CHAPTER 3
ike the nightshade flower, the beauty of the veil hides its deadly nature.
Fey magic isn’t particularly stable, and the results of touching it vary.L Some people die of a heart attack. Some scream in agony as their insides melt. Some turn to dust or freeze solid. But the end is the same. The
veil is hungry, and it feeds off death.
And yet— Despite standing in the midst of it, I’m still alive. Unless—as some people say—the dead don’t realize they’re dead?
Through the coils of fog, I stare down at my hands. The mist shifts and slides over my wrists, strangely sensual in the way it moves like a living thing.
I’m still breathing. I don’t feel any pain. How long will this death take? I inhale humid air tinged with sea salt. I feel fine.
I can’t even hear the mist’s buzzing or feel the prickling of magic on my skin.
Strange. Maybe the magic doesn’t work in this part of the veil.
From here, I can still see the others—silhouettes in silver and violet beyond the veil. From my ankles up, the fog slides under the white lace of my
dress like a lover’s caress.
“Aleina?” I ask.
“You’re still alive?” she asks, shocked. “I can’t see you.”
Hope lights in my chest. “That’s perfect, then,” I tell her. “This part of the veil is fine. We can hide here, I think. It’s not lethal.”
“No!” she mutters, terror in her voice.
“It’s an in-between space,” I say. “I’m fine, and it’s the perfect place to hide. And the soldiers are blocking us in right now.”
The seconds tick by as my anxiety grows. I understand her reluctance, but those soldiers will end up noticing them, and I can only imagine what will happen then. I’m about to urge her to move when I see a silhouette nod and step forward. Aliena’s hand comes through the fog, and she takes a deep breath as she sidles up next to me. “Come on, everyone,” she whispers in Fey.
One by one, the demi-Fey slip into the veil, and instead of draining them of life, the mist seems to welcome them in its embrace. I gesture, and the little boy grasps my hand, joining me.
Through the whorls of fog, I can still see the stone alley beneath my feet.
But everything’s different here beyond the veil. For the past few years, no one has come here at all. Garbage has accumulated in this no-man’s land, and the air smells of rot and decay. I swallow. I shouldn’t be here. Outside the mist, I see the silhouettes of Fey guards pass by, swords drawn. They don’t notice us at all.
“How did you get through the veil the first time?” I ask Aleina.
“We had a…I don’t know how you say it in English. An orb? A Cosaint orb. But it shattered.” She swallows. “We lost two people when that happened.”
A shiver runs along the back of my neck, but I push the fear away. I count to ten, giving the guards time to walk away, then emerge from the mist.
Aleina follows me. Then the rest.
Creeping to the edge of the alley, I peer out. No veil patrols. Good.
“Okay, we’re clear,” I say. “Let’s do the same as before. We’re just a group of tourists, okay? It’s crucial that you all give the appearance of being calm, even if you don’t feel it.”
Leading them out, I begin hollering inane facts, trying to look as if everything is fine. The temperature drops sharply for some reason, and my teeth chatter. The cold bites at my skin. What is that icy wind? Perhaps it’s my body’s reaction to the trauma of it all. I just saw a woman executed in the street, her blood drenching her clothes. I accidentally stepped into a magical veil that through sheer luck didn’t destroy me.
My heart thrums in my chest, but I keep talking, giving the tour. I smile, rattling off facts about the heroics of the French army during the invasion,
still explaining how lucky we are to have the status quo to protect us. I lead them down the hill toward the dock. My breathing is becoming more labored, wheezy, a constant eerie whistle as I inhale and exhale.
“Are you all right?” Aleina asks. “You don’t sound so good.”
“I’m fine,” I pant. “I have…asthma. Stress induced.” With every word, I try to inhale, get just a bit more oxygen into my lungs.
“You don’t know the city, and you get sick if you exert yourself,” Aleina mutters. “Why did you think you’re the right person to help us?”
“Well…I didn’t see…anyone else…stepping up.” My head is spinning.
I’ll have to take a break soon.
“I’m thankful you did,” Aleina says.
I raise an eyebrow. “Thank me when I get you to the docks.”
Where are we? I’ve led this group down a meandering, unfamiliar street.
I’ve never been this far east before. And when they turn to me, they’re all looking at me with expectant faces, trusting me with their lives. Me. The person who once got lost in the neighborhood she lived in. The person who can’t read a map to save her life.
I look around, desperately searching for anything familiar on the crowded street. Tourist shops line the road—some selling crêpes or ice cream, others Fey-themed and magical, beribboned floral crowns and hazel wands in the windows. A gold-lettered sign above a shop reads CHÂTEAU DE LA FEÉ.
I pause, leaning against a wall to catch my breath. At least I’m starting to warm up again a little. The twilight-streaked sea sparkles under the sun.
Thank God. Once we get to the sea, we can figure out which way the docks are.
“Follow me to the beach,” I call out, breathing in the salt. “We are going to see where the French prepared for the final assault on the Fey fleet, armed with—”
I pause at the sight in front of me. We’ve reached a wide, paved road that leads to the docks. Two French policemen are checking people’s papers as
they pass through.
Shit.
They can’t risk the status quo by letting demi-Fey fugitives through. In fact, that’s probably why they’re here—searching for these very fugitives.
“They’re just human,” Aleina whispers in my ear. “Only two of them. We can fight them. Some of us can make it.”
“No!” I blurt. “The police have guns. And they will call the Fey soldiers
to help them. It’s all part of their agreement. You’ll die.”
“Then we’ll die free,” Aleina says.
“That’s a nice sentiment, but dead is dead.” I think of Vena. “You’ve come too far to give up.”
I notice that the cops don’t check everyone. There’s too much traffic, too many passersby. There are only two of them. They’ll definitely stop us, though. Sure, my tour guide act was good enough for the occasional glance, but not for cops who are actually searching for fugitives.
“We’ll wait for an opportunity,” I say. “I’ll create a distraction. You go through doing what I did. Act like the group’s tour guide.”
Aleina pales. “I don’t even speak French.”
“English will be fine.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t look anything like a tour guide.”
She isn’t wrong. While the tourists on the beach might not have noticed that her clothing was off, the police would be looking more closely. They’d see the velvet, the silk—the exquisite tailoring mixed with frayed edges and dirt smudges, the long limbs on display—and they’d recognize a group of demi-Fey refugees.
I wish I had a proper disguise for her. Something that would make her inconspicuous. But I can’t think of anything— My gaze flicks to the shops, and an idea pops into my mind.
“Wait here,” I say, and hurry across the road into Château de la Feé.
It’s a crowded shop of strange curiosities. Statues of Fey with real butterfly wings glued to them. Round bottles of brightly colored syrups labeled as potions. Decks of fortune-telling cards with skulls and snakes.
Leather-bound books in the Fey language. Antique maps of their realm.
But none of that is what I’m looking for, so I press on until I find what I need. I grab it, then rush to the front of the desk. A woman with a tidy gray bun peers at me over her glasses, then demands seventy Euros. I pay her, trying not to calculate how many hours working in the bookshop that is. I have more important things to worry about. She stuffs my things into a paper bag.
Outside, I hurry back to Aelina and hand her the bag. “Put all this on.”
She peers into the paper bag, and her lip curls. “But…why?”
“A demi-Fey would never dress in fairy wings because it’s stupid.” They look cheap and ridiculous, and they’re the perfect disguise. “I’ve seen a bunch of tour guides wearing wings like those. Some tourists here expect
props, you know? They want the whole Fey experience. And if you put it on, you won’t look Fey. No one will think you’re Fey if you have those wings on. There’s a flower crown, too.”
“Okay. Fine.” She snatches the bag from me and pulls on the glittery pink wings with two straps over her shoulders. When she crowns herself with flowers, I breathe a sigh of relief. The costume completely shifts the perspective. Her strange clothing and pointy ears look like part of it now.
“Okay,” I say. “Let’s wait for the right opportunity. For now, start doing your tour guide act. I’m going to create a diversion. Go through once I start.”
She takes over for me as a guide, speaking in broken English. “Ladies and gentlefolk, this here is the house of a French general. He used deadly iron weapons. He blew up the wicked Fey, leaving them in bloody pieces on the road.”
Worst tour guide ever, but it would do. Her voice fades as I hurry down the hill toward the docks, where sailboats and yachts bob in their moorings. I wait for a few minutes until a policeman starts arguing with an old woman who has forgotten her paperwork. That just leaves one cop.
“Excuse me!” I shout at him. “Ex-koose-moi! Mon-seer? Common ça va?”
I’m abusing the French language, and the cop visibly winces.
“I speak English.”
My first instinct is flattery. “And you speak it so well! Mais je voudrais, uh…pratice mon français maintenant. Vous êtes très fashionable,” I say in mangled Franglais.
His eyes grow hard, and I can tell this tactic isn’t working on him. In fact, it’s only raising his suspicions. Europeans expect Americans to be loud and obnoxious, and maybe I’d need to turn up the dial on that.
“I’m looking for, like…do you know where…je voudrais, like, a McDonald’s or something?”
“No, move along please.” He waves me out of the way.
This is too important for me to shrink away, and I need his attention on me. And what better focuses a person’s attention than loathing?
“Is there any decent chocolate in this country?” I ask. “The food in France isn’t what it’s cracked up to be. No offense, but I thought you were supposed to have good chocolate. Have you tried Hershey’s Kisses? Because those are delicious.”
His face goes red, and he gestures to his left for me to go. “If you please,”
he says in a clipped accent.
From the corner of my eye, I see Aleina walk past, leading the group and talking about the French navy like a tour guide. The cop’s attention flickers to them for just a moment, and I wave my hand in his face.
“Ex-koose-moi, garçon? Do you know McDonald’s? Do you have any in this country? McDONALD’S,” I shout up at him. “I can’t stomach more of your French crap.”
He shoots me a withering look. Whoops. Overdid it.
“Not here.” He purses his lips and points west. “There are plenty of better restaurants in Marseille. And American chocolate is not even real chocolate, legally.”
I fold my arms. “You must be joking. Have you even tried real pancakes?
Not like the weird, thin kind you have here, but like a big, fluffy pile of real pancakes? Because in America, you can buy frozen ones that have a sausage in them and maple flavor already in it. You just heat them up, and boom— there’s your breakfast. And that kind of innovation is why America is the greatest nation in the world. It frees up extra time for more work hours.
Amazing, right?”
By the time he shoots a pleading expression at the second cop, Aleina’s group is already gone.
“Anyway, thanks.” I turn away from him, relieved I can drop the act.
“Mademoiselle, can I just see your passport?” he asks from behind me.
He sounds pissed.
I turn back to him and clear my throat. “Sure, officer, is there a problem?”
“No. Just a routine check.”
Thankfully, I have my passport with me. I reach into my bag and pull it out. He stares at it so long that my heart pounds.
“Nia Melisende?” he asks.
“I’m American,” I say hopefully.
He flips through the passport, then hands it back to me. “Have a pleasant day,” he says, sounding bored.
“Mer-si boo-koo.” I start walking toward the docks.
“Mademoiselle, the restaurants are the other way.”
“Oh, yes, thank you. I just want to take a photo of the pretty French boats.” I smile at him and turn away.
When I’m sure he’s no longer looking, I break into a little run, my boots creaking over the wood.
It takes me a few minutes to locate Aleina and the rest of the group, who are standing by a large clipper ship. Aleina is talking to a man on the deck— another demi-Fey. His pointed ears rise out of wavy, dark hair that falls to his sharp jawline. The sleeves of his white shirt are rolled up, exposing tattoos that snake around his muscled forearms. As I take a step closer, my heart skips a beat. The moment he cuts me a sharp look, I recognize those eerie silver eyes, the straight black eyebrows. And yet, he seems a million times bigger, towering over everyone else, shoulders as broad as a door frame.
So that’s what happened to Raphael Launcelot, the beautiful demi-Fey who broke my heart.
