Of Witches and Wind (22 page)

I whirled around.

Chase leaped back. A huge gray hand with cracked fingernails reached over the bridge railing and grasped at the air where he had been standing.

“Troll!” Darcy cried.

“Wait. This isn't a fairy bridge?” Ben asked.

“This troll adopted it,” said Chase, drawing his sword. “The trolls love pretty things, but they're not very smart. Or creative. They can't make anything pretty by themselves. So they tend to steal things or conquer places and then call them their own.”

“I'll take care of it.” Darcy was in such a hurry to draw her bow that she fumbled. Her arrow clattered to the stone. “Wow. Real smooth.”

A hulking shape swung itself onto the top of the bridge—between me and Darcy and the other questers.

This troll was about eight feet tall and four feet across, and his thick arms hung down to the stone. His eyes were tiny, his nose just two slits. He had a major underbite, and two tusks curved over his top lip.

Unfortunately, this troll had seen bows before. He swatted at Darcy first. She was too busy picking up her arrow to notice.

“Watch out!” I tackled her, and the troll's arm sailed harmlessly above us. Fortunately, my sword was sheathed this time. Unfortunately, my bruised ribs protested when we hit the ground.

Then the troll roared with pain and turned around, so I guess Chase had decided to stab the big guy to get his attention.

“Geez. How many fights does this make today?” I couldn't see Ben, but he sounded terrified.

“Only three,” Chase said. “Rory, are you really going to make me protect the new kids all by myself?”

I hesitated. On the ground, Chase and I could take pretty much anything, but we were up really high. I didn't know if I could handle the height,
and
the troll,
and
the battle,
and
my pack banging into my poor ribs.

Well, at least one of those was easily fixed. “Darcy, take my pack, and cover us from that boulder.”

“Good idea.” Darcy grabbed the top strap and sprinted for the other side.

I drew my sword and turned to join the fight.

Then Mia did the bravest and stupidest thing I'd ever seen her do. She dove between the troll's legs.

The troll spun around before she even straightened up. He reached for her. Mia shrieked, cowering away, a second too slow. His fingers were just inches from her cheek. I sliced through the air between them, driving him back.

“Mean pointy,” said the troll. No, I'm not kidding. And he stamped hard, faster than I expected, and pinned my sword to the marble beneath his foot.

“I can't shoot without hitting someone!” said Darcy from her boulder.

But the troll had turned his back a little. Chase shoved Ben past the fight. “You two go on ahead.”

The bridge vibrated as Ben and Mia ran for the other side.

The troll raised his fist again—Chase didn't see the blow coming down on his head.

“No!” My sword was still trapped, so I did the only thing I could think of—I shoved at the troll's chest with both hands.

I felt the West Wind's ring work this time. A swift gust flickered over my left arm and blasted the nearest target. The troll flew back and hit the railing ten paces behind him with an enormous crack.

“Whoa!” said Darcy. “Rory, you need to teach me that Jedi trick.”

But I scooped up my weapon, concentrating on protecting
Chase. The sword's magic tugged me across the bridge. It pulled my arm back.

The troll bent over the railing and stared at the fractures in the marble.

“Bridge!” You could hear the grief in his voice, like a child whose favorite toy is broken.

We had outnumbered him and destroyed his home. He never had a chance. “Sorry!” I said.

Then my sword thrust its blade forward. It would stab the troll in the back, kill him, I realized, and the idea was so startling that my hand uncurled.

I dropped my sword.

Not a great idea in the middle of a battle.

The troll turned around and kicked out with both feet.

Chase yanked me out of the way. “Rory, come on—we do not drop our weapons and apologize to the enemy.”

Flushing, I snatched up my sword.

“That ring—you need to be careful what you do with your left hand,” Chase said, his eyes on the troll. His sword was smeared with blood, just a little too orange to be human. As the troll lumbered to his feet, I spotted the slice on his calf—not enough to stop him, but it might slow him down. “The bridge can't take another blow. The Fey architect built it to look pretty. Making a strong structure isn't something fairies worry about.”

The drop flashed through my mind—maybe a half mile of open air, separated from me only through a thin layer of sneaker and fragile marble. My mouth was suddenly so dry that my tongue stumbled over words. “Are you saying that this bridge is going to collapse under us?”

“Don't look at me like that. You're the one who smashed it,”
Chase said. “Maybe you should run across too, and let me handle this—”

I shot him a dirty look. He couldn't seriously think I would leave him.

The troll rushed us. Maybe it was my imagination, but with every heavy footfall I thought I heard stone cracking.

Horror locked my knees exactly where they were. I glanced back at the other three questers, at solid ground, at safety.

Chase stepped slightly ahead of me, like he knew my fear of heights had transformed me into a Useless Rory statue. An arrow thwacked into the troll, right where the neck met the shoulder, so quickly that it was like he'd sprouted a feathered branch below his left ear. Too fast to stop, he toppled toward me and Chase.

The hand not holding my sword shot out to push him away, but as soon as my skin brushed his coarse, grimy tunic, the troll's feet left the ground.

Crap.

“Rory!” Chase snapped. “What did I tell you about your left hand?”

The troll landed back-first against the nonsmashed railing. The white stone splintered. Cracks crawled under us. The troll's flailing arms knocked Chase over the side.

I reached out automatically. My hand caught his—

The troll fell past us, howling, and disappeared in the waterfall's mist, but Chase looked freakishly calm for someone whose feet were dangling over a ten-story drop.

“I'm sorry!” Darcy cried from the far side. “I'm so sorry.”

—and before I could use the ring's strength to haul Chase back up, the bridge crumbled beneath my feet.

e dropped so fast my stomach scrambled up to my throat. Bridge bits fell all around us—big, jagged pieces struck me hard in my calf, my shoulder, my ribs—

Then, sliding into the waterfall, I couldn't see anything. Water roared in my ears, and my scream turned to choking. I might drown before I reached the ocean.

I clutched at Chase's hand—only to realize that my hands were empty. I had lost him.

I was going to die—

Someone seized me under the arms, and I could breathe again, I could see again. Waves crashed around colossal stones a hundred feet below my sneakers.

I groped around. I needed something to hold on to.

“Rory, stop squirming. You've still got your sword out, and if you injure me so bad I have to leave the quest, I swear I'll drop you here and let you swim to shore.”

I froze. I didn't risk twisting upward to look, but only one person could sound that cocky this far off the ground. “Chase?”

“Two words, Rory: fairy wings,” he said.

I would have felt a lot more relieved if we weren't still in the air. “Can we land someplace?”

“What? The wind's too loud. I'm only getting every other word. Hang on. I'll land.” He steered us toward shore, so sharply that I forgot myself a second and kicked my legs. “Whoa. Relax. Flying is one Fey thing I'm really good at, but I'm not really big enough for passengers yet. Don't throw your weight around.”

Great. I stiffened, straight as my sword. We wobbled again, but Chase recovered. “See?”

We glided around for what seemed like an excessively long time. The high cliffs on shore turned into shorter cliffs, and then to stony hills, and then to sand dunes. We passed several stretches that I could have sworn were completely acceptable landing spots.

“Head's up.” Chase swooped lower and dropped me.

I was sure he meant for me to land on my feet, but my legs were numb with wind. I skinned both knees in the sand and then fell on my side, staring up at the sky. Everything hurt.

“I couldn't fly up to the top of the cliffs. You're too heavy. We had to land here. Did I lose you?” A winged figure loomed over me, and then Chase knelt in the sand and snapped his fingers in my face. “Did you faint with your eyes open?”

I shoved his hand away. “Yes.”

“Sarcasm intact. Definitely alive,” said Chase, grinning. “I don't think the other questers saw me. I waited until the waterfall blocked us before I caught you.”

Of course he would care more about keeping his secret than me screaming myself hoarse. “The troll?”

“Drowned, I guess. Did you expect me to save him, too?”

I shot Chase a very well-deserved glare and spotted his wings. They rose up over each shoulder and extended past his head, slightly pointed—kind of like how I'd expected fairy ears to look. They fluttered nervously. Chase's face turned slowly red.

I had to press my lips together, but I didn't laugh and embarrass him more. “Well? Turn around.”

I pretended not to be surprised when Chase actually stood up and did. The wings extended all the way to his ankles, as long as he was tall. And they—well, they didn't glitter, or shine, but they seemed to be made of light, like a hologram projection.

“How come I haven't seen them before this?” I asked.

“They're invisible unless I move them for longer than five seconds,” Chase said, voice tight.

Then he'd probably perfected using them for four and a half seconds. “Is that true for all Fey?”

Chase snorted. “No. It's not even true for all halflings. Fey wings are normally forty percent physical and sixty percent magic. I just got the magic part. Believe me, that's much better than the other way around. Almost all the flying ability is in the magic.”

“Why didn't they show up when we fell off the beanstalk? Did you see the flying carpet, or were you going to let us hit the ground?” I sat up. Pain shot over my ribs and ripped the air from my lungs. Not good.

Chase didn't notice, his back still to me. “I couldn't fly then. That's why I was so freaked out. All the flying muscles in my shoulder were torn up. My wings aren't physical, but I still have the same back muscles as a fairy—you know, adapted to flying. Now, if you had fallen on the way
up
the beanstalk, you would have been very impressed with how awesomely I would have caught you. I've always been good at flying. That and glamours and picking locks and Binding Oaths and—” He stopped. “Well, that's actually it.”

I reached a hand toward Chase's wings and then stopped. I probably shouldn't touch them without asking. “They're pretty,” I said finally.

“They're pink,” Chase said, exasperated. They were—two shades lighter than salmon. I'd been trying not to mention it. That sword class for mini Fey would especially suck for a boy with pink wings. “They're supposed to get darker. You know, like your hair color as you grow up.” Chase obviously counted on it.

“You know, they're actually more peach here,” I said. “Right by your shoulder blades.”

His fists clenched. The wings vibrated again. This was an angry flutter, not a nervous one. “That doesn't make it any better!”

“Yes, it does,” I said. “That means it's already getting darker. You'll probably have a cool orange in a couple years. Flame-colored.”

That cheered Chase up. “Well, nobody's going to see them until then. Nobody
else
.”

Sometimes, I didn't like being the only one who knew Chase's secret. It was kind of a lot of pressure.