The Alley
DAPHNE
“We should hurry,” Magda tells us as she leads our march through the Emerald Passage. The cavern widened out once we turned the first corner, blossoming into a fifteen by fifteen shaft of sparkling stones. Hues of emerald and amber deepen into sapphire and amethyst walls once we’ve cleared into a miraculously bright space. There shouldn’t be any light here, yet… there is.
“This place is utterly beautiful,” I whisper, my steps slowing to admire the different facets of color.
“Perhaps,” Magda throws back, waving my compliment away. “ One fae’s trash is another fae’s treasure and these particular fae grow weary of twinkling headspace.” She stops and turns around causing Klyesque and I to come up short. Her eyes flashing with evergreen swirls, they settle on my chest. “You can feel it there, can’t you child? Your magic? Your… soul?”
Swallowing thickly, I meet Klyesque’s eyes as I nod. “Yes.”
Klyesque tilts her chin, a half smile turning her lips and something like pride shining in her gaze. “I knew from the moment I met you that you were special. That you were something… other than mortal. I knew.”
Magda snorts, “Fat lot of good it did, eh? You sided with that blasted fool, that child prince when he refused me access to her.”
“I did no such thing,” Klyesque argues. “However, it was unclear at first whether or not you meant her harm and I had sworn to protect her.”
“Ha! You were a guard dog, nothing more. Had she been allowed access to me from the very beginning much of what is to come might have been avoided,” Magda admonishes her.
A muscle jumps in Klyesque’s cheek, her eyes falling apologetically toward the ground. “I brought her here, did I not? Against Ash’s orders.
Magda smiles mischievously. “That you did. I suppose you’re not as foolheaded as the boy prince.”
“You are speaking of the father of my child, you know?” I scold her playfully, somehow causing myself to blush when she simpers. “He’s my…”
“Oh posh!” She grumbles. “I know very well what he is to you child and might I just say, judgement has yet to be passed on that particular dilemma.” She rolls her eyes when Klyesque scowls. “He is a brat, pure and simple. You may love him and he may love you, but heed me when I say… he may seek to control you in the end and if he does-”
“I won’t let him!” I snap before I can stop myself. “I promise.
Magda, looking properly chastised, merely nods. “Very well, dear. Shall we carry on? Your people have been waiting on both sides of the Lost Gate for much too long, my child.” Turning around with a swish of her dirty brown robes, she picks up the pace, practically gliding over the hard packed ground beneath our feet without leaving so much as a single track in her wake.
“Wait a minute,” Klyesque murmurs as we quicken our steps to catch up to the hunched conjurer and her surprisingly swift gait, “I thought we just passed through the Lost Gate.”
“You thought wrong, Selkie. We allowed you believe as much because no one ever refers to the actual Lost Gate by its name, thus keeping it lost. That was but a doorway, bespelled to feel like a gate, but only just. I did not know who may be watching and I did not want to risk you being followed by the False King.”
Klyesque and I share a look before breaking out in a near run when we see how much ground the witch has covered in the space of just a few breaths.
“Something was out there,” I tell her. “Something was in the woods… watching. The book told me-” I cut off when I hear how ridiculous I sound, dropping my head like a shamed idiot.
Magda doesn’t miss a beat, not even turning her head when she says, “Yes… go on…”
Taking a deep breath, I repeat everything the book has told me up til now and when I finish her feet seem to move that much faster.
“If that is true - and given the bearer it likely is - then we must leave this afternoon for the gate. I had hoped to allow you both rest until the morrow, but with the False King on our tail we simply cannot wait. He will seek to take the book from you and being your mother’s husband and tied to her by a ceremony of old, he might find a way to use it. Or worse… decide to destroy it.”
“Where are the shadow steed?” I ask her as we nip at her heels, finally matching her stride as she pauses to fall into step between us.
“They trampled on ahead,” she snarls with wry amusement. “Almost clobbered me when they first came through the passage, but they are your father’s special breed after all and the one thing they are going to do is lead you to safety.”
My gaze rips away from the citrine and peridot of the glimmering walls with urgency when I hear that and I focus on her words completely, thinking of what I witnessed at the fountain. Of what I remember her proclaiming during my vision.
“They are my father’s breed?” My father… is the Shadow King isn’t he?” I ask, coming to an abrupt halt when we come to a fork in the tunnels and she stops walking.
She gazes at me, moisture shining in her kind eyes. “Yes, but we will talk more about that later.”
“Promise?”
She smiles sadly. “Of course, child. You will meet him soon enough.”
I don’t know how to feel about that just yet so I swallow the sudden stone in my throat and nod stiffly.
Tapping her long walking stick on the ground thrice, a stone pathway begins to take shape to the right of the tunnel in front of us. A hidden walkway leading down into a glowing emerald abyss. We follow her on a run as she bids us move faster with a wave of her hand and when the pathway begins to spiral we lose the light of the stones at our backs.
“Nearly there now, come along. For young Fae you are both exceptionally slow.”
Klyesque snarls under her breath, “I’ll show you slow old woman.”
I can’t help but giggle at that.
It’s right then that we come to another stone wall and Magda looks to us and says, “Welcome to The Alley… the real one.”
Klyesque rolls her eyes and growls, “Well of course it is.”
This time instead of tapping the ground, Magda taps the stone wall instead and it gives way as if balanced on some sort of wheel, but that is not what has my breath hitching. No.
It’s the hundred or so faeries that suddenly cheer and bow just behind the opening, and the mystical wonderland beyond.
“Oh my…”