“I had assumed Darinda would explain to you what was happening.”
“And that makes it okay?”
“Your Majesty—“
“You can’t freeze the lake now,” I said, my voice high and nervous. “I need you.”
“You are a fine queen.” Talia patted my hand. “You don’t—”
“I do need you. What am I supposed to do? He wants the tear.” I held it up in front of me again. “And he’ll burn the world to get it. I don’t know how to destroy it or how to stop him or anything else. I need you to help me. To advise me.”
“If I could leave my people to sleep and stay with you, Your Majesty, I would.” Talia’s eyes were wide. “But I cannot. Just as you have to protect your people, I have to care for mine.” She moved closer and reached out to capture my face inside her hands, pulling our foreheads together.
I closed my eyes and squeezed them shut so I wouldn’t cry. “What am I going to do? I can’t do this alone.”
“You have no choice. In the end, you are the only one who remaining who can control the relics. You are the one who must destroy them. If you don’t, the World of Dreams, and everyone in it, will be lost.”
“You aren’t listening to me! I don’t know how to destroy it! I don’t know what to do!”
“I’m sorry.” Talia slid her tail into the water, her palms now braced against the bank, and planted a brief kiss on my forehead. “This is what you must do. Good-bye, my sister queen.”
“I’ll be standing here waiting at the spring equinox.” I didn’t bother to stifle my sob. “I’ll find the relics and defeat the Fate Maker, and I’ll be right here, the first thing you see when you wake up.
“This isn’t good-bye forever,” I said, remembering what my mother would always say when I was little and we were leaving another town behind. “This is only good-bye for now.”
Talia let go of the bank and sank under the water. I stood up and found that the mermen had disappeared as well. I wiped away the tears that had started to pool in my eyes.
It was time to get back to the palace and find out exactly what sort of fire was out there that was hotter than the flames of a million dragons. And then I had to figure out where the fire was and go to it. Because time was running out and no matter how much this relic didn’t want to be destroyed, that was exactly what I was going to do.
Chapter Eleven
“Hey,” Winston said when he found me in the garden later that night. The lights from the palace reflected around him and fairies sang in the distance. It was almost like those old teen movies from the ’80s that my mom had been such a fan of, with crickets and Molly Ringwald.
“Hey.” I shrugged and instantly felt stupid. I mean, Hey? Really? Talk about lame. The guy was my boyfriend, my consort—and according to some of the more traditional people in Nerissette, my husband—and we had been reduced to heying each other?
“What are you doing?” He crossed his arms, his skin brushing against mine, and gazed out near the lights of the fairy circles toward the trees. The music swelled from their dance and sparks moved up my arm where it touched his.
“Just thinking.”
“About what?”
“The Dragon’s Tear,” I said. I held up my wrist to show him the bracelet. “We found it today.”
“What?” He looked at me, stunned.
“We found the tear. Me and Kitsuna. We found the tear. Well, Kitsuna found it actually, but I was there.”
“Seriously? It’s the tear? You’re sure?”
“Yeah.” I nodded slowly. “I’m sure.”
“And what did Darinda say?”
“What?”
“Darinda and the other members of the Nymphiad. What did they say? Did they say it was the tear?”
I felt my stomach start to churn at the mention of the Nymphiad. I didn’t want them to see the tear. I didn’t want to take the chance of them taking it from me. It was mine. A magic that only I could control. One thing, the only thing, in this entire world that belonged to me and only me. “I…”
“Allie?”
“I haven’t shown it to them yet,” I admitted.
“Allie.” He put his hands on my shoulders and stared down at me. “You have to show it to them. Let them tell you how to destroy it.”
“I will.” I pulled away from him and turned my face away from his gaze.
“We have to destroy the tear. You know that, right?”
“I know,” I snapped. “I do. I know that we have to destroy it. The Nymphiad has been looking in every book that has the slightest link to the Dragon’s Tear and none of them can tell us how to destroy it. The only people who seem to know are the mermaids and their legends make no sense.”
“The mermaids have a legend about how to destroy the tear?”
“It’s a fairy tale.”
“It’s the only thing you have right now. You’ve found the tear and now we’ve got to find a way to destroy it. What do the mermaid legends say?”
“A fire that’s a million times hotter than the breaths of all the dragons combined. We need a fire hotter than anything else in this world. A million times hotter than anything we have in this world.”
“A fire that’s a million times hotter than the breaths of all the dragons combined?” Winston wrinkled his dark nose. “It doesn’t exist. There’s nothing hotter than dragon fire.”
“I know. Everything I’ve read says that dragon fire is the hottest thing in the World of Dreams. But whatever it is that burns hotter than dragon’s fire, we need to find it and use it to destroy the relic.”
“What are you going to do with it until then? Are you going to hide it? Lie to the Nymphiad about it?”
“No. I don’t want to lie about it. I just want to keep it safe.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Hide it, I guess.” I shrugged, fingering the bracelet. “We have to keep this a secret. Only tell the people who absolutely need to know that we have it. We’re willing to destroy the tear but some of the nobles?”
“They would give the tear to the Fate Maker,” he agreed.
“So we hide it,” he agreed. “Where?”
“The only place it’s safe. My tower. With the rest of the crown jewels.”
“Or we could give it to the Nymphiad?”
“Not yet,” I said. “Not until they know how to destroy it.”
“So we keep it secret. Just me and you. “
“And Kitsuna. She was with me when it was found. She knows I have it.”
“Do you trust her?” Winston asked.
“Yes.” I nodded. “But we need to keep it among the three of us.”
“We will. No one else will know until we need them to. We’ll keep it secret. Me, you, and Kitsuna.” He put an arm around my shoulder and squeezed lightly. “It’s going to be okay. You know that, right? All of this will be okay. You’ll hide the tear until we find a way to destroy it.”
“And if it’s not okay?”
“Then we’ll figure out what to do to fix it. Whatever is going to happen, we will find a way to make it okay.”
“How? Even if we do find a way to destroy the tear, the Fate Maker will be here in less than two days with an army. Are we going to send these people out to fight him? Again? What if it’s not enough? What if there are too many wizards or more trolls or—”
“It will be okay.” Winston grabbed my shoulders and turned me so that we were facing each other before wrapping his arms around my waist and pulling me close for a hug. “I promise it will be okay. I won’t let anything happen to you. I won’t.”