For ever.
Chapter Nineteen
PIXIES DO NOT NEED TO CAST SPELLS, FOR THEIR MAGIC IS IN MUSIC AND DANCING. THEY CAN MAKE EVEN THE MOST STRONG-MINDED FEY FOLK FORGET THEIR DUTIES, FORGET THEIR FAMILIES, FORGET THEMSELVES.
Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland
SOMETHING WAS TAPPING my forehead. ‘Wake up, Zaria,’ said a harsh whisper. ‘Wake up.’
‘Mmph,’ I mumbled.
‘Wake up.’
Opening my eyes, I saw a face close to mine. Silvery eyes, dark hair, worried frown. Leona. Just behind her hovered Meteor and Andalonus. All three wore ugly necklaces that looked like they’d been strung with gravel. Dull leaden pendants hung on their chests.
Leona poked me again with the tip of her wand. I brushed it aside and tried to snuggle down farther into the soft grass. My head was resting on my tote bag, and I was comfortable.
Leona slipped a necklace over my head; it was just like the one she wore. Instantly I felt sad and afraid and unbearably tired. I wanted to take off the necklace, but when I tried, Meteor pried my fingers off the strand. Not gently.
I couldn’t do much more than lift my head. ‘What are you doing here?’ My voice rasped as if I’d been screaming for hours.
They didn’t answer.
A group of pixies was surrounding us, singing and swaying. They didn’t seem kind any more, didn’t seem wonderful. I wanted them to go away, but they were moving closer.
Meteor picked me up off the turf. My body ached everywhere; my wings were limp.
Leona touched us. ‘Transera nos.’
I was in the nest in my mother’s room, squished against Meteor, with Leona and Andalonus across from me. Meteor got out of the nest, and helped me prop myself up with pillows. My joints seemed filled with grit, and so did my eyes.
‘Pixandelle?’ Leona said.
I groaned.
‘I’ll get you some water and sonnia.’ Leona flew out of the room.
‘Why?’ Meteor asked. ‘Why there?’
I stared at him, remembering. The portal. The aevum derk. Lily Morganite.
Leona returned with water. I gulped it. She handed me a bowl of dried sonnia flowers. They tasted so good!
‘How did you find me?’ I asked.
‘When you weren’t here for our meeting,’ Meteor began, ‘we decided something must have happened to you.’
I frowned. ‘We’re supposed to meet this evening.’
A pause while they shook their heads.
‘You danced longer than you planned,’ Andalonus said. He looked frightened, as if he thought a band of pixies might break through the walls and carry me off.
‘We were supposed to meet the day before yesterday,’ Meteor explained.
I tried to remember. I had begun dancing … It had been morning. I’d felt so blissful. Were there times when the day had darkened?
‘Two days and nights with the pixies?’ I croaked.
‘We looked everywhere for you,’ Meteor went on. ‘Couldn’t find a trace.’
‘We were afraid Lily had snared you somehow,’ Leona said.
Snared. It was too close to the truth. How was I going to tell them she had the aevum derk?
‘Leona had the idea to track down Laz,’ Andalonus said. ‘He’s the one who told us a young fairy with violet wings had been seen among the pixies.’
My eyes snapped to Andalonus’s face. ‘Laz told you where to find me?’ I struggled to sit up. ‘How much did it cost you?’
‘A thousand radia,’ Meteor answered. ‘Leona paid him.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘He also warned us that if we went into Pixandelle without sorren charms, we would fall to the pixie magic ourselves.’ Leona lifted the ugly necklace over her head and held it at arm’s length. ‘Meteor bought one for each of us.’
I didn’t want to ask how much Laz had charged for the charms. Poor Meteor! It would be bad enough to hand over radia to anyone, but to Laz, whom he despised?
‘And he told us we’d better race as if trolls were after us to get you out,’ Andalonus continued, ‘because any fairy who spends more than a few days with the pixies isn’t able to leave them.’
I pulled the charm from my neck and examined it. The pendant was shaped like the heel of a foot, and the beads were only lumps of clay. I set it on the pillow next to me, hoping that taking it off would make me feel better.
It didn’t.
‘Thank you for coming after me,’ I said. ‘I’m so sorry …’ How long had they been awake looking for me?
‘Zaria,’ Meteor said slowly, ‘what happened? How did you end up in Pixandelle?’
Sighing, I tried to focus, my mind in freefall. I pushed myself up higher in the nest so I could unfurl my wings. ‘I flew off course.’
‘Obviously,’ Leona said. ‘Tell us, Zaree.’
‘You might not stay my friends when you hear what I’ve done.’
But I told them, starting with my visit to Laz.
‘Laz?’ Meteor interrupted, his hair actually bristling. ‘You told that smuggling trog about the powder? You asked him what it was?’
‘Why shouldn’t I ask him for what he knew? He’s the one who put the cloak on me,’ I said.
Leona shook her head at Meteor. ‘Let her talk.’
So I did. About the aevum derk. And about being a Feynere. They listened, fascinated. Meteor asked the most questions about the aevum derk. And the instant I said the word ‘Feynere’ he drummed his head with his hands.
‘Of course, of course!’ he exclaimed. ‘A Feynere. That’s what you are. It explains everything: spells out of common words, magic rising up, the power of your enchantments … everything.’
I thought of what Laz had said: that he expected a Feynere to look grand and powerful. Not a smallish fairy with rather plain colouring. It bothered me that Meteor might have felt the same way, but I didn’t want to bring it up.
He was frowning now. ‘Lazuli knows about you being a Feynere?’
I nodded. ‘He knows.’ My wings drooped. ‘I wish he didn’t, but he does. I swore him to secrecy – it was the best I could do.’
Andalonus put a comforting hand on my shoulder and then tilted his head at Meteor. ‘I’m curious, O sage one: if the Feynere have such unsurpassed powers, why is Zaria’s level lower than Leona’s? Why does Leona’s watch register a level higher than anyone else’s in Feyland?’
Leona smiled at that. ‘Yes, Meteor. Why?’
None of us had ever seen Leona use her full power, though I suspected she had poured it into a futile spell to try to heal her mother. The human laser gun had burned her mother too, but of course all Leona’s magic had not been able to help. And since then she had shown no desire to tap Level 200.
Most of the time, I forgot what a powerful fairy Leona was. But her level was twice that of any on record for living fey folk, equal to the strongest fairies and genies who had ever lived.
‘Yes, Meteor,’ I echoed. ‘Why?’
Meteor sighed. ‘Feynere magic isn’t measured in levels. Leona, when we first talked about Zaria’s spells, you said she must have something else, and you were right. Feynere magic goes beyond levels. It’s different.’
‘So I’m still the highest level?’ Leona asked, grinning at me.
Meteor nodded, and I grinned back at Leona.
‘If it’s so different, why does Feynere magic use up radia?’ I asked, a bit peevishly.
‘Because it’s still magic,’ Meteor answered. ‘And it’s still fey.’
Chapter Twenty
IN FEYLAND, THE UNDERSTANDING OF TIME ITSELF IS PART OF OUR HERITAGE AS FAIRIES AND GENIES. LONG AGO, WHEN WE TRAVELLED FREELY BETWEEN OUR WORLD OF TIRFEYNE AND THE HUMAN WORLD OF EARTH, WE TAUGHT HUMANS TO MAKE TIMEPIECES AND TO FOLLOW THE HOURS. NOT THAT THEY REMEMBER THIS, OR GIVE US THE HONOUR WE ARE DUE. NOR DO THEY RECALL THAT IT WAS FEY FOLK WHO FIRST SHOWED HUMANS HOW TO CONSTRUCT SNUG HOMES AS WELL AS GRAND ARCHITECTURE. FOR MILLENNIA, WE HAVE HELPED THE
M IN A HUNDRED THOUSAND WAYS THAT NOW GO UNRECOGNIZED. THEIR HISTORIANS HAVE FORGOTTEN. THIS IS DUE IN PART TO THE EDICT OF THE UNSEEN. ACCORDING TO THE TERMS OF THAT EDICT, FAIRIES AND GENIES ALLOW ONLY THE YOUNGEST HUMANS TO SEE US. IF SIGHTED BY A FULL-GROWN HUMAN, WE MUST CAST A FORGETTING SPELL AT ONCE. AND WISE FEY FOLK THAT WE ARE, A THOUSAND YEARS BEFORE THE EDICT WAS ENACTED, WE BECAME CAUTIOUS ABOUT BEING SEEN. (I DO NOT COUNT LEPRECHAUNS AMONG THE WISE.)
Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland
IT TOOK A while to tell my friends the rest of my news. At first, they were too shocked to take it in. But finally they understood: Lily Morganite had the aevum derk. She couldn’t open it. I’d kept a small amount in reserve. And I’d created a portal that happened to lead to the edge of Pixandelle.
Leona seized on how I’d kept some of the powder. ‘You should use the last of it on Lily! Right away, as soon as we can find her.’
When I argued that Feyland needed Lily’s billions in stolen radia, Leona scoffed.
‘She won’t use it to benefit Feyland!’ she yelled. ‘What if she uses it to open the bottle of aevum derk?’
My heart ached along with my head. ‘But kill her?’ I whispered. With Lily dead, how would I ever find my family?
‘She’d happily kill you,’ Leona answered. ‘Why spare her after everything she’s done!’
‘No, Zaria’s right,’ Meteor told Leona in his calmest voice. ‘If Feyland loses all the radia Lily controls, we would be weakened for ever.’
‘We’re already weakened,’ Leona fumed. ‘Tell her, Meteor.’
‘I looked at Meteor. ‘Tell me what?’
‘Things are bad,’ he said. ‘More of the durable spells have begun to fail.’
‘I know,’ I replied. ‘At the border of Pixandelle and Feyland, there weren’t any alarms, nothing to warn me.’
He nodded glumly. ‘When we were looking for you, we went to the Golden Station and found pandemonium. The portals have closed.’
‘What? All of them?’
‘We didn’t check every single one,’ Leona snapped. ‘But it looked that way, yes.’
‘What about all the fairies and genies who were on Earth?’ I cried. ‘How will they get home?’
Meteor shook his head, striped hair falling into his eyes.
Trapped on Earth with no way back! Even an Earth-struck fairy or genie would be desperate to get home. Those who could create a portal were few and far between. Level 75 was rare among fey folk, and so was a thousand radia.
I had thought Lily guessed which portal I used, and closed it to spite me. But if every portal in the station had failed, maybe Lily hadn’t closed the Cornfield Portal after all; maybe the durable spell keeping that portal open had simply failed along with all the others. But why would she let the portals fail? Did Lily hate Earth just as Beryl had hated it? Did Lily despise humans as Beryl had done?
‘And as if that’s not enough, many of the viewing stations are having trouble with their scopes,’ Leona added.
I sat with my wings huddled around my shoulders. What was happening to my beloved Feyland? And what would become of the connections between human and fey, so long cherished, and now at risk?
The pause was long and awkward, broken by Andalonus. ‘I have news too,’ he said. ‘I found Lily.’
I stared at the blue-haired genie.
‘You know her hiding place?’ Leona leaned towards him.
‘She isn’t hiding,’ Andalonus said. ‘She’s flaunting herself as an outcast, giving speeches to anyone who will listen.’
‘You went after her?’ I asked. ‘But she knows you’re friends with me and Leona. What if she had gnomes on the lookout for you?’
‘I had a disguise.’ Andalonus mussed his frizzy hair, looking proud.
‘Did Leona enchant you?’ Meteor asked.
‘You don’t have to use magic to be in disguise.’ Andalonus pulled on his ears. ‘I covered my hair with a cap, smeared my face with dirt, and kept in the background so no one would notice me.’
‘You ingenious genie,’ Leona said. ‘Do you know where she’s staying?’
‘In some old falling-down tower on the edge of Oberon City,’ Andalonus answered. ‘She’s got gnomes repairing it fit for royalty. And she makes speeches from the balcony.’ He waggled his eyebrows. ‘She goes on and on about how the king and queen aren’t fit to rule, and the councillors are even more bumbling and selfish than the king and queen.’
Bumbling and selfish. It felt odd to be in agreement with Lily. My friends and I didn’t have a good opinion of the High Council of Feyland. As far as we were concerned, they were a bunch of rotten trogs.
I wondered if King Oberon and Queen Velleron, safe on their Island of Anshield, had heard the news of the failing durable spells and the chaos in their kingdom. Surely they would soon leave the sapphire stronghold and help us?
‘Lily’s like a queen to her followers,’ Andalonus was saying. ‘And she’s promising to give them radia too. She says they’ll each get a thousand more.’
‘But Lily doesn’t give away magic!’ I cried.
‘She’s lying, of course,’ Leona said impatiently.
‘She talked about something called aevia ray,’ Andalonus said.
‘What’s aevia ray?’ I asked.
‘It’s a fabled powder,’ Meteor answered. Obviously he knew something the rest of us didn’t. As usual. ‘It’s supposed to generate new magic. But it’s impossible to make.’
‘It can’t be impossible,’ Leona argued, ‘or you wouldn’t be able to study it.’
‘The main ingredient is dust from a comet’s tail,’ Meteor said. ‘And since history began, anyone who’s set out to ride a comet has never come back.’
I tried to get up, but flopped back on the pillows.
Andalonus turned to me. ‘Zaria? What’s wrong?’
‘Lily might be able to get comet dust,’ I said faintly.
Meteor snorted. ‘Even if she had ten trillion radia, she still wouldn’t have the power to ride a comet.’
‘What if she could get the dust on Earth?’
‘What?’ Meteor asked softly.
‘Humans,’ I said. ‘I think the humans have some comet dust.’
Chapter Twenty-one
THE HUMAN LIFESPAN IS QUITE SHORT COMPARED TO THAT OF FAIRIES AND GENIES, WHO USUALLY LIVE TWO HUNDRED YEARS OR LONGER. SOMETIMES, LONG-LIVED FEY WILL ATTAIN TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS. HOWEVER, FAIRIES AND GENIES REACH PHYSICAL MATURITY AT A RATE SIMILAR TO HUMANS, ALLOWING US MANY MORE DECADES TO ATTAIN WISDOM.
THE NORMAL FEY LIFESPAN DOES NOT PERTAIN TO KING OBERON OR QUEEN VELLERON, WHO LIVE ON THE ISLAND OF ANSHIELD, WHERE TIME TAKES NO TOLL UPON THE LIVING. FEY RULERS WOULD BE IMMORTAL EXCEPT THAT THEY SOMETIMES LEAVE THEIR STRONGHOLD.
Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland
I WAS SO exhausted, I poked my forehead with the tip of my wand to wake up. ‘Meteor,’ I said, ‘tell us everything you know about this aevia ray.’
‘Zaria,’ he said, ‘why do you think humans have comet—’
‘I can’t tell you,’ I interrupted sharply.
‘Why not?’ he asked.
‘I overheard something while I was on Earth. It doesn’t matter where I heard it, does it? All that matters is that Lily might be able to get hold of it.’
Leona was giving me a questioning look, while Andalonus bobbed beside her.
‘Please, Meteor. Tell us what you know?’ I was desperate for him to stop asking questions; I didn’t want to explain about Sam.
Meteor sighed. ‘I already have.’
I leaned forward. ‘Then you’ve got to find out more. Please, Meteor. If Lily wants it, we have to learn about it.’
‘All right,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll research it.’ He drew his wand. ‘Will you be here when I come back?’ He wasn’t looking at Leona and Andalonus; he was looking at me.
‘Where else would I be?’ It wasn’t exactly a lie. I did plan to be there – if I could do what I nee
ded to do in time.
‘Transera nos.’ Meteor disappeared.
Too tired to think, I closed my eyes, only for a minute.
When I jerked awake, Leona and Andalonus were on my mother’s window seat, murmuring to each other.
Dragging myself out of the nest, I expanded my wings. ‘How long have I been asleep?’ I demanded crossly.
Andalonus gestured at the window. The light outside told me it was well into afternoon.
‘Blasted pixies, curse them all,’ I said. ‘Where’s Meteor?’
‘Still gone,’ Leona answered. ‘And now that you’re up, you’d better change your gown, Zaree. That one you’re wearing is even more hideous than those sorren charms we got from Laz.’
I looked down at my skirts, which were hardly better than rags and smeared with dirt. Leona was right. Hurrying to my own room, I found a gown that wasn’t quite as wrinkled and was much cleaner.
Back in my mother’s room, I picked up the pixie charm and dropped it over my head. Among the pillows where I’d slept, I found the tote bag holding my mother’s spellbook. I crammed the book into a cupboard. ‘Cinna Tourmaline’s spellbook cannot be stolen,’ I said, dousing the cupboard with magic.
‘What are you planning, Zaree?’ asked Leona.
Sometimes I wished she didn’t know me so well. I didn’t like cutting her off; it wasn’t something I’d normally do. But I didn’t want to get into an argument with Leona Bloodstone about going to Earth.
So I transported away without answering her.
Laz spotted me the moment I crossed the threshold of the Ugly Mug. For once, he wasn’t involved in a game. I watched in irritation as he glided across the room towards me.
‘This way,’ he said when he reached my side.
I followed him past a nearby curtain into a dim hallway and through a creaky door. The room we entered was small and crammed with crates. Goods from Earth, no doubt. Being with Laz in an enclosed room was enough to bring on some very bad memories.