“I suppose we should wait here,” I replied warily, my eyes locked on Jakob’s. “I’m sure the elves will know we’ve arrived and come to meet us.”
Jakob huffed, turned his back to me, and stalked off into the forest. Behind me, I could hear the now familiar sounds of my companions setting up camp. I didn’t move from my spot, staring at the trees through which Jakob had disappeared. When I felt a hand land on my shoulder, I turned.
“Leave him for the moment,” Fynn said.
I glanced over his shoulder to where Will was setting up wood for a fire. Damaeon was helping, while Cyrus followed behind him, cautioning him not to strain himself. The Prince of the Dyrel laughed at his protector, assuring him that he was fine. Cyrus, however, was not entirely convinced and I noticed him glancing over at me on several occasions. I sighed.
“I don’t think I can,” I told Fynn. “Something is troubling him, and I want to know what it is.”
I shrugged off Fynn’s hand and ran into the woods after Jakob. Immediately I noticed the lack of spirits so close to the elves. The ones within me stirred impatiently, but I ignored them. They knew as well as I that they could not be released here, so they would have to wait. I kept running until I heard the sound of splintering wood. Following the noise, I spied Jakob hacking at a tree with his sword. I could tell from his expression that he was not happy, and that the tree was an innocent victim of his anger.
“Jakob?” I said, stepping into the clearing.
The former Huryl lowered his sword, breathing heavily from the exertion of attacking the tree. Still, the anger did not leave his eyes as he turned to face me.
“Why are you here, Leila?” Jakob demanded suddenly. “What are you dong? Is this just a game to you? Are you fulfilling some childhood dream of magic and faeries? Well, even if that’s all this world is to you, it’s real to me. It’s my world, Leila, not just a playground. It’s real.”
I stared at him, taking a hesitant step backward from his barrage of words. They echoed in my mind, his harsh tone of voice making them sound much more cruel. Jakob waited for me to answer, his chest heaving and his hand clenched tightly around his sword. I lowered my eyes to my clasped hands, blinking away the tears that were forming in my eyes. Anger and confusion mingled in my mind, and I could scarcely believe the things he was suddenly accusing me of.
“It’s not a game,” I said quietly, raising my eyes to meet his. “All I’m after is a way home. For a while, I thought maybe this would could be my home too. My world has nothing for me, no family and no friends. I found those here, the things I had bee missing. But you’re right. I don’t belong here. I’ll never belong here. It’s not my world after all.”
I fled deeper into the woods before the tears stinging my eyes could escape. I fled from Jakob, who made a sound that may have been asking me to wait, but I ran. Fynn, Will, Damaeon, Cyrus, I left them all behind. They were not of my world. Branches tore at my arms and legs, and gradually the sunlight began to fade.
When the wood was absorbed by shadows, when I was alone at last, I fell to my knees and allowed myself to cry.
“Hush, Leila,” a voice said soothingly in my ear.
I raised my head and saw a figure crouching in front of me. He smiled kindly, but I recoiled from his touch and scrambled to my feet, putting as much distance between us as I could.
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “It can’t be.”
“But it is,” Mattis replied, rising gracefully. “I have you to thank, and Aefynnelldar.”
The former Huryl commander looked different from before, less human and more faerie. My eyes moved up and down, trying to take it all in. As a living human, Mattis had short black hair that was always trimmed neatly. He had piercing green eyes and a pale complexion. He had worn the uniform of the Huryl army. He had looked normal.
As the Woodwalker, Mattis’ black hair was streaked with gold and red, and was longer and wild. He looked as if he had been caught in a fierce wind, with black curls flowing in all directions. His skin was silvery and shimmered in the moonlight, and his green eyes had found new depths. His ears were pointed, although not as long as Fynn’s, and he wore a strange outfit of autumn leaves and soft leather shoes on his feet. He walked smoothly, like a fish would swim, and the smile on his face revealed rows of pointed teeth.
“Stay away,” I warned, moving until I felt a tree at my back.
Mattis frowned slightly. “Really, Leila, that is an empty threat. Your friends are far from here, and I know you are too close to the elves to summon the spirits. It is a welcome moment of privacy for us, but you have nothing to fear. I have only come to offer my thanks.”
He stopped a few feet away from me and gestured to a toadstool circle that was barely noticeable through the underbrush. Still wary of my former enemy, I moved to stand beside it but was careful not to enter the ring. The new Woodwalker smiled again.
“You have given me what I always desired, Leila,” Mattis said. “When I was a human, I could only rise as high as king. Now, as a spirit creature, my power can be limitless!”
“The Faerie Queen,” I began.
Mattis laughed. “The Queen will never deny anything to her favourite, and I am her favourite now. She hardly cares what happens to the mortal world anyway, as long as I bring her souls.”
I shuddered in spite of myself. Fynn had shown mercy by giving Mattis to the Faerie Queen in his place. He had assured me that it would be centuries before she would let Mattis roam free, and with Ellena restored to Faerie, I thought perhaps we would have an ally.
“I will give you a gift, Leila,” Mattis told me. He laughed at the look I gave him. “I don’t doubt you mistrust me, but what I did as a human is long behind me. I want to start fresh, turn over a new leaf between us. Look.”
He snapped his fingers and the leaves within the toadstool circle began to churn. They swirled around so quickly that I found myself growing dizzy as I tried to watch them. Eventually, deep within the vortex, I saw a place I thought I would never see again. It was my childhood home, where I had grown up with my twin Nathan and my parents. I saw the outside of our house, the long driveway leading to the concrete steps and the brightly painted red door of the red brick house. I smiled and looked up at Mattis, who was controlling the leaves like a conductor of a symphony.
“It’s my home,” I whispered to him.
“Look deeper,” Mattis said.
I returned my gaze as the image shifted. Suddenly I was inside my house, looking at the unchanged furniture. The television was off, and bookcases lined the walls. There was a fire in the fireplace and paper scattered across the coffee table. Seated on the blue sofa were my parents.
“They’re together,” I gasped. “They haven’t been able to stand each other since Nathan died. What happened?”
“Watch,” the Woodwalker replied.
A police officer came into the room, holding more papers which he dumped onto the table. I could see my mother was crying, a tissue balled up in her hand as she sobbed on my father’s shoulder. The officer sat down on the matching blue chair and shook his head.
“Still no sign of her,” he said sadly. “After this long, with no leads, we’re inclined to give up.”
“You can’t,” my father objected. “She’s out there, alive, waiting for us to find her.”
“I can’t dedicate the manpower to this case, Mr Sinclair. It’s gone cold. We’ve had no fresh leads, and all the others have brought us to dead ends.”
My mother blew her nose and sat up straight, pointing an accusing finger at the officer. “You haven’t done everything, you couldn’t have. There must be something more we can do to find her.”
The officer rose to his feet. “We’ve scoured every inch of the woods where you daughter lives. We’ve questioned everyone who’s ever met her, and put posters and rewards all over the place. We’re out of options. I’m sorry.”
As the police officer left the house, my father patted my mother soothingly on the back and whispered into her hair. My mother shook her head and looked up at the fireplace mantle, where a picture of my brother and I sat.
“I can’t believe we’ve lost both of them,” she cried. “Leila, where are you?”
The image in the toadstool ring vanished as the leaves settled back to the forest floor. The sound of my mother crying was replaced by the cheerful songs of the birds in the trees. The Woodwalker looked at me sadly as the tears rolled down my cheeks.
“Why did you show me that?” I demanded. “Why did you want me to know how miserable my parents were without me?”
“You said to Jakob you had no family,” Mattis replied. “But you do have a family, and they miss you.”
I sat down on the ground outside the circle and put my head in my hands. I didn’t belong in this world, that I fought to protect. The world I was born into was searching for me, but I had no way to returning. My parents thought I was dead, like my brother, and their grief had brought them together again. If I could just get home, maybe we could be a family once more.
“There is a way, you know,” Mattis said, sitting next to me.
I looked at him expectantly, my eyes red and raw from crying. The new Woodwalker twirled a small twig between his fingers.
“Aefynnelldar had the power to send you home all along,” he continued. “That first time he met you in the woods, he could have sent you home. He doesn’t have the power now that he has forsaken the Queen, but I do.”
Mattis turned to face me, and I found myself falling into his deep green eyes. He took my hand in his and held it tightly.
“Just ask,” he told me, “and I will set you free. I will bring you home.”