Chapter 6 #3
“Not the real one,” I told her. “A fake one. Richie thinks he’s cool like Loki.”
“Loki is not cool. He is a mad god. He changed himself into a mare so he could mate with a giant stallion and gave birth to an eight-legged steed named Slepnir. Does this Richie transform and mate with horses, too?”
“Keep him away from me!” Cecil snorted from the coffee machine. “Until Thursday, when I get my laser hair removal done.”
“Urgh. No,” I sighed. “We have a watered-down version of the Loki story here, where he’s just a cool-looking trickster type of guy. Richie Curran has the same kind of hair, and he thinks he’s crafty, so he leans into the comparison.”
“Oh. And this fake Loki is standing on a ladder?” Cress frowned deeply.
“The ladder was metaphorical,” I told her. “Look, forget all the Loki stuff. What I’m trying to say is that I can’t afford to miss work today. I can’t give Richie any ammunition against me.”
Cecil clopped over, tossed his beautiful mane over his shoulder, and thrust a cup into my hand. I inhaled the milky coffee aroma gratefully and took a sip. Perfection. “Besides, there’s not much we can do about the scribe stone until we go to Professor Owen’s for dinner later tonight, anyway.”
Cress, posing like a superhero by the window, turned around.
“There are new developments, Chosen. Our Lower World informants have come to us with new information—we may not be able to trust it, but at this stage, it would be unwise to ignore what they are telling us. We have learned Connor intends to pursue the other Middle World realm’s spark stones while he is here. ”
I sighed and held up a finger. “Wait. Wait, I need visual input to process this. Cecil, is my top kitchen drawer the same as it was before?”
“Of course not,” he snorted.
“I need my whiteboard marker—”
There was a tiny bright-purple flash, and a marker appeared in mid-air, right in front of me. I caught it as it fell, and stared at it, lying in my hand. “Huh.”
Roll with it.
Okay, then.
I strode over to my enormous new double-door refrigerator and uncapped the lid.
“Let me just get my head around this World and realm stuff. You guys say you are from the Upper World, right?” I wrote upper world in big letters.
“Which is a horrible display of class snobbery on my part, but I suppose I can hash that out with my therapist at some stage.” That reminded me.
I patted my pocket. Where was my phone? I should call Brownyn and make an appointment now.
“Upper does not refer to anything other than vibrational resonance,” Cress explained. “Higher vibration is order—scribes, elementals, warriors, unicorns, brownies, sages, priests and priestesses. Lower vibration is chaos—imps, wraiths, pixies, demons, berserkers and the like.”
“Oh, yeah?” I shot Donovan a smug look. “Which realm is your brother from, then?”
He stared back at me, fury simmering in his eyes. There was an uncomfortable silence.
Finally, Eryk cleared his throat. “There are many different realms in the Upper World.”
“Like…. Like pockets on a jacket?”
“Yes,” Cress said. “Donovan and I are High Fae from a kingdom in faerie, which is the biggest realm located inside the Upper World.”
I wrote fae realm underneath upper world. “Are you all from the fae realm?”
“No,” Eryk piped up. “I’m an Elemental from the Fire Realm. We’re like…. close cousins of the High Fae. And Nate here is a Batalan, a race of combat mages, another cousin. We are all from the Upper World.”
“Okay, I got it. From what I understand, I live in the Middle World.” I wrote middle world on the refrigerator. “And there’s a Lower World, with naughty little pixies and wraiths and whatnot. They live in their own little pocket realms inside the cargo pants of the Lower World, am I right?”
Donovan was staring sullenly out the window. That man could go in the dictionary as a photo illustration of the word “brooding.”
After a long moment, Eryk answered me again. “Yes. The Upper World is a jacket, its realms are in the pockets. The Lower Realm is your cargo trousers.”
Cecil piped up from the kitchen, where he was inspecting one of the four ovens. “And the Middle Realm is like a drug dealer’s fanny pack right in between the hideous cargo pants and the jacket, with lots of different baggies inside, filled with uppers and downers.”
Everyone turned and stared at him.
“What? I have to study pop culture in every realm as part of my studies. I did a whole paper on the human realm’s heroin chic aesthetic.”
“So, the Middle World is kind of a mix of order and chaos?
“Yes,” Cress said. “A mixture of Upper and Lower. Mostly humanoid creatures that have both order and chaos within them… mer, vampire, shapeshifter, centaur, witch.”
I chuckled to myself and wrote it down. “Okay, it’s all coming together. So, Connor, a prince from the fae realm in the Upper World, has, out of nowhere, decided to devour each realm’s spark stone.”
Donovan let out a grunt. “You misunderstand. Upper does not mean good. It just means we crave order. There is nobody that demands order more than a tyrant.” His voice lowered to a rough whisper, and he turned away. “Connor wishes to rule all. He will stop at nothing.”
The pain in his eyes took me by surprise. Maybe I should cut him a break. “So… you’ve heard from some informants in the Lower World that Connor has decided to go for the spark stones in all the… what? The centaur realm?”
“Rumor has it he will go for the siren stone first. Mermaids are notorious for being vain and proud, and therefore, easily tricked.”
I winked. “And nobody does tricks better than the fae, huh?” Audrina and I have had several window-to-balcony conversations about her fairy smut books.
For a moment, Donovan closed his eyes and breathed heavily through his nose. He seemed to be struggling with controlling his temper. “You have no idea how much danger you are in,” he said softly. “You have no concept of what is at stake right now.”
I took a sip of my cappuccino. Mmm. Delicious.
“Look, this has all been very interesting, and of course I’m happy to help you lovely hallucina—I mean, people.
Later on, I’ll talk to the professor and take a look at that pretty blue crystal of his.
” I patted my pockets, checking for my phone.
There was another flash, and it appeared on the counter in front of me.
I looked at it, my equilibrium wobbling. The atoms in the room quivered with nervous expectation, like the house was a little kid desperate to be praised for doing a good job.
Go with it.
“Thanks, Violet,” I told her. “You are a truly fabulous imaginary sentient house.” I picked up my phone and checked the time. “But sorry, Donovan. For now, I have got to get to work.”
Donovan stood up abruptly. Good grief, he was tall. At five foot eight, I wasn’t short myself, but this man had to be almost a head taller than me. “We will come with you.”
I shook my head firmly, trying to remind my stomach that he wasn’t real. “No, you will not.”
“We must. You may be in danger.”
“The call center of Base Budget Insurance is hardly a lion’s den, Donovan. Besides, the building has security. We all have to wear ID passes to enter.”
He crossed his arms and glared down at me.
“You have no knowledge of your innate power, Chosen. If you did not have a teacher, you must not have any idea on how to control it. Your magic can be wild and destructive.” His green eyes flashed dangerously.
“Perhaps I am not concerned for your safety. Perhaps I am concerned for everyone else around you. That is why we must come with you.”
I stared up at him. His words hurt, like a whip crack over bare flesh. For a brief second, fear clutched my heart in a cold fist and refused to let go. I squeezed my eyes shut.
The floor beneath my feet shook. Breathe, Susan. Just breathe. Nobody died. Nobody was dead.
He could have died, though. I remembered the screams, the bricks falling…
Just breathe.
My eyes still shut, I heard Cecil tap a hoof on the floor. “Don’t worry, Violet. She’s just having a moment.”
I sensed movement; Donovan took a step back from me. “We need to do something about her.”
Cress sounded dubious. “You want me to kill her? Now?”
“No, Cress,” he sighed. “She needs to be taught. Eryk, did you find out if the múinteoir is still alive? His people are the only ones with the knowledge on how the Chosen works her magic. Apart from certain monsters, of course, and we do not want them teaching her.”
“The múinteoir, Molinere, is not on the death roll. The stars will shut the portal by sundown, your Highness. So, if you wish me to go and look for him, we need to go now, otherwise we won’t be able to go back to the Upper World without a new blood key.”
He let out a grunt. “Both of you go now, and see if you can find him. Come back here before the portal closes.”
Finally, I got my breathing under control and opened my eyes to find Donovan’s face far too close. “Cress and I will come with you today. I will keep you safe.”
It took me a long time to respond. “Fine.”