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As quickly as she’d pulled herself together, her sanity slipped away again, until she was as I’d found her moments ago. Lost to herself.
“I can’t die. I can’t die.” She raked a hand through her hair. “I can’t die.” Her words were mindless rambles between cries and tainted with hopelessness.
“Gaia?” I put a hand on her arm, but she yanked it away.
“I don’t want to die,” she said loudly while running to the chariot. She turned to give me a last look, and something in her face terrified me to the core. It was a look I imagined must have been pasted to my own face right before I threw myself off the edge of an island. Ignorant desperation.
Odette would have to forgive me. I chased after Gaia but her chariot rose and carried her away.
I’d never called upon a chariot before, but when I swung my arm in the air as Gaia had, one emerged from the night. “Follow Gaia,” I instructed. The golden wisp leading the chariot understood, and it rippled forward like an enchanted ribbon.
I followed Gaia north through lands I didn’t recognize. I kept her barely visible in front of me, close enough that I could be certain the chariot followed, but far enough that she wouldn’t catch me doing so. It was only when we slowed down that my gaze dropped and I gasped.
Gaia had fled to Illusion Point. The land where nothing was as it seemed, and tricks could await in any corner for prey—especially a girl in her unraveled state.
A shiver ran up my spine as her chariot landed in the center of the crowded town. She stepped off without looking around and darted through the tents. She knew exactly what she was after.
Thorn’s story came to mind of how Gaia and Ivory had ruled this island together. She was familiar with these crowded streets, but she was different now. She’d be an easy target.
“Take me down,” I instructed. “Before she gets herself into trouble.” The chariot obeyed and we landed as Gaia’s chariot took off without her.
The narrow street was lined with boxed lanterns that hung low over the red cobblestones. The path was empty, except for one gentleman and his cart. I gathered my skirts to follow where Gaia had gone. The fae shifted his cart toward me, almost knocking me down as it blocked my way with its oversized wheel.
“No, thank you,” I said without glancing at him as I skirted the wheel.
He threw a powder in the air as I went, a thick red dust that lodged in my throat and burned my eyes. It clung to me for a moment before simmering away.
I whirled around.
The man was built like a cart, wide and short. He glided as if on wheels himself. At my expression, he shrugged and slunk into the shadows. I rubbed my eyes and moved after Gaia.
All the shops on the left side of the street held round doors, blooming flowers under the windows, and weathered signs on a post. I blinked and the shops shifted, and suddenly they were all different. Some were taller, some low, some bright, and some carried all the black of night inside them.
Another blink and they were back to what they were before.
I shook my head and stared at the street, but that too had moved. Where it veered to the west earlier, it now split in two directions, north and east.
A few steps and it all shifted again.
I turned in a slow circle. With each moment, the landscape shifted further, until I couldn’t tell which way I’d come from. The man with the cart stood in the center of the road with a wicked gleam in his blue eyes.
“You did something.”
He shrugged. “Perhaps. But you won’t likely find your way out on your own. Or”—he produced a furled parchment from his silky robes—“this will guide you.”
I glared at him, and he tucked the parchment away. “I’m a kind soul, so I’ll inform you that choosing the wrong path leads to you owing me a favor.”
I scowled. “How is that fair?”
He leaned down and picked up the cart holds. “You come to this island. You expect to be tricked.” He bowed. “It’s an honor to play with you, my Queen. Choose wisely.”
They had a delusional sense of honor here.
The man and his cart disappeared just as the streets shifted once more. Now four roads presented themselves, each bedecked in sparrow-tailed banners, shops with fae mingling about, and scents of frosted cakes.
It split again. Now five roads.
Again. Six.
