“I think I know,” said Tamisin. “If the daughter of the fairy king loved him, Dasras’s place in Oberon’s court would be secure. He was worried that Oberon might get tired of having him around one day.”
“That’s really pitiful,” Jak said, shaking his head.
“Did you hear what Oberon said to me when he used the nectar?” Tamisin asked.
“Not really,” said Dasras. “Whatever he said he whispered into your ear.”
“He must have told you that you were his daughter for you to have believed it so strongly,” said Irinia.
Tamisin looked up when there was a loud boom and pink and yellow lights lit the night sky. “We have to hurry. Do you know where Oberon is now?” she asked, turning to Dasras.
“I don’t think you should—” Dasras began.
Jak took a step closer to the blue boy. “It doesn’t matter what you think. Where is he?”
“In the glade where he meets petitioners,” said Dasras.
“He’s lying,” Irinia told the others. “You can see it in his eyes.”
“Dasras, please?” said Tamisin. “I have to talk to him and stop this war. He shouldn’t fight over me. I’m not his daughter, and I can prove it to him.”
Dasras looked doubtful. “It would have to be good, solid proof.”
“It is,” Tamisin told him, trying to sound more convinced than she felt.
With Narlayna prodding Dasras from behind and Jak snarling each time he hesitated, the blue boy led them through the forest. They were passing the lake where the sea serpent lived when they ran into a group of full-sized warrior fairies filling reeds with fairy dust. Dozens of fireflies were posted around the small clearing, creating light for the working fairies. When one of the warriors spotted Tamisin and her friends, he stepped forward and held up his hand. “No one is allowed past this point, Your Highness,” he said. Then he glanced at Narlayna and Irinia and frowned. “What are you two doing outside the briar hedge? It’s way past your curfew.”
Tamisin looked around, but Jak and Malcolm had disappeared into the woods. “I asked them to escort me,” she said, turning back to the warrior. “I need to speak to Oberon. Would one of you be able to take me to him?”
“I’m sorry, Your Highness, but we have strict orders not to let anyone pass.”
“I understand,” said Tamisin, “but it’s very important that I see him now. I have some information that he needs to hear.”
“You could tell me and I’d get a message to him. Other than that . . .”
A loud, chuffing snort came from the lake near where the other fairies were filling the reeds. Suddenly a spout of water shot toward them, drenching the fairies and a basket of already-filled reeds. The fairies shouted, and while some ran around, trying to move the dust-filled jugs, others ran toward the lake where the sea monster was still spraying water in their direction. The warrior who was talking to them looked undecided for a moment, and then he, too, ran off to wave his arms at the sea monster.
“Come on,” said Narlayna, hustling Tamisin and Dasras past the fairies and into the trees beyond. Irinia followed a few paces back, watching the fairies with her second set of eyes.
“What happened to Jak and Malcolm?” Tamisin asked once they were out of sight of the fairy warriors.
“I’m right here,” grumbled the brownie as he slipped through the trees to join them. “Your friend will be along in a minute. So, his name is Jak, is it? I thought it was supposed to be Nihlo.”
“Where did you two go?” asked Tamisin.
Malcolm’s mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Someone had to distract those numbskull fairies. Your friend and I . . . Ah, here he is.”
Jak stepped out of the gloom, dripping wet and grinning. “That was the most fun I’ve had in ages! I thought you were crazy when you said we should use the sea monster,” he told Malcolm, “but I’d do it again in a heartbeat. I’ve never ridden anything that big before. And fast! And the way those fairies ran . . .”
Seeing the joy on Jak’s handsome face, Tamisin wondered how she could ever have turned away from him. After treating him so badly, how could she repair the damage she had done? Was it even possible to return to the way things used to be? Feeling embarrassed and guilty, she realized that she didn’t have the slightest idea how to apologize to Jak.
“Keep walking,” said Narlayna as she gave Dasras a push.
“She’s right,” Tamisin said, giving herself a mental shake. “We don’t have time to waste.”
“I didn’t think we were wasting time,” grumbled Jak even as he followed her through the trees. “Where are we going, anyway?” he asked, poking Dasras with his finger.
“It’s not far now,” the blue boy said. “We’d be able to see it if it weren’t for all these trees.”
“Quiet!” whispered Irinia, and they all stopped where they were. A squadron of tiny fairy warriors flew overhead on their way to the lake. None of them seemed to notice Tamisin or her companions, who started walking again once they were gone.
Only a few minutes later, Dasras paused at the base of a tree so big that six men standing fingertip to fingertip couldn’t have reached around it. “This is it,” he said, and turned to Tamisin. “You’re on your own from here.”
“I don’t see anyone,” she said. “Where’s Oberon?”
“Up there,” said Dasras, pointing into the branches high overhead. “This is the tallest tree in Oberon’s forest. I’ve never been to the top, but I’ve heard that you can see all the way to Sphinx Alley from there.”
“How do we get up there?” Narlayna asked, studying the first branch nearly twenty feet above them. It was so broad that three people could have sat side by side without worrying about falling off.
“You can’t, but she can,” he said, looking at Tamisin.
“He means I have to fly,” she told her friends.
Jak shook his head. “I don’t like you going by yourself.”
“I’ll be back before you know it,” Tamisin told him. The look he gave her was filled with such concern and longing that it made her heart skip a beat.
“We’ll wait here for you,” said Irinia, but Dasras had already disappeared through the trees.
Her friends were arguing about how one of them should climb the tree when Tamisin spread her wings. The wing she had injured the day before was still sore, but she thought it should hold out long enough to carry her to the top of the tree.
“Be careful!” Jak called after her as she beat her wings and rose into the air.
The tree was enormous, rising so high above her that she began to doubt that her wing could carry her that far. After a time, however, the mighty branches gave way to slimmer versions, and she soon spotted the twinkling lights of fairies. Not sure which one might be Oberon, she called out, “Father! I need to talk to you.”
Fairies swirled around Tamisin, then one that was brighter than the rest landed on the branch beside her. A moment later Oberon was full sized and looking tired and worried. “Tamisin, what are you doing here?” he asked. “You shouldn’t have come this close to the fighting. You do know that there’s a war going on, don’t you?”
“That’s just it,” said Tamisin as she settled on the branch. “This war doesn’t need to happen. There’s no reason for you to fight with Titania. I know how much you want to think that I’m your daughter, but it just isn’t true. Titania wasn’t lying when she said that my father was human. I have proof if you don’t believe me.”
Oberon frowned. “What kind of proof? Surely if your father were human, he’d no longer be alive.”
“He’s not, but I don’t need him to show you that I’m part human. I’ve had the proof with me all along. Look at my wings. They’re larger than a normal fairy’s, and I can fly long distances while I’m big. Which is good, because I can’t make myself shrink. And look here. My feet are bigger than a normal fairy’s.” She held one up and waggled it. “I’m not slender like a fairy, and if I ate as little as you do, I?
??d get sick.”
Oberon nodded slowly, glancing from her wings to her feet to her face.
“I tried to find ways that you and I were alike, but there wasn’t anything to find!”
“There may be some truth to what you’re saying,” Oberon told her. From the sound of his voice and the sadness in his eyes, it looked as if such an admission had been hard to make.
“Then please, please stop fighting with Titania! There’s no reason for this war to continue!”
“Yes, there is,” said Oberon, his expression hardening. “Titania hid your existence from me. I had to learn about you from others, which shamed me in their eyes. It’s a matter of honor. She must apologize to me, something I know she will not do. Besides, I cannot stop fighting until she does. I am simply defending my home.”
A loud boom shook the air, and the sky lit up in a shower of crimson and purple. Although the colors faded away, Tamisin could still see their images when she closed her eyes. In the brief moment of brilliance, she had seen what Dasras had meant. She wasn’t quite at the top of the tree, but she was far above the other trees of the forest and could see for miles, including the northwest corner of the forest where the lights seemed to originate.
Tamisin was gazing off to the far side of the forest when the flurry of fairies returned to swarm around Oberon. He nodded as they drew close. Turning to Tamisin, he said, “I must go. One of my warriors will take you to the glade where we first met. You’ll be safe there. We’ll talk more on my return.”
A moment later Oberon was small again, and then he was gone, having flown off with the rest of the fairies. Only one fairy remained behind, but when Tamisin said, “You don’t need to escort me. I can find my own way,” that fairy left as well.
When Tamisin reached the base of the tree, her friends were still there, waiting. “He said that he can’t stop fighting until Titania does. And now he’s flown off! We’ll have to try to see Titania now. I don’t want people hurting each other because of me, especially when there’s really no reason to fight.”
“How do you expect to find her?” asked Malcolm.
“I saw where the lights were coming from,” Tamisin told them as she folded her wings and tucked them into the slits in her back. “It’s that way.”
Narlayna nodded when she saw where Tamisin pointed. “That’s the northwest corner,” said the ogress. “I passed through there when I came to Oberon’s forest. My father’s home is on the other side of the river.”
“Then you’re familiar with the land?” said Jak.
“Somewhat,” Narlayna told him.
Tamisin paused as another boom shook the ground and made the tree branches sway overhead. “Then you know it better than the rest of us,” she said, looking at the ogress. “You can lead the way.”
Chapter 22
Jak wasn’t very good at estimating the size of a piece of land, but from what he’d seen on Lamia Lou’s map, Oberon’s forest encompassed thousands of acres. It was certainly bigger than the forest where Titania lived, the only other fairy forest that Jak had ever visited. When he sniffed the air, Jak thought Oberon’s forest smelled spicier than Titania’s, but that might be because of all the fairy dust that the two sides were using on each other. The presence of the dust might also explain why every sound seemed louder than it would have on an ordinary day. When he stepped on a twig and it snapped, Jak’s heart began to race.
The farther they walked, the louder the booming grew. Each time they heard it, one or more of Jak’s companions would jump. It seemed to bother Irinia the most; every time, she looked startled and let out a soft gasp.
They had reached an older part of the forest that had been left unkempt and natural, where tangled wild roses caught at clothes and fallen tree trunks waited to trip the unwary. Jak could see better than the rest of his companions, so even though Narlayna was supposedly leading the way, Jak steered them past a nasty-looking ravine and around more than one briar patch. He also kept his ears pricked for unusual sounds, which might have been why he heard the tapping before anyone else.
Jak poked Narlayna’s shoulder and motioned for her to stop and be silent. She did the same to the others as Jak crept through the trees, following the sound of the light, repetitive tapping.
“Blasted reed is jammed,” someone in front of him announced.
“Don’t do that! You’ll break it!” said a voice that Jak recognized as Ragweed’s.
“Then you fix it. I can’t get it to . . . Wait. There you go. That should work.”
Jak crept close enough to the fairy warriors that he could see them without being seen; it was Ragweed and Mugwort. He watched them inspect their weapons, then shrink and take off into the night sky. When he was sure they were gone, he slipped back to where Tamisin and her friends were waiting.
“Two of Oberon’s warriors,” he told them in a soft whisper.
“Huh? What’s that?” Malcolm grumbled in his normal voice. Irinia nudged him and bent down to whisper in his ear. The brownie nodded and turned his head toward the sky.
“We have to be as quiet as we can,” Jak said in a slightly louder voice. “We could run into warriors from either side now.”
“Or something worse,” said Irinia. “In the last war, both Titania and Oberon drove vicious creatures in front of their armies. I heard two warriors talking about it. They said that it softens up the enemy.”
“Do you think they’d do that now, knowing that Tamisin is in these woods?” asked Jak, shooting her a worried glance.
“They would if they thought she was somewhere safe out of the way,” said Malcolm.
“They probably both think I’m safe,” said Tamisin. “Oberon tried to send me back, remember? And Titania might be mad at Oberon, but I doubt she thinks he would put me in any danger. Even so, I have to keep going. If anyone wants to go back . . .”
When everyone shook their heads, they continued on a little more cautiously than before. They followed a faint animal trail for a time, then left it for the cover of deeper woods when they saw tiny fairies flying overhead. Once they passed through a section of woods that looked as if some sort of blight had taken hold. The leaves of the trees were curled and brown, and dead insects littered the ground. Jak thought the air smelled sour. When he brushed against a branch, it left a smudge of pale blue dust on his sleeve. He didn’t tell anyone, but he hurried everyone away from there as quickly as he could.
Not long after that, Tamisin almost tripped over a low rock wall, but Jak caught her and pulled her back in time. They walked around the wall only to discover that they were in the midst of ruins from long ago, a sign that someone other than fairies had once lived there. Jak would have loved to explore the ruins, and Malcolm seemed just as interested, but no one tried to dawdle as they made their way between rows of stones and out the other side.
A short distance beyond the ruins they came across a creek where moonlight showed them the uneven remains of stone pillars that had once supported an ancient bridge. Jak hesitated at the water’s edge, remembering the river at the bottom of the Great Ditch, but Narlayna strode to the bank and stepped off. When she was halfway across, she turned and waved to her friends. “It’s waist deep on me and the current is strong. Stay there and I’ll carry you across.”
A series of loud booms made Irinia and Malcolm cover their ears. When the lights descended only a few hundred feet away, Narlayna turned to slog back through the water. Tamisin and Irinia were standing side by side, so the ogress grabbed them both, tucking one under each of her massive arms. She had just deposited them on the other side when Jak saw a sapling wave wildly behind Tamisin.
“What’s that?” he asked Malcolm.
The brownie glanced across the creek, but the movement had already stopped. “I don’t see any—”
The sapling broke with a loud crack, and a two-headed troll stumbled out of the underbrush. “Narlayna, go back!” Jak shouted. “Go help Tamisin!”
Another two-headed troll tromped a sh
rub flat as it joined the first. Branches waved and twigs cracked like gunshots as another troll drew closer. Cupping his hands around his mouth, Malcolm yelled one word: “Trolls!”
Narlayna spun around and lunged toward the shore she had just left. Jak reached into his pocket and pulled out his comb. His eyes darted from the river to the shore, until they fell on the stone pillars. He had already transmogrified the comb into a sword when he leaped onto the first stone column. Wielding the sword in front of him, he jumped from one pillar to the next, finally landing on the far side of the creek.
Another troll had already emerged from the trees, twirling a tree trunk as thick as his upper arm over his three heads. Seeing Tamisin and Irinia, the troll bellowed and ran toward them. Narlayna was already wrestling with one of the other trolls when Jak ran up and swung his sword at the troll carrying the tree trunk.
Jak had learned from his experience with the griffin; this sword was strong, but light. He lunged at the troll. The creature parried the blow easily. However, Jak noticed that when he swung the sword, it created a whistling sound that seemed to bother the troll, making him shake his three heads and scowl. Swinging his sword to make the sound, Jak beat the troll back. And then Malcolm, who had swum across, climbed out of the water and grabbed a sturdy branch. Although the brownie was small, he was strong, and the whack he gave the troll across the knees was hard enough to make the troll howl, drop the tree trunk he was carrying, and bend over.
While Malcolm kept whacking the troll, Jak stepped back and looked for Tamisin. He finally spotted her darting around an ancient, thick-trunked tree while a two-headed troll ran after her, his arms stretched in front of him as he tried to grab her. Irinia was throwing rocks at the troll, but he seemed to be interested only in catching Tamisin.
As Jak drew closer, he could hear the troll talking to himself.
“. . . fairy girl!” said one head.
“We eat . . . ,” said the other.
“. . . her now!”