Selda frowned at him, and her hand remained on his arm, still holding him back.
“We don’t know that,” she said.
“That magic,” he said, “that dark magic, it took Sonny. Inside that house. And judging from what I saw, that house is more his than hers.”
Selda squeezed his arm, then let go. She was freeing him to go back inside, if he felt he had to.
The hair tentacles waved, setting more faeries on the ground. The air was abuzz with green-and-yellow faeries, plucking their comrades off the ground and moving them as far from the house as possible.
The house’s mismatched red brick and blue exterior seemed almost gray, as if it were falling into shadow.
Henry felt a shiver run through him. Dark magic that stole from good magic often shoved buildings, places, things into a shadow realm. Because the energy stolen from the good magic also took a toll on the place where the magic was being practiced.
If the house winked into a shadow realm, it would take Zel with it.
“It’s fading,” he said to Selda.
Selda whipped her head toward the house, then her eyes widened and she cursed.
“We need the witches,” she shouted. “Everyone else get away from the house.”
“What about Zel?” Henry asked.
“We’ll get her out,” Selda said, “as quickly as possible.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Henry said and sprinted for the front door.
Chapter 12
She was so tired that she could barely keep her eyes open, and every strand of hair in her head hurt. Zel could feel each individual tug on her scalp. It almost felt like her skin was going to come apart.
She knew it wouldn’t. She had never tried anything this audacious before, but she had worked so hard that her scalp ached. The brain power was what was pulling her down, though. Thinking about each faerie, and each rope-strand she had created, and keeping her rope-strands separate from each other so that they wouldn’t tangle, and making sure each cocoon was wrapped tightly enough to get the faerie out without strangling her, and somehow setting them on the grass (thank heavens she could give her magic a command to set the faeries on grass, and know that the command would place the faeries on her lawn, without any extra problems), and managing to find each and every faerie, and hoping that all of them were still alive, because some of them had turned an awful gray and she was trying hard not to think about it. She didn’t want to think about anything except completing the magic.
The air still smelled of burnt sugar and something else, something like flop-sweat, only with a touch of honey mixed with beer. A grayness had settled over her eyes. She could barely see through all the particles floating around her, and she was getting dizzy.
She had to keep reminding herself to breathe.
There had to have been forty or more faeries in her house. She had used one other component of her magic, one she almost never used: she had to search for the faeries using an identification spell that Sonny had taught her way back.
It was a young spell, not well developed, partly because she never saw the need for it. He had taught it to her so that she could see who was visiting the house or who was nearby, not to find injured and dying faeries on her polished wood floors.
She was swaying with dizziness. Her hair was swinging around, searching. She couldn’t see any more faeries, but that didn’t mean anything. She also couldn’t see Sonny’s sword any more, and even the skylight looked like it was covered in dirt.
She ran a hand over her face, felt grit and debris. She set the last of her faeries down, then sent her rope-strands out to find additional faeries, some who might have fallen in Sonny’s bedroom or in the hallway.
Zel thought maybe she had gotten all of them, but her brain fog was growing. She couldn’t remember the details of each thing she had done. She had been doing so much so fast that she hadn’t worried about keeping track. She had just done the job rather than think about it.
She couldn’t remember the last time she had expended this much energy—magical or otherwise—this fast. She had expended a lot of energy during the rescue from the tower—that horseback ride alone had made her ache and exhausted her—but she had never released so much magic in such a short space.
If Sonny had been doing this, she would have given him water or maybe a power bar or something, and he would have grinned at her—that grin which meant You know me so well. She missed that grin.
And now she had nearly gotten a large group of faeries killed because they had tried to help him.
Tried to help her.
Using the identification spell, she cast her mind around corners and down the hall, closely examining all edges of Sonny’s bedroom, and then her own. It felt like she was working her way through mental sludge just to do the spell, and that had to be her exhaustion.
She wasn’t finding any more faeries. She wasn’t finding anyone. As far as she could tell, she was alone in the house.
Although it no longer felt like her house. It felt like an approximation of her house, like something that had been built by someone else into fooling her that this was her house.
She wasn’t sure why that was. Maybe the echoes of the other magic. Maybe the particles. Maybe the faerie dust that would forever remind her of grape bubble gum.
She made one last attempt to find more faeries but she found none. So she brought back each strand of hair, in the order that it had been sent out—last strands first.
Normally, she formed her hair into some kind of sculpture or wig, and then sheered it away from her skull at the end of the day, but she couldn’t do that this time. She didn’t have the tools. They were all in her office on the lot, and she didn’t have the mental energy to fetch them magically—not that she used that technique much anyway.
The extra hair added weight to her head. Her neck was built to withstand it—Sonny had tested it once with books and more books on the top of her skull—but she hadn’t done this for a long time. She was enveloping herself in a pool of hair, and she had to wait until it all returned before she could coil it up and pile it on top of her skull.
If only she could sit down. Just getting off her legs would help. She didn’t dare sit down, though, for fear that she might pass out. And that was the last thing she wanted to do. If she passed out, she couldn’t help find Sonny, and she couldn’t see if the faeries were all right now that they were out of the house.
The rope-strands of hair whipped around her and she realized that she couldn’t wait until they were all here before she dealt with them. She started with the strands that had arrived first, leaving them in their rope form and coiling them as if they were going to be hung on a peg in a barn. She hadn’t counted how many rope-strands she sent out, but she did know that she hadn’t even received all the strands from the left side of her head yet. She still had the back and the right side to go.
The air got even grayer. The floating particles seemed darker. She wasn’t sure if she heard voices, yelling at her. Was that Sonny? It couldn’t be. She was so tired she was making things up to comfort herself.
She untangled the rope strands that had gone outside, getting them inside, back through the windows and doors. The dark magic might seep out of those windows and doors, so before the last rope-strand near a window or door returned to her, she used the tip of strand to pull the window (or door) closed.
She sent an extra strand to probe the edges of the skylight: she couldn’t remember if she had opened it or not. That rope-strand moved so slowly that she wondered if she was doing the magic right.
Oh, that feeling was familiar. The feeling that she couldn’t do magic at all because she was exhausted. Her brain shut down when it became tired, and she was verging on that right now.
Which wasn’t good. She needed all the brain power she could get.
The hair pooled around her, and draped along the floor. She felt like Cousin It from the Addams Family or like those ancient paintings of Lady Godiva (exc
ept that Zel wasn’t nude). Hair, hair, everywhere—something she never allowed to happen on set, because the mortals would all ask what she had done and how had she created that and could she create it for them for their film or their TV show.
Cousin It had been enough of a risk when she had first built him, but he had looked human (ish) at least. But the rest of this—oh, she was swimming in a sea of hair.
Even the coils were too much, coiled like gigantic hoses around her feet. The burnt sugar smell had grown stronger, and so did that flop-sweat smell, although the touch of honey was gone. The stench was adding to her dizziness.
Every window was closed now, and all of the doors except the front door. She was going to leave that way, although she would have to remember to duck when she had her hair contained.
The last rope-strand returned, slamming into her as if it was a live thing trying to escape an attack.
Maybe it was. She couldn’t think about that right now, though. She just needed to wrap the strands into something resembling a hairdo so that she could move, and get herself out of the house.
Her house.
Which she could barely see any more in her exhaustion.
She turned, feeling the weight of her hair as it climbed up her scalp, organizing itself into rolls and piles and braids, building one layer on top of another—taking its own sweet time, which irritated her more than she wanted it to.
She had to stand up straight to take the weight along her spine, but she didn’t want to stand up straight. She wanted to sit, and she wanted to leave at the same time.
The particles were fluttering around her eyes. They almost looked like those floaty things she sometimes saw when she was trying to fall asleep. Which meant she was close to passing out from exhaustion.
Which meant she had to leave, and leave soon.
She turned toward the door, which she couldn’t exactly see any more, not with all the particles around her. The top of her hair pile was brushing against the ceiling, dislodging even more particles. She was going to have to crouch.
She might even have to crawl, just to get out of the house.
Or she would have to build her hair pile horizontally, not vertically like she usually did. She didn’t have enough vertical space left.
She disassembled the top of her hair, then reassembled it, each magical movement exhausting her even more. She barely had any energy left. She had never quite felt this drained, and she wasn’t sure how to handle it.
Her back and neck ached. She really needed to stand upright or she would topple. Crawling wasn’t an option. She crouched, keeping her back straight, and crab-walked toward the door. At least she and Sonny hadn’t built the entry they had talked about, because if they had, she wouldn’t have been able to fit into it. Her hair would have gotten in the way.
As it was, she had to turn sideways—her back to the door frame—so that her hair could leave before she did.
Those particles had grown darker—everything had grown darker—and she was beginning to feel dizzy. Her legs seemed to be made of Jell-O, and her balance was tentative. Anything would throw her off.
She could barely see the light through the front door, barely see what was ahead. She thought she saw people outside, but she wasn’t certain. If only she could crawl. If only she were there already. If only…
Sweat ran down her face. The interior had grown so hot. Or maybe she had from all of the effort. She staggered to the door frame, and that was when the air ignited—and everything turned white.
Chapter 13
The hair tentacles receded into the house. The windows slammed shut. Henry thought he heard another door slam on the side of the house. No one else seemed to notice. The green-and-yellow faeries were tending their comrades. The Very Serious Witches were huddled with Selda, trying to figure out what to do next.
Some dryads, nyads, and pixies had shown up, and were consulting with one of the green-and-yellow faeries. Henry wouldn’t even have known the pixies had shown up if one hadn’t buzzed his face—either as a dare or a hello, he wasn’t sure. The pixies always liked to tease him in his frog mode, because he had once confused one of them for a fly. (Fortunately, he hadn’t snapped his tongue at her.)
No one seemed to be thinking of Zel. No one seemed concerned at all. The house was sinking into shadows and the hair tentacles had disappeared. Could that mean Zel was in trouble?
Had she retracted the hair on purpose or had something gone wrong? Had the magic that trapped Zel finally hit her as well?
He wasn’t going to wait any longer. He was going back in, no matter what Selda said. And he would drag Zel out if he had to. He wouldn’t do it magically. He would try to keep his own magic out of that mix.
He scanned the area one more time, looking for allies, someone to help. But no one caught his eye.
So he launched himself toward the house, running from concrete block to concrete block. As he got closer to that small brick patio right in front of the door, he saw something large and dark fighting its way out of the house. It wasn’t in any shape he recognized—just a pile of things, rolled and folded and curled against itself. It wobbled, dangerously unstable, but not touching anything.
It took him a moment to realize that what he was seeing was hair. Braided, curled, rolled and smashed together, with errant strands hanging off the sides, covered in gray dust.
Zel was trying to get out, with all of her hair in tow.
He took one more step toward the house and—
It shimmered. Then it seemed to move in and out, like someone was taking a deep breath, sucking in its cheeks, and then releasing that breath. The in-and-out movement occurred twice more. He looked for that hair pile, and couldn’t see it.
The house was now shrouded in shadows. Only the outline of it was visible.
He shouted for Selda—or he thought he did—because he was still heading toward the house. But a headwind had started, and it was blowing him backwards. He could barely push against it.
He could use magic to get through it, but he remembered what someone had said, and he worried that the magic might make whatever this is even more powerful.
And then…
The house exploded.
Henry ducked instinctively, as bits of wood and stone shot outward. Smoke followed, an angry purple-black that smelled of burning sugar and rancid grape soda.
Small particles of something hit him, and he had to curl into a ball to protect his face. The particles pelted his skin like ice in a blizzard. A large whooshing noise surrounded him, sounding like a speeding train. He bent his head, protecting it. He had learned long ago that plowing through something like this helped no one, not if he got hurt.
But Zel was inside. Zel was trapped. Zel might have blown up, after she had saved everyone.
He remained crouched, but peered through his fingers by looking through his lashes. Now swords and knives tumbled out, followed by broken bits of crockery and furniture.
It was almost like an angry goddess was inside, breaking everything and then throwing it out.
And the thought made him feel cold. The cliché wasn’t an angry goddess. The cliché was an angry giant.
What had made him think of a goddess? Was Aite behind this?
And where had she gotten this kind of power?
He couldn’t think about that any more. He had to get through this swirling storm of junk and debris and get to Zel, and, dammit, he would have to use magic to do so.
He almost created a magical mask to place over his face, and then he noticed that the debris was spinning, floating, and swirling at ankle level and above.
Without even thinking about it, he transformed into his frog self. He had to blink twice as his vision changed. His eyes had moved from the center of his face to the sides, and they bulged more, making them more vulnerable.
Unlike the frog receptionist in the Archetype Place, this version of him was him, so any injury to the face or the body or the folded legs would be an injury to
all of him.
Fortunately he was used to being a frog. He bounded forward, careful to keep his leaps low to the ground, so that he wouldn’t bump into anything blowing out of the house.
The junk above him seemed bigger, the particles fell like bowling balls now, but the sound wasn’t as loud. He wasn’t in the middle of it, although he was leaping on it barefoot. His sticky feet curled around each item he landed on, collecting stuff on the bottoms of his froggy skin that he didn’t want to contemplate. (His clothes and shoes had removed themselves and created a folded pile near the door.)
He got to the house—or where the house had been—and saw only a smoking crater. The smoke that came out of the bottom seemed to come from some kind of pit, but he couldn’t tell if he considered that a pit because of his small frog size or if it actually was a pit.
The crater was purplish and black, folding into something red and glowing, and smelling of unfamiliar magic mixed with brimstone. He suspected that the brimstone was an effect, because real mages rarely used brimstone.
Although he didn’t know if the smell would be different if he were in his human body.
He was trying not to panic. Zel could be anywhere. For all he knew, she was floating above him in that maelstrom. But he was afraid she had slipped into that crater.
The beautiful wood floors were now shattered. Some of the wood sloped downward toward that crater. Heat encased him as he got closer—heat as a live thing that sucked the moisture from his skin.
He would be fricasseed frog if he stayed much longer. He would have to change back to his human self, and he didn’t want to do that, not here, not that close to a burning magical hole in the ground.
The air heat-wavered around him. The heat was getting worse, not better. Some flames came out of that hole, licking the air. The wood he was walking on was hot, but it didn’t burn the bottoms of his feet because they had been coated with debris.
But that heat would burn through the debris in short order.
Hidden Charm Page 10