Queen of Hearts

Chapter 26: another frozen heart | Evan

Her eyes surveyed my face, my expression, and everything else about me. She opened her mouth to speak, and at the same time, I realised that she was not wearing her glasses. Without her amber rimmed glasses, there was something different about her face, but it wasn't a bad thing. "How - how are you here?"

I grinned, not able to help it. "Intuition."

A beautiful smile blossomed on her face, and she could not stop herself from laughing. I couldn't either. "You always had good logic."

A loud hooting noise was made from the direction of the two boys in the room that had previously been holding hands before Linny and I had interrupted. "Whoa, calm down with the romance!" one called out in a singsong voice, making the girl with the pixie cut roll her eyes and reprimand the boy. "Introduce us to the boyfriend, Kam! He's hot!" They didn't look ashamed to be screaming out the last particular comment, but it visibly made Linny cringe.

With a closer inspection, I saw that both boys looked identical with their blue eyes and contrasting red hair. They couldn't be anything other than twins.

As my face burned bright red, Kameron closed her eyes. "God help me." I was astonished that she did not make a move to deny, but perhaps she wanted to believe that there was a relationship between us. In that case, if she wanted it, I would go along with it. When she opened them again, she glanced at Linny, and smiled. "Hey, it's Cailyn, right?"

Linny nodded, twiddling her thumbs. I raised an eyebrow, surprised at her shy attitude. She glared at me, but said nothing.

"Before you ask what the hell is going on, let me explain," said Kameron as she waved goodbye to the girl with the pixie cut and led me out of the room, Linny trailing behind us. "But it's a long story."

And it really was, as Kameron explained that when she had chased that bunny, it had led her here, to a land that came out of fairytales. The land was named Jendilya, and it was ruled by the Queen of Diamonds, also known as Queen Jennifer, who had a hate for twins after a pair had murdered her mother, Queen Lucy.

Where we were now was a secret rebel compound called Ullanyth Headquarters, where twins who had hidden from Queen Jennifer now resided. The two redhaired boys in the room, Sabkan and Gatlee, were only one of many pairs of twins who had fled their homes in fear of the Queen of Diamonds.

Kameron had wanted to help the rebel's cause, so she had taken up training lessons with the weaponry master, which was the girl with the pixie cut. Her name was Samidha.

The biggest discovery was that there was magic here, real magic. Some people in the rebel compound had access to magic, some people did not. Sabkan and Gatlee could conjure a storm together when they intertwined their hands, which explained the mini indoor storm from earlier. Kameron was believed to possess a magical ability of her own, which possibly could be the manipulation of air. However, Kameron herself didn't believe she had a power.

It was hard for me to accept the fact that Kameron may also be a magic user, despite being raised in another world where magic simply did not, could not, exist.

"But how...?" I shook my head. "Kameron, this is crazy."

"I know," she answered quietly. "You'll get used to it after a few days." A few days? My heart gave a small jolt as it dawned on me on how long Kameron had spent here, ever since she had first gone missing.

"Your family are worried to death about you," I told her. "They called me to Japan to help find you."

"They don't know where I am, do they?" Kameron sounded strangely alarmed. Wouldn't she want her parents to know her whereabouts?