Now it was my turn to go to her, do the work of taking care of her. Whatever she needed, I would be there for her.

  A few minutes later, I was standing outside a room in a hallway I never knew existed. That wasn’t so unusual. The Castle was huge. Besides, I was usually either in training, planning, eating, or sleeping. There hadn’t been that much time to explore.

  I felt it again. That desire to be mad at myself. Why hadn’t I done this before? Regret and self-recrimination were howling around me trying to get in. This time, I pretended that Pris was pulling my hair yelling at me to stop it. I smiled and knocked on the door.

  The door opened by itself and I stepped into a room that reminded me of Beru’s village.

  Even though we were inside the Castle, there were two gardens lovingly tended on each side of the door. To get into the room itself, I walked under an arbor. Everything was blooming. The air was filled with the scent of roses and fresh earth.

  I thought that the tree roots must be giving off the kind of light that these plants needed to grow, because there was only one window, although it was so big it took up almost the whole wall of the interior part of Beru’s room. The curtains were closed. It was so dark I had to wait for my eyes to adjust before I could see that the room held a bed, a small table, and two chairs.

  Sitting in one chair, looking as bleak as I had ever seen her was Beru. She gestured to the other chair. As I got closer, I saw the tracks of tears running down Beru’s beautiful face. This was Beru who sewed little ladybug appliqués inside my leggings to remind me of my Earth mother and what she did for me. This was Beru who tried to bring happiness wherever she went.

  My heart broke for her. I sat and waited. I would remain forever if I needed to.

  Twenty-One

  I did wait a long time. We just sat there, both of us staring at the table, until finally Beru said, “Thank you for coming to find me, Hannah.”

  That was the second time that day that I was called by my Earth name, Hannah. When I had first found out that I was Princess Kara Beth I never wanted to be called that. Ever. But once I realized that Princess Kara Beth was the name that inspired people to fight back against Abbadon, I accepted it. I admitted who I was and stopped resisting it. I let it be true.

  However, even though it had been over six months that I had been in Erda, I was still working on that acceptance. I was accepting the fact that I had magic skills, and that I had a responsibility to save the Kingdom. I was much more reluctant to accept the latter.

  The title Princess sounded lovely, but as far as I am concerned, it asks more than it gives. I didn’t want to even think about what being a Queen would mean. Just thinking about the responsibility and the rules freaked me out.

  Sure, it might be fun to wear a crown once in a while, but I could do that for a costume party—no need to be a real queen to wear a crown.

  But for Beru to call me Hannah meant something. Beru hadn’t known me in Earth. Or at least I didn’t think so. What did the Earth Hannah know that perhaps the Erda Kara Beth had forgotten?

  The answer was so obvious that I smacked myself in the head, which made Beru giggle just a bit. She could read my mind. She knew I had remembered something I was better at doing in the Earth Realm than I was in Erda. I was a better friend. A better comforter. Yes, I had been a child in Earth, but I had understood the need for being childlike and loving without hesitation.

  Since arriving in Erda, I had held back, thinking that childlike would not be princess-like. And that comforting might not be something that people wanted. I have never claimed not to be an idiot, but this realization was so fundamental I felt like one. But I laughed about it instead of being mad at myself. And then Beru laughed.

  I stuck out my hand, and she slid her tiny hand on top of mine, and we wiggled our fingers at each other and laughed again. Beru laughed with tears running down her face, which on her was quite charming.

  I stood up and looked around at Beru’s room. There was a small kitchen against one of the walls, just like mine. “We need a cuppa,” I said, pretending that it was something I always said, instead of something I heard people say and thought was cute.

  I found the water, the tea, and managed to make us a cup of some floral blend that was delicious. On the way back to the table, I opened the curtains and let the sunlight stream in. From Beru’s room, I could see Dalry, the village where I first met the Ginete. Perhaps a walk into the town later would be good for both of us. We could stop into the tavern with the squeaky sign and see if people still stared at me as if I was an unwanted alien.

  “Okay, Beru, talk to me,” I said. “I know this can’t be about me being such a jerk, although I am sure that didn’t help.”

  When she didn’t answer, I asked questions instead. I asked her about her family. What were her mother and father like? Did she get along with her parents? Was she like her parents or different? Did she have other relatives?

  I had so many questions. The same kind of questions I would have asked in Earth to get to know my friends. Something I had entirely skipped over in Erda.

  Yes, she missed her parents even though they never quite understood her. And no, she wasn’t much like them. They were more content with how things were. She loved change. Not necessarily Abbadon type change, but change was good in Beru’s eyes.

  She was worried. Why hadn’t she heard from her parents? No, she didn’t have other relatives. She thought of Ruta as her brother. Now that was news to me. I knew the two of them were close, but not that close.

  It was dinner time by the time we had finished talking. Our tea had long gone cold, but neither one of us had noticed. We had shut the door on the problems out there in the world and concentrated on being friends.

  Leif was right. There had been a rift between us, but it wasn’t so much the riff of what had happened, but what hadn’t happened. I realized that if we were going to destroy something that infected people without their knowledge, then we were going to have to be closer than ever before.

  As we walked to dinner together, Beru and I talked about the possibility that Abbadon was going to force a better world, because instead of being complacent, we were all waking up.

  The people of Zerenity were realizing that they needed to practice their magic skills instead of being complacent about them.

  We would all find deeper friendships within our communities. We would take better care of each other. Yes, perhaps it was being forced on us because of something that could infect us if we didn’t pay attention, but we could use it for good.

  “I agree with all of that, Kara Beth,” Beru said. “But there is also the chance it tears us apart. If we don’t know how Deadsweep infects people they might go off on their own and hide, or suspect friends and neighbors of trying to infect them. It could turn into a disaster.”

  “We could destroy ourselves, even without Abbadon’s help,” I agreed.

  “So how do we stop that from happening?” Beru asked.

  It was one more question that neither of us had an answer to. It could go either way. We needed much more information, and we needed it quickly.

  Twenty-Two

  Everyone was at dinner except for Earl and Ariel. I assumed they were off commanding storms and wind where they were needed. They were both instrumental in destroying the Shrieks and Shatterskin. Earl, as Coro, had dumped a deluge of salt water on the Shrieks and Ariel, as the wind, kept pushing it the right direction until every green blob had been dissolved.

  Then the Priscillas insect friends had come along and cleaned up all the green globs left lying on the ground, and that was the end of them.

  I wondered briefly where all those insects had gone and shivered thinking they might be around. When I heard the Priscillas giggle, it made me wonder. What had they done with them?

  La, who didn’t like misinformation being scattered around even in my imagination, pushed into my head a picture of where they were.

  The Priscillas had returned them to a land far away from us. It was where they had lived before, and they were happy to return to their home. They were needed there as part of the ecosystem. Here they would have always been looking for food sources that didn’t exist.

  The Priscillas had been sitting on the table waiting for me. I realized how kind it had been of them to let me go to see Beru by myself. I loved the Priscillas. Not just because they were the fairies of my dreams—what little girl didn’t think about fairies— but they were smart and loyal and kept me in line. Pris was justifiably famous for her faces that could make people do things or stop doing things. I had learned early not to piss off a fairy, especially Pris.

  Leif caught my eye as Beru and I came into the room together. We probably gave away the fact that our rift had been healed because we were holding hands. It was something I had never done before and I could feel Ruta jerk back in shock. I could almost hear him say, “What, Miss High and Mighty lowers herself to holding hands?”

  Ruta didn’t actually dislike me. He had just formed an opinion of me when we first met that I thought too much of myself. He had been correct, of course. In turn, I had thought Ruta was the biggest grump I had ever known. I was right about that too. But the two of us were changing, and I admired and respected Ruta, especially knowing now how much he meant to Beru.

  Ruta was the healer in the group. Something I wouldn’t have guessed and didn’t know until after the battle with Shatterskin when he had healed many of us. His healing abilities were something I would need to learn more about. How was Ruta healing? Why had he kept it a secret? Aki had told me it was because they didn’t want him to be targeted by Abbadon. That didn’t seem like the whole reason.

  Beru and I didn’t sit together. We had both decided to get to know the other people on our team better. I thought she was referring to me, but she assured me that there were many people in the group she didn’t know well. At least not well enough to see if anything had changed, or if they needed help, or if an infection had begun.

  She went to sit next to Suzanne, and I ended up next to Thomas, chosen because that’s where the Priscillas had decided they wanted me to sit. It was a good idea. Although Thomas, as one of the four men from Kinver, had been around for the Shatterskin destruction, we had never really talked.

  I asked him many of the same questions I had asked Beru. I asked him why he had chosen to come with us again. He said it was because of James. He had always admired James and his two brothers. John, of course, was with us, but their other brother had stayed behind to take care of the families and the family business. It was a good decision. I always thought it was idiotic that men went off to war leaving families behind unprotected.

  Thomas said he didn’t have a family. Someday he hoped to marry and have children, but for now, the adventure of going after Abbadon was what called him. “Yes,” he said, “I know it’s dangerous. But at the same time, I will always have these memories.” Thomas waved his hand around the table, and I knew what he meant.

  It was odd how sometimes evil brought people together more than good times. It was a disquieting thought, and one I tucked away for future reference

  After the metal toadstools brought us dessert, and I patted one on the head and I swear it purred at me, Sam asked me if I wanted to go into the village the next day.

  Since I had just thought about how much I would like to revisit Dalry, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Someone either stuck that idea into my head or picked up on it. But Sam, a Ginete, asking me? Pita was the Ginete we dealt with the most because he was, as he called himself, the head brother. So Sam asking me instead of Pita meant something. Plus, although the first time I had met the Ginete was in the village, I had the impression that the town was a little leery of them.

  “Oh, they still are,” Sam said. “It’s kind of fun to mess with them.”

  Seeing my confusion, Zeid stepped in. “We’re all going, Kara. Or at least most of us. And yes, we’re messing with your expectations. Or at least Pita and his brothers are.”

  I looked over at the Ginete brothers. They always reminded me of a combination lighthouse with their huge eyes and a dwarf, or maybe ET. But I was warned never to call them dwarfs. I didn’t want to see what would happen if I did. What I did know is that they were crucial to the success of our last mission. Not fighters. Providers. They enabled us to do what we needed to do.

  “Aren’t we supposed to be stopping Deadsweep?” I asked, thinking how much I would like to go to the village, but worried it was taking us away from our work.

  “Yes. We are,” Niko answered. “And going into the village might yield us some answers.”

  “I’m in!” I said, raising my water glass. I looked across at Zeid ready to ask another question. He made a slight gesture with his head which told me to be quiet for now. Yes, that gesture told me there is more to this than meets the eye, but wait and see what it is.

  My curiosity was going full blast, but I was exhausted. I could wait until the next day to find out what no one was saying out loud. I thought that it was probably a good thing I didn’t know yet. It turned out that for once I was right.

  Twenty-Three

  If I thought I would escape my training sessions the next day with Niko, Aki, and Professor Link, I was mistaken. But this time it wasn’t brutal. They had made their point about being too tired to think and how vulnerable it had made me. How being too tired made everyone vulnerable.

  Instead, the training felt good. Zeid and I had a chance to practice our sparring skills together. I didn’t fall on my face as much as I used to and I even earned a high five from Niko, something I had never gotten before.

  Aki gave me new exercises to increase my flexibility which at times made me feel as if I was going to break in half. I didn’t need a high five from Aki in her class to feel good. I loved it enough to go without being told to. Besides, she knew how to do something I dreamed about doing—levitating.

  Although I now knew how to fly very short distances, I couldn’t levitate the way she could.

  On the other hand, I didn’t know anyone else who could either. Maybe it was specific to Aki’s people. I planned to find a way to ask her all the questions that friends ask each other, but I wasn’t at all that sure that she would answer them. But I had to try.

  Link spent time in class reviewing how to close our mental doors and communication channels. He kept sending mental suggestions to Zeid and me, and we were supposed to keep them away. It was so hard. It’s actually easier to block a physical weapon than a mental one. One is easier to see I guess. I thought it was great information, but I wanted to know if he really believed that Deadsweep would get into our heads that way.

  “It’s a good point, Kara,” Link said. “We don’t know how it is happening. But it never hurts to get better at recognizing false suggestions.”

  By the end of the session, I managed to stop him a few times, but that was because I began to recognize his pattern. Although he used different “voices,” he still spoke in a certain way and used the same kind of phrases. Once I recognized that pattern, I could detect his influence.

  After class, Link sat on the edge of his desk and addressed Zeid and me. I used to call him Professor Pinhead because he was so long and lanky. Link often wore his black hair slicked back like a helmet. When he wanted to make a point, Link would squint his greens eyes at you.

  Sitting on the edge of his desk, he started squinting before speaking. “Both of you did well with this, but that’s because you now know me. That’s a good thing. On the other hand, that’s a bad thing. Someone could use my pattern of speaking to you to make you think it’s me.

  “Plus, we don’t know the voice, or pattern, that Deadsweep’s suggestions take.”

  I tried not to be disrespectful when I asked, “How come you don’t? Shouldn’t you have some idea by now?” But even I could hear the hint of sarcasm in the question.

  I almost said, “Sorry,” but Link held up his hand to stop me. “Yes, we should,” and walked out of the room.

  “Don’t,” I said to Zeid, as he turned to speak. “I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sure everyone has been working hard on this question.”

  “And with no answers,” Zeid replied. “But that’s why we are going into the village. There have been some disturbances. We’re going to investigate them, and perhaps get a clue as to what is going on.”

  *******

  I wanted to start for the village of Dalry that very minute, but it was another few hours before we gathered outside the Castle and began the walk to town.

  Last time we walked this way I had been clueless as to how people in Erda did things. I had forgotten so many things while living in the Earth Realm. This time was different. I knew more. However, I felt as if I knew too many things that didn’t fit together. We were in the phase of too little knowledge, which I knew was dangerous.

  Leif and Sarah weren’t walking with us. I hadn’t expected them to come into town. They were continually disappearing and reappearing. I suppose they had other things they needed to do.

  Teddy also wasn’t with us. He scared some people, so it was better he stayed away. It was funny because of all of us, Teddy was probably the most gentle. Like the Ginete, he didn’t fight, he provided. He and his friends built the tunnels that we lived in when we needed to escape the Shrieks.

  Although they didn’t look like each other, the Ginete and the Whistle Pigs were cousins. They both lived underground, and it was the Whistle Pigs who built their underground homes and tunnels. The Ginete stayed in the Whistle Pigs’ tunnels and rooms while keeping us safe, but I knew that the Ginete preferred their home in the sides of hills and mountains.