Chapter 5
Chapter Five
JAX
Death had far more feather pillows than he had imagined.
It also hurt to breathe, which, as Jax slowly returned to consciousness, seemed to be a sign that perhaps he was not quite as dead as he had believed.
He forced his gritty, heavy eyes to open, then immediately regretted it as the bright sunlight pierced into his skull.
He squeezed his eyes shut with a groan. The longer he was awake, the more parts of his body insisted on airing their grievances.
His limbs were sore, and a splitting headache wrapped around from the back of his head to behind his eyes.
He heard the sound of a nearby door opening, then an unfamiliar male voice, “You’re awake.”
Jax pressed his fingers to his temples and rubbed them in slow circles. “Unfortunately.”
“How do you feel?”
“Like I got dropped off a cliff.”
Jax made a second attempt at opening his eyes and blinked several times until his surroundings came into focus.
He was in a large room, tastefully furnished with dark wood and warm reds and browns.
Narrow poles ran up from each corner of his bed, supporting a frame that hung with heavy burgundy curtains tied up at the corners.
The windows, one on each side of the bed, were paned with small squares of thick glass lined with some kind of dark metal.
They had been cranked open to allow fresh air to flow through the room, carrying in the fresh, green scent of summer growth and the sound of distant bird calls.
On instinct, Jax reached for his magical senses, then immediately slammed shut the door to that part of his mind when the music registered in his inner ears.
It was like listening to an orchestra playing a familiar song in four different keys at the same time while all the instruments were out of tune with one another.
The notes themselves were stringent, as if produced by scraping nails down a smooth piece of slate, and the resulting magic made him grit his teeth together in discomfort.
“What’s wrong with this place?” The words tumbled from his mouth before he had a moment to think them through.
The man standing at the foot of his bed lifted his eyebrows in curious amusement.
He didn’t appear to be much older than Jax, though his dark, neatly combed hair and clean, well-tailored clothes gave him an air of authority and importance that Jax had always lacked.
He crossed his arms, the action highlighting both his broad shoulders and reminding Jax that not only was he already at a disadvantage by being only recently not-dead, but that he also had just inadvertently insulted the man’s home.
“I mean…where am I?” he amended.
“The royal palace in Kovskia. You really don’t remember?”
Kovskia…
Jax searched his memory for any mention of such a place but came up with nothing.
He shook his head slowly, closing one eye at the hammers that pounded his brain as a result.
“Sorry. I’m not really from around here.
” He paused for a moment, then remembered his manners and lifted his hand in a half-hearted wave. “I’m Jax.”
The man nodded once. “Dmitri. Can I ask what you were doing in my lake?”
“Your…lake?” Jax frowned. The last thing he remembered was grabbing wildly for the vines that slipped through his fingers before hurtling toward the sharp rocks at the bottom of the cliff. “What lake?”
“The one my friend pulled you out of.” Dmitri tilted his head. “Do you not remember?”
He barely registered the words, too focused on the fact that the rocks had apparently transformed themselves into water. “Where did the lake come from?”
“I would imagine the same place all lakes come from—the Almighty put it here. At least, it’s never moved in all the years I’ve lived here.”
“And here is…Koska?” He pushed himself up to a seated position.
“Kovskia,” Dmitri corrected.
“Kovskia,” he repeated, committing the name to memory. “I thought I was in Cygnus. Where in Eukarya is Kovskia, exactly?”
It was Dmitri’s turn to frown. “Eukarya? I’ve never heard of such a place.”
“Isn’t that what the whole continent is called? When I came through the gateway from Faerie, that’s what they…” His voice trailed off as he started putting the pieces together. “Of course. It was the wizard. He must have somehow formed another gateway between there and here.”
“Wizard?” Dmitri’s brows were so high they were nearly hidden by his hair.
“Drosselmeyer. I was foolish enough to trust him, and he stole my egg and ran.” Jax froze as cold realization flooded his veins. He looked down, his hands patting and searching the mattress around him for his satchel. “Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“My satchel.” He kicked off the blanket and stood, then nearly doubled over as his vision blurred and he suddenly felt light-headed.
“Woah.” Dmitri gripped his shoulder and eased him back down to the mattress. “Let’s slow down a bit.”
Jax shook his head. “I need to find it. You didn’t happen to remove it, did you?”
“Whatever you have on you now is what Odessa brought you with. My physician looked you over, but he didn’t touch your clothes.”
Jax closed his eyes as he tried again to focus his magical senses, listening closely for the dragon’s song. When he once more heard nothing but the out-of-tune, stringent music, he grimaced and returned his attention to Dmitri. “Odessa?”
“The friend of mine who pulled you from the lake. She’s the Assistant Keeper of the Royal Menagerie.”
“Can you take me to her?”
Dmitri eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”
“I need to find my satchel.”
“Because of the wizard?”
He could hear the wary skepticism in Dmitri’s voice, and Jax chose to combat it with honesty. “The wizard is a problem for later. Right now, I just want to get my egg.”
“I thought you were looking for a satchel.”
“The egg was in the satchel. I was wearing it when I fell.”
“And you think there’s a chance it’s still intact?”
Jax nodded and pushed to his feet, slower and more cautiously than before. “It would take a lot more than a little swim to damage this egg. Can you take me to her?”
“I’m not letting you anywhere near Odessa.” Dmitri crossed his arms. “Other than some ridiculous nonsense about wizards and eggs, you haven’t given a compelling reason for your presence in my country or explained what you were doing when you fell into my lake.”
His choice of words made Jax pause, and he looked at Dmitri with fresh curiosity. “Your lake? Your country? Is there perhaps a fancy title that goes with your name, Dmitri?”
“Perhaps,” Dmitri hedged.
“A man of secrets, I see.” Jax nodded slowly. “Alright then, what do I need to do in order to convince you to take me to see this Odessa person?”
“You’re going to answer some questions.”
“Marvelous! I love knowing ahead of time what I’m going to do. It helps me plan.” Jax pasted a disarming grin on his face. “What’s the first question?”
Dmitri raised an unimpressed brow. “Don’t you want to sit?”
“Aha—an easy one! We’re off to an excellent start. No, thank you. I would rather stand if you don’t mind. What’s next?”
“Who are you?”
“I already told you: my name is Jax.”
“Surname?”
“Papageno.”
“Occupation?”
“Bird Catcher.”
Dmitri’s head pulled back in surprise as his face twisted with confusion. “That’s not an occupation.”
“Bird Catcher and Dragon Charmer.”
“That…doesn’t make it any more real.”
Jax sighed and shook his head. “Everyone keeps saying that, and yet my family has been Bird Catching for generations.”
Dmitri cleared his throat. “Right. Next question: What are you doing in Kovskia? And before you say ‘catching birds,’ please know that I have connections with both the head of the Royal Guard and the executioner.”
“They sound like truly delightful friends to have. I happen to think everyone should have at least one acquaintance in law enforcement. They tend to really be the life of the party.”
“You’re deflecting.”
“I’m relating.” Jax gestured back and forth between them. “This is called finding common ground and getting to know one another. It’s how friendships are formed, so the next time you interrogate a visitor, you can let them know you have connections with a Bird Catcher and Dragon Charmer.”
Dmitri gave him a flat look. “We’re not friends.”
“Yet.” He held up a pointed finger. “We’ve only just started the relating process. Now, what’s the next question?”
“What are you doing in Kovskia?”
“Right. Well, here’s the thing. I didn’t exactly plan on coming here. It just kind of…happened?” Jax held out his arms in an innocent shrug.
“Explain.” Dmitri’s voice was as flat as his face.
“Long story short, I followed the trail of a wizard up the Beanstalk, where I found a socially-averse giant, an adorable little goose, a petulant prince, and my golden egg. After retrieving my egg, I took my leave and was making my way down the Beanstalk when the aforementioned prince came barreling down with the goose and knocked me off balance. I fell, fully expecting to meet a grisly and painful end on the rocks below, but instead woke up and found myself here.” Jax made a show of looking around the room.
“I have to admit, it’s a much more preferable option. ”
Dmitri’s eyes narrowed. “You expect me to believe that?”
“Well, I certainly didn’t tell you because I wanted you to doubt it. Where I come from, truthful communication is preferred—though perhaps in Kovskia it’s a different matter?”
“Where you come from,” Dmitri repeated slowly. “Where exactly is that?”
Jax’s smile faltered at the question, but he quickly recovered. “The Spring Court, in the Faerie Realm. The Papagenos have called Spring their home for more generations than they’ve been Bird Catchers.”
Dmitri stared at him, blinked twice, and let out a long exhale as he shook his head. “Grab your things and come with me.” He turned on his heel and moved to the door.
Having nothing to grab, Jax simply fell into step beside him as they entered a long, wide corridor. “Does this mean I’ve passed your test?”
Dmitri looked at him from the corner of his eye as they walked. “Not exactly. It means that I’ve decided that Odessa is the one best suited to dealing with you.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because she’s the expert in strange creatures.”
Jax learned several things in their long walk to the Royal Menagerie.
The first was that Dmitri was obviously Someone with A Very Impressive Title, given the deference and bows that accompanied every interaction with another person in the palace.
The second was that, despite the strange-sounding magic in Kovskia, the air was actually quite pleasant. The sun was warm on his skin as he walked, and every breath he took in was rich with the smell of trees and warm soil and the wet, green scent of the lake.
The third was that he had apparently forgotten a few key events that occurred directly after his fall.
As they passed under the tall, wrought-iron gates of the Menagerie, walked past the enclosures containing a delightful myriad of creatures that he was already planning on returning later to examine, and caught sight of the lake in the distance, hazy images began piecing themselves together in his mind.
The pain of hitting the water. The panic as he reflexively gasped and sucked water into his lungs. The disorienting darkness. The weightlessness as he slowly lost grip on his consciousness.
Dmitri led him to the far end of the Menagerie where a small cottage stood back a ways from the shores of the lake. “Stay here.” He left Jax standing, looking out over the water, and walked up to the door of the cottage and knocked.
Jax narrowed his eyes in concentration. He could remember the solid feeling of land under his back, then a quiet voice from somewhere above his head, then…
A mouth.
On his.
He grinned. He wasn’t delusional enough to think that it had been anything but rescue breathing, given the circumstances. But still.
She had practically kissed him.
“She’s not home.” Dmitri’s voice interrupted his revelations. “She must be out in one or another of the enclosures. I would offer to let you wait for her, but I don’t know that I trust you to be alone.”
Jax looked around, spotting a small flock of swans floating on the surface of the lake. One of them broke off from the group and approached the shore near where they were standing. “I can stay with the birds,” he offered.
Dmitri crossed his arms as he considered, looking from Jax to the swans and back again. “If you try to catch them, Odessa will feed you to the lions.”
He held up a solemn hand of promise. “As I have not been contracted to do any Bird Catching, I consider myself to be on holiday and will therefore engage in no bird seizing activities.”
“Fine.” Dmitri let out a long exhale through his nose. “I have some tasks that I need to take care of before the day is over. I’ll come back once I’ve finished.”
After several more reassurances of Jax’s intentions to stay out of mischief, Dmitri finally took his leave. Jax watched him leave, then wandered across the sandy ground to sit at the water’s edge. The swan he had noticed before was floating just out of arm’s reach, eyeing him cautiously. He smiled.
“Hello, friend. Don’t mind me. I’m just here for the view while I wait.”
The swan stared at him for a few moments, then swam away.
Jax chuckled, then closed his eyes. Though the sun was warm on his face, the cool breeze that ruffled his hair and danced over his cheeks kept it from becoming unpleasantly hot.
The trilling chirps and sweet songs of the jays and larks in the trees beyond called to his soul, and before he fully realized what he was doing, Jax was once again reaching for his magical senses.
This time, he sat with the discordant sounds, realizing that the longer he listened, the more sense they made to his ears.
The music was different, but the songs still seemed to perform the same functions.
He sifted through the strange sounds, searching for the familiar dragon song. It was faint, but unmistakably there. He opened his eyes and looked up, realizing that the whole flock of swans had gathered near while he had been distracted.
“I don’t suppose you could tell me if you’ve seen a leather satchel lying about? It’s about this big.” He held out his hands. “And has a golden egg inside?”
The birds ignored him, and Jax rose and stretched. “I hope you won’t mind if I take a look around? I promise I’ll stay out of your way. Just let me know if you happen to see a satchel. Or a—”
He froze as the fiery music he had been searching for suddenly flooded his mind, reverberating so loudly in his head that he instinctively covered his ears, as if the sound were coming from outside.
He forced the magic down to a more manageable volume as he spun around, his eyes frantically searching every corner and every shadow.
“Dragon.”