by Amy Sumida
We couldn't hold hands since we were flying but our distance above the ground allowed us to call out to each other without fear of being overheard.
“Heading south,” Odin directed us.
“I don't know which way south is,” I called back.
“Just follow my voice, Vervain.”
Below us, the gardens looked normal enough but hundreds of yards ahead, a change in the landscape became glaringly obvious. Soft, muted greens and browns were replaced by more vibrant colors, and trees the size of skyscrapers loomed over their non-magical cousins. The closer we got, the more I could feel the fey magic. It rolled along my skin, raising the tiny hairs on my arms. This was of note because I hadn't felt anything like it the last time I'd been to an MZ but now, the magic was reaching out—questing—and I wasn't sure if it was so much a case of me feeling it or of it feeling me.
We flew over several large tents—the sort made for long-term use. People scurried in and out of them, their faces set in hard expressions and their hands busy with clipboards, piles of folders, or weapons. In the parking lot near the tents were military and civilian vehicles, including a tank. The botanical gardens was made up of numerous camping and picnicking areas and the government had claimed the one closest to the park's entrance—the one with the lake I had drowned in—as its headquarters. It was also the only campsite that hadn't been consumed by fey magic. The outskirts of the MZ lay several feet beyond the tents and the lake, shining in magical glory. The ducks that normally inhabited the lake were absent.
“Holy fucking faerie magic,” I whispered as we had to angle up to fly over the massive trees.
I felt it again—that touch of magic—and this time I knew for certain that it was feeling me. It was sensing who I was and if I was a threat. When the touch softened, I knew that we'd be allowed to land without issue.
“There it is,” Arach called out. “Everyone aim for the clearing.”
The giant trees, kin to those in the Forgetful Forest, ruled the area, their trunks moving calmly in and out with their breaths. But just ahead of us, the trees thinned and shrunk so that other plants could be seen, stretching their glossy leaves and vibrant petals toward the sun. When I was in Faerie, I didn't notice how shiny and bright and perfect all of the flora was but there, in the Human Realm, the fey plants stood out starkly. Their colors were too saturated, their bodies unblemished, and their shapes alien. Compared to the flora of Earth, even the tropical flora found in Hawaii, these plants practically glowed with life.
A meadow lay within a roughly circular ring of the smaller trees and we landed there, going immediately visible. Even the grass there was brighter and glossier than the normal Earth variety. Everything around us shivered with life, rustling even though there was no breeze. I assumed it was this movement that kept the birds away; the fence would keep out the other wildlife—a fact I was grateful for since there were already infected animals that would need to be found and collected—but the birds could have descended if they wished. They hadn't. Birds were sensitive, skittish creatures with an almost hive connection to their flock. One bird gets scared and they all soon knew about it. And thank goodness for that because some of the trees spotting the meadow bore fruit and the last thing Earth needed was a bunch of birds high on faerie fruit going on a rampage like the plot of an old horror flick.
As if all of that wasn't enough, in the center of the orchard was a path to Faerie, hanging in midair. I could see it this time, unlike the others that Mallien had to locate. The air shimmered like a heatwave but only in a vertical circle—as if something had punched a hole through the air. A hole from one realm to another, going straight through the Aether like one of the tunnels of Internet that Torrent can create. I wondered if it was the way the rath had been made that created the sheen or simply because it was going in the opposite direction than its predecessors.
Its existence made me realize why the forest had grown around this meadow—it was the first layer of protection for the rath. The magic hadn't merely been responding to stimuli or growing because it was fed fire as fuel, it was attacked and so it protected itself. It knew that the source of its power was important and it couldn't let anyone with ill intent reach it. So, it sent out soldiers to defend its borders just as the military was doing beyond. But it didn't know to fear me. Of course, I wasn't there to hurt it, just transport it.
“Will the rath close if Vervain's successful?” Azrael asked Arach.
“I don't know.” Arach stared at the strange rath with a bemused and horrified expression. “I hope so.”
“At least the land hasn't reacted poorly to us,” Odin noted.
“It recognizes the elements in Vervain and me,” Arach said absently as he trailed a hand down a smooth trunk—as if he were stroking a pet.
I took a deep breath and clutched my emerald pendant. It hung on a thick, golden chain around my throat and suddenly felt heavy. Or maybe that was just the weight of what I was about to do.
I'm with you, Vervain, Alaric said in my mind. I will give you what protection I can.
Thanks, Alaric, I thought back at him.
I crouched and lowered a hand gently into the grass. The bright blades bent over me in welcome. Magic tingled along my skin excitedly. Arach and I were probably the first people to touch the MZ in kindness since it had bloomed there. I reminded myself that I wasn't betraying it, I was taking it home. The plan was to collect the magic inside my emerald and release it in Faerie. Once there, with the help of the wards my star established, it should acclimate to the magic of the realm and stabilize.
I closed my eyes and focused on the fey magic. It wasn't like finding the magic inside a god. This wasn't power condensed into a purpose, it was untapped potential. Its only purpose was to thrive. This made summoning it difficult. I tried to grasp it but without a purpose, it had no metaphysical form for me to focus on. In other words, it had no concept of itself other than that it existed. Instead of mentally grabbing the image of an animal inside a shifter god or a plant inside a god of nature, I had to hold onto pure magic. It was like trying to grab a handful of mist.
Don't think of it as something solid, Al said. Think of it as fire. As heat. When you absorb the energy of fire, what do you do?
I don't know. I just reach out and... call it.
Then summon the energy before you, Vervain. It may not have a purpose but it does have the elements. Once Fire goes, the others will follow.
I reached for Fire and immediately felt the magic touch me again, sensing me, but I could also sense all of it. Its individual elements. I called to the elements as I would a forest fire. I summoned them to me as energy, not magic. And it responded. A zinging, stinging, zipping feeling ran up my hand and I had to scramble to direct it through me and into the emerald. It burned as it went. Not like fire but ice. It cut like gravel cast across my flesh by a stinging wind and cried like darkness. My fey essence protected me from Fire but it also weakened me to the other elements and although they couldn't kill me, they made their passage known.
I moaned and swayed. Hands gripped my shoulders but I shook them off. I didn't want the magic flowing into them.
I'm with you, Alaric said again. Focus, Vervain. Let them flow through you. Don't try to hold onto them.
The pain eased. I led the magic into its emerald cage, guiding it gently. Magic takes the easiest path so I visualized a line running from my hand to the emerald and hardened myself around it. The magic began rushing through me like water from a burst dam. The power sang, it called to me as I called to it. Temptation rose. I could take it all. With my god soul, I had the strength to survive all of the elements. The fey magic could live inside me and we could do great things together. It wasn't like god magic; there was no limit to the amount I could take. This was my birthright as a triple-souled being.
The Trinity Star exploded into light, shining the truth into my mind—refocusing me. Its glow coated my cells and magic so that the fey magic slid through me like oil through
water—trying to merge but remaining separate no matter how much I was shaken. The light brought me confidence and strengthened my resolve. I took a deep breath and forged on.
“You're doing it,” Odin whispered. “The zone is shrinking, Vervain. The fey plants are withdrawing into the earth.”
Almost there, Al said firmly. A little more.
The emerald warmed in my hand but it was a good warmth—a comforting feeling. I lured more and more magic inside it until, at last, I felt something like a pop. A metaphysical release. The last clinging bits of magic slid free of the soil and into me. I breathed evenly as I led it into the emerald and then opened my eyes.
The fey land was gone as if it had never been. Unfortunately, it hadn't been replaced by the plants it had overtaken. Barren earth lay all around me. Open space for hundreds of feet in all directions. The sound of humans shouting came from a great distance. I had a feeling that they'd been doing so for some time but the plants had cocooned us in quiet until the magic had been absorbed. I stood up and looked back toward the sound but, thankfully, rolling hills separated us and hid us from view.
“Time to go,” I said.
“You go ahead, I'll meet you in Bahrain,” Azrael stretched his wings and prepared to fly.
“What? Why?” I asked before he could leave.
“I want to destroy their evidence.”
“No!” I said urgently. “Right now, this could be considered an act of nature but if you go destroying files right after I take away the magic, they're going to suspect that there's someone behind it.”
“And that won't be the only copies they have,” Odin added. “They've likely emailed their research to whoever's in charge.”
“The Imps can take care of that,” Az argued. “I don't think we should leave them proof of fey magic.”
“They don't know what they have. All they know is that they can't explain it,” Morpheus said. “Leave it for now. We can always take care of it later.”
Azrael sighed. “Very well.”
We traced to the next location.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Things were going well. I got into the swing of summoning the magic but that, combined with the Toby thoughts I tried to ignore, was my downfall. I hadn't considered that the emerald couldn't hold unlimited magic. I was focused on my goal. High on my success. Three down. Six more sites and I could trace to Faerie and release the magic.
The fourth MZ was in Russia. In the middle of a cold, damp forest, surrounded by a series of huts which were then surrounded by a chainlink fence and patrolled by ten times as many soldiers as there had been at any of the previous sites. It wasn't a problem to get past them. The number of soldiers didn't matter; they couldn't see us and we could fly. But still, I was impressed. We surmounted their defenses as we had all of the others and kept flying to the center of the site.
We flew over several buildings and lumps of things that had been covered to keep the leaves off. For lumps, they sure looked menacing. Men stoically strode the gravel paths between huts, huddled to keep the rain off their faces and glancing repeatedly toward the center of the dirty camp. Because there, abutting mud puddles and sad piles of wet leaves, was the outskirts of a paradise of mammoth, breathing trees, extraordinarily green grass, and flowers far too exotic for Earth.
We flew over the fey border and deep into the magical territory, where the rain ceased falling, dispersed by sunlight that shone warmer there. We landed in a little clearing and made our way toward the grove of fruit trees that seemed to be the standard mark of the center of an MZ. As had been the case with the other MZs, no birds sheltered among the fey trees, despite the fact that the climate was far better there. It was cold enough in the rest of the forest that I wondered if the birds had flown south early.
Though there were no birds in the trees, there was a leriewoag.
“Oh, you poor thing,” I murmured when I spotted it.
Leriewoags are flying creatures that live in the Air Kingdom. They're gentle for the most part and even ferry visitors up to the main island in boats they carry on huge chains. This one was young, no larger than a nurial, and its normally sleek, gray fur was fluffed in fear, making it look like an angry cat. Its long neck and tail were curled over its body as it clung to a branch, its blue eyes staring at us anxiously and its dragonfly wings shivering. It could have flown away but it wouldn't have made it out of the MZ, not in that frigid downpour; its wings were too delicate.
“It must have come through the rath.” Odin searched the area for a shimmering hole; we'd found one in each of the other locations.
“Lower your voice, you're scaring it,” I chided him.
“No leriewoag would be frightened by us. If anything, it should be reassured by our presence,” Arach said firmly. “That is not a leriewoag.”
“What do you mean?” I frowned at him.
“It's one of the transformed animals,” Odin concluded as he searched the area for more.
“How did it get past the fences?” Morpheus cocked his head as he studied the creature. “You think it was a bird?”
“There doesn't seem to be many birds in the area,” I mused.
“Maybe it was here before the fences were put up,” Odin suggested. “There were probably hundreds of animals here originally. I imagine most fled when the magic arrived but maybe this one decided to hide instead and the magic found him in his burrow.”
“So, what do we do with it?” I asked.
“Hopefully, when you take the magic from the land, it will remove it from the animal and turn it back into whatever it was,” Odin said.
“And if it doesn't?”
“Then I shall take it to Faerie,” Arach said. “No matter what it started as, it will have a better life in Faerie if it's trapped in a leriewoag body.
“All right. I suppose that's the best we can do for it.” I crouched to touch the grass and do my thing.
The magic came to my call as it had every time before. I kept my eyes open this time, concerned for the poor animal trapped in the MZ. At first, nothing appeared to happen but that was normal; I was drawing the magic toward me so it came from the outside in. Finally, it seeped away around me, flowing to the spot beneath my hands. Fruit shrunk on the trees before us like a time-lapse nature video played in rewind. Flowers went from blossom to bud to green shoots. All of the motion startled the leriewoag, who glided down to the grass. But the grass was moving too, withering into the soil while bushes shrank into nothing, and the trees grew smaller until they were saplings. Then, even those were gone.
The leriewoag whined plaintively and somewhere far behind us, humans shouted in just as much of a panic. But as the last of the magic came to me and the gleaming rath to Faerie—revealed during the drain—started to shrink as well, the leriewoag fell onto its side and trembled violently.
I almost stopped, worried that I was hurting it, but Al reassured me, It will be fine. Keep going.
Fur shifted from gray to white as the leriewoag shrunk, just as the plants had. The dragonfly wings popped out of existence, blue eyes changed to brown, and the slender tail fluffed out more than it had before. At last, the animal got to its feet, shivered as if waking from a bad dream, and bolted past us.
A fox—just a scared little fox.
“I'll catch it and take it beyond the barricades,” Azrael offered just before he shot into the air.
I was about to call after him to meet us at the next site when the emerald started to vibrate. Its temperature went up so high that my scales emerged to protect me.
“Vervain?” Odin asked anxiously.
“I don't know what's happening.” I looked at him in panic.
“It's the magic. It's taken too much,” Odin hissed. “Trace to Faerie now!”
I didn't argue or ask any questions; I just traced. The Aether took me and, even with the magic burning at my throat, it deposited me before the Great Tree of Faerie smoothly. I stumbled away from the massive trunk and fell onto my knees, my hands di
gging into the soil as I urgently summoned the magic out of the stone.
Then I began to scream.
The magic had to go through me to get out and Alaric wasn't there to ease the passage this time. Faerie evidently had no idea what was happening because she didn't offer to help either. The elemental magic clawed its way through my body like a tiger tearing its way through a cardboard box. The Trinity Star burst into blinding light as I fell on my face, moaning into the grass that didn't attack me despite my rough treatment of it. Instead, it caressed my cheeks tenderly as if welcoming me home.
“Thanks,” I panted as the pain lessened—speaking to both my star and the soft grass.
“Vervain!” Odin shouted as he eased me onto my back.