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As if answering her question, it nodded and looked off to the side.
“What is it, little rabbit?” Emily asked, sitting next to Ember, looking at the rabbit. “Are we supposed to go that way?”
The rabbit hopped off, stopping and looking back at us. We followed. Crazy as it was, we followed this small rabbit for guidance. How was it possible that it was the same rabbit? Seven and a half hours drive away, the same rabbit was guiding us? What are the chances?
In my experience, nothing is a coincidence when it involves the supernatural.
It led us to a clearing—an open valley that sat between two mountains. We looked around, unsure of what else to do. No High Council was waiting for us. What were we supposed to do? Summon them with magic, or something? At this point, it wouldn’t surprise me.
“Are we supposed to wait here?” Emily asked in a soft voice, like she was speaking to a child. The rabbit nodded and scampered off, leaving us standing in the middle of the field.
Ember grabbed Emily’s arm and said, “Doesn’t this look kind of like the field from your drawing?”
Emily looked around, squinting her eyes as she took it all in. “It does.”
“Oh, you draw?” Silas asked.
“I do—did before all this craziness with Samara happened. Now, I don’t really have time for it. But when all this is over, I’d like to get back to my art.”
“What’s your medium?”
Emily cocked an eyebrow, a clever grin on her face. “Ahh, I see you know a little something about art yourself, huh? I use a pencil mostly. Sometimes charcoal or chalk. I’ll even paint now and again, when the inspiration strikes.”
“I miss painting,” Silas said wistfully, staring off into the field before bringing his eyes back to Emily. “I used to paint quite often, in my prime. But these arthritic fingers make it hard to hold onto the paintbrush for a long time. But I used to be good. Next time you visit our village, check out the paintings in the main hall.” He winked.
I must admit, I was a bit surprised to hear him say he had arthritis, considering the man hiked for an hour without getting tired. Even I was ready to fall over.
Emily smiled and grabbed his hand. “Well, maybe you’ll get the chance to paint again. There’s a healing pond in the fae realm, remember? Maybe dipping your hands in the water can help relieve some of the pressure.”
He squeezed her hand before releasing it. “That’s an excellent idea. I’ll have to take a trip to the fae realm very soon. Then maybe we could work on a painting together. A little collaboration is always fun.”
Emily nodded enthusiastically, saying, “I’d enjoy that!”
Cassian, again, came over to whip us all into shape for battle. “We need to figure out exactly what we’re going to say to the High Council,” he said, breaking up the fun. I understood the need for preparation, but it was fun listening to Emily and Silas bonding over art.
“Let’s just tell them how it is and be done with it,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. But of course, his majesty wasn’t pleased with my answer.
“Yeah, and what are we going to tell them? We need to plan out our exact words. The smallest thing can screw this up, and we need this alliance. When they show up, we need to be polite, sophisticated and behave like professionals. They’re the top dogs, and they determine everything.”
I blew a raspberry with my tongue, cutting off Cassian’s speech. “Lighten up, dude. We’ll figure it out. Let’s just take a minute to relax before they get here.”
“We can’t relax right now. We need to plan! God, you always do this, even when we were younger. You never want to behave responsibly and always want to blow off the important things.”
That plucked my nerves because I knew exactly what he was talking about—the time when my father brought my brother and me to their pack so he could discuss important matters with Cassian’s dad. We were expected to return at a certain time and be present for some announcement or something. I had the bright idea to skip it, seeing as it was boring and didn’t even involve us. We were expected to show up, sit down, and shut up—so what was the point of us being there? We got our asses handed to us for skipping it, and Cassian hasn’t let it go since.
“Well, you always make too big a deal out of everything. It’s all so important to you. I mean, chill out, man. It will all work out.”
“See, it’s that laissez-faire attitude that makes it impossible to talk to you!”
My intention wasn’t to argue with Cassian, but once we started, stopping became impossible. He was being an uptight pain in the ass, and it was ridiculous! But in the middle of our argument, everything around us began to dissolve and shift, cutting our yelling short.
Big surprise—we were being transported, only this was a realm we’d yet to see.
Clouds. Tons of clouds. They were everywhere, even beneath our feet. We were standing on clouds! How was that possible? I thought the clouds were just mist. Yet, in this realm, they were solid enough to hold us.
Beyond the clouds was the sky, surrounding us like the trees or grass on the Earth. The sky was right there with us. If we were in the sky, then we must be in the Sky Empire, that place Amon mentioned.
Ember whipped out a vial and swiped it through the air, collecting the final vial we needed for the curse box.
As she capped the bottle, five thrones appeared before us like a shimmery mist atop a small platform on the clouds. Moments later, five beings appeared on those thrones.
