The Severance Game, page 22
“Hey, you okay?” Jason asked as I sat down.
I thought about the question and realized I wasn’t sure. I had a bad vibe about those guys on the platform and felt it was worth mentioning. But did I really want to mention it? That was another issue entirely.
I still felt weird about opening up to them. But lately I’d been keeping a lot of things from my friends and that was making me feel lousy. So I decided to test the waters and give trusting them with this particular insecurity a shot.
Awkwardly, I told the others about the guy I’d rammed into, the weird way he’d stared at me, and how he’d pointed me out to his friends.
I didn’t know how I thought they would react to this information. I hoped they would reassure me that I was being paranoid, conclude that it was probably nothing, then drop the matter without further issue. Much to my despair, I got none of the above.
“I saw those guys,” Daniel said pensively. “I’m pretty sure they were magic hunters.”
“Oh, come on.” I grimaced. “Just because they were creepy, dressed in earth tones, and looked like they’d been out in the wilderness does not mean they are magic hunters.”
“Knight, unlike you, I grew up in the real world, not a palace. I know a magic hunter when I see one, and those guys definitely fit the bill.”
“So, what?” Blue butted in, concern in her voice. “You think maybe the reason they gave Crisa those iffy looks was because they sensed her magic?”
“It’s possible,” Daniel shrugged. “Emma said they can sense it pretty well when they’re within close range. It would explain why the one Knight rammed into was staring at her so intently. For all we know she’s giving off a pretty powerful smell.”
“Hey!” I interjected.
“Calm down, not an insult,” Daniel said as he cut me off. “The point is, these guys are really good at picking up magical scents. So you’ll want to keep a low profile until we’re sure none of them got on the train. Just coming within fifty feet of them might be enough for you to catch their attention.”
I wanted to disagree and assure the others that Daniel was wrong and I was in absolutely no danger. But then I remembered something.
On our school field trip to Adelaide earlier in the semester, our carriage had stopped in the middle of the road and a prison transport had passed in front of us. The magic hunter inside had stared at me in the same ominous way that the one on the train platform just had.
The secret spark of Fairy Godmother magic that Emma had given me did not pose much of a threat to me now because I didn’t know what specific ability the magic had manifested in. Emma said that as long as I was unaware of this power and how to use it, I was safe from sending off a figurative flare of alert to magic hunters on a grand scale. But she also warned (as Daniel had just reminded us) that in close proximity a magic hunter might still be able to detect the slight magical scent I was giving off.
“Crisa,” Jason said, recapturing my focus. “Did you notice if those guys got on the train with us?”
“No. I didn’t see.”
“Then I think it would best if you did not leave this compartment,” SJ said. “It is too risky for you to go wandering about the train if those magic hunters are on board.”
“Are you serious?” I exclaimed, now regretting that I’d said anything to them. “I’m not going to sit in here for the next ten hours hiding like a coward.”
“SJ’s right, Crisa,” Blue seconded. “Those guys are dangerous.”
“Thanks for the concern, but I can take care of myself.”
Insulted and infuriated by their attempts to protect me, I made to get up and leave, but Jason grabbed me by the arm before I could go.
“Crisa, we are just trying to do what’s in your best interest. Unless you can think of a way to turn off your magic scent or whatever, for your own good you’ve gotta stay here until we’re sure the magic hunters aren’t on the train.”
I whirled back around to face Jason and the rest of them. When I did, however, my lanyard necklace swung a little too hard and hit the wall of the compartment. As it clanked against the wooden frame surrounding the door, a thought occurred to me.
“All right, fine then,” I huffed. “I do have a way to ‘turn off my magic scent or whatever’.”
I shook Jason’s hand from my arm and removed the lanyard hanging around my neck. Then I reached into my satchel and took out my wand, which I proceeded to morph into a knife.
Carefully I poked a hole in the snow globe at the end of the necklace. I made my way to the window at the back of the compartment, slid the glass aside, and emptied out all the magic dust that had been inside the orb.
“There,” I said as I closed the window again. “Everyone on this train is carrying a bit of magic with them because of these necklaces. But I’ve already got a little magic in me. So without the extra that was in this orb, mine should be able to blend into the general magical scent of the other passengers. I won’t send up any red flags even if the magic hunters are on board.”
My friends looked at one another for a second.
“That’s actually a pretty smart idea, Knight,” Daniel said.
“Thank you, Daniel,” I answered, in disbelief that he’d actually said something non-insulting to me.
“I can’t believe it came out of you.”
Aw, there it is.
Public Transportation & Personal Reflection
fter the train left the station we spent some time discussing the crazy that had occurred earlier in the day when we were exiting the Forbidden Forest.
I still felt weird talking about Arian. Despite the fact that I now accepted I could see the future, I think there was a part of me that had trouble accepting him. I was used to people rooting for my destruction—what with Mauvrey and Lady Agnue and all—but having an actual nemesis felt kind of unreal. With so many elements of my story still engulfed in mystery, it was like I didn’t feel fully connected to the idea yet.
Regardless, the fact remained that Arian was becoming a far too consistent player in our present situation for me to ignore his existence. We needed to talk about him. So while I didn’t want my friends to flip out with overprotectiveness again like they had with the magic hunters, as the train charged down the track I told SJ, Blue, Jason, and Daniel most of what I knew about him. Mainly Arian’s name, that he and his team had been ordered by someone called Nadia to hunt down protagonists the antagonists deemed as threats, and that the reason they wanted me dead was because of what my book’s prologue prophecy said.
The others had the same reaction that I’d initially had to this information—a touch of shock and a lot of confusion. They couldn’t believe that antagonists were roaming the realm preying on protagonists. Could it be that no one of authority, like the Fairy Godmothers, knew about it? Or worse, did they know and just decide not to tell us?
The thought of the latter certainly made my teeth grind with anger. Lena Lenore was our Godmother Supreme. Much as I hated the woman, I thought we could at least count on her to do her job and watch out for us. What, was she so busy forging protagonist books with the ambassadors and the Scribes that she didn’t have time to let us know antagonists were trying to kill us?
At least for the meantime I seemed to be the only person the villains were focused on. Jason, Daniel, Blue, and many other protagonists were marked as “possible threats” in their files. But only my name had been on their priority elimination list. As verified by recent events, the antagonists’ current focus was solely on me.
It may have been strange to admit this, but that made me happy. Not because I had a death wish, but because being hunted was exhausting. I wouldn’t have wished it on my worst enemy, let alone other innocents. If keeping the antagonists focused on me prevented them from being able to move on to anyone else, like my friends, then I would hold their attention for as long as physically possible, no matter the consequences.
Moving on, the whole “why me” aspect of the situation continued to be a hot point of confusion for me, just as it was for the others when I told them what Arian had said about my prologue prophecy.
“Do you think if the ambassadors and the Godmothers can manipulate the Scribes, the antagonists have a way of doing it too?” Blue asked, making a good point.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But of the groups of people who’d know for sure, one shot me with a magic bolt last night and the other shot cannon balls at us this morning. So outright asking them doesn’t seem like a likely option.”
I released an exhale, and with it some of my tension. In spite of my initial reluctance, it felt good to be on the same page with the others about this, and most things. The only information I chose to withhold was the bit about Natalie Poole and Paige Tomkins being Arian’s and Nadia’s next targets.
I couldn’t tell the others about Natalie and Paige without explaining how I knew about them. And I wasn’t ready to reveal the whole future-seeing, other-realm-seeping-into-my-head thing. Maybe that seemed stupid given that sharing the truth about Arian had eased some of my stress. But there was already so much happening that my brain and body felt like they could not take adding another plot point to the mix, especially one that was this ambiguous and personally unsettling.
It wasn’t wrong to want to retain some privacy in regards to my vulnerabilities and maintain a bit of self-preservation. Didn’t everybody deserve that?
Furthermore, although Arian’s identity and his relationship to me were clear (making them easier to talk about), I was still missing some major pieces of the Natalie puzzle.
Until I understood more about her, I felt strongly about keeping the matter a secret. I had a right to try and figure things out for myself first.
As the train chugged along, and we each fell into our own thoughts, I tried to do just that, picking away at what I’d already learned about Natalie from my dreams and the files I’d found in Fairy Godmother Headquarters and Arian’s bunker.
Natalie existed on Earth, another realm. She was supposed to eventually fall for some guy named Ryan Jackson, who was her one true love—her O.T.L., as it were. However, Tara—one of Arian’s lackeys—had been trying to keep them apart and making Natalie’s life miserable because the antagonists (under Nadia’s direction) needed to destroy her spirit. And this was due to the fact that on Natalie’s twenty-first birthday (her Key Destiny Interval) she was going to be able to open something called the Eternity Gate.
Oh, and if that weren’t enough, Tara (who seemed to know me) was responsible for Natalie’s parents’ demise. Natalie had a protagonist book in our realm. And according to Arian, she didn’t even exist yet.
I spent the next hour or so trying to make sense of these different pieces of information, but ultimately exhaustion got the better of me and I drifted into nap mode.
I supposed it was a combination of the anxiety, the jolting train cars, and the smell of polyester seats, but my dreamscape was a turbulent flood of dizzying flashes and disconcerting circumstances.
I saw waves crashing against stone. A white boat with the name “The Seabeagle” written on its bow rose and fell on the light swell of a turquoise ocean. Seagulls flew across the horizon.
Next came a vision of an intense-looking guy in a grossly dirty, sleeveless shirt. His shoulders had traces of blood on them, and he had no shoes. He was rappelling down some sort of metallic shaft with equal parts desperation and tenacity.
When that scene shifted, I saw a sandstorm violently whipping toward Daniel and me. We were in a desert—a greenish river on our left—and we were sliding down dunes as lightning snapped aggressively across the red and onyx sky.
These flashes soon faded to an image of an immense crystal formation, vaguely in the shape of a starfish and surrounded by a weird, aqua-colored glow. It stood on the platform of a grand cavern like a beacon.
The glow of this stone flickered for a beat until it went out like a dead nightlight. Things were dark for an interval. Then I found myself in the ballroom of Lady Agnue’s.
I was dressed in a gorgeous gown. The body was blush-colored lace. Over it were whimsical, flowing pieces of ivory chiffon. The bodice was strapless and had crystals decorating it elegantly in a pattern that accentuated my shape in a surprisingly flattering way.
I glanced up at the familiar scene of a ball—protagonists in shimmering dresses and tailored suits; the sounds of laughter, clinking glasses, and orchestra music; radiant lights burning in the chandeliers overhead. Then I felt something unfamiliar that made me flinch. A warm hand was pressed against mine, causing my vertebrae to tingle. I looked up and saw Chance Darling, looking as handsome as ever in a beautiful suit. He was smiling at me.
I hadn’t seen Chance since I’d gotten the prologue prophecy dictating I was to be his meek wife. And although I was beginning to believe that there was more to my prophecy than I had been told, seeing him still agitated me.
Yet, the dream version of me that my subconscious was currently trapped in did not protest to his touch. He led me out onto the dance floor and the two of us stepped into the flow of music. We danced and moved, but it felt like the world stood still. He raised his arm to turn me. I followed his lead, but when I came out the other side I found that I had twirled back into the void. I was still in my gown, but the ball and the prince I despised were both gone.
More images started to play around me. They came slowly at first. Natalie (a teenager again) was in a large white room. Her hair was in a messy bun. In one hand she held a paintbrush and in the other a palette. I saw her for only a moment before the image changed and I saw Mauvrey.
The seventeen-year-old princess was wearing a purple leather jacket fitted to her body that matched the color of her spiky heeled ankle boots. Her golden-blonde hair bounced around her with each confident step. There was a certainty and strength in her eyes that would’ve made powerful grown men stand down.
Behind Mauvrey was a dark green forest swirled with nighttime. The image was tinged with the gray smoke and orange hues of a nearby fire. The shades of all three blurred together like a pastel rendering that had been smudged over. I heard the sounds of yelling and fighting in the background. But they, too, were distorted and muffled, so they seemed surreal and far off.
When this scene was wiped from view I was back at Lady Agnue’s. There was a brief flash of the waiting area outside of the headmistress’s office and the tidy, currently unattended desk of our headmistress’s assistant, Miss Mammers.
I was sitting on the couch facing the desk, alone in the room. Then I heard a door open. I cringed when I saw our headmistress, Lady Agnue, in the doorway of her den. Standing beside her was Lena Lenore.
The Fairy Godmother Supreme was dressed in a pastel pink pantsuit with light pink pumps that had glittering silver straps. They looked just like the ones I’d seen before blacking out in the Scribes’ library . . .
Lena Lenore smiled in my direction, melding both congeniality and malice together as flawlessly as peanut butter and jelly. Then from her lips she spoke six words coated with an undeniable wickedness.
“Lovely to see you again, Crisanta.”
The pictures in my head began to pick up speed, playing across my dreamscape quick and bright. I recognized the next few images as ones that I’d already seen before. Plastic patio furniture, a gray boat with a scarlet sail, lava everywhere.
The last in this stream was a visual of the heart-shaped locket with lime green crystals that had been around SJ’s neck in my previous nightmare about Adelaide. My vision expanded around it and I saw the necklace bouncing against SJ’s chest as she ran. She was with Blue, Jason, and Daniel. The four of them were bolting through an orchard that looked familiar.
Adelaide Castle, I realized.
“Maybe we should’ve gone back to look for her,” Jason commented as they zigzagged through the trees and foliage.
“We never would’ve found her in that maze,” Daniel replied. “She must’ve known that when she came up with this plan. We just have to hope she meets us at the rendezvous point.”
“And if she doesn’t?” Blue called back.
My dream shifted. More flashes spilled through—a massive log cabin in the snow; a creature that looked like a giant black lobster; then lastly, that powerful purple vortex.
A dream version of me stared into the manifestation of swirling energy. It overtook every angle of our shared view, pulling her and me inwards and closer to its heart. She and I merged together and I felt the force of the vortex tear me off my feet. Energy surged around me—crackling like a funnel made of lightning strikes. Then, just as I was being absorbed into it, I heard a voice.
“Crisa, can you hear me?”
It was the same calm whisper I’d heard in my dreams of that bathroom last night. Even in my unconscious state I could recognize the fragile familiarity. It was haunting, but also strangely gentle, almost caring.
“Crisa, if you can hear me, when the time comes you have to remember . . .”
I focused hard, but couldn’t see where the voice was coming from. Everything was now lost in the purple vortex, the likes of which I was disappearing into with each passing second.
“Remember what?” I shouted into the field of sparkling energy that sucked me deeper inside. “Tell me!”
All I heard was an indiscernible muffle.
I started to shout into the void again, but a second later my attention was captured by the feeling of someone grabbing my arm. Like my previous dream of the vortex, before I could see who it was everything went dark and I was expunged from the scene like an unwanted thought.
Having been jolted awake, I sat up in my seat and rubbed my eyes. The others paid me no mind as I righted myself and squinted at the dimming sunlight streaking across our passenger box. SJ was also napping, and Blue and Jason were attempting to pass the time by reading through the withered pages of some book.
Daniel wasn’t in the room with us. I assumed he’d gone off exploring.
