The Angel of Elydria (The Dawn Mirror Chronicles Book 1) (22 page)

“I’m―I’m sorry! It was unlocked!” Penny shrieked, trying to justify her honest mistake.

The old man tossed her back, shouting in his harsh, sandy voice for her to get out. Penny scrambled away, her body shaking as she fled. The old man followed behind, wheezing as he gimped down the hall. She continued running down all the flights of stairs, eager to distance herself from the sound of his footsteps, which were never far behind. Once she was back on the first floor, Penny cried out for Hector. She sprinted through the entrance hall, and the man at the desk stood up in shock and choked as the old man thundered down the stairs behind her.

“Pop! What are you doing?” he demanded of the old man.

“I found
her
on the fifth floor, Clyde. The
gallery
on the fifth floor,” the old man spat. All the color drained from Clyde’s already pale face. With a pounding of footsteps, Hector rounded the corner and rushed to Penny’s side.

“What’s going on here?” he shouted at the two men.

Clyde approached, his hands waving toward the entrance. “Get out, both of you,” he said in a quiet rage. Before he shoved them from the Archillion, Clyde looked at Penny and rumbled a low, dangerous warning. “Don’t you dare tell
anyone
what you saw in there. I don’t want to see either of you back here ever again!” The door slammed in their faces with a boom.

Penny’s heart was doing jumping jacks in her chest as Hector looked at her in disbelief.

“What could you possibly have done to elicit such a reaction?” he breathed.

Penny couldn’t find the strength to answer him and buried her face in her hands. The raw hostility of the old man and his son had shaken her. She felt tears threatening to spill over, but forced herself to swallow them.

“I…I just,” she mumbled, lifting her face and looking toward the sky. She tried to fix her hair, but ended up slumping down on the steps. In a trembling voice, she told him what had happened. He pushed his glasses back up his nose and fell into deep thought.

“Hey―I’m really sorry. I didn’t know it would get us thrown out,” she apologized again.

Hector lifted his head and sighed, shrugging. “It’s quite all right. Anyway, your well-being is more important than―mountains and mountains of glorious knowledge ripe for the taking...” Pain coursed through his voice.

Penny chanced a hopeful question. “Well, did you learn anything at all in there?”

Hector’s look of despondency brightened a little. “Well, I had to connect the dots here and there, but I believe I’ve confirmed a theory that I’ve had for a very long time. Back when I began studying magical theory, I was originally was under the impression that there could be hundreds and thousands of different worlds in existence, but now I know there are only evidence of three―or at least three that are directly connected to each other. Here, let me try to explain…”

Hector reached into his pocket and pulled out a scrap of paper and a pencil. He drew three small circles, labeling the first circle
Nelvirna
, the second
Earth
, and the third
Elydria
.

“Now, here are our three worlds, yes? Supposedly, they are each connected by an invisible realm that cannot generally be reached in physical form. This is the place Madam Elise referred to as the Dawn Mirror. From what I’ve guessed, magic flows in a pattern through the Dawn Mirror, like this―” Hector scribbled three arrows onto the paper between the circles.

“You see, it’s really rather exciting. When magical energy is expended here in Elydria, for example, the by-product will pass through the Dawn Mirror and into Earth, where it becomes raw dream matter. After being used up on Earth it travels to Nelvirna, my home. Then the process starts over until the magic comes back to Elydria, ready to be used again. The magic flows through our different worlds, constantly recycling itself.”

Penny gasped as she realized something. “Hector, if this is true―you said your world was destroyed, right?” She waited to confirm the fact and he nodded. “If all the people on Nelvirna are gone…then according to this theory, there would be no one there to ‘recycle’ the magic and send it to Elydria, would there?”

“Precisely. I, too, came to the very same conclusion. This explains the shortage of magic in Elydria―the worlds have been thrown off balance. Soon, there won’t be any magic at all here in Elydria because it’s all staying built up on Nelvirna. Magic is the same as mass and energy―it cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed,” Hector proclaimed, his eyes ablaze.

“Well, this is great then! We can just tell everyone in Elydria why the magic has stopped appearing!” Penny clapped her hands together, but Hector shook his head.

“It’s not that easy, unfortunately. No one would take this theory seriously, I’m afraid. You see, the existence of these other two worlds―our homes―they’re still only legend. It would be like submitting a theory about UFOs or ghosts. No one has ever been able to travel between worlds like I can. The information gathered in those books is mere speculation and includes accounts given to the people by Nestor. Yes, the Angel,” he repeated when Penny’s face dropped in disbelief.

“Now, I…I must admit I know a bit more about this than I originally let on. This Angel that the priestesses serve is very much a reality. He is, in fact, a living, breathing entity. The truth is, back on Nelvirna, we had an Angel, too.” He let Penny digest this for a moment.

“The Angel from Nelvirna was almost identical to this Nestor. He was likewise worshipped by our people as the divine creator of our world. I even saw him once as he addressed the people of my country. I was very young, but I remember it with great clarity.”

Penny stopped him again. “What was his name?”

“Seival. He was a good and kind ruler to us―always, without fail or exception. I think it would be fair to say that he loved us…but then one day he simply disappeared. Notice a pattern yet?” Hector grimaced. “I was only around eight years old when it happened, but it still affected each and every one of us. We lived in hope that he would return to us again. Seventeen years later, we were still waiting. But he never came. Nelvirna was reduced to ashes before my eyes and I only narrowly escaped…I still don’t know what happened to Seival,” Hector finished, his face still and his voice monotone. They shared a troubled look.

HECTOR AND PENNY arrived back at the inn just as twilight was setting in. Neither of them was shocked to find Simon standing close to the innkeeper’s daughter as she worked the front desk. He leaned on the desk, his eyes glued on her. The red-haired beauty was trying her best to concentrate on her job, but kept getting sidetracked by the compliments Simon whispered. Hector yanked him away and Simon yowled in protest as they led him up the stairs. He gave up and blew the girl a tender kiss. She giggled and put her hands over her face.

“Well, that was uncalled for!” Simon squawked, straightening out his clothing once they were back in their room.

“Oh, stop your whining. You’ll see her again at dinner,” Penny scolded Simon. He seemed to be satisfied with the prospect of dinner and skittered over to the mirror to trim his goatee.

Something unfamiliar on the dresser caught Penny’s eye and she picked it up, recognizing it as the same type of poster she had seen on the advertising board near the Business District theater. It showed a handsome man dipping a gorgeous woman with flowing, angelic locks of sleek blonde hair and porcelain skin down into a passionate kiss. Penny read it over, and Hector crept up behind her to read the title. He snickered.

“What is that? The Cursed Kiss of Anthony Adonis?” he dictated with a short, derisive laugh. Simon realized what they were doing and pushed past Hector, snatching the poster out of Penny’s hands and hugging it to his chest.

“Don’t you people have any respect for my things? You can’t just go snooping around like that, it’s rude!” he snapped, glancing down at the poster as he ignored their mocking looks.

“You stole that off the front of the theater, didn’t you? It’s only an ad for a silly play, you know that, right?” Penny teased.

Simon snorted. “Of course I did, and I
know
―but just take a look at her!” Simon flashed the poster in Penny’s face and pointed to the doll-like beauty on the front. “She’s
ravishing.
Absolutely astonishing! I’ve got to behold this unearthly loveliness with my own two eyes. I’ll die if I don’t,” he sputtered, patches of color glowing on his cheeks. Penny shook her head with a scoff.

Hector rubbed his chin for a moment. “I wonder if I might see that again,” he requested.

Simon grinned at him, the light of victory creeping into his eyes. “Well, all right. But only for a second. It’s mine, after all.”

Hector raised his eyebrows and made an interested noise as he studied the poster. “This young lady
does
have rather captivating characteristics, I must admit. I wonder―”

Penny snorted in irritation, marched up to them and ripped the poster away. Both Simon and Hector tried to pull it back, their expressions wistful.

“This is no time to be gawking over some bimbo. We need to plan our next move. Or did her
captivating characteristics
wipe that from your memories?” Penny snarled, tossing the poster aside.

Hector blushed and pushed his glasses back up his nose. “
Ahem.
You’re absolutely right, Penelope,” he agreed.

“Well, what’s there to talk about? It seems to me that Plan-Man over here is fresh out of ideas.” Simon jerked his head in Hector’s direction. Penny sighed and looked over at Hector, hoping Simon wasn’t right.

“I am indeed at a loss of what to do,” he admitted, and Penny exhaled.

“There has to be
something
.” She was sure this couldn’t be the end of their adventure, but Hector remained nonplussed.

Simon answered for him, looking as if he thought himself rather profound. “The only thing we can do is to keep going. We’ve just got to keep on living―and hope for a miracle.”

T
he first few days at the inn were hard for Penny. The frustration of being stranded and not able to do anything about it threatened to drive her out of her mind, but somewhere in the blur that followed, that notion lost its edge. Though her encounter with Clyde and his father in the Archillion had shaken her, she reasoned that a way forward wasn’t going to come and find her, so she’d have to go looking for it.

She found it difficult to wander far from the inn at first, but within a few days her eagerness to find answers pushed her out the door. She fetched Humphrey from his stable in the Business District and transferred him to the inn’s private stable, where she learned the proper way to care for an anteloo from Matilda, the innkeeper’s daughter.

Penny wandered to the open-air market, which was just as alive and vivid as she had remembered. In two hours, she spent every last Yuebell purloined from Hector’s private stash on useless trinkets and exotic foods, like a savory grilled mystery-meat that stung her tongue, vibrant green crunchy puffs stuffed with melted cheeses, and an assortment of refreshing, icy beverages that tasted something like soda floats.

In a toyshop by the inn, Penny stumbled across a number of phenomenal little magical toys. Her chosen purchase was a miniscule butterfly that acted on the will of the person holding its reactor stone. Penny was pleased to find when she held the stone, the butterfly made a charming whistling sound and brightly flashed every imaginable color. Out of spending money, Penny sat on a bench by a decorative pond and amused herself with the little toy. It moved and looked realistic, reacting to her slightest whim. The fat fish swimming in the pond started jumping, trying to nip at the butterfly, and after one of them came close to achieving its goal, Penny decided she’d better focus on more important things.