Between (16 page)

“Circles of flowers or mushrooms in the mortal realm. Fairies use them instead of gates to travel from the mortal realm to the Between. If they leave them open, it causes big problems.”

He leads me to a wall covered in mirrors in various shapes and sizes—ovals, rectangles, hand mirrors—all outlined in metallic frames. A couple Apprentices are standing with their Aegises there, too. One Aegis is standing with her nose so close to the mirror it almost touches, and her Apprentice watches over her shoulder. He nods at me, and I smile.

Seth points to the wall. “These mirrors serve as windows throughout the realms. When there is a problem to be addressed, it’s revealed in the reflection. So,” he says, stepping up to a long, skinny mirror trimmed in bronze, “I pick any mirror I want and wait.”

“It doesn’t matter which mirror?” I ask.

“No. The mission is specific to the viewer. The mirror makes no difference. You get the mission you’re supposed to get.”

I stand to the side, watching.

Seth’s rugged features appear in the glass, his mouth closed, his eyes alert. For a few seconds, nothing happens. Then the edges of the mirror begin to quiver, and ripples dance across his reflection. The collar of his black shirt swells upward. His brown hair melts into his skin; dark eyes morph and blend together. The entire image swirls until a new one appears—the enormous head of a black-haired beast crowned with horns. Black curls of smoke drift from its nose, and I barely make out the tips of fangs slipping over its bottom lip.

I shudder. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I look from Seth to the reflection and back. “Is that you?”

Seth snorts. “Of course. Doesn’t it look like me?”

I have no idea if he’s joking. At this point, if he told me he was the Tooth Fairy, I’d believe it.

“No, Charlie,” he keeps his eyes on the mirror, “it’s not me. That’s a hodag, one of our more problematic creatures. They’re pretty large and not all that intelligent, so it’s hard to get them to stay on the down-low.”

I gaze at the hodag’s hideous face. “I’ve never heard of them.”

“They live in the mortal realm, but there are so few of them they’re not spotted very often,” he says. “We did a pretty good job of discrediting the only photograph that’s ever been taken of one. Made it look like the guy had constructed the thing himself out of cow and ox parts and some wire. No one believed it after that.”

I hold up my hand, palm facing him. “High five! Way to go, Fellowship!”

He chuckles and half-heartedly slaps my hand. “Anyway, looks like somebody spotted a hodag last night.”

Seth runs his forefinger across the surface of the glass and the image distorts, pulling toward the edges of the mirror and splashing back again. A young girl, six or seven years old, tiptoes across the top of a log, her arms straight out from her sides for balance. The hodag appears at the edge of the frame, moving slowly across the grass. As soon as it appears, I press my hand to the base of my neck. My eyes dart from the hodag to the girl and I hold my breath, waiting for her to see it.

Seth groans and mutters, “Right in front of her.”

She freezes and draws her arms inward, keeping her wide eyes on the monstrous creature. The hodag seems completely oblivious and lumbers on, disappearing beneath a growth of bushes on the other side. The girl quietly slides to the ground, putting the log between herself and the hodag. Even though I know it’s coming, I still jump when she screams. The glass heaves, and Seth’s chocolate eyes peer out from the mirror once more.

It’s only then that I realize how close I am to the mirror now. I bob backward and blink. “That’s it?” I ask. “But what happened? Is she okay?”

He steps away from the mirror. “If there were any more to it, we’d see it. So no one else saw the hodag, and the girl must be fine.”

A couple Aegises pass behind us toward another mirror, and I move out of their way. “As long as by ‘fine,’ you mean ‘terrified and scarred for life,’” I say, and Seth smirks. “We’re not going to go talk to her?”

“No. We stay out of it as much as possible. Sightings by children are the easiest to deal with. Her story will be dismissed as just that—a story made up by a scared kid. But we’ll keep an eye on it.” Seth walks to a small table in the corner scattered with cloth-covered books, spiral-bound notebooks, and an assortment of pencils. He pulls his leafkey from his pocket and taps it with his forefinger, logging the info into PRU. I imagine the tree lighting up with each keystroke, twinkling with information. He slips it back into his pocket and looks at me.

I lean against the table’s edge. “Shouldn’t we make sure she’s okay? Let her know there’s nothing to be afraid of?”

Even as I say them, I question the words. There’s plenty to be afraid of. I’m learning that more and more by the minute. Chances are, this girl isn’t the target of a homicidal shapeshifter with an inferiority complex, though, so she might actually have a better shot at the whole “Happily Ever After” thing.

He turns and leans against the table, too, his shoulder touching mine. He crosses his arms and addresses the wooden floor when he speaks. “I know it’s hard for you to see it this way, but what happens to her only concerns us in regard to how it affects the safety of the mystical realm.”

I let that simmer for a moment. It’s probably the coldest sentence I’ve ever heard him say. She’s not mystical, so she’s not worth the Fellowship’s time? “So humans don’t matter at all?”

“Our job is to protect the mystical realm. The more involvement we have with humans, the riskier it is for us. Validating what she saw might make her feel better, but it would also put our world in danger.” He pulls a worn pencil from beneath a stack of papers and writes something in one of his notebooks.

I think of all the stories I used to trade on the playground about monsters under beds and boogeymen in closets.

I wonder how many were real.

When we were little, Sam and I caught the very end of a werewolf movie on TV. For weeks afterward, Mom had to perform monster hunts in our rooms every night—inspecting our closets, peering under our beds, whatever it took to get us to go to sleep.

Looking back, Sam and I would’ve felt a lot better if we’d known Mom was basically the monster hunter to rule all monster hunters. I see her facing down the Mothman and my chest swells with pride before longing deflates it. She’s a great mom, whether she’s really mine or not.

I hope that little girl’s parents humor her, and then I hope she forgets. I hope she lets it go. I hate to think of the hodag’s face finding a permanent spot in her consciousness. There’s a certain kind of peace in ignorance—I miss it more and more.

Maybe it’s easier for Seth since this is what he’s always been. Everything the Fellowship does is as natural to him as it is unnatural to me. I don’t know why one realm has to be more important than another. The mortal realm is still home to me. So far, the mystical realm hasn’t provided the kind of comfort I used to feel there. Without Mom and Sam, I’m not sure it ever will.

I gaze at the blank reflections covering the wall. “What about Mom and Sam? Wouldn’t they show up in the mirrors?”

Seth nods. “I hope so. There’s no way to know. The mirror shows you whatever mission you’re supposed to get—we can’t ask for certain ones, and we can’t turn away from anything that’s shown to us.”

A few Apprentices wander in, and Seth stuffs a couple notebooks into the drawer of the table before pressing me toward the door.

“PRU can put pieces of several missions together and a bigger picture emerges. So whether they show up in a mirror or not, any little clue we find here will be accounted for in our search,” Seth says.

PRU will do its job. I twist my fingers under the hem of my shirt. I have to trust that as much as Seth does.

Central Hall’s frosted door closes behind us with a heavy
click
, and we head down the curved staircase. When we reach the bottom, he turns a corner and we’re surrounded by shelves. I pinch the back of his shirt, its softness sliding between my thumb and forefinger, and tug on it to make him slow down. He reaches back for my hand and pulls me deeper and deeper through the books, turning in one direction, then the other, until we reach the end of the passage.

Seth sinks to the floor, resting his back against the gray wall, and I join him there. Shelves filled with books rise on either side of us, and I can’t see the rest of the library from here. It’s completely private. “This is my favorite place in Ellauria,” he says. “I come here sometimes to sit and be around the books. My mom was a librarian. I feel close to her here.”

I lay my head back. I don’t know why I’m surprised by the realization that Seth’s history was made-up too. His parents didn’t die when he was young. They were mystical creatures. I chuckle and sigh at the same time. I need to forget everything I thought I knew. “Your mom worked here?”

“No.” He pulls his knees to his chest and rests his folded arms on top of them. “My parents never came to Ellauria. They weren’t really into the whole magic thing.”

I bend my knees and rest my arms across them too, pressing my elbow against his. “What do you mean? How could they not be into it? Were they banished?”

“No, they just had no interest in the mystical realm. My parents lived as mortals and did everything they could to shield me from this place. When Alexander approached me about the Fellowship, they didn’t want any part of it. They thought it was too dangerous.” His Adam’s apple bobs up and down, and he studies his fingers. “When I decided to join, my father never got over it. They chose the mortal realm over me, and I turned my back on them.”

I don’t know what to say to that. All I want is my family, and Seth willingly left his. But I get a sense that he feels betrayed by them, too. It must’ve been hard to be forced to choose between his family and his birthright. No one should ever have to pretend to be something they’re not. “How long have you been here?”

Seth takes a deep breath and blows it out, counting. “I’ve been in the Fellowship for about fifty years.”

I remember what he’d said before about how jeravons age. I try to do the math in my head and give up. “So that makes you, like, a hundred?”

He smiles. “I’ve been alive for over two hundred years.”

“Two hundred years?” I push off the wall and shoot forward, staring at him. That means he was alive for a good portion of the things I learned in US History class. My mouth hangs open for a second before I clamp it shut and lean back. “You are the seniorest of citizens.”

Everything on Seth’s face lifts—his eyebrows, his cheeks, the corners of his mouth—and he releases a loud laugh, the wholehearted kind I love. “I guess so.”

I giggle, and then it hits me. “You knew Marian and Max.”

His smile dims. “Yes. They founded the Fellowship about ten years before I came here.”

I sit up straighter. “What were they like?”

He lifts his head and scans the books lining the shelves around us, looking at them without really looking at them. “They were you, split in two. Marian was brave and extremely intelligent, and as stubborn as anyone I’ve known, aside from you.” He closes his eyes for a moment before continuing. “Max was quiet and creative—constantly coming up with ideas for the Fellowship to run more smoothly. His whole life was devoted to your mother and the Fellowship.”

I close my eyes while he talks, caught up in a weird mix of sadness and self-pity. My parents are strangers, but when he describes them, I see myself in his memories. The creativity, the strong will—Max and Marian are a part of me.

“They were good,” he says. “They were the best kind of creatures.”

“I wish I could’ve known them,” I reply.

“I wish you could have, too.”

I study his face, mentally tracing the lines of his nose, his lips, his chin.

Seth doesn’t look the way I’d expect a two-hundred-year-old to look. I would’ve thought he’d be more skeletal, with stringy hair, drooping eyes, and a creaking, withered voice.

He’s just Seth. The guy I’ve known for years. The pseudo-member of my family. My shield.

He lifts a finger on the hand closest to me and rests it on my elbow. It sits there, like he simply needed to touch me. A chill travels all the way up my arm to the back of my neck.

I freeze, hoping he won’t move away. What does he feel from me right now?

Don’t shiver. Do not shiver
.

Seth sighs heavily. “I just want you to know I have some idea of what it’s like to move forward without a family.”

I breathe again, letting my shoulders fall. I can’t imagine willingly walking away from my family. Not for anything. “You must really believe in what you’re doing, to choose the Fellowship over them.”

I’m rewarded with his half-smile as he turns to look at me. “I questioned my decision for years until the day Alexander entrusted me with your secret and made me your Aegis. When I first laid eyes on you five years ago, I knew I was in the right place.”

And there’s the shiver. He looks at my arm and rubs his hand across the goosebumps covering it.

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you. It’s just—” His hand stops moving and his gaze lands on the floor again, like he can’t decide what to say. Finally, he squeezes me and says, “I hope someday I make you feel like you’re in the right place, too.”

I stretch out my fingers until they brush against the thin material of the sleeve around his arm, trailing down until they overlap Seth’s hand. He lifts his hand and our fingers tangle together for the slightest moment before he shifts away from me. He scoots away until no part of his body touches mine. “We should probably grab some lunch.”

I nod. What just happened? We were talking, and all of a sudden he’s touching me and I’m touching him, and now I don’t know what to say.

I want him to touch me again. Did I do something wrong?

He grabs a shelf and pulls himself up, then offers his hand to help me. I consider taking it for a moment, but decide to stand on my own. I get to my feet and brush off the backs of my legs. Whatever moment we had is definitely over.

N
INE

S
eth leads me up a narrow set of wooden stairs to a covered deck balanced in the branches of the upmost level of Artedion. The entire area glitters with bright shoots of sunlight that bounce and sway as the wind nudges the leaves over our heads. Picnic tables filled with creatures are scattered across the patio. Gorgons dressed in golden dresses sit alongside green-clad leprechauns, winged men and women line a table at the very back, and black-and-green ogres sit to my left drinking from dainty porcelain mugs, pinkies raised. I hear Lulu’s delighted giggle before I spot her purple hair. “There.” I point, and we push through a line of satyrs carrying frosted mugs.