Enchanted Ivy (11 page)

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The audio guy had succeeded in making stone sound truly creepy. Kudos to him. She wanted to climb off the chair and put as much distance between her and that voice as possible.

Jake hovered on the steps below her. "What's he saying? You shouldn't listen to him."

"I hurt. Oh, I hurt."
The stone chain, she noticed, had been carved to look as if it were biting into the folds of the dragon's neck. It was clever of the Old Boys to use that detail. It made the dragon seem more real.
"Please, I beg of you. Save me."

"It's stone," Lily said. "You're stone."

"Come closer,"
the dragon whispered,
"and I will show you how to free me."

The Old Boys were testing her. But were they testing her compassion or her resistance to peer pressure? "I don't know if I'm supposed to do that," Lily said.

The dragon hissed.
"Free me!"

Just a game, she reminded herself. Just a role-playing fantasy game that some bored privileged kids had cooked up over beer pong. But it was hard to remember that while the dragon's harsh, sad, awful voice shuddered through her. She felt it echo in her bones. Such a sweet little carving shouldn't sound so painful. "Why are you chained?" she asked.

A harsh, sibilant laugh erupted from the stone sculpture. The sound made her feel as if her guts were churning.
"You came on your own, young one, didn't you? The knights didn't send you to me. How delightful."

The Literate Ape had mentioned knights too. She

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wondered who they were. "The Literate Ape said--"

"He is still here? Fool. He could be free! He has not been shrunk to this unnatural size and bound against his will."
His tongue flicked again, gray as stone but fast as flesh.

"Who did this to you?" she asked.

"That is not the question you came to ask,"
he said. He sounded oddly amused.

"I want to know where to find the Ivy Key."

His stone features slid as smoothly as skin as his expression changed from sad to eager. She shivered and told herself that the Old Boys were wealth personified--they could afford special effects like talking stone and sliding bookshelves.
"And you come to me? How deliciously fascinating."
His voice changed to a command.
"Your name, little one."

"Lily," she said. "Lily Carter."

"Ahh!"
His tail lashed.
"You come to me for answers because the humans lie, lie, and lie. Come closer, Lily Carter, and I will tell you all."

Hesitating, she glanced down at Jake.

"Lily, what is he saying?" Jake asked. "You can't trust him."

"You of all people cannot trust humans,"
the dragon said. She realized that Jake hadn't heard anything the dragon had said. His voice was pitched only loud enough for her to hear.
"To you, their truths are only half truths. Their answers, half answers."

"And you'll give me whole truths?" she asked.

"I can tell you who you are."

"I know who I am," she said.

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His tongue flicked in and out.
"I can tell you how your father died."

What the hell did he mean by that? She knew how her father had died: a car accident. "All I need to know is where to find the Key." And then she'd finish this test, secure her admission, and tell the Old Boys exactly what she thought of their mind games. First the book and now with the dragon ... why so many reminders of her father? What did he have to do with this crazy game?

"Once, there were many Keys. One by one, they were destroyed."
He laughed again, and she shuddered at the sound.
"I even destroyed one myself."

The Old Boys wouldn't send her on a hunt for something that didn't exist. Would they? "Are there any left?"

"Oh, yes."

"Tell me," she demanded.

"The Key is not an object,"
he said.
"The Key is a being who is half human and half magic, a parent from each world. Only such a being can pass through the gate. Only such a being can allow others through the gate."

"Where can I find this Key person?"

"Come closer, and I will whisper to you."

Shoving her foot into one of the ornate hinges, Lily boosted herself up. She reached up and grabbed the stone vines near the dragon's tail to pull herself higher--

"Lily!" Jake cried. He grabbed the back of her jeans.

Before he could force her down, the dragon's head shot

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toward her. His jaws clamped down hard on her hand. She screamed as stone bit into her. Below her, Jake yelled. Spots burst in front of her eyes as pain coursed up her arm like fire. Bits of red orange flame darted out of the dragon's mouth and around her fingers. She screamed again.

Jake yanked her down. Stone scraped gashes along her hand as he pulled her out of the dragon's jaws. Red splattered across the wood door and stone trim. His arm around her waist, Jake half carried, half dragged her down the steps to the plaza. Her head spun.

The dragon screeched. He pushed his talons hard against the chain, and the stone stretched and strained. Dimly, Lily heard Jake: "Oh, shit. Don't die! Oh, shit, what do I do? Dammit!" He ripped his sleeve off his shirt in one quick jerk and wrapped the cloth around her hand. More swirls and spots spun over her eyes as she stared up at Jake's face. A second later, he was shouting into his cell phone--she hadn't seen him take it out. Only a few words made sense. She blacked out.

A few seconds (or minutes or years--she couldn't tell) later, she opened her eyes to see Jake's face swimming inches from hers. She was cradled in his lap. "He could have killed you," Jake was saying. "He
should
have killed you. You shouldn't have survived that."

She focused beyond him on the chapel arch. Black dots still danced over her eyes, but she thought that the dragon had grown. He filled half the arch, and the stone chain bit

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deeply into his thick neck. "He grew," she whispered. Stone didn't grow. Stone didn't live. Didn't talk. Didn't bite.

"He had long enough to drain you," Jake said. "Why aren't you dead?"

"More!"
the dragon howled.
"Need more!"
He let out a scream that shook Lily's bones and echoed across the plaza. She shuddered hard.

Jake looked up at the dragon and then down at her. "You're one of
them,"
he said. He shoved her hard away from him. She rolled off his lap and onto the stone plaza. She lay there, cheek against the flagstones. Every muscle felt depleted. She couldn't process his words. "God, I helped you! I even thought you--" His voice was so full of revulsion that she flinched. "You don't belong here. Monsters belong on the other side of the gate."

Gate
... She remembered Tye's voice:
If you feel faint or weak or anything, go through the gate!
She seized on that memory. It was the only coherent thought that penetrated the dark swirls in her brain. She felt weak; she needed the gate.

Lily lurched to her feet. The plaza tipped and spun.

"More!"
the dragon cried.

She heard other voices shouting. All she could think was
gate
. She needed to go through the gate. Every muscle shaking, she half ran and half fell across the plaza and through the East Pyne courtyard. She stumbled past Nassau Hall, and the green lawn of the yard tilted before her. Her ears roared as her vision spun.

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She caught herself against an oak tree. Her fingers curled into the bark, and she breathed in the scent of the tree. It strengthened her. She pushed away from the trunk. The few people in the yard swam in and out of her field of view. She avoided them, dimly hearing them call to her, asking if she was okay, as she wove her way toward FitzRandolph Gate.

She stopped in front of the gate and looked up at the Princeton seal. It blurred into a smudge as she gazed at it. The stone eagles multiplied as her vision swam again. Beyond the gate, she saw Nassau Street. A traffic light held cars at an intersection.
Go through the gate,
Tye's voice repeated in her memory. "Why?" she wondered. But it hurt to think through the aching haze. It was simpler to obey.

Lily plunged through the gate.

Everything flashed white.

Seconds later, Lily lay flat on her back on grass, not sidewalk. She stared up at the front of FitzRandolph Gate. She saw the Princeton seal ... but the stone eagles were gone.

In their place were twin eagles with feathers of metallic gold. The birds screeched and then lifted skyward from the stone pillars. They circled above her, shadows against the cloudless sky. She saw another bird with firelike feathers streak between them, and she saw a shape that looked like a winged lion, silhouetted against the blue. ...
Where am I?
she thought.
What's happening to me?
She tried to scramble to her feet and collapsed forward onto her hands and knees.

She lifted her head. A tiger paced slowly toward her. His

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tail lashed from side to side. Her heart started to thud so loudly in her ears that it muffled all other sound. Gritting her teeth, Lily pushed herself to standing.

Muscles shaking, she backed away as the tiger approached.
Run,
her mind whispered.
Run!
But she couldn't. She stumbled.

The tiger shimmered as if he were drawn in smudged ink. His fur rippled, and he collapsed and then stretched upward. Legs shot down, and arms reached out. Slowly, the blur solidified into a boy with orange and black hair.

"Tye," she breathed.

He caught her as her knees buckled, and she crumpled.

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CHAPTER Six

Lily heard a murmur of voices, and she tried to open her eyes. Her eyelids felt as if they were glued down. She raised her hand to touch her face, and she felt cloth. She forced her eyes open and saw a white cloth wrapped around her hand.

Bandages,
she thought.
How nice.
Her vision faded.

Next time she woke, she was on her back, looking up at a ceiling of wood tiles. At first, they wavered and spun, but then they resolved themselves into a static geometric pattern. She turned her head, but the motion made her vision blur again. Figures standing near her looked like streaks of white light and shadow.

She felt panic rise up into her throat, choking her. "Tye?" she said. It came out as a croak. She tried again: "Tye?"

"The were-tiger boy isn't here," said a voice that sounded

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like a waterfall. Words cascaded down.
You could drown in a voice like that,
she thought.

She squinted, but her eyes wouldn't focus right. The voice's owner was a white smudge against a brown background. She thought she saw a streak of gold. "Where is 'here'?" she asked. "Who are you?"

"If she's awake enough to ask questions, then she is alert enough to answer them," another voice said in a deeper tone, tinged with a growl.

"Patience," yet another said, an airy voice this time, almost amused. "She was drained to nearly nothing. All your fine interrogation skills are useless on the unconscious."

Drained.
Jake had used that word. It matched how she felt, as if the marrow of her bones had been sucked out and she were about to collapse from the inside out. Her heart hammered loud and fast in her ears, and she wondered what the airy voice meant by "fine interrogation skills." "What do you want?" she asked.

She felt a breath on her cheek, hot and fetid. A voice rumbled, "We want to know how many humans you've killed to survive."

"What?" Her eyes teared as she strained to force the blurs and streaks into shapes. "I don't understand. I've never hurt anyone."

"Impossible," the airy voice said.

Another voice said, "Tye has vouched for her."

"Children can be deceived," the deep voice rumbled. "In

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this case, he may wish to be. You'll answer us now, half breed. Are you a Feeder?"

"No!" she shouted. Lily sat up and felt as if fire shot through her head. She squeezed her forehead and felt the cloth bandages on her hand. It stung where the dragon had bit her. "I'm not a Feeder. I'm not a half breed. I'm not anybody." Until today, nothing unusual had ever happened to her. She was just ordinary Lily who worked in her grandfather's flower shop, took care of her mother, and obsessed about her grades.

"You crossed the gate on your own," the waterfall voice said. "You are a Key."

Lily's vision was clearing, though her head still throbbed. She saw a horse directly in front of her. She lifted her gaze, and the horse's torso flattened into a human stomach. She stared at the intersection of human skin and horsehair, and then she looked up into an elderly man's face.