Invincible Read online

  Love must be stronger than fear, stronger than fate. Invincible. The future of two worlds depends on it.

  Joy Malone has learned to live between two realities, surviving mortal threats and agonizing betrayals. And she’s found true love. But the world of the Twixt is in chaos, and the Council wants someone to blame... Facing a danger greater than any she’s ever known, Joy must find the strength to rely on herself as her allies fall away, because Joy is no longer sure just who—or what—she is. She knows only that her deepest secret is also her greatest vulnerability and the key to saving them all.

  As she fights to protect her friends and family and to unite two disparate worlds, Joy has to trust that some bonds are stronger than magic.

  PRAISE FOR DAWN METCALF

  “This exhilarating story of Ink and Joy has marked my heart forever. Dawn Metcalf, I am indelibly bound to you. More!”

  —New York Times bestselling author Nancy Holder on Indelible

  “[Metcalf’s] rich physical descriptions create a complex fey world that coexists uneasily with the industrialized human one. An...engaging story of first love, family drama and supernatural violence.”

  —Kirkus Reviews on Indelible

  “Dangerous, bizarre, and romantic, Indelible makes for a delicious paranormal read, and I for one can’t wait to see more of the Twixt.”

  —Bookyurt on Indelible

  “Fans of fae fantasy, YA paranormal and modern fantasy will adore this novel and find themselves willingly trapped within the Twixt. Read. This. Book!”

  —Serena Chase, USA TODAY’s Happy Ever After blog, on Indelible

  “Romance fans will melt for this new tale of the Twixt.”

  —Booklist Online on Invisible

  “So different, so imaginative, a little bit creepy, but absolutely wonderful.”

  —Reading YA Rocks blog on Invisible

  Books by Dawn Metcalf

  available from Harlequin TEEN

  The Twixt series

  (in reading order)

  INDELIBLE

  INVISIBLE

  INSIDIOUS

  INVINCIBLE

  To Barry, for all the words.

  To Holly, for all the dreams.

  To HollyBarry, for all the love.

  Always.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  AUTHOR'S NOTE

  ONE

  JOY MALONE STOOD inside the Bailiwick and stared out the newly opened door between worlds. Her bare feet tingled on the illusion of grass, and Indelible Ink’s hand hung loosely in hers. Her boyfriend’s black, fathomless eyes were wondrous-wide as they absorbed the unbelievable sight.

  Yellow banners snapped over bivouac camps spread over miles of green, grassy hills. Soldiers gathered around a large central court—elves and sprites, demons and gargoyles, gryphons and centaurs and fairies garbed for battle, all staring back at them, dumbstruck with awe. In the middle of the courtyard, nine princesses were laughing and sobbing hysterically, reunited after centuries apart. And beyond them, two crowned figures stood before their thrones, their long hair lifting like angel’s wings in the wind; the Royal Majesties, the King and Queen of the Folk.

  The King turned to his Queen, his words, crisp and clean, crossing the miles, slicing through sound.

  “It is as you foretold,” he said. “Behold the Destroyer of Worlds.”

  Joy swallowed. Her heart might have skipped a beat, but as Joy was only half human, her heart was still.

  Ink turned to her, his voice uncertain. “Joy?”

  She shook her head, not daring to look away. “I don’t know,” she whispered. She had no idea what they were talking about, but their words chilled her. She shivered. Her leotard stuck awkwardly to her skin. As a former gymnast, Joy was used to wearing next to nothing in public, but right now she wished she’d kept on the elaborate ball gown. The layers of silk and crinoline might have been some small protection from the otherworldly glares, but she’d shed it while making her escape from Under the Hill. The costume was likely trampled by angry Folk searching for her back at the gala, including the rampaging dragon, the Head of the Council, Bùxiŭ de Zhēnzhū. She could almost hear the distant howling as the mob swarmed the Grand Hall.

  But that was back in the real world, her world—a strange mix of the human world and the Twixt—not this pocket dimension, the “Bailiwick,” hidden inside Graus Claude, which held the secret doorway to the lost King and Queen of the Folk.

  The world beyond the doorway sparkled, muted like honey, motes of pollen flashing with lazy golds and greens. Purple clouds hung above jeweled fruit trees and tall waterfalls tumbled over sharp, blue-veined cliffs. There were castles in the distance with rainbow lakes and silver springs bubbling under bridges that looked spun from diamond glass. It looked like every fairy tale, every fantasy made real. This was the world of magic where the Folk had gone to hide.

  Joy swallowed, forcing herself to relax, and lifted her chest and chin.

  “Your Majesties.” Joy raised her voice. “Your people await your Imminent Return!”

  She thought that would do it, she really did. All heads turned to look at the Queen, whose face was as beautiful and terrible as the alien sky. Her skin was the color of morning glories and her eyes were as bright as stars.

  The wind picked up, blowing her long hair back from her face. Her crown winked gold in a sea of amber curls. The lost Folk gathered nearer to their monarchs with a low, buzzing mumble, the curious murmur of bees.

  “You are not our people,” the Queen said slowly. “Come forward if you come in peace.”

  Ink tugged her hand gently. Joy hesitated. It was true—as a homunculus and a halfling, neither Ink nor Joy was truly one of the Folk, but, however unlikely, they were the ambassadors of the Twixt. Joy could hear Graus Claude’s advice whispering in her head, Etiquette and decorum.

  The rampaging mob Under the Hill weren’t half as frightening as the King and Queen of the Folk. Theirs was power, old and absolute, serene and inviolate. They had literally spoken a world into being, gathering all the nonhuman creatures together to safeguard the last vestiges of magic on Earth in a place they called the Twixt, bound by the rules that all Folk must obey. These were the two who had done everything in their power to protect their people and their magic f
rom human harm.

  It was like looking into infinite space and having it stare back.

  Joy leaned forward, but her feet refused to move. The soap-bubble barrier that stretched over the length of the doorway bowed and wobbled, rainbow reflections dancing on its surface. This was different from walking into the Bailiwick, to the safe room down the stairs under Graus Claude’s tongue—this was an actual door to another world, and to step through it was to leave everything she knew behind.

  The King raised his arm. He was the color of earth and wore a cape of velvet leaves; his voice was warm and rich with hope.

  “Come,” he beckoned. “Tell us of our people.”

  Joy squared her shoulders and held her breath as the ward bowed gently to allow her passage. The barrier peeled away with a popping sound, jellyfish-slow. She felt the sudden warmth of the sun on her cheek and the cool, dewy ground under her toes. The air was heavy and humid and sweet on her lips, tasting of lavender and moss and cinnamon.

  Joy drank a deep breath. She was in another world.

  Ink stood in the doorway, still holding Joy’s hand. She smiled back at him, radiant.

  The ground cracked open.

  Jagged fissures of superheated rock ripped through the grass, bleeding hot lava and billows of steam. A blast hit her full in the face. Joy reeled back. The air became dark and acrid and choked with ash. Liquid stone churned. Grass blackened. Smoke boiled. Joy stumbled forward, each step cracking and shattering beneath her like glass.

  There was an inhaled gasp, then silence, then noise.

  Volume blurred it into a visceral sound—the collective outraged battle cry and the collective thunder of weapons and claws charging full speed down the hill. Joy stepped back, tearing another wound in the earth. A gout of wet fire spewed behind her, orange-hot spatters smoking in the grass. The hillside tilted on a sea of molten rock. Joy pitched forward, using Ink’s hand for balance. Winged things crested over the front line, talons bared.

  Joy shouted, “Ink!”

  His hand fastened over her wrist, his face a mask of terror.

  “Joy!”

  The ground crumbled underneath her. She jumped, grabbing his biceps, suspended over a glowing chasm. Heat baked her heels. Joy screamed, “Don’t let go!”

  “I’ll not let go,” he assured her.

  “Don’t let go!”

  “Never.”

  He twisted sharply, pulling her up with impossible strength, her body arcing through the air with a familiar feeling of weightlessness before piercing the fine membrane of the doorway and crashing against Ink. His arms wrapped around to catch her as they landed in the Bailiwick’s hazy meadow with a punch of breath. They both turned to look back at the army hurtling toward the open door.

  Joy opened her mouth to shout and nearly gagged on the taste of limes as Ink snapped open his straight razor and slashed a door through space, whirling them through the flap of nothing hanging in midair.

  They reappeared on the edge of the Bailiwick, at the base of the stairway to their own world.

  Ink urged her upward. “Go!”

  They ran up the stairs in a blur of slapping feet, heavy boots and heavy breathing, racing toward the muted light. Ink flipped his straight razor as Joy cleared the top stair, the back teeth, and the line of red fire as she sprinted out of the Bailiwick—the magical entryway’s wards flaring blue as Ink ran close behind her.

  They landed on the floor of the Atrium in the Forest wing of the Council Hall.

  Joy spun around, gasping. “I formally withdraw from the Bailiwick!”

  Graus Claude’s jaw closed with agonizing slowness. She pictured the army of lost Folk pushing their way through the door and up his throat. Joy prayed for a speedy transformation as the Bailiwick’s skin lost its stony pallor, his mouth shrank to merely wide and his eyes changed from cataract-white to their normal icy blue. Reanimated, Graus Claude slumped forward, tired, weak, but looking more like the hunchbacked, four-armed frog she knew. She grabbed one of his elbows.

  “Up!” she commanded.

  He stumbled to his feet. “Where is the princess?” he murmured, blinking around the greenhouse room. “Where are the King and Queen?”

  “Don’t talk!” she snapped in panic. “Keep your mouth shut!”

  Shocked, he did. She could hear the sharp click of his teeth.

  Joy glanced up at the skylights above the treetops, the Atrium’s ceiling filled with colorful butterflies and exotic birds spooked by their arrival. There was one way out, into the long hallway flanked by open stairwells, obvious to everyone searching on several floors. She glanced at the shadows between the trees, wondering if Briarhook still lingered there. Her skin crawled. Joy had bribed the giant hedgehog to help rescue the Bailiwick, but the deal hadn’t included anything about him not turning them all in afterward. Knowing how much Briarhook hated her, Joy wouldn’t be surprised if he’d betrayed them to the Council in order to gain the last piece of his heart.

  Joy ground her teeth. Focus! She grabbed her scalpel and purse from the floor. Shattering the Amanya spell had let the Folk access their lost memories of their forgotten King and Queen, but now there was an angry mob of Twixt socialites and a deposed Council likely looking for answers or, even more likely, Joy’s head on a stick. Invisible Inq was out of action, Joy’s brother, Stef, was with his satyr boyfriend, Dmitri, and she’d have to trust that Filly and Avery and Ysabel and Kurt would get themselves out.

  Right now, the three of them had to escape.

  “Ink?” She reached for him.

  He flinched away. She dropped her hand. Joy tried to empathize—he’d just found his mother, the princess, lost his sister, Inq, freed his monarchs, the King and Queen, and was currently running from a vengeful army who had been trapped for more than a millennium in another dimension. It was enough to spin anyone’s head, but they didn’t have time for an existential crisis right now.

  “Listen, getting to the Atrium was the fallback plan to get Graus Claude out in case anything went wrong,” she said. “And ever since we found out that Aniseed made a graftling clone of herself, everything’s gone wrong!” She dropped her voice, wondering if saying the dryad’s name aloud might somehow alert the Forest Folk. “How do we get out?”

  “Miss Mal—”

  “Not you!” Joy shushed the Bailiwick, who glared at her from beneath his deep postorbital ridge. “How far are we from the East entrance? That’s where the car’s parked. How far outside the Hill do you need to be before you can slice a door home?” She squeezed her clutch purse full of keys. Indelible Ink looked unfocused, lost. Joy’s feet still burned. “Ink?”

  He turned to her, blank, all-black eyes drowning.

  “I—I’m—” he stammered. He was in shock.

  A manicured claw tapped the flagstone path and Joy looked down. Graus Claude had drawn a large E in the dirt and pointed over his shoulder. Joy ran to the thick glass windows that warped the light outside. She couldn’t see a thing. They could be four feet from the ground or four hundred—it was impossible to tell. Flowering trees and vine-wrapped branches nearly obscured the skylights on this side of the room. Her panicked reflection stared back at her.

  There was a rustling in the Atrium. It shivered the hairs on the back of Joy’s neck.

  The door opened. Everyone spun around.

  Filly poked her head in, her ornamental horse mask from the gala still perched on her head like a hat.

  “Ah,” she said,
grinning. “Everyone together now? Good! I’ll just hold them off, then.”

  “Wait!” Joy cried. “How do we get out?”

  The Valkyrie shrugged and licked the blue spot under her bottom lip. “Haven’t a clue,” she said. “This is Forest floor and I only know Air.” She flicked the mask’s trailing horsehair mane over her shoulder. “The plan’s gone sideways, in case you haven’t noticed. I lost Kurt in the hubbub, but that’ll serve as cover for your retreat. There’s many keen to speak with you, Joy Malone, and double that for our noble toad, so you’d both best be off.”

  Joy cringed. “But what about you?”

  “I don’t mind staying—you’re missing a beautiful row!” Filly beamed as tumultuous noise gathered behind her, approaching fast. “Must go. Call me when you need me.” She raised a fist. “Victory!”

  “Victory...” Joy answered, but the door had already shut. Both Ink and Graus Claude stared at her. Joy glowered back. “Okay, I’m thinking!”

  There was only one door from the room—one obvious door—but Joy couldn’t believe there would be only one way out. They were in the Grand Hall Under the Hill, the hub of the Twixt, the central government stronghold of the Folk, and the Folk always had a loophole, another way out. She made her way around the perimeter of the Atrium, feeling along the trees, along the glass, tracing the sills with her fingertips. What she wouldn’t give for one of Dmitri’s glow stick beacons, or, for that matter, the glyph preventing Ink from cutting a door out. If she could find it with her Sight, she would erase it with the scalpel. If she couldn’t bend the rules, she’d break them.

  There was a great slam! slam! slam! as the Atrium door buckled and smashed in. Filly bowled backward, curled around a Minotaur. A scrabble of Folk in ball gowns and feathered masks streamed in after them, pushing and shouting in outrage. Butterflies scattered in haphazard clouds. Kestrel appeared, straining against her leash. She hissed, her long tongue snaking out to taste their scent. The tracker’s eyes dilated. Her stiff eyelashes blinked with a scraped-metal shing!