Chapter 10: Out of the Frying Pan
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Ryssa woke up to the smell of freshly baked cinnamon rolls. She frowned. Mom can’t bake cinnamon rolls—she burns everything. She opened her eyes and sat up quickly, disoriented until she realized where she was. So much for any hope that it was all a dream—as if the pinch hadn’t been enough. Glancing over at the four other girls of Team Phoenix, she saw they were still sleeping, wrapped securely in their blankets.
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Ryssa felt her stomach rumble. With a frown, she realized that she hadn’t eaten since lunch yesterday. She sniffed the air—the smell of cinnamon rolls was still there. Snatching her housecoat from the foot of the bed, she threw it on as she headed out into the common area. At one end of the room a buffet table was set up, and she headed in that direction.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Meek sitting on a bench outside the boys’ room. He was in silent communion with a woman who couldn’t have been more than three feet tall. The woman’s skin was leathery brown and wrinkled, much like the bark of a tree. She had short, dark, pixie-styled hair and beautiful clear green eyes. Those eyes widened when they spotted Ryssa, and the woman vanished into thin air.
Meek looked at Ryssa, his expression wary.
“Good morning.” Ryssa glanced at the empty space next to him. “Was that a Brownie?”
Meek nodded slowly, not taking his eyes from her.
“Are you an early riser?” She took a couple of steps toward him.
He shrugged and gave a half nod.
“I’m not. In fact I’m usually pretty lazy, staying in bed until I can’t stand it anymore—and I can stand quite a bit.”
Was that a ghost of a smile she saw from him?
“It was the rolls,” she continued. “They smell so awesome, I just had to come and get one. They are for us, right?”
Meek nodded vigorously.
“Want to grab some breakfast with me so I don’t feel like such a pig?” Ryssa gave him a smile of genuine warmth. He smiled back, just a little, but enough for Ryssa to recognize it for what it was. Meek got up from the bench, and went to the table.
Ryssa grabbed a plate and handed one to Meek, eyeing the spread of food. There were bowls of cut up fruit, bread and butter, various pastries and doughnuts, and the prize Ryssa was looking for—huge, fat cinnamon rolls, dripping with white icing. They were perfect, reminding her of the ones that could only be found in the shopping malls at home. She set her plate on the edge of the table and leaned forward, plucking one from the tray for herself, and another for Meek.
An alarm began to chime. Ryssa glared at Meek, who shook his head in innocent confusion. Ryssa dropped the rolls back onto the tray, feeling guilty. Other members of the team poured into the room, each in varied states of waking. She felt horrible when Aurelius entered, lines of strain on his face.
“I’m sorry, Uncle. I thought we could help ourselves. I didn’t know—”
“Hmm?” Aurelius looked at her, and then to the sticky fingers she couldn’t hide. “What? No, child,” he shook his head, “the alarm had nothing to do with you. The elders are being called to Court.”
He pointed to the tree in the center of the room. The ceiling of carved leaves fluttered as though a wind rustled through them. Their movement was a perfect imitation of the live tree above, the chimes sounding identical.
Ryssa watched her twin move to stand on tiptoes to get a better look at how they worked.
Aurelius smoothed his hair from its disarrayed state. “Eat up, children. I’ll be back shortly—and don’t leave this suite until I come back and tell you otherwise. Something is terribly wrong.”
The stunned members of Team Phoenix watched their Counselor head out the door and up the ramp, before turning to stare at each other. Ryssa shrugged and leaned over to grab the same two rolls off the tray, depositing one back onto Meek’s plate and the other onto her own. The chimes stopped and silence filled the room. As she sucked the icing from her fingers she noticed that everyone was watching her.
“What? He said we should eat.”
Defiantly, she turned her back on them and helped herself to several scoops of fruit, and then marched over to the couch. Meek stood by the table, staring for a moment at the lone cinnamon roll on his plate. Without a word, he picked it up and returned to the bench where he had been before.
The rest of the group seemed to take this as some sort of signal to grab their own plates and help themselves to the buffet. Their activity was interspersed with speculative whispers.
“So what do you think—?”
“I’ll bet there’s something big going on.”
“Well, duh, how’d you figure that out?”
“Do you think it’s a trick, trying to throw us off guard for the competition?”
“I’ll bet someone else has turned up missing,” Hammie said. The room went silent.
Voices erupted again.
“No way!”
“Not after Queen Medwyn’s threat!”
“I wouldn’t want to be the one she thought—”
“Do you really think someone else is missing?”
“Maybe not missing,” Pyro, Jr. offered. “Maybe someone was found dead.”
That brought a lingering silence to the room. The children picked at their food, having suddenly lost their appetites. No one spoke again until Aurelius returned. All eyes turned to him when he entered, his face grim.
“It appears you have the morning to yourselves, children. A member of Team Dragon has disappeared in the course of the night without a trace. Barry Feathernest.”
Glinda’s cry of dismay permeated the air. She ran from the common area and into the girls’ room, the sound of her sobs trailing after her.
“Moira,” Aurelius said gently. “See to her, will you?”
Moira nodded, rising to follow Glinda.
“Well it seems you have a little extra time this morning before you get started.”
Aurelius frowned when Ryssa began choking. He watched until she gained control.
“Sorry—I think I swallowed down the wrong tube.” She waved her hand. Inwardly, Ryssa was mortified. She vaguely remembered the words she had mumbled into her pillow the previous night. That didn’t count as a wish—did it? This couldn’t be my fault?
“Yes, well, be more careful,” Aurelius said.
Did he mean about making wishes? Ryssa wondered guiltily. Or was he just talking about the choking? He couldn’t know, could he?
“I am needed with the other Court members to investigate this as thoroughly as we can. Your first instructional will be rescheduled for this afternoon. I don’t expect you to stay in, although I’d rather you did. But it’s not fair to keep you shut away.” He fished around in the pockets of his robes. After a moment, he pulled out a small pouch and set it on the buffet table.
“There should be enough in here for each of you to have a gold mark. Why don’t you go over to Madam Quinn’s shop and have her design some matching uniforms for Team Phoenix? We’ll start working together with a little style. There should be enough left over for each of you to get some treats. Meet me back here just after the noon hour and we’ll attend to the instructional from here.” He turned to leave and then stopped, adding a warning. “From this point forward, no one is to go anywhere by themselves. Do I make myself clear?”
His tone carried a firm enough admonishment that all of the children nodded, with the exception of Pyro, who frowned.
“Very well, then,” Aurelius left the room, calling back over his shoulder, “the noon hour—don’t be late.”
The girls headed into their room. Ryssa was amazed. In the short time they had been in the common area, their beds had been made and the room was as tidy as when they had first come in the night before. Glinda lay on her bed, curled into a ball, clutching her pillow for comfort.
Ryssa felt horrible. She was sure it was somehow her fault, and just as certain that she couldn’t
say anything to anyone about it. She sat on the bed next to Glinda’s feet and put a comforting hand on her ankle, but was at a loss for what to say. Moira’s arms were wrapped around the sobbing girl. Whisper and Jade sat on either side of the bed.
“When is this all going to stop?” Glinda managed between hiccupping sobs. “And why did it have to be my brother?”
Ryssa’s stomach tightened. What have I done?
“Listen, Glinda,” Moira gently stroked the girl’s hair, “none of us have any idea what you’re feeling right now. This sort of thing affects us all, but not as much as when you’re close to someone. There are a lot of the potentials who have turned up missing or dead.”
Glinda groaned. Moira was hasty in her reassurance, “But at least he’s only missing. There’s always hope the elders will find out what’s happening and that those who are missing will be returned.”
“Do you really think so?” Glinda begged with her eyes. “You don’t think they’re dead?”
“I’m almost positive. Those who are dead are the only ones who’ve turned up, right? I think that somewhere the missing potentials are all being locked away, hidden somehow. Don’t worry, they will find them.”
Glinda wiped the tears from her eyes and sat up. “You know, Barry and I didn’t have the twin-bond—but we were close enough that it almost seemed like we did. I could always feel when he was sad or upset. And he felt the same with me. You’re right. I think if he were dead, I would somehow know it.”
“See?” Moira sat up and gave the girl some room to pull herself together. “It’s like I said. He’ll turn up when the elders figure this whole mess out. Mark my words—Queen Medwyn has to be spitting fireballs right about now. Whoever is behind this has their days numbered. Barry will be back with you in no time.”
The girl nodded in tentative agreement, still working to stifle the last of the sobbing hiccups.
“What’s a twin-bond?” Ryssa asked.
“Most twins in Faery have what is called a twin-bond.” Jade cocked her head. “Don’t you have it with your twin?”
“Sometimes we feel each other—like what Glinda just said about her and Barry. Oh—and yesterday there was this really weird thing.” Ryssa explained to them about the connected memories she and Reggie had shared. “But that was the first time anything like that has happened.”
“Jet and I were sharing memories since before either of us could even speak. As we grew older, we began to work with the bond, build on it. Now we can send thoughts back and forth to each other, if we make eye contact. I hear some twins can do it across distances, although that’s pretty rare.”
“That could come in handy,” Ryssa smiled. “But I think it would be weird not having any private thoughts.”
“Oh, you learn to put up shields around what you don’t want the other to hear. Believe me. You learn quickly. It could be that your arrival in Faery and connecting to the magic here has started to strengthen your twin-bond. Work with it. The more you do, the better it gets.”
Ryssa nodded, but shuddered inwardly at the thought. The idea was still creepy to her, but at least now she had a clue as to what had happened. She wasn’t sure she wanted to say anything to Reggie about it yet. The way he liked to poke and prod and try to figure out how things worked—no, she wasn’t ready for endless rounds of what-am-I-thinking?
“Hey—let’s get dressed and head into New Faery City.” Moira turned her attention back to Glinda. Aurelius gave us some coinage to buy Team Phoenix uniforms, and we get to spend the rest on whatever we want.”
“What are the uniforms going to look like?” Glinda looked up, interested.
Jade shrugged. “We don’t know yet. But Aurelius said we get to design them.”
“Okay.” Glinda gave one last sniffling hiccup.
The girls scrambled around the room getting dressed. Together they entered the Team common area and found the boys already dressed and further working their way through the breakfast buffet.
“We’re all here for you, Glinda.” Loo blushed. “I mean, if you need us for anything—”
She smiled warmly at the boys, who appeared to be having a hard time figuring out how to deal with the emotional side of the whole thing.
“Yeah, we’ll get through this together,” Gervais growled. “Seelie or Unseelie.”
“That’s about the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me, Gervais.” Glinda was sincere.
“So, what’s the plan?” Jet eyed his twin.
“Well, we can’t spend money on anything else until we’re done at Madam Quinn’s and know how much we have left.” Moira bit her lip in contemplation. “So I guess the first thing would be to figure out what we want for Team uniforms and then go there and let her take our measurements.”
“That’s a thought,” Jet said. “Anybody have suggestions as to what we want for uniforms?”
Nobody answered, each looking around the room at everyone else.
“Black and white?” Hammie finally suggested.
Reggie shook his head. “That won’t show anything about what team we are. The banner is black and white with a phoenix. That would be a good start.”
“Yeah,” Jade frowned. “But uniforms that look just like the banner—that seems pretty boring and unoriginal.”
“And they’d look like pajamas.” Ryssa made a face. “Or worse—like one of those cheesy Halloween costumes that kids wear in the mortal world. Yuck.”
“Something flamboyant, then.” Pyro, Jr. scowled at the faces suddenly turned in his direction. “Hey—if I have to wear a Team uniform, I want it to be something I can live with, not something stupid.”
Eyes scanned his flame-colored clothing. It was flamboyant, but tastefully stylish.
“Nothing girlie,” Gervais growled. “I won’t wear anything with lace.”
“And I don’t want to look like a boy.” Whisper wrinkled her nose. No one pointed out that there was little chance that anything she wore would make her look less than all girl.
“Okay,” Jet held up a hand to forestall further debate, “I’ve got an idea. We all want to get out of here and have some time around town. So how about we each list one thing we would like to have on the uniforms and one thing we absolutely refuse to deal with. Then we’ll hand over all the info to Madam Quinn and let her design something special. She’s never done wrong before.”
“Oh, yeah?” Moira sounded skeptical. “What about the gown she designed for Celeste Beastmaster? She looked like a tree frog.”
“Yeah, well,” Gervais gave an embarrassed cough, “Celeste actually designed that one herself. Madam Quinn tried to talk her out of it, but she was in one of her commune-with-the-animals phases. Could’ve been worse. The month before she was into porcupines.”
“Oh.” Moira gave a sheepish smile. “Sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Forget it. Celeste’s always been a little wonky. She drives Leon, the Patriarch of the Beastmaster House, crazy. He keeps threatening to foster her out to one of the Air Houses.” Gervais grimaced at Whisper and Storm. “No offense.”
Whisper raised a skeptical eyebrow while Storm responded with a curled lip.
“All right, it’s settled then?” Jet walked over to a desk sitting next to several shelves of books just outside of Aurelius’ chambers. He gathered up enough paper and pens for everyone and passed them out.
Each member of the team spent some time giving serious thought as to what they would and would not accept in a uniform. When they were finished, the papers were stacked together.
Jet plucked the bag of gold marks from the table, waggling an eyebrow with a grin. “Can’t be forgetting this now, can we?”
Everyone headed up the ramp from the common area and out into the streets of New Faery City. Reggie and Ryssa suddenly stopped.
“What?” Jet looked at them.
“I thought the ramp led up to the Arena Court,” Reggie said.
“It does—or did.” Jet replied. “Each of the Courts, includ
ing this one, the Court of the Ard Ri, reside in Sithins—Faery mounds. Never think the same paths will lead the same way twice. Many times they will, but my guess is that all of the Court is in that arena, and they don’t want us to hear what is happening. The Sithin sort of, um, rearranges itself to suit the current need or mood of either the Court or of the Sithin itself. ’Can get to be a bit confusing. I got up one night, needing to find the restroom. There was a swimming pool in its place. Middle of the night, already needing to go, and all that water—bad combo. The Sithin was in a playful mood that night. I almost wet myself before it finally gave me the right room, and then only because I threatened to use a corner in the next room I opened.”
Team Phoenix wandered down a couple of short streets before arriving at a garden patch entirely covered in webbing, like a big cocoon. Reggie watched as Jet entered through a door that he hadn’t initially noticed. They entered to find a spacious shop filled with all manner of cloth and clothing, furs, feathers, buttons, and threads. A loom, unaided by visible hands, was weaving a pattern of shiny, turquoise material in the corner. Tiny winged creatures whipped in and out the front of a jacket that hung on a headless dummy. They were sewing buttons on the jacket and had just finished when a pair of scissors, carried by another of the little creatures, came to snip the end of the thread.
“G’day, g’day,” a little man with thick glasses and a round nose greeted them. His grin was a bit crooked on his full lips, and his white hair was tussled from where he had been sorting through a pile of fabric under a large table.
“G’day to you, Sir Quinn,” Jet smiled. “We’re looking for your lady. Might she be about?”
“Right here, dear.” A woman emerged from a back room, struggling under the weight of several bolts of black and white material. She shoved the stack of cloth into her husband’s arms. He took them to another table while she eyed the children appraisingly. “So what’ll be, then?”
Ryssa smiled at the lyrical Irish accent of the woman. Every once in a while, she heard the same lilt from Moira and Jet, although it came more often from Jet than his sister.
“Uniforms, Madam Quinn,” Jet replied. “And with a bit of your personal touch.”
“Personal touch, eh?” She eyed him skeptically. “More as like the lot of you couldna decide between you. An’ now I’m the one yer expectin’ to have pick up the slack.”
“You’re a wise woman, Madam Quinn.” He gave her his most charming smile.
“Oh, posh, young man,” she wagged her finger at him, “you’d best be savin’ that for the gels your own age. Won’t do you no good with an old curmudgeon like me.”
But Ryssa could see she was pleased that Jet had even thought to try.
“So what do you have for me, then? And let’s be quick about it. I’ve got a lot of orders to fill, I do.”
Jet plopped the papers, along with the bag of coins, on top of her counter. The group watched as she rifled through their lists.
“No, huh? Okay, let’s that idea out. What’s this?” She turned one paper upside down and then back again. “Hmm, now there’s an interesting—” She stacked them all together.
“Okay, it can be done.” Madam Quinn motioned to her little flying assistants. “Stand still now,” she instructed the team.
The winged creatures whipped around the individual members in a blur of activity, measuring each child quickly and buzzing out answers in a language Ryssa didn’t understand. Obviously Madam Quinn did, because she made marks on separate pieces of paper for each of them.
“That should do it, then.” She stopped to count out a stack of coins from the bag. “You’ll have your uniforms first thing in the mornin’.”
The little creatures squeaked and hovered around Madam Quinn, some waggling fingers, others wringing their hands.
“All right, all right.” Madam Quinn held up her hands with resolution, and her assistants flew back to work. “I’m told we can’t possibly have them to you until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest, bit of a demand right now, there is.”
“That’s fine, Madam Quinn.” Jet placated her with a pat to the back of her hand. “Tomorrow afternoon is plenty soon enough. Take more time if you need it.”
“Okay, then.” She beamed. “Off with the lot of you, now. This old woman has work to see to and no time to stand around chit chattin’.”
With that, they were rushed out the door so quickly that the children stood dumfounded for a moment.
“So is it stayin’ together, we are?” Jet asked in a perfect imitation of the seamstress’s accent. “Or is it goin’ our separate ways, now?”
The group grinned.
“We’re not supposed to go off on our own,” Reggie pointed out.
“I was thinking Sing a Song of Sweets,” Moira said wistfully.
“Ooh, one vote for a sugar rush before our first lesson.” Jet smiled.
“Sugar?” Ryssa perked up. “Count me in.”
The rest of the team agreed, with one exception.
“Pyro?” Jet raised his eyebrow in question.
“Yeah, okay,” Pyro grumbled. “I can’t go back by myself anyway, so I might as well.”
Hammie bounced with excitement. “Off to candy land!”
It didn’t take long for their hurried steps to find their way to the candy shop. Once there, the children took their time surveying the seemingly endless variety and colors of sugary confections on display. There were treats in every imaginable shape, size, and color, carefully packaged and displayed to tantalize the taste buds.
“There’s no chocolate,” Ryssa pouted.
“Ah, but try one of these.” Moira pointed to a cream-colored ball.
Ryssa eyed it dubiously, before popping it into her mouth. It melted instantly, flooding her taste buds with a rich vanilla sensation.
“It’s like warm, melted ice cream. Those are good.”
“Try the strawberry ones next. They’re called Cream Silkies.” Moira sighed. “But you’re right; the Fey have never properly gotten the hang of making chocolate. I don’t understand why. I wonder if we could start an import business—?”
Even Pyro seemed to be enjoying himself in the candy shop. His mood had lightened, and Reggie caught him trying to hide a smile from one of Jet’s more outlandish comments. They had just decided it was time to head back to the team quarters, and gathering the remaining treasures they had not yet eaten, when half a dozen children entered, all of them from Team Dragon.