We had to go three blocks in the rain and dodging police taking statements before we were able to find a cab. I hoped Tasha was alright. I hadn’t seen her as we were sneaking off a campus. Under normal circumstances I would’ve felt horrible about leaving without checking on her. I was having a hard time processing anything about what was happening in my life at the moment. Thankfully, I was pretty sure that a traumatic, near death experience with Trolls and Reapers that had lead to manifestation of magic in me was more than a sufficient excuse.

The cab driver didn’t make matters any better. He seemed completely oblivious to mine and Luke’s shared mood when we climbed in. The guy did nothing but chatter about sports, upcoming matches, and bets. I tuned most of it out and instead watched the city pass through the car windows.

By the time the cab rolled up to the condo, I was pretty sure all my energy was gone. Luke paid the driver when we got to our condo building as I stumbled my way out of the cab.  Roger was at the door and opening it before I was even halfway up the walk.  “How was class Gen?” he asked cheerfully.  Then he saw that I was sopping wet and in utter disarray.  “What happened?” Roger questioned with a hanging jaw.

“Nothing,” I mumbled, “I got caught in the rain is all.”

I didn’t even need to look at his face to know that he definitely didn’t believe me. Luke walked in right behind me. “Is she alright? Yikes! You look like death too kid. What happened?”

“We’re just cold and wet.” Luke didn’t meet Roger’s eyes. He sidestepped past him, taking me by the arm, and leading me towards the elevator. “I’m gonna take my sister upstairs and get her dried off.”

Thankfully, the walk to the elevator wasn’t too shameful. I didn’t know the guards who were on nights as well as I did the ones on days. The night guards gave Luke and I a quick glance before going back to what they had been doing. The elevator ride itself wasn’t as awkward as it could have been, at least not for me. I was too numb to care about the fact that my little brother was treating me like I was the younger sibling. As soon as I was through the front door of the condo though the numbness I had been feeling broke to pieces. “We’re home.” I said without turning to Luke. “Start explaining.”

“Can I at least get a towel first?” he asked. “We’re dripping water all over the floor.”

“What the Hell happened to me tonight?” I yelled. It was like a dam at the back of my mind broke and every little thing that had been building up since my class let out that evening spilled out. “Or do you need a recap because you weren’t there for the entire thing?”

Luke pulled back. His eyes went wide and it looked like he was desperately trying to think of something to say. I didn’t give him a chance because I continued with my tirade.

“Let me recap it for you. It starts by having this stranger up to me and telling me that he’s been looking for me.”

“Colin isn’t really a stranger…” Luke mumbled. I ignored him.

“Then, a Troll somehow magically appears on campus and wreaks havoc. It nearly kills Tasha and I only for Snow friggin’ White of the Queensmen to show up and kill the thing with magic light arrows. Are you still following me Luke?”

“Yes, I…”

“After Snow White gets rid of the Troll, she and the stranger drag me off and tell me that the Troll was looking for me specifically. Pretty crazy right?”

“I’m not saying it isn’t!”

“After that little bombshell, a Reaper tries to make pincushions out of us! Stranger boy pulls a freakin’ sword out and tells Snow White and I to run. So we do and we run into another Reaper tries to run us through. Now keep in mind that I’ve never seen a Reaper before. I have no clue how I even know it’s a Reaper or that’s even what it’s called!”

“You’ve ran into Reapers Gen,” Luke told me quietly. Something flickered across his face. A ghost of a memory perhaps. I could see it was painful but I couldn’t bring myself to care enough to stop my tirade. I should’ve. Luke had more than likely saved my life tonight. I was just to blind to think rationally anymore.

“In the process of trying not die, I discover I have magic. Then to top everything off, as if none of this insanity was enough, I find out that my little brother is a part of the Queensmen and has magic too! Tell me why I should wait a second longer for the explanation you promised me?”

Luke stood frozen silent under my cold glare. “It’s happening again,” he finally said, choking on the words and his tears.

A feeling akin to dread stabbed through me. I stepped forward, hand going to Luke’s shoulder to comfort him. He didn’t react to my touch. It was like he was a statue. “What’s happening again? Luke what are you talking about?”

He shook his head. “History is repeating itself.”

“Luke you’re scaring me,” I told him. “I have no clue what you mean.”

“I’m talking about what happened in Ederlind. Just like everything else about this stupid war, it’s spilled over into Earth.”

He sounded broken and hurt. The way he reached up to clutch my hand made my heart ache. I also didn’t miss how Luke couldn’t seem to look me in the eyes. I touched his face. Maybe I shouldn’t have screamed at him. He’d clearly been through a lot tonight too. “What’s spilling over into Earth? What do you mean Ederlind. I’ve never heard of that place.”

Are you sure?

A traitorous voice in the back of my mind whispered harshly. I’d pulled magic out of nowhere. I’d known what Reapers were and that they were incredibly dangerous. Then there was the vague familiar feeling I’d gotten whenever I looked at Colin. Who’s to say that Ederlind wasn’t just as familiar.

“And just because I suddenly discovered I have magic doesn’t make me an enchantress.”

At least that I could be sure of!

“Gen…” Luke forced himself to look at me. He gestured to the couch. “Maybe you should sit down for this. This isn’t exactly the easiest thing to explain.”

We stood and stared at each other for a minute. After a moment though, I let him lead me over to the couch. I pulled down a blanket to sit on as he sat down on the coffee table in front of me. I hated it when he did that. “Let’s try this again. With a little more clarity this time okay?” I told him.

He gave a snort. “Yeah because so much of what I’m about to say definitely sounds sane.”

“How about we start with what happened tonight? Why did Snow White and that boy keep telling me that those monsters were after me?”

“It’s because of what happened in Ederlind… or what’s basically known as Fairy Land or the Realm of Fae. There’s a bunch of different names for it but it’s all the same. It’s the place where magic and fairy tales originated from. It runs parallel to Earth.” Luke twisted his hands together as he spoke. I shifted in my seat and became aware of just how cold it was in the room.

“It’s broken up into several principalities that are governed by Princes and Princesses that call the Great Fairy Queen the supreme ruler. Not necessarily everyone was happy with this arrangement though. I guess when you think about it that makes sense. No ruler, however popular, can have a one hundred percent approval rating…”

“Luke… you’re rambling.” I left the part about him sounding like a crazy person unsaid. Everything he was saying sounded crazy! Fairy Queens, princes, and princesses. It sounded like more like a five year old’s sugar coated dream than reality. It was all crazy! I repeated the thought over in my head and crossed my arms over my chest. Goosebumps had risen on my skin.

“Right, sorry. Not all were happy even though the Queen’s a pretty good ruler as far as things go. So, some princes and princesses got together, decided they’d rather run things on their own, and declared themselves kings and queens. Might not have been so bad if it weren’t for the fact that they were all the sucky leaders. One bad thing lead to another and pretty soon everyone was at war. Is any of this ringing a bell?”

“Absolutely none of it,” I whispered.

It wasn’t a lie. Well mostly. I really didn’t remember anything similar to what Luke was telling me. What did feel familiar was the worry that crept into the back of my mind. Worry and constant anxiety bred from years of looking over your shoulders for the next horrible thing that would strike. I wished I had taken Luke up on his offer to get me a towel when we first got home.

Luke pressed on, “The Queen called for a set of elite warriors to awake. Those with magic and power unlike anyone else’s in the world that could protect and serve the Queen’s loyal people. Everlastings are what they’re known as. That plan epically backfired though.”

I shivered.

“When she called the Everlastings up the magic she used cracked the Veil that laid between Earth and Ederlind cracked. Well, I mean there were always cracks because that’s how wisps of our stories became fairy tales here but the cracks were never big enough to let any real magic through. That’s rambling again and not really important right now.”

“Wait a minute! Hold up! That’s not important? Fairy tale world’s magic seeping into our’s isn’t a big deal?”

“It is, but it’s not the most important thing to explain at the moment okay?” Luke wrung his hands together. His voice had shot up about two octaves. Gen reached out.

“Alright… alright. It’s fine. Please keep going. I’m still hoping somewhere along the line, something is going to make sense.” I said the last part more to myself though.

Luke heaved a sigh. “Like I was saying the Queen called up the Everlastings to help protect and serve the people. They lead battles and troops. They liberated countless people from the rebels.”

“It wasn’t enough though was it?” I could almost imagine it. Vague outlines of banners and horsemen marching off to face forces that were just as daunting as their own.

“Just barely,” Luke whispered. A far off look flashed in his eyes and he might as well have been clear on the other side of the planet. “It stayed fairly even handed for awhile, however; as more principalities sent their reinforcements to the Queen it became obvious that the rebels weren’t going to win that way.”

“So I take it they found another way then?”

“Yeah…” His voice trailed off. The small feeling of familiarity that had been pressing on my mind had dissipated. I had no idea why. “The rebels decided that if they couldn’t win it in Ederlind then they’d just bust their way through the Veil to Earth, take over here, become the supreme rulers, and then come back to Ederlind with their own reinforcements.”

I don’t know what it was that made my jaw drop exactly. The ridiculous idea itself or the abrupt way he’d said it. “Yeah… that was pretty much everyone else’s reaction too,” Luke explained with a shrug. “In order to keep that from ever happening, the Queen sent the Everlastings to Earth to keep the rebels from ever gaining control. That’s what was happening tonight only they call themselves Queensmen now.”

I pressed my head into my hands. This couldn’t be real. No matter what sort of crazy night I’d had or what sort of deja vu feelings assaulted me! There was no possible way that this was real! Magic I could believe in. It was practically a given. A separate magic land though… Luke couldn’t be serious. The Queensmen were just here to stop monsters not prevent world domination.

Luke must have hit his head recently or something. Maybe he was cracking under the stress of college. Maybe he was sick. It didn’t matter. Whatever was going on with Luke, if it wasn’t better by tomorrow then I would drag him to the doctor to get checked out.

“You don’t believe me do you?” he asked quietly.

“Luke…” I started. I tried to be as gentle as I could despite my own stress and exhaustion. “We’ve both had a long day. Let’s just get dried off and go to bed. We can talk about this in the morning. Get it figured out then.”

I stood up. The dread and cold was back though. My knees stiffened up as I stood. I also had to curl my hands into fists at my sides to hide just how bad they were shaking.

“I didn’t believe Dad either when he told me.”

I spun around. Luke was still sitting on the edge of the coffee table exactly as if I hadn’t moved from the couch. He stared at the ground, hands twisted through his hair.

Dad didn’t believe in nonsense. He had been practicality and logic in human form. He was cautious of course because of some bad business deal that had left him nearly destitute a long time ago. He sometimes took an agonizingly amount of time to make decisions. Luke and I always joked that’s what happened when you ran your own business. Dad didn’t do flights of fancy like this Ederlind that Luke kept going on about. “What do you mean when Dad told you? You can’t honestly expect me to believe that he…”

“Yes,” Luke cut me off bluntly. “Yes! Dad did know about this. I thought he’d gone nuts when he sat me down the evening after I turned sixteen and told me basically the same stuff. I just kinda scoffed at it and asked if he was joking around. Then the memories started coming a day or two later. It wasn’t a joke!”

The pain in his voice was deep, making it broken. I wanted to say that alone was what made me realize that Luke wasn’t lying. I couldn’t honestly say that though. Not with how familiar some of tonight’s events felt. Not with how certain things pulled at the back of my mind like a door jammed shut. I didn’t want to believe it though. Something overwhelmingly strong pushed back on the other side of the mental door to keep it from flying open. I stood paralyzed with my mouth hanging open and staring blankly at Luke.

“Dad and I… Gen, we’ve lived two lives. I have two different memories of two different childhoods that I’ve lived through,” Luke explained bitterly. “Dad had it worse. He lived through more. His awakening must have sucked a lot. He didn’t even have anyone to help him through it. At least he was with me to explain what was happening.”

I returned to the couch slowly. Each measured step brought a heavier and heavier weight on my chest. The room felt unbearably cold. “Will it hurt then? In a couple of days when these memories start to pour back into my head?”

Luke grimaced. “You probably won’t get an awakening Gen.”

I frowned. This should’ve felt like good news. It should’ve given me some degree of hope that Luke’s spiel was brought on by exhaustion or something. All I could think about though was how badly I wanted to dig my fingers into the couch. “And why is that?”

My breath caught as I watched Luke open and then shut his mouth just as quickly. “Why is that Luke?” I whispered.

Our eyes locked. Luke’s hands dropped limply into his lap.

“Because you died.”