THE MAIN HUB FOR TRAVEL IS THE GOLDEN STATION in Oberon City. Portals leading to and from this station are used frequently by those who possess Level 5 magic or above.
OTHER PORTALS ARE OBSCURE, KNOWN TO ONLY A few, and their locations are closely guarded. They have been made for the sole purpose of smuggling human goods into Tirfeyne. Such portals are unlawful.
--Orville Gold, genie historian of Fey land
Leona hovered in front of me, smirking. I looked back at the sandstone boulder. On the Earth side, it looked just as it had on Tirfeyne: dull stone in a tangle of bright zinnias. But here, it stood in the midst of an open field of golden grass on a hillside.
I spun in a circle, my wings open to the sky.
Leona watched me. "Your wings are shining."
It was good of her to mention my one beauty--my violet
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wings. The rest of my coloring is so drab, I've often heard it whispered that I stand out no more than a shadow. My skin is an ashy lavender, and my hair an even paler version of the same pitiful color. It's very unusual for a fairy to be so plain; my dull appearance sometimes seems to act like a spell that makes others forget me. Well, at least my eyes match my wings, though a friend of my mother's once remarked that it was startling to see such bright violet eyes staring out of such a wan little face. (My mother sounded very cold when she responded that it was certainly odd how perceptions could differ from fairy to fairy.)
No one disagreed about Leona's appearance, though. She is beautiful....
I gazed around. To the west, foothills traced a scalloped line against the sky. In the other direction, the long grass of the field met a row of trees. Behind them, I could see the buildings of a human town.
"Let's explore," said Leona.
"You said you'd tell me how you know about the portal."
She lifted her chin. "I've followed my mother at night."
"You've seen her use it?"
Leona nodded. "I think she made it herself. She must have a godchild nearby."
"Godchild?" But why would Leona's mother, Doreen Bloodstone, create an unlawful portal from Galena? Any godmother could use the scopes in Oberon City to watch over a godchild. Wasn't it a terrible risk to break the laws
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of Fey land just to have quick access to a human?
Leona shrugged. "Why else would she make a portal?"
I didn't know. I had always thought Doreen Bloodstone was proud of her status as a powerful fairy. Too proud. And although I concealed it, I didn't like her. She laughed too much. After my parents disappeared, she would giggle nervously when mentioning them, a raspy little cackle that put me on edge.
Leona spread her wings. "Let's explore," she said again.
We knew fairies weren't supposed to fly when visiting Earth, but how wonderful it felt to take to the air! How I loved gliding over the great sweep of land, with sunlit breezes filling my wings.
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CHAPTER FIVE
THE HUMAN LIFESPAN IS QUITE SHORT COMPARED TO THAT OF FAIRIES AND GENIES, WHO USUALLY LIVE TWO HUNDRED YEARS OR LONGER. THE OCCASIONAL LONG-LIVED PERSONAGE AMONG THE FEY WILL ATTAIN TWO HUNDRED FIFTY YEARS. HOWEVER, FAIRIES AND GENIES REACH PHYSICAL MATURITY AT A RATE SIMILAR TO HUMANS, ALLOWING US MANY MORE DECADES TO ATTAIN WISDOM.
LEPRECHAUNS LIVE SOMEWHERE AROUND ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-THREE YEARS, IF THEY DO NOT ABBREVIATE THEIR LIVES BY TAKING SILLY CHANCES.
--Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland
When Leona and I got closer to the human town, we stopped flying to walk a footpath that went winding through the wild grass toward the trees. Entranced though I was with Earth, I was also feeling a little afraid.
"What's wrong?" Leona asked.
"Nothing." I didn't want to bring up my parents or my lost brother. Five years is a long time. To Leona, it must
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seem like I had always been an orphan. After all, I never talked about my family.
I brightened as the path entered the woods. I stopped to put my arms around a tree trunk. Each leaf on the overarching branches looked as if an artist had spent hours cutting it into a pattern. I recognized the pattern--this was a maple tree. I lay my cheek against its bark and inhaled. The wood smelled spicy. "You're lovely," I murmured.
Leona laughed. "Trees can't talk."
"I know."
"Trees are harmless, but beware of humans," she said, talking in her best imitation of Mr. Bloodstone. "They can be very dangerous, worse than trolls, thoroughly unpredictable." Her eyes sparkled, and I wondered if she even remembered that my family had died on Earth.
I drifted through the trees and thought about my mother, something I almost never did. Unlike me, she had been a colorful fairy. Soft white hair, lavender skin, and dark yellow wings that were nearly gold. Her eyes had been deep and wild, like a storm.
Why had the humans killed her?
The woods ended at a walkway that ran in a circle around a clearing covered with bright green grass, clipped short. In the center was a playground. Sand lay under blue-and-red climbing towers, reminding me of Galena. Human children
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ran and leaped on the towers, as if they wished they could grow wings.
Transfixed by the sight, Leona and I stood in the shade of a tall cottonwood.
"A little early for Halloween, aren't you, girls?" said a voice at my left shoulder.
Startled, I turned to see a woman in a wide-brimmed beige hat and green clothes. Her arms rested on the handle of a small carriage in which a human toddler slept. "I love your costumes," she said, "and your makeup is out of this world."
I blinked at her. Whatever I had imagined a human to be, it was not this.
"What amazing fabric," she continued, brushing my sleeve. "I've never seen anything like it. It looks as if it should be sheer, but it isn't. Where did you get it?"
Then she touched one of my wings. "Wow," she went on, carelessly rubbing the margin. "Where did you find this material?" She lifted part of my wing close to her face. "So fine and delicate, but it looks strong. And the veins! What a nice touch. You look like a giant butterfly."
She didn't seem to notice that I wasn't answering her questions.
"I like to sew," the woman continued. "Did you send away for your costume?"
"Uh," I mumbled.
"Are you girls going to be in a play?" she asked next.
I shook my head.
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Who knows what would have happened then, but the child in the carriage woke and began to cry.
"It's okay, Pumpkin," the woman crooned, letting go of my wing and crouching down to pat the toddler's head.
Pumpkin howled.
"All right, let's go home," the woman said, straightening. "Bye, girls. Beautiful costumes!" As soon as she started moving, the child's cries died down.
Watching her go, I saw a tall boy with light hair and skin striding down the walkway toward us. His eyes lit on Leona, and he flashed her a grin.
My first sight of Jason Court should not have been frightening. He looked like a healthy and handsome human specimen. I had no reason to feel uneasy, and yet, that's the way it was--as if I recognized from the first moment all the trouble he would cause.
I scooted back into the trees, hoping Leona would join me and we could leave. Instead, she seemed fascinated by the boy. He stopped beside her and introduced himself. She swayed on her toes, her skirts floating around her ankles.
We shouldn't have come. Not now, not during the day and in the open. Earth at night would be safer. Two humans had already seen us--three, if the toddler counted. What if word got back to Feyland somehow?
Uneasy, I looked out across the playground to the group of children twenty wingspans away. A small girl with red braids teetered high on the edge of a platform. A black-haired little
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boy behind her swung his arm, hitting her on the shoulder. She fell forward.
Without thinking, I flew, faster than I've ever flown, and
caught the girl just before she hit the ground. I set her on her feet before realizing what I'd done.
She stared at me with round blue eyes. "How did you do that?" she cried. She waved at someone behind me. "Sam!" she yelled. "Saaamm!"
The rest of the children on the playground began screeching, "A fairy!" They swarmed over one another, scrambling to reach me.
The black-haired child slid down a pole and grabbed my right wing with both hands, twisting. "It's a real fairy!" he yelled. "Let's catch it!"
I tried to back away, but the small human gritted his teeth, holding tight.
"Hey!" a voice behind me shouted. "Let go of her!"
An older boy pushed through the children surrounding me and made the child release his grip on my wing.
This new human had red hair and gold-toned eyes. It was the same boy I had seen through the scope!
"Are you okay?" he asked.
I couldn't seem to speak.
He turned to the little girl with the braids. "What happened, Jenna? "
"The fairy saved me," she answered.
I can't explain what I did next. Instead of thanking the
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boy, I rose into the air. I hovered for a moment, trying to get a view of Leona while the children screamed and hopped up and down, pointing.
"Sam," the little girl cried, "make her stay."
I didn't see Leona--or her new friend. Had they moved into the trees?
I turned and flew. My breath came in gasps and my wing-beats felt ragged. What had just happened?
I looked back once and saw the boy named Sam running along the ground, holding something small and red in front of his face.
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CHAPTER SIX
ALL FAIRIES AND GENIES HAVE INBORN RESERVES OF MAGIC, WHICH ARE MEASURED IN UNITS CALLED RADIA. THESE UNITS HAVE TO DO WITH AMOUNTS OF MAGIC, WHICH ARE NOT THE SAME AS LEVELS.
A SINGLE JOURNEY TO EARTH AND BACK AGAIN USES HALF OF ONE RADIA.
A UNIT OF RADIA, ONCE USED, IS GONE FOREVER.
--Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland
I flew blindly over the human town. It was several minutes before I turned back to look for Leona. The sun was sinking low; I had to squint against the glare in order to see her, not far behind me, her wings like silver streaks in the sky. I waited for her, hovering nervously.
When she caught up, Leona was beaming. "I wonder how many laws we've broken?" she said breathlessly "I thought you were the good fairy. Who would believe you'd fly in front of humans? Not that anyone will hear about it from me. And what else could you have done, with that pack of children attacking you?" She skimmed beside me, laughing.
Maybe the Earth air was affecting her.
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"We'll come back soon, Zaree," Leona said. "I met a boy named Jason Court, and I'd like to visit him again."
"You would? But, Leona--"
She stopped smiling. "It's not as if I plan to become good friends with a human," she said.
It reminded me of the time she had said, "It's not as if I would search for my mother's spell book." But then she had found the book and read it, even though it was forbidden for a young fairy to do so. And once she had said, "It's not as if I would try to go through the Gateway of Galena." But she had gone so close to it, she had set off the alarms.
There had been many more times when Leona had gone against the rules. But could she really want to be friends with a human boy? At our age, forming any relationship at all with a human was strictly forbidden.
Trying to calm myself, I drifted downward and landed in a cornfield on the edge of town.
We had studied cornfields, so I knew corn was an important source of human food and fuel. But being in an actual cornfield was nothing like studying it in a book. I stood among the green plants topped with silky spires and twined my fingers around a stalk. A warm, sweet scent rose from the corn.
Leona cruised down beside me. "We should go back. Miss Danburite will be looking for you."
I envied Leona. Her parents wouldn't fuss the way Beryl would; for all their faults they understood that Leona was
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growing up. But Beryl seemed to believe I was still the same nine-year-old who had become her charge five years ago. And now, thanks to my headlong flight, we were far away from the portal that led to Galena. I had flown in the wrong direction, and we must be miles east of where we had arrived on Earth.
How long had we been gone? The setting sun was lighting the sky like magical fire. Soon it would be dark.
Gazing at the flaming horizon, I saw an odd flicker at the edges of the cornfield. I glided toward the spot.
Cornstalks had been flattened into a perfect circle that glistened as if each stalk had been given an extra dose of light. Footprints led out of the circle and then stopped.
I waved Leona over. "Fey folk have been here."
Leona's eyes widened. "Zaree, you've found another portal?"
"Maybe. But why would this one be obvious when the one your mother made looks like a plain boulder?"
Leona frowned. "I doubt if humans can see this for what it is; you probably need magic. And my mother's portal is unlawful, so when she opened it, she must have done something to hide it." She nudged one of the footprints on the ground. "This looks like an official portal. We should take it so we don't have to fly all the way back to where we started."
As usual, she didn't waste time. She walked straight into the circle of flattened corn and disappeared.
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CHAPTER SEVEN
FAIRIES AND GENIES RECEIVE A CRYSTAL WATCH WHEN ALL MEMBERS OF THEIR CLASS REACH THE AGE OF FOURTEEN. THESE WATCHES WERE DESIGNED BY THE ANCIENTS. NOT ONLY DO THEY TELL TIME, BUT THEY ALSO REGISTER INBORN MAGIC.
IN THE CIRCLE OF THE CRYSTAL WATCH FACE, THERE ARE SIX DIVISIONS, EACH MARKED WITH A DIFFERENT COLOR: RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, GREEN, BLUE, AND VIOLET. WHEN A CRYSTAL WATCH IS FASTENED UPON THE WRIST, A SMALL THIRD WATCH HAND WILL POINT TO THE AMOUNT OF RADIA RESERVES THE OWNER POSSESSES.
IN THE CENTER OF THE WATCH FACE, THE NUMBER THAT INDICATES LEVEL OF MAGIC WILL APPEAR.
--Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland
The quiet cornfield portal on Earth led into a short empty hallway filled with racket, as though hordes of trolls in tin boots were clattering past on the other side of the wall. Ahead of me, Leona hovered next to a dull copper door at the end of the hallway."! think this is the Golden Station," she
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said. She straightened her wings and pulled the door open.
The din increased. Thousands of fairies and genies, all talking at once, were flying in a hundred directions through a vast room, while dozens of doors banged open and shut. Marching gnomes seemed to be trying to keep order. We were inside Oberon City, in the Golden Station, a structure of marble and granite decorated with gold.
Leona aimed herself toward an archway at the end of the room. I dodged behind a wide-backed gnome and followed. Leona passed gracefully through the crowds, but my wings kept buffeting broad-shouldered genies. I mumbled apologies, grateful to be a drabs forgettable fairy.
Once outside, we instantly took to the air. Leona seemed to know where she was going. She led the way, and we flew high and fast.
When we reached the Gateway of Galena, we crept through quietly.
"Safe!" Leona cried.
Something cold struck me in the chest. I suddenly felt so weak, I fell to the ground. Leona sprawled next to me.
"Safe indeed," said Beryl's voice. She stood beside one of the pillars near the gateway, clutching a staff that had a blackened knob of iron on one end.
Leona glared at Beryl. "You used an iron fist on me?"
Beryl raised her staff. "You deserve far worse."
"But why?" Leona cried. "By tomorrow we'll have our
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crystal watches. We'll be allowed to go back and forth through the gateway alone."
"Tomorrow is not today," Beryl answered grimly.
I
could see Leona beginning to think up a lie. "We're sorry," she said, "that we stayed behind, but we wanted to explore Oberon City."
Beryl always claimed to be able to sniff out a liar--she said her many decades of teaching had given her a nose for the truth. Oh, how I hoped she wouldn't smell Leonas lie this time.
Silence rang around us before Beryl answered. "I know where you have been."
My wings trembled and ached. A spot of pain in my chest spread down my arms.
Beryl glided closer to us. "A godmother used the viewing scope to look in on one of her godchildren today." She jabbed the air with her staff. "Imagine her shock: two young fairies, on an unauthorized trip to Earth. Two fairies, showing themselves to humans in daylight. Flying in full view."
Leona picked herself up. "I don't understand why we can't allow any humans to see us."
Beryl folded her wings but didn't lower her staff. "It has been policy for over three hundred years not to show ourselves on Earth--as you know perfectly well."
"They weren't carrying weapons," Leona protested.
"It has taken centuries to convince humans that fey folk do not exist," Beryl hissed. "It would take only a few sightings
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now for them to become interested in catching us again."
I wished Leona would stop arguing, but she kept going. "How could they catch us?" she cried. "They can't even fly!"
"Humans can be unexpectedly ingenious--and cruel," Beryl told her.
Leona shook her head defiantly, but before she could say anything more, Beryl turned to me. "And what is your opinion, Zaria?" she asked in her coldest tone. "Is the human world dangerous to fey folk?"
Leona looked from Beryl to me. Her face changed, and she closed her mouth.
Beryl didn't wait for my answer. "After what happened to your family, Zaria, I would not have expected this from you."
My wings felt weak. I wanted to get up, but I stayed where I was.
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CHAPTER EIGHT
TO PERFORM MAGIC OF LEVEL 7 or beyond, a wand is required. fairies and genies receive their wands at the same time as their crystal watches. Some have argued that allowing those who register under level 7 to keep their wands is a pointless indulgence. however, all fairies and genies, no matter what level of magic they possess, cherish their wands and feel the need to keep them near from the day they are issued until the day death arrives. there is no known equivalent for this among humans.