Dream Weavers

Chapter Eleven

"Do you think that they're, like, hiding? Like a test again?" Hallee suggested, fluttering around the prairie to see if she could see any fae with bright hair.

"I don't think so, at least," Quill said. "I'm not sure where they could be at." His wings gave away the fact that he was nervous.

"Do you think that they meant to have something else sent to us? To tell us what to do?"

Aline frowned, staring at the grasses brushing against her legs. "It doesn't make sense. I understand the riddle part, but completely disappearing?" She fiddled with her hands, swallowing the panic that was rising in her.

What if they had left them? Led them here on purpose to get them in trouble? What if they weren't supposed to meet them at the Scarlet Plains and they just wanted to see if they'd be rulebreakers or not?

"Hey, Aline, Hallee?" Quill asked, staring up at the sun rising from the east. "What if they wanted to meet with us at night, but considering it's not night here, they want us to jump?"

"Where would we jump to? We wouldn't go to the same place, would we?" Hallee asked, frowning. "This makes no sense."

"Each jump has a specific location, so if we stood in the same place they did, we would jump to where they were, right?" Aline asked, hearing about how jumps weren't as dangerous as they seemed--as long as you marked the spot you jumped from before.

Travelers usually had the help of technology to find the place they should jump at--an estimate of the direction and the place where you'd jump. They, however, did not have any of that, and had to figure it out on their own.

"Do you think they at least marked the place where they jumped at?" Quill offered, hovering around.

"You mean like this one?" Hallee asked, pointing to a carving on the tree. It was the symbol of the kingdom, a fae with the luna moth wings overtop a moon. "Do you think that this is it?"

"I think so," Quill said, pulling Aline with him to the tree. "Do you think we should go one at a time? Or do we go all at once?"

Aline was startled when Quill and Hallee turned, looking to her for the answers. "Well, uh, if we tried to go all at once, we might not be able to, unless..." she stared down at her friends before grabbing their hands. "As long as we keep a connection we can use the same spot, remember? Just hold on tight and don't let go."

"When did we learn that in class?" Hallee grumbled, adjusting her grip on Aline's hand.

"It was one of the first things we learned, Hallee," Quill reminded her. "We can jump multiple fae at once as long as there's a tight enough connection between them. A physical connection, to be precise. Just pray to Dera and Imes that we're correct and don't make a mistake."

Aline looked over at him. "I didn't know you were the religious type." She didn't find it exactly surprising, at least. A lot of fae were closed about whom they worshipped, but a lot of them just didn't worship anything, either. Their choice.

Hallee snapped her fingers, pointing at the sign on the tree. "Enough with the religious speak. Come on, we have mentors to find before they say we've failed this." She tugged at their hands to get them focused again.

"Right, okay, so..." Aline took a deep breath along with everyone else, relaxing her muscles. "Everyone ready?"

Hallee and Quill nodded, gripping each other's hands tightly to make sure the grip wasn't lost. "Ready."

Each of them took another deep breath to calm their nerves and then, they jumped.

The trio could feel themselves almost lose their grips as they jumped, being propelled forward and then backward. They stopped in the air, dropping a few feet before their wings automatically caught them.