Chapter 2
I woke up, in a tent made of light cream brown fabric. He was there, sitting on a chair beside my bed, and I recoiled. He didn't move, only stared. He was handsome. No, he was beautiful. So beautiful and deadly, and wrong. So, so wrong. Whatever he had done earlier - magic, it tasted rotten and wrong. He offered me a bowl of soup. "Where are you from?" He asked gently.
"I lived in the US, but I was born in France."
"Not of this world?"
"Where am I?" Feared strangled me.
"Windhaven, the Night Court." I looked at him, pretending the words sounded empty.
"Did you do something to my head?" I feared asking him these questions. At some point, he will be so pissed and accidently kill me. I was sure of it. I reached for my temples, but felt ears - pointy. I couldn't breathe again. No, no, no. I would be trapped here. This was the sign. This was it. I had nowhere to go. He rubbed my back, as I could only tell myself to breathe slowly, properly.
"No."
"Then what did you do?"
"Nothing that would harm you." I looked at his gaze, a gesture of thank you, if I could thank him. But for sparing me, for not striking me, I could thank him. And the other one too, maybe. Did he realise why I had panicked after I touched my ears? Foreign, pointy, and yet I felt the same. Was he still lurking in my mind, hiding beneath the shadows even I could not bear to look at myself? "Thank you. I would like to go home, if - if you -"
"To another world?" I looked at him.
"How come we speak the same language?" That easily, his voice became a conversation starter. These people - something was off about them: the way they turned into monsters and turned back into this humanity, or fae I supposed.
He shrugged. "I cannot take you home, but tell me your secrets, and I may know someone."
"Are you still in my mind?"
"Are you planning to lie?"
"What's the point?"
"No." I looked at him, tried to feel for magic around, that unfamiliarity and did not feel it.
"What secrets?"
"Which world are you from?"
"Earth." I wanted to laugh at myself. Yes, because that answer would surely help him. "The milky way. I don't know."
"And magic exists in your world?"
"Not that I knew of before."
"Come. I will take you to someone, who can help." He reached out his hand. Yes, a perfect kidnapping. This was how they kidnap little children - with false promises of candy waiting. I feared the possibility of them reading my mind. I feared to think of actual thoughts, and preferred for the thoughts in my mind to stay abstract, to never form words, and yet, because of that, I could not think. I wondered if they would be kind, would try to help me come home, or if they would interrogate me and leave me to fend for myself, for it was not their responsibility to help me. Follow him, do as he says, and perhaps you would survive, I told myself.
My hand reached out to clasp him. He has not yet confirmed his name. Air, filled with darkness and secrets unknown unfolded before me, enveloping me, swirling my mind, and before I knew it, that air dissipated and revealed a palace. So they took me here, not to their homes, but to their palace.
Its walls were far up ahead. Pillars flanked every side, similar in structure as those roman architecture, where a rectangle was held up by pillars. But it was large, empty. An empty palace. On the long sides of each palace were pathways, and behind me were stairs. But in front of me - in front of me I saw the sky - clear blue and clouds. The place where Rhysand first took Feyre before bringing her to Velaris. The place was rather plain, to be honest, quite boring, but grand and marvelous.
I know your worst nightmare, I spoke to my mind. I know you fear fire and how it burns all in its path. He had no reaction. He merely walked in front of me. Good, so he was not in my head. We walked into the pathway on the right, and entered a room closed with double doors. He pushed them forward, and a small woman, who seemed Chinese, with swift eyes and slick hair sat. Her movements - so elegant and clipped mesmerized me. The rest of the room became forgotten. As I focused, I found the room to be grand as well, slightly over decorated in its architecture, but simple in its decor - vases, purple flowers.
The man told the woman, "Cassian found her inside the mountain. She's lost."
She eyed him, a piercing gaze so intense even I was tempted to cower before her. "And you bring her to me?"
"She is lost," was all he said before he winnowed. Yes, 'She is lost'. What he meant: She is not of this world.
"Where are you from, girl?" Her voice is precise, sharp. Brilliant. If humans who knew each other had different personalities and shared the same characteristics, these creatures, she who had pointy ears, were so very different from the two men earlier. Males, I should say. Where the one who brought me outside the mountain, Cassian, seemed to be unbothered and wanted to get rid of me, the beautiful one was patient and reminded me of death and pain. This one: Amren, wasn't she? The fire who burned after the cauldron, she was straightforward and from her voice, I knew she would be brutal.
"I was in the US, and I was about to go out to my friend's and buy some food, and then - and then I was in that cave. Where am I?" My voice shivered.
"Do not ask me questions. Is there a name for your world?"
"I truly am in another world?" I pretended to ask myself, knowing the answer. "No, I don't think so." A quiet voice, sometimes a whisper. My eyes scattered around, before looking down of shame. "Earth. I don't know the star it orbits, but -"
"Of course it is Earth! Which other planet would you be in?" Harsh. Brutal.
Perhaps everyone called their own planets, in these different worlds: Earth. "I - I don't know." I stuttered.
"How is your world?"
The truth, or lies? Should I tell her faes and elves were mere myths? That humans wrecked havoc and fought each other and aimed for peace, equality? Should I tell her I was a human, before arriving here? Which one, which one? "There is none of what he did. Of disappearing, of transporting to another place. We use vehicles - cars and horses and cycles."
"And what creatures lie within it?"
"Um.. many animals are there: humans and bears and..." Stupid girl. Will you tell her about the bears and the penguins? Do you think she cares? I asked myself.
"And what of magic?"
"I don't believe much exist."
"How much?"
"I - if I could be here, then I suppose some magic remains, but there were none I was familiar with. Stories, here and there, but I do not know if they are real." Yes, fictional stories. I am gosh so funny.
"Faes without magic?" Technically, I am a fae now and I do not know of any magic I have. I nodded once.
"So how do you get here?" She pressed.
"I don't know. I don't know. I - I just wanted to go to a friend, to drink. That was all. I don't know. I don't know." I let the fear seized me, showed her the truth: a helpless girl all along in a foreign world. Would she have sympathy for me? "Do you think I can go home?" My eyes pleaded, filled with crushing desperation of denying reality. Of course, I knew I could go home. How long I would stay here, I was unsure. But that harp they found in Silver Flames could bring me back. Would I stay?
"That is unsure. I have been here for millenniums, and yet I have not returned."
I wish I could fake cry, but my tears were gone. Instead, I fell to the floor in exhaustion, shaking my head, breathing hard and breathing fast, slowly taking deeper breaths until I seemed stable. My face almost knelt on the ground, my knees bent.
"No hole in the sky?" I shook my head. "Tell me girl! Do not cry and do nothing! Tell me how it happened!"
She was annoyed, sick of me. The truth was I just felt dizzy, saw darkness, and arrived in that cave, more darkness. And yet, I knew these people, knew these books. Perhaps it was a dream, but no, no, no, I knew it was not. My sight too well, yet I was transported from one place to another - like how dreams skipped parts. No, it was real, too real for it to be a dream. What if need came for me to tell them of Aelin one day falling from the sky and Rhysand helping her, what if I had to tell them of Lucien being Helion's son? What if I meant to stay here? How would I tell them I knew these things if my being here was mere dizziness and darkness? Well, no better answer than the truth. "I held my bag, I was going to a friend's house and to get food. Then, I felt dizzy, and I opened my eyes to that cave. The darkness there."
And she replied so casually, as if it was an evident truth that had no alternate reality, "You'll likely be stuck here forever."