Goblin Ball (15 page)

“Look, no thanks,” Drang told Lexi. “But you’d be doing a real service to give it to Morander here. He’s in love with a gob who can’t stand herself. They both need a little push far more than this Bella woman or I ever could.”

“All right. I see your logic.” Lexi handed the potion to Morander. “But tell me something. Why did you say he was as stuffed as Max? How is Max stuffed?”

« Chapter 13 »
The Missing

I.
Cissa

The summer’s excitement
had passed, and Cissa was back to her tedious routine. This time the pixies had taken Horace’s hat to play with and lost it. Yes, it was rude. Yes, it all had to be sorted and put in order. But she didn’t care. Just. Didn’t. Care.

She was so… bored…

And deflated. None of her schemes had worked. She’d been sure her prince would show at the gifting. She’d done everything right. The invitations had all been infused with the sparkle of her emerald necklace and imbedded with the compelling spell.

Why hadn’t he come?

She let out a huge sigh. A few seconds later, she noticed the utter silence in the throne room. Everyone was looking at her.

“What can I get you, my queen?” said her sergeant-at-arms. He was a brownie. Always super solicitous. It was enough to drive her batty. She was about to tell him to go jump in the lake when a disturbance broke out at the back of the throne room.

Cissa sat up straight, hardly believing her eyes. “And to what do we owe this great honor?” As if on a mission, Beverly, Dandelion, Cade, Lily, Goldy, Violet, and Morning Glory all marched through the courtiers toward her, all talking at once until Dandelion broke out of the pack.

“Cissa, have you seen Lexi?” he said. “Is she here?”

Her sergeant-at-arms stepped forward. “That’s
your majesty
, or
Queen Narcissus
to you.”

Dandelion extended his wings to full span, puffed up his chest, and glared. “Are you new here?”

“Eep!” The brownie backed away so fast he tripped over his own shoes.

“Don’t mind him. He
is
new.” Cissa stood up and clapped her hands. “That’s it, everybody. We’re done for today. Go play!”

She set the moonstick crown on the throne and finger-combed her hair. “So what’s going on? How did you lose my grandniece?”

“I think she’s run away,” Lily said. “Beverly said she had been reading Lydia Pengrith’s journal, and I found a glimmer glass in Lexi’s room when Cade and I were searching Faeview for her. She’s obviously been practicing without any of us knowing about it.”

The pixies were leaving the defense docket, but the way they hesitated and looked back over their shoulders made Cissa suspicious. She pointed at them. “You pixies, wait. Come here for a moment.”

They floated over to join the group, all smiles and eagerness.

“Yes, my liege.”

“We’re here to please.”

“Ugh, don’t say that.” Cissa had once loved to hear it—the first five thousand times. Now it drove her up the wall. “You both had looks on your faces.”

“Looks on our faces?”

“They’re in the right places!”

“What do you know?” Cissa huffed. “Where is my grandniece?”

“Last night in the dancing”

“With you and Max prancing.”

“We both saw your heir.”

“With the gobs, she was there.”

Cissa frowned. “It’s true, I was there. But I didn’t see Lexi. Max hadn’t seen her either, I’m sure, or he would have told me.”

“You weren’t her thang.”

“She wanted Drang.”

“Sun and moon, that’s a horrible rhyme,” Cissa said. “It hurt my brain. Be gone!”

The pixies popped out.

“Oops,” Cissa said. “Maybe I sent them away too soon.”

“You think?” Beverly said.

“There’s only one thing for it,” Dandelion said. “I’m going to the Blue Vale to talk to Drang.”

II.
Max

Max and Morander were
working at Vulsier’s cottage, using the forge in his back workshop to heat a sheet of copper Morander wanted to turn into a stock pot.

“Practical objects are good,” Max said. “Very good. And any respectable gob wants a plentiful store for the wedding trunk. But I get the impression, Morander, that you’re of a mind to impress a lady. Am I mistaken there?”

The young gob flushed, but didn’t deny it. Max grunted. He could always tell. Well, more power to the lad. At least someone was making progress in the business of living. With all the betrothals happening in the Blue Vale of late, Max would soon be the only gob left without a mate.

“Look Morander, I don’t mean to tell you your business, but a lady likes a dainty present now and then. Something the opposite of practical.”

“But… that makes no sense.”

“Well, there you go,” Drang said.

“Since when do the ladies make sense?” Sturm finished his brother’s idea. The two were sitting at opposite ends of the low stone wall that surrounded Vulsier’s workspace, tossing a head of cabbage back and forth.

“
My
lady makes a lot of sense,” Morander said. But his brow wrinkled and he rubbed his jaw. “Except when she doesn’t.”

“There you go!” Sturm and Drang said together, laughing.

“I thought as much,” Max said. As a matter of interest, it would be nice to know who the lad had fixed on for a bride. He’d like to do what he could to help move the courtship along. But he wasn’t about to pry. It would be the height of bad manners to ask.

“What’s that, then?” Drang said.

From the other side of the cottage came the chatter of several people all talking at once. Then, behind Max, a single voice much easier to identify said, “Oh. My. Gods.” A familiar, irritated fairy. “In the name of the highest heaven, what is that caterwauling?”

“Aubrey?” Max said.

The prodigal fairy’s hair appeared behind the patio’s low stone wall, then his body seemed to push the straw-colored mess up… up… up until he stood at full height.

“Yes, campers, it is I.” He yawned and stretched. “A fairy can’t catch a nap in peace anywhere these days.”

Practically a troop of fairies spilled into their workspace, including the queen. Max caught Cissa as she stumbled and almost fell against the hot forge.

“Beware of the heat, majesty.”

“Thank you, Max,” Cissa said. She looked up at him with those sparkling green eyes, and he felt a burning need to keep her trapped there, enveloped in his arms, and kiss her. But he let her go and instead picked up the hammer and gave Morander’s sheet of copper a few hard whacks.

Cissa, Dandelion, Beverly, Lily and Cade, Morning Glory, Goldy, and Violet—this could only be about Lexi.

“Er… was there something in particular that brings you all to the Blue Vale?” Max said.

“Drang’s uncle said he was back here at the forge,” Dandelion said.

“Hi, Dandelion.” Drang jumped down from the wall. “Is this about Lexi?”

“It is,” Cade jumped in. “Have you seen my daughter?”

“Yeah,” Drang said. “Morander and I spoke with her at the dancing last night.”

Max grunted. He knew Morander wasn’t much of a talker, but it was ridiculous to keep that piece of information so close to the chest. “You’re forgetting something,” he said. “Anzlyn’s time tether. Even if Lexi had been in the fae realm, she would have returned to the human realm seven seconds after she left.”

“Maybe the time tether didn’t work,” Lily said.

“Or maybe it did,” Max said. “But it’s a time tether only. She might return to the same time, but not necessarily to the same place.”

“I have to find her, wherever she is.” Lily woman looked terrified, on the verge of a breakdown.

“What is it, Lily?” Beverly said. “Is there something you haven’t told us?”

“I… oh, gods. Yes, there is.” Lily leaned against Cade for support. “When I was searching for her at the house, I found more than the glimmer glass. In my room, the secretary was unlocked and the compartment”—she looked at Beverly pointedly—“
the compartment
was open. The oracle ring was gone.”

“Great gods.” Beverly paled. “No.”

“Where did she go?” Cade said to Drang. “Did she tell you?”

“Some place I’ve never heard of,” Drang said. “She said she was going to find the island.”

“Avalos?” Max said.

“That’s it.” Drang brightened. “She said she had to speak to the abbess of Avalos.”

“That’s not a problem then,” Cissa said. “It’s impossible to get to Avalos unless the high gods allow it. She’s probably at the cliffs even now, standing beside Igdrasil and frustrated as hell.”

It felt as if Cissa had been there and done that herself. Max had the urge to touch her, somehow reassure her… of what?

“But what if they do allow it?” Lily said.

“I have a feeling they will,” Max said. Everyone looked at him with varying expressions of horror and accusation. “What? If she has the oracle ring, I believe she’ll be allowed to see the abbess.”

Lily held on to Cade’s arms. “I don’t know how to get back,” she said. “I’ve tried. I’ve called for the
Redux
, but Velyn never comes.”

“I can go,” Max said.

“That’s right. I remember,” Lily said. “You and Mavis took me and Kaelyn to Avalos in the wagon when I was Igraine. We can all go in the wagon!”

“We can try,” Max said. “But I can never be sure who the island will allow in, even through my portal. We’d better limit it to Lily and Cade.”

“Sturm, Drang,” Morander said. “Help me unload the wagon and hitch Mavis up.”

“No, me. Me. I have to go.” Cissa’s eyes were wild. She stomped her foot and clasped Max’s arm, her fingernails digging into his rough skin. “I have to!”

The poor fairy was distracted beyond belief; it tore at his heart to see her so upset. “What is it, Cissa?”

“I… I can’t tell you,” she said. “I’m sorry. But I have to go.”

Max took her elbow and gently guided her to the wagon. “Then you’d better get in.” He handed her into the back where she joined Cade and Lily. Fleetingly, he thought how nice it would be if she sat up on the bench with him. But no matter.

After whispering in Mavis’s ear and promising her a treat of Avalos apples when they reached their destination, they were off. Cade and Cissa would likely not be accepted, but if rejected, they’d find themselves blown back to their homes, no harm done.

Lily, on the other hand, had been to Avalos once before in this life, and had lived there as Igraine. He was confident she’d make it through. If Lexi
was
on Avalos, at least one of her parents would be able to bring her home.

He guided Mavis to the closest goblin tunnel, and when the air was cool and smelled of the clean dirt and they were far beyond all sound or sign of above-ground activity, he gave the pony rein, and the world began to spin.

Soon he smelled the warm, apple-scented breezes that marked the island. Mavis brought them to a stop on the dirt road between Avalos’s freshwater lake and the main abbey, and Max turned around to check on his passengers.

“Are we here? Did we make it?”

The only one in the wagon bed was the red-haired queen of the Dumnos fae.

« Chapter 14 »
The Island

I.
Lexi

“You are the Oracle
now, my dear girl.” The abbess indicated the ring on Lexi’s hand. “And you will be the Oracle for the rest of your days.”

“It seems right, and what I was born to be,” Lexi said. “But why must the Oracle die when the ring comes off?”

“No one knows,” the abbess said. “In the time of the Pendragons, Merlyn created that ring to enhance his powers. He was self-important and delusional. He must have had his reasons, but as far as we know he never told anyone.” Then she laughed. “I do have a theory, however.”

“Tell me!”

“I think he meant to enchant the ring to die if ever it was stolen from his hand, but he got the wyrd backwards, the nincompoop.”