The Unmaking (The Last Days of Tian Di, #2)(83)

Her heart pounding, with rage or joy or grief – she could not tell – Nia unchained him and walked away quickly, without looking back once at the Faery collapsed at the edge of the churning sea.

~~~

Nell woke with the dizzying, horrible sense of not knowing where she was or how she had come to be there. This was followed quickly by a more actual vertigo when she pulled aside the curtains surrounding her soft bed, leaped out, and found herself atop a circle of stone soaring above shining cities nestled between mountains, forests and rivers and, far in the distance, the silver glint of the sea. She clutched the bedpost, reeling, her feet inches from the drop down to the glittering half-real Realm of the Faeries. The last thing she remembered was the pandemonium following Nia’s exit from the Festival of Light. What are we going to do now? She had asked Swarn. And she remembered the witch’s face, lined and fierce and somehow sad. Her half-smile as she said, I think you’d best take a rest. A quick motion, something stinging in her eyes. And now.

“What by the Ancients is going on?”

Charlie’s voice. She peered around the bedpost to see there were two more ridiculous four-poster beds atop the floating slab of stone. Charlie had gotten out of his and was staring around with a slightly sick expression rather like her own must have been just a moment ago. Ander groaned from within the third bed, waking up.

“Swarn did this to us,” said Nell.

“Lah, of course she did,” said Charlie ruefully. “How are we going to get down?”

“I dinnay fancy jumping,” said Nell, peering again at the long drop down to the beautiful miniature world. “Why would she do this, Charlie?”

“I spec she just wanted us safe and out of her way,” said Charlie. “While she took care of her own business, aye.”

“Lah, there’s a view to wake up to,” muttered Ander, emerging from his bed and not looking particularly surprised. “They must get bored, dinnay you think, living forever and knowing none of it is real? You’d get jaded prize quickly, I should think.”

“Swarn has gone to fight Nia,” Nell told him. She sat on the edge of her bed and buried her face in her hands. Charlie sat down next to her.

“She made a choice, aye,” said Ander. “We can nay like it, but it’s her battle.”

“She’ll lose it,” said Nell. “And there will be nobody left to help Eliza.”

The stone circle began to move lower, until they were floating among the green mountains. It carried them towards a large balcony carved out of the side of a mountain, with waterfalls running on either side of it, and settled down there. Jalo was waiting for them.

“I trust you slept well,” he began, but Nell cut him off.

“Did you know that Swarn had left?” she asked.

He nodded, taken aback. “She left after the ceremony, with her dragons.”

“So you just left us to sleep in some fancy prison?” she cried.

Jalo looked offended. “I couldn’t wake you. She had done something to you. She swore it was harmless and you would wake in the morning. I thought you would enjoy waking up to a view of our beautiful realm. It was no prison.”

“I’m sorry, lah,” said Nell, shaking her head. “Everything has gone wrong. We came here to get help, we had a plan, and now Swarn has gone running off to get killed and I dinnay know what to do.”

“Surely it is not your fight,” Jalo said soothingly.

“Of course it is,” said Charlie. “Once she kills Swarn, Eliza is next on her list.”

“And without the Mancers, Di Shang worlders will be prey to any Tian Xia monster that wants to cross over. There willnay be anywhere safe anymore,” added Ander.

Jalo looked from Nell to Charlie to Ander, and then said, “There is one place that is safe. The Faery Kingdom. In exchange for Malferio, the Sorceress has sworn by the Oath of the Ancients never to return here. The Oath is unbreakable. As long as you are here, you are safe. We can send emissaries to bring your friend here too. Nia will not be able to reach her.”

Nell thought about this for a long moment. “I dinnay know if Eliza would agree to hide,” she said at last, “but it’s her only chance.”

“Then it is done. You must not go.”

Nell shook her head. “I cannay just...abandon my family,” she said. “Eliza should come here to be safe from Nia, but there are people who need us.”

“Agreed,” said Ander immediately. “If it is to be the way it was during the long war, I know I’ll be needed. I would never let anything happen to your family, Nell.”

“And I may not be much good where Nia is concerned, but I can certainly protect people against your average Tian Xia beastie,” added Charlie.

Nell smiled tearfully at them. “Then we have a solid plan B,” she said.

“Good for us!” said Charlie. “What’s plan A?”

“We cannay give up on the worlds just yet,” she said. “Nia has been attacking her enemies one by one because she knows she cannay take them on all together. Swarn is nay dead yet, and praps the Mancers can still be helped. We have to convince the Faeries to help Swarn or to help break the spell on the Mancers. The Faeries are still our best chance. Together they’re far more powerful than Nia, nay?”

Jalo shook his head. “A deal has been made,” he said. “Peace has been struck with the Sorceress. We cannot fight her.”