The Crystal - Jones M (best novels for students TXT) 📗

stated. Liam and Ethan denied her words while the rest of us did the opposite. The two gave us a 'what?' look, but we all ignored them.

"I thought he already had a fake girlfriend," I said with a frown.

"Oh, he did. But they broke up. Now his management is pressuring him once again to have a fake girlfriend. Justin and I had a fight about it last night, and it did not end well."

"So, what are you going to do?" Erick asked with a concerned look. 

I suspected it. I knew he was in love with Selena, so the look must have been a façade. I took a quick glance into his mind and shook my head in disappointment at him. 

He was happy. The dude was glad that his brother's relationship could be ending.

"If he agrees to it, then I'll have no choice but to break up with him."

"Yes!" I heard Erick scream in his mind. My mother, the guards, Ethan and I turned to look at him.

"What?" he asked, pretending not to know what we heard.

The other guard placed rocks beside the fire, and my mother placed the non-stick pan on top of them. She proceeded to put some pre-cooked food onto it, warming it up. Thirty minutes later, we were all enjoying a meal while we talked about other not-so-serious subjects.

For instance, Liam and Ethan talked about their adventures in a boy band. They told us a story about Logan being cartwheeled by their bodyguard Trevor into one of their tour buses after getting a sugar rush and wanting to explore the city they were to perform in. But the most interesting one was the one about Harry being forcefully kissed by a girl when I went with Selena and Rachel to their meet-and-greet.

"She seemed crazy! For a moment there, I thought she was going to ravish him in front of us," Ethan said, making the rest of us guffaw with laughter.

"Don't tell him we ratted him out to you," Liam warned us.

"It's okay, Liam," Selena said. "Your secret is safe with me."

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Selena's P.O.V

"I hate the forest," I said to no one in particular as I jumped to avoid a large protruding root on the ground.

We had spent the night sleeping under the trees. We woke up later than arranged because the leaves of the trees around us were many enough to create the illusion that it was still night. It was also cold, and that barely helped with getting us up. After a while, we got up, ate a quick breakfast and resumed our walk towards our destination.

"It can't be that bad," Erick commented just as a mosquito flew right into his mouth. He started coughing it out, making me laugh. Soon enough, he started making horrible sounds in his throat that made me want to puke.

"I can't believe you laughed! I could have died!" Erick said in a serious tone after the mosquito (probably) got out, making me laugh more. He frowned, making him look cute.

Wait. What?

"Are we almost there yet?" Liam asked as we walked in between trees in the forest, taking my mind off the weird moment.

"No. A few more miles ahead, and we'll reach our destination," Brian stated as we continued our walk.

"This is exhausting," Emery said. "I guess I could fly up and see how far we are from the castle."

I understood her. I mean, Brian had told us that we could have used the flying carpets to fly towards our destination. But seeing that there were many trees, that option was out of the way.

"NO!" Emery had just started to levitate when we all screamed at her. I jumped at her form, taking her down with me. She groaned under my weight, but we were all hyper-aware of our surroundings. Just then, we heard a loud screeching sound. Everyone remained silent as they looked up at the sky.

The leaves of the trees around us covered the view, but we were able to make out the shape of a flying erboon's shadow. It flew directly above us, coming to a stop on top of the top branch above us. I looked up, observing its shape. Also, I saw its unbelievably-pink butt.

"MOVE HERE SLOWLY," Erick mouthed to me while he stood under the branch of a thick tree. It was even a wonder I understood him. 

I slowly got up from Emery and carefully walked towards him. Emery crawled slowly towards her mother who was hiding underneath another tree. My eyes were wide at the time, fearing the possibility of being spotted. I made it towards Erick, and we stood there, staring at the shadow the erboon made on the ground.

It was tilting its head sideways, looking for something. Then it released its hold on the branch, flying away from us and screeching while doing so. A couple of leaves fell with a rustling sound. Once the creature was far out of sight, we all sighed in relief.

"Hey!" Emery said to her mother. She frowned while she rubbed a spot on her shoulder. I guessed her mother pinched her.

"Remind me not to willingly accept to go on a quest like this," Liam told Ethan.

"Duly noted," Emery said with sarcasm dripping from her voice.

"I wasn't the one who used magic and almost got us spotted by the erboon," Liam stated, earning a nonchalant wave of a hand from my cousin.

"We need to keep going," Brian, the guard, reminded us. Then we continued the walk towards Eva's castle.

Liam's P.O.V

"I think I see something," one of the guards announced. Every one of us turned our heads to him in interest before looking around our surroundings. What met my sight was the hardwood trees that formed the forest.

Then I turned to face forward, and I saw it.

It was the castle.

It seemed to be about thirty feet away from us. It was situated in an empty field that had short scattered golden grass. I could only point out its similarity to Crystalia's castle, except that the roof was red and rusting, and there were no tall middle towers.

"Is it me or does it look like an alternate version of the castle in Crystalia?" Ethan asked, earning nods from Emery, her mother, Erick, Selena and the guards.

"That is the original castle," Emery's mother commented. I turned to her in disbelief.

"Really? What happened?" I asked in shock.

"Judging from the fact that we are in Crystalia and not here, you could say that Eva ran us out of 'her' property."

"Whoa. Could you paint me a picture of what this area looked like in the past?"

I got my answer in the form of a mental image. The castle looked beautiful in my mind. There were also small settlements outside the structure. Just like that, the image was gone.

"You have got to teach me that," I demanded from her. She gave me a weird look before smiling at me.

"So, what is the plan?" Emery asked.

"Some of you will have to wait here," Erick said. "In this case, I would like the guards to stay." I turned to face him, giving him a look of disbelief.

"Their job is to protect us. We need some people here, just in case the plan fails," he explained.

I heard the sound of camera shots. I directed my attention to Selena. She was holding a camera and pressing a button, taking shots of the area.

"What are the pictures for?" I asked.

"I wouldn't like it if we were to walk back here again. No one has time for that."

I nodded my head, agreeing with her point.

"Ethan, Liam. You stay here," Erick ordered. Ethan and I looked at each other before turning to face the Prince with a look that said 'Why?'

"We need you to stay here for a while. If we aren't back in six hours..."

"Six hours?" I interrupted.

"...six hours," Erick repeated, "you and the guards will have to come get us. You may use magic if you have to, okay?"

I stood there, thinking about what he said before agreeing.

"Good. Selena, Emery, Miss Davis and I would sneak up into the castle and have a look around."

"Mom, I want you to stay," Emery told her mother.

"Emery, I get that you are worried about me, but I am a grown woman. It's okay, we'll get through this," Miss Davis countered. Emery reluctantly agreed with her decision.

"Okay. Six hours. Got it?" Erick asked again, and we all nodded. I even took out my phone, switched it on, and kept a silent timer of the said duration. I would have to look at it every now and then to see how much time we would be left with. Come to think of it, hiding behind the trees seemed better than to risk my life over erboons and erwiches.

Emery's P.O.V

Some minutes later, my mother, Erick, Selena and I were outside Eva's castle. We were hiding behind a thick bush, listening for any movement coming towards us. Up close, I could see that it was a mess. Even though it had gray brick walls, four towers, a height of four floors and a red roof, the whole building was old.

"Let's go in there," Erick said. The rest of us turned to give him a look of disbelief.

"Are you crazy?" my mother whispered to him. "That is not only stupid, but we also might as well be walking towards death with open arms."

"I know it sounds crazy, but we have one thing they don't: the crystal. We might as well go in there and threaten to blow up the building and kill them in the process to get answers."

"They can teleport, remember?" Selena countered in a whisper.

"So can we. If it gets out of hand, we will teleport back to where we left the guards then teleport back to Crystalia. We could teleport here on another time because now we know how this area looks like."

"Are we seriously going to do this?" I asked. Everyone remained silent for a while.

"We have no other idea especially since we have no knowledge of the castle's internal design."

"I could take photos of it," Selena said, taking out her camera and proceeding to do so.

"Are we ready to do this?" Erick asked. We all nodded our heads,

"Okay." We got up from our spot behind the big bush and walked towards the entrance of the castle. It had a thick wooden door that was painted pine green, even though the color itself was dirty.

"What do we do? Knock?" Selena asked, getting looks of disbelief from us. She shrugged her shoulders in reply.

Without thinking twice about it, I pushed the door open. My eyes widened when I noticed the presence of many erwiches and a couple of flying erboons in the air.

"Witches! We have been expecting you. How nice it is for you to join our invitation to the castle," a booming male voice sounded through the air. With that, the erwiches and erboons stopped what they were doing and turned to face us. 

None of them seemed to come at us. That was weird.

I looked around, searching for the source of the voice. My eyes met the sight of a man walking down a set of concrete stairs that were threatening to give out. He soon walked towards us and gave us a smug smile.

He had brown eyes. He was a blonde with unusually-pale skin. The guy looked to be in his 30s or 40s. He had on a black coat with sleeves that reached his wrists and a pair of black worn-out trousers. Most surprisingly, he was barefoot.

He really needed to deal with his long nails.

"Who are you?" Erick asked with a sense of authority in his voice.

"I am Tevix, Eva's second in command," he told us with a smile. My eyes narrowed at him.

"Are you the one who brought the erboons to Crystalia and earth?" Selena asked.

"I didn't bring them, silly girl. I sent them to do my work," he answered.

"Why? What would you get from exposing your kind and our kind to the world?" Erick asked in confusion. Tevix looked at him, then at us, and smiled.

"You know we're of the same kind, but we are much better than you," he said, earning hoots from the erwiches around us. For a moment, I forgot that they were around and that they had surrounded us.

"You'll find your answers soon, your Majesty," he mocked before quickly pulling out his hand from his back and puffing some kind of white smoke onto us. I closed my trachea, but I needed oxygen so badly. Then I made a mistake of inhaling the air around us. Everything seemed to get woozy, and just like that, I passed out.

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"Emery?"

"Emery!"

"Emery, wake up!"

"Emery!"

I heard the persistent whispers of someone calling out to me. My eyes slowly fluttered open, adjusting to my surroundings.

First off, I noticed I wasn't in Crystalia. I was in a large chamber with one small empty window located to my far left. The room had gray brick walls with streaks of black around some sides. Then I noticed a black pot underneath a fire with a boiling black mixture in it.

My heart thudded when I noticed I was a bit high off the ground. I turned to my sides and noticed I wasn't the only one in the room. Selena, my mother and Erick, in that order, were also hanging off the ground as I was. Their hands were up, enclosed in chains that supported