I’ve killed his mother.
I’m human.
I’ve killed his mother.
These facts just flap around and around in my head, one after the other, pushing everything else out. I should be wondering about Issie and Nick and the rest. I should be nursing Astley’s emotions. I should be fixing things, doing things.
I’m human again.
I’ve killed Astley’s mother.
“Can you change me back?” I whisper into his chest. My words cascade down into the air, waiting for an answer, afraid of an answer.
“Would you want that?” He rocks me in his arms, smooths back the hair from my forehead as I tilt my head up to look into his sad, tired face. “Would you want to be pixie again, be my queen? You know now what that means, truly know.”
It means no matter how we felt about each other, we would be entwined forever. It means I would have to be responsible for all those other lives forever. It means that I would feel more, need more, sense more, and have to take a heck of a lot of anti-iron pills. I think about what it would mean for me to stay human. I can’t fight well like this. I can’t stop the apocalypse. I can’t smell and hear as well, and Astley becomes weaker. But being a pixie means worrying about turning blue, worrying about hungers and needs and losing my humanity. “Does it matter what I want? It would be what’s best, you know? I have a responsibility to you, to the pixies, to Issie and my friends.”
A muscle twitches in Astley’s cheek. His lips press hard against each other and tears spring to the corners of his eyes but don’t leak out. “Yes, Zara. It does matter what you want. It matters very much.”
Some sort of sob rattles around in my chest, but I refuse to let it out, refuse to let Astley see how much his words affect me.
Issie’s hand squeezes mine and then she lets go, standing up and trying the door. She walks fine. I don’t think they hurt her much. It’s just her insides that are messed up. She’s in shock, I bet. We’re all in shock, and shock isn’t going to do us much good. We need a plan. We need steps to take. We need to make this right, make me right.
“You have to change me back, Astley,” I insist. My hand flutters up, touches the side of his face. It’s so much effort just to move, just to touch him. I stare into his eyes and beg, “Do it now. Please.”
His eyes soften. He moves his head so his lips brush against my forehead. It’s the slightest of kisses, gentle and kind. He doesn’t answer my request, just bundles me against him. Thanks to his pixie blood, the burns on his wrists are starting to heal already but the skin is pink and mottled. If he looks this bad, I must look so much worse. I can taste blood on my lips, see it on my hands. He moves across the concrete floor and up the three steps, bringing us to the door that goes outside. The air is dry and bitter. It’s so cold. He pulls me in closer to his chest.
Issie isn’t having any success with the door, which must be locked from the outside. She yanks her bobby pin out of her hair, the one that held her bangs back. Then she uses it to start working on the locking mechanism in the middle of the doorknob.
“What are we going to do?” I whisper at Astley like he’ll have all the answers.
The hurt makes his green eyes deeper, more vivid. “We shall find a way, Zara. I promise you, we shall find a way.”
But I am broken all the way down and for a second, only a second, I allow myself to think we won’t, that we never will.
And just then, Issie manages to get the door open.
The cold and wind and sunlight stream into the room and she turns to us, smiling. “Got it!”
Her voice is so beautiful and still it doesn’t give me hope.
ICELANDIC PRESS RELEASE
The National Police Commissioner will hold a news conference to discuss the increase of missing-persons cases in the last few days.
It takes me two days to heal well enough to set out for Hel, which we decide to do via vote. In some sort of weird twist, Astley is against it and Nick is for it. Astley thinks that we should just pack up, go home, and focus our efforts on keeping Bedford safe. He wants to go to the Pixie Council and plead for help. Nick rightly says that it hasn’t done anything for us before. Nick thinks that Isla’s motivation for turning me human has more to do with us being so close to Hel, so close to stopping the apocalypse.
“It’s an act of desperation,” he argues. “That means we have to keep with the plan.”
Amelie, Issie, and I agree.
“But why don’t they just kill Astley then?” I ask.
“They must need him for something,” says Nick. “Or they are sentimental. Or they still hope to have him join their side.”
“Oh yeah, changing his queen’s a good way to do that.” Issie pulls her knees to her chest and rolls her eyes.
And then they argue about Issie and me staying here while they search for Hel, but I refuse that option. So we wait an extra day. I figure if I can walk, I can ski on the trail to the mountain, which takes four hours to hike. Skiing is faster, even if I’m the one who is doing it.
So I spend my first day as a human again on the bed with Issie fluttering about. Astley flies off somewhere to get enough of a signal to call home. Nick cooks. Amelie paces and patrols outside, making sure there are no more threats.
The second day, I get up and stagger around, getting stronger.
Being human again after being pixie is strange. It’s like I’ve lost another sense. I don’t smell or see things as intensely. I don’t feel people’s emotions as if I could grab them and hold them in my hands.
But I don’t miss the way I always felt right on the edge of evil, that if my needs weren’t controlled, then I would go feral and violent, a crazy predator thing.
When the sun rises on the day we’re going to ski and look for Hel, I’m so stir-crazy I walk outside for a minute while everyone gets ready.
The lake is no longer frozen. The heat from the nearby volcano has warmed the water, broken the ice into massive sheets that smash into each other. When the sides of one ice chunk slides against another, it sounds like a roar. It makes me wish Betty were here, that she wasn’t still back in Maine battling and training the others.
“We’re leaving for Hel soon.” Nick’s voice startles me. He’s snuck up behind me, and since I’m human I didn’t hear.
My heart slows down so I turn and answer. “I know. I just wanted a second.”