Invincible Read Online Free PDF Page B

spell for his lover, Aniseed, not knowing of her planned
betrayal. Joy twisted her fingers together in silence.
    He looked at her strangely. “But you saw it, didn’t you?” he
asked with a spark of hope. “The world beyond the Bailiwick?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd you opened the door?”
    â€œYes.”
    He leaned forward, his voice low. “Did you see them?”
    Joy flushed, uncomfortable with the memory. “Y-yes.”
    His eyes were barely slits of sapphire light. “Tell me.”
    She did, and the story came spilling out as if she could
explain away everything that had happened. “After I removed Aniseed’s signatura , I used the scalpel to cut through the other
sigils that locked the door...” Joy trailed off, uncertain how Graus Claude
would react to her erasing the Council’s sacred safeguards, but he didn’t
comment. “The princess ran through as soon as the door was open. And there was
an army camped on the hills.” She knotted her fingers in her shirt. “The King
and Queen saw us—Ink and I—in the doorway. They said—” She faltered, but they
were not words that she would ever forget. “They said, ‘Behold the Destroyer of Worlds.’ ”
    Graus Claude sat up, his spine pressed against the wall. He
blinked twice. “I admit that does not sound like the most fortuitous of
greetings,” he said slowly. “What happened then?”
    â€œThey said to come closer,” she tried to explain. “I didn’t
want to, but I—”
    â€œYou obeyed,” he said. “You could not help but obey. They are
our monarchs, after all. Those are the rules.” He tilted his head at her
expression, which felt oddly lopsided on her face. “And yet...?”
    â€œI don’t know. I stepped through the doorway,” she said. “And
the ground cracked .” Joy could feel the give of the
earth under her toes, the sudden lurch of lost balance and dread. “It split
right under my foot. Ink grabbed me and pulled me back.”
    The Bailiwick stayed silent for four long breaths. “And
then?”
    â€œThe army charged,” she said. “We ran.”
    He folded two sets of arms. “A wise course of action.”
    â€œAnd you know the rest,” Joy said, shoulders slumping. “The
door is open, the Folk remember, but the King and Queen have not Returned. Now
Ink is upset, the Council’s pissed off and you’re giving me a history lesson in
my brother’s bedroom.”
    â€œYes, well...” Graus Claude had the grace to look
uncomfortable, shifting his towel-wrapped toes against the mattress.
“Circumstances are hardly ideal, but I have graver concerns.” His gaze slid
sideways. “Do you know what that place was beyond the door, those verdant fields
and succulent mists under a milk-and-honey summer sky?” Joy shook her head. The
Bailiwick hung his. “You were in Faeland, Miss Malone.”
    â€œFairyland?” Joy said. “I thought that didn’t exist.”
    â€œNot Fairyland like some children’s tale,” he snapped. “ Fae land. Where all Folk eventually make their Imminent
Return.”
    Joy frowned. “What? Like Heaven?”
    â€œHeaven is a human concept,” Graus Claude said mildly. “And—who
knows?—perhaps it is a human reality. However, none who cross those pearly gates
ever return to confirm or deny its existence, yet all the Folk know that they
have a place in Faeland when all is said and done.” He turned his massive head
with a palsied shiver. “Immortality is a concept that far exceeds our physical
firmaments.”
    Joy’s limbs went numb. “You mean... I was in Folk Heaven ?”
    â€œIt’s not as if we have worlds within worlds at our fingertips,
Miss Malone,” the Bailiwick said. “There were few options available to the King
and Queen in order to