Indigo Magic (6 page)

But I wasn’t going to tell Laz about that.

‘Who else knows you’ve got it?’ he asked.

I shut my lips. No reason to tell him about my friends.

‘Does the Morganite know?’

I must have winced, because Laz started cursing softly at the sky, a long string of words, most of which I’d never heard. When he turned his attention back to me, he was brief. ‘You’re doomed. She’ll stop at nothing to find you and take the aevum derk.’ His head swivelled from side to side.

‘She won’t be looking for me
here
,’ I said. ‘Your café is probably the one place in Feyland she would never believe I’d go. You wrapped me in the cloak, remember? That’s how it all began, Laz.’ I gripped my wand a little tighter. ‘Tell me more about the powder. How long do its effects last?’

He yanked on a lock of his lank hair. ‘For ever.’

A
TROG
IS A MYTHICAL CREATURE
. I
F TROGS EVER EXISTED, THEY DIED OUT LONG AGO
. A
ND YET, IGNORANT FEY FOLK PERSIST IN BELIEVING THAT TROGS CAN BE FOUND LIVING DEEP WITHIN
T
ROLL
C
OUNTRY
.

A
TROG’S HEAD IS SAID TO RESEMBLE THAT OF AN
E
ARTH TOAD, EXCEPT THAT A TROG’S EARS ARE VERY LARGE, ALLOWING THEM TO HEAR WHISPERS FROM A LONG DISTANCE
. T
ROGS ARE SAID TO WALK UPRIGHT, CANNOT FLY, AND EXUDE A PUTRID ODOUR THAT EVEN REPEATED BATHING CAN NEVER ERADICATE
.

A
CCORDING TO LEGEND, TROGS HAVE SUCH VILE DISPOSITIONS, THEY ARE UNABLE TO FORM COMMUNITIES BUT LIVE TO ANNOY EACH OTHER AND ANY OTHER SPECIES CROSSING THEIR PATHS
.

Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland

‘FOR EVER!’ HAD
Lily told us the truth? ‘Do you mean it can be used over and over?’ I asked Laz.

‘No. Once thrown against magic, it disappears. But its effects linger in the place where it’s been used.
Ad eternum
.’

For ever and always.

‘You’re lying.’

‘I wouldn’t lie about this.’

I hovered at the right height to look the tall genie in the eye. ‘How do you know?’
How many questions have I asked?

He jerked his head towards the border wall. ‘Magic isn’t possible in the Iron Lands. Do you think every inch of those lands are covered with iron dust?’

Yes, I did. That’s what they’d taught us in school.

‘Why do you think no one living there can do magic?’ he went on.

I gulped. ‘But—’

‘That’s right, my fine fairy. An entire region of Feyland where magic is dead.’

Magic dead? An entire region of Feyland? The tote bag in my hand felt even heavier.

‘But didn’t you say you’d been there many times?’ I asked. ‘And
you
can still do magic.’

Laz flapped a hand dismissively. ‘Yes, I’ve been there, and yes, I can still do magic – when I return. But the aevum derk was cast millennia ago, so the powder never landed on me. Its effects endure upon the land.’

‘No one can overcome it, ever?’ I dropped to the ground very ungracefully; I had to give my wings relief from the full weight of the indigo bottle.

He rubbed his chin. ‘It would take a thousand units of radia at Level One Hundred to overcome the effects of one
grain
of aevum derk. No one has that kind of magic to spare.’

I thought of Lily hovering on my hearth, her wings quivering under an unknown strain. She was a Level 100 fairy! And she had used magic to transport in, and magic to stay, and magic to transport out. That’s why her wand stayed lit! She must have used up many thousand units of stolen radia just to get a pinch of aevum derk.

What had she said before she left?
The small amount I have is worth more to me than the entire bottle is worth to you
. She must have plans for it. Where would she take it, and how would she use it?

‘Where is the powder?’ Laz asked.

I held his gaze and didn’t look down, but I was afraid the scarves didn’t really cover the bottle in the bag I carried. ‘I won’t tell you,’ I said. ‘But if you let me know how to get rid of it, I will.’

He gave his coughing laugh. ‘Get rid of it? You can’t. The only way to make it disappear is to throw it against magic. That’s how it gets used up.’ I heard whooping shouts from inside the café but Laz ignored the noise and kept talking. ‘To offset an entire bottle of aevum derk, you’d have to cast it against spells worth billions of radia.’

Billions! Oberon’s Crown! I had to find a way to hide the aevum derk, hide it somewhere no one could disturb it –
ad eternum
. For ever and always.

Both Laz and I were quiet. He was slumped against the
wall
, and I couldn’t find the strength to leave the ground; my wings felt like wilted petals.

Then Laz surprised me by straightening up and grinning wickedly. ‘Wait a hot chocolate minute.’ He leaned forward with his face so close to mine I could see every one of his blue teeth. ‘You’re not doomed, Zaria. You can defeat the Morganite,’ he whispered.

I frowned. ‘Defeat her?’

Laz lifted his nose. ‘You have aevum derk! The mightiest weapon ever made in this world. Shake it on Lily and her wand. Instant victory.’

Leona had urged me to do the same. Now, I imagined how it would feel to take away Lily’s magic – all of it. I’d never have to wonder what she might be plotting and which of my friends she might harm; never have to worry how much of Feyland she might destroy.

Laz tapped my shoulder, bringing me back to the night, the stars, the moment. Booming music was rattling the café, where leprechauns and genies belted out a song so loudly I could hear the words: ‘…
running the cocoa, leaping the laws
…’

‘You see?’ Laz said. ‘Use the aevum derk against Lily. Simple solution.’

In some ways, yes, it would be. It would take away the threat of Lily Morganite. But what about the problem of hiding the aevum derk so no one else could use it either? And what about all of Lily’s stolen radia?

‘What’s wrong?’ asked Laz. ‘Afraid? Mab’s marshmallows, Zaria! You can’t win big without a little risk.’

I glared at him thoughtfully. ‘If I destroyed Lily’s magic, billions of radia would be lost for ever.’

‘No doubt.’ The genie tugged the brim of his leprechaun cap.

‘Would it kill her?’

‘Might.’

But if she dies, she can’t tell me about my family
.

‘We could never fix the durable spells,’ I said.

Laz sneered. ‘Always the good little fairy. Why would the durable spells concern
you
? The less magic there is in Feyland, the more powerful
you
will be.’ He bowed to me with a false flourish. ‘You’re still Violet, aren’t you?’

‘Powerful in a dying land?’ I cried. ‘What good is that?’

‘Good.’ Laz spat the word as if it were a bitter sprig of bannerite. ‘Don’t be a fool. Will you or won’t you do what must be done?’

Rotten smuggler! He had no right to push me. None. How I’d love to fly away this minute and never see him again. But I needed one more answer. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But I have one last question.’

He shrugged. ‘The more you ask, the richer I get.’

‘How is the aevum derk made?’

The genie looked at me sourly. ‘That’s my question for
you
. How did you do it, Zaria? How did you transform troll magic?’ His murky eyes were at half mast as usual. Then they
popped
wide. ‘Hobs and hooligans! Why didn’t I see it before?’

‘See what?’ I demanded.

‘You’re one of the Feynere,’ he whispered.

‘The what?’

‘The Feynere.’ He peered at me. ‘Your kind died out so long ago it’s a wonder there’s a word for you. And yet, here you are.’ He swept me a shaky bow. ‘Banburus Lazuli, at your service.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘A long, long time ago, Zaria,’ he rasped, ‘there were fey folk with astounding powers. Each one had Violet reserves of radia and Level One Hundred magic. They could protect themselves with unknown spells. And they had magic that could do unexpected things.’ He grinned an eerie, twisted grin. ‘You’re one of them. A Feynere.’

‘I don’t believe you. How could I be one of them when I’ve never heard a single word about them?’

More grinning. ‘I know how I missed it. A Feynere should be magnificent! Not a smallish fairy with rather plain colouring. No disrespect intended.’

Laz was looking at me as if he knew my darkest secrets. I had to get away from him.

‘I need to be going,’ I said, realizing I had lost count of the questions I’d asked. ‘How much do I owe?’

His eyeballs snicked back and forth as he began ticking on his fingers. ‘One,’ he said, and then murmured to himself.
‘Two
.’ More murmurs. ‘Three. Four.’ Laz grinned and went on counting. ‘Fifteen questions. Seven hundred and fifty radia will cover it.’

‘What!’

He drew his wand again. ‘When it comes to bargains such as this, I never cheat.’

I couldn’t prove he was overcharging. And I couldn’t wait to leave. So even though I hated to pay him, I did, while the drums pounded and the fiddles whined, and someone bellowed another verse to the same song: ‘…
human folk, earthen ware, mud in your eye
…’

Before I left, I gave Laz what I hoped was a sinister stare. ‘You swore to tell no one,’ I said. ‘And that means no one, for any price.’

He put up his hands as if the thought of selling me out had never crossed his greedy mind. ‘Of course.’

‘If you betray me again, I’ll visit you when you least expect it. I’ll sprinkle that cap with aevum derk; I’ll sprinkle your head too.’

He smiled. ‘I want only to serve you, Zaria Tourmaline.’

I didn’t say farewell. Slinging the bag around my neck, I shot into the dark sky.

O
NCE UPON A TIME, GODMOTHERS AND GODFATHERS WOULD INTERVENE IF THEY PERCEIVED THEIR GODCHILDREN IN TROUBLE, BUT THIS HAS BECOME RATHER RARE
. T
HE MAJORITY OF GODMOTHERS AND GODFATHERS BEING
R
ED, THE CAPACITY TO GIVE ASSSISTANCE TO HUMANS HAS DECLINED
. H
OWEVER, MOST FAIRIES AND GENIES STILL LOOK IN UPON THEIR GODCHILDREN BY USING THE FEY SCOPES
. T
HE SCHEDULE OF VIEWING BOOTHS REMAINS BUSY, DAY AND NIGHT
.

F
EY SCOPES THAT VIEW
E
ARTH ARE A GLORIOUS CREATION OF THE
A
NCIENTS
. A
SCOPE CAN TRACE THE MOVEMENTS OF ANY PERSONAGE – INCLUDING NOT ONLY HUMANS, BUT ALSO INHABITANTS OF
T
IRFEYNE WHO ARE VISITING
E
ARTH: FAIRIES, GENIES, LEPRECHAUNS, PIXIES, GREMLINS, TROLLS, GNOMES, ET CETERA
. T
HE ONLY THING NEEDED TO FIND AN INDIVIDUAL IN A SCOPE IS TO KNOW THAT INDIVIDUAL’S NAME
. T
HERE IS BUT ONE BLIND SPOT IN THE SCOPES: THEY CANNOT PENETRATE
E
ARTH’S SURFACE TO SEE UNDERGROUND
.

Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland

TIRED AND REELING
, I felt burdened with both the weight of the indigo bottle and the weight of Laz’s words.

What
was
this extra magic, this Feynere power? Why had no one else ever mentioned it? Not even Meteor had come across it in his studies; if he had, wouldn’t he have suspected something when I told him how my magic behaved?

I would rather have heard it from Meteor.

How
could I be a Feynere? It seemed dangerous. When I’d turned the cloak into aevum derk, I had drained myself of almost a million radia without knowing it. Was there any way to control it? Maybe I should have asked Laz that question. No. If I had, he would have sensed my weakness. How I wished he didn’t know so much about me. Remembering his sneer, I was tempted to steal his cap and cast a forgetting spell on him. But if I did that, wouldn’t I be as bad as Lily Morganite? Let him go his troggy way, and I would go mine.

Carrying the indigo bottle was like travelling with the end of the world hanging around my neck. I had to get rid of it. I didn’t dare keep it in my home any longer. The rooms apart from the hearth room might still be safe, but what if Lily found a way to widen the opening in my protections?

I had made the right decision, refusing to give her the aevum derk. She must never, never get hold of it! Now,
where
could I hide the indigo bottle so no one –
no one
could take it?

Of course, I thought of Earth.

Yes, Earth, that place of gentle breezes and lovely trees, that fascinating land of humans – Earth could hide the aevum derk. I could bury it there. Not even fey scopes could find anything in the human world once it was underground. And though I would normally need to be invisible to escape the view of the scopes myself, last week I had created a spell to ensure that no magical means could find me, no matter where I happened to be.

I loved Earth. Loved it with an unreasoning and helpless affection that drew me when it shouldn’t. Yes, I, Zaria, was Earth-struck. I didn’t know why, I only knew that I loved the human world from the moment I first beheld it through the visor of a fey scope. That day, I had crossed through a portal for the first time, risking painful penalties and worse. And after that first visit, nothing could persuade me to stay away.

I suspected my mother felt the same. She had never spoken of it, of course, but she didn’t have to. The painting in her room told me. I had even tried to write to her about it, in the letter I never finished.

Though it’s unlawful for a fairy of fourteen, I’ve been to Earth more than once. I would hesitate to confess it, but I believe you will understand. The painting in your room shows a forest on Earth.
You
love the human world as I do, don’t you?

Have you ever been friends with a human, Mother? Ever watched a human in secret, longing to know more about him? I have. Not as a godmother-in-training might do; something else entirely
.

That was as close as I had come to telling anyone about Sam Seabolt, a human boy not much older than me. We’d met only a short while ago, but it seemed that I’d known him much longer than a few weeks. None of my fey friends knew what he meant to me, though Meteor might have guessed. Even Sam himself didn’t know – not after I put him under a forgetting spell. If he ever saw me again, he wouldn’t know me. But though I had made sure he would remember nothing of me, I could never forget
him
.