me forward. I didn’t see where we were heading, because as we went through the portal, I fell into unconsciousness.
I lingered there, somewhere in the darkness and complete stillness, until I felt myself rousing lightly in a soft bed.
I knew Charlie was near before I saw him. I felt his weight on the bed, and I recognized the smell of bergamot. “Are we okay?”
It took a tremendous amount of effort to open my eyelids. The first thing I noticed was there was golden light everywhere, and the area I found myself in was pristine. I’d woken up in an elaborate bedroom, which was made of marble and decorated with gorgeous furniture. The bed I lay in was big enough to sleep four people, and it was layered with silk sheets and cashmere blankets.
A massive sliding glass door that led to a stone balcony stood open. Gossamer drapes drifted in the breeze, which smelled like sea water and was warm. I heard seagulls, and the muffled sounds of people below.
I expected to wake up in some sort of army tent, but I’d arisen in a palace.
“We’re safe.”
Charlie stroked back a few strands of hair from my eyes. “We’re with the Elves. Eddie took us to their new city.”
“A new city?”
I slowly sat up. Oberi licked my chin.
“After Forevermore was taken over by the Warden, my grandfather and the rest of the Elven refugees that got away built a city on an island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. It’s surrounded by wards. No one’s found it yet.”
“The Elves built an entire city in a year?”
I questioned.
“They used magic, but they had help,”
Charlie explained. “Apparently, a sorceress from Malovia took an abandoned Elven city from the fae realm of Edinmyre— a settlement named Ithriel— and moved it through a portal to this island. Then the Elves rebuilt the ruins of Ithriel and filled in the gaps with magic. Besides the old structures, the city is created out of illusions that are solid. The Elves can’t do that, so the fae stepped in to lend a hand. Once the rebuild was complete, the Elves renamed the city Ilamanthe.”
“So the fae are allies with the Elves now?”
I asked. They’d been enemies during the last Great Supernatural War, with the fae being the greatest persecutors of the Elves, but I supposed Kallie’s brother was running things in Malovia now.
“Seems like it. The fae want to make amends for the last Elven genocide, so they’re here to help. The fae created this city for the Elves as a peace offering. It was a good thing they managed to build it so quickly.”
I had to marvel for a moment. “What fae could be so powerful she could move an entire city from one realm to another?”
“I’m not sure, but hopefully we’ll get some answers soon. Whoever she is, she must be one powerful sorceress.”
As I got to a sitting position, I realized I was wearing some sort of pretty silk dress, soft enough to sleep in but definitely fit for a princess. “I’m assuming there’s a dress code.”
Charlie looked different, too. He wore a pair of black slacks, with a fine silk shirt that had a few buttons open at the top. He appeared positively dashing. “The servants gave us some new clothes. I dressed you when you were out of it. All of us were covered in dirt from the fight with Esther.”
“How long has it been?”
I was horrified important things might’ve been decided when I was sleeping. I didn’t want to be behind on what was going on.
“You’ve only been sleeping for a few hours. Eddie had us rest here until we were ready to see everyone. This is our personal suite. Kallie and Marcus have rooms nearby. Basically, we have an entire section of the palace to ourselves that the servants are referring to as my quarters. All of our friends are rooming in this tower, which is reserved strictly for the prince and his guests, but you and I have the biggest suite.”
“We have a whole tower to ourselves?”
“It sounds crazy, but it’s actually nothing compared to the rest of the palace,”
Charlie informed me. “This place is enormous. It makes the Institute seem small.”
“Well, I’m up now, so we better get to it.”
My wheelchair stood beside the bed. Marcus must’ve dropped it off. Charlie helped me into it. I found a gold brush on a nearby vanity, and I combed out the tangles in my hair before we left the room.
The rest of Charlie’s quarters were just as grand as his suite was. In the center of the tower was a living space, where all the bedrooms were connected. There was a massive fireplace in the main room, as well as floor-to-ceiling windows that displayed the city below. A widescreen TV hung on the wall, and large sectional couches were spread throughout the space, the walls lined with dozens of bookshelves. One of the walls housed a floor-to-ceiling mirror that made the space appear even larger than it already was.
It was even better than the rooms at the palace in Forevermore. Everywhere I looked, there was a new piece of art or another beautiful thing to look at.
I rolled myself to one of the giant windows and looked down, observing the scene. Hundreds of buildings were clustered around the city’s palace. I recognized the beauty of ancient Elvish architecture in every stone structure. They really had taken the bones from Ithriel and turned those ruins into the incredible buildings they were today. Everywhere I looked, I saw tall spires, domed buildings, and formidably tall architecture, with massive gargoyles and stained-glass windows.
It appeared the palace itself had been built on the side of a mountain that overlooked the city, and the buildings that had been constructed around it were collected on the cliff sides below. Small dots moved within the city as thousands of Elves maneuvered throughout the cobblestone streets. The Mediterranean Sea spanned outward all around us, appearing endless, while a glistening sandy beach circled the island’s edge.
I felt tears rise and nearly spill over. I couldn’t believe the Elves had made it after Forevermore had been sieged. More so— they’d thrived. What an exceptional and resourceful people the Elves were. I thought for sure they’d be hiding in cities around the world, but here they were. Despite the worst, they’d gone on to survive.
The doors to the quarters opened. Eddie walked in, followed by Kallie and Marcus. When Eddie saw us, he hurriedly bowed so low it was nearly funny.
“My prince and princess,”
he gushed. “Welcome to the city of Ilamanthe. In Elvish, it means city of new light. Our Emperor thought it was a fitting name for the place that now resides us. He changed the name from Ithriel, because this place is no longer just an Elven city, but a city for all, and the freedom that inspires us to carry on.”
New light indeed. I certainly felt revived.
Eddie took a seat on an armchair, while Kallie and Marcus went to lounge on the sectional— on opposite ends, I might add. I rolled to the end of the sectional where Kallie was sitting, while Charlie took a seat on an armchair opposite Eddie’s.
“Okay, out with it,”
Kallie said. “How’d you escape the camps, Eddie? We were certain you were dead.”
“I all but was, by the time I left the West Facility. That is the name of the place they kept us. It was a concentration camp on the other side of Darke Island, far from the Institute,”
Eddie said.
“The West Facility? Was that really what it was called?”
Marcus asked.
“Yes.”
Eddie nodded grimly. “The Warden isn’t a particularly imaginative person.”
That was putting it lightly. He was about as creative as my left butt cheek, and I hadn’t seen that create any masterpieces lately.
“The name just seems so… cold.”
Kallie scowled. “Like some sort of landfill.”
“That is the point. As far as the Warden is concerned, once we’re at the camps, we’re garbage to be disposed of. We weren't afforded the right to a proper name, not even to terrify us.”
Eddie’s shoulders drooped. “The angels are the ones running the camps. They starved us, beat us, and forced us to work making war supplies for the Warden day in and day out. Many of us got sick from disease and died, while most others starved to death. Others were merely tortured until their bodies could endure no longer.”
“Elves are immortal and super strong. They aren’t easy to kill. The angels must’ve been extra brutal to kill them this way,” I said.
“Indeed. Their tactics went beyond the point of cruelty,”
Eddie admitted heavily. “They regulated us to one slice of bread and a watery soup with one radish per day. Elves are immune to magical restraints such as noxite, so starvation was their way of keeping our magic contained, as we were too weak to summon it. I spent most of my time carrying stones from quarries I could barely lift, and making bricks, as the angels needed them to rebuild Celestial City.”
Eddie shrugged unhappily. “I thought, at times, of attempting to sneak out, or of creating a weapon with the bricks I was making, but I was so malnourished I knew I wouldn’t win if there was a fight, and I didn’t have enough energy to run fast enough to escape. When I wasn’t being made to labor, I was being tortured for information. It is how I lost my eye.”
“These monsters are sick,”
Marcus growled. “It’s deplorable they can do this to people.”
“That is not how the angels see it,”
Eddie stated. “In their eyes, these camps are a sort of purgatory, a method for cleansing sin. The angels who ran the camps allowed prisoners to leave, so long as they swore an oath to join a new religion and work as soldiers for the Warden and his cause.”
“The Mission,”
Charlie said in disgust.
“Indeed,”
Eddie replied. “The prisoners who converted were stuffed into military vans and never seen again. Some of my company agreed to be converted, but most of us stuck to our faith. Eventually, the Warden got tired of waiting for answers. If we couldn’t be converted, he wanted us to be exterminated. Myself and several other Elvish prisoners were taken out of the camp and into the woods. I realized that we were being moved out of the West Facility and to a new camp on the mainland. I knew that if we had any chance of escape, we needed to do it then, because once they took us to the larger camp there was no possibility of getting out alive.”
Eddie smirked. “I was very weak and didn’t have much magic left. But as we stopped for the night, I remembered my master, and all my friends, and I realized I didn’t want to die this way. So when the backs of the soldiers were turned, the other Elves and I got together to join our magic with simultension, just like Charlie had taught us. We were able to create a magical blast that killed the soldiers. But we were unable to control the magic, so it backfired and killed a couple of us as well.”
“Oh, Eddie.”
I was breathless with the admission. It was awful.
“We knew some of us could die if we resisted, but we didn’t care. Death was acceptable, when compared to how we’d been living in those camps,”
Eddie replied. “Our magic left a crater in the ground. There weren’t any remains of those who’d perished in the blast. We knew we had to leave there quickly. We scattered in all directions, so anyone following wouldn’t be sure where we went. For a day or so, I survived off roots and tubers I found underneath the ground. I didn’t mind— it was more than they were feeding us in the camps. I thought about returning to the Institute to find Charlie and help him escape, but before I could, the other Elves found us and brought us to Ilamanthe. I’ve spent the rest of that time recovering and searching for you.”
“We’re proud of you for staying so strong,”
Charlie said. “I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through.”
“It wasn’t easy, and is still not. I have nightmares about the camps.”
Eddie shivered. “But I am comforted in knowing the West Facility no longer exists. Once I got to Ilamanthe and told the Emperor where the camp was located, we were able to send agents in to destroy the West Facility and rescue those we could.”
Eddie smiled. “But I should pause the story, for now. You have others eager to join you.”
I was about to ask who he meant, until the door to the room burst open. Elated voices rose throughout the room, and I gave a scream of joy as I watched Chancey, Ivy, Ez, Opal, and Alistair stampede into the room. Kallie, Marcus, and Charlie jumped up from their seats, and the room was quickly enveloped in a mess of shouting, joy, and love.
“You’re alive!”
I cried out. I instantly reached for my brother, who squeezed me tightly. His peryton Familiar, Tahoma, gave a gentle snort and nuzzled my cheek with his soft lips. I was so relieved that I let out a couple of sobs. The moment was overwhelming— all of them had gotten out, and unhurt. It was nothing short of a miracle.
“Fuck yeah, we are! It’s gonna take more than a burning prison to get rid of us!”
Ivy exclaimed as they embraced me. I let the tears fall, because it was a huge weight off my shoulders to know that, despite my choice to allow the Institute to burn, the people I cared about hadn’t suffered the consequences of my actions.
“This is crazy! How’d you guys escape?”
Charlie asked.
“Now that’s a story,”
Chancey said, slinging his arm around Charlie’s shoulders.
“See, as you know, shit was going down at the Institute that night,”
Alistair said. “Ez, Opal and I were still in the woods when you guys were taken to Cellblock 9. The guards never found us, but we spent days trapped out there, trying to figure out how to get over the fence. Eventually, the guards came looking for us. I was able to trick them with my Mentalist powers, and puppet them away from our location long enough to remain hidden. But then the fire happened, and everything started going up in smoke.”
“You guys remember Ives and me got separated from the group when the guards started attacking students,”
Chancey said. “The mob carried us away, where we met up with Alistair and the others outside. It was complete chaos, I tell ya.”
“The prison yard was in shambles,”
Alistair said excitedly— sounding like he was retelling the events of some rager party, and not a life-or-death situation. “We figured if we wanted to live, we had to get the hell off the island. So, we thought… why not take a bus?”
A huge grin spread across my face. I recalled the memory of the Institute’s submarine bus smashing through the prison’s fence line and ambling clumsily toward freedom the night we’d escaped. “No way! That was you?”
“Oh, yeah. We overpowered the guards protecting it, Chancey hotwired the rig, and we took off outta the Institute’s cage,”
Alistair said proudly. “One of the grandest moments of my life, if I do say so myself.”
“They came after us like hell, but everything was smooth sailing once we hit the water, cause they couldn’t come after us. I gotta say, though, I mighta run over a couple of vamps on our drive out,”
Chancey added.
I nearly toppled out of my chair laughing. I pictured Chancey recklessly driving the massive submarine bus across Darke Island while being chased by guards, the rest of my friends clinging to the bus seats like cats in order to hold on.
“One of the angel guards smashed into the windshield and rolled off the top. It was great,”
Ivy cackled. “We popped open the back door and flung some battle orbs behind us before we hit the ocean. We watched a couple guards blow up. It was quite the riveting experience.”
“Maybe for you.”
Ez scowled as he rubbed his head. “I still got the scar from when I hit my head on the ceiling. Chancey nearly rolled the damn thing.”