The Faerie War

Chapter 4

Four

Two days later, more than two thousand reptiscillas living Underground have packed up their belongings. They can’t vanish with them, obviously, but that’s where I come in. Being a faerie, I don’t have the reptiscillas’ limitations. I can take anything I want through the faerie paths with me, as long as I keep hold of it. So I told Asim that if everyone loaded their stuff onto carts, I could open a wide doorway to the faerie paths and pull the carts through with me.

I was excited about my idea, as were Asim and the other leaders, until I calculated that it would take me about ten hours of continuous work to get the hundreds of cartloads through the faerie paths. But I’m a guardian, so I can handle it, right? And doing this will prove to the remaining reptiscillan doubters that I can be trusted.

The only thing I can’t help them with is moving their children. Reptiscillan children haven’t learned how to vanish yet, and they can’t travel through the faerie paths because it would kill them. So every child under the age of ten left on foot early yesterday morning for the new hideout, accompanied by their parents, several leaders, and a whole lot of warriors.

Things have been tense down here ever since.

“Okay, every family that owns a cart has finished loading up,” Jamon says as he walks toward me. “You’ll need to bring empty carts back for everyone else.”

I nod. I’m standing in the middle of the Circle, and every tunnel I look down has carts lined up as far as I can see. Each cart is big enough to carry at least twenty people. Reptiscillas use magic to move their carts around, and I’m obviously going to have to do the same thing.

Asim shouts to me from the other side of the Circle. “All right, you’re up, Violet. We’re bringing the first cart.”

I turn to Jamon. His eyes examine me, giving me a look that I think says, We can trust you, right? I nod. He reaches inside his jacket and pulls out a stylus. I was allowed to use it briefly this morning, but then he took it back. After a moment’s hesitation, he hands it to me. I know this time he’ll let me keep it. It’s the same stylus that was hiding in my boot when Farah found me passed out in the forest. The same stylus Jamon confiscated from me about half an hour after I woke up.

I turn around and walk toward the largest piece of blank wall on the outer edge of the Circle. I chose this spot yesterday while everyone else was rushing around getting things packed. I raise my hand to the sandy wall and scratch the words to open a doorway into the dirt. Words that seem to come automatically to me, like breathing. Beneath my hand, the dirt melts away to reveal a black opening. I feel for the edge of the doorway and make a spreading motion with my hands, pushing the opening to extend it. I try not to think of all the people standing behind me watching me wave my hands around like a mad woman.

When the opening is wide enough, I turn around and see Asim standing nearby with the first cart. I slide one foot backward through the doorway to prevent it from closing, then motion to Asim to bring the cart closer.

“Ready?” he asks.

“Of course.”

With his magic, he sends the cart rolling toward me. It slows and stops before bumping into me. I wrap my hand around a wooden piece sticking out at the front. With my free hand, I release some magic, send it flowing beneath the cart to the back, and push. Then I walk, the cart moving beside me, into the darkness. The light behind me diminishes. When it disappears completely, I know the doorway has closed.

I focus then on the new hiding place. It’s inside a mountain. I don’t know exactly where, but Asim gave me enough details for me to arrive at the correct place this morning. He met me there and showed me the room he wanted everything delivered to. As I picture the room in my head now, light forms in front of me. I push the cart forward through the rapidly expanding hole, and a group of young reptiscillan men waiting in the room jump up and whoop with excitement. I push the cart into the center of the room, then turn around and head back Underground.

It isn’t hard work; it just gets boring after a while.

Open doorway, walk through, wait for doorway to open on the other side, push cart through, walk back.

Repeat.

People begin unloading the carts as soon as I push them through. After several deliveries, I’m able to start taking empty carts back with me. I lose track of time, but I must have been going for several hours when Asim makes me sit down to eat something. I assure him I’m feeling fine, but he insists.

I sit on a swing in the playground munching a sandwich he brought me, trying to ignore Jamon pacing around and around a set of climbing bars. Eventually I say, “Hey, Natesa’s going to be fine. Stop worrying.”

“What?” He stops and looks up at me. “What are you talking about?”

“I know that’s what you’re worrying about.” Natesa’s younger brother is nine years old, so he had to go on foot to the new location, along with his parents. Natesa refused to let her family go without her.

“Don’t be silly,” Jamon says. “I’m worrying about everyone out there.”

I give him a knowing look before turning back to my sandwich. “Whatever you say.”

I continue working late into the evening. After my third snack break, I’m sure there can’t be that many cartloads left. With the end in sight, I try to speed up, opening doorways as quickly as I can. But just when I think I’m finally finished, Asim says, “Okay, once we get the transporters through we’ll be done.”

Transporters? “What? I can’t drive those things.”

He must notice the panic on my face because he laughs as he places a hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, we don’t expect you to drive them. We’re busy loading the transporters onto the carts. These last few trips won’t be any different from the other loads you’ve taken through.”

I look over his shoulder and see a cart with an egg-shaped transporter balanced on top of it. Two men direct the cart carefully toward me. Just as I wrap my hand around the piece of wood at the front of the cart, I hear shouting coming from one of the tunnels. Most people have vanished by now, but I know there are still a few guards hanging around. And the guys who own the transporters, I guess. I peer around the side of the cart to see what’s going on.

“They’ve found us!” yells the reptiscillan guard who comes running out of the tunnel. “Draven’s faeries! They’ve—” He jerks to a halt, then falls forward onto the ground. Protruding from his back is a sparkling arrow exactly like the one I shot a few days ago. A moment later, faeries spill out of the tunnel into the Circle. They’re wearing the same dark blue uniform I saw on the man and woman who came searching for us in the forest. Glittering arrows fly everywhere, missing their targets as reptiscillas start vanishing. Colored sparks dart and weave, and spears of ice shoot across the Circle. A knife sails toward me and lands with a thwack in the wooden cart just inches from my head. I duck down behind the cart.

“Get out of here!” Asim yells to me as he dives for cover behind another cart. He could have vanished by now, but as the Leader Supreme I suppose he thinks he should be the last one to leave.

I kneel down and drag my stylus through the dirt, writing words to open a doorway at my feet. Hands grab my arm, and something sharp slices the bare skin between my neck and shoulder. I roll onto my back and kick as hard as I can. The faerie stumbles backward just as a dark hole melts into existence beside me. I fall into it, feeling a hand grab for my jacket—and lose hold—as I disappear.

I drop out of the darkness of the faerie paths and land on my feet in the mountain room. Unloaded carts stand forgotten as chaos erupts like a crazed ogre on the loose.

“Where’s my father?” Jamon demands, circling on the spot as his eyes search desperately between people. A moment later, Asim appears beside me, stumbling forward a few steps before coming to a halt, as though he was running when he vanished.

He pulls his son into a hug while asking me if I’m okay.

When I touch my neck, my fingers come away red. “I’ll be fine. The wound doesn’t feel that deep.” I take a closer look at him. “But what about you? There’s a long cut across your forehead.”

“Also not deep. It’ll be fine.”

Jamon’s mother rushes over to her husband and son. “What happened?”

“Draven’s faeries arrived,” Asim says. “A whole lot of them. I don’t know if they found our entrance leading from above ground or if they simply opened faerie paths into our tunnels.”

“Who did we lose?”

“One guard. Maybe more.” He looks around. “I can’t tell yet.” He moves away through the crowd, his eyes searching over people’s heads.

Jamon runs a hand through his hair, then lets out a long breath. “That was close. At least there weren’t many of us left there.”

“And we managed to get everyone’s belongings moved before the faeries arrived,” I add.

“Well, aside from the transporters, but that’s hardly important.”

“Hardly important?” A guy nearby grabs Jamon’s arm. “Do you have any idea how expensive transporters are? I saved for three years before I could buy mine. It was the latest model! If you don’t get it back, there are going to be some serious consequences for—”

“Hey, will you get over it?” I pull the man away from Jamon. “Just be thankful you’re alive.”

He turns on me. “You’re the one who should be getting it back for me. This whole faerie paths thing was your brilliant idea. I should’ve just driven my transporter through the forest.”

“So why didn’t you? I certainly wasn’t forcing you to put your stupid egg-shaped machine on a cart so that I would have even more work to do.” I push him away from me. “If you want your transporter back, go get it yourself. Do your vanishing thing. I’m sure Draven’s faeries will be more than happy to finish you off when you show up in the middle of their forces.”

“Don’t you dare tell me what to—”

“Enough!” Asim’s voice rings above the clamor, commanding immediate silence. “We barely escaped with our lives, and you’re fighting over transporters? It’s not as though you’d even use them here. You no longer have endless tunnels to race along.” He looks out over the crowd of people squashed into the room. “Your homes here will be tiny and cramped. Tempers will be short. You’ll long for your old lives Underground. But this is a war. Sacrifices must be made. Be grateful you got out with your lives and get on with it.”

I hear some grumbling, but people start moving toward the various doorways that lead off this room and down tunnels that are much narrower than the ones they’re used to.

“Do you need my help with anything?” I ask Asim.

“No, you’ve done more than enough today, Violet. We’re incredibly grateful. You can go and get yourself settled. Jamon—” he turns to his son “—we need to find out what’s happening with the group traveling on foot. They should be arriving later tonight.”

They disappear into the throng of people while I try to figure out which doorway I’m supposed to go through. The tunnel behind me leads outside the mountain, so I can rule that one out, but that still leaves me with five to choose from. I see a leader with a list in her hand, pointing people in various directions. I join the queue to ask her where Farah’s new house is.

Farah will need help moving and unpacking her stuff, so it’s a good thing I don’t have many of my own belongings. Just a few clothes that Farah got hold of for me and—I pat my pocket and feel the paper there—the note from the guy I don’t remember.

A gasp breaks through the chatter, and I look up to see someone pointing behind me. I swing around, my fingers already prickling with the instinct to fight. Protect. But I don’t see Draven’s faeries. I see a group of reptiscillas running, stumbling, crying. Many of them are children, the younger ones carried by adults, the older ones dragged along. I see blood and scratches and dirt.

A girl falls onto her knees and drags herself out of the way. People start to gather around her, but not before I notice the colorful ribbons in her hair. I run toward her, skid to a halt, and drop onto my knees beside her. Natesa has a knife sticking out of her chest, just below her right shoulder. A knife that glitters like fiery golden stars.

Someone shouts for a healer.

Someone else screams that we’re under attack.

“No,” Natesa gasps. “They … they stopped. They saw the children and … they backed off.”

“She’s right,” says a man clutching Natesa’s hand. Her father? “They started attacking, but then they disappeared. We ran the final distance to get here, but no one followed.” A woman beside him weeps as she clutches a young boy to her side.

I feel the crowd moving behind me. A second later Jamon is on his knees next to me. “We need a healer right now. Somebody find a healer!” He touches the knife but doesn’t remove it.

“Can’t you heal her yourself?” I say. “You know, with your magic.”

“What? No. We can’t do that. Natesa,” he says to her, “everything’s going to be okay.” He touches her face, then pulls back and looks up. “Where’s the healer?” he yells.

“Let me do it,” I say. I place both my hands on her bare arm and get ready to release magic into her.

“What are you doing?” Jamon pushes my hands away.

“Giving her my magic. It’ll help her body to—”

“You can’t do that! Your magic isn’t the same as ours. You don’t know what it will—”

“Move aside.” A woman with white ribbons twisted through her two thick braids steps through the rapidly parting crowd. Behind her is a man with strips of white fabric criss-crossing over his right arm. In his hands is a long, rectangular board. He sets the board on the ground, and he and the woman use their magic to move Natesa onto it. Swiftly, they lift the board and head down one of the corridors. Jamon and Natesa’s family follow closely behind.

I look around and see more reptiscillas with white fabric or ribbons wrapped around parts of their bodies attending to various people in the room. No one seems to be as badly injured as Natesa, though. Guards run in and out of the room, and healers start sending patched-up people to find their new houses. I join the back of the queue again to find out where Farah’s living while I try to wrap my mind around the most puzzling question of the day: Why did Draven’s faeries back off instead of capturing every reptiscilla they could get their hands on?