38. Maeve

We raced for the trees behind the sidhe, crashing through the undergrowth, no longer caring how much noise we made. My chest heaved as I struggled to carry Corbin’s dead weight…

I hope he’s not dead. Please, don’t let him be dead.

The sky darkened overhead as we ran, darkness creeping in much faster than was natural, but I guessed nothing was truly natural in this realm. Arthur bowled through the trees ahead of us, his enormous limbs tearing leaves and snapping branches, clearing our way. If only he knew where the hell he was going.

Flynn huffed behind us, dragging Blake along, his blade still pressed to Blake’s throat. Blake tried to yell something, but his words turned into bellows of pain as Flynn socked him in the jaw.

All around us, fairies leapt and danced through the trees, chittering to each other in their foreign language. They stayed well back, nervous around Arthur, even though he no longer had his sword. But I could see they were closing around us. Soon we’d be completely surrounded.

“What the fuck do we do?” Flynn yelled.

“We keep going.” Arthur stormed ahead through the gloom. “We’re heading toward the valley, but I don’t know how to get back to the place where we came in.”

“There’s no bloody point,” Blake said. “You need to find the gateway?—”

His words cut off as Flynn punched him in the jaw again. “Shut your pie hole, or I’ll shut it permanently next time.”

The chittering grew louder, more focused.

The fae were coming.

“Arthur,” I moaned. My arms and legs burned. Beside me, Rowan puffed, his entire body drenched in sweat. Corbin’s body snagged on every branch and bramble.

Maeve, listen to me.

Blake’s voice reached my ears, but the sound wasn’t coming from behind me.

It was inside my head.

How the hell was he doing that?

Maeve, you have to listen to me. I can save you, but you need to trust me.

“No way in hell,” I muttered out loud, my breath coming out in ragged gasps as I struggled on for another few steps. I screamed as an arrow whizzed past on my left, burying itself into a tree trunk only a foot from my head.

Fine, die here in the forest riddled with arrows like a porcupine. That’s your prerogative. Or, you could hide in the enormous hollow log up here on the left, and I’ll cast a glamour to lead the fae in the wrong direction, and you and all your merry men can live to be fools another day. Your choice.

Was I supposed to trust this guy after he betrayed us to the fae? He was clearly playing games with me, just like his father… our father, I reminded myself with a shudder.

But Blake had a point – the fae were getting closer. We wouldn’t outrun them. His was the only other option we had.

I glanced around, searching the gloom for a place to hide.

Hollow log…hollow log…There it is!

An enormous fallen log jutted across the forest floor. I pulled Corbin toward it, dragging Rowan along with me. Sure enough, rot had hollowed out the log so we could fit inside, and with the direction the fae were coming, there was a chance they’d head right past without seeing us.

“Arthur, Flynn,” I hissed. “Get in here.”

Rowan and I dragged Corbin inside, his legs scraping over the rotting wood, pulling up curls of bark that crunched under my shoes. Flynn followed, his arms tight around Blake and his hand clamped hard over his mouth. Arthur crouched on the end, his bone blade raised, ready to make a last stand should this not work.

Please let this work.

The fae host thundered through the forest, flitting between the trees or swinging from the branches like monkeys. Flickers of white sliced through the trees as slivers of moonlight caught their bone blades, and their teeth and claws gnashed and tore at the forest. My whole body shuddered with fear. If they catch us…

I crouched as low as I could in the log, pressing my body into the damp bark and wishing like hell it would swallow us up and take us back to Briarwood.

No. Not until we find what we came for.

I held my breath as the fae passed us by, their grisly host moving deeper into the forest. As soon as we could no longer hear them, Flynn breathed a big, dramatic sigh. “That was close. Good job spotting the log, Maeve.”

“It wasn’t me. Blake was the one who saw it. He sort of…told me about it.”

“What the fuck?” Flynn released his hand from Blake’s mouth.

“I’d be very interested to know how you did that.” Arthur trained his knife on Blake’s chest.

Dried blood splattered Blake’s face and his breath came out in ragged gasps. Flynn’s knife had bit into the flesh of his neck, and Blake winced as he opened his mouth to speak, his hand flying to his throat. He glanced at me, his eyes wide, begging for me to vouch for him.

“Remember how I said he was a spirit user?” I said. “Well, it seems one of our powers – or at least, one of Blake’s powers – is telepathy. I heard his voice inside my head, telling me about the log. He helped us, so maybe we shouldn’t try to stab him. At least, not yet.”

“You sure it was him?” Arthur frowned.

“Oh yeah,” I remembered Blake calling them my ‘Merry Men.’ “It was definitely him.”

“But why is he trying to help us when it’s his fault we’re in this mess in the first place?” Arthur demanded.

“I’d like to know that, too,” I glared at Blake. “You took my voice.”

“Only because you were about to reveal that I’d helped you,” Blake coughed out. “Bloody hell, you’re not very good at this subterfuge thing. Come on, we need to get out of here. They’ll figure out you’re not ahead of them soon enough.”

“Will you take us to the children?” I said.

Blake sighed.

“And we probably all need weapons if we have to get through more of those guards.” I turned to Arthur. “Speaking of weapons, how’d you get your sword back?”

He arched an eyebrow. “You gave it to me.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, Maeve, you did. We were in trouble. I was wishing inside my head that you could find a sword for me. I just had this idea that since you control the dream, if you could hear what I needed, you could make it happen. And then the hilt just appeared in my hand.”

I folded my arms. “Arthur, I was a little busy dealing with my father. I didn’t have anything to do with the sword.”

“But—”

“We don’t have time for this,” Flynn piped up. “We need to go back for the children.”

“You’re in luck, witches. I’m going to make your whole night.” Blake flashes me a weak grin. “I already moved the kids to a safe place. The fae back at the sidhe are guarding two pumpkins charmed with glamour to look like the babies. I’ve got the real tykes here in the forest. But we have to hurry.”

“He’s lying,” Arthur said. “He’ll just lead us back to the king.”

Blake snorted. “After what dear old Dad did, you think I want to go back to that prick? I’ve lived for twenty-one years in this hellhole where everything is literally poison to me. I want you lot to take me back to Briarwood with you.”

“That’s not happening,” Arthur folded his arms.

Blake folded his. “Fine, then I’m not helping.”

“We’re wasting time arguing.” Flynn held up his knife. “I’ll just kill the gobshite.”

“No, stop!” I shoved myself between them, my fingers gripping Flynn’s wrist, holding the knife back. “Don’t hurt him. He’s a human, not a fae. He’s a spirit user who has helped us. I think we should trust him.”

“He may not be a fae, but he’s been raised by them,” Flynn growled, trying to wrench the knife from me. “You’ve seen that the fae lie. He’s given us no reason to trust him, let alone follow him.”

“You should follow me because I’m your only chance of getting out of here alive,” Blake shrugged. “There, you’ve got your one reason. Can we get going now?”

“Let him go, Flynn.” I tried to pry his arm from around Blake’s throat. Flynn’s muscles relaxed under my touch, but not enough that I wasn’t still worried he’d kill Blake.

Flynn’s expression wavered. “He nearly got us killed!”

“No, I saved you from getting your arse beheaded on the spot,” Blake said. “When they took you back to the barrows, I was figuring out how to get you out of there. I was just about to step in and free you all, but your barbarian friend there got all stabby with that iron blade and sorted that out for me. Now, if you don’t mind…” he slipped out of Flynn’s grasp and clambered for the log’s entrance. “We need to hurry.”

“I still don’t understand why you’re helping us,” I said.

“I told you,” he said without turning around. “Back at Jane’s house. I explained it all.”

“You really didn’t.”

“Fine. I’ll explain when we’re safely back in your realm. But if you want to bring those babies back with you, we need to go now.”

Flynn forced Blake to walk in front of us. With every step, the tip of his knife jabbed into Blake’s spleen – not hard enough to draw blood, but definitely enough for Blake to be aware of it.

Blake led us back the other way, deeper into the forest. He followed no path, but wound his way along the valley with the ease of someone who knew every inch of the woods by heart.

My stomach twisted with nerves as I realized that without him, we’d never find our way back out again.

My hand patted the stone in my pocket. Maybe we wouldn’t have to get out again. As long as Blake was taking us to the babies?—

Blake stopped, his head tilted to the side. “We’re here,” he said, scanning the forest around us. He pointed ahead at a beautiful ancient oak tree, the trunk gnarled and twisted. Steps had been carved into the enormous tree and moss hung in long garlands like streamers. Blake darted up the staircase and reached into a hollow in the tree.

“Is this your clubhouse?” Flynn smirked up at him.

“Yeah.” Blake pulled out two tiny bundles, balancing them carefully in his arms as he clambered back down the staircase. “I needed some place to get away from the courtly games and the princes and those damn intolerable drums. Here they are.”

He passed a tiny bundle into my arms. I peeled aside a corner of the blanket, and a squishy sleeping baby face peeked into view. It opened one tiny eye, then the other, peering up at me with intelligent curiosity.

Connor.I was pretty sure it was Connor. Babies kind of looked alike to me, but I recognized a bit of Jane’s brashness in his gaze.

My chest soared. We’d done it. We’d found the babies, and they were alive, and safe.

Now we just have to get them home.

Flynn had the other baby in his arms. He made cooing noises and tickled it with a long, freckled finger. Something about the look in his eyes tugged at my chest, and made a lump form in my throat that wouldn’t dislodge.

“What next?” Arthur asked me. He faced away from us, into the forest, his hand gripping the hilt of his sword. Even as his eyes scanned the forest for danger, his hand reached up and stroked Connor’s cheek. The baby cooed, and the lump in my throat grew larger.

“How do you normally get to the human realm?” I asked Blake. The spell hadn’t exactly been clear on how we got back. I’d figured it would be obvious once we got here, but so far – like everything else in the fae realm – it was anything but.

Blake shook his head. “There’s a gateway, but it will be heavily guarded. Going that way is a surefire plan to separate your head from your body. Your only hope is to go back the way you came – through the dream.”

“Oh, right.”

“Maeve?” Arthur asked. “You don’t sound certain.”

I stared down at Corbin’s lifeless body, my heart racing. “I just…I’m not really sure how to do this. The spell didn’t exactly explain how to return. Corbin usually figures this stuff out, but he’s…”

“Okay, right.” Arthur rubbed his head. “Usually when you want to reverse a spell you have to actually…reverse the spell. So we just backtrack through the same steps we took to create the spell. You need a lock of each of our hair.” He whipped his hand up, and his blade chopped a long lock of gold hair. He dropped it into my hand. “You tie those around your wrist, then we all go to sleep, I guess, and you drag us back.”

“Do we go to sleep, or wake up?” I asked, as Flynn carefully cut off two tiny locks of the babies hair and placed them in my hand. “Aren’t we all asleep now?”

“I don’t feel asleep,” Flynn said. “I can’t wake up if I’m not asleep. And I don’t exactly feel like a taking a nap right now.”

“Shut up for a minute. I have to think.”

The guys were used to thinking about the world in terms of magic and spells. I wasn’t. I needed to see things in my own way to make sense of them.

I theorized that what I was doing when astral-projecting was moving my consciousness through the multiverse into one of many possible realities, one of the “Many Worlds” postulated, in which theoretically a counterpart of my own consciousness resided. There was a radical idea in theoretical physics that dreams were windows into events occurring in an alternate world seen through the eyes of our counterpart consciousness. But since my conscience was here, in the dream, then which world was I really existing in, and in which world was my counterpart consciousness? Was I asleep, or awake?

My brain hurt. This was where Corbin would really come in handy. He had a way of being able to translate my theories into magical practice. I rubbed my temple, trying to play through the scenario in my head.

“We have to wake up,” I said, firmly, although I wasn’t really certain at all. “Or, rather, I have to wake up and pull the rest of you back with me. Quick, everyone, give me a lock of your hair.”

Flynn lopped off a loop of his red curls, then bent down and chopped off a lock of Corbin’s dark hair. Meanwhile, Rowan tied one of his dreadlocks around my wrist. He plaited the other three together to create one loop.

I turned to Blake. “Wake me up.”

He grinned. “I knew you were going to ask that, Princess.”

“You got us this far. And I know you can do this, too. You got inside my head once before. Do it again. Wake me up.”

He shook his head. “If I put one foot wrong, this dream and all of you inside it will collapse, and I won’t be able to get you back. Besides, I don’t want to knock about inside your head. It’s scary in there.”

“Just do it, Prince,” I threw his title out. “Get us out of here, and as soon as we’re back, we’ll find a way to free you from the king. We owe you one for everything you’ve done.”

Blake smiled. “Careful. You don’t want to be in the habit of owing favors to the fae. We tend to collect at really inconvenient times.”

“You’re not fae.”

“Now that is a matter of interpretation.” Blake’s eyes pierced mine.

Something shifted inside my head. At first it was an itch at the back of my skull. Then the itch spread, becoming a dull, throbbing ache. Random thoughts and memories flared up – Louise Crawford coming out of the kitchen with an enormous rainbow birthday cake, eight candles burning on top, Kelly and I singing in the worship choir, me having a screaming argument with our science teacher after she insisted creationism was a valid scientific theory.

“Wha—” I started to say, but the memories stole my voice. They flooded me, pouring over me like water, swirling through my joints, pressing between my ribs, cocooning me in parts of my life I desperately wished to forget.

My parents texting me to meet them at the Ferris wheel. Me, screaming at that stupid fae, Kalen, when I should have been with them, the wheel falling, burning, buckling. The people screaming. My parents bodies burning. All because of me.

The air crackled with heat. The smoke seared my throat. Every part of my body shook with the horror of it, as though it were happening again. It was…

A nightmare. Blake had dug deep into my brain and fed me my worst nightmare in Technicolor.

Behind every tortured face, between the mangled struts of the wheel, through the thick smoke of the fire, Blake’s eyes blared – fierce and determined, heedless to the pain they brought with them.

A dark void opened up in the ground beside me, swelling in size until was a great gaping hole in the earth. Trees and roots disappeared into its depths, sucked away into oblivion. The Ferris wheel toppled in after it, and the ghost train, and my parents’ burned, charred bodies.

Clutching Connor against my chest, I met Blake’s eyes. The connection between our minds sizzled – and a sharp pain tore through my skull. I screamed as Blake’s fingers dug deep into my consciousness, pulling out all the grief and guilt I carried with me, and threw it at me in a cannonball of sorrow and torment.

My body shuddered as the pain hit me, and whether it was physical or mental pain I no longer knew. They were the same. I burned up in the horror of it, my skin on fire, my bones boiling.

“What are you doing to her?” Arthur grabbed Blake’s arm.

“Don’t—” I gasped, but Blake’s grip on my mind tightened, and he pushed.

The push came from inside my body, like a parasite forcing its way out through my ears. My feet teetered on the edge, struggling to keep their grip. Flynn reached for me, his mouth moving as he yelled something, but the void swallowed all sound. Bright light filled my eyes, rolling toward me like a train coming into station.

I fell.