anything as common as a children’s book author.”
He came up with a copy of
“There. On the right.”
She glanced down at the painting she knew so well, then back at him, puzzled. “Yes? What about it?”
“What does he say? To the human child?”
She looked again, but she knew. She
“Yes, he does. And an assent, willingly spoken, means that your friend the Fae princess can do whatever she wants with Denal, for as long as she wants to do it.” His face was grim, promising retribution and death.
Fiona shivered. “But she’s my friend,” she protested. “We can surely get him back.”
“Yes, maybe. But who knows how many years will have passed for him? Time does not pass the same in Silverglen as it does here or in Atlantis. We Atlanteans do live a very long time, but it is nothing to the Fae. He could be a very, very old man by the time we see him again, even if she returns him to us tomorrow.”
“What can we do?” She was the type to take charge, but she didn’t know how to combat Fae tricks. Especially since only yesterday she hadn’t even known that the Fae really existed.
“We go to Atlantis. I need to report in, and we need a way to fight on more than one front.” He bent his head for several seconds and then looked up at her, his eyes burning pools of green. “If only the damn portal would respond to me. I don’t understand why it won’t.”
Before she could reply, a shimmering oval of light appeared in the middle of the room, immediately in front of Christophe. He jumped back, giving it room to expand and lengthen.
Fiona slowly stood up and circled the apparition, not coming within five feet of it until she was close enough to take Christophe’s hand. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Welcome to Atlantis,” he said, tightening his grip on her hand. He pulled her forward, and together they stepped into the portal and fell through into a shimmering, cascading tunnel of light.
Chapter 24
Atlantis
Fiona called on every single ounce of manners, decorum, and British stiff upper lip she possessed to keep from allowing her jaw to hang open like some sort of unfortunate fish. Like, for example, the thirty-foot-long fish swimming by just outside the dome.
The dome that was quite clearly
The dome of Atlantis.
Christophe grinned and put his arm around her, which was actually quite welcome since her knees were a bit wobbly from the journey through the magic portal.
“So, Alice and the rabbit hole had nothing on this. Did you ever bring Lewis Carroll down here?”
“Not that I know of, but it would explain a lot, wouldn’t it?” He laughed. “Which one of the guards would be Tweedle Dum?”
One of the guards, standing by the glowing portal, which was absolutely enormous on this side, put a hand on his sword. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, so he was probably five hundred. “Watch it, my friend. I still owe you for that fur-brained lummox comment.”
Christophe shrugged. “I call it like I see it. Plus there were a few pints of ale involved. I’m not sure I can be held responsible for what I said.”
The second guard, an older man with graying hair and a beard, threw back his head and laughed. “As I recall it, Christophe, you challenged every man in the place to darts and beat them all soundly.”
“Except for me,” the first guard said, grinning.
“Really?” Fiona said dryly. “There’s something you’re not good at?”
“Oh, please, my lady, don’t inflate his ego any more than it already is,” the older man said, groaning. “It won’t fit under the dome before much longer.”
Christophe tossed an energy sphere in his left hand. “You know, I can crush you like a bug, Marcus.”
“Not till you take Alaric up on his offer and join the priesthood,” Marcus replied, unruffled. “Until then I can whip your youngling behind with a trick or two.”
“The priesthood?” Fiona stared at Christophe. “When were you going to tell me that?”
“Um, look at the fish!” Christophe pointed to the fish she’d seen earlier, or one of its mates. He suddenly looked a bit like Declan had when she’d caught him filching the biscuits before his tea. She put on her best stern big sister expression and he twitched a little.
“No time to discuss this now,” he said, taking her arm. “Must get to the palace and report in.”
He started walking, pulling her along, and then cast a dark glance back over his shoulder. “Marcus, I won’t forget this.”
The elaborate sound of a fake yawn floated through the air and Fiona had to stifle a laugh. “Marcus doesn’t sound very afraid of you.”
He kicked a white glossy stone on the path and then grinned. “Yeah. It’s so hard to get good help these days.”
“We’re in Atlantis.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean, we’re
“It’s sunny.”
“Usually is.”
“No, you don’t seem to understand what I’m saying.” She clutched his arm and stopped walking. “We’re in Atlantis and we’re underneath a dome
He bent down and kissed her so thoroughly that her fingers were somehow twined in his hair by the time he stopped.
“That was lovely, but it doesn’t speak to the question,” she whispered, trying to catch her breath.
“What question? Was there a question in there?”
She gestured around them with a sweep of her arm. “Every bit of this is a question. I’m going to be asking questions for hours. No, days. Years, maybe. This is amazing.”
“Is this where I say ‘I told you so’ and you agree I’m the most wonderful man you’ve ever known?” He kissed her again.
“No, definitely not. There should be no ‘I told you so’ between us, ever,” she decided. “However, you are quite wonderful. Now, where is that palace?”
She started walking again, only noticing after about ten steps that he wasn’t with her. She turned and he still stood in place as if frozen, staring at her with the oddest expression on his face.
“Are you coming?”
“Yes.” He caught up to her, and they walked down the path into a fantasy.
Everything, everywhere she looked, was impossible. Far too fantastical to be real. Even the trees and flowers in the garden were unlike anything she’d ever seen before, as if she’d stepped into the most secret imaginings of a master horticulturalist or possibly a Dr. Seuss book. Sweeps of vivid purples from an insane version of the color chart complemented shades of green from all ranges of the spectrum. Every color she’d ever seen and many she couldn’t conceive of existing in nature—they were all represented in a fabulous palette that somehow, in some crazy way, was absolutely beautiful together.
And the scents . . . oh, the scents. Human perfume makers would go mad trying to take it all in. Each section of the garden carried its own distinctive bouquet of fragrance, shading from light to intense. By the time they reached the palace itself, she was nearly drunk just on the pure sensation of it all. Sight, scent, touch—for of course
