Her breath caught. Captain Plaith kneeled in front of the bodies of the Fates, who were laid out along the ground. Dried flower petals had been scattered across their formal outfits. The Captain of the Guard turned to look at Mina, his eyes red-rimmed and his face pale and covered in a fine coat of dust.
“Captain Plaith, what happened?” Mina asked, staying as far away as she could from the grieving man.
“How dare you enter here!” He spun on his knee and pulled a weapon out of his robes to attack.
Mina held up her hand in panic, and his blow froze mid-air. All she wanted him to do was stop, and he had.
His eyes looked about wildly, his teeth gnashed, and spit came flew out of his mouth. “I know you! I remember you from the maze, but you look different. How are you doing this? With the death of the Fates, there shouldn’t be any magic left in our world.”
“Well, maybe it’s because I don’t come from your world,” she said coldly. “Now, I’m going to ask you again. What happened?”
“Poison,” he said. “An offering came from the gnomes, and it was poisoned.”
Mina closed her eyes and felt a pang of deep sorrow. It seemed that the all-powerful Fates were not immune after all. The whole family fell to poison. “What can we do?”
“There’s nothing to do but prepare for the end,” Captain Plaith answered. “The reason the Fates are so strong is because they are the conduits of all power that flows through our plane. That link has been broken. If Prince Teague were here, he could save us, but I fear he doesn’t care about his people anymore.”
“He’s dead,” Mina answered solemnly. She released Captain Plaith from her hold.
“Then I fear the worst.” He put away his weapon.
“There has to be someone else.”
“The strongest Fae have gone to the palace to see if they can restore the magic to our lands. Others are looking for ways to cross over to your world, since ours is doomed.”
“Then we will go to the Fae palace,” Mina said.
“Good luck. It’s become quite the battleground. I’d stay very far away from there.”
“Look, I didn’t have to come back. I’m not even sure why I did, but if I’m not giving up on your world, then you better not either. Do you understand? That’s an order.”
Captain Plaith swallowed nervously, and a small smile crept onto his face. “Yes ma’am.” He stood taller and gave her a bow before walking to the willows and pulling the branches aside so she could pass through.
>Maybe she should have joined them, but something held her back. She couldn’t have explained it, other than she felt too much was left undone.
She turned to look at the ocean and asked Ever, “When can we get back?”
“We just left. Why would you want to go back?”
“Not to the pier—to the Fae plane.”
Ever bit her lip as she tried to think. “I’m not sure. We may be stuck here for a while.”
“That can’t be. We have to get back,” Mina’s heart told her something was wrong.
“There’s another natural gate, but it may take a while to sail there,” Kino answered as he came to stand by them. His face was covered with soot, and his arm had numerous cuts.
“Where?” Mina demanded.
“Well, the biggest one is the Bermuda Triangle.” He rubbed the back of his head and winced when he brought his hand away with a bit of blood on it.
“We don’t have that much time.”
Annalora was out there somewhere, and Mina didn’t know what else she had planned. But she would not let that stuck up gnome destroy everything.
“Well, you could always go yourself and use the seam ripper, but what’s the hurry?”
“Annalora. I feel like I’ve missed something obvious. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on over there. There’s… there’s something big happening, and I can’t tell what it is.”