12. Chapter 12
twelve
“Alessia. Alessia .”
The voice finally registered, and as it drew me out of a deep and dreamless slumber, I had the impression the person speaking my name had probably said it more than once. Many, many times, judging by the urgency of it.
I took a few deep breaths to steady myself before opening my eyes to center myself, to start to process all that had happened since I’d gone into the underworld. I needed to ground myself and, frankly, figure out exactly where I was and what had happened in my absence.
As I came to, I felt the beat of my racing heart. Never had I been so relieved to feel the thump of that heartbeat, pulsing warm blood through my veins. The thrum of it in my ears. I was back.
It took a few beats longer for me to feel the rest of it: that collective surge of emotions in my chest that, as I sucked in a sharp breath at the sensation of it, I realized was the collective emotions of my court.
A heartbeat that belonged to The Isle. I felt connected back into the court as if someone had plugged me into an outlet, and after being in the dark for far too long, the light had mercifully been flicked back on.
I was willing to bet I wasn’t the only one who felt it. Indeed, there was a collective gasp around the room when it happened, and that was when I opened my eyes.
I recognized the room, though it took a moment to piece everything together. I was in the castle, in the bedroom where I’d spent the night with Silas before going to the underworld, in the room where I’d prepared for my coronation with Lily.
There were beeps and movement around me; the room had been transformed from a cozy bedroom into a makeshift medical space.
Faces flooded around me, some I didn’t recognize: Rangers, medics, healers.
Then the familiar ones: Lily at my side, Liza at the foot of my bed, Millie’s freckles near the door.
And as always, watching silently, was Silas.
“Welcome back,” Lily said with a smile. “We’ve missed you.”
But I only had eyes for Silas. His face was drawn and pale, and he appeared speechless at the fact that I was awake.
His eyes were fixed on me as if he couldn’t believe I was real.
His hand was on his chest, but he wasn’t the only one in that pose.
Millie and Liza and Lily, and even several of the Rangers, held their chest like we’d shared a collective moment of defibrillation.
The moment I’d reconnected with my court had been a ripple felt across the island.
“Was it all real?” I asked softly, not sure if it was a question or a statement. “Everything?”
I tried to sit up, but I felt weak, disoriented. My spirit wasn’t quite used to being in a body again. I gathered quickly that it would take a few moments for me to feel truly human again, a statement that I’d never understood before until now.
When I looked out the window, it was dark. I did a double-take at the window. “It’s nighttime already? How long have I been gone?”
“Night?” Concern flashed through Lily’s eyes. “Yes, it’s night.”
“How long have I been out?”
“You’ve been gone for six days.” Lily reached out and squeezed my hand. “You’ve missed several nights, honey. And days.”
“Six days?” I echoed. “No. That’s impossible. I was barely gone for a few hours.”
“Trust me, it’s very possible.” Lily glanced with compassion at Silas. “Ask him—he’s had about fifty-five heart attacks in the past week waiting for you to return. We thought… Let’s just say it was a long week. The entire island felt it.”
Silas still hadn’t said a word, but I realized his hand was gripping my shoulder like he’d never let go. It had probably been there for six days. It felt like his fingers were the roots of a tree trunk that would be impossible to unearth from my skin.
“Six days.” I felt dazed as I repeated it. “Six days .”
I kept repeating it, trying to make it make sense. I hadn’t slept. I hadn’t eaten. Maybe spirit-world time didn’t work the same, but still—six days?
“So much must have happened in six days,” I murmured. “Is everything…is everyone okay?”
Lily and Silas exchanged glances. Then Silas looked to Ranger X. It seemed that things had happened, but nobody had figured out how to inform me of the actual details.
“What happened?” I persisted. “Are things okay?”
“Things are stable,” Ranger X said. “Although there have been some changes around here you need to be aware of. But that can happen in due time. You need to get your strength back.”
Screw strength. We didn’t have time to wait around. Six days? That meant the blood moon was almost here. “The Darkest Lord—has he attacked? Are there spirits on the island yet?”
“No,” Silas said. “Not in a significant way. A few here and there, but they’ve been quickly neutralized.”
Ranger X nodded. “The few spirit sightings we’ve had were quickly contained by Lily’s potion. By now, vials of the potion have been distributed widely to civilians as well as the Rangers.”
“Okay,” I said. “So no huge attack?”
“No huge attack,” Ranger X confirmed.
“What do you mean by changes, then?”
Ranger X expelled a breath. Lily looked uncertain, like she didn’t know how to explain.
Finally, Silas moved. He drew back the gauzy curtains I’d always loved. Night cloaked the world, but this wasn’t underworld darkness. This was moonlight on snow. Stars. A warm glow.
Wait.
“Snow?” I blinked. “Snow? Snow?”
Lily grimaced and nodded. “As a Minnesotan, I can assure you, that’s snow.”
“As a New Yorker, I know snow too,” I said. “But I thought this island never saw snow. It’s a tropical paradise year-round.”
“It’s supposed to be,” Lily said. “That’s what my husband means when he says there have been some slight changes.”
“What happened?”
A small voice from the end of the bed answered. Liza shifted closer. “When our spirits disconnected, you became absent as queen. We entered a season of winter.”
“Literal winter?” I asked.
“Literal and figurative and everything else,” Liza said.
“The Forest Dwellers speak of long, barren winters after the Fae Queen’s courts collapsed.
I think when your spirit was taken and the potion linking us was severed, we entered that sort of barren winter, like the entire court was mourning the loss of its queen. ”
“We could all feel it,” Lily agreed, glancing around the room. “Just like we could all feel it the moment you returned.”
“It’s true,” Liza agreed. “We could sense the emptiness where you were supposed to be. Just like we all knew the moment you returned.”
“But it’s still winter, even though I’m back, and I’m alive.” I gestured toward the curtain. “I guess maybe the snow wouldn’t melt instantly?”
“I don’t know if it’s that simple,” Lily said. “But I’m sure we’ll figure it all out now that you’re back. The thing is, Alessia, when you disconnected from the court, we had to think on our feet. We implemented defense strategies to take over where yours had vanished.”
“Of course. You mean the wards.”
“Dr. Lewis made a breakthrough with the manufactured wards, just in time” Lily said. “He put some in place that are still in place. They’ve done a pretty good job of keeping out the spirits, considering he’s been working without Fae magic whatsoever.”
My head hurt then, pounded as memories came rushing back from the underworld. Spirits escaping through the portal. The sensation of disconnecting from my body. The Harbinger—Dr. Lewis—visiting me in my cell. Dr. Lewis.
“No!” I shouted. “No! You must disable the wards as soon as possible.”
“But”—Lily shot an anxious glance at her husband—“I understand this is upsetting, but we need wards in place. If you’re not strong enough to hold the wards, I think it would be a good idea to leave them in place.”
My head shaking made the ache in my skull worse but I couldn’t stop. “No. The wards must come down. Dr. Lewis is the Harbinger for the Darkest Lord. Any project he had his hands in can’t be trusted.”
“What?” Lily blinked. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that when I went into the underworld, a man visited me in my cell after my spirit left my body.” I waved a hand. “It’s a really long story. But my mother—”
“Your mother,” Lily echoed. “That witch from New York? I mean, not witch witch, that’s probably too kind. Real witches are awesome.”
“No. My biological mother, the last Triune Queen”—another hand wave from me signifying I’d get to the details later—“just hear me out. Trust me. Those wards need to come down.”
As the Rangers and Silas mused over my head, I found my eyes drawn down to Liza. There was concern etched on her tiny face, but as I made eye contact with her, she smiled. She truly understood the joy of seeing her mother, even in the spirit form, even for a fleeting moment.
She gave the briefest of nods, rested her hand on my ankle—the only part of my body she could reach—and gave a light squeeze. She didn’t need to speak for me to understand she was saying, You did it.
And I hoped she understood when I smiled back, that I was telling her, You helped me through.
“If that’s true,” Ranger X said, “then we’re all in danger.”
“It’s true.” I tried to sit up in bed. “And if we don’t get those wards down and replaced, it could be the end of us.”
At this, a collective tear ripped across the island. It was the only way to describe it. Screams joined seconds later. The world as we knew it suddenly ceased to exist…as the veil between our world and the underworld ripped apart.
Even as I looked through the gauze curtains, I could see it: the spirits had arrived.
I leapt out of bed, landing wobbly and unsteady on my feet. Silas’s hands were on me before I could tip over—he gripped my waist tightly, like he couldn’t believe I was actually here in the flesh at all.
“ Whoa ,” he said quietly into my ear. “Slow down.”
“I just stood up too fast,” I muttered, more to convince myself than him. I felt the edge of frantic panic closing in on the edges of my thoughts. “We don’t have time to wait. We need to move. The attack has started.”