CHAPTER ONE
I stumble through the gateway as the ley line violently expels me from its depths and into the unknown. A whimper slips between my lips, and I wait for the angry magic of a protective ward to hit me.
To rip me apart.
I screw my eyes shut, and my shoulders tense at the ominous whoosh behind me. Oh no. A magic wind whips out, the loose strands of my green hair batter against my cheeks, and… the portal snaps closed.
I gulp.
After a few more seconds with nothing horrible happening, I open my eyes and straighten. My vision is blurry, and everything around me is a haze of swirling colours. I can’t focus, and in my panic, I can’t make sense of anything. Over and above my raspy breaths and the frantic beat of my heart, I catch the heavy hum and pungent fumes of a bus engine and sense the weight of the vehicle as its movement reverberates through the ground underneath my feet.
Traffic. People. Earth.
I slump against the comforting red brick of a now-familiar alleyway wall as relief hits me and take a deep, shuddering breath through the clawing lump in my throat. It’s like trying to breathe through a blocked straw.
Each breath gets easier as the worst of my panic subsides and my vision slowly clears. I did it. I got out without a fiery death. Go, me. The brick bites into my forehead, and without my permission, the innate magic inside me reaches out. It tugs, greedily feeding on the wall’s strength.
The old bricks give willingly. The wall is strong—being so close to the magic of the ley line—but nowhere near strong enough to repair the damage done to me. It’s a drop in the ocean of magic I’ll need to fix this mess, and if I take too much, I will damage the sedimentary rocks in the clay. Destroy the wall. That’s what trolls are notorious for.
“I can’t do that. I will never do that.”
I snatch my wayward magic back and push it inside until it’s a tiny, weak ball of power in my chest.
My eyes drift unwillingly back to the now-silent gateway. I’m being chased. I shudder and suck my lower lip under my teeth. The excess salt in my saliva makes the nasty cut in the corner of my mouth sting. My knowledge of portals is rudimentary. I have no idea if they have a redial function. I’ve used the one near my old clan and only know the two gateway codes. One to here, one to back there.
The mess I’ve found myself in. I can never go back. It’s the end of my life as I know it. Can things begin with an ending? When everything is broken and you’ve hit rock bottom? My trembling sigh hurts my chest. “I’ve done it before. I will do it again.”
Look at me, hanging on to my worthless life by a thread. I have just enough energy left to laugh.
Gathering the last of my courage, I push away from the wall. I escaped from Faerie after a friendly chat with some elves. When I couldn’t answer their questions—you can’t answer what you don’t know—they became pushy. Painfully so.
I got away, used my power to hide, and then took a chance on the random gateway. I had the oh-so-bright idea of dialling a code. Of course in my panic, I frantically smashed in the runes I knew, sloppily entered the code, and only with the grace of fate did I get it right.
It won’t take the elves long to find me. They have magic that would make your hair turn white with fright, and they will track me. I left so much of my blood in Faerie it’s inevitable. And when the spell shows I used their precious portal… I huff out a pain-filled laugh. Surprise. I do not want to be standing here like a divvy when they come barrelling through.
This time it won’t be fists and boots but the pointy end of their iron swords.
You’ve got this, Pepper. Everything is going to be okay. Hold on, don’t lose it now. You will not let them kill you or sell you to the Lord of Spring.
Time to get a wiggle on and get out of here. I take a precious moment to deal with my injured wrist. The bone is wonky, and the arm is swelling at an alarming rate.
“That’s not good.”
White-hot pain rips through my nerves. I carefully tuck the broken wrist more securely, manoeuvring it underneath my tunic, using the tight brown fabric to immobilise the damaged limb against my chest. It will have to do for now. With gritted teeth, I move.
I take a heavy step, and my weak right ankle rolls. I half laugh, half cry as it burns with pinching pain. “Mother Nature.” I shake my head in disbelief, and my lower lip wobbles. I fix my eyes on the cloudy sky to stop my tears. Why is my luck always so rotten? Why can’t— I shut the thought down. There’s no point in lamenting what could have been. The moaning excuse of if I’d been born into a different clan, the elves would have never touched me, blah, blah, blah. That way lies madness.
I take another precious second to rub my watery eyes and still-bleeding nose on my sleeve—blue bloodstains joining the rest of the blotchy mess. With no cleaning magic to help, there will be no saving the rough fabric from the bin, and that’s a good thing. I don’t want to see this outfit again.
Keep moving, you stupid bug. You’re going to get yourself killed. This time my inner voice has a nasty taint. It does the trick. I hobble towards the safety of the bustling street, my fingertips brushing the old wall in thanks for its gift.
The supply bag I borrowed from the elves during my escape is almost as big as me. With each lurching step, it digs into my shoulders and whacks against the back of my thighs. Each bounce jostles my poor wrist and ankle. I do my best not to limp. If I limp, I’ll throw my hip out. I’m such a prize.
It’s morning, and the street is busy with all manner of creatures: humans, shifters, demons, witches, vampires, and an abundance of fae. Earth has an eclectic population.
I drift to the edge of the street, close to the kerb so I can step off the pavement and into the road when needed. I don’t need to risk anyone getting too close and bumping into me.
When I was around eight, I followed my second-oldest brother and his uncle—not my uncle; long story. They used this mysterious door in the woods near our clan. Before they entered, they were excited, loudly talking about their upcoming adventure. I remember being hungry. Starving. I had nothing to lose, and I hoped I could sneak in and get something to eat.
So I followed them.
As they crossed the door’s threshold, something inside told me to memorise the pattern of the thirteen runes they’d used to get in. Diligently I did, then followed them.
It was a shock when I was spat out of a portal into a new realm. My brother and his uncle were nowhere to be found. I was stuck—it quickly became clear a different pattern of runes was required to open the magical gateway back to Faerie.
I waited for two days.
During those days, I lingered on the streets of the strange, fascinating new world, eavesdropping on its equally fascinating and strange creatures. For the first time in my young life, I felt safe. Which is crazy ’cause nowhere is safe, not Faerie and certainly not Earth. But the seaside town in North West England appealed to me on a strange level, and as a bonus, nobody noticed or cared about the small, odd green girl.
Two days later when my brother returned, I stumbled back to the clan. They hadn’t even noticed I’d left.
All everyone has ever wanted is for me to disappear. Magic has a funny way of making things like that happen. Cultivated by years of wanting, something clicked inside me and I vanished.
It was a new power.
I had disappeared.
No scent. No sound. No hint of my magic. I was still there, just cloaked. Yeah, the only downside: I was still there. I could interact with the world, and the world could interact with me, usually when I wasn’t watching out and a creature tripped over me.
From then on, with my new power, I came to Earth regularly for days and weeks at a time. When the local kids would leave for hours, I followed them to school, intrigued, and sat unnoticed in an empty chair or classroom corner, hidden, invisible, watching and learning. I even went home with a few of my friends.
I should have been learning to be fae. But I couldn’t risk getting caught sneaking around a school in Faerie—where magic is more advanced than it is on Earth. I learned like a human child, and once I had the basics, I floated to and from different classes and different schools, learning all the other skills I liked.
I wobble down Birley Street, a pedestrianised road, and shuffle past the witches’ shop. The sign written in bold letters above the door states: Tinctures n Tonics—Specialists in Portable Potions. The magic inside buzzes and bites against my skin. Strong. The urge to go inside the shop and ask for help, perhaps trade something in the borrowed bag for a healing potion, nags at me, but I keep moving.
I keep my awkward shuffle going as I trudge towards the sea. No one needs to see me in this state, and I don’t want to leave a trail of dead bodies in my wake when the elves come.
Witches. My small smile pulls at my sore lip. Once I was confident with my power, I even spent a year at the witches’ fancy academy. There was this one girl, a witch with violet hair, a witch no one liked. Tuesday Larson. I liked her and used to sit with her all the time. Not that she ever knew.
I squeak and dodge a swinging arm with a takeaway coffee. Gah. Hot liquid almost splashes my leg, and the sudden movement makes my entire body scream in pain. My weak ankle, feeling better from my slow, steady shuffle, gives another angry twinge. Out of breath and fighting dizziness, I stop, prop the bag’s weight against a lamppost, and take a deep breath.
An unhealthy sweat beads on my brow, drenching my hairline and trickling a stinging path down my back. I should ditch the bag. It could have rocks in it for all I know. Yet I can’t seem to let it go. My temples throb in the rhythm of my heart—I must be dehydrated—and my power flutters, fluctuating oddly like butterfly wings against my skin. I roll my head back against the metal post and catch the eye of a human on the other side of the street.
He is looking right at me.
Oh no. My heart misses a beat. My energy is down to bare fumes, and my invisibility must have flickered.
The man elbows his vampire friend. “Did you see…?” He points right at me.
I pull on the stone beneath my feet, wrapping the concrete’s strength around me. There’s a crack, and moving outward from my feet, a starburst of hairline fractures appears in the pavement slab. Nervously, my eyes flick about. I think it was just the human.
The man rubs his eyes, chuckles, and vigorously shakes his head. “Nah, you know what? That drink from last night is playing with my head. I told ya— Didn’t I tell ya it tasted dodgy? I’m seeing ghosts, man. Ghosts.” He elbows his friend again.
The vampire grins and playfully shoves him. “You’re a lightweight, pal. My cousin can see ghosts. She says she has a bit of necromancer blood.” Their voices drift as they continue down the street, playfully pushing and shoving each other.
Thankfully, I am forgotten. That was way too close. I gaze down at my feet and wince at the damage I’ve caused. Feeling bad, I silently apologise to the concrete slab. Then I take a deep breath and push myself forward. One step at a time, Pepper. This is how you do it—one step at a time.
I must keep a grip on my invisibility power until I can get off the street.
At the junction where the road meets the promenade, I wait for a gap in the traffic. Crossing the road, I turn left and carefully navigate over the tram tracks, then continue to limp my way down the deserted promenade, following the curved railings of the seawall, away from the bustling town centre and toward the iconic pier.
Central Pier looms ahead, its distant lights flickering. Each step now sends a jolt of pain through my ankle and travels up my torso to my broken wrist. The winter sun struggles to break through the thick blanket of clouds, casting muted light on salt-weathered buildings. Most are closed for the off-season.
The rhythmic crashing of the waves mixes with the cries of seagulls and the salt-laden breeze. It whips up tiny dust devils made of sand. They swirl, dancing in front of my unsteady feet like they’re playfully trying to trip me. I keep going—one step at a time.
I trudge for another pain-filled five minutes and arrive at my destination. Central Pier. The flashing lights and the cheesy music from the pier’s amusement arcade are background noises as my stumbling feet land on the old-fashioned subway tunnel. A subway, not one with trains but an underground walkway, is hidden underneath my feet.
Once, it linked the beach and the Central Pier entrance to the attractions on the other side of the street, and in its heyday, it kept people safe from having to cross the busy tram tracks and road. I see it for what it was: a creepy tunnel with toilets.
Around ten years ago, the Creature Council decided the upkeep of the subway was too much. The accidents were becoming far too frequent, and they closed it. I’m sure they planned to have the entire thing filled in, but conveniently, the lazy contractor they hired only blocked off the stairs and made it so both entrances disappeared, and that was it. Most people wouldn’t know the tunnel existed unless they were like me and had an affinity for stone.
I limp to my usual spot, and with a powerful strum of magic from the concrete, the ground opens and swallows me.
CHAPTER TWO
Over the years, I’ve fed so much of my power into the tunnels they feel alive to my senses—imprinted with my magic. That’s the only reason I can get inside while I’m depleted. The stone magic recognises me and lets me in.
I’m gently lowered, and as my feet touch the ground, a familiar cloying, musty, salty scent fills my nose and hits the back of my throat. It is eerily quiet, and the distant echoes of laughter and music from the pier above create a unique ambience.
Home.
The tunnel is pitch-black. It’s so dark here that I can’t see my hand before my face. I’m unconcerned. Groaning, I drop the hold I have on invisibility magic, and the sudden lack of its metaphysical weight makes me feel instantly lighter. Like I’m floating.
Oh heck, that’s not a good sign.
I’ve never strained my power so hard before. With a hiss and a tug, my broken wrist comes out from underneath my tunic. Being careful not to jar it—the movement still knocks me sick—I wiggle the heavy bag off my shoulders. It slips down my good arm and thuds to my feet.
“Okay. First, I need to fix the light situation.”
This entire section of the tunnel has carefully hidden fae lanterns, but the lights need a spark of power to ignite, and I’m tapped. I’m completely tapped out. If I use more magic right now, the mere attempt will lay me flat out.
With purpose, I hobble into the darkness, and after two wobbly steps, the toes of my boots knock against the wall and my questing fingers find the big battery-powered torch I have tucked behind the concrete pillar for emergencies. I heft it down. The metal is cold and gritty in my palm.
I run my thumb across the barrel, hit the switch, and the solid Maglite turns on. The warm beam of light dances across the tunnel, highlighting the shoulder-height blue tiles with the grotty white walls above with its mouldy blown plaster and the cracked and peeling paint as it curls in rotten powdery strips from the ceiling.
I breathe a tiny sigh of relief; the tunnel is exactly how I left it.
Bracing my broken wrist high against my chest and leaving the mystery bag where it has landed, I shuffle towards the toilets. There’s a witch-made healing spell squirrelled away in there, and I seriously need to get cleaned up—I stink.
The entrance to the ladies’ toilets doesn’t have a door but a sliding security grill. The rusty metal shutter is wedged open, and the gap is just enough for my scrawny self to slip past. I sidestep to avoid the random orange traffic cone. Why a traffic cone has been left down here is anyone’s guess.
I’m a tad superstitious—keeping everything the same ensures I don’t advertise my presence, not that anyone is rushing to come down here.
But I’ve altered nothing, and the familiarity settles something inside me. It’s safe. It screams of safety. The grill rattles as I squeeze inside. I move past the glass and rotting wood bathroom attendant’s office, the old, damaged turnstile—back in the day, to use the toilets was five pence—and past a set of rusty weighing scales with a peeling handwritten sign, its yellow crumbling tape saying DO NOT JUMP ON THE SCALES.
The bathroom has atrocious bubblegum-pink floor-to-ceiling tiles over a dozen stalls, worn with use and time. Interestingly, in the men’s toilets next door, the tiles are pee yellow. The second toilet from the end is mine. The door is solid wood, and I’ve intentionally left the exterior filthy. The floor in front has a nasty brown stain, but inside, the entire toilet cubical is sparkling clean.
It’s the same with the sinks. The one clean sink I use is tucked away from sight, next to a dysfunctional paper towel dispenser. The counter is also wider. Perhaps it was used to double as a baby-changing area.
I shuffle over and place the torch down, angling it up so it doesn’t blind me. The light falls, highlighting the side of my face, and what stares back at me in the old mirror isn’t pretty.
The light makes my bruised, bleeding skin garish, and I look way worse than I’d imagined. It’s a shock. I drop my eyes to avoid my reflection.
I’ve never been beaten before. No one has ever laid an angry hand on me, and I’ve never dealt with such physical pain. In Faerie, occasionally I’d been bitten by a rogue plant or animal, fallen over and scraped my knees, but nothing like this.
The elves made me feel…
I take a deep breath, push the thoughts away, and slide the hidden bag from underneath the sink. Inside is a spare set of clothes, a clean cloth, a towel, a washbag, and the almost-empty first aid kit. I plop everything onto the counter and get to work.
As I undo the single button on the tunic, I find a tangle of long, pale blond hairs. A scream bubbles up my throat with the urge to cry and freak out as if I’ve seen a poisonous spider and have a phobia. I swallow the noise so it’s just a whimper.
The elf’s hair must have got tangled up when he was hurting me. The skin on my fingers feels itchy, and I ignore the urge to fling the hair away. I want to be sick, but I carefully unwind the hairs from the button’s thread.
In my washbag, I have a few reusable small plastic bags. With a grimace that makes my lip throb, I grab one, slide the hair inside, seal it, and then shove it into my washbag out of sight. That’s better. I undo the button, lift the bottom of the tunic, and quickly find I’m not only hampered by having one working arm but also by my sweaty, blood-coated skin that wants nothing more than to hold on to the fabric. The tunic sticks to me. It takes energy I haven’t got and a lot of grunting and grumbling to prise the bloody thing over my head. I drop the disgusting top to the floor, nudging it aside with my foot to throw away later. I then shuck my pants and boots off.
The sticky warmth of blood makes me glance down. Getting the tunic off has re-opened a nasty gash across my ribs. I whimper as more than a trickle runs across my hip. I ignore it for now, wash my hands, then dampen the cloth—for the hundredth time feeling grateful the water here still runs.
They had turned the main’s water off, but the stop valve on the promenade was easy enough to find. I’m still thanking the lazy contractor a few times a week.
Groaning and gritting my teeth, I slowly and methodically clean all the cuts and scrapes across my body. I rinse the cloth, and light blue blood swirls down the drain. I repeat and rinse until I’m clean or as clean as I can get with a stand-up wash.
Hand trembling, I grab the Heal Me potion from the first aid box. I only have the one. The spell should be a vibrant silver, but it’s a little dull in the torch light. The liquid glops against the glass as I prise off the lid, then dab and drip the potion sparingly onto the various wounds. It stings and tingles, then itches as multiple layers of my skin respond, stitching themselves back together—accelerated healing at its best.
At least now I shouldn’t get an infection.
I glance down at my sore wrist. Ah, now that’s another story. Despite all the swelling, I can see the bone has shifted to the right. Even with a top-notch potion, I’d be a fool to think I could fix it.
The only way for it to heal is to have an excellent rune or realign the bones and manipulate them back into position, and I’d need to do that before I could use a potion. I feel sick with the thought there’s no way I can do it myself.
No, I need a medical rune or professional help, and if I don’t get help, what’s the likelihood that I’d lose the use of the arm or the bloody thing falls off? I sigh, and with my other hand rub my face, catching sight of the unsightly mark on the underside of my forearm. I glare down at it.
It’s a rune.
The elves tagged me like a dog.
The magic in the rune is set to track me and relay my status to the realms. It’s a slave rune. Acknowledging that fact makes my heart flip, and a whine of fear leaves my sore throat. The only bit of luck is that it hasn’t been activated yet. It’s not linked to anyone, which I’m glad about. If they’d known I had strong magic, I’d have been in way more trouble. As it is, this rune does nothing but look ugly. I need to get it off my skin.
I stand naked, racking my mind for a solution to all my problems, but my thoughts are dull, as if my brain is underwater. “What am I doing? These are things to deal with when I’ve rested and I’m not swaying like a zombie on my feet.” Goosebumps pepper my skin. I’m ice-cold and shivering. Yeah, no wonder I can’t think. I glare at the clean clothes. Now comes the arduous task of getting dressed.
It’s slow going.
Once dressed, out of habit, I put everything away, shoving the towel and the cloth into a washbag to be cleaned later. I slide my feet back into my boots that, unlaced, flop as I shuffle across the tiled floor.
I need to be careful I don’t trip. My naff ankle is feeling better, and not lacing them will tempt fate. But I’m doomed if I do much of anything else. The black spots dancing across my vision hint that I’m close to passing out.
Squeezing through the grill door, I half clomp and shuffle towards where I discarded the bag. I click off the torch and put the Maglite back. Then, once again, pitch-black darkness surrounds me. Blind, I grab the bag, take a big step to the right, and walk through the wall.
A light-filled curved brick tunnel is on the other side. It is beautifully designed, built in the days when creatures had genuine pride in their work: all brick, no iron or steel rods. The air here is different. It’s clean, dry, and warm.
The tunnel continues until a junction meets it roughly at a 45-degree angle and then proceeds to dissect it and continue its journey as it sharply branches to the right. The angle provides some stunning brickwork, with each brick seamlessly joining the two tunnels made especially for its place. The alcove to the left is where the light comes from.
I shuffle, dragging the heavy bag behind me like a champ. If I stopped to think about it, I’d leave the damn bag behind. It’s not like it’s going anywhere. But I’m in zombie mode now and just going through the motions. Exhaustion pounds in my mind, and I’ll be sure to lament my stupidity when I’ve slept.
I reach the branch in the tunnel, turn left, and step into the light-filled dead end. Home sweet home.
The tunnel’s alcove is roughly twelve feet long and eight feet wide. Within the arched brick ceiling, six milky white glass blocks link to the pavement outside, letting the natural light in during the day, and a handy lamppost over them gives all-around light at night. The milky light makes the tunnel cosy.
Businesses line this side of the road, and I can pick up the Wi-Fi for free as it’s been years since they changed their passwords—not that I have a datapad or a phone to use thanks to the bloody elves.
Home. This has been my secret space for years, and yes, it’s a cliché for a troll to live in a tunnel underneath a road. Tunnel, bridge. Whatever. I’ve heard all the jokes.
This place fits me just fine, and finding somewhere to live would be a nightmare as I haven’t got permission to visit, let alone stay in, this realm.
I prop the bag next to the wall of shelves, toe off my boots, and then flop onto my stainless-steel framed canvas bed. My energy levels have hit an invisible wall, and the fatigue has me shivering. I have enough strength to prop up my broken arm with a pillow, cover myself with a shabby blanket, and I’m out like a light.
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