The Glass Wall (Return of the Ancients Book 1) (36 page)

Finally, when I believed with my entire soul that there was no way out for us, it all ended abruptly.

The silence was so deafening that I almost passed out.

I don’t know how long we stood there before I became aware of a familiar squeak.

I found that I could open my eyes and slowly lifted my lashes to see Jerry in his cage, sitting on his haunches, swaying with his wheel as it came to a stop. His little nose was twitching in my direction. Our sudden arrival had apparently interrupted his wheel-running marathon.

At first, I was too numb to react. I just stared at the mouse, but then I heard Rafael’s ragged breath and felt his chest heave against mine as he leaned heavily against me with his eyes closed.

He seemed injured. He must have sensed my concern, because he whispered, “I’ll be fine, Sydney. I’ve lived through much worse. Just give me a minute to catch my breath.”

Suddenly, the door to my room flew open and Al and Grace stood framed in the opening, staring at us with wide eyes and open mouths.

With a rush, I realized that I truly was home, but it was so shocking that I didn’t know whether to scream or cry. Instead, I found myself shaking, unable to speak even a single word.

“What the heck …” Grace trailed off as Al barked, “What happened here, kiddo?”

Broken glass covered my entire bedroom, littering the bed, the dresser, and the floor, where it pooled around our ankles like mounds of sand.

Rafael remained as he was, with his eyes closed.

“Young man?” Al addressed him in a commanding tone. “Might I ask what you think you’re doing with my Sydney?”

That was enough to jolt Rafael into action. His eyes flew open, and he released me at once, but not before I remembered to press Harmony’s protection rune in his hand.

He glanced down at the white stone in surprise, but closed his long fingers over it tightly as he managed a stiff bow in Al’s direction. “I was trying to protect her from the glass, sir,” he explained, wincing a little.

“You look terrible!” Grace eyed him in surprise. “What happened?”

Clear blood dotted his forehead and several cuts on his lip, but it looked more like sweat to the untrained eye. Hunched to one side, he pressed his arm tightly against his ribs. He seemed more uncomfortable than seriously hurt, so I covered for him by saying, “He got food poisoning. He’ll be better soon.”

Grace and Al nodded slowly. I wasn’t sure if they believed me.

“I’ll be fine,” Rafael said, sending us all a reassuring smile.

I bit my lip. I didn’t know anything about fairy first aid, but I didn’t think he needed a hospital. I hoped I was right.

“What exploded?” Al asked, eying my room suspiciously.

Opening my mouth, I searched for an explanation when I heard Rafael answer a bit sarcastically, “It was something Sydney got off the internet, sir, some kind of alien detection kit.” He fixed Al with a penetrating gaze.

Al blinked, taken aback, and I couldn’t help but grin a little as I said, “Well, Rafael really has to go home now. Zelphie is expecting him.” I figured she could help him, and Harmony had told me that I could trust her.

“I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow.” Grace frowned a little, craning her head to peer about my room. “I never saw you guys come home … how did you get in?”

“We climbed through the window.” I lied with an awkward flap of my hands. “You know, trying to set up this kit … it was a surprise.”

I never was very good at making things up on the spot. I obviously hadn’t improved. Grace just looked at me, clearly confused. I couldn’t really blame her. After all, she knew that Rafael was the one we had been spying on. It made no sense that I’d ask him to help me.

Al prodded some of the broken glass with the toe of his boot and grunted. “You shouldn’t really experiment with things bought from just any random website, kiddo. Ask my opinion next time.” He looked around my room, shaking my head. “If you had used my contacts, this never would have happened!”

I listened to him, just thrilled to hear the sound of his voice, and it suddenly struck me harder this time that I was really home.

“I’m a bit late for work,” Al was saying, pushing the door back so that it stayed open. “Grace can help you kids clean up. Betty will be back in a few hours, so that should give you plenty of time to clear this mess!”

I just stared at him fondly as he stood there, dressed in his fatigues with his suspicious bright eyes. Overwhelmed with sudden emotion, I ran and hugged him as hard as I could. Screwing my eyes shut to keep the tears from flowing, I whispered, “I really missed you. I’m glad to be home!”

Al hugged me back and patted me on the head, chuckling, “What is it, kiddo? You weren’t gone for a year!”

I just hugged him harder.

“We’ll need to see what is wrong with your cell phone before you head out next time.” Al kept patting my shoulder. “I had a hard time reaching you.”

Stepping back, I looked up at him, wondering how much he knew or suspected, but I knew that he couldn’t dream up anything more bizarre than what I’d just been through. “Right!” I nodded in agreement.

Suddenly, the doorbell rang.

“I’ll get that on my way out,” Al offered and with a crisp nod disappeared down the hall.

“So, did you let Rafael do your makeup, Sydney?” Grace asked, eyeing me with a peculiar stare as she leaned against the door. “And what was up with all those weird phone calls?”

I laughed, but my incredibly good mood was a little dampened by the fact that Rafael obviously didn’t feel good. Wanting to get rid of Grace—so that I could contact Zelphie—I borrowed his technique of switching subjects. “This glass is everywhere, Grace. I think we should use a shovel first. Do we have one?”

It worked. As Grace trudged to the hen house to find a shovel, Zelphie suddenly appeared in the doorway, dressed in a silver evening gown with a gold sequined handbag tucked under her arm. “Al told me that I could pop in,” she explained. Her brows furrowed as she spied Rafael. Rushing to his side, she murmured, “Harmony sent the strangest message telling me that I should rush over here.”

I didn’t ask what the strange message was. She was talking to Rafael, anyway, but I was sure it had to do with the Glass Wall. I watched in silence as she dumped the contents of her purse on my bed and selected what looked like several glow bracelets. Quickly, she clasped them around his wrists.

The effect was amazing. Within seconds, the blood stopped flowing and his color returned. By the time Grace slammed the back door, his cuts had closed, and he looked almost normal.

“Come back with me.” Zelphie held out her hands. “There is much about Harmony’s missive that I don’t understand.”

“I’ll be there shortly, mother.” Rafael rose easily to his feet. “There are a few things I must do first.”

As Grace tromped back into the room, lugging a shovel and several black plastic garbage bags, Zelphie bowed politely to the three of us. “I must return home,” she announced. Turning to her son, she added, “Please hurry.”

I watched her leave and then grabbed the shovel and trash bags from Grace. “It’s my mess,” I said. “You don’t have to clean it up.”

She was more than happy to hear that, but she didn’t seem prepared to go. Pointing at the side of my head, she asked, “What happened to your hair?”

Glancing in the mirror, I was surprise to find that Jareth’s trion had burned a huge chunk of it.

“It must have been this explosion,” Rafael replied in my stead.

Grace gave a long, low whistle. “Man, you guys are lucky that you didn’t get seriously hurt!”

“Yeah!” I agreed, shivering a little. I couldn’t allow myself to think about what had really happened, not just yet. “I’ll get a haircut later.”

“So what were you doing?” Grace folded her arms, propping a foot on the back of the door. “Why are you dressed so …”

“I went to Harmony’s masquerade party,” I replied, knowing that would be the only explanation she’d believe. Handing her the shovel, I asked, “Do you want to help me clean this up before Betty gets here?”

“Yeah, I’ll just leave you guys with that. Have fun!” She shrugged and ducked away, obviously not wanting to be roped into helping.

Looking back into the mirror, I eyed my burnt hair. “It’s a good thing that Jareth missed,” I muttered.

When Rafael didn’t reply, I glanced over to find him sifting handfuls of the glass sand gently through his fingers. Finally, he murmured, “Sydney, Jareth never misses.”

“Well, he did this time!” I snorted, pointing to my hair.

He just sat there, staring at the glass.

“What is it?” I asked after a few minutes.

Dusting his hands, his gray eyes lifted to lock on mine. “I can’t even begin to think about what I’ve just done,” he whispered.

I didn’t want to think about it, either. “It’s too late now,” I said.

My words hung in the air between us.

The Glass Wall was gone. Now we would really find out if it had been working or not. I just couldn’t think about the consequences if it
had
. Not today. Too much had happened, and we were both obviously still in shock.

After a few moments, Rafael murmured, “The mystery has only deepened. Jareth
let
us break the Glass Wall, or more accurately … he pushed us into doing it. I’d stake my life upon it.”

I couldn’t react to his words at first. They were too astounding. Finally, I managed a dubious snort. “He tried to kill us …
several
times!”

Walking to Jerry’s cage, Rafael opened the door and reached down, gently scratching the little mouse behind the ears. With his back still turned to me, he answered, “Jareth had at least seven opportunities to kill me. He took none of them. I only took out three of the assassins. He must have neutralized the last one. There was no one else there who could have done so.”

I held my breath in astonishment.

“And in the end, when it mattered most, he never rooted us,” Rafael continued with his voice barely above a whisper.

I had actually noticed that myself, but I’d thought there was some other kind of explanation for it—like maybe trions had to recharge between uses or something.

Rafael propped his elbow on the books scattered on the top of my dresser and buried his face in his hands. “No matter how I think of it, there is only one answer. He
let
us reach the Glass Wall, Sydney!”

“
But … he just tried to kill us!” I repeated, though this time there was the tiniest bit of doubt growing in my mind. He
had
pointed the trion at my head several times and had wasted a lot of time just babbling like they do in the movies.

Rafael was apparently already convinced. “If he wanted you dead, you wouldn’t be standing here now. And he could have easily killed you with that last shot, yet he aimed to the side.”

I wasn’t entirely prepared to believe that one, recalling the heat of the energy beam on my cheek during that last moment. Yeah, Jareth had missed, but it hadn’t been by much. “He lied to the Queens,” I said darkly.

“True.” Rafael acknowledged with a graceful nod. “But by not mentioning the Tulpas, he placed me on the path where I had no other choice but to break the Glass Wall.”

Scowling, I muttered cynically, “If he wasn’t trying to stand in our way … why did he imprison us in the tower in the first place? We almost got stuck there.”

At that, Rafael’s lips twisted into a grim line. “There is much about our relationship that you’ll never understand. I would have done the same, or worse, to him.”

I snorted. Grabbing the shovel, I scooped up some of the shattered glass and shoved it into the trash bag.

“We can’t clean up the Glass Wall that way.” Rafael held up a hand, but as he did so, he accidentally knocked one of my school notebooks from the top of the dresser onto the floor.

I moved to pick it up, but he beat me to it. It had flopped open, and as he lifted it up, he paused.

I watched, puzzled at first, until I noticed that his gaze was riveted on the open page. Stepping forward, I recognized my science notebook. Embarrassed, I watched him read my investigative notes. I squirmed uncomfortably.

Slowly, he placed the notebook back on top of the dresser and asked quietly, “Are you certain that iron does not affect Jareth?”

Recalling the incident of when I had stuck Jareth with a fork, I nodded and quickly recounted the details.

He listened, with his brows knitted into a frown. He picked up the small hand mirror he’d given me, and flipped it over in his fingers, apparently lost in thought.

There was a stilted silence, and then I asked, “What is the significance?”

Without answering me, he took a deep breath, passed the mirror over my notebook, and handed it back to me. “Those words were better left unwritten, Sydney.”

Glancing down, I saw that the little random pictures I had scribbled on the margins were still there, but all of my notes had disappeared. I’d written them in ink. My lips parted in surprise. “Uh … how did you do that with just a mirror?”

“Just a mirror?” His mouth quirked a little at the corners as he lifted his hands and guided the mirror over my room in an arc.