After a joyful reunion with the waking children and a hasty breakfast, the MacRaes stepped into the hall of the Aurora Borealis with their supplies and weapons, and with Joe and Chris wearing their robes with fake wings attached. The children, of course, had wings—real wings!—of their own.
Despite the expected perilousness of the day ahead, Chris did not restrain his children's excitement and noisy chatter, because otherwise, even Joe seemed stressed to silence. Perhaps along the cobbled streets of Pyxis, the children added the element of conventionality required to travel unnoticed. It took the pressure off Chris to act natural.
The "safe" segment of their journey ended when they turned their approach toward The Mainway in the North End.
While they waited for Cassie's signal, Chris watched fairies pass by the mouth of their alley. Some had pushcarts. Others had baskets of goods. A few more had clothing or jewelry draped over their arms, signs or information to hand out, and some merely existed, perhaps too hungry, sick, or weak to do more than slink by.
The alley brightened when a fairy on stilts paused at the opening. The torch he juggled set off a wave of dancing shadows.
While the performer provided the area with a distraction, Cassie huddled everyone together for the last of their instructions. "We should travel down The Mainway, alone or in small groups. The street ends in front of the palace. Bear left on Royal Way and keep walking until you get to the bridge. There is a steep slope to its right, but it is possible to climb down. We will meet again underneath the bridge. There is a narrow bank where we can hide and wait. Shall I go first and continue on with Morgan?"
Chris considered the question for a moment. Since twins had a way of attracting attention, it was a good idea to keep them apart. And Morgan seemed to like Cassie. They were acting like long-lost sisters. His only misgiving was in terms of safety. What would happen to Morgan if a problem did arise?
Chris nodded once he mustered up some optimism.
And with that, Cassie gave them each a comforting touch on the arm. "See you at the bridge. Good luck." She offered her hand to Morgan, and they stepped into the busy street.
"Here's to crazy," Joe said with a hesitant smile and his fist in the air.
"More like suicidal," Chris replied.
"Thanks for darkening the moment."
"I'm here for ya. Be careful out there, Joe."
"You too."
Joe slapped and squeezed Chris's shoulder and then he left as well.
"Ready, kiddo?" Chris squeezed Ryan's hand and Ryan looked up with the dark, almond-shaped eyes he'd inherited from his mother. The look might have been debilitating for someone else. For Chris it was motivating. What Alana would want most was the survival of their children.
When Ryan squeezed his hand back, Chris decided they were ready.
They eased themselves onto The Mainway, a more chaotic thoroughfare than what Chris had seen from the alley. He would never purposely subject himself or his children to a place like this. The street reminded him of his recurring nightmares, but Pyxis was more bizarre and fantastical than even his warped dreams.
There were fairies walking or hovering around, and vendors soliciting customers in multiple dimensions. The fire was the most eye-catching. Street performers juggled torches, streetlamps flickered, dancers twirled and leaped around bonfires, and braziers wafted scents of roasted nuts and crispy meat.
Chris squeezed his son's hand tighter due to his own uneasiness. He guided him to the center of the action even though his parental instincts told him to stay to the side.
"Would you like to buy a flower, sir?"
The wilting bud was freakishly large in the fairy's hands. It put his new size back into perspective, something easy to dismiss in a world that was otherwise scaled to suit their fairy proportions.
"No. No thanks," he answered with a polite wave.
"Save your applause until the end of the next death-defying stunt. . . ."
"Looking for a good time, handsome?"
A copper-haired fairy stepped in his way. Her aged face was clownish with lipstick and rouge. She looked ravenous, too, not for lack of food, obviously, but in a way that suggested she took pleasure in her work and liked to cause trouble.
"No. Can't you see I'm busy?" Chris said, eyes shooting to Ryan. He hoped that would be enough.
Chris moved around her, Ryan still in his grip and bouncing along at his heel when they couldn't quite stand side by side. A space opened up and to his surprise, the copper-haired fairy was in front of him again. Her wings had a chewed-up-and-spit-out appearance, so he was surprised she could fly that fast. Or at all.
"My, my. . ." Her hand clasped the bandage around his wrist.
As Chris pulled his hand free, he felt naked before her wandering eyes.
"Looks like you had a rough night, soldier. I could always take your mind off it."
"I said no," he hissed to avoid drawing attention to himself, but with his tone and hard expression, he made sure she knew he meant it.
The whore smirked and then stepped aside. "Suit yourself."
Chris hurried along, and just when he thought the situation was under control, she shouted, "Nice wings!"
He scooped Ryan into his arms and pushed forward at an uncomfortable pace. If others were watching, he didn't want to know; the best solution was distance. And in his haste, his shoulder knocked into a fairy buzzing in the opposite direction. The bump wasn't hard enough to be painful or offensive, yet for some reason a fist grabbed the neck of his robe.
"Watch where you're going, fool!"
Chris's eyes scanned past the fairy's massive black wings and latched on to the crooked star on his breastplate. Not a Gray Coat. Worse. A Crown Champion. With Ryan in his arms, he couldn't even attempt to reach for the sword at his belt.
The elite soldier's mean black eyes flicked over Chris—a child in his arms, fake wings, dark blond hair, his father's eyes, nose, chin—but he carried himself as if he were too superior to waste his time focusing.
Chris was released just as quickly and unexpectedly as he'd been grabbed. Astounded by his luck, he moved on but felt the dread of next time. He'd already had two narrow escapes and he wasn't even halfway to his destination yet.
He veered left, to where the buildings were and where a sidewalk should have been, if Pyxis had such things. Not long after, he came across a fairy on the ground, sprawled beneath a blanket. While he was side-stepping over her and urging Ryan to do the same, she shifted and muttered, "Rigel the Magnificent will come again."
"Magnificent indeed," Chris mumbled under his breath once they were a few more steps along.
His father was a legend to someone, perhaps, but Chris had another word come to mind. Coward.
"Whaja say, Dad?" Ryan asked.
"Nothing important."
A young male fairy with soot on his face then stepped in front of Chris. He looked around warily and then flipped open one side of his cloak. "Get your Pyxis Discourse. Christopher the Valiant seeks revenge. Only five greens!"
Chris declined again, but if he'd had five greens, he would have considered buying one to see what had been printed about his family.
He had been suspicious of Pierre's motives and ethics as soon as he'd slithered onto the scene. Still, he couldn't believe Pierre had had the nerve to promise secrecy but then, within hours, publish news of what had taken place.
Chris was thinking of all the "valiant" things he would like to do to Pierre's already crooked nose when he heard, "Royalist Review. Get your Royalist Review! Murderous Bottom-Dwellers on the loose!"
After a few screams, a scuffle broke out. Three fairies threw torches at a building marked by a Royalist Review sign. A few others tossed in glass bottles, and the building exploded with flames.
Chris forced Ryan's head into his shoulder and jogged to the other side of the street. He had to lower his own head when a swarm of uniforms flew past with weapons in hand. He didn't need his eyes to know what happened next. The sound of open slaughter told a gruesome story.
He walked as fast as he could without actually running. By the time he arrived at the intersection of The Mainway and Royal Way, his calves were burning as if they too were on fire.
Before he turned the corner, Chris looked up at the monstrous Aerial Palace. It was eerie, perhaps all the more because in Pyxis there was no sky, no natural light, no weather. He imagined lightning, thunder, sheets of rain, and wind strong enough to slice roof tiles off the palace towers—but within the cave there was not even breeze enough to make a flag flutter, and the towers stood in a profound stillness.
He could not believe they would be inside the palace later in the day. Running away from it seemed to make more sense.
Out of the corner of his eye, Chris saw the castle's main gate open. More Crown Champions zipped onto The Mainway. Although it was becoming more distant, the screaming continued and seemed to escalate. For the sake of their escape plan, he hoped the disturbance at the newspaper office would become a full-blown riot, the bigger the better. A busy army was a distracted army.
He turned onto Royal Way and encountered a new kind of danger—privilege and power, and long expanses of quiet, free space. The residences were multistoried, well-lit inside and out, and built out of shiny, opalescent stone. They included glasswork that gave off an icicle appearance. Some of the fanciest and most expansive mansions had gems of every color and blocks of silver or gold sparkling among the elaborate stonework.
Judging by their wealth and proximity to the palace, these Royal fairies were likely devoted to their queen and wary of those who were not. They would know their neighbors—their styles, schedules, and habits. To protect themselves and their prominent positions in society, they would no doubt alarm the authorities if "Bottom-Dwellers" were spotted out of place. And Chris was the third one with fake wings to pass by. Wings that couldn't even fool a common whore.
"Daddy, I wanna go home!" Ryan suddenly wailed.
Chris buried his son's sobs in his shoulder and picked up the pace. "Me too, kiddo. Me too."
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