[Half/Time 02] Twice Upon a Time Read online

  CHAPTER 2

  A warm wind tousled Jack’s hair as he opened his eyes, finding himself back in a familiar place. The oak tree behind him seemed to be made specifically to fit his back, and the grass gently swaying in every direction calmed him instantly, as it always did.

  “Noooo,” he groaned, driving a fist into the ground. “Come on. How many times do I have to say it?!”

  “You cannot avoid me forever,” said a man in a dark blue cloak from behind him. “I know you’ve been skipping sleep whenever you can, but eventually you must dream.” Beneath the cloak the man wore black armor from head to toe, the only markings of any sort a white circle inside a white oval, the symbol of the Wicked Queen’s Eyes, her inner circle of spies and assassins. “And when you dream,” said the Charmed One, “you will learn.”

  “Better people than you have tried to make me learn,” Jack told him as he pushed himself to his feet. “And they all failed too!” With that, he turned and sprinted off in a random direction. Glancing behind him, he saw the knight beneath the oak tree, just where he’d left him, which was good. At least the man wasn’t chasing him. Jack turned back to look where he was going—

  And found himself running straight toward the oak tree and the waiting knight.

  Jack slowed to a stop, then glared at the man. “You have no idea how much that irritates me.”

  The man grinned. “And yet you keep trying.”

  “I’m not going to be trained by you!” Jack shouted. “You or your stupid sword!” He yanked the sword the knight had given him in a giant’s mouth three months ago off his back, and then threw it straight at the knight.

  The knight caught it easily, swung it a few times, then whipped it back, right at Jack’s head.

  Both of Jack’s hands flew up of their own accord and slapped together, stopping the blade between his palms just inches from his face.

  “It appears as if someone’s learning whether they want to or not,” the knight said, his smile growing wider.

  “I don’t have time to argue this again!” Jack shouted. “We finally found the Fairy Homelands, but there’s some kind of curse… a curse that might have killed me, by the way.”

  “You wouldn’t be here if you were dead,” the knight said, but looked away as if distracted.

  “Oh yeah?” Jack said. “Because last I heard, you were not so much in the alive category yourself….”

  “Shh!” the knight interrupted, raising a hand. “Be still!” He turned slowly in a circle. “Someone is here. No one should be able to get through my defenses into your mind, but someone has broken through. Someone… familiar.”

  Jack turned in a circle as well, accomplishing nothing, since no one was there. The only sign of life at all was a city a few miles in the distance, but even that seemed empty and abandoned, at least from here. But given that he’d never seen the knight look even the slightest bit concerned, let alone worried, Jack decided there was more going on than he could see.

  Finally the knight seemed to relax. He shook his head, smiled, and turned back to Jack—then exploded into a million different pieces as a glowing white sword burst right through his chest.

  In his place stood a girl in a midnight blue cloak, wearing black leather armor, complete with a white eye in the center. In her hands was a sword that matched Jack’s exactly. And she was smiling.

  “First of all,” she said, “he really should have seen that coming if he’s as good as he thinks he is. Or, thought he is. Thought he was? I never know what tense to use for dead people who come back in your dreams.”

  Jack leapt backward, immediately raising his own sword. “Yeah, grammar can be a real problem,” he growled. “Like, how do you correctly say ‘Who are you?’ to someone who just killed a man right in front of you?”

  The girl continued smiling as she slid her sword into its sheath on her back. “Oh, whatever, he’s no more dead than he ever was. I just sent him away for a while. And as for who I am, I would have gotten to that if you’d let me get to my ‘second of all.’ You can call me Lian.”

  “Can I call you that because it’s your name?”

  The girl laughed. “In a way. Nice dream you’ve got here.” She sat down beneath the oak tree and settled herself in. “You should probably get comfortable. You’re not going to be waking up anytime soon.”

  “Shows what you know,” Jack told her, not moving. “I’m a pretty light sleeper. I’m probably going to wake up any second now.”

  “Oh, sure,” Lian said, rolling her eyes. “That’s usually how magic curses work.”

  Jack narrowed his eyes. “And how do you know that? Who are you?”

  “We’ll be here forever if I have to cover everything twice,” she said with a frown. “I told you, I’m Lian.”

  Jack shook his head. “You’re an Eye.”

  The girl stood up and bowed with a deep flourish. “Proudly serving the Benevolent Queen of the World for almost ten years now. Why, is that a problem?”

  Jack kept his sword between them. “I’m going to go with ‘probably.’”

  “Someone has trust issues,” Lian said, sitting back down. “I’m not here to hurt you, just to talk. After all, you’re already exactly where you’re supposed to be, stuck in the Fairy Homelands under a sleep curse for the next… How many years is forever?”

  Jack swallowed hard. “This is a bad dream, right? Some kind of nightmare? I’m gonna wake up and find Phillip getting attacked by invisible gnomes again?”

  “Yeah, waking up isn’t exactly in the plan,” Lian said, picking some grass and twiddling it between her fingers. “In fact, I very much doubt you’ll ever wake up before you die.”

  “You sound like my grandfather whenever I tried to sleep too late,” Jack said, his sword still pointing straight at the girl. “So what, are you here to kill me, then?”

  “Oh, not me,” Lian said, throwing the grass into the air and watching it drift to the ground. “No. As soon as I told my Queen that I’d set the sleeping curse off, she sent four battalions of dragons on their way.” The girl scrunched up her face. “I’m still a little unclear about how much a battalion is, so let’s say it’s eleventy-two. Which makes four times that many dragons on their way right now.”

  “That’s some impressive math,” Jack said, “but let’s be honest. It took us three months to track down a way to get to the Fairy Homelands. Without the Piper’s music—”

  “True,” Lian said with a shrug. “It does make traveling here a bit more of a headache. But dragons have a talent for going places other creatures can’t, even if it takes them a while to get there. There are spells to break through, dimensions to crack, that sort of thing, so you’ve got some time.” Her eyes brightened. “In fact, I’d guess you have until about sunset tomorrow night before the dragons arrive and set the entire Fairy Homelands on fire.”

  Jack suddenly had trouble standing. “See, I have a problem with that,” he said, his whole body going wobbly and all the blood draining from his face. “Not only because I’m part of the ‘entire’ you just mentioned.”

  “You, your princess, the hero prince, eleven fairy queens, and several hundred thousand fairies,” Lian said, counting them off on her fingers. “And no offense, but it was the eleven fairy queens that necessitated this. My Queen can’t have such all-powerful magic-users biding their time before they enter the upcoming war. No, it was better to just take them out quietly, and some bad decisions on their part made that extremely easy to pull off.” The part of Lian’s face not covered by her hood looked sad. “If it helps, it’s unfortunate that you happened to get here just now, instead of after the razing. I never thought you’d be this early…. Figured you’d arrive to find a burned-out husk of a land.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Jack said, any paleness now being replaced with the dark red blush of anger. “Are you just trying to torture me? Because talking to you is accomplishing that just fine on its own.”

  “Like I said, you’re stuck he
re,” Lian said with a shrug. “That is, unless you decide to take the intelligent option.”

  “Intelligent?” Jack said. “Someone’s obviously never met me.”

  “You could join my Queen,” Lian said, now playing absently with her sword. “Then I could wake you up and get you out of here. You’d be alive, at least. And I think you’ll find that my Queen is a lot easier to deal with when you’re not fighting against her.”

  Jack stopped to think for a second. “Lemme think how best to put this,” he said finally, “because I don’t want to offend you in some way. I’d rather walk naked through snow that’s on fire while all my friends laugh at me than ever consider joining the Wicked Queen.”

  Lian glanced at him. “Wow, nice visual there. Someone’s thought about this before! But there’s no call to be nasty about it. I thought I was being nice.”

  “By killing hundreds of thousands of fairies?!”

  “This is war, Jack,” Lian said, her voice growing softer. “No one wants to see casualties, least of all my Queen. But if she didn’t attack them, they’d attack her. She’s just protecting herself, really.”

  “That’s funny, because it sure looks a lot like she’s the only one attacking.”

  “You’re not… what’s the word… fun to talk to, are you.” Lian sighed, then stood up and stretched. “Well, then, I’m not going to waste any more time here with your grumpy pants. Good luck with the whole sleeping till you burn up thing!”

  Jack growled, then leapt at the girl, his sword raised high in the air.

  Faster than Jack could see, Lian whirled around and kicked him in the stomach. Pain burst out all over his body as he dropped his sword and flew backward, but before he could even land, Lian was there. She grabbed him in midair, then threw him to the ground twice as hard as he would have hit. The air burst out of his lungs as more pain exploded in his head. He groaned loudly, then opened his eyes to find her holding her sword to his throat.

  “Here’s the weird thing,” Lian said, her voice entirely unconcerned. “My Queen, she thinks you’re special. She thinks you’re smart. She’s… worried about you.”

  “Worried about me?” Jack said as he tried to suck in air. “That’s so sad. Just tell her I’m doing fine, will you? I never wanted her to worry or anything.”

  Lian rolled her eyes. “She’s concerned you’ll be a threat. They all are. But I know better. ’Cause I know you.”

  “Oh, have we met?” Jack said, and before she could respond, he threw himself to the side, rolling over. Her foot came down at him, but he grabbed it and yanked it out from under her—only she used his grip on her foot for leverage, kicking out with her other foot right into his face. Jack immediately released her as pain rocked through him, and her feet dropped to either side of his head, her sword now aimed at his nose.

  “Yes, we have,” Lian said, the smile back. “You’re not where you’re meant to be, Jack. You’re on the wrong side. And I think you know it.”

  “I thought I was a threat,” he said, his eyes narrowing. “You need to pick a point and stick with it.” If he could just knock the sword away—

  The sword slapped him in the side of the head. “Stop it,” the girl said, apparently reading his mind. “And I don’t think you’re a threat. I don’t think you’re anywhere close to being dangerous. But my Queen does, and what she says goes.”

  The sword disappeared and the girl stepped back, allowing Jack to push himself back up to a standing position. A few feet away Lian tossed his sword into the air, twirling it almost faster than he could see, without the slightest bit of effort.

  “Last chance to join us,” she said. “You were always meant to, you know. That’s why the Charmed One gave you his sword, and why you have such a natural talent. You’re fast, even fighting the training. You’re meant to be one of us, Jack.” She stopped smiling, and her eyes looked almost sad. “You could even say you were born to be.”

  “Too bad I’m going to end up all burned to a crisp, then,” he said, leaning against the tree for support.

  Lian shook her head. “Fair enough. Good luck with that!”

  And with that, the Eye disappeared, leaving Jack with less than two days to save an entire city full of fairies from a curse, with no idea what the curse was, or even how to wake himself up. Not to mention that whatever the girl had done with the knight, he hadn’t come back yet. And if she could do that to a fully trained Eye, what chance did he have?

  All in all, this might be a problem.

  CHAPTER 3

  As first her fairy, then Jack dropped to the ground just beyond the silver gate, something snapped hard in May. In the past three months she’d lost her home, her grandmot—her family, and her entire grasp on reality. And the only thing that’d given her any comfort in this fairy-tale world were two boys who’d stuck by her through magic and madness.

  And now one of those two boys had just collapsed in a heap.

  “NO!” she screamed, leaping forward, only to spin in a circle as Phillip grabbed her arm.

  “No, Princess!” the prince said, his eyes fixed on Jack’s unmoving body. “It is not safe!”

  “Your face isn’t going to be safe in a second!” May shouted. “Let. Me. Go!”

  “No,” Phillip said simply, pulling her backward despite her struggling.

  “Stop it!” May shouted. “We need to save him!”

  “Yes, we do!” Phillip shouted back, holding her tightly by her shoulders. “But first we need to figure out what type of magic caused this! It would do us no good to lose you as well!”

  “Stop making sense!” May shouted, and squirmed her way out of the prince’s grasp. Unfortunately, despite being hugely irritating, Phillip was right, so instead of running back to Jack, May just glared at the prince. “So, Mr. Rational, tell me what to do! What did this?”

  “I have no idea,” Phillip said.

  “I will smack you,” May said.

  “It’s a curse, you idiots,” said a voice from behind them.

  May and Phillip both whirled around to find a small girl sitting on a rock just inside the mist, wearing a midnight blue cloak pulled low over her head to cover almost all of her face. Beneath the cloak was some type of hard leather, all black except for a white circle inside a white oval right in the middle of her chest.

  Phillip immediately drew his sword and pointed it straight at the girl.

  And then his sword was in the girl’s hand, the blade spinning like a basketball on one of her fingers.

  May never even saw her move.

  “Now that was kinda rude,” the girl said, her frown the only thing showing beneath her hood.

  “You did this,” Phillip said, stepping away from May, something he often did when trying to draw attention away from her when they were threatened, which was way too often for May’s taste, honestly. Though, seriously, being threatened even once was probably too much for May’s taste.

  The girl nodded slowly. “Partly,” she said. “The magic isn’t mine, but I set it off. Orders, you know.”

  May went cold, finally realizing what was going on. “Whose orders?” she asked quietly.

  “She misses you, May,” the girl said. “She doesn’t admit it, but she does. We can tell.”

  And just like that, three months of purposefully ignoring any thought of her grandmother fell apart, and more than anything, May just wanted to run back to the woman and hug her. Also, maybe throw up.

  “What is the curse?” Phillip asked, still circling around the girl as May struggled to not lose it completely.

  “It’s a sleep spell,” the girl said, her eyes on May. “Don’t worry. No one’s permanently injured. Well, not till tomorrow night or so. No, we haven’t really even started yet.”

  “Started?” May said, hating this girl more than anyone she’d ever met, which was saying a lot. “’Cause I can finish it right now. Just stand still long enough for me to kick you in the face.”

  The girl smiled. “This is going to be
fun.” She reached into her cloak and pulled out a coil of rope. “Oh, look. I’ve got some nice convenient rope here that you could use to pull Jack out of the range of the curse. Then all you’d need to do is wake him up.” Her smile widened. “Any ideas how to do that?”

  In spite of everything, May blushed. “Seriously, the kick in the face. Think about it. I am. Over and over.”

  “Nah, I’m not cruel,” the girl said. “You wouldn’t have a chance.”

  “Really?” May said, her eyes widening. “’Cause I’m giving your face a chance to get out of here before I kick it in its face. And that’s the last chance it’s gonna get.”

  “I know what you’re here to do,” the girl said, standing up. Behind her May could see a familiar-looking sword hilt poking out from her back. “As does my Queen, obviously. But she doesn’t think you’re quite ready to know where you come from. Not just yet.”

  “Doing what she wants kinda went out the window three months ago,” May said. “She’s welcome to try grounding me again, but she’ll have to come tell me herself. And I can’t make any promises about her face not getting kicked, either.”

  “That doesn’t sound very loving,” the girl said. “But I’m hardly one to judge about family. Still, it’s your choice. I can take you to her right now and end all of this.”

  “You’ll have to kill me first,” Phillip said quietly.

  The girl sighed. “Really?” Before May could even move to stop her, the girl reached out and grabbed Phillip by his shirt, then drove his head into her knee. The prince gasped in pain and tried to pull away, but the girl just kicked a foot into his chest, slamming him backward into the silver gate. He hit it hard and collapsed to the ground, not moving.

  “PHILLIP!” May screamed, but the girl just held up a hand to stop her.

  “You people have no idea how much of a favor I’m doing you,” the girl said, almost sounding bitter about it. “Trust me. If the other Eyes had found you first, they wouldn’t have given you the chance to even say one word. You’d be halfway to the Queen before you knew what happened. They all think you’re dangerous, though.”