Chapter 20

Their Nightly Dance

The clearing in the woods is like a movie set or something. An inside-outside sort of place. It looks real enough but feels somehow wrong, although I can’t say why. Like that trip me and Mum and Dad took to Disneyland last year. There was a building there with sky on the inside, and as clever as the illusion was, you knew deep-down it wasn’t real.

Tables ring a central section, covered in all sorts of food and drink and at the head, on another dais, sits Romalesque, surrounded by Palgamor and the woman with stars in her eyes.

I feel my feet twitch to the music.

Alice grabs my arm. “Don’t dance with anyone. If you get asked, politely decline. Never be rude.”

“Why?”

“Come on, fantasy-boy, even I know a bit about the Fae.”

“I prefer dragon stories.”

Alice pushes me playfully. “Well, once we get to the dragon’s lair, you can take over. Oh, look, they’ve even got veggie sausage rolls.”

I follow her to one of the tables. “Is it safe?”

She picks up a roll and sniffs it. “Def veggie.” She waves it under my nose. “Want one?”

The pastry is golden brown, just warm enough. I pop it in my mouth. It’s well nice, better even than the pottage at the inn. I take another and another. “These are amazing.”

“Veggie rules,” Alice says, her mouth half full. Her eyes widen and she points behind me. “Somethings happening.”

From out of the trees opposite, five Fae come leading a partner by the hand. One by one they file past the dais, and one by one they bow low to Romalesque. As the last one passes, the queen stands and claps her hands like the snap of a great branch torn in the wind.

Alice goes really still.

My breathing sounds well loud.

The queen lifts her chin. “Let the dance begin.” She sits and Palgamor moves to stand at her left shoulder.

The dancers move to the middle of the glade and spread out. Total silence. Then the violins swell up, rising like the first touch of wind in the leaves and I breath out, long and slow.

One of the Fae, a beautiful woman in a deep purple gown with moon-silver hair to her waist, is partnered with an old man who looks really ill. His skin is yellow and his head lolls back as if half asleep. They twirl endlessly around the woodland glade and as they pass by, I hear him whisper, “Please stop. Let me stop.”

And then they’re gone, twirling away around and around and around again.

My eyes follow them and meet the gaze of Haldjas Palgamor. He waves us over.

I swallow and lean in to Alice. “I think Palgamor wants to speak to us.”

“More like The Queen wants to. Don’t trust them. Don’t say thank you for anything and don’t agree to anything, ok?”

“How do you know all this?” I ask as we cross towards the dais.

“My Auntie is into all that stuff. I never really paid that much attention. If I’d known we were gonna get stranded in Fae, I would’ve.”

As we approach, Palgamor steps down from the dais and extends a hand. “Well met prophetic ones.”

We shake hands. His skin might’ve been cool, but it might’ve been warm. The truth is, as soon as I let go I can’t remember what it had felt like, my mind a whirl.

He takes Alice’s hand. She stiffens and a smile creeps across his face. “I see De Silva has you doing his dirty work, mortals.”

“My name is Sir Atkins,” I say. “And you already know we have agreed to help Darren De Silva retrieve the Fae Queen’s eye.”

“He has tricked you, you know.”

“No,” Alice says, the word landing like a heavy rock in sand. “He’s our teacher.”

Palgamor laughs. “De Silva has lived too long. He knows too well how to play the game.”

I swallow, my throat dry. “What game?”

“The one you are playing.” He smiles like a snake. “The one where De Silva’s life,” he inclines his head, “and your own are forfeit should you fail.”

“We won’t fail,” I say slowly, willing my voice not to tremble. Thankfully it holds firm.

Alice puts her hand on my shoulder. “We won’t.”

Palgamor raises an eyebrow. “Then come. Her majesty has some information to impart before you leave.”

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My stomach twists, but I push the feeling down and follow him up to the foot of the dais.

Romalesque stands, impossibly tall she towers over us, one blue eye sparkling in her head, silken eyepatch reflecting the starlight above. Just like the weapons in Garvey’s shop, she’s beautiful and dangerous.

She raises her chin and stares down her nose at us. I feel like a marshmallow on a stick, headed for the fire. “I have seen things with my other eye that I could not make sense of, until now.”

Alice raises her hand. “May I speak, your majesty?”

“You may.”

“If the dragon took your eye, how can you…”

“I can still see through my eye,” the queen interrupts. “That is how I knew where to send De Silva for this one.” She points at her blue eye.

“But the dragon removed it,” I say, my heart thudding in my chest.

“Yes,” she replies. “But it’s still my eye, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but......” I trail off at the look Palgamor gives me, deciding instead to go along with it, as mental as it all seems. “What did you see, your majesty?”

“To begin, nothing of note. After Haalsbeder dropped it, I saw grass and rocks. Not long after, something picked it up and my vision went dark for a time. Then I began to get glimpses of images. A claw. A red eye. A Troll foot. A line of Ogres. It was most confusing. My soldiers began searching all known places where such creatures reside both in England and Fae. They found nothing. And then I saw one I recognised. Humfdoodle, King of the Northern Ogres.”

I bow. “Your majesty, I have heard rumours that Humfdoodle has disappeared, that he has gone into Limbo to serve a dragon known as Sabotini.”

Palgamor nods. “Impressive. We have also heard these rumours.”

“And are they true?”

Alice leans forward, a look of pure concentration on her face.

The queen’s voice chills me to my bones. “We do not know. But you will go there and find out.”

“No turning back,” Alice whispers to herself.

I fold my creeping fear up and tuck it away. “How do we get there?”

Romalesque points to the door through which we came. “The Royal Mirror Room is at your disposal. Only the cursed can use the mirrors to find their way to Fae.”

My minds whirls. “But we’re not cursed, I mean, we weren’t before…you know…when we first arrived.”

Romalesque’s gaze drills into me. “But you believed yourself to be cursed. And that is as good as being cursed.”

Unable to meet her eyes I look down.

Thoughts scramble through my brain and I try to grip on to the positive ones, push away those that’ll bring me down.

You don’t spin the card; the card spins you.

I breathe deeper, stand taller. My fingers squeeze into a fist and like in some computer game, I power up. Lifting my head, I meet Palgamor’s eye. “No more riddles. Please.”

Alice gives me an approving nod.

“Well.” The queen’s voice is like a sliver of ice in my chest. “This one interests me, Palgamor. Most mortals are so…” She flicks a long-fingered hand in the air. “Dull.”

Palgamor bows then turns to us with an expression of pure contempt that makes my blood boil. “Indeed, your majesty.”

“How will you know if we succeed or fail?” Alice asks.

Palgamor’s smile is icy cold. “You will either return with the eye, saving yourselves and your layabout master, or you will not, and another will be sent in your place. And another and another. There are no end of mortals believing themselves cursed when it is nothing but existence.”

Alice tenses next to me.

Romalesque stands, casting her shadow long over us. “Bring me my eye,” she commands before taking the star-eyed ladies’ hand and sweeping from the room.

I watch her go, my heart vibrating in my chest.

She opens the door, steps into the throne room, and pulls the door shut behind her.

“Come,” Palgamor says. “My Queen has waited long enough. If you truly are the ones Sorrow spoke of all those years ago, balance may be restored. Although my queen is not so forgiving as her father and the dragons may yet have hell to pay.”

The very same door the queen left through opens onto stone steps that lead downward. “How the…” I can’t even finish the question, decide it’s not even worth asking.

Just like inside the tomb they’re old and cracked with moss running through; the stones themselves shiny and smooth: well used.

We reach the bottom and duck through an archway into a winding corridor, lit sporadically by small, bright lights that hover precariously.

“What are they?” I ask, pointing upwards.

“Light bugs,” Palgamor replies.

“Like the Lamplighters of Angelmere.”

“Similar but not the same. Light bugs are spells. We have always called such things bugs. I do not know why.”

The corridor ends in a golden door, trimmed with red. Palgamor pushes it open. “This is The Royal Mirror Room. It is a high honour for her majesty to allow you entry. Fare thee well.”

He turns to walk away.

“Hang on,” Alice says. “Is that it?”

“That is it,” Palgamor replies without turning.

“But how do we know which corridor to take.”

He stops then slowly faces us. “If you choose a path.” He spreads his arms wide. “Any path but do not commit to it, you will find yourself in Limbo.”

Anger rears up like an angry horse in my chest, read to kick. I fight it back. “This isn’t the time for riddles.”

He flicks his chin towards Alice. “She understands, even if you do not fully…yet.”

I turn to Alice.

She bites her lip and nods. “Any corridor will take us there. We just walk halfway and stop.”

“How do you know?”

She shrugs. “I just do.”

I turn to Palgamor but he’s already walking away. He heads lightly up the steps and disappears before the clang of the door sends a shock right through me. Then a bolt screeches into place and we’re left alone with only the ragged sound of our breathing cutting the silence.

###

The mirror room is small and rectangular, perhaps three metres across by five along. At either end, two huge mirrors face one another. Like the door their frames are golden, their edges carved with the now familiar swirls and patterns.

Hundreds of pale me’s stretch out to infinity in the corridor made by the endless reflections inside each mirror.

Alice draws her foil and salutes. Hundreds of her do the same.

Warmth spreads through my chest and down my arms. “Nice.” I draw my own foil and salute.

The images stretch out before us, elongate, warp, then close over us. I get that feeling in the pit of my stomach like when you realise you’ve lost something you treasure or been caught in a lie. I shut my eyes and breathe deeply, move without moving. And then the feelings gone as quick as it came. Opening my eyes, I find us stood in the long corridor inside the mirror realm.

“Which one?” I ask.

“All,” Alice replies. “Any.”

The holograph of the nearest path shows a seascape with an old galleon on it. As I follow Alice down, a faint blue glow surrounds us and water begins to seep up around our feet, pooling on the empty white floor. My heart tugs and I wonder what adventures wait there.

Maybe I’ll never know.

We stop and turn to face the endless black that stretches out in front of us.

The black of exactly nothing.

“Ready?” I ask.

Alice nods.

We hold hands then stretch out our other arm and push through into the darkness. It’s like pushing through a huge wall of slime.

I feel a pull in my stomach, a lurch and the world swirls.

The black wraps around us like cloth and we hang, weightless, Alice’s braids floating out behind her.

“Wow.” I speak but no sound comes.

Seconds tick by like hours, like time has no meaning, or the wrong meaning. Cold seeps into my bones, I feel myself slowing down, feel everything stopping.

Wham!

We land heavily on a cold stone floor: an island surrounded by a sea of pure black that ebbs and flows like oil.

“Limbo,” I whisper, transfixed.