“Nayara,” the Queen answered. “Call me Queen Nayara.”
Sabrina smiled and bowed slightly. “It is an honor, Queen Nayara. Would you like me to call upon the men I have chosen for this task?”
“You are on top of things, as a princess should be,” Queen Nayara said. “But there is no need for that. They are already here.” The Queen pointed to the entrance of the room. “It does seem that you have trained them well.”
Sabrina whirled around. She saw three people in the doorway.
“Tell them to come,” Nayara instructed her daughter in a low voice.
“Enter,” Sabrina commanded.
At once, the three figures obeyed. Upon a closer look, one would realize that one of the men was not a man; indeed, he was not even human but a goblin-like creature. Five feet from Sabrina and the Queen, the three got down on their knees and put their heads down in a low bow.
A fourth one came in. He was a short human-like creature with two small leaves growing out of his bald, grayish-green head. This one was one of Queen Nayara’s personal servants.
“Practicus, I need you to make Princess Sabrina a tiara of white gold, with five places to fit gems. We will provide you with the gems as we acquire them,” she told the creature. “Make it well and make it sturdy. On the day of the Duo, once we achieve our final victory, Sabrina will be crowned Princess of Narque. This will be the day when we have ridden our world of the dark forces that stole it from us. On that day, all the Palatinii will be dead.”
The creature bowed and said in a raspy voice,” Yes, my Queen,” before running out of the room to follow his orders.
Queen Nayara then turned back to Sabrina and the others. “The time has come for our future to be made and salvaged. The time has come to take our world and place our people in a position of power and wealth where they belong and to give them the freedom they have been denied for centuries.”
Sabrina’s men gave small, war-like cheers, though the three of them did not sound as impressive as she would have hoped.
“Once the Dimes and the rest of the Palatinii are gone, we will shine a new light on our world. From there we will travel between the worlds, sharing our wealth and success with all. We will lead them, rule over them so that everyone has a chance to become something great. A new dawn will stare everyone in the face whether they choose to accept it or not. This is for the greater good.
“After that, all the worlds will be ours.”
3
Water, Pie, and a Whole New World
“Dad?” Katie asked as she walked into her apartment from the elevator. The apartment itself had two floors. Its entrance hall was well lit and a pattern of entwined vines crept along its walnut walls. The light came from two large chandeliers and a series of small bulbs that jutted out from the walls. Watercolor paintings lined the walls between the lights.
The Dimes family lived in a large penthouse about fifteen minutes from Katie’s high school. Tyson and his mother lived in a smaller penthouse a few blocks away, both having decided that they didn’t need so much room with just the two of them.
“Dad?” Katie asked again. “Mom?” She put her bag down and started the walk to the kitchen. Along the way, she passed a hall that led to the living room and a staircase that went upstairs to the bedrooms.
“Katie! Good, you’re home!” Katie heard her mom, Natasha, as she entered the kitchen. Natasha was wearing a white shirt with pink roses on it and was washing a large pot.
Katie noticed that the rosy shirt was torn in three places. “What happened to your shirt?” she asked.
“Oh, this was just Kitty,” Natasha said. “I have to get her claws tamed down a bit, she loves tearing anything she can with those things. She only recently started but has been on a frenzy since. Don’t worry about that, though, your father and I must have a few words with you.”
“Yeah, he said we needed to talk when he called earlier. I saw something weird on the drive home. What’s going on?” Katie questioned.
Natasha leaned in and gave Katie a worried hug, still holding a pot in one hand and drying cloth in the other. “Let me get your father.” Natasha put the pot away and whisked out of the kitchen and into the dining room, leaving the sink tap with running water.
Katie shook her head and closed her eyes. She then realized that her mother’s wet shirt had made her shirt damp as well. Katie loved her parents, she truly did. But sometimes they were parents. And parents are who they are. Which means that parents will do what parents do. What can you say?
Katie opened her eyes and let out a gasp of shock, stumbling back until she hit the counter. The very real, very solid kitchen that she had just been in was suddenly very much not solid; it was liquid. Everything was liquid, giving the room a light, translucent blue tone. She could still clearly make out the shapes of everything even though it was all made entirely out of water.
The sink was what caught Katie’s attention. Like everything else in the kitchen, it was made of water, and the tap was still on, leaving a stream of water flowing out of it as if everything were normal. But everything just wasn’t normal.
Katie couldn’t find any explanation for it.
“Would you stop that, Katie?” asked a calm voice. Her father entered the kitchen. He was holding a paper, or rather, a water plate with a liquid pie on it in his hands. “It ruins the taste,
