With a Golden Sword (DFZ Changeling Book 2), page 27
As Alberich had taunted, it was identical to Lola’s gossamer. Other than the sharp edges, Alberich’s head was practically invisible, but her own magic had never bitten her like that. The sharpness made it easy to find the edges. Painful, but easy to wrap her actual magic around it, pinching the king’s gossamer out like a splinter and dragging it back down the silver thread into her waiting hands.
When Lola opened her eyes again, she was holding a furry black head with beady eyes and a jaw full of long, knife-sharp teeth that were perfect miniatures of the ones hanging above her.
“How did you get that?”
Alberich’s voice was low, tight, and, Lola realized with a smile, tinged with the slightest hint of fear.
“It wasn’t hard,” she said, clutching the king’s head between her palms. “You told me exactly where to look. You even gave me the idea for how to get it down here when you bragged about sucking up my dreams.”
“Give it to me,” he demanded, lurching forward until his dripping teeth were inches from her face. “Give to me now, or I’ll kill you.”
He looked like he was going to kill her no matter what she did, but Lola was done giving him power. That was her magic making his giant teeth gleam, and now that she was holding his life in her hands, she had the leverage to yank it back, banishing the lie of the monster to leave Alberich’s little body plummeting to the ground.
“No!” he screamed, righting his fall just before he landed on his face. “You dirty little thief!”
But Lola wasn’t listening. She’d already run over to her bloody creature, who was moaning pitifully where Alberich had thrown it.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, tucking the fairy king’s head under her arm as she used her reclaimed magic to summon a giant version of the same expensive bandage she’d just seen Tristan wrapping around her own stomach. “This is all my fault. I’m the terrified idiot who let him get that big, but it’s over now. I’m here, I’ve got you.”
Lola could feel the creature’s relief like it was her own as she wrapped it up. She hadn’t even realized how scared her other half was—how scared it always was—until she stopped pushing it away. So much of that fear came from her, but while Lola couldn’t undo all those years of self-hate, she could help her other self now.
She was still bandaging the bite wounds when something shot up from the ground by her foot to make a grab for the fairy king’s head. Lola batted it away with a flick of gossamer, sending Alberich flying as she snatched the head back into her arms. The king might not have been a giant monster anymore, but he was still clearly dangerous as he landed neatly on his feet, his hands coming up like claws.
“That belongs to me,” he growled, creeping closer. “You have no right to steal my treasure!”
“And you had no right to steal my body,” Lola snapped.
But Alberich had already leaped, jumping on her like a rabid animal. He managed to rip another chunk out of her arm before her creature slapped him away. Lola bound the wound with gossamer at once, but the blood she’d spilled remained on the ground, human and red.
“Now do you see why you can’t win?” the fairy king taunted, rising back to his feet. “Anything I lose can be regenerated off your fear, but you’ve only got so much blood to spill. Add in the fact that there’s nothing more important to me than my head, and even you have to see this is a losing battle. You think I was fighting dirty before? You have no idea of the hell I’m going to put you through if you don’t give back what is mine.”
Lola was about to tell him to put up or shut up when something tackled her from behind. It knocked her to the ground, sending Alberich’s head spinning off into the darkness.
“Ha!” Alberich crowed, running after his head while his monster snapped its gold-dripping teeth at Lola’s throat. “You’re not the only one who can split themselves! I keep telling you, changeling, you have to learn to pay attention to more than one—”
He cut off with a grunt as Lola’s bandaged creature slammed into him like a linebacker, kicking his head out of his reach. Alberich’s monster stopped chomping at Lola to dive after it, but she grabbed its ankle and tossed it away.
It flew surprisingly far. The monster had felt enormous when it was trying to bite off her head, but once she tossed it into the air, Lola saw that it was actually no bigger than a medium dog. A horrifying, murderous, nightmare dog, but nothing close to the building-sized terror it had been.
It wasn’t even faster than her as she snatched Alberich’s head back into her hands, though Lola was less sure about keeping it. She’d successfully reasserted control over her magic, but she was still hurt. Alberich’s power might have been an illusion, but the injuries he’d dealt to Lola and her creature were very, very real. Both of her forms were ragged and exhausted, while Alberich was more single-minded than ever. He attacked relentlessly, lunging at Lola with both his faces while she struggled to keep his head away.
She could see why he wanted it so badly. The fairy’s head felt like a neutron star in her hands. There was more magic crammed into that gossamer lump than there was in Fenrir’s entire pit, so much that Lola wasn’t sure how she was going to break it.
That was the part of her crazy plan she hadn’t gotten to yet. Victor had made cutting through fairy heads look so easy, she’d assumed that all she had to do was stomp on Alberich’s and that would be that. As always, though, nothing was as simple as it looked on television. Even when Lola slammed the stupid thing into the ground, it just clanged like a hammer, not even chipping the thin, knife-like teeth.
It was infuriating. Getting Alberich’s head was supposed to be Lola’s I Win button, but all she’d done was back herself even harder into the corner. Now that his head was in play, Alberich was driven by a desperate fear of his own. He didn’t even have to worry about his safety since, unlike Lola and her creature, he didn’t bleed. He could slice his gossamer to ribbons trying to reach his head, which made him very hard to keep away, and she had to keep him away. If Lola dropped the ball now, then all she’d accomplished was to hand Alberich’s head back to him on a platter. If she was going to survive this, she needed to move his head to somewhere he couldn’t reach, somewhere safe, so Lola stuck it into the only place the king couldn’t follow.
Down her own throat.
It happened in the blink of an eye. Lola knew how fairies grew their power, but she’d never had the urge to eat one herself until just now. Even inside her human death, though, Lola was still half gossamer. The moment she’d realized what needed to be done, her magic had moved on its own, transforming her face into a mass of teeth as she devoured the fairy king’s head in one swift bite.
“No!”
Alberich’s cry was over almost before it began. By the time Lola realized what was happening, both his shapes—the boy and the monster—had exploded into dust, which would have been incredibly satisfying if she hadn’t been working so hard not to explode herself.
The moment she ate the king’s head, all the condensed power she’d felt inside burst into her like a lake through a busted dam. Too late, she remembered what Alberich had said to Alva about how eating a monarch’s head meant consuming all that they were. That definitely seemed to be true, except all of Alberich was turning out to be more than Lola could stomach.
There was so much arrogance, so much death. It tore through her gossamer like she was back in the Sea of Magic, only this time there was no DFZ streetlight to shield her. She was on the verge of being blown to pieces when something warm and furry pushed her back together.
She cracked her eyes to see her creature. It had curled its body around hers, using its bulk as a buffer against the raging magic. Her double was there as well, clinging to Lola with her eyes squeezed shut and her arms wrapped protectively over both of their heads.
Lola didn’t know what good that would do, but she accepted their help with all her heart, wrapping her arms around the other just as hard as the exploding magic carried them all away.
Chapter 17
When Lola opened her eyes again, she was back in her own bed at her apartment.
This was, of course, impossible. Her townhouse had been destroyed along with the rest of her neighborhood during Fenrir’s rampage. It also hadn’t been anywhere near this big. The ceiling in her actual bedroom had barely cleared eight feet. This one was tall enough to fit her twelve-foot-tall creature with room to spare, something Lola knew for a fact since her fairy half was waiting at the foot of her bed, watching her with eager, beady eyes.
“Welcome back,” said a familiar voice.
Lola turned her head on the pillow to see her doppelganger lounging on a cushioned window seat overlooking a park of green trees that definitely hadn’t been in her old bedroom.
“The sleeping princess awakes!” she cried with her usual inappropriate cheerfulness. “How do you feel?”
“That depends,” Lola said, pushing up on her elbows. “Where are we?”
Her other selves glanced at each other with matching worried frowns. “We’re not sure, exactly. Things have been changing a lot since you went all Hungry Hungry Hippo on the fairy king, but our best guess is that we’re inside your barrow.”
That made sense. All real fairies had barrows, and Lola had eaten a pretty big one. There was just one problem.
“We’re still inside my death, though,” she said, pointing at the dark hole she could see winking at her from the top of her new room’s towering ceiling. “I thought barrows couldn’t reach down here.”
“They reached well enough when Alberich stuck his in to make that golden bed for your body,” her double reminded her. “He was the Underground King. Going deep seems to be one of his specialties. Makes sense you’d be able to do the same after eating him, especially since you’re already half-human.”
Lola frowned. “So you’re saying this is my death barrow?”
“What? No! That’s a horrible name!” her copy cried, aghast. “I mean, it’s probably technically accurate, but this place deserves a way better title. Just look what it can do!”
She hopped off the window seat and ran over to the door that normally led to Lola’s bathroom. When she yanked it open this time, though, the door led out onto a huge balcony that looked straight out of a travel magazine. It must have been in the DFZ since Lola recognized the lake, but the beautiful white-cloth tables set with gleaming silver and fancy wine glasses was definitely not a part of the city she got to see often.
“Where is that?”
“According to the signs on the buffet I raided earlier, it’s the private deck at the New Regency Hotel,” her double announced proudly. “You know, the big fancy one that’s practically falling into the lake.”
Lola did know it, but that just stirred up even more questions. “Why do I have a door that goes to a fancy hotel’s private deck?”
“It goes to a lot of places,” her double said with a face-splitting grin. “Toothy and I have been taking turns opening it ever since it showed up, and it seems to change locations every—”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Lola interrupted, holding up her hands. “Toothy?”
“I had to call her something,” her copy insisted, beaming at the furry lump, who snuffled bashfully. “Fairies always have elegant names. Surely yours deserves better than ‘creature.’”
Lola wasn’t sure if “Toothy” counted as elegant, but she couldn’t argue with the logic, especially since her other half looked so happy to finally have a name.
“As I was saying,” her doppelganger continued. “The door seems to change locations every half hour or so. We haven’t gotten anywhere outside the DFZ yet, but I think it’s pretty obvious what’s happening.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You’re a sleep low road maker!”
That sounded ridiculous, but again, Lola found it hard to argue. “Huh,” she said, leaning back against the pillows. “Guess I really am a fairy now.”
“You’re way more than that,” her copy said as she shut the door on the fancy deck. “But there’ll be time to sort through all of that stuff later. Right now, you should probably get back to your body. You’ve been asleep for a loooooong time, and your thread’s been jerking like crazy.”
Lola looked down at her wrist in alarm. Sure enough, the silver thread was dancing over her skin like a fishing line with a first-prize whopper on the end. It was odd to see now that she knew there was no one on the other side. Odd and frightening, because that string was connected to her physical body. What if she was having a heart attack?
“I think it’d be jerking a lot harder for that,” her double said when Lola mentioned it, opening her mouth in a giant yawn as she plopped back onto the window seat. “You go see what’s up. We’re going to stay here and relax.”
“Relax, huh?” Lola said as she climbed out of bed. “Guess you’re my lazy side.”
“Hey, Toothy and I did our time,” the doppelganger said, reaching out to pet Lola’s creature with her bare foot. “We’ve been protecting your gossamer butt for three days straight. We’re tired and you’re awake. That makes it your turn.”
Toothy yawned in agreement and put her giant head down on the bed Lola had just vacated, but Lola herself could only gape. “I’ve been sleeping in here for three days?”
“Technically, you’ve been sleeping all over,” her double said with a shrug. “We went through a lot of crazy stuff before we landed in the nice bedroom. This is a fairy barrow, though, so take all time estimations with a boulder-sized grain of salt. For all we know, you’ve been asleep for thirty years.”
Lola really hoped not. She was already spinning herself a new outfit that wasn’t bitten up and bloodstained. She was in a hurry, so she didn’t put much thought into it, but the simple jeans and sweatshirt she’d been aiming for came together surprisingly quickly, and surprisingly nice.
“Whoa,” Lola said, looking down at the beautiful stitching and the heavy, expensive-feeling cotton. “Guess we’re feeling luxe today.”
She rolled back her sleeve to check her arms, but Alberich’s bite marks were gone. There weren’t even divots left in her skin. All of her injuries seemed to have been healed without a trace, and Lola breathed a sigh of relief. She’d just conjured up some comfy sneakers for the walk back to Tristan’s when she paused.
“Do you know what state the city is in?”
Her copy shook her head sleepily. Toothy was already snoring on the bed, a stream of drool leaking through her sharp teeth to soak the blankets. It was obvious Lola would be getting no more help from them, but when she turned to sneak out the door, her hand stopped on the knob.
She couldn’t have explained it if someone had asked, but for some reason, going out into the city felt like a really bad idea. The hotel balcony had looked peaceful enough, but it was in a nice part of town, and it was facing the water. She hadn’t been able to see any other buildings or people. For all she knew, the rest of the DFZ was burned to the ground.
Lola dismissed that thought with a grim shake of her head. Victor was the Hero for real now. Assuming the Spirit of the DFZ hadn’t found someone else willing to help her break free, her old master was still in charge, and he’d never let a city he owned do anything so gauche as burn down. He’d probably already ordered the DFZ to remake herself in his image, which would be an even more depressing sight than smoking ruins. Lola was wondering if she could get her new door to connect straight to Tristan’s when the thread on her wrist gave its biggest jerk yet.
She looked down with a jump. The silver line had been pulling nonstop since the moment she woke up, but this was different. The pressure was so intense now, it was actually lifting her arm into the air. But while that was definitely alarming, it also gave Lola an idea.
Carefully, she wrapped her hand around the length of thread closest to her wrist. She’d been hoping she could move it now like Alberich used to, but the silver line remained steadfast as a steel cable set into a bathtub full of cement. That was a bit of a letdown, but Lola didn’t actually need to move the thread for what she was planning. She only had to move herself.
Just like she’d done before, Lola reached into the thread with her gossamer. Instead of pulling something down, though, Lola sent herself up, pushing all her magic straight toward the—
She’d barely begun the process when the giant version of her old bedroom fell out from underneath her like a trapdoor. Her double and her snoring creature went with it, leaving Lola tumbling through blackness like she always did whenever she passed through the Sea of Magic, except in extreme fast-forward. The wild spinning couldn’t have lasted more than two seconds before her eyes popped open for the second time.
She was lying on her back in a bed again, but not the one in her apartment. The ceiling she was staring at now belonged to Tristan’s guest room. Buster was even curled up on the pillow next to her, snoring his little cat snores into her ear. It was a peaceful, familiar setting, but Lola was certain she was dying.
She’d never felt this terrible in her life. All around her insides, things were moving and squelching. Her stomach hurt like fire, her hair pulled at her scalp like a greasy weight, and her mouth and throat were all wet and slimy. Her chest felt both constricted and too open at the same time, and her limbs were as stiff as rusty hinges. Her nose was clogged with something stiff that was also somehow drippy, and her eyes itched. How did eyes itch?
It was all more horrible than she could ever imagine. Lola was trying to figure out how to scratch her eyeballs without blinding herself when she heard something move.
She sat up with a jerk. The sudden motion sent Buster scrambling for cover, but Lola was in too much pain to care. Moving all at once like that had been a terrible idea. Even the parts she hadn’t moved were complaining. She was struggling to breathe through the pain when a wonderfully deep, familiar voice rolled over her.
