Blue

“H-Herman…?” I swallowed the hard lump forming at the back of my throat, a hand instinctively reached around to make sure he was there. Never had his blistered hand felt as reassuring as it did now.

A part of me feared that if I took my eyes off the guardians’ rubies pair, they would rise from the invisible chains that held them in place and set their paws on us.

“I know,” he swallowed. “Fae dust?”

I shook my head.

The next batch was supposed to reach in the evening but we didn’t have the luxury of waiting for them. The little stock I had left from Ella’s was drained to half a handful after the last restoration spell. It might be possible to put a rodent to sleep with this amount but the guardians ten times our size? No such luck.

“What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon and three at close of day?” the Sphinx on the right asked on cue.

Damn the Sorcerer and his toys. We certainly did not come this far just to be maim by a creature of stone because we couldn’t answer a darn riddle.

Panic stricken, I turned to Herman for help when Jayden Forst stepped in front of me, a bored expression on his face. “What are you—!”

“Human,” he answered (actually answering the Sphinx!), still staggering over his own steps.

“What do you think you’re doing?! If you’re wrong, they will—!”

“Explain,” the Sphinx on the left with emeralds for eyes continued, the echo of its voice sent me staggering backwards. But no sudden raise of paws.

Yet.

“Human crawls on four legs as an infant, walks upright on two in the prime of life and hobbles with a cane in old age. Morning being the early stage of life, noon the mid and close of day the soon ending life,” Jayden Forst recited, as if he knew the answer from memory.

The moment of silence that followed stretched on excruciatingly long. It’s a miracle how calm he appeared while the rest of us desperately tried to keep our beating hearts in their sockets. I was more than tempted to pull my own locks off for the agony of it.

No wonder Ella’s mice friends loathed the cat so much. It was torturing to know something huge can take you out anytime it wants but the only question was, when?

When the Sphinxes spoke again, they spoke in a single voice, louder and deeper than when they did separately. A third voice that sounded like it belonged to someone of higher powers. “We acknowledge your presence, oh wise one.”

An eye from each Sphinx wafted down and circled one another so fast, my eyes could no longer distinguish between the two. In a matter of seconds, they merged and shrank to form a single jewel the size of a bean.

It hovered before Jayden Forst, as if studying him, before embedding itself in between his exposed collarbones. The Reader grimaced as its green body with a burning red heart shone innocently against his skin.

“The vault to knowledge henceforth welcome your presence at times of your wish and no guardian shall ever stand in your way.”

The stone doors caved into themselves, spilled soft gold light out of the Vault, the scent of ancient pages soon to follow. A still-drunk Jayden Forst was already halfway ahead of us, like he owned the place, completely oblivious to how impossible a stunt he had just pulled.

No one had ever answered the Sphinxes and survived it—at least not without a sleeping spell and a mountain worth of fae dust. Yet here he was, a Reader, completely unharmed with the legendary Philosopher’s stone pulsing on his chest.

Herman shared a shook of head with me. How?

There’s no doubt a Tale was brewing for the Reader. Now we only needed to figure out what our parts in it were.

When we stepped through the parted doors, Jayden Forst finally regained a part of his conscious self. Eyes widened and mouth agape. Even though it wasn’t the first time we visited the Vault, neither Herman nor I could stop marvelling.

Rows upon rows of Tales covered the expanse of the wall that reached into a stone tower extended into the sky. One that once housed Rapunzel though the girl had no idea what lies underneath its floorboard and still doesn't to this day.

Each separated multi-tiered crystal shelf was stacked under its predecessor, dedicated to a single Tale. The original copies sat in a glass case right at the centre of the shelf while adaptations and translations written by Authors in Pandora filled the space surrounding that particular copy.

An orb with a single keyhole in its heart hung from the octagonal ceiling and hovered a few feet above us. Deliberately made so that no one other than the pixies or fae moms could reach it with the designated keys.

Normally we would need a specific key forged from dragon’s breath stone to access each separate shelf but blessedly, we didn’t need that piece of artefact just to check the number of shelves.

I inhaled the scent of each compiled volume that filled the space, hints of scent from the hands of their origins still lingered on the parchments.

Out of the many scents, a few stood out from the rest; Hans’s sea and salts, Charles’s fresh roses and Herman’s forest and earth where he spent most of his time writing.

“After the Tales are completed, Lily White—the head of fairy godmothers—will send it to Morpheus, God of Dreams and Illusions, and insert it into the head of a dreaming Author. Usually we supply him with dream plans and he supplies us with audiences and gives us feedback in turn,” Herman launched into his one of his many lectures again.

I doubted Jayden Forst was capable of listening in his current state but Herman, being the old man in the mind he was, droned on anyway.

“The original copy stays on an empty shelf of its own until the Authors in Pandora draft the story and publish it for their world. Any adaptation or translations of the book after that will materialize itself onto the shelf of that particular Tale. Then the shelves that are full will move up—”

“And new shelves will take their place below. Then there’s these keys for each of them that you put into that keyhole hanging there,” I pointed to the orb, regardless of whether or not Jayden Forst was paying attention. “The right key will lift the seal and bring that specific shelf down to ground. There. Can we please move on now?”

Herman shot me an annoyed glare for cutting him off but we both know how long-winded an Author can be when he starts explaining things. He sighed and went in the other direction.

It shouldn’t be that hard of a task since new shelves were bound to appear in the bottommost rows. The only problem now would be how many new shelves there were. Sometimes there would be so many Tales in work, you wouldn’t realize another one or two shelves were stacked right behind the one you saw first.

The first that came into sight was a blue one marked with Cinderella in silver cursive, shining bright against its glass-based plate. Reassuring really. Since the last time we saw it, it was all rust and dust, like it was a Tale that was bound to never have a fairy tale ending.

Beside it were two newer ones. One was labelled Phantom of the Opera with a white half mask as its plate while the other sports a bat of dark steel with the name Dracula splayed red across its chest. The rest that followed were similar to it, each only differed to the ones earlier by the amount of bats or length of name.

The dark creatures seemed all range in the Readers’ realm these days. Weird if you ask me. Even Merryweather’s pet dove seemed a more Reader-friendly option than the black, leathery one (even if the dove in question has the delusion of itself being a carnivorous eagle).

“Blue! Over here!” Herman’s voice pierced through the silence that loomed over the Vault. I scrambled over, nearly tripping on the hem of my dress.

Herman was four rows away, arms crossed in front of the smallest shelf in the room.

“You found it?” I pulled to a halt beside him and followed his gaze.

While others were at least a few feet taller than me, this shelf barely reached my eye level. There was so little space beneath it that one would think the Star did not intend for it to grow larger than a single Author’s handwritten script.

The name plate that adorned its top couldn’t be simpler with a piece of white plank in the shape of an opened book, a single butterfly perched at the centre-top of its hardened pages.

“It’s…nameless?” I searched all around, hoping Herman would point me to it. He didn’t. “How do you know for sure it’s this?”

“Remember Alice’s?” He gestured to the nameplate. “Hers was an open book too, the only difference was hers’ a blue caterpillar with mushrooms—”

“Eruca,” I nodded in remembrance.

“Yes. And this one here’s a butterfly.” He gave me a slow scan from head to toe and tipped his non-existence hat to the blue creature. “Rings a bell?”

“No way…”

He leaned into the side of the shelf and smiled weakly. “Yes way. In fact, it all makes sense. Why else would he appear right in front of us?”

“Well, for starter he could happen to be near a portal like Alice was near the Rabbit Hole in Dreamland and—”

“Remember how he said something about a wish that got him here?”

“Yes, but—”

“I am thinking that particular wish has got something to do with you.”

“He wished upon the Star in his realm, Herman, and that has nothing—”

“You wished upon the star at the same time he did.”

My breath hitched.

“Do you see what I see now, Celastrina Blue?” Herman grabbed me by the shoulders and stared into my eyes, his own dark pair intense with new-found interest. “Your wish and his, you’ve made yourself a part of a Reader’s Tale!”

I bit down hard on my lower lip to stop the tremor running through it. It was one thing to wish for the impossible, it was another to have it granted in an even more impossible way.

“Look Herman Grimm,” I tried my best reprimanding voice though it came with a squeaky echo. “We can’t decide what the Tale’s all about till we get anything at all from HQ which—”

“We can just drop by later. Problem solved.” Herman waved me off, a sign as clear as the constant snapping of his fingers—an unconscious habit when he’s getting impatient or his mind’s overloaded.

Or both.

“What if we’re wrong? We can’t just march in and tell Lily we’ve sneaked into the Vault with a Reader in tow!”

I am shouting now but couldn’t help myself. Reader has been a forbidden topic, just as Pieris and Atala were taboos at HQ. “You don’t know what would happen if we were to bring him back. Lily would freak and—”

“You don’t understand,” he sighed. “I think it’s better that you take a look at…”

Just when Herman was about to reach into his satchel, a loud groan jolted us both to attention. I snapped my head around in time to watch as Jayden Forst collapsed to the ground, his face flushed as he clutched his chest in agony.

“What the—!”

Herman was by his side in no time, laying a hand to his forehead while I struggled to warp my mind around reality. “W-What’s going on?” I kneeled down and accidentally scraped my knees against the sandy ground.

Herman ignored me, continuing to turn and check Jayden Forst’s exposed skin. A dark look crossed his face at the sight of a purplish slash on the inner side of Jayden Forst’s wrist.

“Why is he in so much pain?” I asked like a useless princess, trembling as I inched nearer to inspect the wound. Thin and small, barely noticeable like a strand of pixie’s hair but greenish-yellow liquid was oozing out of it.

“Scorpius’s sting. He probably ran into one in the Void but didn’t notice.” The strange light reflected in Herman’s eyes betrayed the calmness of his voice. “From the looks of it, it had spread to his entire arm by now. We have to get him the cure before it gets to his heart.”

Why hadn’t I noticed it earlier?

“No. no. no,” I shook my head, frantic tears stinging at my eyes. “It’s all my fault! I should’ve...! What do we do?”

Why hadn’t I thought of him being a mortal? Sure, Herman and I were both immune to poison but Jayden Forst wasn’t. Why was I so careless? He had barely passed his first trial. How could I let a promising Reader die his second day of Tale? Some fae mom I am, couldn’t even cure a small sting…without fae dust, my wand’s nothing but a—

My wand.

Herman screamed at me when I unhooked my locket and its silver chain dangled between my fingers. “Are you insane? Without your locket you’re—“

“Mortal,” I finished for him and turned to focus on Jayden Forst. “We’ll save that for later, alright?”

I laid the chain against the Reader’s chest and clasped it behind his neck.

Please stay with us.

With my locket between palms, I focused my mind, wishing desperately for its cold surface to warm again. A part of me doubted that its magic could save the life of a mortal but another part chided it and tried to believe in the Star’s whims.

Star knew how grateful I was when Jayden Forst’s breath finally steadied with the glow of my life magic.

“He came to us, Herman,” I repeated his words and tried to maintain a steady gaze with his horrified one. The feeling of weakness worming its way up my fingers was hard to ignore. “That means he’s our charge now. I don’t plan to let my charge die before he gets his happily ever after.”

Herman stared back at me, expressionless.

I could imagine the inner battle he was fighting. He might not be one to show it but when it came down to it, Herman Grimm was one of the most sensitive Author in the realm. I have lost count of the times Lily had to counsel him on not being too involved in a Tale. Especially when it came to what happened to those involved—even the villains.

“Herman?”

Herman snapped his head around, the look of a lost child splayed all over his face. Groaning loudly, he ran a frustrated hand through his tornado-blown hair and kneeled to pick Jayden Forst’s still body up princess style.

My locket dangled above the Philosopher’s Stone on his chest, pulsing a dim blue.

We could only pray to get there in time.