CHOSEN
CHAPTER ONE
Gwen had played enough video games to know a side quest when she saw one.
There was a tiny figure sitting on the shelf above her computer monitor, tiny legs in ill-fitting pants swinging angrily. They were larger than an action figure, a little smaller than a ball-jointed doll, and had a whole lot more attitude. Gwen couldn’t decide if they were male or female; although they had long hair, they had androgynous features and no distinctive cues like lipstick or nail polish.
“What took you so long?” they asked crossly.
If their size had not been remarkable, the wings glowing from their back would have been, and Gwen let her keys drop into the bowl by the door to cover her confusion. “Sorry to keep you waiting, Tinker Bell,” she said sarcastically. What else was she going to say to a fairy who’d broken into her apartment and, judging by the empty wrapper next to her bowl of stale Halloween candy, robbed her of a KitKat?
“Oh, what a wit,” the fairy said sarcastically. “So clever. No one haseverthought to call me that. I amnota fairy.”
Gwen thought back over her day, wondering if she was more stressed out than she realized, or if she’d ingested somethingtoxic. She didn’t feel feverish, just annoyed. It was the day after Christmas and the Boxing Day party at the Tang Soo Do studio had been just as expected, with a lot of sugared up kids pretending to be tough with each other and forgetting how to listen to instructions. Dinner with her parents had been no surprise, either, with a lot of thinly veiled suggestions that she was wasting her life, smothered in their affection and attempts at traditional American food.
Even work at the coffee shop had been ordinary, with short tempers and apologetic tips because of the season.
Gwen had been eager to retreat back to the escape of her apartment. Her roommate was away for the holidays, and that meant a rare opportunity at using the big shared television for a rousing game of killing zombies and solving immersive puzzles without worrying about irritating anyone or having to be up for work early.
Well, this was a different kind of puzzle.
Very different.
“So, if you’re not a fairy, then what are you?” she asked, pulling her cross-body purse off over her head to hang it by the door.
“A fable.”
“Well, sure. Of course you are. Afable. What was I thinking?” If he—she? it? they?—could be sarcastic, Gwen could too. “Tinker Bell thefable.”
“Robin. I’mRobin.”
The name was no indication of gender either, and Gwen studied them from the corner of her eye as she sorted through the mail she’d picked up on the way in. She still hadn’t identified anything in her day that might make her imagine little people with big attitudes squatting on a bookshelf in her room in front of her martial arts sword.
She dropped the bills and ads next to her keys.Christmas sales. Post-Christmas sales. Bills. A whole lot of give us your money.“Well, if we’re doing introductions, I’m Gwen. Nice to meet you. Should I call the landlord for pest control?”
Robin snorted. “What would you report? An infestation offairies?”
“I’m sure he’s got some fable spray or sticky paper. I bet his cat could take you on.” Robin was bigger than a fashion doll, probably about sixteen inches high, but the landlord’s cat sometimes took out pigeons and faced down neighborhood dogs without fear. “So what have I done to deserve your…visitation? Are you here to point out how my life’s choices will lead me to ruin in a tale of Christmas redemption? You’re a day or two late.” Had Robin arrived through a magical mirror? Or simply popped into existence on the shelf by her sword and consolation awards?
“Do you hear rattling chains? I’m not a ghost.” Robin looked amused, but their voice was sharp. “Fable. I’m a fable, and I’m here because someoneelsedowsed you.”
“Dowsing…like adowsingrod? Point it and find water in the desert?”
Frustration replaced any amusement in their face. “Like it, but also not. Magic in this world is vastly different than it is in my world. The seeker was looking for Henrik, as far as I can tell, and foundyou.”
“Oh, so you’re from another world? Like a fairyland? Who’s Henrik? Whofoundme?”
“I’m not a fairy!”
“Don’t get your doll clothes in a twist, Tinker Bell,” Gwen retorted. “You should be glad I’m trying to figure you out instead of swatting you with an electric bug racket. Who isHenrik?”
Robin chuckled, then stood. They tapped one of Gwen’s second place tournament trophies. “Four knights and I came here from our world during a terrible battle and we wereseparated. I went searching for clues to find them and found a bleak who was dowsing for Henrik. I disrupted its spell, sent them down a false path, and followed their magic here. You might have found a glass ornament of a gryphon, or a large clueless man with golden hair?”
“Sorry,” Gwen said. “I didn’t bother with a Christmas tree this year, and no knights have shown up here, that I’ve noticed. It’s a pretty small apartment so we probably would have run into each other by now.” She couldn’t deny the appeal of the whole idea of a fairyland—orfableland—with knights and magic. “What’s a bleak?”
“A dark corruption of magic and man,” Robin said. They stepped off the shelf. Gwen gave a gasp and expected them to fall because their wings were far too tiny to provide lift for more than a puff of down, but they simply walked through space like they had no weight whatsoever.
Okay, rules of physics were apparently out the window. Gwen still hadn’t discounted the idea that she’d inhaled something on the subway home that was making her see things.
