Page 20 of Fire in Stone

Like most cities, Munich had its pretty parts and not so pretty ones. The area around the train station fell in the middle somewhere. It was clean but rather plain and boring—asphalt and trimmed lawns with not much color. The time of year didn’t help either. There were no green leaves or flowers yet.

“This may not be the best example.” I waved a hand at the train tracks. “But our world can be beautiful in places.”

Placing his elbows on his knees, Elex leaned forward. “I’ve seen lots of humans, Amber. I’ve watched visitors in the menagerie. Some of you are better than others. But I don’t feel like I belong here or that I could ever be fully accepted in your world.”

“So, you’re positive you want to go back to Nerifir?”

“Yes.”

I should be relieved, really. But the spark of excitement went out in my chest, replaced by a just-as-unexplained drop of sadness.

“You said you can’t step in the same river twice,” I reminded. “How will it work when you go back?”

His jaw flexed. He looked worried, despite clearly trying to appear calm.

“Chances are, I’ll return to Dakath, maybe not exactly to the location I was taken from, but somewhere still in my father’s kingdom. The River of Mists tends to bring people to their own kind. I know I won’t land in the same time, though. It may be just a month or two into the past or the future. But it can also be centuries or even millennia from the time I was taken.”

Millennia.Wouldn’t that be like another world anyway? Even if the geographical location remained the same, everything else would change in that much time. Nothing would be like what he remembered.

Goosebumps rushed down my arms, and not from cold this time.

“Aren’t you afraid?” I asked.

I sympathized with his situation. But I had to admit, I liked him better this way—serious, even somber—than the sex-crazed brat he’d appeared at first. The reality of his situation must have cleared his mind from the lust-induced haze, allowing him to focus on far more important things.

“Time doesn’t move that fast in Nerifir.” He remained stoic. “Fae live for centuries and dislike change. Our kingdoms have stood for hundreds of thousands of years, and they will stand for hundreds of thousands more. No matterwhenI land, life shouldn’t be much different. Only the people would change. Everyone I knew might be dead or they wouldn’t have been born yet.”

“And that doesn’t scare you? To be completely on your own? With not a soul that would recognize you?”

He kept turning and pressing the ball of paper in his hands, reducing it to the size of a ping-pong ball.

“I’m just as alone here, Amber. At least in Dakath, I’ll be with my kind once again. In a world where I belong.”

ThatI understood. I had no one here on Earth, either. Yet I would rather be here than in some new, unknown world where I’d be the only one of my kind.

“Fair enough. But how can you go back?”

He tossed his paper ball from one hand to the other. “I’ll need to find a portal. There are many of them in every world connected by the River of Mists. I remember the one thebrackshauled me through. I was in my stone form when they stole me, but I wasn’t asleep when they brought me here.”

“Can you explain a little more who thebracksare? And why did they want you? I need to know what we’re up against here.”

“We?”He gave me a curious look.

“Well, if I help you find the portal, it’d be two of us, working together, right?”

“Why would you help me?”

I didn’t promise I would, but I was considering it. For a number of reasons.

First. Even though I’d turned him down, repeatedly, I kept feeling this inconvenient physical attraction for him. And I couldn’t think of a better way to deal with it than sending him back where he came from, especially since that was what he wished to do, anyway. Out of sight, out of mind, as they said.

Second. Elex didn’t seem to have much practical knowledge about our world. He couldn’t possibly travel alone without getting lost or worse, getting himself killed. I believed I’d be sad if that happened, and I was willing to escort him out of this world safely.

And finally, guilt kept pinching my insides. The more time I spent with him, the better I got to know him, the bigger the guilt grew.

“Do you want the whole truth?” I asked, avoiding his eyes. “Because it isn’t pretty.”

“The definition of pretty differs from person to person. Maybe I’ll find it beautiful.” He gave me a gorgeous smile, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

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