Land of Smoke and Ashes

The Tunnel

Once they had settled, Sam cleared his throat. "Um, thanks—thank you for seeing us today." He trailed off, frowning, most likely struggling with how to address the strange cloaked figure. "Our...friend, said you might know the answer to some of our questions."

The shadowy figure leaned forward, placing gloved hands on the table. Long, slender fingers encased in leather. They looked delicate, which Natalie found surprising.

"I know the answers to many things, though I can't promise I'll share them. You may ask your question."

The voice was butter smooth, and undeniably feminine. Natalie's eyes went wide, and beside her she felt Sam shift. To his credit his voice did not sound in the least surprised.

"We're looking for a woman, and there are rumours she was last seen in the palace, perhaps the dungeons even." He glanced over at Natalie, who dipped into her pocket and brought out the newspaper article. Nervously, she pushed it across the table, so it sat in the center facing the hooded figure.

The woman named Sunshine reached out one gloved hand and slid the paper toward her, her hood tilting forward as she looked over the article and the picture. Natalie swallowed hard, wishing her throat didn't feel so tight. Dread sat in her stomach like a leaden weight and she wanted to throw herself across the table and seize the woman's cloak, get her to spit out the answers. What if she said Natalie's mother was dead? What if she'd never seen her before?

Slowly the figure looked up. "What is your business with the woman?"

Natalie's heart leapt. This Sunshine person obviously did know something, and her mother wasn't dead, that much was obvious in her answer. She glanced up at Sam, who nodded slowly. They had agreed not to tell anyone else about the necklace, but it didn't hurt to tell at least part of the truth. A very small part. Of course, Natalie looked like...one of them, right now. And her mother was very obviously human, so she couldn't admit the woman in the picture was her mother.

"She's a friend," Natalie said. "She's been missing, like the article said.

The woman in the cloak shifted. "Do you have any idea how incredibly dangerous it is to have this on your person?"

Natalie bit her lip. Silence stretched out between them.

"Be sure not to show anyone else that picture. No one can know you have it." The woman called Sunshine slid the article back across the table, and Natalie grabbed it and refolded it before depositing it back into her pocket, feeling relieved. Her story seemed to have satisfied the woman.

"She is at the palace, as you say." Gloved fingers tapped the table, and the hood swayed slightly, as if the woman was tipping her head to one side, assessing them. "How much do you know about her and the key?"

"Not much," Sam said, his voice low. "That's why we're here."

The woman drummed her gloved fingers on the countertop. "Not many know this, but the person who created the twin keys was not from our world."

Natalie could feel the others reacting to this, shifting on the seat beside her, and Jewels breathed, "What?"

"She was human," the woman said, fingers still drumming the table. "Is human. And the queen has her." She shook her head, the hood moving back and forth. "And the reason the queen continues to hunt humans, she believes one of them has the other, that the sorceress left it to someone she knew."