Invincible (12 page)

Joy gaped at his snack. He'd put half the fridge between an entire loaf of bread.

“Thanks,” she muttered as he took the plate to the kitchen table and sat on the floor—no chair could possibly hold his weight. “You could hear all of that from your holding cell?”

“Most of it, certainly,” he said, tucking his sheet underneath him. “But there were many eager to pass me news about some of the highlights before Briarhook arrived.”

Joy frowned. “I thought that none who were your friend could get close to you,” she said.

“I did not say that it was
friendly
commentary,” Graus Claude said, plucking a long steak knife from the block. “I think it might be more accurately described as gloating.” He grinned a mouthful of teeth. “Look who is laughing now!” He lifted the knife like a jeweled dagger. “Well done employing the Forest Guardian, by the way,” he added, sawing the massive sandwich in half. “He was hardly friendly in the least. Brutish, but effective. I am only sorry what it cost you.” He placed half the sandwich into his mouth and started chewing. Joy didn't want to think too much about the iron box that held the last slivers of Briarhook's heart. The filthy Forest Guardian had kidnapped Joy and branded her as a message meant for Ink, which the Scribe had returned with bloody vengeance. Ink had bequeathed the heart he'd cut from the giant hedgehog's chest to Joy, ensuring Briarhook would keep his distance. Joy had reluctantly been returning his heart, piece by piece, buying off Briarhook's debt with favors like helping them free Graus Claude, knowing that the moment Briarhook earned back the last scraps, he'd promised to kill her. Slowly.

Stef reappeared with Ink, eyes widening at the impressive spread. Dmitri followed, admiring the layout of the condo. Stef leaned an elbow on the counter. “Anything else we can get you?” he asked. “A roast pig, perhaps? Maybe a keg?”

“A hogshead of wine would be delightful,” the Bailiwick said out of the corner of his mouth. “A Greek white or a bold rosé.” He chewed thoughtfully and gazed at the sandwich. “Needs more olives.”

“Olives!” Joy shouted and dived for the jar on the counter. It was empty. She drank some of the oily brine. It helped scour away the aftertaste of Mr. Vinh's tea.

“Really, Joy?” Stef said. “Stop acting like you're half-animal.”

Dmitri slapped his arm. “Hey!”

“In a not-nice way,” Stef amended.

Dmitri tsked. “You're going to have to do better than that.”

Stef grabbed a hank of Dmitri's shirt. Laughing, the DJ grabbed a bottle of wine. The two of them left the kitchen wearing identical smirks.

Ink waited for the bedroom door to close and glanced at Filly. “Guard them,” he said. Joy opened her mouth to protest, but Ink shook his head. “We have little knowledge of the satyr's loyalties outside of his love for your brother and the Grove. His troop are still the keepers of the Glen who are guarding Aniseed's graftling clone.” He checked the wards by the doors and the air vents. “You may trust him with your life, but I do not.”

Filly clapped her hands together with a bang. “
Finally
someone who thinks like a warrior and not a politician!” She raised a fist in salute and bounded happily down the hall.

“Only for the moment,” Ink said. “For soon we must think like diplomats.”

Graus Claude finished the second half of his sandwich and dabbed at his lips with a folded napkin. “Fortunately, that is a particular arena in which I excel.”

Ink paused. “Unfortunately, you cannot come with us,” he said, taking Joy's hand. “We demand entrance to the Bailiwick of the Twixt.”

* * *

They descended into the Bailiwick, Joy's stomach clenched as tight as Ink's hand in hers.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asked.

“No.”

Joy stopped on the stone steps. “What?” She hadn't wanted to come back down here, back into the pocket universe embedded in Graus Claude—not until they were ready, not until the chaos on both sides of the world had died down. She'd half expected there to be an army waiting for them under the Bailiwick's tongue. Had it only been a day since they'd fled?

Ink tugged her forward. “Come,” he said gently. “We bring the courier of the Twixt—they are waiting for us. It would be impolite to tarry.” He tried to project a smile through the dark, crossing the median where the light from the kitchen faded to black and the artificial sunlight had not yet leaked up from the base of the stairs. “There were once a great many things I felt with certainty that I now know was merely blind obedience, programmed loyalty, empty thoughts that were barely my own. I have grown to question much of what once I considered true, which left me with very few things I would consider ‘certain.'” He squeezed her fingers as they approached the bottom of the stair. “But I am certain that I love you and therefore it is imperative to bring the King and Queen back, not just for the Folk, but also for you.”

Joy loved him so much, heart or no heart. It filled her completely. “Thank you.”

Ink stepped into the clearing, boot heel crunching on the grass. “You do not have cause to thank me yet,” he said. It seemed strange to hear him quote his employer while they were traveling down the giant frog's throat.

The clearing was as they'd left it, the small copse of woods, the trickling stream, the muted play of light and dappled shadows, the meadow of wildflowers and tall waving grass. Every inch of it, every detail, had been created by the forgotten princess while she'd been trapped inside this pocket between worlds. Joy tried not to step on anything, hyperaware that the princess, as a Maker, had written this world into being just as her parents, the King and Queen, had spoken the rules that created the Twixt. Joy prayed if they could make the rules, they could break them as well, or at least rewrite the ones responsible for her change.

She was counting on it.

Joy squinted at the hazy horizon whose edges seemed to blur, the images of the forest and field tucking under themselves like bedsheets. “Is the door still open?”

Ink searched the sky, an optical illusion that was no space at all. “The fact that the army hasn't moved to occupy the Bailiwick could be considered a good sign,” he said. “It means that the King and Queen have not decided to declare war on the humans and have chosen to remain within the confines of Faeland for now.”

“Is that what they've been doing all this time?” Joy asked with a hitch in her voice. “Just waiting to attack?”

Ink walked into the meadow. The grasses parted before him. “I imagine after a long time passed without word from the Council, the King and Queen might have concluded that the Twixt had fallen, the remaining Folk besieged or enslaved by humans. Once the last member of the Council died, the door between worlds would open, allowing those in Faeland to avenge their kith and kin. They swore an oath of vengeance should that ever happen,” Ink said, walking unerringly toward the hole in the sky. “It is quite possible that they have been waiting to strike first and fast for hundreds of years.”

“So maybe they didn't mean what they said?” Joy said hopefully. “That no one is really a Destroyer of Worlds? They saw a human—or what they thought was a human—and jumped to the wrong conclusion?” Then Graus Claude might be mistaken and there was no need to worry about Elementals or being hunted down by Folk...or anything.

“Perhaps,” he said. Although the way he said it did not make it sound all that likely.

Ink raised his straight razor, drawing a series of lines that glowed in the air like sparklers, cutting through his mother's illusion of what looked like earth and grass and sky. In the distance, a circle flared. Joy's breath caught.
There it is.

Neither spoke as they stepped forward, the scenery sliding beneath their feet like a zoom lens. A crackling glow sketched the edges of the unlocked door into Faeland, behind which an army awaited along with hundreds if not thousands of Folk itching to come home. Joy shifted nervously, her feet crunching on the illusion of roots.

Standing on the precipice, Joy didn't know what she wanted, what she hoped for, what she was doing here; she knew only that she
did not
want to go in. For the first time, she felt that returning to Folk Paradise might be very, very wrong; something she should never do. It was a new sensation, a new word for her:
sacrilege.

Ink stepped onto the edge of the doorway, the fractal light playing off the shiny, black leather of his boots. He pressed her hand close to his side. “We will remain on this side of the doorway,” he said. “There will be no cause for you to fear.”

Joy stared at the portal, which flared like a solar eclipse. “What if the King calls me again?” She knew in her bones that she'd have to obey.

“I will be here,” Ink said, squeezing her hand and turning to face the light. “I will be very, very here.”

Joy took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said, and gently opened the door to Folk Heaven.

ELEVEN

ARMED GUARDS STOOD
on the threshold, stern-faced and solid. Joy jerked back but Ink held her hand firm, and so she remained where she stood, dwarfed by two towering soldiers haloed in a corona of alien sunlight.

“We wish to parlay with the King and Queen,” Ink said with a confidence Joy envied. The sound of it sliced through the air, crisp and clear.

The guards did not move or acknowledge their presence. Their armor did not so much as creak. Joy had a very close-up view of the elaborate breastplates and polished helms, the ornate clasps and jeweled hilts. She could smell the scents of summer and spring—pollen-thick with honeycomb and berries from the one on her right and more delicate scents of buttercups and eggshells from the elf on her left. Their eyes were multifaceted and sparkled darkly. Joy tried not to look like a Destroyer of Worlds.

The guards parted, swinging open like saloon doors, and a centaur—armored from neck to tail—glowered at them as he crested the hill. This was unmistakably their general. He stopped, the breeze teasing the grass underfoot and the stiff hairs on his head that trailed down his spine. He glared at them as tiny will-o'-the-wisps danced around his mane. Something about him reminded Joy of the eldest satyr in the Glen.

“Stay where you are,” he said. “In accordance with the rules of parlay, you may speak your piece and they will hear you.” He gestured to the bivouac camp where the royal family had gathered once again on that familiar stretch of land on the hill. The King and Queen sat in the two tall thrones flanked by attendants and banners and nine young women wearing matching gowns. Joy knew that the princess, Ink's Maker—his mother—was among them, but it was impossible to make out which of the King and Queen's daughters was her. The centaur's voice was a command, accustomed to being followed without question. “Any false word or move will be your last.”

Joy didn't doubt it for an instant.

Onlookers gathered on either side of the rolling hills, creating a long, open aisle from the royal family to the door. Armored soldiers lined the perimeter like a police brigade, a living wall between Ink and Joy and Faeland's civilians, many of whom craned their necks, lifting small ones above their heads, trying to get a better view. The crowd was a calliope of feathers and furs, wings and horns, claws and paws and snouts, as all eyes stared—their faces hopeful, fearful, earnest—the lost look of refugees imploring for home.

Joy faltered under their collective gaze. Something about them nagged at her, but she couldn't place why. She kept her attention face-forward so as not to appear rude. She doubted the King and Queen tolerated rudeness any better than the Bailiwick did. Graus Claude's advice whispered to her,
Etiquette and decorum.

“We have returned as couriers of the Council to welcome your Imminent Return and to apologize for how long it has been,” Joy said, using as many Folk terms as she could think of. “The Twixt has suffered under a terrible curse that stripped them of the memory of your exile and the door inside the Bailiwick. We have come to tell you—” Joy gagged. She couldn't say it. She didn't believe that it was safe to return. She panicked, words tripping off her tongue “—to
welcome
you to take your place once again as rulers of the Folk.”

There was a murmur among the crowd like a rustling forest.

“You are not our courier,” the Queen said. “Where is she?”

“The last courier died,” Ink said with a diplomatic bow. Joy marveled how that was both true and not. “We come to you as representatives of the Bailiwick.”

“Who now bears Ironshod's title?” asked the King, surprised.

“Graus Claude,” Joy said. “He is the current Bailiwick of the Twixt.”

The King and Queen exchanged the barest nod. “You speak true.”

“Then the Council's proposal was successful?” the King asked. “Our True Names are protected by sworn sigils?”

Ink bowed again. “Indeed. I am one of the Scribes crafted by the hands of one of your own,” he said. “My sister and I were created to inscribe the True Names, the
signaturae
of the Folk, upon those humans and places that fall under their auspice, preserving the magic and safeguarding them from harm, thus securing our world in safety as well as upholding the honor of the Twixt.” Ink's words slowed a fraction as he watched the monarchs, but those who did not know him might have missed it. The hairs on Joy's arms prickled. “We have kept the magic alive, as per your Decree.”

There was a short, calculated pause. “What of the Council?” asked the King. “Those left to rule in our stead?”

“The Council still stands,” Joy said. “Some of the faces may have changed, but those who serve await your Return.”

There was more than a murmur now, a rising hubbub through the crowds, the collective mutterings of an entire nation of exiles, looking to their leaders for hope. Joy could just imagine them talking among themselves, wondering whether their long wait was over and that today might be the day when they finally Returned.

Ink dared not move his hands, but he gestured with a slight rise of his chin. “Cross the Bailiwick, Your Majesties. Come and lead your people.”

The King and Queen rose, formal and foreboding. Their long hair lifted behind them like unfurled wings.

“No,” the Queen said simply.

The King continued without pause. “We shall not return until we are assured that the world is
safe
for our people,” he said with a look directed straight at Joy. “What assurance is there that we may have safe passage through the Bailiwick into the wider world and that, once returned, the Folk may live in peace?”

Joy glanced at Ink. What could they say? There was no such assurance. And with Aniseed, the original courier and traitor to their throne currently reborn as a graftling clone, Joy doubted she could reassure them without gagging on the truth. But the system of
signaturae
was in place and the Folk were dwindling without their monarchs and kin. Shouldn't that be enough? Ink's lips creased in a thin, tight line. One of the young ladies whispered into her mother's ear.
That must be the princess
.

The Queen raised a single palm, a gesture that reminded Joy of Inq.

“We charge you with this, couriers of the Twixt—bring us proof that it is safe to return. Prove to us that the humans will not abuse our favor and that we may live among one another as we did in ages of old. Show us that magic is still our purview and that our bonds remain unbroken.” The Queen's words settled like a blanket over the crowd. “These are your tasks, Scribe and Sundered. If you succeed in this, then we shall Return and reunite the world as one.”

The vague musings and mutterings changed to a chorus of approval, everyone marveling at her wisdom. Joy watched the subtle ripple course through the gathered crowd.
Of course, who would side against their King and Queen?
Joy felt herself uncomfortably siding with Aniseed against their forced loyalty. What was it like to live without choices? To blindly follow and put faith in whatever they said? And now these monarchs had given her an impossible task—to prove the world was safe or else there'd be no Return. Joy felt hope dying like a burned matchstick.

The King called to Ink. “To you, my daughter's creation, I charge you with our safe passage.” His galactic gaze turned to Joy. “And to you, the foretold Destroyer of Worlds, I charge you with devastation.”

Ink stiffened. Joy paled.

“Go,” the King and Queen said in unison, and the door slammed shut.

Joy let out a shaky breath as feeling tingled back into her fingers and toes.

Ink blinked at the door. His voice was matter-of-fact.

“That went well.”

* * *

“That did
not
go as well as I'd hoped,” Graus Claude admitted.

Joy paced the den, arms crossed. “You think?”

“Impertinence does not suit you, Miss Malone,” the Bailiwick reprimanded her gently. Ink glanced at her sideways.
Respect him. Always.

“Sorry,” Joy mumbled, taking a seat. “But I don't see how we're going to coax them out if it's contingent on some sort of proof that it's safe to come back.” She gestured around the kitchen that had been an illusion for one of Aniseed's traps, including a blood-soaked coffee cake and monsters in the dark. “How can anyone prove that the world is safe? Nothing's safe! Life isn't safe!” The truth was that even when you thought everything was fine, life had a way of ripping the rug out from under you. She'd learned that all too well after the Year of Hell when Mom moved to Los Angeles with her boyfriend, Doug, leaving Joy and Dad to pick up the shattered pieces of their lives. Now, post trauma and past depression, Joy had figured out life was many things—surprising, scary and wonderful—but rarely was it safe.

Filly nodded curtly. “Well said! Safety is for buckles and pins.” She licked the blue spot beneath her lower lip and took another bite out of her peeled apple. “Which makes me wonder why your wizardling brother isn't in here clucking over you like a mother hen.”

Joy and Ink had found the Valkyrie banished to the main rooms, listening to music through earbuds and attempting to turn on the TV. Graus Claude had reanimated and downed several more glasses of water. His eyelids sank to a half-mast glaze. “Prudence forbears me from mentioning specifics, but I believe we can safely assume he is abed,” he said mildly. “If there is any mercy left in the world, he and the satyr lad are sleeping. It has no doubt been an exhausting affair, thumbing their noses at authority and adventure. Let them rest.”

Joy rubbed her eyes, which had become bleary and unfocused, painting everything in watercolor wash. The very mention of sleep made her head spin, and her proximity to the kitchen made her stomach grumble.

“I need to eat something. It's been...” Hours? Days? Slicing through time messed with her internal clock. She didn't even bother excusing herself as she plodded toward the fridge. Hunger made her grumpy. She couldn't afford to be grumpy.

“Well, you're hungry—that is a good sign,” said Graus Claude.

Joy paused with a handful of green grapes. “Why?”

The Bailiwick pushed himself out of the couch. “Because Earth Elementals gather sustenance from the ground. Eating and drinking are an autonomic system—food and water are leeched from nutrients in the soil. Elementals feel no hunger as they can ingest and expel while moving or at rest, making them formidable, tireless foes. Therefore, the fact that you feel hungry and tired means that you are still more human than not.”

Joy swallowed the sour juice on her tongue. “Lovely.”

“Do not fret,” he said. “Once I am back within my offices, I will endeavor to construct a worthwhile argument for you to deliver to the King and Queen.” He sniffed. “Pity that I cannot join you, as my role seems to be limited to that of a convenient conveyance, but I have the utmost confidence in your ability to be both capable and prudent.” He arched one side of his browridge. “Don't tempt me to doubt my veracity.” Joy stuffed a slice of cheese into her mouth and shook her head. “Indeed. Fortunate, then, that it is my time to depart as I have arranged to meet the Bentley at the appointed hour.” He cast a baleful look at Stef's closed door. “I believe that I have overstayed my welcome and must confess that I am eager to be elsewhere. Not that I have not appreciated the accommodations, Miss Malone, and for that I thank you, but I have duties that require alternate arrangements—” he plucked at his sheet with distaste “—which include sufficient clothing and assorted amenities.” He winced at his chipped manicure and hid the offending hand in a fold of his improvised toga. “I will dispose of these drapes at such time and will make due compensation.” He breezed past Joy's fledgling protest and turned to the blond warrior leaning against the couch. She removed the earbuds with a yank of the cord. “Would you be so good as to escort me to my rendezvous point? It would be remiss of me to take my leave without taking the necessary precautions to see it through. I do pride myself on keeping my person as well as my personal integrity intact.” He straightened the sheet unnecessarily as he regarded Joy and Ink. “Do see that you are like-minded, with yourselves and one another. Our side can ill afford further fracture.” His icy gaze swept over them both. “See to it.”

“Yes, Bailiwick,” they chorused.

“Very well,” he said. “Then I shall bid you good day. I will contact you when appropriate.” The Valkyrie fell into step beside the Bailiwick and began checking the front door with a warrior's expertise. The great amphibian paused on the lip of tile between the kitchen and the door. He turned back to Joy, his wide face a mask of solemn humility. “I must thank you again for your part in these affairs—for bringing me my truth, honoring my word and then breaking it in order to serve the greater good to free our people, reuniting the Folk at last,” he said. “I have considered you a student, a collaborator and friend, and in all ways you have far exceeded my expectations. It has been an honor and pleasure assisting your efforts and I will do everything in my power to be worthy of your association.” He bowed a fraction. “Until next we meet, Miss Malone.”