Enchanted Ivy

Drained. Jake had used that word. It matched how she felt, as if the marrow of her bones had been sucked out and she were about to collapse from the inside out. Her heart hammered loud and fast in her ears, and she wondered what the airy voice meant by 'fine interrogation skills.' 'What do you want?' she asked.

She felt a breath on her cheek, hot and fetid. A voice rumbled, 'We want to know how many humans you've killed to survive.'

'What?' Her eyes teared as she strained to force the blurs and streaks into shapes. 'I don't understand. I've never hurt anyone.'

'Impossible,' the airy voice said.

Another voice said, 'Tye has vouched for her.'

'Children can be deceived,' the deep voice rumbled. 'In this case, he may wish to be. You'll answer us now, half breed. Are you a Feeder?'

'No!' she shouted. Lily sat up and felt as if fire shot through her head. She squeezed her forehead and felt the cloth bandages on her hand. It stung where the dragon had bit her. 'I'm not a Feeder. I'm not a half breed. I'm not anybody.' Until today, nothing unusual had ever happened to her. She was just ordinary Lily who worked in her grandfather's flower shop, took care of her mother, and obsessed about her grades.

'You crossed the gate on your own,' the waterfall voice said. 'You are a Key.'

Lily's vision was clearing, though her head still throbbed. She saw a horse directly in front of her. She lifted her gaze, and the horse's torso flattened into a human stomach. She stared at the intersection of human skin and horsehair, and then she looked up into an elderly man's face.

Centaur, her brain helpfully supplied.

Behind the centaur was a man with orange and black tiger fur streaking his face. Beside him, a two-inch-tall man with orange butterfly wings perched on the shoulder of a porcelain-skinned woman with black-as-night hair and sharply pointed ears. Next to the elven woman was a stack of stones, loosely in the shape of a person, that moved and breathed as if it were alive. And lastly, there was a unicorn.

Lily stared longest at the unicorn. She felt as if she were looking at a shaft of moonlight. He was iridescent white, as smooth and flawless as a Michelangelo sculpture. His golden horn shone like an angel's halo.

'How do you feel, child?' the elven woman asked. Her tone implied that she didn't care what Lily's answer was or if she answered at all. She peered down at Lily as if she were an only mildly interesting science experiment.

Lily could be dreaming. She could be unconscious, knocked out when Jake had let her fall onto the stone plaza. Or she could have lost her mind. Given her family history, that was the most likely option. It was much more likely than the idea that Professor Ape had told the truth. 'I need my medicine,' Lily said, attempting to keep her voice calm. 'Where's my grandfather?'

'Who is your grandfather?' the tiger-faced man rumbled.

'More importantly, who are your parents?' the elf asked. She caught Lily's chin in her hand, and Lily felt the pressure of fingernails against her cheek. Lily froze. The elf was doll-like beautiful. She shouldn't have been frightening, but there was something too perfect about her face. She looked more like a department store mannequin come to life than a real woman.

'My grandfather is Richard Carter, and my mother is Rose Carter,' Lily said 'My father was William Carter.'

The tiger man asked, 'Was?'

With his tiger face, he should have looked like a costumed performer, but he didn't. The fur was real, and there was no faking the heavy jaws or the cat-slit pupils. He looked as if he'd begun to transform into a tiger and stopped partway. Under his gaze, Lily felt as if she'd been cornered by predators. His yellow eyes bored into her. 'He died in a car accident a few months after I was born,' she said. 'I never knew him.' She'd never even seen a photo. ... Oh, God, was this why there were no photos? Could he have been—

No, she thought. If her father had been one iota out of the ordinary, Grandpa would have ferreted it out. He was too protective of Mom not to have thoroughly screened her husband.

The rock creature shifted, and Lily heard the crackle of gravel. He spoke: 'What is your purpose in coming here now?' Each word thudded.

'I just ... wanted to get into college,' Lily said miserably. It sounded ridiculous given the circumstances. 'I didn't do anything wrong!'

'How old are you, child?' the elf asked.

'Sixteen,' Lily said.

The tiny man whistled low. 'Sixteen years without magic ...'

'Impossible,' the tiger man said. 'She must be a Feeder. She must be held and reeducated. We cannot allow her to return—'

The unicorn interrupted him. 'She would never survive the length of time required for reeducation. The magic would overload her body.'

'I'm telling you the truth!' Lily said. 'I never heard of Feeders before today. All I did was walk through a gate!' She stood up, and the unicorn leveled his horn at her, the stone man shifted forward, and the centaur tensed. She stiffened.

'You did more than that,' the centaur said grimly. 'You survived for sixteen years without a single visit to our world. You're a half breed. You need both worlds to survive.'

Staring at the tip of the unicorn's horn, she felt her heart pound so fast that it felt like bird wings beating inside her rib cage. 'I don't understand,' Lily said.

'Half breeds belong to both worlds,' the tiny man said.

'Or neither,' the elf said. 'You should only last a month in the human world before too much magic leaches from you and you die of magic loss. And you should only last a month in our world before your body suffocates with too much magic. Yet you live. An interesting mystery.'

Lily forced herself to take a deep breath. 'If you let me go home, I promise I'll find an explanation. I'll figure out why I'm still alive. If I'm a mystery, then let me solve it. I deserve a chance to solve it!'

The centaur and the tiger man exchanged looks. The tiny man hovered above the elf's shoulder. His fluttering wings stirred the air, swirling the sunlit dust. The stone man shifted, and it sounded like an avalanche.

'Please!' Lily said. She'd never come here again if they'd just let her go. She looked at each of them, her eyes pleading. 'I'm not a Feeder. I'll find answers.'

The unicorn dipped his horn low, the equivalent of lowering his sword. 'I will allow it,' he said.

'As will I,' the centaur said.

'Yes!' the tiny man said.

The elf sighed. 'Very well.'

The tiger man growled. 'Only with conditions.'

The others nodded. Lily didn't breathe. Please, she thought. Please, let me go!

'You may return to the human world,' the centaur said. 'But you must find answers to our questions before you enter our world again. Otherwise we will have no choice but to believe you are a Feeder and insist that you remain here for reeducation.'

She felt her knees shake. 'You'll let me go?' Her voice cracked.

Back on the elf's shoulder, the tiny man braided and unbraided the elven woman's silken hair. His tiny fingers flew over the brilliant black strands. 'Do you understand? You can't survive here. You'd last longer than any of us would in your world, but eventually you'd suffocate on too much magic.'

'Discover how it is that you are alive,' the tiger man said. 'Or when you next come before us, you will not leave, no matter the consequences to you.'

Lily swallowed hard. 'I'll find answers,' she promised.

'We do not condone Feeders,' the centaur said. 'Remind the knights of your Princeton. We support them and their cause.'

The tiger man flicked a claw at her. 'My son will assist you. He awaits you outside.' His son ... Tye? Tye looked much more human than this man. She wondered what her own father had looked like. What kind of monster had he been? What was in her genes?