The Faerie Path (18 page)

Tania stared at her sister for a long time. All her instincts told her that she couldn’t abandon Edric, but what Rathina said made sense. And what could she do? If she stayed, Gabriel would force her to marry him. But if she left, she would lose Edric forever.

And then a possible solution struck her.

“You just said that there’s nothing in Faerie that I could use to break the Amber Prison, right?”

“Indeed,” Rathina said. “It is useless to attempt it.”

“Nothing in
Faerie
!” Tania repeated. “But what about in the Mortal World? If I could remember how to cross between the worlds, I know something that I could bring back to set Edric free.” It was obvious from Rathina’s expression that she didn’t understand. “Isenmort!” Tania cried. “Sancha told me that Isenmort is really dangerous here. If I bring back something made of metal, it might be powerful enough to break one of your Amber Prisons!”

Rathina shuddered. “But Isenmort is the death of all things,” she said. “You cannot think to bring such a plague into this Realm. It would be our doom!”

“I’ll be as careful as I can,” Tania said. “But it has to be worth a try. And you’re right,” she continued. “I
should use my power to leave Faerie, but only in order to come back.”

She took a long, deep breath, trying to calm her mind.

“I can do this,” she told herself. “I know I can.” She closed her eyes and concentrated on home, on her mother and father, on their house. On her real—no, her
other
—bedroom. Picturing all those things as vividly as possible in her mind, she reached out her arms and stepped forward.

There was no rush of wind, no sensation of the floor melting under her feet.

She opened her eyes. She was still in Faerie.

Her sister was looking closely at her.

“Help me, Rathina,” Tania pleaded. “Tell me what we did that night. How did I get into the Mortal World?”

“It is long ago,” Rathina murmured. “Give me a moment to recall.” She moved away and sat on a chair with her head resting in her hands.

Time dragged by.

“Rathina, please?”

Rathina lifted her head. “Believe me, I
do
want to help you.” She took a slow breath. “The chimes of midnight hung in the air,” she said, staring ahead with faraway eyes. “I was seated on your bed. You stood with your back to yonder wall.” She pointed to where the wardrobe stood. “You walked toward me. The air moved like water and there was a sound like a distant wind, and then you were gone.”

“I just walked toward you?” Tania checked. “It was as simple as that?”

“That is what I remember,”

“Okay, let’s try it.” Tania stood with her back to the wardrobe. Again, she filled her mind with thoughts of home. Mum and Dad. Jade and the gang. School.
Romeo and Juliet
.

With slow deliberation, she strode across the floor. Her knees bumped against the side of the bed. Nothing had happened.

She looked at Rathina.

“Are you sure that’s all I did?”

“I remember nothing more,” Rathina said. She frowned. “You must try again.”

Tania nodded.

She stood with her back to the wardrobe again, farther across the room this time so that she wouldn’t hit the bed. She could feel Rathina watching her closely as she filled her mind with images of her past life and then strode out across the room.

She came to the far wall and she was still in Faerie.

“Again!” Rathina said. “Do not give up!”

Clenching her fists with frustration, Tania turned and walked back—concentrating even harder this time, picturing her father’s face. Her head began to throb with the effort. Her father. His eyes, nose, mouth, hair. The sound of his voice. Tania screwed her eyes shut, summoning up every last ounce of willpower, desperate to make the leap.

Her foot hit against something, a low stool that
stood at the foot of her bed. She stumbled sideways and fell onto her hands and knees.

“This is hopeless, Rathina!” she shouted angrily. “It’s never going to work!”

There was no reply.

She opened her eyes.

She was still in the same room, yet everything was different, and Rathina was gone.

There had been no roaring wind, no wrench of nausea, no feeling that the world was dissolving around her.

But she was back in the Mortal World.

Tania looked around the unlit room, trying to work out where she was. It took a while for her eyes to adjust to the gloom.

Then she recognized the place. She was in the Queen’s State Bedchamber in Hampton Court Palace.

She got shakily to her feet.

It was that easy?
Just a simple sideways step, and here she was in the Mortal World again.

“Oh, yes!” She pulled her hair back off her face. “That’s more like it.”

She went to the window. Formal gardens lay under a starry sky, similar to the gardens of the Faerie Palace, but on a smaller scale and not as enchanting. Just as the stars above were similar, but not so huge and bright as the Faerie stars. There was a curious pale glow on the hem of the sky just above the horizon, a glow that she had never seen in Faerie. After a
moment, Tania smiled, realizing that she was seeing the distant glimmer of thousands upon thousands of electric lights.

“London!” she breathed, her heart yearning for home.

No, not home. Faerie is home. This is the Mortal World.

She wasn’t sure if she really believed that, but telling it to herself helped her focus on what she had to do.

“I will see my parents soon, but not just yet,” she said aloud. “Things to do first.”

She turned from the window and made her way to the open door. It led into a long, empty room with massive framed tapestries on the walls. She didn’t recognize this as being part of the Faerie Palace. There should be a corridor outside her door.

She walked the length of the room, her footsteps echoing in the silence. Another doorway led to a much smaller room with no way out. Frowning, Tania retraced her steps, coming back into the bedchamber and leaving it via a door in the opposite wall, a door that did not exist in the Faerie Palace. She walked through three more rooms, all of them set up for twenty-first-century visitors: Glass panels covered the parts of the tapestries that were within reach, and there were small cards telling people not to sit in the chairs or touch the exhibits. Some areas were sectioned off with loops of red rope.

She came into a large room that was filled with oil paintings hanging on the walls. There were pictures
of pale, blank-eyed people in formal Georgian clothes—definitely not Faerie paintings. It was weird the way Faerie things were mixed with mortal objects from other centuries. It was like a jigsaw puzzle where all the pieces fit together okay, but where some of the pieces belonged to a completely different picture puzzle.

Then Tania saw what she had been looking for.

In a far corner of the room, deep in shadows, stood a suit of armor. The arms were bent so that the gauntleted hands rested on the pommel of a long sword.

“Excellent!” she whispered as she ran across the room and stood in front of the armored figure. She reached for the sword.

At once, flashing tendrils of blue light exploded from the hilt. A blast of raw energy sent Tania skidding on her back across the polished floor.

Her arm tingled and her eyes were still dazzled as she sat up, shaking her head to get rid of the ringing in her ears. “That was the worst yet,” she said, annoyed at herself for not remembering what would happen when she touched metal. She rubbed her arm. “It must be because I’ve been in Faerie for a while.”

She eyed the sword thoughtfully. Obviously, she couldn’t touch it with her bare hands, but she could use something to form a barrier between her skin and the metal. She gathered up the hem of her long skirts and pulled hard at the lining. A strip of silk came
away. She tore out more of the lining, until she had a long ribbon of it in her hands.

She ripped the ragged silk band into two halves and then carefully wound the pieces around her hands until not even the tips of her fingers were showing.

“This had better work,” she muttered. “Otherwise I’m in big trouble.” She stared up at the closed helmet. “Behave yourself!” she said sternly.

She reached out again for the hilt of the sword, wincing as her silk-wrapped fingers touched the bare metal. This time she felt only a slight buzz in her fingers.

“Better!” she said. She carefully lifted the gauntlets and pulled the sword out of the plastic clips that held it in place.

“Yes!” she breathed, taking the weight of the sword. It was heavier than she expected, and she nearly dropped it. She balanced on her heels, lifting the sword in both hands. The fluted blade glimmered in the darkness. “You’ll do nicely,” she murmured.

She thought back to exactly how she had stepped from one world to the other. She had been walking forward. She had stumbled. She had taken a side step….

Was that all it had taken to send her between the worlds? A simple side step?

“There’s only one way to find out,” she said.

But then she paused. Hampton Court and the Royal Faerie Palace were not identical. By stepping
back into Faerie from this unknown room on the second floor, she might find herself outside the palace buildings, hovering in midair!

She had to reenter Faerie in a place she knew existed in both worlds. Holding the heavy sword in front of her, she made her way back through the galleries.

It didn’t make much sense to reappear in her bedchamber. She’d still be locked in, and even if she could use the sword to hack her way through the door, the noise would give Gabriel’s wardens plenty of time to prevent her escape.

She walked through the Queen’s State Bedchamber and into the gallery full of tapestries. In Faerie this was the corridor outside her room. Gripping the sword in both hands, she took a deep breath.

She walked forward three paces then took a step to the left. The walls rippled around her and her ears popped.

She was in the candlelit corridor outside her chamber. She gave a breathless laugh. It had worked!

The wardens on either side of her chamber door stared at her in utter amazement for a moment, then one of them gave a shout and lunged forward, drawing his crystal sword.

Tania backed off, throwing up her hands to protect herself.

Throwing up her
empty
hands.

The sword had not come with her into Faerie.

Now what? Keep calm. Think!

She spun away from the guard and made a quick side step to the left. The candlelight quivered and went out. She thought she heard a faint crash as the warden fell headlong into the empty space where she had just been. She was back in the Mortal World. The sword lay on the floor in front of her.

She picked it up. She mustn’t let that happen again. This time she would keep a really tight grip on it.

She took several steps along the room, making sure that she wasn’t going to appear in Faerie too close to the wardens. She turned, tightening the fingers of both hands around the hilt of the sword.

“Okay,” she said. “This time we’re going to get it right.”

But even as she took the side step again, she felt the sword hilt dissolve in her hands and heard the faint clang of it hitting the floor back in the Mortal World. Then she heard voices shouting.

“She is gone! Did you see her? What phantasm was it?”

“Methought it was the Princess Tania!”

“Nay, ’twas the specter of the dead Queen!”

“Hold fast! I shall fetch Lord Drake. This is miching mallecho; there is mischief afoot this night!”

Tania saw one of the wardens running away along the corridor. The other gave a yell of alarm, staring at her with goggling eyes.

“It is returned!” he shouted, brandishing his white
sword. “I fear you not!” he swore. “Be you demon spirit or evil phantom, I shall strike you down!”

Tania sidestepped as the crystal sword came slicing through the air toward her.

She stood forlornly in the twenty-first-century gallery, her shoulders slumped in defeat. The sword lay at her feet. She stooped and picked it up again.

“I don’t know how to do it,” she said, looking in desperation at the glimmering metal blade. “How do I get you into Faerie?”

“Stay right where you are!”

A startling streak of bright white light flashed around the room.

She whirled around. A beam of electric light shone directly into her face, half blinding her. Behind the bloom of the fierce white flashlight, she saw a uniformed figure.

“Now then, you just keep calm, miss, and we won’t have any trouble.” She heard the hissing click of an intercom. “Mike? It’s Gerry. I’m up in forty-eight. There’s a girl up here. You’d better call the police.”

Tania lifted her arm to shield her eyes from the flashlight. “You don’t have to blind me!”

The beam of light moved off her face and down her clothes. She saw the man’s expression change to puzzlement as he stared at her Faerie dress. Then the light shone on the sword blade and his face hardened.

“Put that down, miss,” he ordered. “Don’t do anything silly. No one needs to get hurt.”

“I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry—I can’t.” She backed off. She had to get away from him and work out how she was going to take the sword into Faerie.

“Stop right there!” the guard said.

She turned and ran.

“Hey! Stop!”

She clutched the sword against herself as she ran. Heavy feet thudded behind her. The wavering beam of the flashlight danced over the walls, hurling her silhouette along the floor ahead of her.

She heard a panting voice. “Suspect is moving. Get up here, Gerry. She’s got a sword.”

Tania ran wildly through the rooms until she came to a zigzagging flight of stairs. She hammered her way down, almost tripping on the treads, but somehow arriving safely on the lower floor. There were several exits from here. She heard the echoing thump of booted feet on the wooden stairs. The flashlight beam raked downward, catching her again.

Gasping for breath, she pushed her way through a pair of double doors. She found herself in some kind of stone-walled vestibule. Ahead of her, glass-paneled doors led to a courtyard.

She ran toward the doors and shouldered through them. At once a shrill alarm split the air. She stumbled out onto a square of clipped grass. A wide pool of dark water filled the middle of the courtyard.

She knew this place. She had seen it before. But when—where?

“Tania! This way!”

The voice came so unexpectedly that at first Tania thought she must have imagined it.

“Tania!”

“Eden?”

“Come toward the light!” Eden called again. Her voice sounded distant but very clear, and it was coming from the far side of the courtyard beyond the black pool.

“What light?” Tania shouted. “I can’t see any light!”

She heard the crash of the doors behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. The guard was barely ten strides away.

She ran across the grass, skirting the pool, searching for Eden’s light.

And then she saw it, a dim-colored glow that hung against the far wall under a cloistered passageway.

“Quickly!” Eden urged her.

Tania raced toward the circle of glowing light. She knew exactly where she was now, and she knew what that light was. It was the Oriole Glass, the window that led into Eden’s tower.

She jumped a low chain-link fence and darted under the cloisters. The round window shone brilliantly in front of her now, and she could see her sister’s face through the glass panels.

She heard the guard shouting. He was almost on her, his hand clutching at her back. His fingers grazed her shoulder.

“Gotcha!”

Tania gave a final despairing spurt of speed. The blazing pool of colored light filled her eyes. Moments later she was in the air, diving into the light, bathing in its warm radiance, bursting through the window without any sense of impact and without breaking the glass.

She rolled across the floor, gasping for breath and feeling as if she had left her stomach back in the Mortal World.

But most amazingly of all, she still had the hilt of the sword grasped in her two hands. Behind her, the bright light faded. The rainbow of colors that had striped the walls faded to gray.

She staggered to her feet.

Eden stood in front of the Oriole Glass, holding a lantern in her raised hand. She was still dressed in her black robe, its hood raised to cover her hair, throwing her thin face into shadow.

“You are fortunate that I sleep but lightly,” she said. “I know not how nor why, but the Oriole Glass was aware of your peril and opened a bridge between the worlds to aid you.” She frowned. “How came you into the Mortal World?”

Tania looked at her. “I remembered how to do it,” she said. “How to walk between the worlds. It was easy.”

Eden raised an eyebrow. “And yet you were pursued and you could not find your way back into Faerie?”

Tania shook her head. “That’s not true. I could get
back,” she said. She lifted the sword. “But I couldn’t get this to come with me.”

Eden shrank back from the shining metal blade.

She gasped. “Keep that deadly thing away from me!” Tania put the sword behind her back.

“I heard the wardens abroad in the palace,” Eden said. “They are searching for you. What have you done to incur Gabriel Drake’s wrath?”

Where to start? There was so much to tell. Speaking rapidly, Tania poured out the whole story of Edric and Gabriel and the Amber Prison. Eden listened with an expression that grew more and more furious. Her eyes glittered fiercely.

“That young man will betray us all!” she cursed as Tania finished her tale. “Had I known the depth of his treachery, I would never have been persuaded to give him aid!”

Tania stared at her. “You mean you’ve been helping him?”

“I have, but it was against my wishes,” Eden said, her face twisted in anger. “He forced me to teach him the secrets of the Mystic Arts. It was with those secrets that he was able to send his servant into the Mortal World in pursuit of you. He has grown powerful over the years, but we must do what we can to defeat him.”

“No!” Tania said. “I don’t care about that. I have to rescue Edric.” She brought the sword around in front of her again. Eden recoiled as the blade gleamed in the lantern light.

“That’s why I brought this,” Tania explained. “But
how did it get through? I tried before, but it wouldn’t come.”