Finley Cai Aies Hall March 28th, 20XX

“How much do you know about your mother?”

An unbidden sigh budded up from my throat and let itself out of my lips as I realized that my life was, once again, about to be upturned by a woman I had never met or even heard of until a few months ago.

“Less than I thought, apparently. What does this have to do with her? Or me?”

Esmeralda raised a slightly irritated eyebrow at my tone, but kept going.

“Belphoebe was a fairy, but more importantly, she was our Queen. She ruled the queendom until her... unfortunate passing seventeen years ago.”

I got an uneasy feeling in my stomach as she continued speaking. It wasn’t difficult to guess where she was going with the sudden revelation of this information, but I so wished she wouldn’t.

“And what does that mean to me?”

She looked me up and down with a critical eye and then sighed in what I suspected was disappointment before continuing her speech. It could have been annoyance instead, but it definitely wasn’t a positive emotion anyhow. I didn’t know what this lady’s problem with me was, but she needed to cut it out before I let it get to me.

“It has everything to do with you! Because your mother not only attempted to run away with you as the only eligible ruler, but she also died in the attempt. We kept you in the human world for the past few years as a measure to secure your safety, but it’s time for you to come home. The fairies need a royal.”

The uneasiness I’d felt quickly sprouted into a feeling of annoyance and blossomed into one of intense irritation. Like someone was repeatedly poking a needle into my eye. Why was she talking about my mother’s death like that? And why was she being so hostile to me?

It had only been for a moment, but I had forgotten the fact that I was currently being held hostage by a bunch of weirdos in fairy costumes. I stood up and for the first time looked Esmeralda in the eyes.

“Look, lady, I don’t know what type of cult you’re running here, nor do I really care, but I’d like to go home now.”

I turned to the door and reached out to the space that should have occupied the doorknob. I was so angry as I moved that I wasn’t at all surprised when the doorknob bulged out of the smooth wood like a pimple and entered my palm.

After everything that had and was happening around me, something small like that wasn’t worth my reaction.

I turned the knob to the right and then to the left and angrily tried to figure out how to open the door. It was awkward as I wrestled with the impossibly heavy door, but I wasn’t in the state of mind to care about how the two kidnappers saw me.

Behind me, I heard Esmeralda’s slick voice slither out of her mouth and heard a conversation that worried me and made me try even harder to open the door and get out of here.

“It seems the human world has convoluted his sense of reality. We may have to be more aggressive.”

“You may not harm the prince, Esmeralda.”

“I really couldn’t, even if I wanted to. It was a term on my binding. I just wanted to undo a few of his mother’s spell.”

“I will do it. You may not use magic on his highness.”

Okay, now I was in a full-blown panic.

No matter how aggressively I tried to open the door, it remained sealed shut, and the useless doorknob pinched into my palm like a joke. I heard the flapping of wings as one of them approached me and turned around, but kept my back to the door.

Cambridge floated a few steps away from me and had a warm, unthreatening expression on her face. Her face seemed to be naturally stiff, so the smile appeared strained and burdened, which only stressed me out. She reached out a hand and tried to cup my face, but I dodged and rolled onto the floor and out of her way.

I’d dodged the first attempt to capture me but couldn’t dodge the second

She withdrew a baton from a holster at her hip and pointed it toward me with that same, strained smile on her face.

“Just calm down your highness. It’ll be over before you know it.”

Her warm and high-pitched voice was the last thing I heard before a bright light shot out of the baton and into my heart.

I felt my body fall and felt her catch me before I could hit the floor, but I was too focused on what was happening inside my body to notice, or even care.

The light heated my chest and ripped through my organs, and I felt an overwhelming sense of loss.

It felt like someone had lifted an invisible burden off me, but it wasn’t one I wanted to be lifted.

Just what exactly had they done to me?