Violet Wings

  Councilor Zircon rose then and began to speak. "You will each receive a watch and a wand," he rumbled. "Your watches will follow Fey tradition. They will be crystal with gold backing, a silver cover, and a silver band." He paused. "Your wands, however, will break from tradition. They will

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  all look the same. Each will be in the form of a black stylus from Earth."

  Whispers and gasps! Our wands were from Earth? They would all look the same? We could not have been more astonished if Councilor Zircon had announced that Feyland would allow human visitors.

  The councilors glowered, and the whispers stopped. "The High Council came to the decision to use these modern wands," Zircon continued. "We believe it is wasteful to keep creating elaborate wands for everyone."

  He held up a slender sticklike object. It was shorter and more narrow than the pens we used for writing. Although pointed at one end, it looked nothing like any of the wands I had seen in my life.

  "Humans manufacture these styluses by the thousands," he went on. "They are easy to acquire and easy to imprint with magic. The moment one of them touches your hand, it will become your wand, and respond to your magic alone."

  Stunned silence.

  "You may modify its appearance once you have learned how," he said dryly, "if you wish to spend radia doing so."

  At Bloodstone's signal, we remembered our part in the ritual, and we bowed again as a group. I feared I would not be able to hide my pain much longer.

  Councilor Wolframite rose. "Step forward when Mr. Bloodstone calls your name," he said.

  The first student called was Cora Alabaster, a fairy with

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  rose-colored hair, jade skin, and bright yellow wings. She floated forward. Wolframite handed her one of the slim black plastic wands. She held out her arm, and the magistria fastened a covered watch around her wrist. Beaming, Cora took her place on the far side of the room.

  One by one, my classmates received their watches and wands, while I concentrated on staying upright. Leona managed to walk with dignity when it was her turn, but by the time Bloodstone called my name, I could barely move.

  I wobbled forward to Wolframite, who extended my black stylus. I offered my arm, and the magistria snugly fastened my watch onto my wrist.

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  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  MAGICAL LEVELS AND RADIA RESERVES TEND TO BE related. for example, a level 10 genie is more likely to have radia reserves inyellow than in Orange, while a Level 80 fairy is more likely to register Green, or even Blue.

  --Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland

  Our class emerged from the dome into a marble courtyard bordered by an ornamental garden, the finest in Feyland. Few of us noticed the yellow asters or rare purple lilies displayed among rough-cut gemstones. Ignoring the flowers, we clustered together.

  "I warn you one final time," Bloodstone reminded us. "Do not attempt any magic with your wands until you have received instructions from your mentor."

  "One final time?" Andalonus murmured next to me. "I believe that makes twenty thousand five hundred sixty-two final times."

  "May we open our watches now?" Portia asked.

  "You may," Beryl answered.

  I expected Leona to be first, but it was Meteor. He flicked

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  open the silver cover of his watch with his thumb. Everyone stared at him avidly.

  "Well?" Portia squawked.

  Meteor let the moment build.

  "Tell us," Cora pleaded. "What color?"

  A grin spread over Meteor's face. "Blue," he burst out. "Full Blue! And I'm Level Fifty."

  Classmates flocked around him, chanting congratulations and begging for a glimpse of his watch face. I didn't want to push my way past Portia and the others, so I stayed where I was. I would look at his watch later.

  Bloodstone droned about what an honor it was to have been Meteor's teacher, and how few Blue genies there were in Feyland. Beryl nodded proudly.

  When everyone calmed down, Cora called out, "I'm next!" Eyes screwed shut, she opened her watch and held it toward Portia. "What color?"

  Portia inspected Cora's wrist. "Orange," she announced. "Almost full Orange. Level seven."

  Cora's face fell. She opened her eyes. "That's all?"

  All around us students began snapping open their watches. Some called out their colors, but many sighed and grumbled. Tuck Lodestone whooped when he discovered he was Level 15 Yellow. Portia astounded everyone by revealing herself to be Green.

  "Full," she gushed, flirting her wings at Meteor. "But only Level Ten."

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  Meteor moved to my side. "See what color you are, Zaria."

  I shook my head. Suddenly I didn't want to know. Whatever my color might be, I was afraid it could divide me from my friends. If I weren't equal to Meteor, would he hold his Blue over me? If I had more radia than Andalonus, what then? And if Leona's color turned out to be Orange, and mine was Yellow, would she forgive me?

  Meteor nudged Leona next. "Go on," he urged.

  She gripped her watch and opened the cover. Her silver eyes went wide, and then she smiled. It was a gloating smile.

  Gradually the noise in the courtyard died away. When she finally spoke she had everyone's attention.

  "Level Two Hundred," she announced. "And my color is violet. Half full."

  Meteor looked stunned. "Did you say Violet?"

  "Violet." She held up her watch.

  Cora shrieked. Portia cried. Tuck whirled in circles shouting, "Violet!" I heard Bloodstone roar triumphantly at Beryl, who shouted that there must be some mistake, Level 200 was unheard of, let alone Violet, Leona was playing them all for fools.

  She wasn't. Of course she wasn't. I could have told Beryl so. Andalonus might have tried joking about his color. Not Leona.

  "Show me your watch," Beryl ordered Leona.

  "With pleasure," she answered, holding out her wrist.

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  Beryl brought her yellow eyes up to the crystal face of Leona's watch. Silence spread.

  "You can stare forever, but it won't change," Leona pulled her wrist away. "I'm Violet."

  Startled, I looked hard at Leona. She must be very angry to treat Beryl with such contempt. She had said she would never forgive our teachers for binding us with iron. I began to believe her.

  Beryl's eyes watered, and everyone knew that Leona was telling the truth.

  Leona strained to reach over her shoulder with her wand. She tapped the titanium clasp that held the iron band around her wings, and said something I couldn't catch. With a dull crack, the bands fell away. Her silver wings unfurled; she lifted her wand. She murmured something else, and her black stylus transformed into a slender platinum rod, set with sapphire stars.

  The class oohed and aahed. Leona floated to me, her wand extended. She muttered again, and the agonizing iron let go. Sweet relief! I could move my wings. I felt a surge of power flooding through me, warm and comforting.

  "Leona!" Beryl called in a croaking voice.

  Leona spun lightly. "Yes, Miss Danburite?"

  "You have obviously been studying spells you have not earned the right to learn," Beryl said. "And no matter what your color, you may not end a punishment assigned by your teachers."

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  Leona stopped twirling. "Or what?" she said.

  Beryl's fingers jerked as she waved at Bloodstone. "Your uncle will explain."

  Bloodstone stepped forward. "My congratulations on your exalted achievement, Leona, my dear. You are the only living Violet to grace Feyland."

  "Excuse me, Mr. Bloodstone," Beryl began.

  His gray cheeks flushed, as if someone had dipped him in rose granite. He cleared his throat. "Leona, it is dangerous to practice magic before you are trained and unwise to squander radia, even when your reserves are high."

  "You can't stop me," Leona said. Her silver eyes burned.

  He coughed. "Leona, remember that there are policies in place to prevent fairi
es or genies from using radia wrongly. The Council can command that your wand be taken away."

  Leona looked at him as if he were a greasy beetle she wanted to step on. "Whom would they command?" she asked.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "No other fairies or genies can equal my power," Leona said. "So whom would the Council command to take my wand?"

  "It would not be one fairy or genie. It would be the Radia Guard." Bloodstone sounded as if someone had forced him to eat gravel. "The combined powers of high-level Blues and Greens and Yellows working together would be equal to a Level Two Hundred Violet."

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  Leona gazed at him stonily.

  "As for the, er, iron bands ...," Bloodstone said. "Because of your elevated status as a Violet, there is no need to continue your punishment."

  Beryl shook her head at this, but she seemed to have lost her voice.

  "Zaria, too?" Leona challenged Bloodstone.

  "Zaria?" He glanced at me. "No. Zaria must complete a week of iron."

  "Then so must I," Leona answered. Gritting her teeth, she picked up the band lying at my feet. She fastened it around my wings, and the cold clamped down on me again. "Sorry," she whispered.

  "I apologize for my insolence," she told Beryl and Bloodstone, her voice like wind through a mine shaft.

  I knew that tone. Leona had apologized, but she didn't mean it.

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  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  FAIRY WINGS AND GENIE FEET ARE AUGMENTED BY MAGIC: WITHOUT MAGIC, A FAIRY'S WINGS WOULD NOT BE ENOUGH TO CARRY HER, AND A GENIE'S FEET WOULD NOT BE ENOUGH TO CARRY HIM. BUT ALL FAIRIES AND GENIES FLY, NO MATTER WHAT THEIR LEVEL OR COLOR. THIS IS THE ONE GREAT EQUALIZER: ALTHOUGH FLYING IS A MAGICAL ACTIVITY, IT DOES NOT USE UP RADIA.

  --Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland

  After Bloodstone refastened the bands around Leona's wings, he ordered the class to return to school. "There Miss Danburite and I will record your levels and colors."

  In moments, I was standing in the courtyard with only Andalonus and Leona. Everyone else, including Meteor, had gone.

  "Thank you for trying to help me," I told Leona.

  She nodded. "I wish my uncle wasn't such a trog."

  "I've never heard of Level Two Hundred magic," Andalonus said. "I didn't know it could happen. And Violet! You'll be a legend, Leona."

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  "What about you?" she said. "Open your watch!"

  He bobbed lightly. "I don't expect a high level or powerful color. I haven't felt any different since I turned fourteen." He flicked up the cover on his watch.

  "Wait." I put a hand on his arm. "Whatever you find, it won't make a difference to me."

  "Good," he said. "But it will probably make a difference to me." He looked down at his watch. Sighing, he covered it again, letting his arm drop to his side. "Even worse than I expected," he said. "My family was hoping for at least Level Seven Orange, but I'm Level Four, full Red."

  Andalonus, a Red genie? He had only one hundred units of inborn radia, while Leona had five million?

  He hunched his shoulders. "I'll never travel to Earth."

  Leona held up her wand, turning it as if she wanted to admire every part. "If all genies could travel to Earth, it wouldn't be special to go there, would it?"

  Why would she be snide with Andalonus about his color? What was wrong with her today? I shook my head at her, while Andalonus pulled his ears and said nothing.

  "Now you, Zaree," Leona said. "What's your color?"

  "I don't care," I answered.

  "You're not going to open your watch?"

  "Later."

  Leona glared. "It will be the same no matter when you do it!"

  I wrapped both hands around my slender plastic wand

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  and tried to draw the warmth of my magic into my cold and aching wings.

  Andalonus did his best to help both me and Leona to school. By the time we arrived, a haze of pain covered every part of me. I didn't even try to hide it.

  Bloodstone and Danburite stood at the head of the room with pens in hand, and they motioned us forward. A copper easel stood in front of them and clipped to it was a scroll listing the names of each student with a record of level and color. As expected, most names were designated as Red, and most were Level 4 or 5. It didn't seem fair.

  "Andalonus?" Bloodstone asked, tapping the scroll. "Level and color?"

  "Level Four, full Red," Andalonus answered.

  Bloodstone scrawled his rank and then turned to Leona. A sheen of satisfaction covered his face, as if he'd stretched silk over his craggy features. "Leona Bloodstone. Level Two Hundred, half, full Violet" he wrote with a flourish. "Our class will be remembered for centuries upon centuries, Miss Danburite. We have a Blue and a Violet."

  Beryl looked at him sourly.

  "Zaria hasn't opened her watch," Leona announced to everyone.

  "Come here, Zaria," Bloodstone ordered, beckoning with a knobby gray finger.

  I lurched forward and held out my wrist to Beryl. She

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  shook her head at me but then opened my watch.

  She stared for what seemed a long time, her expression blank. "Trolls and pixies," she murmured. She squinted, blinked, squinted again.

  "What is it?" Bloodstone snapped. "Another Red? Oberon's Crown, Miss Danburite, get hold of yourself. I told you not to expect more."

  Snatching my hand back, I looked into a dazzling crystal, polished until it was perfectly transparent. It showed six colors in equal segments on the face of my watch: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet. In the center, a tiny rectangle showed a luminous number 100.

  "What level?" Bloodstone asked sharply.

  "Um, One Hundred," I said.

  His craggy face tensed. "Are you certain?"

  "Yes," Beryl told him. "I saw it."

  He wrote, pressing so hard I thought his pen would snap. "And your color? "The words fell from his mouth like chips of stone.

  I looked down at the watch again. Two black hands told the time: half past the second hour after noon. A third hand of gold pointed to the line between the violet and red sections.

  "Your color, Zaria!"

  "I don't know."

  "What nonsense." He shook his pen, and ink drops spattered on his robe. "Show me."

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  Reluctantly, I extended my wrist. He leaned in close and did a double-take. "Not possible."

  "Is it pointing to no color?" I said.

  "It does not say no color, Zaria," Beryl answered with great calm. "It says full Violet."

  I was suddenly in a separate world, a world of elation mixed with hopeless grief. Elation because Bloodstone would have to respect me now, and because Leona and I could go on being friends without worrying about rank. Grief because my mother would never know I was a Violet fairy, and my father would not call forth my color from the rooftop.

  Then I became aware of my teachers, one looking as if an ordinary flower had turned into a butterfly before her eyes, the other looking as if his gray face would break into pieces.

  "I will not record this," Bloodstone said. "Give me your watch, Zaria. It is defective."

  "Defective?" I asked.

  Then Leona stood beside me. "Stop, Uncle," she said, her voice crackling with passion. "Think of the shame if you're wrong."

  Bloodstone's lips disappeared into a hard gray line. Leona stared him down. I thought he would yell out a terrible spell, but all he did was shoot me a look of pure hatred before writing full Violet next to my name.

  I bowed. It seemed the only thing to do. He ignored me.

  Leona didn't allow the awkward silence to continue. "Do

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  I have more power than Zaria, or does she have more power than me?" she asked Bloodstone.

  He pulled himself together, and put on his lecture voice for the class. "Remember our lessons! Leona is twice as powerful because she has Level Two Hundred magic. Zaria will never be able to do m
agic beyond Level One Hundred."

  "But Zaria has double the reserves of radia," Beryl put in.

  The classroom was completely unsettled. Fairy wings were fluttering madly and genies were bobbing up and down.

  "Mr. Bloodstone," Cora cried, "how can Leona have Level Two Hundred magic?"

  "My mother told me that even the most advanced spells use only Level One Hundred!" Portia yelled.

  Bloodstone took charge. "You're quite right to be astounded. I, too, have no information on spells that require more magic than Level One Hundred." He bowed in Leona's direction. "We are in the presence of greatness."

  "But what will she do with such high-level magic?" Cora squeaked.

  "That is a matter for her to discuss with her mentor," Bloodstone answered. He made a sweeping gesture. "We are finished for today. Remember, do not use your wands until you have had instruction from your mentors, who will be assigned tomorrow, our final day of class .You are dismissed."

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  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  FAIRIES AND GENIES HAVE ALWAYS BEEN FASCINATED BY TIME: WHAT IT IS, HOW IT OPERATES, AND THE LINKS IT PROVIDES BETWEEN TIRFEYNE AND EARTH. WHEN FEY FOLK DISCOVERED THAT THE HOURS WITHIN THEIR DAYS UPON TIRFEYNE MATCHED THE HOURS WITHIN THE DAYS UPON EARTH, THEY SHARED THE SECRETS OF CLOCK-MAKING WITH HUMANS.

  PUNCTUALITY IS CONSIDERED A VIRTUE AMONG FAIRIES AND GENIES.TO BE PROMPT IS TO BE COURTEOUS, TO BE LATE IS TO SHOW DISRESPECT.

  THIS IS NOT TRUE AMONG LEPRECHAUNS.THEY HAVE NO REGARD FOR PUNCTUALITY. THEY DO NOT WEAR WATCHES.THEY COULD NOT CARE LESS ABOUT KEEPING TRACK OF TIME.

  IT HAS BEEN SAID THAT SOME AMONG THE ANCIENTS MASTERED TIME TO SUCH AN EXTENT THAT THEY COULD STEP OUTSIDE OF IT. THIS MAY BE TRUE, FOR THERE IS A GROUP OF ISLANDS IN THE MIDDLE OF GLENDONITE LAKE, WHERE TIME DOES NOT BEHAVE AS IT NORMALLY DOES. THE ISLANDS ARE SAID TO BE UNDER AN ENCHANTMENT THAT CHANGES THE PARAMETERS OF TIME.

  --Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland

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  lowed by ironbound wings, Leona and I were the last students through the doorway of our classroom. I wasn't sure if either Meteor or Andalonus would be waiting for us the way they usually did. Now that we knew our colors, maybe nothing would be the same, ever again.

  But both our genie friends were hovering outside, although the rest of our classmates had gone.