The Rise (28 page)

Frolicking with the faeries, perhaps.

Reaching for the door knob, I rolled my eyes. “Would you just put a sock in it already?” I told my Monster. I opened the door. “I really don’t need your sh—”

My mouth snapped shut, my face going red. “Oh, um. Hi Tommy.”

Tommy smirked. “You know, that is the second time I’ve found you talking to yourself.”

I scoffed, then sputtered. “I wasn’t talking to myself.”

Tommy chuckled. “Sure,” he said. His blue eyes ran the length of my body. Then he leaned forward as if he were about to share a secret. “I’ll believe anything you tell me in that dress.”

I slapped his arm, smiling. “You look pretty good yourself,” I said, and it was true. Tommy wore a black suit that fit him as perfectly as all of his clothes, and a silver dress shirt underneath, the top two buttons open below his neck. His blond hair was stylishly messy again, instead of just messy, and the confidence in his smirk was back.

“Don’t I always?” he asked.

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, you do, actually. It’s kind of annoying.”

“Jealousy is an ugly green monster, Alexa. I think silver is more your color.”

I gestured down at myself. “Yeah, well, apparently you’re not alone.”

Tommy leaned his shoulder against the doorframe in that lazy way of his. “Is Wallace here?”

I shook my head.

He didn’t say anything to that, he just straightened up and held his elbow out to me. I smiled at him and slipped my arm through his. I didn’t feel like my relationship with Tommy was a betrayal to Kayden, who had left me to go to this stupid party alone. Tommy was just one of the only real friends I had. Since I’d known him I’d trusted him, and that is rare with me, but even so he had never given me a reason
not
to trust him. And, I knew that he was in love with Nelly. I had come to the conclusion that of all the people she had “touched”, she’d touched Tommy the deepest.

We stepped out into the hallway, which was once more dotted with hundreds of tiny lights hanging in the painted weeping willows on the walls. Nighttime had fallen. Almost a whole day lost, and no word from the Seer. I could feel my anxiety rising again, but I forced it back down. Camillia said that the Seer would find me. I’d asked Tommy if this was true, and he had told me it was. I had nothing to do but wait, and my patience was wearing thin.

“Do you know where this thing is?” I asked Tommy as we stepped out of the cottage and into the night.

“Yes, it’s not far, but I think it’s outside. You’re not cold, are you?”

I shook my head. The night air in the Outlands was a perfect temperature, soft against the bare skin of my back and arms. I hadn’t really gotten to see the city at night before, and as Tommy led me down the red path heading east I saw that the place was even more spectacular with the dark sitting over the land. The sky above glittered with endless stars, which seemed to have shed their dust all over the city. There were so many Pixies fluttering around, hundreds it seemed, that in the distance at first I thought they were fireflies, though their glow was too bright for them to be. People of all sorts were walking about. Some of them I recognized as Fae, with the black tattooed wings on their backs and shoulders. Others were things I didn’t recognize, mostly human-looking, except for some had blue skin or pink or glowing eyes or hair that fell down to their knees. They were all beautiful, in the same way things that are so
other,
are beautiful. And most of them seemed to be heading in the same direction we were.

Tommy glanced down at my Gladius, which was still just clutched in my hand. “You just going to carry that around the whole time?” he asked.

I shrugged. “There’s no place to hold it in this dress.”

Tommy eyed me. “I noticed.” He stepped off the path then, and I stopped when he stooped down and plucked a long-stemmed flower from the grass. He popped the head off the stem and it floated to the ground like a dying star. Wrapping the stem around his fingers, he pulled it taut to test its strength. He nodded when it didn’t break and returned to my side on the path.

Tommy held his hand out, looking at my Gladius. “May I?”

I hesitated. I trusted Tommy, but the only other person I’d actually let touch the weapon had been Kayden. Then, I handed it over, because it was Tommy, and the more I hung out with him, the more I liked him. But it was more than that, more than just liking him. I didn’t love Tommy the way I loved Kayden, of course, but his feelings toward my sister seemed to have formed a bond between us that was something very much like love. I remembered the time he’d told me that it was only a matter of time before I fell in love with him. In a way, I suppose, he had been right.

Tommy held the sword gently, and the way he stared down at it let me know that he very much wanted to stroke his fingers over its smooth surface, to trace the vines and flowers cut into it. He didn’t. Instead, he wound the long vine around each end of the handle and the stem seemed to stretch and hold tight, like the strap on a purse. Tommy reached over my head and I lifted my arm so that the sword could hang between my shoulders like a sheath of arrows, the blade tucked safely inside until I needed it.

Tommy stepped back. “That should do,” he said. His head tilted as he studied me. “Actually, it’s kind of a sexy way to carry your weapon. You look like an avenging angel. Badass.”

My cheeks heated, but I had to admit that the Gladius was comforting resting there, cool and smooth between my shoulder blades. I could reach back easily if I needed it, and though the flower stem that held it was fuzzy and strong enough to support its weight, I would be able to rip through it easily. “Thanks,” I said, giving Tommy a little smile. “I actually
feel
a little badass.”

Tommy quirked an eyebrow and took my hand again, leading me down the path. “Just a little, huh? Oh, Mighty Sun Warrior thee.”

I slapped Tommy’s arm and laughed. But then I looked around and saw that a lot of people were staring at me. Suddenly I was nervous. I pretended not to notice them, but I pulled on Tommy’s sleeve and whispered in his ear. “Are all of these people coming? Were they invited?”

He patted my hand, but I saw that his eyes were scanning everything. “I don’t think they have to be invited,” he said. “I don’t know too much about this place, but I’m pretty sure that everything is shared and open for everyone. No one who wishes any harm on another person here can enter, so you can imagine how few candidates there are in the supernatural world that are permitted to be here. Not many. It’s really such a tiny piece of Territory that the only way it works is if everyone can get along.” Tommy was still watching all around us, as if his gut didn’t trust the words his mouth was saying. “I’d say yes, by the look of it, most of them are going to the same place we are.”

Up ahead I could see the where the event was located. It looked kind of like the town’s square, a sort of central place that all the red paths led into. There were red maple trees surrounding the area, and someone had strung white lights through them, making a halo-like circle. The center of the trees was packed with people and tables that held various foods and drinks. Where all the paths met was a large fountain that was shaped like a sun, golden-colored water spraying out from all of its rays, falling into a pool with lights set inside that changed colors every few seconds. Music was playing softly, but the sound of it was unlike any instrument I’d ever heard, sort of like tinkles and harp strings, but not. I could hear the laughter of the people already there, their chatter and the clinks of the champagne glasses they were holding.

I pulled Tommy to a stop as we reached the edge of the trees that led into the circle, digging the heels of my sandals into the soft earth. “What’s wrong?” Tommy asked, looking down at me through thick lashes.

I opened my mouth to tell him that I had changed my mind, that I didn’t want to do this or be here, but my promise to Soraya flashed through my mind, and I took a deep breath. I started walking again. I could smell the food that was piled on top of the tables now, even from this distance, and I realized with a gurgle in my stomach that I hadn’t eaten anything all day except for the blueberry muffin that Kayden had given me this morning. I was starving.

Tommy and I stepped through the ring of trees, and dozens of strange faces turned toward us. Heat flooded my cheeks, but I kept walking, trying not to so desperately look around for somewhere to hide. After what I assumed was a long enough observation of me to satiate their curiosity, most of them turned back to their conversations. I breathed a silent sigh of relief. But as Tommy led me through the crowd it was the same thing over and over again. Stare, maybe whisper something to someone next to them, stare some more, and then apparently lose interest. I wished they would just skip to the lose interest part. At least almost all of them were dressed up the same as I was. Walking up to see them all in jeans and t-shirts would have been mortifying.

Soraya and Catherine found us then, and I relaxed a little when I saw the huge grin on the girl’s face. “Alexa!” she said, running over to me. She was holding two plates piled with cakes and cookies and candies. She thrust them out to me. “Do you
see
this?” she asked. “I had no idea that so many delicious things existed in the world. I think I like some of them better than blood.”

My heart twisted, but I smiled. “You’re going to be up all night if you eat all that.”

She nodded enthusiastically, her dark curls bobbing around her face. “Yeah, that’s the plan. Mommy said we could stay as long as I wanted.” Her eyes caught on something behind me and grew wide. “Mommy, mommy, mommy, I haven’t tried that game yet! I wanna try that game!”

Catherine, Tommy and I looked over to where Soraya was pointing. There was a table set up, and behind it was a rope-latter that was attached to one of the maple trees on one end and held into the ground at an angle by stakes at the other. A Fae child—I knew because he had those black wings tattooed on his small back—was trying to climb to the top of the latter to reach a bell at the top, but the latter would swing and twist and drop him off every time he got close.

We all looked at Catherine, who smiled down at her daughter. “Sure,” she said. “Whatever you want.”

Soraya jumped up into the air with a hoot of glee. She turned to me. “Come watch me, Alexa. Come watch me. I’m the best at climbing. I’ve been climbing trees since I was three.” She puffed out her chest a little. “I’m the best.”

I nodded and she took my hand, half-dragging me in her eagerness. I wondered if children always repeated themselves a hundred times when they were excited, or if it was just a Soraya thing. It didn’t annoy me. I was just happy to see
her
so happy. I was suddenly almost glad I’d come here.

Soraya waited in the line of children, approaching the latter with the same look in her eyes that had been there the very first time I’d met her, out in the middle of the forest back at Two Rivers. She’d thrown rocks at my head and then threatened me with a stick, all the while having a more serious expression on her face than I had ever seen on any child. Now, she watched the other kids make their attempts up the latter the same way she had watched me that day in the woods. I could just see her little mind working out the things they were doing wrong with their bodies that would make the ropes twist and sway.

When it was her turn she moved as quickly as a little spider, the wiry muscles in her skinny arms and legs standing out as she moved hand over foot. A few times she had to stop in her progress, the latter’s ropes quivering beneath her as she locked her muscles in place to stay right-side-up. But even so, she made it to the top on her first try, and much faster than any of the other children we had watched. She craned her neck around to show us her smile and raised eyebrows, which said to me,
see, I told ya.
I clapped my hands and cheered for her, and she turned back to the tree and rang the bell.