This time, their flighters were completely controllable. It took them a little bit to master the controls (in which Maria shouted a lot and Jason almost killed a passing humanoid with scaly blue skin), but once they had, they zipped speedily around the massive hall.

Rowen raced Jason through the palace, a map from Maria tucked in her back pocket. Although the flighters went at the same speed, færie traffic held them back or permitted them to move forward. It felt amazing, her hair whipping around her face, her stomach dropping as she dove and twirled, the utter adrenaline rush of avoiding hitting "pedestrians."

She slammed on the breaks as Ayren flew directly in front of her.

"Hey," he said, flashing her a sparkling smile. "Can we talk?"

"Sure," Rowen agreed nervously as Jason caught up with her, a particularly rude group of feathered creatures holding him up.

"What's up?" he asked, eyeing Ayren suspiciously.

"Uh, he wants to talk to me. Nothing big."

Jason narrowed his eyes. "This is the guy who kidnapped us. I don't trust him."

"I had to. I'm sorry," Ayren said, exasperated. "I'm actually an okay guy once you get to know me."

Jason shrugged and held out his hand. "Could I have the map, Rowen?"

She passed it over and Jason flew slowly off. It hit her how normal everything was becoming--to watch her best friend retreat in a flying contraption instead of on foot, to accept a talk from a boy with wings, to avoid hitting various humanoids of different colors and textures. 

Rowen and Ayren flew slowly side by side, focusing on avoiding the flying pedestrians as the hall grew more crowded. Once the humanoids had thinned out, Ayren cleared his throat and said, "I wanted to say I'm sorry. For...well..."

"Kidnapping me?" supplied Rowen dryly.

"Yes. And everything afterward."

"It's okay. It's pretty cool to know...that my best friend is a..."

"Færie princess?"

Rowen gasped and started laughing. "I never even thought of it that way! Oh, geez...she went as afærie princess, you know, one Halloween."

"That's the one where you dress up and demand sweets from other humans, right?" asked Ayren.

"Right."

"Well, you are officially best friends with a realfærie princess," Ayren said in a snobby voice, finally breaking the act and smiling.

Rowen enjoyed laughing and joking around with him, but there was something in his eyes that still made her uneasy. Something deep down. She couldn't decide if it was hard rage or ice cold contempt.

"So do you think I should apologize to Jason yet?" asked Ayren, and she dropped her gaze, realizing she had been staring into his eyes a little too long.

"No. I don't think you have to. His...family life is pretty rough back home for him, and he's always been a little on the fantastical side. He's a happy-go-lucky guy. He had no trouble really believing any of this, although he thinks it's really cool. We both do."

"Well, if he seems to have any sore feelings about it, can you pass on the message?" Ayren requested. Rowen nodded her head in consent.

"Good. We all need to be on good terms if this is going to work."

"I still don't know what 'this' is," Rowen retorted. "Why are Jason and I here?"

"The king and I have been tossing around a human initiation program. My reasoning is, why have the power to travel between dimensions if we aren't going to use it? And while we're at it, we could use it to bring in humans! Humans that would have some reason to believe us. Your reason was Princess Maria. You two were perfect test subjects."

"So we're test subjects now?"

"No--I didn't mean it quite like that," Ayren hurried to say. Rowen laughed.

"It's okay. I know what you meant. Is the king angry?"

"Yes. But actually, considering how well you two are fitting in here, he's not that angry."

"Seems a risky gamble to take."

"I had to try. What I really want is for some færie families to adopt orphaned or alone human children and give them a better life here. Orphaned færie children here are sent to boarding schools until they are old enough to live alone. Same deal if their parents don't want them."

"You can't adopt?"

"Nope. I think our idea of family differentiates from yours." 

Rowen nodded, mulling over this.

"Anyway," Ayren said with finality, "I just wanted to make sure there are no hard feelings. I didn't think about how overwhelming this would all be."

"It's fine. This is one hell of an adventure, if nothing else."

Ayren nodded and tossed a map into her lap. "I've got to get going." Without another word, he turned abruptly and flew off, soon lost to Rowen's vision in a loud crowd of humanoids.

Rowen sighed, unfolding the map and beginning the journey back to her room.

*

Ayren was very confused. Usually, people were terrified of him. They could sense who he really was, or something. As one woman had put it, "Your emotions never reach your eyes! You're fake, and we both know it."

Maybe since then he had gotten stronger, better at this little game. Still, he only noticed small moments of unease in Rowen. Jason, on the other hand, didn't trust him a bit.

She's either very stupid or very trusting, Ayren thought to himself. They're basically the same thing.

"Soon, she'll learn to fear me," he murmured, glancing around and passing through a seemingly solid patch of stone wall into his secret chambers.

The king and queen didn't know about these chambers. No one did, except Ayren and his boss. They weren't an original part of the castle, and it had taken a hell of a lot of magic to get them here.

The first part of his chambers was a simple stone hallway. A large bulletin board to his right listed his mission and targets. This mission was fairly straightforward. There were only three red pins--three death sentences--on the board.

To Ayren's right was a wall of plaques. The first one was a long list of names; everyone who had fallen victim to his steel. The second plaque listed ways of death, the most interesting highlighted in silver. The third and final plaque listed his total number of kills per year. The numbers had been steadily rising each year. Now because of this mission, they'll be going down, Ayren thought rather pettily.

He took the first door to his right into a completely bare stone room, save one piece of furniture--an ornate floor-to-ceiling mirror about three feet wide. Golden trim curled around its edges.

Ayren closed the door, stood facing the mirror, and clapped twice. A list of names appeared, all of them in bland silver except one at the top in blaring gold. He tapped on this one and the mirror's reflection rippled into blackness. Soon, it cleared to reveal a young man with a shock of neatly groomed white hair and a jagged scar stretching from his hairline across his right eye, which was wide open and milky white, unseeing. From there the scar traveled over his nose and lips to end at the left corner of his mouth. Not only was he grotesque, but he radiated power. Looking at him, one would get the sense that their life was about to come to a very painful end.

"Hey, boss," Ayren said nervously. He hated how the man in the mirror made him feel--shaky and like the little boy he had once been. He cleared his throat and tried to straighten up.

"They have arrived?" the man said without any preamble.

"Yeah. Yes. The Princess, the One, and the Blessed."

"I'll need full background information and inside info. I want their case files and everything they do to be documented. You know the drill."

"Yeah. I'm working on those."

"Good. Get closer to the Chosen, too. If she really is as powerful as the prophecy states, we need to keep tabs on her at all times, understood?"

"Easy. She already trusts me."

"Gullible, then?"

"She's...not scared of me. She treats me like I'm one of her fellow humans."

"Then it will be incredibly easy to win her friendship," rasped the man. He clapped twice and soon the only person in the mirror was Ayren's reflection. He rubbed his hands over his face and let out the breath he seemed to have been holding for the duration of the conversation.

He hated friendship missions. They always ended in pain for the infiltrator.