ONE THING ABOUT THE Jokerbro. He might be as annoying as a persistent mosquito in the dead of night that wanted nothing more than to snuggle up to a Fae’s warm cheek. He might have permanent bruising on his shoulder from the number of times Xiximay belted him for his impertinence, and his jokes might sometime stink like a Human sewer. Still, Allory could not help but giggle at his antics.

  Right now, as they flew and jogged steadily along Amazas’ tunnel with no end in sight, he was busy needling Hansanori about his future role as the silverware in his family’s royal dinner service.

  The Harpist had his serene face on, but the truth was evident in the seething magic her Elemental senses detected upon his skin, in his elevated heart rate and … well, was she seeing an emotional aura of sorts? Alarming – ahem, that would be, her very alarm caused her to conclude she had proof positive that she was observing his anger in action. An inner maelstrom of self-perpetuating emotion. It fed on itself. She had never seen anger that way before, as destructive as any jungle thunderstorm. What could make its energies abate?

  Timorously, she chose what she judged to be a good moment and interjected, “Varzune, you should stop teasing the Harpist so. He’s getting very angry.”

  “Calm as a forest pool,” Hansanori smiled urbanely.

  “Eh?” said the Jokerbro.

  “Exactly,” the Argent Fae said, evidently mistaking surprise for agreement. “A little teasing, a few light barbs between friends … it’s all good fun.”

  “Well, your emotions don’t look very calm,” she said.

  “What makes you think so, Allory Fae?” Hansanori smiled.

  Her sparkles drew together in a thoughtful frown. “Well, you are a very good actor so as far as I can see, your exterior is a picture of … politic composure. But inside, your heartbeat is quickened, your stomach is churning and your throat feels like a painfully clenched fist,” she explained earnestly. When the silver one did not protest the untruth of these assertions, she felt encouraged to add, “Obviously, I’ve very little experience such matters, but I understand that you royals are trained from a young age to withhold your emotions, so I just wanted to say that if I could just sort of pop a straw into your chest, a whole storm would come gushing out. It looks rather dark and … violent, in there.”

  The male Fae both paused to gape at her.

  Suggids! What did I say this time?

  He had asked for clarification. Hansanori’s emotions now raged like a taut, balled-up thunderstorm, and Varzune’s cheeky grin drooped a touch at the corners. Their respective sets of wings buzzed sharply as if to punctuate their differing responses.

  The group had jogged or flown many miles through a network of tunnels that ran beneath their native realm – sometimes very deep, Allory realised with a shiver. Creepy. Not that any danger had come against them, but she could not help but feel the great weight of stone pressing down from above as for the last several hours, they had been descending into the bowels of Spheris beneath the Deepwoods. Early on, she had been pleased to see tree roots penetrating here and there, but now the tunnel was simply dry, dusty and well-worn, about ten feet wide and twelve tall, and apparently unending.

  In reply to Yaarah’s questions, Amazas had explained that he was taking them somewhere and that the tunnels had been dug by the Janghorash many millennia before. What was a Janghorash? No one truly knew, but the scholar of course knew a legend in which they were the original builders of Spheris.

  Builders!

  The library at Ahm-Shira promised to reveal more. It held the oldest manuscripts, metal films, Pixie dust repositories and stone-carved lore tablets in the known world – myriad types of records, Yaarah noted, licking his chops at the prospect. How could anyone know all of Spheris, Zzuriel had asked shyly, and earned herself a tetchy growl from the Scholar Felidragon.

  Meantime, Hansanori asserted, “I am not angry!”

  Allory sparkle-blinked at his tone. “But you are, Hansanori. I can see it. I’m sure that if you just let it out, you’d feel a whole lot –”

  “I am not – well, now I am!” he roared.

  “Eep!”

  “Don’t you eep at me – I’m not – I am perfectly in command of my –” He pulled up with a confused grunt as his raw shout echoed into a clearly larger space ahead of them. “I am …”

  Quite the facial contortion there.

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  The companions looked on or glanced about in surprise.

  Hansanori appeared to be experiencing severe problems with emotional constipation. His face turned silver-pink, then silver-purple, he pulled several times at his antennae, opened his mouth and clearly decided that whatever he was about to say was a very poor choice of words. Next, his lips twisted oddly as if possessed a will of their own, and he clenched his fists until his entire body shook and the veins stood out in his neck. An inarticulate noise snarled up in his throat.

  Fascinating.

  “You are angry, mrrr-hrrr?” Yaarah supplied.

  Hansanori’s face pulled into a kind of glowering sulk that did no Fae any favours.

  “Mildly riled?” Varzune suggested. “We Chameleons would just start a little fight and get it all out in the open, wouldn’t we?”

  “Aye!” yelled his team.

  “We can help beat you up, Your Highness!” offered one waggish, anonymous voice.

  The Prince of Faedom might as well have attempted to swallow his own crown, the way his throat appeared to swell. Allory gathered her sparkles in case a medical emergency arose.

  All this for a simple reading of his emotions? Suggids! Despite having no feet whatsoever, she still managed to pop a foot in her mouth with aplomb.

  Pushing to the fore, Xiximay said, “Obviously, rambunctious fights are not cultural for the good Faerie Prince. Let me help. First, Hansanori, take a deep breath. Deeper. Good. Now, I want you to shout after me at the top of your lungs, alright? Ready?”

  He nodded.

  “I am angry!” she shouted.

  “I am – angry?” His voice cracked hilariously.

  “Like you mean it. I am angry!”

  “I am – suggids! I – I can’t just – you know?”

  “I am angry!”

  “I am –” her finger stabbed his chest “– ouch?”

  “When I’m angry, my hair catches on fire and my temperature jumps a hundred degrees,” the Phoenix Fae declared. Varzune edged away from his girlfae. Safety first. “You aren’t just angry, are you, Your Royal Lumi-whatever-it was? You’re sap-spitting mad. You’re mad that you’ve never been allowed to be mad in your life. You’re furious that you’ve been babied and pampered since you can remember. Actually, you’ve secretly wished to throw your priceless banquet dishes all over the room and shock your guests – aye, you’d give your left arm to actually shock them for once, wouldn’t you? You hate that perfect, dutiful Prince they forced you to be. That’s why you ran away.”

  Allory glanced from one to the other as she jabbed his chest again. And again. This could end very badly, she feared. Each time, Hansanori flinched as if he had been punched.

  “Say it. Come on. You can say it. Name and shame that emotion! You’re afraid because you think anger is bad, and you want to be bad, you fear you’ll enjoy being angry – and you know it’s eating you alive from the inside, all this bitterness and rage and humiliation that sits like acid in your craw and steals who you are!” Was she talking about him anymore? Or herself? “What’s down here that’ll hear you? A few rocks? A few friends’ ears? You want our respect, don’t you? You want it so badly you can taste it. Real respect. Real honour. Nothing due to your title, but respect for who you truly are. I’m right, aren’t I?”

  His head bobbed; so did his throat. Hard.

  “Then start here. Start inside yourself by respecting yourself and admitting what you know in every droplet of your sap. You are angry. Face that anger and claim it.” The beautiful silver eyes rolled wildly. “Come on, I can’t hear you. I am angry!”

  “I’m angry.”

  “Pathetic effort. Picture Sabline first thing in the morning. I am angry!”

  “I am angry!”

  She jabbed him again. Thump. “Are you? I can’t hear you. Shout it: ‘I am angry!’ ”

  “I am angry!”

  “Roar now – as loudly as you can. I am angry!”

  “I AM ANGRY!”

  At last, his trained voice produced a roar akin to Yaarah’s snarling battle cry. A volcano of power! The storm, rising! He repeated it again and again, his voice echoing up the tunnel and seeming to Allory to raise a greater echo afar, until he touched his throat and turned toward Xiximay. Questions filled his eyes.

  She rapped, “Why are you angry, Hansanori?”

  “Because my father’s … because he’s dying, and I’ve never been the son he wanted.”

  The ravaged whisper fell into a sudden silence. There. Tears trickled down his cheeks. Grimacing as if he had just realised an appalling truth, he repeated the statement more quietly, and then asked to be alone.

  Over by the tunnel wall, muffled sobbing shook his shoulders.

  Broken.

  Everyone gazed somewhere else in embarrassment. Even Xiximay rubbed her neck as she visibly deflated. No, that had not gone as the Phoenix Fae had imagined.

  The Scintillant wished she could let out a long, long sigh. She had never realised that there must be times when true healing first required something to be excised or destroyed. Then, what was undone could be redone, reformed, made whole again. Hansanori’s tortured emotions were all too clear. Her own heart’s sap bled for him, yearning to see restoration.

  She saw Ashueli’s hand creep forward to touch Xiximay upon the arm. The Princess breathed, “Thank you.”

  The Phoenix Fae appeared somewhat dazed and in need of support in her own right.

  Before Allory could work out what she thought about this bizarre turn of events, Amazas said, “Something else speaks from the deeps, a language of primeval poetry. A presence must we find, even those who are blind. Who can help me probe the secrets of this place?”

  “No need. We stand right upon the cusp,” said Jhoranyal, raising an azure light he held in his hand. Allory realised that it was a mage-light, a product of his natural Elven magic. “There’s a shaft here – what? Why are you all looking confused?”

  She saw nothing.

  “What shaft?” Varzune called for everyone else.

  “Ah. A shaft hidden by magic that our Dark Elf nature – you see it, of course, Princess Ashueli?”

  “No?” she queried.

  Barakunal glanced at her in surprise. “You don’t? Huh. Clearly, you are untrained –”

  “I am hardly untrained!”

  Allory heard herself peep, “Oh, but are you angry, Ash? Oops – suggids …”

  Ash pretended to clout her as their companions hooted with laughter; a release of tension, she realised. Hansanori had learned a hard but necessary lesson. What of her own anger? Could she find a way to release it as he had? Not this day. Besides, it would probably take fifty Fire Raptors beating her sparkles to a pulp to extract the anger out of her cold, dead fingers …

  Not the most comforting image, not least because it was true.

  Ten thousand stinking suggids!