"Powerful protection," he muttered, rubbing his ears. "Stupid of me. I shouldn't have touched your wand."
"You shouldn't have touched me, either." I was happy that my spell had worked, but angry at the genie.
He clicked his tongue. "Now you know the importance of protecting yourself not only against enchantments but
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also against what humans call 'brute force.'"
"Why would you try to capture me?" I snapped.
"Nothing personal, but ten thousand radia is quite a reward. Most of the gambling pots in this fine establishment don't amount to more than a few degrees of Red."
"You gamble for twenty radia?"
He shrugged. "We're not all as lucky as you. If rumors are real, you're not just a pretty little thing--you're also a Violet fairy, quite rich in reserves. I hear you fixed a broken-down viewing station by donating a bundle of radia."
"You know about that?" I wanted to take the words back as soon as they were out.
He chuckled again. "Sooner or later, I hear about everything that happens in Feyland."
"Please don't tell anyone I'm here." I held my wand higher.
"Don't worry, Zaria Tourmaline," he said. "I've regained my senses. I know where to place my bets, and they're on you." He combed his fingers through his stringy hair. "Now what is it you need?"
I watched him warily. "I need to get into the Iron Lands and bring my friend out."
He threw back his head and laughed. He made quite a show of blowing his nose and mopping his brow. Fuming, I waited until he quit sniggering.
"Friend?" he said. "Is that friend the other Violet fairy who was captured earlier tonight?"
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Evidently he did hear about everything that happened in Feyland. "Do you know where she is?" I asked.
His bleary eyes opened a fraction more than normal. "You want to rescue Leona Bloodstone from the Iron Lands? That's a tall order," he said. "A very tall order. The question is, what's it worth to you? Because it's going to cost you." His eyes darted back and forth. "One hundred thousand radia, to be exact."
I gasped. "What!" One hundred thousand was a full degree of Blue!
"Let me explain." Laz sat on a crate. "Living as I do carries high costs. Half my merchandise is lost to bribes, and the Forcier keeps raising my radia tax. I could use a sizable infusion. Besides, it's a reasonable asking price. If I'm caught aiding you, I risk going to the Iron Lands myself on a permanent basis."
Drumbeats shook the room so hard I felt like a bug in a can. "Have you been to the Colony before?" I asked. "Do you know you can help me?"
"Been there many times on business. As to whether I know I can help you, I don't. But I'm your best bet." He flipped his wand in an arc and then caught it. "So? Do you accept my offer?"
I felt horribly tired. I knew this sleazy genie was taking advantage of my love for my friend. But if we could rescue Leona, it would be well worth paying what he asked. "All right," I said. "Once we're safely out of the
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Iron Lands, I'll pay you one hundred thousand radia."
"No, no, my fine fairy. That's not how it's done. Half now, and the rest when we come back."
I glared at him, weighing the risks. Fifty thousand radia was probably more than he'd ever seen at one time. Once he had it, maybe he would decide it wasn't worth endangering himself to help me. How did I know I could trust him?
Beryl had. And Beryl always said she could smell a liar from one hundred wingspans.
"I've never transferred radia before," I said.
Laz grinned. "I can teach you."
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CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
THE TRANSFER OF RADIA IS THE PREFERRED CURRENCY of smugglers.
--Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland
Paying Laz was much like putting radia into the durable-spell port at the viewing station. When we were done, he was fifty thousand radia richer, and I was eager to enter the Iron Lands.
Laz told me to wait while he assembled the supplies we would need. I sat tiredly on one of the crates and wondered whether the walls to this room were made of aluminum. They vibrated with every beat of the drums.
I peeked at the radia hand on my crystal watch. It had moved again. It pointed to a spot about two-tenths of the way toward the first notch within Violet. I was down about two hundred thousand radia from where I had begun.
I wasn't surprised. Since I had last checked, I had not only sealed a portal, but I had performed several transports, a good many invisibility spells, a memory spell for Michael Seabolt, and a forgetting spell for his son.
I had also placed enduring spells of protection on myself
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and my wand, as well as on the ground beneath the spruce tree on Earth. At least I would never have to do those spells again. I could slow down and conserve the radia I had left.
Laz came back wearing a long cloak with a hood. Thick gloves covered his hands and extended up to his elbows. He carried another cloak, which he threw over me.
That cloak was so heavy, it felt as if several tons of rock had been pressed into its fabric. It was crushing my wings! Immediately, I tried to throw it off.
I may as well have tried to get out from under a slag heap.
I grabbed desperately for my wand, but even though my fingers found it, no magic flowed. The pressure on my wings seemed to be increasing.
"Resvera den." I spoke the breaking spell, hoping to tear the cloak apart.
The spell didn't work.
"What have you done?" I tried to cry out, but my voice was terribly faint.
"Sorry," said Laz, his tone brisk. "The reward for locating you has been raised to fifty thousand radia. By turning you in, I'll get another fortune without any risk."
"You lied to me." All I could manage was a whisper.
Laz shrugged. "Just business."
He moved in. He obviously expected no resistance from me as he fastened a button at my throat. I tried to punch him, but my arms and legs were growing heavier by the second. Laz belted the cloak, strapping my wings and arms
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against my body. He fastened the belt with a tight buckle.
"Please," I whispered. "Take it off. It's killing me."
"You won't die. You're wanted alive." He opened the door. "I won that cloak at a card game from a leprechaun very much down on his luck. He was a prince before the Lep Edict, and that cloak was handed down in his family from the time of the Troll Wars. It's made with a rare blend of troll magic."
Troll magic? Not again! I hadn't even recovered from the elixir.
Laz sighed. "While you wear that cloak, Zaria, all your magic is extinguished."
Extinguished? I was finding it hard to breathe.
"There is a small consolation," he went on. "No enchantments can land on you, either." He went through the door and then leaned his head back in. "A word of advice: don't fight it. Accept that you have less power than a Level One Red."
The lock clicked behind him.
I took one shuddering step and collapsed. I lay on my side. When I tried to get up, heavy spikes of pain nailed me to the floor.
Abruptly, the stomping beat of the drums died. I heard protesting shouts, and then Laz's voice raised above the rest. "Clear out! Council members on their way."
Howls and running feet and banging doors answered him.
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I discovered that if I didn't move at all, the pressure from the cloak stopped intensifying. Was this what Laz had meant about accepting it?
By the time he opened the door again, I cared for nothing except the importance of keeping still.
Laz stepped aside for Lily Morganite. Opals glittered in her hair. Strands of pearls hung over the neckline of her soft pink gown, and the scent of lilies drifted around her.
I coughed, setting off a grinding wave of pressure.
"There," said Laz. "The one you're looking for."
Lily gazed down at me. No doubt I was a sa
tisfying sight: bound and powerless, weary, grief-stricken, and afraid. I tried to look defiant but probably looked more pathetic than brave.
"It did not have to be this way, Zaria," Lily said. "You have made some very unfortunate choices."
I didn't try to answer. Even if my voice had been working, what could I say?
"Did you get her wand?" Lily asked Laz.
"Tried. Couldn't," he grumbled. "It attacked me. But under that cloak, it's useless to her."
Lily narrowed her pearly eyes.
Laz shuffled his feet. "I don't care about the bonus. I've had enough trouble just capturing her."
A bonus for turning over my wand?
"In what way did the wand attack you?" Lily asked.
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Laz tapped both ears with his long fingers. "A sound. Thought my ears would break."
She looked sharply at me and frowned. Avoiding her gaze, I focused on Laz's shabby boots.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lily crook a finger at a band of gnomes crowding the doorway. They began marching in. They wore helmets and armored plates over their chests. Clubs hung from their belts, hard black clubs that looked as if they'd been formed from iron.
Could I be seeing straight? Could gnomes be carrying iron clubs?
"Wait," Laz said to Lily. "You owe me fifty thousand radia. Before you take her, pay what you owe."
She put a hand to her heart. "Really, Mr. Lazuli, your greed is shameful. What about doing your part for Feyland?"
Laz thrust out his chin. "Don't try to get out of this."
She waved a graceful hand. "You will receive your reward in due time. I cannot arrange payment this very minute."
The genie drew his wand. "You think I don't know how much radia you carry? You're the Forcier! How many times have you taken a tax transfer from me?"
Laz's words acted like a spell on my mind, a spell of sudden understanding. In that moment, a dozen clues about Lily fell into place, and as they did I wondered how I could have missed them before.
I had distrusted her, yes. I'd felt bewildered and angry,
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overwhelmed, sad, afraid. I had wished I could take away her power. But all those feelings had only distracted me from the truth.
Now I saw.
No wonder she didn't worry about using radia. No wonder she had offered to do the spell of disclosure on my wand herself without help from Zircon or Wolframite. Twice she had done that spell, without hesitation--and then a third time the following day for a total of 150 radia. She'd also performed one to search me and my home. Expensive enchantments, but she had done them casually.
How smug and disdainful she had been as she lectured me on wasting radia---and then used her own stores whenever it suited her.
I thought of Seth, the attendant from the viewing station near the Malachite Towers. His words echoed painfully in my thoughts: ". . . gave us an infusion of fifty radia. The scopes didn't improve one jot." Of course the viewing station in the Malachite Towers had shown no improvement after a visit from "that high and mighty Morganite."
She had given nothing.
For ten years, Lily Morganite had been entrusted with the duty of collecting radia taxes and caring for the durable spells. What if, instead of doing what she was supposed to do, she had been accumulating radia for herself?
"Layered enchantments are rare, my mentor said, because they use so many radia," Meteor had told me.
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But Lily had strewn layered spells all over my home. Obviously, she had plenty of radia to spare.
And now that I was finally beginning to see the truth about her, I lay trussed inside a cloak that extinguished my magic. I had no way to fight.
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CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
GNOMES ARE KNOWN TO BE DRAB AND UNINTERESTING. HOWEVER, THEY HAVE REDEEMING QUALITIES. NOT ONLY ARE THEY HARD WORKERS, BUT THEY ARE ALSO INCAPABLE OF LYING. THEIR WORD, ONCE GIVEN, IS ALWAYS HONORED.
--Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland
I wanted to signal Laz somehow. He had betrayed me for radia, but he was my only hope. He might be a mercenary, but I doubted he knew that Lily could be completely diabolical. If he would just get me out of this cloak, maybe together we could escape.
But the instant I tried to lift my head from the floor, the cloak got heavier, pressing down so hard I could barely breathe.
I looked up at Lily berating Laz. "How dare you draw your wand?" she said.
"It's to receive my reward!" He looked nervously at the crowd of gnomes. "Where are the other councilors?"
But Lily's wand was already infused. "Desmar poteris!"
Laz dropped his wand. While he fumbled to pick it up, Lily struck again.
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"Obleth nor vis elemen."
The forgetting spell!
I listened to Lily thanking Laz for his selfless work on behalf of the Council. I heard his stammering, confused replies. She had made him forget that she owed him!
Then she turned to the gnomes again. "Take the criminal's wand," she commanded.
No! Gnomes would be impervious to the protection spells on my wand. They could take it and put it into an iron box for Lily.
Was this how things had gone with Leona?
I tried to struggle, but pain from the cloak hammered my wings. I couldn't breathe. Forcing myself to lie still again, I could feel tears leaking down my face. I had vowed upon my family's honor never to give up my wand. What did that matter now? Lily always got what she wanted.
I looked imploringly at Laz, but he was staring at the gnomes.
And the gnomes were actually shaking their heads at Lily.
"What is the trouble?" she asked quietly.
One of them appeared to be the leader of the rest. "Troll magic," he answered in a gravelly voice. "We gnomes are sworn never to interfere."
For a second I locked eyes with him, and his features engraved themselves on my mind. I saw wiry tufts of hair growing on his forehead and a deep cleft in his chin. It was
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the same gnome who had stood guard outside my window at home in Galena.
Lily tilted her head at him. "Do you mean to say that all gnomes have an agreement with all trolls never to interfere with their magic?" She spoke respectfully, much more respectfully than she had ever been with me.
"Correct," he answered.
"Fascinating," she said, and for a second she sounded both aggravated and scornful. But she quickly put on a charming smile and bowed to the gnome leader. "Is there anything that might persuade you to do this small favor for me?"
"No," he answered. "If we were to break our word with the trolls, then how could you trust our word with you?"
Still smiling, Lily bowed to him again.
Turning to Laz, she gave him an order. "You will take it."
The tall genie's reply was simple and brief. "Transera nos," he said, and vanished. Apparently he'd had enough of Lily.
She shook her wand at the place where he'd been standing, then dropped her arm to her side. "We will meet again, Mr. Lazuli," she muttered.
She stood over me. "I had hoped, Zaria, to relieve you of the burden of that cloak. Wearing it must be quite uncomfortable. But for now, I am afraid it will be necessary to keep you under troll magic. Later, when I have adequately studied the situation, I will take your wand for safekeeping and remove the cloak."
I was surprised she didn't just reach under the cloak with
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an iron box and take my wand herself. She must be afraid of troll magic! I remembered what Meteor had said about how it affected everyone differently. What might it do to Lily Morganite?
"It is time to take her to FOOM," Lily told the gnomes. "She must arrive there by nine in the morning."
Gnomes lifted me, jostling every nerve. They bore me out of the tavern and put me in a cart enclosed by brass bars. The shiny brass looked out of place, as if we were going to a party, but I was very glad the cart was not made of i
ron. Laz had said the cloak would not kill me, but I doubted I could survive it while inside an iron cart.
I supposed that criminals placed in carts would normally have been deprived of their wands; they'd be unable to do a breaking spell, so iron wouldn't be necessary to contain them. I, on the other hand, still had my wand. I gripped its slender handle underneath the horrid cloak.
But my wand felt less magical than the fake I had taken from Sam. Where could my magic have gone? How could the troll cloak have turned my wand into something so lifeless, as if it belonged to a dead fairy instead of to me?
Gnomes formed ranks around the cart. Lily hovered a minute or two, giving instructions before she flew off.
The cart began to move, and the cloak grew heavier again, the mass of a mountain laid over me.
I thought of Meteor. Had he returned to the empty balcony? What would he do when he heard about my capture?
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CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
MEMBERS OF THE RADIA GUARD ARE SWORN TO OBEY
THE COUNCILORS WHO GOVERN FEYLAND.
--Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland
After an interminable time, the cart came to a stop just as the sun lifted fiercely above the horizon. Dawn had arrived.
A strange screeching and rumbling filled the air. Through the bars, I saw a tattered mob of fairies and genies swelling around the cart. They were chanting, "Free Zarial Free Zaria!"
Gnomes still surrounded the cart, but the crowd was pushing in at them. I recognized the blue-faced fairy who had once scolded me outside the FOOM dome as we both waited for Leona. She dove in and out among the gnomes, snatching their helmets off. Some gnomes ducked, but she was very quick. Two burly genies, working together, picked up a gnome and floated off with him. In the gap they created, another genie got close enough to stick his hand through the bars.
Black hair, rather sickly green skin, and disk like eyes. It was Seth.
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"I knew it must be you they were looking for," he shouted. "We'll get you out of there."
Behind him, another gnome was carried upward.
"Please," I whispered. "Get me out of this cloak."
He couldn't have heard me over the hooting and yelling but he seemed to understand. He stretched forward and grabbed the collar of the cloak. He let go at once, as if he'd seized a handful of stinging insects.