The next morning I was too excited to stay still. After getting dressed in the same golden dress, leaving Crier on the bed, the dance had no place for him, I went to the cafeteria and had to force myself to eat. I saw Sam briefly but he was following a wisp probably to prepare for his fight. I went to Mrs. Jones and listened as she nattered on about how happy she was that I was going to be dancing for the 'town'. I didn't have the heart to tell her that if I did well she might never see me again. Better to let her be happy a few more hours and then forget about me later.

Finally a wisp came for me. I gave Mrs. Jones a hug and left to meet my destiny.

This time there was no loud noise, no fanfare as I entered. It was as quiet as a tomb. Looking around it was as inviting as one.

There weren't the clouds and rainbows I was expecting. There was a circular room, it looked as wide across as a football field. There was no real floor, instead stones, gems, and pools of water floated in the air, while countless figures sat along the wall, from my perspective they should have fallen but they sat and walked as if I was the one walking along the wall. They moved freely drinking silver moon beams, and eating cakes of frozen sunlight. Calandri waved at me, with only a slight hesitation I stepped onto the wall and looked straight down into a black abyss.

Walking to her, my eyes kept looking at the blackness before me. Shadows blacker than the darkest night weaved and frolicked in the depths. They waved to me, beckoning me forward, asking me silently to join them.

Calandri grabbed my arm as I almost walked past her. “Are you ready, Anthony?” she asked.

I nodded, still staring into the darkness. One dance, and I would never have to see anything like it again. The fire wing fans were thrust into my hand. “You will begin soon. Be ready,” she said.

“Of course,” I whispered.

Sam came up beside me. He said something, but I didn't hear him. There was music in the air, I could just catch a few notes, it made my blood dance. He grabbed my hand which had been moving in time with darkness before me.

“Focus, Anthony!” he said putting his hand on my shoulder.

That got my attention. “Sorry. I'm ready.”

The Lord and Lady sat at the top of the wall, watching everything from their thrones, Paula was in her usual spot at the Lady's feet. The Lord raised his hand and the room was immediately filled with silence.

“Today, we are going to see a great performance,” he boomed, his voice carried in the wind. “Our newest toy was going to dance for us. But it has been brought to my attention that she is not a true dancer. Rather she is a fighter.”

I stared at him in shock. What was he talking about? Calandri looked just as surprised. Sam's hand slipped from my shoulder.

“Since she is a fighter, let us see her fight our champion. To the death,” the Lord said, his empty eyes were somehow full of sadistic pleasure.

All eyes turned to Sam and I, as the winds picked us up and placed us on the hanging stones. The darkness below keened in hunger, howling for blood, for flesh, something in me yearned to jump down and meet them. I could hear the music clearly, it was a funeral dirge.

I looked at the Lord and Lady, they wanted me to kill Sam this couldn't be true. But then I saw Paula smilin, her vicious little smile. I knew what had happened. With a few words to the Lady, she hadn't broken her oath, but she was going to see one of us die.

Sam stood across from me. A club much like the one he'd used to kill the bear creature in his hand. His shoulders were slumped, he was wiping his hand against his shorts, the light and hope I'd seen in his eyes before had died.

“I knew this was going to happen,” he whispered, it echoed in the quiet arena. “Everything I've seen, all the futures I've faced, you've killed me, or I've killed you. I was, I was hoping it would be a little later. It seemed like a few of us had a few really good times. I wish that was us.”

He came forward, the club held high, his free hand up near his chest, ready to block a strike. I still didn't know what was going on. “S-Sam, we don't have to do this,” I said stepping back.

“I'm sorry. I shouldn't have let myself care. I should have listened to you and killed you in your sleep. This just makes it harder for both of us.” As he spoke he rushed forward, the club swinging at my head.

I fell backwards off the rock. The blackness reached up, tendrils of dead gods rose up seeking my warmth, every wave of blackness made the funeral dirge louder, the numbness in my body turned cold. 'Die, die, die, die...” the song whispered in my soul.

I flicked the fans open, the fiery blue wings opened behind me in a flare of light which forced the darkness back. As I struggled to rise against the pull of the abyss, the watching Fae cheered and hooted. Looking up I saw Sam leaping down towards me, carefully jumping between the rocks and jewels, I swung away from him, trying to put as much distance between us as possible. I needed to buy time, until one of us could think of a way out of this. There was no way I was going to kill him even if I could.

My left shoulder went numb, it felt like I'd been shot. I fell screaming, my wings turning me into a fireball. As I hit a floating rock, I turned my fall into a roll coming to my feet just in time to block a sharp, blue crystal with my good arm. The crystal melted in the fire, spattering my dress and face with molten rock. I tried to move my left arm, but it was all I could do to hold onto the fan. I was grounded with only one wing, Sam threw caution to the wind and charged at me.

As he jumped to my platform, he threw a rock the size of my skull, forcing me to dodge so he could land safely. My fiery wing slashed out in front of me, making him keep his distance, Sweat was beading on his forehead as my fire came within inches of his face. The anguish I'd seen earlier had been replaced by a stone cold look that promised death.

“Sam. Please I don't want fight you,” I said. “I saw us doing things together. We were older, and friends.”

He didn't lower his guard but he stopped advancing. “I saw those to. I was hoping we could get there. I prayed for it. I haven't prayed once since coming here, but I prayed we would be that one lucky pair. Didn't help. God has no place here. Only the Fair Folk, and they want one of us dead.”

My flame formed a wall of fire around me as he charged. There was a shriek of pain, and I smelled burning hair and meat, then a fist struck my chest. Something cracked, and I flew backwards. My fan fell from my numbed hand, and I was looking at the blackness once again. I couldn't even scream, my body was a mass of pain so intense it seemed like my heart had stopped. My mind was overwhelmed by the hatred flowing upwards.

Something sparked in my mind.

The singing of the birds pins in my hair joined the chanting in my soul. My heart started to beat again.

“Die.”
“Die.”
“Die.”
“Die.”

I waved my remaining wing, sending me slamming into the side of the tunnel. The lowest fae, forced to be nearest the unholy blackness scattered as I crashed through a table. Staggering to my feet I tried to orient myself. Sam was judging the distance to jump into the stands so we could finish our fight. Taking the chance to recover, I leaned against a chair and gasped for breath, letting the feeling slowly returned to my body.

“I can help you,” Crier said in my mind.

“How?”

“You are bonded to me. You already feel me inside of you. Open yourself completely. I'll give you the strength you need, as I did once before,” he said.

The beating increased.

“DIE!”
“DIE!”
“DIE!”
“DIE!”

I accepted it inside of me. Breathing in time with the sound. Sam had made the jump, he walked down the wall, he looked ready to kill. I walked towards him, the same expression on my face. Each footstep, each breath, each heartbeat, chanted the same thing.

“DIE!”
“DIE!”
“DIE!”
“DIE!”

The rage I'd felt when fighting Paula and myself was a candle compared to what I felt now. I pushed it outwards, the once graceful flaming blue wing, had turned to hellfire. The Fae fled before it's heat.

Crier spoke to me as Sam and I walked towards each other. “You trusted him. You trained beside him. And now he seeks to kill you. Do not hold back. Give him the honour and respect he deserves, we shall weep for him fiercely and remember him in our dreams. Survive. That is all that matters. Survive and bring more warriors to be honoured.”

Sam's dark skin blistered and scorched, glowed red in the light of my fire. I knew he expected me to jump and dodge striking him from the sides. I didn't. The inferno swung towards him in a straight line, a sword of black in the center shrieking for blood. I was going to cut him in half with the fires of my hate.

He slid under it, smoke rose from his body. Rolling to his knees in front of me, his club whistled through the air striking my hip.

I felt my hip bone turn to powder, my limp body was thrown backwards hitting a table. Falling in a heap, I tried to make my legs move, but the agony was too intense. It was all I could do to keep breathing. My flame died, the fan was gone.

My vision was fading in and out. I saw three Sam's walking towards me, I had no idea which one was real. I didn't care, I wanted it to end.

Something shifted, I could see Sam clearly now. But it wasn't Sam. It was Calandri, dressed as she was when she'd kidnapped me. “DIE!” Jasper's face rose in front of her, he was smiling, moving his hands over my body as he had when he'd mutilated me. “DIE!” Paula was laughing, calling me Ant, terrifying me. “DIE!” The Lady commanding me to dance as if I was a toy. “DIE!” The Lord, ordering me to kill or die. “DIE!” My own faces, so many of them thinking I deserved to die. “DIE!” Sam betraying me, trying to kill me. “DIE!”

“DIE!”
“DIE!”
“DIE!”
“DIE!”

Something appeared in my hand. I leaned to the side and struck.

My shoulder shattered under the hard wooden club, I fell the rest of the way to the ground . I was still alive though, and I saw Crier driven deep into Sam's stomach. He looked shock.

“I'm sorry, Anthony,” he whispered, collapsing to the ground.

**

I woke up in my room. I didn't want to wake up, I had been dreaming of talking with Sam back home. He was Alejandra, and I was my old self again. She was beautiful with long, curly, black hair, dark eyes, and raspberry juice on her lips. The sun was shining and we were outside eating barbequed hotdogs. What we were talking about wasn't important, all that mattered was we were safe, happy and everything was normal and peaceful. I didn't hurt. I wasn't a killer.

Calandri kissed my cheek, her hot lips dragged me from my dream. Memories of pain filled me with dread, but as the bed shifted there was no flare of agony. Nothing was broken, nothing hurt. It seemed wrong. I'd killed Sam, I had wanted to kill him. There should be something to remember him by.

“Come Anthony. You have done well and it is time for your reward,” she whispered in my ear.

I sat up slowly. An hour before I would have jumped up, shouting for joy. Now, now I was just filled with numb relief that I might be able to go home. My old clothes were waiting for me at the foot of the bed. I stared at them uncomprehending, after spending the last few weeks wearing garish dresses and skin tight clothes, I was surprised at the possibility of wearing normal things again. But they wouldn't fit me very well anymore.

Calandri stood up and started to leave the room. “Put your clothes on and quickly meet me outside the door. You do not have time to waste.”

The shirt should fit at least, I thought. Stripping, I put the t-shirt on first. As it went over my head, my hair crawled into my scalp. It tickled my back and neck until it was short and curly once more, a little shaggy but nothing like the long flowing locks I'd had just seconds before. Not really comprehending it, I finished putting the shirt on. My body quivered and shook, fat rearranged itself, muscles expanded and I grew taller, my shoulders widened, my stomach became soft and flat. My skin turned pink.

The shorts and underwear were next.

At first the underwear was stretched by my hips and butt, but like a balloon having the air slowly squeezed out of it, my pelvis shrank and my waist thickened back to being a boys. My legs lengthened and shrank when the shorts passed over them, the hair came back. My manhood grew again.

Strangely I didn't care.

Putting on my shoes, I didn't even feel my feet becoming larger.

I walked into the hallway where Calandri was waiting, it looked like she was crying. A streak of orange ran down her cheek. “I'm going to miss you, Anthony. You were the finest student I ever had. Are you sure you don't want to stay?”

“Please. Please let me go home,” I begged in a quiet voice.

She hugged me again. “Very well. But if you ever call to me, I will take you back. You can be a great person here, and it would be my honour to help you achieve it.”

I hugged her back, but I couldn't think of anything to say.

We walked through the halls. Fae came to watch me, whispering and laughing to themselves. I ignored them, lost in my own personal hell. Sam's face dogged me, I saw him in every mirror, I heard his footsteps beside me. Felt his hand on my shoulder. He wouldn't leave me alone.

Calandri opened a door and stepped through, I followed her and saw that we were standing at the back of a convenience store in the late evening. I realized where we were, it was just a little ways to my home. I fell to my knees and started crying, I was home.

“Anthony, listen to me. The magic I used isn't perfect, it has a catch. You must be hugged by your mother within a half hour or you'll return to the girl you once were. Do you understand?” Calandri asked.

I stopped crying, the thought of becoming the girl once more was horrifying. I couldn't return to that. “My Mom is at home isn't she?”

“Yes she is. I will not cheat or trick you like that,” she said. “But hurry home, I don't wish to see you hurt anymore. And remember if you need me, simply call my name and I shall come to my brave dancer who has made me so proud.”

“Thank you, Calandri.”

As I ran home I don't recall what I saw. Everything was a blur except for the sidewalk in front of me. I had never been a good runner, but that night I probably ran faster than my entire class. Nothing was going to stop me.

I saw my house, the lights were on. Ryan was taking out the garbage. “Ryan, Ryan! I'm home, I'm back!”

He looked at me like I was crazy. “I didn't know you left dude. Get Prince from the backyard or Mom is going to kill you.” He walked back inside without a second look.

What was he talking about? Who was Prince? From the cool air it had to be October, I'd been gone for at least two months. At a complete loss I went to the backyard, someone was playing with a dog. A boy who was about my size, with my hair.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

The boy turned around, he was me. A little cleaner. A lot happier. “I'm Anthony. Who are you?”

“No. NO! I'm Anthony!”

He cocked his head and took a closer look at me. “Wow! You do look a lot like me. How did you do it?”

“I'm you,” I said. “No, you're me. No, this isn't right!” I screamed hitting my head, trying to make everything make sense.

“Listen,” the fake me said, “you look like me, but you're not. I'm me. So how about you just go home. You tried to fool me for Youtube or something, it failed. Give it up.”

“No! Calandri wouldn't lie to me. You're not real. I'm real!” I shouted.

He backed up, starting to look scared. “I don't know who Calendar is, but you're crazy. Just get out of here or my parents are going to call the police.”

My heart was beating so hard I was afraid it would burst from my chest. This was wrong. They'd replaced me with a fake. I was real. I was real and he was a fake. I'd fought to make it back home. I'd done it. He hadn't! He wasn't real!

I threw myself at him. Punching and kicking, using everything I'd learned in my time in hell. He howled in pain as I broke his arm. There was shouting from inside the house, I ignored it to busy breaking the fakes nose, I felt myself being pulled off of him and thrown to the ground.

Someone was hitting me. I'd felt worse and didn't cry out, just struggled to stand up, but I was too weak. In the haze I saw Ryan crouched over top of me, his fist rising up and down. Somehow I got my foot between us and pushed as hard as I could. He fell backwards landing on his ass. I stood up, and saw my Mom cradling the fake me.

“Mom! It's me Anthony,” I said.

I froze in horror, my voice didn't sound like my voice anymore. I looked down at myself, my skin was slowly turning red. I needed to get her to hug me before I was unrecognizable. Running over to her I grabbed her by the shoulder. “Mom! LOOK AT ME! I'm Anthony! Not him! I'm your son!”

She pushed me away one handed with a look of hatred. Still cradling her fake son. She was about to say something when Ryan's foot connected with my face. I turned on him, long hair obscuring my vision. He tried to punch me again. My small, delicate looking fist hit his stomach sending him to his knees, retching and gasping.

My mother stood up, her face terrified me. I'd never seen such loathing and hatred even in the steading. I turned and ran.

**

An hour or two later, I sat behind a house in my poorly fitting clothes. I'd heard police sirens earlier, and I'd seen police cars slowly driving along the streets ever since.

I had a pair of pruning sheers in my hand.

My life here was done. I couldn't return home. I thought of the older me, who'd given me Crier. She'd been scarred. So badly scarred.

Taking my shirt off, I looked at my chest. The pruning sheers were sharp.

I carved an S above my heart. The pain meant almost nothing to me.

My thoughts turned to my former family. Below my heart, I carved an A.

“Calandri, I want to go home,” I whispered into the wind.

The air was torn open, a hole led to my room, where Calandri waited sitting on my bed. Her face beamed with delight. “Thank you for coming back to me Anthony.”

I stepped through the hole, shaking my head, I needed to remember Sam, not as the fighter I knew him as, but as the person he'd been before. “I'm not Anthony anymore. Call me Alex.”

The hole in the world closed up, and she rose to embrace me.

I was home, and music danced in my veins.