“Acting with honor. Trying to keep others from being hurt. Trying to protect your family and friends and other people from harm.”
“Even if it means hurting others.”
“Sometimes we must.”
I moan again, pull my branch up toward my heart, and keep my eyes closed. “The words wound. They slam into my head and they smell. The words smell like things.”
His hand brushes some hair away from my face. I don’t cringe. I don’t have the energy. “Do you still want to see yourself?”
I shake my head hard like a three-year-old.
“Okay. Would you at least like to learn how to assert the glamour?”
“Yes.” That is an easy choice. “I’d be good with never seeing myself like this.”
The blue of my skin seems to shout at me. It seems so ugly now and I know that’s because Nick will think it’s ugly. I stare at my fingers with their fingernails that are ready to lengthen into claws and everything inside of me shudders with what I’ve become.
Astley’s hand touches my shoulder lightly for a second. “Zara, you are going to have to deal with who you are.”
“One step at a time. First you show me how to do the glamour thing. Then we figure out how I get to Valhalla. Tell me what to do.”
“It is rather simple.” He smiles a calm, sweet smile and his face transforms into something beautiful. He touches the side of my face with his finger. “When you were human did you ever change the pressure in your ear by moving your jaw a bit, just tightening the muscles?”
“Um . . . let me think about it. Yeah? I guess so. It made a clicking noise, right?”
“Exactly!” His voice gets the tone of a happy teacher. He presses a little on my skin. “So what I want you to do is—”
I’ve already done it.
“Amazing,” he says, clapping his hands together, “you are stunningly impatient but a fast learner.”
I open my eyes and look at my hands. They are human hands. “My teeth feel normal.”
“They should. Your glamour affects you as well. But you can also look through your glamour and the glamours of other pixies, see us for what we really are if you want to.”
He stands up and stretches, surveys the disaster that is his hotel room. I make the decision then. “Take my branch.”
“Are you sure?” His eyes widen.
“I’m sure.” I hold it out to him. He takes it reverently, carries it like it’s a brand-new baby, and places it in the closet. He slides the mirrored doors shut. He murmurs some words in a language I don’t understand and his hands seem to glow. The room becomes warmer. The smell of honey and mushrooms becomes thicker. The glow fades.
“Is that it?” I whisper, afraid to disturb anything.
“That is the first part. I have bound our branches. Our fates are now joined,” he says solemnly.
“Joined.” I stand up. My body protests. He rushes over, arms outstretched. He’s ready to catch me, I guess.
“How are you feeling? Are you dizzy?” he blurts.
“A little.” I adjust to standing up. “But good. So let’s get going.”
“Get going?”
“I have to save Nick.” I walk across the room, grab my cell phone off the top of the television storage unit, check for texts and missed calls. There are about a thousand. The world comes crashing in. I start scrolling through the texts. It’s all about me coming back, me telling them where I am, me not doing anything stupid until Betty talks to me, and so on and so on. My head spins a little more and it’s not from the whole pixie transition. It’s from stress. “Let’s go.”
My clothing situation, however, is not the best. I realize this suddenly and blush. He catches on and shows me a bag from Cadillac Mountain Sports and pulls out some green socks with smiley faces on them and a pair of running shoes. One of his people got them while I was “transforming.” Thanking him, I take the socks and sneakers and start putting them on.
“Can I have a minute by myself?” I ask and then I realize what I’m doing—I’m asking him, like he controls me. He can control me, though. He showed me that. I don’t want that. So before he can answer my wimpy question I head to the bathroom like it doesn’t matter that he’s the pixie king, that my needs, my emotions, are linked to his needs and his emotions.
Plus, if I am going to panic I am going to panic in private, damn it.
I shut the door behind me. The goldish handle is cold and shaking. No, it’s my hand that’s shaking. I haul in some deep breaths, lean against the door, grab a towel rack for balance. It stings. I jerk my hand away. It must have a little iron in it. Man . . . can I not touch anything? The towel racks are a silvery metal. The sink faucet is metal.
The entire freaking world has metal in it and a lot of that metal contains iron and steel.
I take another big breath.
Another.
I can’t calm down.
The bathroom is standard hotel issue. A mirror covers the entire wall. It’s positioned above the sink. There’s a toilet and a shower that are beige and boring. Not everything is like that, though. The white towels on the floor are streaked red with blood. Tissues in the trash can are clumped up and crimson. There’s even a streak of blood across the mirror, dried now, but still disgusting. All this blood must be mine, I guess. Astley had scratches but . . . Shuddering, I grab a disgustingly red washcloth and use it to turn on the faucet. I stick my hands under the warm running water and start scrubbing at the skin. Is it even my skin? The water only makes me feel a tiny bit better because underneath that skin is pixie. I may look human but I’m not human anymore. I am something completely different.
“What have I done?” I whisper the sentence to myself and each word takes weight, and takes hold, pushing me into something angry. I say it again, “What have I done?”
Anger slashes through me. My fist slams down into the granite sink counter. Dust flies up from the impact. I move my hand. There’s a dent. I’ve dented the stone. How could I have? Because I’m a pixie, that’s how. Wow. Just . . . wow!
I inspect my hand. Nothing is broken. If I were human, things would be broken.
“I am not human,” I tell myself. I don’t look in the mirror. I don’t want to stare and mope and question.
Well, part of me really wants to stare and mope and question, but another part really just wants to celebrate. I am strong. No. I am incredibly strong. If I’d been like this before I could have helped Nick fight that pixie; I could have protected Issie and Betty and Dev a lot more.
Gingerly, I touch the gold-colored doorknob. It doesn’t hurt. I open the door and peek out. Astley’s at the far end of the room, staring out the window, but he turns when I clear my throat.
“I’m really strong,” I say.
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I mean really strong. I dented the sink.”
“Don’t worry about it, Zara.” His face barely moves and his tone of voice doesn’t change. “It is not a problem.”
Not a problem? Okay . . . I start shutting the door. “I’m going to shower.”
There, I told him. I didn’t ask him. I lock the door behind me, but I know he could rip it off its hinges. I could rip it off its hinges. I check out my arms, use my left hand to touch my right bicep and triceps muscles. They are granite hard. It’s cool, but it feels dangerous. My happy fizzles right out because I know that I could hurt the bad guys, but I could hurt the good guys too. I hit the counter without even thinking about it. What if I get angry at Devyn and hurt him? Or anyone? What if I can’t control myself, like the Incredible Hulk or something?
Astley seems very much in control of himself, but those other pixies, my father . . . Shuddering again, I take off my clothes, grab a disgusting and bloodied cloth and use it to turn on the faucet. Stepping into the shower, I start praying for the warm water to wash all my doubts and fears away. It feels good but it doesn’t quite work. I rest my forehead against the cold shower wall.
“I will still be
me,” I tell myself, the water, the air, God. “I will still be good.”
I cross my fingers. I have to.
Pixie Tip
Fact—pixies can control their needs. Fingers crossed on that one.
After my shower I dress and head back into the bedroom part of the hotel room. I can’t believe how long I’ve been here alone with him. My stomach flip-flops. He’s run a comb through his blond hair. It looks nice, calm. A muscle by his left eye twitches.
“Are my moods linked to yours?” I ask, twisting my hair up into a ponytail like I’m all casual when really my heart is beating eight hundred beats a minute because I’m so nervous scared. Or maybe that’s just how pixies’ hearts beat.
“Not really,” he says. “If we mated they would be.”
I raise my eyebrows to tell him that’s not going to happen and follow up with the more important question. “Am I going to hurt anyone? I mean, am I going to be able to control myself?”
“Not all pixies are blood-lusting monsters.”
“ ‘Not all’ isn’t good enough.” I start grabbing ripped up sheets off the floor and try to stuff them into the tiny plastic waste baskets they have in hotel rooms. “I want to know if I am going to be evil.”
He crosses the room toward me, his face twisted with concern, I think. “Zara—”
“Look at this.” I shove a torn up sheet in his face. “I did this, didn’t I? I just dented a sink in there. I am ridiculously strong and I’ve seen what pixies can do, Astley. They killed Nick. They kidnap boys. They—I can’t be like that!”
His hands grab me by the shoulders. “You won’t be.”
“How do you know?”
“I shall not let you.” His fingers move slightly but he keeps a grip on me. His eyes soften. “And, more importantly, you will not let yourself be like that. That is not who you are, Zara.”
For a minute we just stand there, not moving, not saying anything. “You don’t think so?”
He lets go of one of my shoulders and moves some of my wet hair behind my ear. It’s intimate, but I don’t move away. “I promise you, Zara. You will have needs, but you can control them.”
“So would my friends be safe if I were near them?”
“Of course.”
It makes sense. When Megan and Ian were in high school with us they didn’t just go around constantly killing. I explain this to Astley and he sits down on the bed, crossing his ankle over his knee.
“That’s because their ruler had some control over his needs. There are occasional rogues who are unattached and they become . . . relentless in their desires, but we usually catch them very quickly. It is when a king such as your father loses his control that things become deadly.” He seems to be choosing his words carefully. “That will not happen with me.”
I eye him. “You promise?”
He nods. “I give you my oath.”
The sheets in my hands seem so heavy. I try to fold them but they are unruly, too slashed and blood-hardened to obey my wants. “You have to kill me if I’m evil. That’s what I told Devyn and Issie too. I’d rather die than hurt people.”
“I do not know if I am capable of killing you, Zara,” he whispers. He stands up and takes the sheet from me. “I do know that you are not going to hurt people. You can use your pixie strength, your reflexes, for good.”
The sheets are evidence of my change. The way my brain buzzes with strength and my overloaded senses are more evidence. What do I know? I know that up until a few days ago I had never killed, but then I did—and I was human. Now that I am a pixie it is so much easier. I know things that regular people only imagine: that there are pixies and weres and even Valkyries that exist in our world; there is evil that is so thick and real that it chills your skin just to think about it. I know that needs can be controlled for years and years inside the hearts of living things; that they can bide their time as we go to school or work, snuggle in our warm beds, run with our dads on warm southern streets. They bide their time and then they strike. I hope that maybe there will be a time when those needs are controlled completely and people won’t be in danger, but that time is not now, that time is not yet.
“We’ll fight them, won’t we? After I get Nick back, we’ll get the pixies under control,” I say.
“Once we determine how to get the wolf back exactly, yes.” He fingers the cuff of his sweater, and even though he always meets my eyes when he talks, he doesn’t this time.
I glare at him. “I am still angry at you about that.”
He runs his palm across his eyes. He must be tired because even his voice is weary when he says, “I know.”
There’s a rap at the door. Astley looks up and glides past me. “One moment.”
He moves in catlike strides to the door and opens it. There’s a beautiful, tall woman, maybe in her forties, with long black dreadlocked hair. I catch the smell of her, woodsy and mushrooms, just like Astley. She murmurs in a low voice, “Did she survive?”
“She did,” Astley answers.
“Remarkable. I have the information you requested.”
He steps into the hall and closes the door behind him. I hurry to get my shoes on. I’ve been faking how good I feel. Truth is, it’s like my skin has fractured and been put back on again—crooked. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’m one step closer to saving Nick. Standing up again, I look around the room, trying to find some kind of clue—something that will help me figure out the next step. I walk to the door and pull it open. Astley’s still out there talking to the woman.
She starts to go down on one knee, bending her elegant, long legs. “My queen.”
“Oh! Don’t do that!” I grip her shoulders with my hands and pull her back up.
Her eyes shine with tears that haven’t quite made it out onto her cheeks, but she stands up. She’s a good half foot taller than I am. I have no choice but to let go of her shoulders. I stick out my hand instead. “Zara. It’s nice to meet you.”
“Amelie.” She takes my hand in hers. Something electric passes between us—a shock almost. She looks like she’s about to kiss my hand instead of shake it, but Astley clears his throat and diverts her attention. Instead, she just says, “It’s an honor to meet you. You look remarkably well. Usually, the change is not so”—she searches for a word and finds it, I guess—“easy.”
I let go of her hand. A look passes between them as we all stand in the overlit brightness of the hotel hallway. They’re hiding something. I know because the air practically shimmers with them keeping something from me.
“So, what are you talking about?” I ask.
Astley studies me. He finally breathes in and says, “She was giving me an update on the situation.”
“With the pixies?” I correct myself. “The bad pixies?”
He nods.
“And . . . ,” I prod.
“They seem to be calming down a little after the school bus incident.” His voice and eyes are hard. “Your father, however, is missing. The other king was last spotted at Wal-Mart.”
I almost choke. “Wal-Mart?”
“I know.” His eyes get a mischievous look that vanishes quickly. “He is an incredible threat, Zara. If he keeps taking your father’s people as he has been doing, he will be stronger.”
“Which is why we have you,” Amelie says.
“Because I make Astley stronger.” I push my hair behind my ears. I catch myself at the movement. That’s familiar. That’s something I’ve always done. I want to reassure myself that I am still me. But I’m not, am I?
Astley clears his throat. “You will. You already do, but you will more when you come back from Valhalla, which is why we need to make sure you do come back.”
At the end of the hall, one of the room-cleaning women rolls her cart to a door. The cart overflows with paper towels and toilet paper and clean glasses and regular bath towels. The piles seem pretty uneven and ready to topple over. I want to go help her. She looks up at us and raises an eyebrow. I wonder who
will help her. If all the danger that’s supposed to happen really happens, if there’s some sort of massive war, who will help the humans? Who will help the ones in the crossfire? Who will keep Issie and my mom and people in Spanish class and this cleaning lady and everyone else safe?
Pixie Tip
If you suspect someone is an evil pixie do not invite them into your house to hang. Cool pixies? Totally different. Remember: a pixie can’t come in your house unless invited.
There is no way I can do this without Devyn and Issie. I need them. Due to his super-fierce researching skills, Dev might already know how to get to Valhalla. And Issie? Issie might be able to reassure me that I didn’t do this all for nothing, that Nick is still alive, that I haven’t been totally duped by Astley. So, I make this king—my king—take me to Issie’s. We fly there again. I am almost used to being in the air. One bonus about being pixie is that the cold doesn’t matter as much. It’s amazing.
There is something so comforting about Issie’s home. It’s two stories and all-American looking. The garage is right next to the house and there are these sweet green shutters. I’ve never seen it in springtime but I bet there are tons of flowers planted along the stone walk. I bet there are daffodils and tulips and daisies. It warms me up just thinking about it, even though I’m so scared to see Issie, so scared of what she’ll say once she knows that I’ve really done it. She’s my best friend. I can’t lose her and Nick. It would be too much.
And I am also scared of me. Even though I feel in control, I am terrified that some sort of crazy need will take over, and I’ll just . . .
“You will be fine, Zara,” Astley says.
“Are you reading my mind again?” I ask as he pulls my hat down over my ears. His hands linger there a little too long before he takes them away. This guy has kissed me. I know what that meant on a transformational level, but I don’t know what or if it means anything on a regular guy/girl level—not that I really have time to think about that right now.
He brushes some lint off of his dark green corduroy jacket. “No. Just your emotions.”