The four genies scowled at their cards. One, brown-faced with limp yellow hair, spoke up. ‘Why is it, Laz, that every time the pot’s this rich, you always seem to win?’
Laz picked up his own mug and took a long swallow. ‘Makes up for all the dangerous trips I take to Earth to get confections for you ungrateful trogs.’
The genies shook their heads and tossed their cards. The brown-faced fellow muttered, ‘Last time I called a bet like that, I spent a month washing the floors of this filthy den.’
Laz nodded and shrugged, then rapped the table with a fist. ‘Meechem, do you call?’
The leprechaun cleared his throat noisily. ‘Got nothing left.’
‘Well,’ Laz told him, ‘if you like the look of your cards and you want to call my bet, I would accept that cap you’re wearing.’
So. The cap was what Laz wanted.
Meechem shook his head. ‘Don’t want to part with my cap. Been in my family fifty generations. Special, it is.’
‘Mud in your eye.’ Laz pushed a large mug towards the leprechaun. ‘Have another cocoa.’
Meechem took a hearty sip. His cap sure didn’t look like much.
‘Call?’ Laz asked again, voice patient, smiling as if he and Meechem were great friends.
Sighing, Meechem took off his cap and laid it on the table. ‘Call.’
Laz spread his cards face up.
I knew nothing about what made a winning hand, knew nothing of cards beyond Beryl’s warnings against them. She always said I should beware; that card games, like other vices imported from Earth, had ruined many a genie and more than a few fairies.
They would not ruin Laz, at least not tonight. When Meechem saw Laz’s cards, the corners of his mouth drew down so far I thought his lips would slide down his shaggy white beard into his neck.
Laz reached for the cap and crammed it over his stringy grey-blue hair. Somehow, it fitted him, though his head was noticeably bigger than Meechem’s. ‘Come back again,’ he said. ‘You’re always welcome.’
He stood, and so did the other genies, but Meechem laid his head down on his arms. As Laz passed him, he patted his shoulder.
‘Something I can help you with?’ he asked as I hovered in front of him.
‘I’d like a word.’
‘Just one?’
‘Privately.’
He shrugged, grabbing his mug from the edge of the table. ‘Follow me.’
As I hurried after him, everyone we passed had something to say.
‘I thought you only robbed human cradles!’ hooted a snaggle-toothed genie.
A fairy with red eyes lifted her mug. ‘Stolen beans!’ she cackled.
‘Fly while you can, little fairy,’ advised a leprechaun.
Laz led me out of the door and round the corner of the café to a bare patch of gravel – the same place we’d talked the last time we met. Now it was dark. Above, a few stars tried to shine through the overcast night. They didn’t cast enough light to see another building a little way off, even more rundown than the Ugly Mug. But I knew it was there, just as I knew that fifty wingspans back, the border wall of the Iron Lands snaked along the ground.
Laz leaned against the café wall and raised his mug to me. I recognized the scent of coffee. ‘Terrible disguise,’ he said, and took a drink.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, Zaria Tourmaline, that it’s a rotten disguise, and I hope you haven’t been trying to hide from anyone who matters.’
‘But—’ I looked at his cynical smile. ‘How did you know?’
‘Did you forget we’ve met before? Next time, you might consider changing your features along with your skin colour.’
I pressed my lips together.
‘Don’t look so woeful. I’ve done you a favour letting you know your disguise isn’t worth a single radia, let alone twenty-five.’
I frowned as he chuckled.
‘What brings you?’ Laz tipped his head back and poured the dregs of his coffee down his throat. ‘Flattered as I am to get a visit from you, Zaria, I assume you didn’t come here for my company.’
Trying to look casual, I put my hand in the pocket of my gown to touch my wand. ‘I have questions.’
Laz rubbed his empty mug against his cheek and sighed. ‘I’ll give you the first answer for free, Zaria. I don’t know where your family is. If I did, I would try to take you for every last radia you’ve got.’ He let the mug hang from one finger. It swayed back and forth. ‘As to any other question you may have, I’ll give you each answer for two hundred radia.’
What a trog he was. ‘Too steep,’ I said. ‘Fifty radia.’
A glint of greed showed in his eyes. ‘Maybe this once, then. Ask away.’
Chapter Twelve
THERE IS ONE METHOD FOR FEY FOLK TO GAIN MORE RADIA. THIS IS DONE BY TAKING A TRANSFER FROM SOMEONE ELSE’S WAND. DEPENDING UPON HOW MUCH RADIA IS AVAILABLE, IT IS POSSIBLE TO TRANSFER ANY AMOUNT FROM ONE WAND TIP TO ANOTHER.
TRANSFERS OF RADIA FROM WAND TO WAND CAN ONLY BE DONE VOLUNTARILY. NOT EVEN A COMPULSION SPELL CAN FORCE ANYONE TO TRANSFER THEIR MAGIC WITHOUT CONSENT.
FAIRIES AND GENIES WHOSE LIVES ARE DRAWING TO A CLOSE MAY DECIDE TO TRANSFER THE REMAINDER OF THEIR RADIA RESERVES TO ANOTHER. IF THIS IS NOT DONE, THE AMOUNT OF RADIA LEFT UNUSED AT THE TIME OF DEATH DISAPPEARS FOR EVER.
Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland
I ALMOST BURST out with my most urgent question for Laz, but then thought of something else. ‘I want an agreement. I get the same rate in the future. Any question for fifty radia, anytime I want. And you swear on your wand to tell no one what we talk about.’
If he swore on his wand and broke his word, the wand would turn against him. Not even Laz would take that lightly.
The genie’s eyes moved back and forth. ‘All right,’ he said slowly. ‘But it can’t be an open-ended agreement. For three days, I will answer any of your questions for fifty. And I swear on my wand to tell no one what gets said.’
Knowing my luck with Laz, on the fourth day I would have an important question only he could answer. I should bargain for more, but I was tired and I doubted he’d budge. ‘Done,’ I said.
He yanked his cap to a more jaunty angle. ‘First question?’
‘Tell me what you know about the troll cloak you used to capture me.’
He laughed a snorting chuckle. ‘It seems I was deceived about that cloak, since you made it disappear.’
‘What was it supposed to do?’ I didn’t like wasting a question on something I already knew, but I wanted to hear him say it again.
Laz scratched his shoulder. ‘It was supposed to make it impossible for you to use magic. And create pain that would get worse with any move you made.’
‘You didn’t care about my suffering?’
‘That’s your third question, Zaria. And it seemed like a good idea at the time.’
As anger flared along my wings, I drew my wand. Laz eyed it, but didn’t seem as nervous as he should have been.
‘Changed your wand, I see,’ he said.
There was a long pause, and then I smiled at him. I’m sure anyone watching would have called it a grim smile – it felt grim on my face. ‘What magic is in the cap you wear on your head?’
Laz looked at me as if I had just cheated in a card game. ‘No enchantment cast by anyone in Feyland can affect me while I wear it.’
I returned his look. ‘So even Lily Morganite can’t get to you again?’
‘Correct.’ He blew out a breath. ‘That’s five questions, asked and answered. Pay up now or our bargain is off. Two hundred and fifty radia.’
Trolls and pixies! Although it was I who had blurted out two questions I didn’t intend to ask, I felt as if Laz had tricked me.
I lifted my wand and infused it. He drew his own, which was brass with a lapis tip. Touching mine to his, my anger surged as I felt the magic of two hundred and fifty radia leave me and pass to Laz.
‘More questions,’ I told him.
‘Have you seen Lily Morganite since the last time I was here?’ Question one.
He grinned, satisfied with an easy answer. ‘No.’
‘If the troll cloak had a residue,’ I said, ‘what sort of magic would be in it?’
‘Residue?’ Laz sounded alarmed. ‘Residue,’ he repeated. ‘What do you mean? You made the cloak disappear.’
‘But if there had been a residue—’
He dropped his mug; it cracked and broke in pieces. Pressing both hands against the wall behind him, Laz stared at me. ‘What have you done?’ he whispered.
‘Me!’
‘You.’
‘What have I done?’ I flew at him, stopping just short of ramming into him. ‘What did you do? Sold me out, as if I were a case of cocoa.’
He was shaking his head and running his hands through his stringy hair. ‘Who has this … residue?’ His voice was so hollow I wanted to whack his head to see if there was anything left inside. ‘Tell me Lily Morganite does not have it.’
‘She doesn’t.’
He seemed to recover a little – he stopped propping himself against the wall.
‘I kept it,’ I said, glad I wasn’t bound to tell him everything. If I revealed that Lily had a few grains, he might quit breathing right in front of me. ‘Tell me what it does and how I can get rid of it.’ I knew it was two questions, but maybe he wouldn’t notice.
‘The aevum derk,’ he said, pitching his voice very low. ‘I never believed …’
‘What did you call it?’
‘Aevum derk. The death of magic. It’s said that a pinch can destroy any spell or enchantment, no matter who or what it comes from.’ Laz, the most blasé of genies, shivered like a bug in a storm. ‘How much do you have?’
‘A tall bottle. It’s almost full.’
‘A bottle. How did you know you should store it in glass? How did you know that only glass can contain aevum derk?’
I shuddered. I hadn’t known. In truth, it was only luck that had led me to gather the aevum derk into a glass bottle. I shuddered again, realizing that I could easily have destroyed myself, my friends, and the entire High Council of Feyland. They had all been close by at the time.
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.’
Chapter Thirteen
A TROG IS A MYTHICAL CREATURE. IF TROGS EVER EXISTED, THEY DIED OUT LONG AGO. AND YET, IGNORANT FEY FOLK PERSIST IN BELIEVING THAT TROGS CAN BE FOUND LIVING DEEP WITHIN TROLL COUNTRY.
A TROG’S HEAD IS SAID TO RESEMBLE THAT OF AN EARTH TOAD, EXCEPT THAT A TROG’S EARS ARE VERY LARGE, ALLOWING THEM TO HEAR WHISPERS FROM A LONG DISTANCE. TROGS ARE SAID TO WALK UPRIGHT, CANNOT FLY, AND EXUDE A PUTRID ODOUR THAT EVEN REPEATED BATHING CAN NEVER ERADICATE.
ACCORDING 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 abou
t 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.’