Enchanted Ivy (13 page)

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unclear?" she asked. "I don't want this." She waved her hand at the dragons, at the campus, at all of it. "This is not on my life plan."

"Maybe you need to change your 'life plan,'" Tye said. "You have a new destiny now. An important and amazing one. If you let me, I'll show it to you."

Without waiting for her response, he strode out onto the field.

She hesitated for a second and then followed. Above, three dragons soared through the sky. Jewel-like scales glittered in the sunlight so brightly that it looked as if someone had tossed sapphires, emeralds, and rubies into the air.

One of the dragons broke formation and glided down to the field. He skidded along the grass, churning up long furrows of dirt. As he swung his mammoth head toward Lily and Tye, Lily froze. Steam curled out of his nostrils as he breathed. His eyes were swirls of liquid gold.

"Greetings, Tiger Boy,"
the dragon said.

Lily shivered at the familiar snakelike sound.

"Come on--ride a dragon with me?" Tye asked Lily. He flashed his lopsided grin at her. "You can't deny it's a helluva first date."

She couldn't help smiling back at him. His tawny eyes were fixed on her as if her answer were all that mattered in the world. "Just back to the gate," she said.

Tye smiled.

"And only if you promise the dragon won't eat me."

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The dragon spoke.
"I wouldn't dream of it, little Key. You are not flavored to my liking."

"Somehow I don't feel reassured," she said.

Tye held out his hand. "Trust me."

She took his hand and let him boost her onto the dragon's back. She settled onto scales as smooth as metal. Tye climbed on behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. Lily felt his breath on her neck. She breathed in his rain forest-like scent.

Beneath them, the dragon pumped his wings. Wind whooshed around them. With a massive push against the football field, the dragon lurched into the air. He stretched his wings out, and in seconds they were soaring in the brilliant blue sky.

She saw wisps of cloud in front of them, and then damp mist surrounded them for an instant. They burst out the other side, and then the dragon dove down. Lily clutched at the dragon's scales and screamed. Tye's arms tightened around her waist. "Look beyond Princeton!" he shouted into the wind.

She looked and saw forest for miles on end. Sprawling trees, larger than sequoias, stretched their branches in every direction. She saw streams so blue that they looked like strips of sky laid through the forest. Griffins plummeted and rose in aerial dances with fiery birds. In the distance, she saw mountains etch the horizon in white and black.

This was not New Jersey.

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"Do you like it?" Tye shouted in her ear.

Below, horses with bodies of foam and spray galloped down the streams and then melted into water droplets. She saw a man with angel wings leap from a tree and glide over the forest. A lone woman jumped over a fallen trunk and changed into a wolf. A swarm of bright lights lit the shadowed trees and then disappeared.

The dragon pitched forward again. Wind battered Lily's face. The forest rushed toward them. She screamed. Tye howled as if he were on a roller coaster.

Pulling up, the dragon skimmed over the tops of the trees. She heard the sounds of the forest below--a distant whispering. The air smelled like pine and rivers and earth after rain. It smelled like Tye. She let the sun warm her face, and she leaned back against Tye.

As they flew on, she saw a tower of stone beside a tumbling waterfall. Mermaids dove through the spray. Beyond the waterfall were villages of trees whose limbs had woven into houses high above the forest floor. She watched tall, pale elves, as thin as slivers of moonlight, glide across branches, and she saw monkeylike and catlike men and women scurry among them. The dragon flew farther and circled a city. Skyscrapers of mother-of-pearl gleamed in the sunlight, more beautiful than any painting Lily had ever seen.

All too soon, the dragon flew back to campus. Gliding to a landing, he tore tracks in the green as he skidded to a halt beside the gate.

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"Well?" Tye asked.

"That was ..." She tried to think of a word to describe it. Every word felt too small to fit the feeling of soaring through the wind. Instead, she leaned toward the dragon's neck and said, "Thank you."

Rumbling beneath her, the dragon said,
"You are welcome, little Key."

Tye slid off the dragon's back first. Lily followed and slipped down the scales. Unfortunately, she kept sliding as her knees collapsed underneath her. She landed in a heap at Tye's feet.

"Graceful," he commented.

"Shut up," she said.

"And witty," he said.

"Are you going to be a gentleman and help me up, or just stand around being amused at your own cleverness?" she asked.

"Stand around, I think," he said. But he held out his hand to her. She untangled her legs and stood. "Better?" he asked.

Lily nodded. "Got my land legs back now." Unfortunately, the whispering buzz was worse. She stuck a finger in her ear and wiggled it. It didn't help.

Behind her, the dragon launched back into the air. She turned and watched him fly away, emerald scales sparkling against the blue sky. She wished she could have kept flying with him forever. That had been ... incredible. Beyond awesome, in every sense of the word. High above the campus,

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the dragon was joined by a second dragon. The two twisted and danced through the clouds, scales flashing and sparkling in the sun.

"Get any hints, any feelings, about your heritage?" Tye asked.

"You mean, did I suddenly want to sprout wings or change into a wolf?" she asked. She pretended to check herself for wings or fur. "Nope."

Tye shrugged as if it weren't a big deal. "Well, you've absorbed enough. We should know soon."

She raised her eyebrows at him. "You like cryptic comments, don't you?"

"It's the cat in me."

Lily laughed despite herself.

Unamused, the gold eagles stared down at them. One ruffled his feathers, and she heard the clink of metal. On the other side of the gate was Nassau Hall, silent and stately. Lily stared up at the Princeton medallion embedded in the iron. "So I just waltz through and
poof!
I'm back in the human world?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Tye said. "That's what makes Keys so special and awesome. For everyone else ... ordinary gate. For Keys ...
poof!
"

"Huh," she said. He said it so casually.

"It's because Keys belong to both worlds," he said.

"Or neither," she said.

"Or neither," he agreed. "Keys need to switch worlds at

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least once a month to stay alive. But without Keys,
no one
would be able to switch worlds, ever. Only time a non-Key can pass through is if a Key goes with him. Again note the specialness and awesomeness."

She didn't care about that. All she cared about was the fact that she could get home. "Do I walk in or out of the gate to return to my world?"

"Either direction works," Tye said. "But it's safer to walk in."

"Safer?" Her gaze shifted to the eagles' talons.

"Last time I walked out the gate, a bike slammed into me."

She grinned. A boy who could turn into a tiger, felled by a bicycle.

"Don't overdo the sympathy," he said. "I did crack a rib."

Lily schooled her expression. "Poor kitty." A thought occurred to her. "You're one, too." She should have realized it sooner. She'd been so preoccupied with the revelation about herself. "A half breed. You're a Key, too."

"Yep," he said. He caught her hand and pressed his lips to the back of it. "That's why we're destined to be soul mates."

She felt her jaw drop open.

Lightly, he lifted her jaw back up. His fingers brushed her cheek. "Guess I should have waited a bit before springing that on you," he said. "Go ahead home. Your grandfather must be worried about you. You should tell him you're okay. And that you passed the test. You're a Princeton girl now."

She gawked at him, stunned twice in less than thirty seconds. She hadn't thought about it, but she
had
passed

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the Legacy Test. She'd found the Key. And she'd also found an adorable college boy with dreamy eyes and feline superpowers who had mistaken her for soul-mate material.
He must have been joking,
she thought. Yeah, that seemed a lot more likely. "Okay ... I'll, um, see you soon?"

He flashed her his cocky lopsided smile. "You can count on it."

She stared at him for a moment longer and then she walked through FitzRandolph Gate. Everything flashed white.

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CHAPTER Seven

"Welcome back, little Key," one of the stone eagles said. "I have alerted Vineyard Club of your return. Remain here, please."

"Uh, thanks," Lily said. She looked up at the eagles. The sky behind them was a crisp blue, empty of clouds and dragons. The forest was gone, replaced by Nassau Street. Pedestrians walked past banks, jewelry stores, and coffee shops. She heard the whoosh of cars, in addition to the now familiar radio hum in her ears. The air tasted thinner, as if she'd suddenly switched altitudes, but her skin still buzzed with the fizzy feeling of magic.

She heard a shout. "Lily!"

Grandpa jogged across the yard toward her. A half-dozen men and women trailed behind him. "You knew!" she shouted to him. "You knew about"--she flapped her hand at the gate--"all of this!" She'd never imagined he'd

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keep any secret from her, much less anything so major.

Beaming with a smile so wide it should have split his face, Grandpa swept her up and swung her in a circle. "You did it!" He set her back down.

"Grandpa ...," she began.

"Careful what you say; we can't talk freely here." He kissed her forehead. "Oh, my tigerlily, I am so very proud of you!" Grandpa was practically singing. She'd never seen him so gleeful. It was as unexpected as talking gargoyles.

Swarming around Lily and Grandpa, the alums chattered loudly about Reunions: the new class's Reunions jackets, the number of Old Guard (70th Reunion and older) who had returned, the fireworks display that was planned for Saturday after P-rade. Inside the circle of chattering Old Boys, Lily and Grandpa were swept across campus. It felt as if they were guarding her--or hiding her--with their bodies and their voices.

Under the cover of their babble, she asked Grandpa, "Why didn't you tell me?"

His smile dimmed. "You had to discover the truth on your own. That's the point of the Legacy Test: to determine if you can handle the truth by offering you the opportunity to discover it. It's a tried-and-true method."

"It sucks," Lily said.

He clucked his tongue. "Language."

"It's cruel and manipulative, and you
lied
to me," she said. "What am I? What was Dad?"

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"A loving father," Grandpa said. "That's what's important." Putting his arm around her, he squeezed her shoulders. "Lily, you have to trust me. The secrecy was necessary. All of this is larger than you or me."

"Does Mom know about 'all of this'?"

Grandpa sighed. "She used to. She's forgotten so much."

Quietly, Lily said, "She's getting worse, isn't she?"

"There's hope, Lily," Grandpa said. "Soon, I will explain to you both. But first, we need to celebrate what you've achieved! Tonight, we'll celebrate at Vineyard Club, and then tomorrow morning, I'll take you and your mother to Pj's Pancake House for a celebratory breakfast. You'll love it there. You can sign your name on the table. It's tradition there, not vandalism."

"Where is Mom? You didn't leave her alone again, did you?" Aside from the fact that the campus was infested with vampiric monsters, Mom might have one of her "ideas." She could decide to tame squirrels or climb the vines on one of the Gothic classrooms to commune with the sun from a closer angle--she'd done similar things before. "And what do you mean, 'there's hope'?"

"She's being watched," Grandpa said. "Lily, focus on yourself for once. You did it! You passed!" He beamed at her again.

As they crossed the street, she tried to push aside all the million questions and revel in that fact. She really had done it: automatic acceptance to Princeton! So what if her dream

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school had a few quirks she hadn't expected? She could avoid walking through the main gate (which wouldn't be hard since it was a common student superstition to circumvent that gate), avoid eye contact with gargoyles (again, not hard since most people didn't try to chat up stone sculptures), and avoid being attacked by rampaging monkey-things (always sound advice).

They turned onto Prospect Avenue, and she heard the steady static in her ears mix with a buzz. It undercut the chatter of the alums around her, but before she could pinpoint the source, she was swept down the sidewalk toward Vineyard Club.

"Lots of people are waiting to congratulate you," Grandpa said. "You are more important than you know. We haven't had reliable access to the magic world in many years." He pointed to the club. Mr. Mayfair and his grandson, Jake, flanked the front door, holding it open as if they were honor guards. Last time she'd seen Jake, he'd shoved her away while she'd bled. He'd found a new blood-free shirt since then. Softly, Grandpa added close to Lily's ear, "Go easy on Jake. His parents were killed by the Chained Dragon. Seeing you survive was a shock."

Lily halted halfway to the door. "Oh, God, how awful."

"It was years ago," Grandpa said. "But still, it was a terrible tragedy. Jake's parents ... they'd had a messy divorce and were only beginning to find peace."

So much for her image of Jake's perfect family. She realized