Aubrey had never been so confused in her entire life.
One second she'd been in the woods surrounded by bloodthirsty wolves and the next she was in the middle of a ballroom.
Declan looked unnerved too but not because of the location but more so with Aubrey's presence.
When are we, that's what he'd said.
Not where, when.
"I didn't think it would work." Declan muttered to himself almost thoughtlessly.
"W-when are we?" Aubrey voiced,"What do you mean by that?"
Declan promptly got up and hauled her up to her feet,"Now is not the time. We have to get out of here before the guards think we've gatecrashed the ball."
"I'm not going anywhere unless you tell me what the hell is going on." She said.
"Fine." He said curtly,"Stay here and rot in the medieval jail for the rest of your life."
And then he promptly turned around and walk towards the exit.
Wait. Was he actually going to leave her here?
The nerve of that boy.
She quickly hurried to follow him, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible.
Not a lot of people had noticed them, they'd appeared behind an alcove but they'd already started attracting the attention of a few.
Declan was right they needed to get out of here.
But where exactly was here?
"Hey wait up!" She whisper yelled as picked up the pace,"I don't kno-"
"THERE THEY ARE!"
A dozen guards had just entered the room, all in rich turquoise uniforms with large golden buttons. They held swords in their hands, wickedly sharp ones as they stood in formation behind the captain who'd just yelled.
The captain was clearly distinguished with a handful of medals on his uniform and his hand was outstretched as he pointed straight towards the criminals that were to be captured
Which just happened to be towards Aubrey and Declan.
Wait a minute.
"DON'T LET THEM ESCAPE!" He yelled,"CAPTURE THEM!"
They seemed rather violent considering the fact that they'd just accidentally gatecrashed.
"Freeze time." She nudged Declan.
He rolled his eyes,"What do you think I am? I can't just press a button and make it happen."
"Wait." Aubrey said,"You can't control your powers? Are you kidding me?"
"And what exactly can you do?" He said angrily,"All I've seen you do uptil now is nearly kill yourself over a sprained ankle, so spare me."
Aubrey knew this was hardly the place to start arguing with Declan but she was getting angry.
"Yeah well I'm not the one who took us back to god knows when." She said as the guards grew closer.
"Werewolves ordered to kill us versus a few harmless old guards who'll simply arrest us for gatecrashing a party." Declan said,"You should be thanking me."
Aubrey eyed the guards who were approaching. They didn't look particularly harmless or old.
"Wow thank you Declan." She said sarcastically,"Thank you so so much for your help getting arrested in some far away land in god knows what century."
"You're very very welcome cupcake." He retorted.
"Okay I'm sure we can sweet talk the guards into letting us go." Aubrey said,"I mean how bad can the punishment for gatecrashing be?"
And that's when they started shooting arrows at them.
The first one Declan stopped mid-air purely out of reflexes that Aubrey would have killed to have.
"ATTACK!"
The people from the ball instantly scattered, screaming around running towards the corners of the ballroom. There was no exit in sight except for the one on the far end of the ballroom where the guards had entered from.
"Isn't this a but much?" She said,"Killing us for gatecrashing a rather dull party seems quite unfair."
"Duck." He said slamming her to the ground with him on top of her as the another set of arrows flew over their heads.
"I don't think our crime is gatecrashing the party." Declan mused.
"ARREST THEM FOR KIDNAPPING THE PRINCESS AND AN ATTEMPT ON THE KINGS LIFE! ARREST THE WICKED SORCERERS!"
"Well that's awfully specific." He muttered.
"What?" Aubrey asked as they both retreated slightly as the guards advanced,"What princess? What king-"
Another set of arrows.
This time they didn't have time to duck so Declan quickly knocked it down with another wave of his hand.
"We need to find another way out of here." He said as he raised his hand,"Magic is banned in this land. If we weren't in trouble before we certainly are screwed now, especially because of this display right now. "
Aubrey had a million questions. What this land was, how did he know about it's laws and most importantly how they had gotten here.
But now was not the time. Aubrey wasn't really worried, she'd seen Declan take on wolves without being scared so he could hardly be worried about a few guards with metal sticks.
All he needed to do was summon his fancy ass silver sword and they'd probably go running and the display of his powers.
But Declan did neither of those things.
There was something wrong with him, he looked paler than usual.
What was wrong with him? Aubrey thought.
"Declan-"
"Wait." He said through gritted teeth,"Let me think."
But he didn't look like he'd be able to do anything except thinking.
They had just travelled back in time or to another place or whatever and that could hardly have been easy on Declan no matter how powerful he was considering she'd piggy backed with him.
Okay Aubrey instead of standing there like an idiot, think of a way to get out of here, she thought, You can't always-
Wait.
Wait a second.
This ballroom. She'd been here before.
What had been the lady in the red cloak's words exactly?
Look around.
So that's what Aubrey did.
She looked carefully at every aspect of the grand ballroom that boasted turquoise and gold everywhere. Turquoise walls with gold sculptures and pillars. The mosaic was the same, the emblem was the same. In fact nothing was diff-
Aubrey found herself staring at a tapestry. It wasn't out of place as such, it was quite simple depicting around few fishes with other forms of sea life and hung on the wall, covering it from top to bottom.
She'd not seen this in-
Wait. The lady in red had taken a set of wooden doors to exit the room. She'd hovered in front of those doors for quite some time before turning around to leave in the vision.
Could it be?
Before Aubrey could contemplate she'd already grabbed Declan's hand dragging him towards the tapestry.
She tugged on it hard and it fell to the ground in a heap to reveal a set of wooden doors. She uselessly tried turning it's gold doorknobs,only to find that it was locked.
"How did you-" Declan started but was cut off abruptly when another arrow whizzed past them embedding itself to door.
"Move." Declan said pushing her back. He hesitated for just one moment before he kicked the door.
Nothing happened.
"Too much gold." Declan murmured,"I can-"
Another volley of arrows were sent their way and Declan barely managed to grab Aubrey's hand and push her against the door to dodge them.
And just like that the door opened.
Aubrey stood shocked but Declan yanked her forward taking her inside what seemed to be a study before closing the door behind them.
Aubrey quickly put the deadbolt but it was obvious that even with the lock the door wouldn't hold for very long.
"Why-" Declan said through gritted teeth as he focused on the heavy table I'm front of him,"Do these idiots use so much of gold in everything."
"What?" Aubrey asked but Declan simply ignored her.
Why weren't his powers working? Was there something wrong with him?
"Forget it." He said and then started pushing the table with his own hands.
Even with Declan's heightened strength the desk was heavy. The desk was moving but awfully slowly and there was no way he'd be able to block the door in time.
Especially since he clearly wasn't even functioning on full power.
Aubrey quickly stepped beside him laying her palms against the side of the desk to help Declan push.
Their hands brushed against eachother by accident and the effect was almost instantaneous, the heavy table that would have taken them forever to move even with their strength swung effortlessly against the door on it's own accord before Aubrey could even start pushing the table.
It was not a moment too soon because loud bangs resound against the door followed by the guards yelling.
"What the hell was that?" Aubrey started but Declan ignored her as he scanned the room up and down.
"We need to find a way out of here." He said, "We'll deal with all this weirdness later. "
"What weirdness?" Aubrey shrugged, "The fact that we got attacked by wolves and our school exploded into bits or the fact that I'm currently in another time period where I'm being hunted by soldiers for kidnapping someone I've never heard of."
Declan rolled his eyes, "Your sarcasm is appreciated."
"I know." Aubrey responded but Declan ignored her scanning the room. The banging on the door had suspiciously quoted down but Aubrey had no misconception that it meant that they were actually safe.
With Declan's powers practically null and her powers as useless as ever it was only a matter of time that they got into serious shit. They had to find a way out of the study to come up with a plan of action.
Well at least Aubrey's plan of action involved beating some sense into Declan and blackmailing him into taking her back and it just seemed unfair to do it in the study and ruin it's beautiful turquoise gold carpet.
God. Aubrey thought, These people are really obsessed with gold and turquoise.
"Any other doorways that you magically seem to know about it?" Declan asked finally.
Aubrey gave him a sour look,"The lady in the red cloak- what did you call her? Germanium? Gérard? I don't know- she's the one who showed it to m-"
Before Aubrey could finish her sentence Declan roughly tackled her to the ground, a split second before the door exploded into a million tiny pieces.
"Fortium Aramas."Declan yelled.
A bubble of pure gold light surrounded the both of them absorbing majority of the splinters and the shock from the explosion.
The smoke was far too thick and Aubrey was having trouble seeing anything beyond Declan and the faint light the shield cast around them but it didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened, the guards had blown up the door.
Well at least tried to.
If Aubrey was correct then it would at least take them two more explosions to blast their way through the heavy desk and then get to them.
"Find a way out." Declan hissed,"I don't know how long the-"
Another explosion.
This time the explosion was much louder and the shield flickered trying to absorb all the energy.
"I can't keep the shield up for much longer." Declan said raising both his hands up,"There is too much int-"
Aubrey grabbed Declan's hand.
It was a stupid move but if Aubrey had guessed correctly it would have to work.
And it did.
Immediately the gold shield solidified into an opaque dome around them, something that looked impossible to break.
There was another explosion but it sounded like a faint thump in the background.
She'd been right.
The door opening, the desk moving, even the ground giving away beneath them when they'd travelled back in time all of it had been triggered.
Triggered by their hands touching.
Declan looked at her wide eyed,"H-How?"
"I don't-"
But before Aubrey could finish the ground gave away beneath them and her hand was ripped out of Declan's grasp.
And then suddenly she was underwater.
Maybe they were back home. At least Aubrey hoped they were. After all the same thing had happened when they'd first travelled back.
But the warmth of the water was almost disconcerting, after all as far as she knew all rivers in Spade were fed by glaciers in the mountains. And even the salt in the-
Saltwater.
They weren't in Spade.
There was no sea in Spade.
Aubrey sputtered up to the surface the bright sunlight blinding her. She didn't speak a moment too soon because that's when a huge shadow loomed over her blotting the sun.
A sea serpent rose up in front of her.
And it was huge, probably the size of a ten storey building, it's scales made of pure turquoise.
Aubrey jerked backwards in the water panic building up in her throat. But the tide was too strong for her to swim away.
She had to get away.
She had to find Decl-
Another strong current dragged her downwards dunking her into the water making her inhale a lungful of water.
She was drowning. She was drowning and then suddenly she was rising.
She rose up to the surface and then...And then continued rising.
The water had formed somewhat of a solid column beneath her quickly rising up into the air.
The sea serpent stood perfectly still, as she rose up to half its height and then continued upwards.
She could see the top now and there were two-
Declan.
One of them was Declan.
Declan was casually standing on top of the sea serpent as if it was an observation deck meant for sightseeing.
What the hell?
Next to him there was another boy. He also had dark hair but he was slightly shorter and far tanner than Declan was.
And he looked vaguely familiar.
Where had Aubrey seen him before?
It struck her the second she reached on top.
Faced with his turquoise eyes and soft features Aubrey recalled one of the tapestries of the Angels that stood in the Fae throne room.
Water.
He was the Demi-Fae of the water Angel.
The boy looked at her confused,"Why did you fight the water pillar? Hadn't we discussed this escape plan before?"
Aubrey would have probably given him her best what the hell is going on here look had she not started coughing out sea water.
Instantly the boy pulled her into his arms and started patting her back.
Declan's sword was already out and placed right under his chin before the second pat.
"Leave her. Now." He threatened the boy.
Again the boy looked confused,"What's wrong with you I'm just- wait.You don't recognise me?"
"No." Aubrey said as she coughed up more water,"I don't. So get your hands off me and get me off this-this thing now!"
The boy immediately let go and Declan withdrew his sword. He offered a hand to Aubrey but after a moment of consideration he clenched it and put it by his side.
Best not to hold hands for now.
"You're a Demi Fae." Declan stated,"Powerful one at that. We are standing on a creature that you've created purely with your power."
Another confused look.
"My power- No this my anim- Wait you both really don't know?"
Aubrey shook her head,"No we don't. So how about you explain it to us?"
The boy blinked,"This is your first time here?"
"No."
"Yes."
Aubrey turned to look at Declan,"You've been here before?"
"Yes." He said curtly with a distant look in his eyes,"Once."
Aubrey looked at him for more of an explanation but that's all she got.
"But we've never met you before." Declan said,"you should have believed me when I first told you."
The boy rolled his eyes,But you're always like that. Grumpy, anti social."
True that, Aubrey mused in her head.
"Besides Aubrielle is the one-" He stopped midway through,"If this is your first visit threat means none of that has happened."
"You know my name?" Aubrey asked.
"Of course I do." The boy spoke up,"How could I not? After we-"
Another pause.
"Never mind that." He says,"I'm Rafe the original of the angel Raphael. We become very good friends in the futur- well your future my past."
Aubrey's intelligent response was,"Huh?"
Raphaelle laughed,"It's weird seeing you so confused. Usually you both have all the answers. Well then I suppose I should officially welcome you on your first visit."
Aubrey held up her hand. This was getting way too much for her. She had a billion questions.
She decided to start with the most basic one.
"First visit to where exactly?"
He grins,"To Atlantis, of course."