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Chapter Twenty-Eight

I t was hard to believe so many terrible things happened in such a short span of time whenever Serena returned home. The sitting room was quiet and the night outside peaceful. They lit a fire to chase out the chill and sat themselves in front of it with two cups of hot tea as per tradition.

“Hey,” said Grim softly, “are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” she said, hugging her knees. “It’s like Lore said, that wasn’t my real mother, not really.”

“Still, it could not have been pleasant for you.”

“Just drop it, please,” she snapped.

He grew quiet, and she immediately regretted her words. But a part of her did not want to apologize—she just wanted to be alone with her thoughts for now. Grim seemed to sense this, and he did not question her again but stayed sitting next to her, his warmth a comfort.

A while later, she finally spoke.

“We need to talk to Nerida,” she said, thinking of everything that had been happening. “We must ask her about the scepter and what Lore meant about Arcana’s death.”

He nodded in agreement, and a minute later they were seated in the study with the mirror in hand. This time they did not have to wait long; within two minutes of calling upon her, the Fairy Queen appeared in the mirror, her stunning face more exhausted than before.

“I am sorry for not appearing before,” she said without preamble. “Faery grows weaker by the day, and it is taking all of my power to keep the wards up.”

Something occurred to Serena then. “Are you reinforcing the wards yourself? What about the king?”

Emotion flashed in the queen’s eyes. “His Majesty faced an unfortunate accident shortly after we lost Arcana,” she said, her voice heavy with grief.

“He has not been himself since, and so the burden of ruling has fallen solely on my shoulders. Anyway,” she said, attempting a smile making Serena feel horrible for doubting her intentions. “What can I do to help you?”

She and Grim exchanged a look before she said bluntly.

“What did you want from Arcana?”

“I told y—”

“I mean what does Lore mean by saying you led her to her demise? And what does it have to do with you helping me? And how does the Scepter of Wishes fit into all of this?”

Nerida blinked at the torrent of words that came out of her mouth, and then a look of guilt crossed her face. She sighed heavily.

“Very well, you might as well make yourself comfortable, child,” she said, her voice heavy. “This is going to take a while.”

“So, you admit that you hid things from us,” said Grim tightly.

Serena expected her to snap at Grim’s tone, but the queen merely nodded and continued.

“I will preface this by saying, it was not my intention to deceive you. I simply thought that involving you in this very messy situation from the start would do you no good, especially when you were already shaken with the curse and the revelations about your aunt.

“To start with, Serena, I initially wanted you to be my apprentice.

I even asked your aunt about it. However, she refused, saying you were too young for anything of that sort.

I respected her wishes and stepped back.

When you contacted me again yourself, you were under a curse, and it was unlikely that you could help me with what I needed, and so I did not bring it up.

“As for the scepter… I admit there is an ulterior motive for my helping you. As you might have already realized, it is the same reason the Five have sent young Grim here as well. They probably consulted their Oracle before deciding to make a move. The good news is, whatever futures the seer saw, one of them must have the possibility of finding the scepter. You remember that I mentioned the Faery Trials?”

They both nodded.

“Before the Trials, Faery was a modest kingdom, run on the belief of a dedicated group of people who believed in us.

However, with the Trials, Faery began to thrive—humans from all over the world traveled to us in order to participate.

This faith turned us into a vast magical kingdom, unequaled by any.

“And then the Faery Trials came to an unexpected halt. We continued to interact with humans, but as the world moved on and people stopped looking to Faery to grant their wishes, our power dwindled. However, we could not go back to how we used to be either, as the world grew more and more hostile to magical beings. We saw the way the human kings turned their greedy eyes on to us, and so we decided to disappear completely. That brings me to the reason behind the end of the Trials.”

“So, you do know why they ended,“ said Serena, furrowing her brow.

Nerida inclined her head slightly. “The Trials were powered by the Scepter of Wishes, which was a magical artifact belonging to both the races of faeries and spirits. It was created by a wish of love and grief by a faery princess for her beloved knight.”

“From The Knight and the Fairy Princess, “ said Serena.

A bittersweet smile appeared across Nerida’s face.

“I see Maeve passed on her love for that tale to you as well. Yes, you are correct, the tale is almost completely factual. The only thing it does not mention is that the Scepter of Wishes broke apart after a few centuries, as the feuds between spirits and faeries grew. The scepter was born out of the love of a Faery for the first Spirit, and when the two worlds refused to coexist—both wanting to claim the power and glory of the Trials–the scepter broke, leaving the Crystal for the Faeries, and the Wand for the Spirits. The Crystal protected Faery, and the Wand allowed the Spirits to keep existing, but there could be no Faery Trials, or wishes granted.”

A horrible thought occurred to Serena then, and a lace of betrayal crept into her next words .

“What you said about me getting a wish at the end of the Curse—that had nothing to do with the Curse itself, did it? You were banking on me reuniting the scepter somehow, which is also why you gave me the crystal, hoping that the proximity would trigger some sort of reaction.”

“What?” asked Grim darkly, his arm tightening around Serena’s waist. She was glad for his presence right then, for she felt lightheaded with fear and hurt.

Because if she was right, that meant that defeating Lore was not a foregone conclusion to completing all the tales.

All it would do was lift the curse, but the evil immortal would still be at large.

Nerida did not say anything, the answer clear in the stark lines of her face.

“I am sorry,” she whispered, looking suddenly very old and tired. “I truly do believe that you will be able to reunite the scepter, Serena. The only reason Arcana and I could not was because the Spirits refused to hand over the Spirit Wand the first time around.”

Trying to push aside her hurt, Serena asked the next thing on her mind: “What were you trying to do with Arcana back then? You still have not mentioned it.”

“I was trying to find a way that the Crystal could power the Trials without the wand. It is a little hard to explain but I will try.

First, you will have to understand Arcana’s role in all of this.

As I mentioned, she was a rare individual, with a bright and pure soul, and a life force that brimmed with an affinity for magic, despite being human.

She was also beloved by both faeries and spirits.

When I first met her, I was struck by how brightly she shone, and very soon I offered her a place in my court to study under me for a while.

I taught her spells and lore, many of which led to her eventual popularity in the human world.

Eventually, she came to learn about the scepter and the sordid history of the fae and the spirits.

She resolved to fix the relations between both, as she was favored by both courts.

To do this, she came up with a compromise: she would get the Spirits to help with lending some of their power to fortify the Silver Crystal, and in turn, the faeries would acknowledge their right to the wand.

She also got both sides to agree to working toward more cordial relations between the courts. ”

“I don’t understand,” interrupted Grim. “How would fortifying the crystal with the powers of the Old Ones make the crystal be able to power the Trials?”

“For that, I will have to go a little into detail about the powers of the spirits and the role of the Enchanted Woods.”

“You mean the Woods of Glenn?” questioned Serena, surprised.

For the first time, a smile appeared on Nerida’s face.

“Not just the Woods of Glenn. It might surprise you to learn that there is a mirror version of them in Faery—that’s where one of the entry points of Faery used to be.

The enchanted woods have always played a key role in fairytales, as they are the places brimming with the most magic, and power.

Have you not noticed that there is always an enchanted wood in all your fairytales?

That is how the scepter used to create the trials; it would open the doorways to another world by using the woods in both places as a conduit.

In some cases the world on the other side would remain the same, such as how the Spirit, Lord Jack, entered the world of giants, but in some cases all it does is create a mirrored world where you are tested with more personal challenges, like how the Red Maiden entered a world where she had to save her grandmother from a wolf.

In your case, the curse uses the woods outside your home to open the doorways to the other worlds. ”

“The tales are becoming much more than that now,” cut in Grim.

“They're creating worlds that have both– people we know from this world acting in different roles and worlds that are different from ours. These tales seem to have no purpose or point anymore either. Our last world had Serena’s mother as the Evil Queen.”