Silently, Zephyr walked up to the back wall of the West Tower. The old buildings that made up St. Columba’s all retained a fairy-tale quality. The entire campus had once been a monastery, but time and traditions had changed and so the monastery was turned into a school for the wealthy.
From residents who took vows of poverty to those who lived lives of indulgence, the change was almost too great to ponder. Zephyr sometimes thought he would have preferred the former. He’d miss the comfort of money, but he wouldn’t miss the attention it drew. There was a feeling of history, energy perhaps, that lingered from the long-gone monks, as if they’d left behind some sense of purpose that filled those who lived here then and now. He needed that—or maybe it just felt that way to Zephyr. Like the monks, he had a purpose; he never needed to guess about what he was meant to do. The queen would tell him, and he would serve her wishes. He’d been born to do this. Literally.
He stroked a hand over the leaves that crept and twined together across the dimly lit wall. Most students had no idea that the thick vines covered a section of stone that accessed a network of tunnels. Unless one could ask the vines to part, there was no way to tell the passage existed and still keep it secret—since a human hacking through the growth would’ve been detected.
Zephyr willed the plants to separate for him, thanking them for their kindness and asking if they would hide his exit. With a welcome rustle the plants divided, exposing the hidden door to the mouth of the main passageway. Zephyr pushed the stone that would expose the latch, lifted it, and shoved.
The door scraped open and Zephyr quickly stepped into a dark tunnel.
The air smelled of dampness and age, and he wondered—not for the first time—what the monks had feared. Escape tunnels weren’t built by those without enemies. A fleeting thought of Lilywhite made him wonder if her homes had such hidden exits as well. When he’d first discovered his heritage, he wondered if that was why his parents had exit tunnels, but then Clara told him that he was a changeling and that his parents had no idea that he was fae. They, like the parents of all of the Sleepers, assumed that some latent fae DNA had surfaced in them. They protected him all the same.
After Zephyr pulled the door to the passages shut behind him, he flicked on the small light he carried in his pocket and followed one of the twisting routes to the other end. The tunnel curved and eventually this path came to narrow spiraling steps that descended two stories and dead-ended.
He’d figured out how to open it years ago, and he no longer had to look to find the stone that hid the giant key. He pried the stone out, retrieved the key, and opened the door. There were other passages. The one he typically followed led to the grounds outside campus. Tonight, however, although he was leaving campus, he was doing so via a route that was inaccessible to all but those who had the fae permission to enter the Hidden Lands—and the knowledge of tunnels at the very edge of the grounds of the campus, past the hedge maze, where only the Sleepers ever ventured.
Zephyr took his shoes off and set them on the floor at the end of the tunnel. Then, barefoot, he opened the door and closed it heavily behind him. The air tasted purer after the musty stone passageway.
He walked to the wall surrounding the private reflecting garden that was strictly off-limits even to the most indulged students. Here the walls were covered with roses. Again, he asked the plants to permit his access. Instead of parting, they shifted into a ladder of thorns and blossoms.
“As you will,” Zephyr whispered to them.
He ascended the rose ladder, wincing as the thorns pierced his feet and hands. There was no use in trying to avoid grabbing the vine where the barbs jutted out. If he did, they shifted toward him.
Small cuts marked his palms and wrists. Tiny droplets of blood seeped from his feet as he walked, but the cuts weren’t deep enough to do more than sting. They were hardly worth noticing.
Inside the garden, he began to pace, seeking one of the circles of toadstools that appeared when he needed to access the other realm. He walked and waited, calling out to the soil, asking for a doorway.
Finally, in between one heartbeat and the next, it appeared in the dew-wet grass. He wasn’t sure how the circle worked. He didn’t state a destination, simply went where it sent him. Once, he’d appeared on the shore of an island, seals rolling in the surf. Another time, he’d been at the edge of a forest where flickering lights seemed to beckon him nearer.
Quickly, before it vanished, he stepped into the circle, exhaled, and stepped out in the Hidden Lands. Today, he was at the edge of an expanse of slick black rock that glistened like ice. He let the feel of it, the weight and the age of it, speak to him until he knew what it was. Obsidian. It was a rock sharp as glass, made for sacrifices, carved into blades by both fae and mortals alike.
As he walked across a surface of the sacrificial rock, the small cuts on his feet continued to leave a trail. He wasn’t sure where he was headed, only that these tests were inevitable. He faced a new one every time he came to the land of the fae. This time, no matter how long he walked, the path seemed no shorter.
Finally, Zephyr looked back, and when he did, he saw that his blood had hardened into dozens of sparkling gems. He wasn’t sure what to do with them, but he understood that this was part of the test too.
“If I were a jeweler,” he whispered, “I’d string them together for my queen.”
At his words, the blood-drop gems skidded across the stone. He approached the pile as it coalesced into an ornate necklace on the ground in front of him. It was beautiful. Dark rubies fell into a jagged point as if they were strung on an invisible net, but at the center was a vacancy. The net was incomplete.
“Not yet worthy.” He looked around until he saw a series of sharp spires of obsidian. “I want to be worthy.”
Taking the necklace in hand, he walked over to the blade-like stones. He lowered the necklace to the ground, carefully spreading out the stones. Then, he stood and slid both palms over the dark blade, cutting gashes in his hands.
He knelt on the ground and squeezed his hands together over the center of the necklace. The blood ran from his skin into the void of the necklace, where it hardened into a large oval ruby.
“Well done,” a voice pronounced.
And there she was at last, the Queen of Blood and Rage, his savior and executioner. Her beauty was akin to terrors that left lands decimated and trembling. Her hair, so dark it appeared to be scattered with stars, flowed behind her like a cloak. Her eyes, so cold they made him want to run in terror, watched him intently. Her tiny feet were bare, and she wore armor the color of blood near hardened, neither red nor black but a hue that hovered between. Zephyr had the fleeting thought that the armor was dyed in blood. Stories of her cruelty had often been whispered, but he believed in her. She’d be the one to save them.