by Lucia Ashta
I snapped my head back. “You have no right to speak to me like that. You nearly killed me with your magic. I deserve some time to compose myself so I can actually walk.” Whoa, this was good. I was actually standing up for myself for once. “I’ve done nothing wrong.”
“You’ve done everything wrong,” Naomi growled, and I searched for elongating teeth or claws. She sounded like an animal. “You are the one who almost killed us. You’re the one who dropped us in the middle of nowhere instead of where I was taking us. You’re the one who messed with my magic, so don’t give me that bullshit!”
I opened my mouth to defend myself, came up short, and looked away toward the calm of the field, with its swaying grasses and crisp, happy sky above it. The sky, though bright, lacked a visible sun to illuminate it. If what she said was true, then something had gone very wrong, and as usual I had no idea what.
16
I stood on shaky legs and faced the enraged witch and cat, and the barely less furious fairies. “All right,” I said with all the reluctance I experienced at facing yet another unexplained aspect of myself. “What is it exactly that you believe I did?”
“I don’t believe you did anything,” Naomi said. “I know what you did.”
“All right, then. Enlighten me!” It wasn’t like I’d intended to do whatever it was they thought I’d done.
“You stole my magic.”
“I did no such thing.”
“You must’ve.”
“Well, then you’d better reassess your theories, because I didn’t steal your magic. I haven’t stolen a single thing in my entire life.”
From the surprised expressions on all their faces, even the cat’s, I was the only who could make that claim.
“You have to have stolen my magic,” Naomi hissed. “It’s the only explanation for what happened.”
“It can’t be, because I didn’t. So come up with another theory or this conversation is over.” It was a comical threat, really, because where would I go to avoid it?
“I spun my magic to transport us all, as I’ve done a million times, but it didn’t go the way it should’ve. We’re supposed to be at the school, not out in the boonies.” The witch waved her arms about in the air with a crazed gleam to her eyes. “Does this look like the Magical Creatures Academy to you? Huh? Does it?” she screeched.
Something in me snapped. “How the hell should I know? I’ve never even heard of this Magical Creatures Academy or Menagerie or whatever place until today! And lest you forget, today also happens to be the day I lost my tail, only to be replaced by these cumbersome limbs. And oh, I almost forgot, I sprouted wings and found out a whole horde of scary supernaturals are out to kill me or worse! But oh, you got me. I’ve been plotting and planning this for my entire lifetime. I set out to steal your magic and then nearly fall to my death in the process.”
I crossed my arms across my chest and met their glares with just as much fire of my own. Strangely, Naomi relaxed a bit at that.
“So you didn’t steal my magic…” she said.
I scowled at her, unwilling to give her anything more.
“She might have unintentionally stolen it,” Nessa said from where she hovered at eye level. When I shot her a full dose of my frustration, her voice squeaked. “Or maybe it’s something else.”
“Of course it is!” My nostrils flared and I pointed my nose up in the air to scent for the ocean. If I caught even a whiff of the home I left behind, I’d head back toward it. This was getting ridiculous. No one should expect me to endure all this, not even Mulunu with her wild, milky eyes.
Nessa bit at her diminutive lip and hemmed and hawed until Fianna snapped at her. “If you have something to say, say it already.”
“Whoa, don’t go biting my head off or I won’t tell you what I just figured out.”
“Fine.”
“An apology wouldn’t kill you either,” Nessa muttered, but didn’t bother waiting for one. “Okay, so. We don’t know what kind of powers Selene might have, right?”
“Right,” Fianna ground out.
“And we already saw that her powers reacted to Naomi’s when she was setting up the wards. Of course, Quinn was there too at the time, and there’s something going on there, but we’ll deal with that later.”
“We’d better,” I said.
Nessa the Sapphire nodded distractedly. “I think all that must’ve happened is Selene’s unactivated powers reacted to Naomi’s transportation magic, and voilà!”
“Voilà what, you annoying, tinkling thing?” Naomi said.
“Watch yourself,” Fianna said, and I rolled my eyes. In all my life I’d never heard so much fighting.
Nessa huffed, slapped a hand to her hip, and addressed Naomi. “What I’m saying is that she didn’t steal your powers. She didn’t do anything on purpose. Her magic surged in reaction to yours, probably some kind of self-defense mechanism or something, probably already on alert since your wards tried to kill her.”
Naomi was shaking her head. “That makes sense, but it’s got to be more than that. She didn’t just take my magic or react to it, she changed it. She used it, and no one should be able to use a witch’s magic. Every single witch in history has a special signature to her magic. The same for wizards. No one is able to use another’s magic.”
“Surely witches usurp others’ powers all the time,” Fianna said.
“Nullify, sure. Interfere with, yes. Take it to bolster their own magic, if they’re powerful enough. But never actually use another witch’s magic without bringing it under the umbrella of their own.”
“Okay, so maybe Selene did that,” Fianna said.
Again, Naomi shook her head as Petunia leapt into her waiting arms. The witch petted her cat without looking at her. “She didn’t. I’d recognize the signature of my own magic anywhere. My magic was rolling off of her. She used my power to send us tumbling down that rabbit hole, the one that almost killed all of us.”
“Not us,” Fianna said with a smile. “We just flew through it the whole way.”
“Speak for yourself,” Nessa said. “I thought it was pretty brutal.”
“Selene is the one who deposited us here,” Naomi said. “Wherever we are.” She trailed off and the fairies followed her example as she looked around.
“Yeah, where are we?” Nessa asked. “I can usually get a sense for every place...”
“You don’t know where we are?” Fianna asked, the sudden alarm in her voice setting my heart to racing again.
Nessa spun in every direction, flying to look everywhere, white plaster dust flying loose of her azure hair, her eyes wide with fear. “I don’t know where we are. That’s never happened before.”
“Surely we’re just lost,” I said, but my voice lacked confidence. The fairies, who hadn’t seemed overly terrified when we were dropping from the sky, were frightened now.
“What?” Naomi asked, ignoring my hopeful suggestion entirely.
Fianna’s usually lively features were drawn. “Nessa never gets lost because she always knows where she is.”
“Okay, so it’s a new place,” I said. “So what? Everything’s new about this for me.”
“You don’t understand. Nessa can identify every single place on the Earth. Every. Single. One.”
I gulped. I was beginning to understand. “Even in the water?” That was just my merperson curiosity. We felt so disconnected from life upon land. I wouldn’t like the thought of a fairy sensing my home.
“Not the water,” Fianna said, “and before you ask, not the air either. All the land. Every point on Earth.” The crimson fairy paused long enough to share a somber look with all of us. “If Nessa doesn’t know where we are, that means we’re somewhere not upon this Earth.”
“No! That’s not possible,” I said right away. I chortled. “You can’t actually be suggesting that this”—I stomped a foot on the earth, nearly losing my balance in the process; legs were tricky business—“isn’t the Earth. It clearly is. It looks exactly like the Eart
h.”
“Yeah, well, this is one of Nessa’s powers. She can pinpoint her location anywhere in the world.”
“Oh my goodness,” Naomi gasped. She brought the hand that’d been petting Petunia up to her mouth.
“You can’t be serious,” I said. “I didn’t steal magic, and I didn’t deposit us someplace that isn’t on Earth. It’s not possible.”
“Oh,” Naomi said, “the more you discover of the powers of supernatural creatures, the more you’ll discover that the most unlikely of things are possible.”
“I imagine that’ll be the case, but not this.”
The fairies nodded at me in unison, with matching bewildered expressions.
I threw my hands in the air. “If we’re not on Earth, where do you suggest we are?”
“I have no idea,” Nessa said. “I don’t feel the Earth.”
Fianna gasped. “The Earth always sings to you.”
Nessa nodded morosely. “Up until now.”
“Oh, this is so not good.”
“You can say that again,” Nessa said. “I can’t even tell in which direction we need to go to find the Earth again.” The blue fairy turned toward me. “Our only hope lies with her.”
I laughed. “You’re joking, right?” No, they weren’t. Smiles were blatantly lacking. “How can I get us back to Earth when I don’t even know what I did to get us off it?—assuming I even did.”
“Oh, you did,” Naomi said. “That’s a guarantee. My magic isn’t capable of this, at least not when I’m in control of it.” She bit at her lip as if she were debating whether she’d be able to replicate this result. But who would want to be so lost so as to not even be on the right planet or plane anymore? Only a crazy person, which there was a good chance Naomi might be.
“What do you expect me to do? I have absolutely no idea what to do,” I said.
“Then I guess it’s on us to help you figure it out,” Fianna said, “because we’re not getting back to where we belong until you do.”
Great. Flipping fantastic.
“Hey, at least the nasties after Selene won’t be able to find her anymore.” Nessa smiled, and I had to appreciate the fairy’s ability to find good in our situation. “That vampire is the worst of them, and he was locked on Selene.”
I swallowed thickly as the image of the incredibly striking—and incredibly deadly—vampire flashed into my mind so vividly that it was like I was still standing in Irving’s crumbling house, the vampire’s dark eyes pinning me into place, making escape impossible. “Wh-who is he?” I asked.
Naomi smirked. “That vampire is Antonio Dimorelli. He’s been around for centuries, which makes him very powerful.” The way the witch rolled the word “powerful” revealed that she coveted more magic as much as any of those who pursued me. “More vampires die than survive. It takes one of great cunning and skill to survive this long.”
Naomi paced, then turned to face me, allowing her bright eyes to trail over me as if I were a prize to be won. I gulped as she continued. “In recent years, Antonio has moved away from the rule of the clans, probably deciding it’s more fun to do whatever he wants without rules.”
Her eyes glimmered, and I took a step away from her. Yeah, I’d allowed myself to forget how dangerous the witch in our midst was. The greed that lit her eyes now reminded me that she chose her battles with a similar consideration as the vampire who sought to claim me. If Naomi believed she could take my power, she would—in a heartbeat. I took another step back from her, and when she noticed, a predatory flicker flashed across her icy eyes until she tucked it away.
But then Naomi gazed off into the distance. When she spoke again, her voice was dreamy, and I understood that I wasn’t able to follow all she was thinking. I was too new to the supernatural community to consider every pertinent factor. “Obviously Antonio has decided he has enough power to defy the clans … and the Enforcers.” She resumed her distracted petting of Petunia.
“B-but he must not have that much power if he still wants mine, right?” I squeaked, the memory of the vampire too vivid.
Naomi stared at me, blinked dark-coated lashes, then threw her head back in a harsh chuckle. Petunia chuffed, and I could’ve sworn the cat was laughing at me too. All mirth dropped from the witch’s face. “Child, you have no idea how much power a vampire like Antonio Dimorelli has. He could snap you like a twig, and he’s so good at what he does that he could do it before you realized he’d done it, and convince you that you liked what he’d done. A vampire like Antonio controls your free will so masterfully that you think you’re giving yourself to him. His victims love him.”
Her eyes were back to glittering as … admiration filtered into her voice. Oh man, the fairies were so right not to trust the witch.
“And now that he’s aligned himself with such a powerful witch, one nearly as powerful as I…” She shrugged a little too happily. “Well, the only thing that will keep you from him is a different plane.”
“And the Menagerie,” Nessa said in a cautioning tone. “Sir Lancelot will be able to keep her safe.”
Naomi gave a disinterested shrug as if she either didn’t believe I’d be safe at the Menagerie or she was rooting for this vampire Antonio. If I hadn’t seen the witch fighting to keep out the vampire and whatever troops he had to support his fight, I would’ve wondered if she was enamored with him.
The sooner I put distance between myself and this witch—and her idol vampire—the better.
“Well,” Nessa said in what seemed like a forced happy tone, “at least here Selene doesn’t have to worry about Antonio Dimorelli or whatever witches and shifters he has on his side.” Nessa smiled, and the gesture reached her cerulean eyes. “Right now, right here, she’s safe, and that’s great.” Her smile spread into one of triumph.
“That’s right,” Fianna said. “You always do a good job of finding the bright side of things, Nessa.”
The blue fairy grinned at the compliment and shook the many bracelets along her arms to make a tinkling celebratory sound. From what I’d observed of the spunky Fianna, she was stingy with her praise of the slightly smaller fairy.
“Have y’all gone and lost your damn minds?” Naomi barked. “There’s nothing good about this. We’re as stuck as it gets, and we have to rely on a total numbnuts novice to get us out of here, unless you have some tricks up your fluttery sleeves you’re not telling me…”
“None,” Nessa said, refusing to drop her smile as if on principle. “But hey, at least we’re not dead.”
With standards as low as those, any news was good news. We might be lost … somewhere … but at least we were alive. All I could do now was hope Quinn and Irving were alive too, even if they were on a different plane than I was.
At the thought of Quinn, I rubbed my hands together, determined to find something useful to do. If we were relying on me to get us out of here, then we had our work cut out for us. “Where do I start?” I asked.
Not a single woman there looked like she had an inkling of an answer, but they all talked at once anyway.
17
I stared at my bare open palms forlornly. “Nothing, see. No magic. No spark. Nothing at all.”
I uncrossed my legs and stretched them out in front of me on the ground, which definitely wasn’t normal ground. Though on first inspection this place resembled Earth, it had revealed itself as a poor imitation. The grass was insubstantial. As if every detail were made of wisps of empty air, a play of shadows and illusions, when I ran my hands across the grass I felt nothing beyond a rush of energy. Individual blades didn’t caress my skin.
No insects or worms crawled across the dirt that appeared beneath the grass. No birds circled the cloudless, impeccable sky. Even the air felt wrong the more I sucked it in, as if it were insufficient to nourish my lungs. And yet the “ground” held me as I sat upon it. The discrepancies were enough to unnerve the more experienced fairies and witch. Petunia the cat especially didn’t like it here. She was jumpy, hackles raised, a
s she glared at our surroundings with untrusting yellow eyes.
Still, I was only one girl, and a clueless one at that. “I’ve been trying for hours. I need a break.”
“No time for breaks,” Naomi said, peering down at me imperiously with menacing eyes. “We need to get out of here before something happens.”
“Before something happens? What might happen?”
“We have no idea, and that’s the problem. With magic involved, a whole variety of nasty things might happen before you get us out of here.”
“There isn’t magic here. That’s the problem. I don’t have any magic.”
“You—”
I cut Naomi off. I’d heard it all before. “I might have magic, but none that’s responding to my commands the way you say it should. I don’t feel it at all. I don’t feel any magic in this place.”
Nessa flew closer and landed on my knee. “There’s always magic, whether you feel it or not. Magic is everywhere. Even here...” But she trailed off.
“Wait, do you not feel the magic here?” I asked.
The upbeat fairy had become much less so as my failed attempts at getting us out of here piled up. She shared a meaningful look with Fianna before finally shaking her head. Even her blue hair, as bright as the cloudless sky, was droopy. “I don’t feel a thing. It makes me feel … empty inside.”
Nessa the Sapphire dissolved into sobs. She plopped down on my leg with a loud sniffle, her translucent wings flopping against her back like wet kelp. “I don’t like this one bit.”
“Well, what’s to like?” Naomi said with her usual personal mixture of aggression and impatience, but at least she didn’t call the fairy names. She’d done plenty of that since we’d arrived here too. The longer this took, the meaner she became. That alone was reason enough to get out of here. I couldn’t wait to get away from Naomi.
I tried to soothe the diminutive fairy slumped on my leg, but I didn’t know what to do. There seemed no safe place to touch her where I could be sure I wouldn’t cause her harm. Even though I wasn’t particularly large for a girl, to the hummingbird-size fairy I must be a giant. I finally placed my hand next to her on my bare thigh, above my knee, figuring at least the proximity of my touch might accomplish something.