ticking.” Mara scampered through her house barefoot. We passed four blue doors along the way until we found ourselves in the laundry room.
“Open it,” she told me.
Taking a deep breath, I did. Crisp, dewy air hit me as I peered out into an open wooded area. We were on some kind of private land and rain was lightly falling from the sky. Trissa pulled on Elle’s arm and they stepped outside while Mara turned me to face her. “You’re the last seeker we have. I know you never got to see Faerie before it fell, but it was beautiful. It was a thousand times bigger than it is now … with proper seasons and rows and rows of flowers and three-hundred-foot-tall trees … animals that I can’t even describe. The land was so … alive.” Her eyes lined with tears and I was touched at her beautiful memories of Faerie, but wondered why she was telling me.
Leaning in, she grabbed my shoulders and whispered in my ear: “The elders don’t want to put too much pressure on you, but I think you can handle it. I want you to know that once you return all the crystals to the Tree of Life, Faerie will restore itself and you can travel across her lands discovering her endless wonders.”
Shock ripped through me and she pulled back to face me with kindness in her eyes.
“It was your mother’s greatest dream. To see Faerie restored.”
I’d seen maps of old Faerie in history class. It was huge, as big as Earth, and now we encompassed a space that was a mere ten miles wide. You could fly across town in a blink. What would it be like to restore Faerie to its former glory? Was that even possible? Her lesson shook me, and holy shit did I feel the pressure.
I simply nodded, unsure what to say.
“One more thing, love,” Mara called out as I stepped outside. “You can’t spend more than two nights on Earth or you weaken. You need to either recharge with a crystal or in Faerie.”
I gave her a blank and confused look.
“Don’t get kidnapped. You could die,” she clarified, and my eyes widened.
“Oh. Gotcha.”
Wow, they really weren’t holding back with the bad news, were they? Shit got real so quickly I felt like I was in a movie.
She and Bashur gave me one last look before shutting the blue door.
I spun, seeing Trissa and Elle giving me a nervous look as they shifted on the balls of their feet. Oh right, they were waiting on me. I was the last seeker of Faerie and only I could find this crystal and save my world.
We were so fucked.
“This is so insane. I can’t believe your mom never told you that she was saving the world!” Elle hissed.
We were alone for the first time. It turned out that we had properties all over the world with blue doors. This one was a little one-bedroom cottage in Seattle, with a dilapidated shed on the side that Trissa was rummaging through.
“Yeah, a little heads-up would have been nice,” I said to my bestie.
She bopped on her heels, twitchy fingers resting over her two swords and a stack of throwing knives. “I’m so excited to get some action. I’ve never really fought someone. Only in practice.”
Leave it to Elle to be excited to get blood on her blade. She was a warrior through and through, no matter the circumstances of her birth. “They told you about the Sons of Darkness?”
She nodded, stepping closer to me. “The elders said to beware the black-winged ones. They’re the worst.”
I guess I’d rather know my enemy than not. “Where do you think they come from?” I whispered. “Are they Fae?”
“Found it!” Trissa cried, causing Elle and I to quiet as she walked out of the shed with an old rolling pin in her hands. She was covered in dust and cobwebs. To a normie, our word for humans, all evidence of her Fae nature was gone. No pointy ears, no wings. She looked human. It was part of the illusion that settled over us when we crossed into the realm. It happened naturally. I could still use my wings of course, because they were still there, but a normie wouldn’t see them.
I raised an eyebrow at the rolling pin. “Are we baking poison cookies for the Sons?”
She grinned. “No, but that’s a good idea. Oh, your mother would kill me for giving you this, but … I know you’ll need