"How come you didn't Shift when you touched it?" Naomi demanded. "How were you able to Shift at will?"
"All your questions will be answered, Naomi," Félix assured her before Darcy could answer. "But, for now, you must return to the world above. Darcy has informed me that her cousin Ezhno has accompanied you here. He does not know that Alec and I are here, and I would very much like it to stay that way."
"Why are you here?" Naomi asked.
Alec raise his stone-casted hand. "That would be my fault." Pip jumped onto his shoulder and started licking his chin.
"You are not to blame, Alec," Félix said, though he was looking at Darcy as he spoke, and Darcy was glaring right back.
They stayed that way for a moment, Félix staring calmly into Darcy's eyes while she glared angrily into his. "Fine," she said at last. "Let's go, Naomi. We'll come back after lunch, when Ezhno's asleep."
"Before you go," Félix said, standing, "you and I need to have a word, Darcy."
"I don't have anything to say to you," Darcy said, remaining seated.
"Just do it, Darce," Naomi said. "He's right. Ezhno's going to wonder where we went off to. If he knows about this place--"
"He won't come in here," Darcy said confidently. "There are strict rules about coming in here. It's for emergencies only."
"And you're so good at keeping the rules," Naomi said sarcastically. "If he suspects you broke the rules and brought me down here anyway, he will come looking."
"It's nice to see you have made a friend capable of thinking for once," Félix said.
"Don't try to help," Naomi advised. She turned to Darcy. "Just hurry up and get it over with. It's obvious he's not going to leave you alone until you do."
Naomi held her breath as Darcy shifted her glared between her and Félix. Finally she threw her hands up. "Fine," she spat. She stood and followed Félix into the next room to talk.
"Wow," Alec said when they were alone. "You got Darcy to do something she didn't want to? You must be a Hypno." He picked grabbed another plate of potatoes and started to eat them.
"Hypno?" Naomi repeated. "As in Hypnos, the Greek god of sleep?"
"Yeah. At least, I think so. After Oberon sacrificed himself to create the Veil, humans began to make stories and myths from the creatures and magical people they used to know, hence the gods," he explained. "Hypnos can hypnotize you into doing pretty much anything."
They fell into silence then. Naomi was near bursting with questions, but she knew once she started she'd never shut up, so she replayed what she had already learned in her head as she distractly petted Pip, who was still going to town on her potatoes. Naomi felt the low rumble of his purring.
According to Félix, every magical, mythological, legendary creature Naomi had ever read about was real and living in a magical world sealed off by a magical wall that a Fairy King had sacrificed his life to create and sustain. And apparently some magical creatures decided to live on Earth and had human-magic hybrid babies called Changelings who could change between their human form and their magical form. Okay, fine. Cool. That made sense-- sort of. But what Naomi had trouble getting her mind around was that she was one of them.
"So..." Naomi said slowly. "If there are thousands of different species of magical creatures, does that mean that there are just as many different kinds of Changeling?"
CZYTASZ
Élphame
FantasyIt's getting worse. Not now. Why now? It's been dormant for weeks! Naomi thought, squeezing her hand repeatedly into a fist to try to suppress the faint tingling in the tips of her fingers. It was in vain, just as she knew it would be. Once the ting...
Chapter Nine
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