Chapter 8
My magic brought us to Mistral and Crispin, who were standing before a massive spiraling tree.
Its twisted branches reached up so high above the other foliage, I couldn’t see the end of them.
Beyond the height, I could see why they had chosen the tree.
It stood out from all the others, the bark more silvery and the pattern so intricate it hardly seemed real.
Mistral and Crispin turned toward us, eyes wide. We must have looked crazy all windswept and star-burned.
Mistral came forward to grip my arms while Sebastian explained what had happened. Though he watched me, Mistral’s eyes grew more concerned with Sebastian’s every word.
“This isn’t good,” Crispin said. “Your intent should have been enough to control it.”
“I didn’t mean to do it!” I blurted. “But she freaked out and she was burning us. I just wanted to make it stop.”
Mistral squeezed my arms. “Perhaps your intent did drive the result then. You wanted to end the attack, and you did.”
Gabriel hadn’t spoken since we’d landed, and I almost wished he’d stayed quiet when he said, “She started pulling at its stars as soon as she lifted her hand. It’s what made the guardian attack in the first place. Its magic was attracted to the vortex.”
Mistral looked to Sebastian for confirmation, and he nodded. There was no third agreement from Ringo, who was still freaked out and hiding in Gabriel’s jacket.
“I thought the Bogs gave us the vortex to be helpful,” I said weakly.
Mistral pulled me into a hug. “Wild magic does not think like you or I. Just be careful from now on about lifting your hands.”
My laugh sounded a little too much like a sob. “Yeah. Great. I’ll do that.”
He pulled back enough to look at both Gabriel and Sebastian. “We’ve found the dead end of the pathway. With the maps and the blade, Eva should be able to bring us to my realm from here.”
I stepped back, almost lifting my hands but then immediately bringing them back to my sides. “So we’re just brushing off the fact that I killed the guardian?”
“It was a magical construct,” Mistral countered. “Not something to kill. Just something to unmake. A celestial made it, and you unmade it in kind.”
I looked at Gabriel, who shrugged, then at Sebastian, who looked bored. Finally I looked at Crispin, who at least seemed apologetic. “He’s right. I’m sorry, Eva, but the vortex absorbs magic, and that’s all the guardian really was. It told you itself it was created to protect the waypoint.”
I shook my head. “She felt like more than that.” I wasn’t sure at what point I had started thinking of the guardian as a she rather than an it, but there it was. “She had emotions. She wanted us to come back.”
No one spoke, and I wondered if they all thought I was being ridiculous. I didn’t sense any of their emotions through our connection though.
Gabriel moved closer, and when I didn’t pull away, he put a protective arm around me. “You lost your sandwich.”
“I don’t care about my sandwich.”
“And the coffee.”
I was quiet for a moment, but couldn’t help cracking a small smile.
“Let’s just get out of here already.” The coffee would have been nice, but I really didn’t want to return to the estate again.
My guilt would only intensify. At least Gabriel had retained the rest of his pack, and Mistral had the other.
Mistral stepped back further, gesturing for me to walk past him toward the tree. “If you’re sure you’re ready?”
He was being polite, but I could finally sense an emotion through our connection.
Excitement. Anticipation. He was so close to returning home. But once he did, would he want to stay there? Hadn’t my day already been sad enough?
Only one way to find out. I walked toward the spiraling tree, its patterns almost dizzying to behold, then awkwardly drew the sword. It wasn’t heavy, but I wasn’t used to drawing a blade from over my shoulder. It was going to take some practice to not slice off any of my hair. Or my flesh.
Once I had the sword out, I held the hilt in both hands, pointy end toward the sky.
The guys gathered around, everyone making room for Crispin to be right behind me. He reached around my waist, gripping my hands over the sword hilt. When he turned our joined hands just so, a glowing constellation formed in front of the sword.
I fought to keep from trembling as he turned it several more times, changing the constellations. “There. That matches one of the maps Marcie provided, and the old pathway is still hanging around somewhere. This should be enough to get us to the right place.”
“And if we end up in the middle of the sun?” I asked.
As the guys moved in even closer, Sebastian gripped one of my wrists. “Let’s try to avoid that, hmm?”
I closed my eyes. “Alright. Let’s all think happy thoughts.”
I tensed at first as the guys’ magic flowed into me, but then I remembered to breathe. The magic built uncomfortably, but I knew all I had to do was let it out. I wouldn’t make the mistake again of keeping it all in.
I relaxed, surrendering my will to the blade like I had done at the Circus.
That had only been a partial pathway I’d cut through the ceiling, but in theory this would be the same thing, only a bit more.
Just enough for us to travel through and check things out.
If we didn’t get killed by shadows, we would figure out how to heal the full pathway back.
It all sounded utterly insane to me, given that until recently the most my magic could do was carry me across boundaries, but when I focused on Mistral’s starry magic, on his scent, and on the feel of damp ozone on my skin, the blade pulled us into the void.
Wherever we ended up, it was nighttime. And the plants…
the plants were glowing. We were on an overgrown path, weeds and brambles edging it so tightly there was barely room to walk.
Not all of the plants glowed, but enough did that at least we wouldn’t step in any unseen holes.
The trees overhead were dark save a few glowing insects flitting about.
I looked up from the multihued glowing plants and quiet trees to the sky, where there were not one, but three crescent moons. “So cool!” I kept my voice low, just in case there were any beasties around. Wherever we were, I didn’t think it was anywhere near civilization.
I looked at Mistral—the only one of us who’d ever been to the goblin realm—for confirmation that we’d actually made it, and we were not in fact trapped in a pocket realm.
But he wasn’t looking at any of us. He was looking up at those three moons. The emotions I sensed from him were enough to give me my answer. We had actually traveled to a far realm. My magic, along with the guys and the Realm Breaker, had been enough.
I was glad no one bothered Mistral while he took it all in. If Sebastian said something disparaging… Well, I’d do something worse than punching him, since punching him didn’t really seem to do much. Maybe I could zap him with the vortex.
But he didn’t say anything, and as I waited I inhaled the scent of damp earth and honeysuckle, not so far off from the scents of earth.
Crispin had knelt to observe the plants, and I was pretty sure I saw him plucking a few leaves and slipping them into his shirt pocket.
Gabriel remained close to me, finally wrestling Ringo out of his jacket before plopping him on my shoulder.
Ringo trembled at first, then stilled as he observed our surroundings. “Oooooh.”
Oooooh was right. This place felt like walking in a technicolor dream.
Mistral finally turned my way. A gentle breeze tugged at his white hair. With his deep grey skin and antiquated clothing picking up a subtle colorful glow from the surrounding plants, he fit right in with the dreamlike quality of the place. “Do you think you can manage one more jump?”
I furrowed my brow, waiting for him to explain.
“This pathway is far from civilization. If we can’t jump, we will have to sleep out here, and I do not recommend it.”
He was clearly pleased, but something about him was guarded. I couldn’t quite judge how he was feeling. “You know how I am about jumping to places I’ve never been.”
He reached a hand out, trailing a finger across my jaw. “Let us see if you can use me as a guide.”
Sebastian snorted. “Your funeral.”
I gave him a good ol’ side-eye. “We’re all sticking together. I don’t care if you can just poof wherever you please.”
“There’s no reason for me to remain tangled up with the rest of you here.”
I closed my eyes. Did he really have to pick now to be difficult? “If you want to travel separately now, I might just have to leave you to get back home by yourself too.”
“You would never.” He was amused now, letting me know he was just messing with me, but still—
Crispin cleared his throat. “Um, guys?”
The three of us looked at him, and I realized Gabriel was already looking beyond him, his hand lifting for his sword.
Faster than I could follow, Mistral had me in his arms, and Sebastian had stepped around me. The glowing plants a few paces from Gabriel shivered, providing enough light to see a trickle of moving darkness, like black smoke, curling through the leaves.
“It is here, then,” Mistral said, his voice close to my ear.
“Good thing we made such a small pathway.” Crispin stepped back before the darkness could reach him.
It didn’t seem dangerous, exactly, but Crispin and I had seen what it could do.
In the forested pocket realm where Silvana and her people had been stranded, the darkness formed into massive beasts, their teeth and claws just as deadly as the real deal.
While this darkness was just a trickle, more might prove problematic.
“We should go to my uncle,” Mistral said. “See what he knows of this and what form it takes. They may already have a way of dealing with it.”
Crispin stepped back again as the darkness nearly reached him, forcing Gabriel back too. No one argued this time when I held out my free arm, they just grabbed on.
I checked that Ringo was secure, then I clung to Mistral. “You better have a damn clear picture of home.”
“It is a place I could never forget.” He squeezed my arm, and I got a surge of not just emotion, but sensory imagery from him.
I focused on that energy, just like I could focus on the energy of any of the guys. We poofed out together in a wash of twinkling stars just as the darkness reached us.