The Fae Princess (The Pacific Princesses Book 2) Ektaa Bali (free ebook reader txt) 📖

When they reached the door to the forbidden greenhouse, Vidya chewed her lip. It was locked from the inside. How would they get in? An inkling feeling in her chest made her reach up and knock firmly on the door three times. “It’s me!” she called in to the glass. “Princess Vidya looking for my Nani!” She held her breath and waited.

The three locks of the thick glass door opened one by one. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk.

Lobey and Vidya exchanged a worried look. If Nani was asleep, who was opening the door? Without a word, the two girls took three steps back from the door and waited.

The greenhouse door slowly swung outwards with a long creaaaaaaaak and a brown branch snaked out, pushing the door wide open. A menacing dark tree stomped through the doorway, using its roots as feet, its long arm-like branches planted themselves on its trunk, looking like an angry old man with his hands on his hips.

Vidya and Lobey glanced at each other, and before Vidya could do anything, Lobey stomped forward and met the Devil’s Finger front on.

“Listen, you!” shouted Lobey, her own hands on her hips. “No mean tricks, or funny business. We’re here on a mission, and Nani might be hurt. We’re here to see if she’s okay, and you’re gonna let us do that. Got it?”

The tree, the size of an enormous man, remained stock still for a moment. Lobey glared at the tree and the tree glared back, but Lobey did not back down. Vidya felt the strange urge to laugh as the girl and the terrifying tree stared at each other. But quite quickly, the arms of the tree fell to its side, and he turned, using a barky arm to wave them through the door.

Lobey stomped right into the darkness, and Vidya followed, a little impressed.

“No funny business!” Lobey shouted. “Let us through, please.”

Vidya followed Lobey into the dark heat of the greenhouse, the Devil’s Fingers swaying gently on either side of the path. Vidya quickly caught up to Lobey. “How did you know you could do that?” she muttered to the blue-haired girl. Lobey shrugged. “Bossiness comes naturally to me, Vidya, you should know that by now.” But then, in a much softer voice, she almost said to herself, “I just had this weird feeling I could.”

The two girls quickly made their way through the greenhouse, squinting through the dark to find any sign of Nani. They had almost reached the back when they stopped short, Lobey gasped. Vidya strode forward to see what was going on.

Two Devil’s Fingers plants had stretched out their branches to form a hammock, upon which Nani was resting comfortably with her hands folded on her tummy. One of the trees had extended a tiny branch and was slowly stroking her hair.

Vidya let out a sigh of relief. “That’s lucky,” she said. “Looks like they want to take care of her.”

Lobey nodded, looking over the trees. “You guys look after our Nani, okay?” she said bossily. “We don’t know how long this thing is going to last.”

Vidya felt a pit grow in the bottom of her stomach as they turned around to make their way out of the greenhouse. How long? How long would the adults be asleep for? She shook her head. She couldn’t think about that. They just had to follow her father’s orders until they woke up.

They made their way back to the Palace where worried looking Fae children were streaming into the entrance hall. Some of them were crying, others had their arms around each other. Vidya’s heart pounded as she thought about what she should say. As she thought about her parents and Nani, a plan slowly formed in her mind. She knew two things for sure. The first was that the Fae magic was fading. The second was that her father told her to prepare for a war, probably related to the creature that attacked Captain Silver in the Fae forest. One thing was super clear. They needed to know more. And so that’s exactly what they would do. Vidya made her way through the crowd, smiling at those she knew, and made her way up the stairs where she had a good height to speak to everyone standing there.

Luna and Toad ran up the stairs when they saw her. Luna had leaf-paper and a pen in her hand.

“We’ve gone around making sure the adults are all okay,” she muttered. “So far, everyone is accounted for. Our parents are fine, Uncle Jula-wil was found in a rose bush, so he’s alright, but no one can find Uncle Billy.”

Vidya nodded. Uncle Billy was her mother’s younger brother.

“Just keep looking,” she replied. “That’s the best we can do. He’s probably off in the forest somewhere.”

The two triplet sisters nodded and ran back down the stairs.

The scared voices of the kids reached her, and she looked at the children of the Fae gathered in the hall. Some had babies or toddlers perched on their hips, whispering to each other, trying to understand what had happened. As Vidya stood there watching them all, she thought of baby Mahiya, sleeping soundly upstairs. She realised she needed to say something that made the kids feel safe, to make them feel she had it under control. If she were talking to Mahiya as a big sister, what would she say?

“Everybody!” She called down to them. She saw Lobey and Toad walking around the crowd, telling everybody to be quiet.

“Princess Vidya is speaking!” said Lobey loudly. “Shut up, everybody!”

As more than a hundred little eyes turned to look at her, Vidya took a deep breath.

“As you all know, the adults have fallen into a magical sleep,” she began. “For some reason, for the past couple of days, the Fae magic has been fading. Yesterday, my Nani, the queen’s mother, told me that kids have the strongest Fae magic, so that must be why the grown- ups are asleep and we’re