Enchanted Ivy

'Please accept my apology,' the fairy said, 'with this gift.' Removing her hand from Lily's mouth, she laid both hands on Lily's shoulders.

Mr. Mayfair rose from the pew. 'Your apology and gift are appreciated.' In one hand, he held a sword.

He's going to kill me, Lily thought. 'You need me alive,' she said. Mr. Mayfair crossed the choir box. His expression was still casual. He might as well have been approaching to merely shake her hand. 'The magic army ... they'll return peacefully to their world if they can. But if you kill me, they'll be trapped, and you'll have new enemies.' She tried to back away, but the fairy held her firmly in place.

Mr. Mayfair raised his sword.

Lily tried to throw herself to the side, but the fairy's hands were like shackles. Lily kicked and flailed, but the fairy held on without budging.

As the sword sliced through the air, the blade caught the blue light of the stained glass. It flashed on the stone walls of the chapel. Lily felt wind in her hair. She heard a wet thunk.

The hands on her shoulders loosened and then slipped away.

Behind her, the fairy fell to the floor.

'Our alliance is ended,' Mr. Mayfair said in his gentlemanly voice. He wiped his sword, now red, on a black choir robe that hung from the coatrack. He selected a second robe and lifted the fairy's head up by her blood-soaked platinum blonde hair. He wrapped the head in the robe as if it were a Christmas present.

Blood seeped around Lily's shoes. It soaked into her sneakers, and it stained the white marble floor. She heard roaring in her ears, and her vision swam with black spots.

Mr. Mayfair spread a third robe across the body. Only the tips of the fairy's wings remained visible. They looked like broken cobwebs. 'Sit, my dear,' he said to Lily. 'You look pale, and we may have a long wait.' He sounded as concerned as an ordinary grandfather.

She wet her lips and tried to ask, 'Wait for what?'

Despite her cracking voice, he understood her. 'For the battle to end.'

'Are you'—she couldn't stop her voice from shaking—'going to k-kill me?'

He sighed. 'Eventually, I probably will. You are a danger to mankind, as well as an abomination in the eyes of God, though perhaps less of one than she was.' He nodded at the fairy's wrapped-up head. It lay on a pew. A tendril of blonde hair had escaped the binding.

Lily bolted for the door. She slipped in blood, but she threw herself forward anyway. Moving faster than any ordinary human being could, Mr. Mayfair sprinted in front of her. He leveled the sword at her chest. 'I said, sit.' He gestured with the point toward a pew, and she retreated until a pew bumped the back of her legs. She sat with a thump.

Mr. Mayfair fetched some ropes from a pile of what looked to be more choir robes. Returning, he wrapped them around her, encasing her like a fly in a web. The ropes bit into her skin, and she yelped.

A streak of orange and black fur dashed behind the coatrack. Tye!

He'd come to rescue her, again her knight in shining fur. Lily felt her heart soar, but she kept her eyes focused on Mr. Mayfair. She had to keep him from noticing Tye. 'You're psychotic,' she said. 'You're an egomaniacal psychopath with delusions of heroism.'

Mr. Mayfair secured the last knot. 'You should take a few psychology classes once you enroll here,' he said. He coiled the remainder of the ropes beside Lily. 'You'll find them beneficial, regardless of your major. Have you given any thought to your major?'

Speechless, she stared at him. A corpse lay three feet from her, her sneakers were soaked in blood, she was hog-tied to a pew, and he wanted to talk about her major?

'Perhaps economics?' he suggested. 'Your grandfather claims you have a knack for business. I believe you assist with the accounts for the florist shop?'

'I'm going to live long enough to have a major?' she asked.

'The situation has changed, and I'm capable of flexibility,' he said. 'So long as your life benefits humanity more than your death, you will continue to live. Of course, I need to be certain that I can trust you.'

'You can trust me,' Lily said. 'I am totally trustworthy.'

As she finished speaking, a tiger sprang from behind a pew and launched into the air directly at Mr. Mayfair's back. As smoothly as if he'd known the attack was coming, Mr. Mayfair spun with his sword raised.

'Sword!' Lily screamed.

Midleap, Tye veered, contorting his tiger body above the pews to avoid the blade. The sword grazed his fur, and Lily saw specks of red blood fly. She screamed again and strained against the ropes.

Tye landed, paws forward, against a pew. Under his weight, the pew tipped and crashed into the next pew. Sword arcing through the air, Mr. Mayfair advanced on the tiger boy. Tye twisted aside and swiped at Mr. Mayfair with his claws. Mr. Mayfair dodged, and the sword blade flashed again. Tye crouched, and the sword nicked his shoulder.

Rearing up on his hind paws, Tye swatted at Mr. Mayfair's sword arm. His paw impacted, and Mr. Mayfair staggered backward and the tiger boy hurled himself at the knight. Mr. Mayfair dodged again. His sword flashed toward Tye's flank. Tye jumped up onto the stone railing, narrowly avoiding the blade.

For an instant, the tiger boy perched on the railing. Behind him, the chapel stretched soundless and beautiful. He crouched, ready to spring again.

Mr. Mayfair lunged across the choir box and thrust his sword at Lily's neck. She didn't have time to scream. He halted an inch from her throat. In a calm voice, he said, 'That's enough, kitty.' The tip of the sword touched Lily's throat. She sucked in air shallowly.

Balanced on the stone, the tiger boy froze with muscles poised for another leap.

Everything was silent.

'Change yourself and join us,' Mr. Mayfair said, as civilly as if inviting Tye to join him for a cocktail party.

The tiger boy hesitated. He could escape, she thought. One leap and he'd be down on the chapel floor. 'Go!' Lily shouted.

'She'll be dead before your paws hit the ground,' Mr. Mayfair warned. He pressed the tip of the blade against her neck, and Lily felt a prick. Involuntarily, she gasped.

Tye didn't move.

'Don't trust him,' she said, barely a whisper. 'Remember, he freed the Chained Dragon. He was responsible for our parents' deaths. He was responsible for the death of his own son. He's willing to sacrifice his grandson. He won't hesitate to kill us.'

'I never hesitate when the cause is right,' Mr. Mayfair said. 'It is a burden that I bear, and do not think that I bear it lightly. But you don't need to die today, Tiger Boy.'

Tiger fur shimmered. In seconds, Tye crouched on the stone railing as himself. He rose, balancing. 'Tye, please, jump! Run!' Lily said. 'I need you free. You have to take my mother through the gate. You have to take your father and my grandmother and all of them.'

Tye climbed off the railing. 'Sorry, Lily, but I'm not losing you.'

Her heart sank. With both of them caught, the FitzRandolph Gate was sealed.

'Wise choice, young man,' Mr. Mayfair said. 'Come here and sit beside your overly melodramatic young friend.'

Without a word, Tye sat next to Lily.

Mr. Mayfair wrapped the remaining ropes around Tye.

'What a rare opportunity,' he said. 'For once, you are not under the watchful eye of your gargoyle friends. None of them were here to see you enter this chapel, were they?'

'Please don't hurt him.' Lily struggled against the ropes. 'If you hurt him, I'll ...' She tried to think of a suitable threat and failed. 'Don't you dare.'

'You, my dear,' Mr. Mayfair said to Lily, 'have an alarming tendency toward heroics. You are quite a bit like your father, you know. If he had merely run instead of staying to protect you and that creature you call 'Mother,' the dragon would have spared him.' He rose and crossed to the opposite side of the choir box. 'How fortunate for me that I have appropriate leverage.'

Out of the corner of her eye, Lily saw Tye sprout claws on his left hand. He began to saw through one of the ropes as Mr. Mayfair bent over the pile of robes next to the coatrack.

He returned with the mass of robes draped over his arms. Lily saw spray-paint orange hair amid the robes