Elixir (29 page)

God, I looked like hell! I’d had no idea what the stress of the past few weeks had done to me. My hair hung in a limp frizzle over my forehead. My skin was ashen pale, and my eyes had deep purple bags under them. I gazed into my own eyes—they stared back at me in the dim light, hard and cold.

I tried to smile—but the hard-set lips in the mirror didn’t even budge. Could I not even smile anymore?

I moved closer to the mirror, so that I could see my full reflection in the light of the Perpetual Candle. As the beams cascaded in front of me and my whole body was revealed, I jumped back in shock.

I was dressed in rags. Matted, dirty clothes hung off a gaunt body like strips of moss.

But wait—frantically I patted down my body and felt the reassuring texture of my old jeans and T-shirt.

I let out a scream.

My reflection screamed too.

We were both screaming, staring, pointing at each other. I heard Eva call out, heard her running down the passage towards me. But I didn’t dare turn around. Because I wasn’t staring at my reflection—I was staring at my
Shadow.

CHAPTER 23

B
lood pounded in my ears. I’d been staring at my own face—but it wasn’t my face. It was
her
face. I knew we were alike—I should have known it was my Shadow. But I never dreamed that when I’d meet her, I’d think it was myself.

We stared at each other in silence. I didn’t know what to say. I was so overwhelmed with feeling.

It was so quiet I could hear Eva breathing behind me. She had stopped short, staying a couple of paces back, keeping a respectful distance. She must have figured out it was my Shadow. And she didn’t know how to react any more than I did.

I wanted to do something. I reached my hand out towards the ragged girl that looked just like me. I tried to smile at her, to show her I meant her no harm.

Did she know who I was?

I should say something, I thought.

But what could I say? I was the girl who’d put her in this position. Did she know that? What had she been told?

All I could say was:

“I came back to set you free.”

But the girl didn’t respond. Her eyes were hollow, vacant. It was terrifying.

Then it hit me. Of course she didn’t understand me! I was speaking to her in English. She’d left her home in the human world when she was a baby—whatever language she’d learned, it certainly wasn’t a human one.

So I spoke the same words in Fey.

At that the girl started violently. She understood. Her eyes took on a light. But not a light of hope. It was a cold hard gleam of hatred.

She opened her mouth to speak.

All she said was one word, in a terrifying growl.

“You!” She pointed at me.

Then she let out a howling, hissing, garbled series of sounds.

I jumped back.

She made the noise again, but this time I realized it wasn’t just an expression of rage. It was words. She was speaking Fey—but her human voice couldn’t pronounce the supernatural syllables, couldn’t speak in the Fey octaves. She was having an even harder time speaking than I had—and these strange noises were her approximation.

I couldn’t quite make it out.

And then my heart clenched as I understood: “Imposter.”

I felt the word like a punch in the gut.

It’s not true,
I wanted to scream.
I didn’t mean to
.
The Queen lied to both of us!
But as I stared at the girl—the girl who resembled me so perfectly it was like a reflection in a mirror—and saw the expression of cold condemnation in her eyes, there was nothing I could say.

She thought it was my fault.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, my eyes filling with tears. “I didn’t mean for it to happen this way.”

I didn’t know if she understood me or not. Her eyes were full of dull suffering, past all hope or forgiveness.

I wanted to run back upstairs to the Fairy Queen and shake her—
how could you do this to a child?
And the Queen—my mother—said she’d done this for me?

But we didn’t have much time. The Queen was probably pacing in her room right now, wondering how much more time I needed “alone” with Eva; she’d come after me soon, if she hadn’t already. I had to get my Shadow out of here. I had to convince her to come with me, if there was any hope of saving her. Picking up the last shreds of my courage, I met her haunted eyes.

“Listen,” I said awkwardly, “I know you don’t trust me. And you have every right not to. But please believe me when I say—we’re here to help you escape. The Fairy Queen lied to me too. I’m on your side. We’re going to get you out. But you need to come with us.”

The girl looked at me like some kind of desperate, cornered animal and gave out a low hiss. Had she understood what I’d said? I couldn’t tell. I tried again.

“Please. There isn’t much time. You need to come with us.”

I gestured to the passageway that led away from this room, and then slowly walked towards it, stepping backwards, keeping my face to her the whole time, motioning for her to follow.

Slowly, she took a few steps towards me, her eyes never leaving mine. The intensity of her stare was unnerving. But I tried to keep calm.

“That’s good,” I said, trying to sound more cheerful and less terrified than I felt. “Keep coming. You’re almost there. We just have to walk to the end of the passage.”

We turned the corner together. I could see the blaze of light from the Perpetual Candle illuminating the wall.

My Shadow screamed in agony, her hands shielding her eyes, and she fell to the ground.

“What’s wrong with her?” I heard Eva cry.

My Shadow was saying something, but at first I couldn’t make it out with her hands covering her face. She was repeating the same phrase over and over.

“She’s saying . . . ‘it hurts, it hurts.’ ”

I knelt down on the floor of the cave beside her.

“What hurts?”

But she wouldn’t answer me. She ran back into the corner of her cave room.

“Oh god, it’s the light,” I realized, and my stomach clenched. “She’s been in the dark so long, the light is torture.”

My Shadow was now cowering in the darkest part of the room. When I walked towards her she hissed at me.

“I’m so sorry!” I said, awkwardly bending down beside her. “It’s the only way out. It’ll get better. I’ll try to shield you. Will you come with me?”

Violently, she shook her head.

I reached out to touch her hand. She raised her eyes to me, an expression of such utter hatred that I felt it like a pain in my body.

And then the pain became real, searing, physical. With a wild yell, my Shadow wrenched my arm back. As I screamed and tried to free myself, she slammed her fist into my jaw. Eva screamed too, running towards me as I stumbled backwards. My arms reached out in vain to catch myself, but I fell, smacking down on the stone floor. Pain radiated through my tailbone. I had less than a moment to take stock of what was happening when suddenly my Shadow was on top of me.

She was slamming her fists into my ribs. I cried out but she kept hitting me.

With a guttural yell, Eva ran up to my Shadow and jumped on her back, kicking her from behind. But the girl was strong; she wrenched Eva off and threw her backwards.

“Eva!” I yelled as she crashed into the wall.

As I turned in Eva’s direction, my Shadow slammed her fist into my head. I winced at the pain, and blocked my head with my arms as her fists pummeled into me.

My Shadow was trying to kill me!

I couldn’t fight her. I don’t know if it was that I understood why she’d hate me—or maybe just shock and fear had frozen my muscles, frozen my brain. But she kept punching me. I could hear my own voice crying out. And yet my body wouldn’t move.

“Are you just going to lie there and let her make a punching bag out of you?” I heard Eva say. She was on her feet again.

And then I heard impact, and felt the girl’s weight dragged off of me. Eva rolled her limp body onto the floor of the cave. She had knocked my Shadow unconscious with one all-out, well-placed punch.

“Don’t hurt her!” I called out.

“Are you insane?” said Eva. “She was trying to kill you! Good thing she didn’t know as much about fighting as I do, otherwise you’d be dead—she certainly had enough enthusiasm for hurting you. I know you pity her, Mab, but you cannot let your pity undermine your self-preservation.”

Slowly, I nodded. Eva was right.

My Shadow was out cold, slumped against the floor, as if asleep.

“It might be easier to transport her like this, unconscious,” I said at last. “She won’t try to fight us.”

Eva hoisted her hands up under my Shadow’s arms, I got her legs, and together we began to carry her. It was slow going; the girl was heavier than she appeared. Still, it was progress.

But a thought kept haunting me as I looked down at the passed-out girl in my arms. What if she really didn’t want to come with us? She hated me; she’d made that clear. She hadn’t come with us of her own volition. If we carried her out unconscious, we’d be taking her to another world against her will. It was the very thing I’d done last time. That was what had started the problem.

I felt queasy about what we were doing. All her life this girl had been a pawn, subject to the whims of others. And now we were forcing our will on her again, carrying her out of her prison, her body limp in our grasp as Eva and I dragged her through the passage.
It’s for her own good,
I told myself.
That’s exactly what the Queen probably said when she severed your magic,
the little voice in my head whispered back. I felt ill.

Even if we were successful in getting her out of here, which I highly doubted—at every minute I kept expecting the Queen’s guards to apprehend us—what would happen then? How would my Shadow fare in the human world? She had lost her mind down here in the darkness. And if I took her back home—to my parents, to
her
parents—how would it go? There would be two of us. Would my human parents believe me? Surely they’d have to accept that something strange was going on—I mean, we looked exactly alike. But how could I explain it? I didn’t know what to do. I’d become a changeling so blindly, I had no answers.

We were getting towards the entrance of the room where we’d found my Shadow. The passage was narrower here.

Eva’s eyes grew wide. “Mab! Look out!”

“What?”

My Shadow had woken up.

I didn’t even have time to respond, because Eva leapt through the passage, tackling me to the ground.

I heard my Shadow give an ear-piercing cry.

And then Eva yelped in pain and slumped on top of me.

“Eva!” I cried.

My Shadow was still screaming—high-pitched sounds that echoed off the walls of the passageway. The Queen’s staff would have to be deaf not to hear that. I called out to her, begged her to stop, but it was no use. If she even understood me she didn’t care.

Eva’s face was slack, an enormous purple bruise rising from her forehead. What had my Shadow done to her?

I staggered up, kneeling beside her.

She had hit Eva with a rock. I saw the stone, lying cast off on the floor of the cave. My Shadow had been aiming for me, but she’d hit Eva when Eva dove to protect me. She’d jumped in to save me, and had gotten hit instead. Couldn’t I keep anyone I loved safe?

In that moment, I lost all my sympathies for my Shadow and I rushed her, tackling the girl to the ground. My Shadow kept kicking me in the shins, but I was too upset to even feel it. I grappled with her, pinning her down. What if she hadn’t been unconscious after Eva’s blow? Maybe the whole thing had just been a ruse on her part to trap us.

As I struggled to restrain my Shadow, who wriggled violently underneath me, I cast a look over at Eva. Her injury was swelling up from the blow into an ugly purple mass. She might have a concussion. I had to get her out of here—I had to get her to help.

“Eva?” I called—but there was no response. She was breathing, but my Shadow’s blow had left her unconscious.

I felt like kicking myself. Why hadn’t I just listened to the Queen and left Eva asleep? She never would have gotten hurt. It was all my fault. Eva had wanted to see the world; she wanted to see magic. And look how it had ended up.

I wished Eva was conscious and I could consult her nursing skills—I was no nurse, but I knew it was bad. A lump of swollen flesh the size of an egg had risen up from the spot where the stone had hit her. Her skin was a purple-ish blue.

“Eva—talk to me, say something,” I pleaded.

She made a twitching, muttering sound—like she had when she was in the enchanted sleep—but she didn’t respond. Panic took hold in my gut. This head injury was serious. She needed medical attention—fast.