The Faerie Path (13 page)

She gave a gasp of surprise as her hand, her arm, and her whole body began to tingle. She turned her head to look at Gabriel as the intense sensation burned through her. He was gazing at her and his eyes were filled with love and joy.

She felt as if she was going to faint. She gasped for breath, her head swimming, only his brilliant silver eyes remaining constant in the heady swirl of her senses.

“Gabriel…I…” But before she could say any more, the Hall of Light dissolved around her and she was back in her bedchamber, gazing into the clouded mirror.

“Oh, wow!” she breathed as the clouds faded and she found herself staring at her own face again. “That was
unbelievable
!” She put down the mirror, her hand shaking. “And the night before all that, I just disappeared,” Tania said, gazing out of the window at the starry sky. “But why didn’t I come back to you?”

“Only you know the answer to that question, Tania,” Gabriel said. “
One alone shall walk both worlds.
I think perhaps you did not mean to walk that path at that time and in that way.”

“Rathina said the same thing,” Tania admitted. “She said we were just messing about.”

“You walked between the worlds again this night, did you not?” Gabriel asked her.

“Yes, how did you know that?”

“The Amber Stone calls to me,” Gabriel said. “While you wear it, you can never again be lost. You
entered the Mortal World to speak with those whom you knew as your parents, but Faerie drew you back.”

There was a sadness in his voice that gave Tania an unexpected pang of guilt. Gabriel was obviously hurt and upset that she had gone back into the Mortal World.

“I beg you not to go there again, Tania,” he said softly. “It is perilous indeed. This is your true home; this is where you belong.”

“I know that now,” she said. “But I have to let my mum and dad know that I’m all right.”

Gabriel’s voice was little more than a whisper. “I would not lose you again, Tania. I would not have harm befall you.”

Tania was lost in silent thought for a few moments. She felt a rush of sympathy and understanding for him, or was it more than that? “It must have been really bad for you,” she said. “Losing the person you loved on the night before you were meant to be married.”

He didn’t reply.

“I’m really sorry.” She reached back over her shoulder, holding her open hand out to him.

He didn’t take it.

“Gabriel?” She turned her head.

He was gone—but a single, long-stemmed red rose lay on her bed, and her room was suddenly full of its sweet scent.

Tania opened a window and leaned out into the warm, aromatic night. Edric wouldn’t be paying her any more unannounced visits, she was sure of that. She wondered what the Amber Prison was. Judging by the look on Edric’s face when Gabriel mentioned it, she guessed it wasn’t exactly a theme park.

“Who am I?” she asked aloud into the star-filled sky. “I know I’m Princess Tania—at least, I’m pretty sure I am—but I still don’t
feel
much like her. I feel like Anita Palmer.” She frowned and said the name again aloud. “Anita Palmer of nineteen Eddison Terrace, London, the United Kingdom, Europe, Earth, the Solar System, the Milky Way, the Universe.” She smiled, remembering that she had written her address out like that for a few weeks after a visit to the planetarium on her eighth birthday.

And now?

Princess Tania of the Royal Palace, Faerie. What had Princess Tania done on her eighth birthday? She didn’t have a clue.

But she knew where she could probably find out.

She went over to her bed and pulled the book out from under her pillow. She sat cross-legged on the covers and rested the book in her lap.

She made her way through her early years, skimming the text for points of interest in the endless details of her infancy.

She had spent her early years entirely in the palace grounds, playing with her sisters or being taught to read and write in a nursery filled with marvelous toys. When she was older, she went for long walks with her mother, Queen Titania, and she was also taught to ride, to play the lute, to dance, to shoot a bow, and to fence with a sword, along with all the other things that a princess had to know about.

In summer, the royal family would travel to Veraglad Palace, a castle built on a high cliff overlooking the sea. Tania read of her pet unicorn, Percival, and of blissful days and weeks spent combing the beaches with him, and of them returning to the palace with necklaces of periwinkle shells strung around their necks. She read of picnics on the beach by the light of roaring bonfires, and of swimming with dolphins and playing catch-as-catch-can with her sisters around the rocks and tide pools that lay in the shadow of the white cliffs.

It seemed to have been a wonderful childhood. A
lump grew in Tania’s throat as she turned those heavy pages of lost memories.

When she was ten, she had accompanied her father in the Royal Galleon on a voyage to the outlying islands of his Realm, to Chalcedony and Urm and to the rocky headlands of Highmost Voltar, where the seabirds swarmed as thick as smoke.

On her twelfth birthday the entire palace was given over to her coming-of-age festival. It lasted for five whole days, and there were masques and balls and feasts and entertainments by sunlight and by moonlight. There was music and laughter and fireworks at midnight.

Tania blinked away tears. It was so sad that she remembered nothing about all of this. She couldn’t have realized how dangerous it would be to try out her powers that night five hundred years ago. She couldn’t have realized that she might
lose
herself.

She leaned back against the padded head of her bed and closed her eyes, desperately searching her mind for any hint that the things she had been reading about had actually happened to her. But it was useless. She remembered nothing.

She couldn’t even remember having any feelings for Gabriel, although she was sure she must have, despite what Sancha and Cordelia had said at the ball. And were those feelings stirring again? She frowned, unsure of herself. She liked him, and she was drawn to him, but love? No, not that, not yet; it would be a long time before she would ever let herself be
vulnerable in that way again—not after what Edric had put her through.

But Gabriel had loved her, she felt certain of that. And he loved her still.

She opened her eyes and stared across the room.

“I have to let Mum and Dad know I’m okay,” she said, closing the book. “After that…well, we’ll see.” She knew that she could probably get into the Mortal World again, but she had no idea how to prevent herself from being whipped straight out of there against her will and without any warning.

What she needed was someone who could show her how to walk safely between the worlds, to explain to her how to get her power under control. But who?

Oberon would know. He had Mystic Powers. She remembered the way he had brought the sky to life with the spreading of his hands, and how he had lit all those candles at the ball with just a gesture. Gabriel had power too. And Eden, her strange, reclusive sister. What was it that Sancha had said? That Eden had been second only to Oberon in the Mystic Arts before she had given it all up and retreated to her lonely, ivy-covered tower. Not that Tania had any real idea of what those Mystic Arts might be.

She knew she couldn’t ask Gabriel. He had made it quite clear that he didn’t want her to go back into the Mortal World. And Oberon would definitely feel the same.

But what about Eden? Could she be able to help?

If she could, there might even be the possibility of having the control to step in and out of both worlds at will. Tania smiled at the thought. Morning in London, evening in Faerie. Summer in the Mortal World, winter in the Immortal Realm. Not bad!

She undressed and pulled on her nightgown. Then she went around the room, blowing out the candles until the only light remaining was the glimmer of stars.

She laid Gabriel’s red rose on the nightstand and got into bed, pulling the covers up over her shoulders.

First thing in the morning, she was going to Eden’s apartments to ask for her help. She just hoped that her sister would understand how important it was for her to be able to go into the Mortal World and let her parents know she was all right. If she promised to return to Faerie, she didn’t see how Eden could refuse.

The sun hadn’t even shown itself over the eastern towers and battlements when Tania slipped out of her room and went in search of her eldest sister.

The cool of morning had dampened her spirits a little, but not enough to make her give up without trying. She knew that Zara and all the others were wary of their older sister but Tania wanted to meet Eden and make up her own mind. She couldn’t think of any reason why Eden would be less pleased to see her than the others, and she certainly had no reason to be afraid of her.

She managed to lose herself twice in the tangle of rooms and corridors before she finally stepped into the long cobbled courtyard with the stone fountain in its center. The bleak, ivy-shrouded tower rose up ahead, looking even darker and more grim in the stark, predawn light.

Tania shivered. There was something about the tower that made the hairs stand up on the back of her neck.

Squaring her shoulders, she walked across the ringing cobbles and mounted the three stone steps to the wide black door. She looked around for some kind of knocker, but there wasn’t one. She made a fist and hammered on the door panels. The sound was dull and flat.

Then she noticed something else. There was no door handle—in fact there was no obvious way of getting the door open at all. If Eden came out, how did she get back in? Did that mean she
never
left the tower? She banged her knuckles on the black wood again, harder this time.

She waited, sucking her knuckles. She pressed her ear to the door, hoping for some sound of approaching footsteps.

Nothing.

Now what?

“Rats!” She thumped the door with both hands, and gave a start of surprise. She was certain that the huge door had given a fraction under her hands. She put her shoulder to the door and pushed.

The door swung silently open.

“Eden?” she called. Her voice sounded thin and weak. “Eden?”

The silence seemed to grow heavier and deeper as she stepped into the small, bare hallway. To her right a narrow arch led to a flight of worn stone steps that spiraled up out of sight. To the left was a simple door of rough gray wood.

Tania ducked under the arch of the stairway and peered up into the darkness. She didn’t like the idea of climbing the winding staircase without even a candle to light her way.

“E-e-e-den!” Her voice was suffocated by the gloom.

Rubbing her hands together for warmth, she walked over to the door. A wooden latch held it closed. She lifted the latch and pushed. The door opened.

The room beyond was very long and thin, with a low ceiling and a single circular window in the far wall.

“Of course!” Tania remembered seeing through this window from the other side, when she had stood outside and tried to sneak a look through the grimy glass. This was the room in which she had glimpsed that miserable, solitary figure.

She walked down the room, her footsteps echoing on the bare boards. The walls and ceiling were smoke gray, but as she moved across the floor, she thought she glimpsed shapes in the grayness. She paused, staring at a section of the wall where she could have sworn
she had seen a grotesque face staring out at her. There was nothing there, but again, from the corner of her eye, she saw another leering face with wild eyes.

The twisted mouth moved and a thin, piercing voice spoke. “The fool who enters this room shall die; the crows will pluck out your putrid eyes.”

She spun around, but the face dissolved into the wall with a hiss.

Another face grimaced on the edge of sight. A shrill voice called out. “Leave this place, while you can, for if you stay the blood will surely rot in your veins.”

Alarmed now, she turned again.

Nothing.

She paused, gathering her courage. “I’m not scared of you!” she said, hoping she sounded braver than she felt. “Either show yourselves or shut up and leave me alone!”

There was a sibilant hiss of ghostly laughter, but still the hideous faces melted away from her direct gaze.

Taking a deep breath, she carried on walking toward the round window.

Malevolent eyes stared at her from the walls and ceiling; faces scowled and sneered. Forked tongues flickered and teeth gnashed as the hissing voices continued to make their chilling threats.

Her spirits began to rise as she approached the window unharmed. She was sure that the contorted faces that glowered all around her and spat out those
cruel threats weren’t capable of doing her any real damage.

She guessed they must be some kind of mystic protection, intended to scare people away. Well, Oberon’s seventh daughter didn’t scare that easily.

At last she stood directly in front of the round window. It was as wide as her outstretched arms and its lower rim was at waist height. She tried to make sense of the pattern of grimy lead lights, an intricate design of many-sided glass panels. She could even see the clearer patch in the pane that she had rubbed with her sleeve yesterday.

As she stood there, a faint glow began to light up the window. It seemed to blossom outward from a small heart of brightness near the center, spreading golden petals like a flower unfurling. Tania stepped back in surprise. Then she realized what the light must be: The sun had climbed above the palace rooftops, high enough to shine down into the courtyard. The heart of brightness that was lighting up the window was the sun!

She smiled. As the sunlight grew stronger, it seemed as if the grime and dirt were bleached away, leaving the glass panels to shine out in sheets of pure, radiant color.

And suddenly she saw what the pattern was: It was a multicolored maze of glass that burned with a brightness so intense she could hardly look at it.

Suddenly she could hear voices. Chattering voices from beyond the window.

“Hey, Christina! Take my picture like this!”

“According to the map, this is the Fountain Court, which means the Tudor Kitchens must be this way.”

“The trains leave from Hampton Wick Station every half hour, so we’ve got plenty of time.”

“What a great day! We’ve been really lucky with the weather so far, knock on wood.”

Tania stepped closer to the window again. Those were not Faerie voices.

Shielding her eyes from the dazzling light, she stared through the window. The courtyard had changed. The cobbles were now a long manicured lawn, and the fountain was a wide stone pool spouting thin jets of water. Where the walls of the Faerie Palace had stood, there were decorated cloisters and flat-fronted buildings with tall windows and carved white wreaths set into the brickwork.

And walking around this transformed scene were modern-day people with jeans and backpacks and cameras and baseball caps.

The window was showing her the Mortal World.

Her heart leaping, Tania put her fingers to the glass. It was warm and yielding, like a standing pool of liquid light. It melted beneath her touch and allowed her hand to flow right through. The images beyond rippled and swayed and the voices slipped in and out of focus.

Could she simply step right through the window into that other world?

“Stand away from the window. If you value your life, stand back!”

Tania spun around in shock.

A tall woman in a hooded black cloak was standing at the open doorway, her dark eyes blazing. She lifted her arm and made a sweeping, sideways gesture.

Tania gave a stifled cry as invisible hands plucked her off her feet and sent her spinning across the room. She crashed into the wall and fell gasping to the floor as the woman strode toward her with deadly anger in her face.