The Hidden Crystal

Chapter 26

Morning came again, and with it Iris' consciousness. She sat up slowly, every muscle in her body stiff and sore. The fairies were zipping around the room, opening the bed curtains, pulling back the drapes, and lighting the wall sconces. Iris was wearing a new nightgown. A fairy tugged on the cuff of her sleeve, and she followed it numbly as it led her behind the dressing screen to a hot bath. Several other fairies joined it around her ankles, taking the hem and pulling the nightgown up and over her head. She tried to lift her arms to help, but her aching body protested even that simple movement. The fairies managed without her, and then they helped her into the tub, little bursts of warmth lifting her legs over the edge and into the soothing water and fragrance of vanilla. She sank into the water and closed her eyes.

"Thanks." Her voice was raspy, her throat raw from screaming.

One touched her lips lightly, followed in turn by each of the others, and she opened her eyes and managed a small smile. They were lined up along the top of the dressing screen again.

"Guess we're in this together, huh?" she asked. The image of the frightened fairy trapped in the glass jar flashed through her mind, the sheer panic of its movements as it desperately tried to evade that blue spark, the sickening moment when it lost the race and dropped dead to the bottom of the jar.

"I'm sorry about your friend," she whispered, putting her face in her hands. "I couldn't stop him. I couldn't save it."

Sobs shook her shoulders. She sank back in the water, salty tears streaming down her face to mingle with the sweetness of vanilla rising with the steam. The mage told her and Char exactly what he was going to do to her. He told them he was a master of deception and trickery. She never felt the telltale snapping and crackling that accompanied his magic. He pretended to be Jonah, to lull her into a false sense of security. He mimicked Char during his nighttime visit, when he must have cast some sort of spell over her to make her sick and vulnerable the next morning. And then he pretended to be Jonah again, feigning concern, expressing reluctance when she begged him to take her with him. She really had made it easy for him. Permission and trust. Handing herself over on a silver platter to be tortured.

And that was only the start.

The fairies tried to comfort her. They tended to her every need over the next week as the aching gradually eased and the pain faded into memory. She didn't know how long this respite would last. Who would return first, Char, or the mage? She dreaded them both. How was she supposed to act normally in front of Char? She had to, for his sake and that of the fairies'. And when the mage returned, it would be time for another torture session, and she would have to decide if she was giving him permission again. She couldn't trust him. He said it hurt worse without permission and trust. She wasn't sure she believed him, but he had dozens of fairies held hostage, and he was more than willing to snuff them out one by one if she didn't do as he said.

The whispers came back at night. They told her it was time for the crystal to go home, over and over again, but they wouldn't tell her what that meant or how she should do it. Nevertheless, there was something comforting about them being there, like a warm embrace, and she knew they were the key to her surviving whatever was to come next.

It was midday, exactly a week after Char left her, that a knock came to her door.

"Iris?"

Her heart plummeted to her feet. It was him.

"Just a minute," she said, jumping off the sofa and running to the bureau. She was still in a nightgown, because she hadn't bothered getting dressed since Char brought her here. The fairies zipped around her to help her out of the nightgown and into a dress, zooming up the back to secure the fastenings. She took a deep breath and headed for the door, pasting a smile on her face.