By the Magic of Starlight (The Forbidden Realm)

by Serena Gilley

  “I need to know what you did to my equipment!” Baylor called out. “Whatever you did, it isn’t going to make them happy.” He paused, waited, and waved his device around, then gave out a frustrated growl. “You don’t know what you’ve done. You’ve just put your entire Realm in great danger.”

  Something rustled behind the rocks. Raea cringed as the man’s head jerked toward that direction. She started scanning the branches around her. If only she could find an acorn or something and throw it, distract the man. No luck. She’d taken refuge in an old maple tree. Only the tiniest buds of thin little seed pods grew anywhere close to her. The chances of getting any of them to spiral down and make enough noise to catch Baylor’s attention were nil.

  And he was moving toward the rocks, just steps away now from discovering Kyne.

  “Kyne, talk to me. I don’t want to harm you.”

  Suddenly Kyne darted up through the brush to hover in the air a safe distance away from the man. He was small again, and not naked. A fern frond was wrapped around him, making him seem wild and untamed. He glared at the human, and if spite alone were a weapon, he likely could have struck him down where he stood.

  “How do you know who I am?” Kyne demanded.

  “You think you are the only one who’s been curious? I know you’ve tracked me, Kyne. You’ve watched me; you’ve studied me. You know who I am just the same way I know you.”

  “You don’t know me. You know nothing about me.”

  “I wish we had time for this, but we don’t. They’re on their way back here already and I need to get this machine running again. You can’t be here when I do. Its effects will harm you.”

  “It’s here, under these rocks, isn’t it? What does it do? What are you and the council creating out here in this forest?”

  “The less you know of it the better,” Baylor replied. “Just trust me.”

  “Trust you? After what you did to my mother? Where were you while the council accused her of terrible things? While I was ridiculed and mistrusted every day of my life? No, I’m not about to trust you, but I do want some answers. What is this mechanism, and what does it do?”

  Baylor paused and glanced around nervously. At first Raea thought he would refuse to answer. After a heavy sigh and a heartbeat of silence, though, he did.

  “It is a hybrid device—human and magical. It collects magic and regulates its distribution through a network of other similar devices positioned in remote areas. This is just part of the grid that keeps the Veil strong.”

  “The Veil is a magical thing. We have never needed human technology to provide our protection. You’re lying to me.”

  “I wish I were. The Fairy Council has been aware for some time now that magic just isn’t enough. The Veil has been losing power. It’s in danger of total collapse.”

  * * *

  Kyne had to make him repeat those words twice before he would let them sink in. Could it be true? The Veil was in danger? It didn’t seem possible. Baylor must be lying about this.

  But why? What would he gain? It just didn’t make sense that the council would actually work with humans, share sensitive secrets of the magical Realm with someone like Baylor. There had to be more to this than Kyne knew.

  Baylor refused to say more, though. He wouldn’t even listen to questions.

  “They’re coming, so you have to leave now,” the human ordered.

  “No. Explain yourself, Baylor. What’s really going on here?”

  “What’s going on is they’ll be furious if they find you here, Kyne. You pose a threat to them. They want to be rid of you and I’m beginning to think they don’t really care how they do it. Now tell me how you made my machine stop working and then get the hell away from here.”

  “I didn’t do anything to your machine. It just stopped.”

  “I don’t believe that. You did something and it’s important for me to know what. If this network goes down…”

  He didn’t get to finish his statement but glanced off into the distance. Kyne knew why—he’d heard it, too. Voices. And now he could make out the faint glow of magic coming their way.

  “Damn. They’re here again. I warned you the sensors would alert them. Here, take this and hide yourself, Kyne.”

  As if running into his own despicable father out here wasn’t surprise enough, Kyne watched as the man extracted a tiny bag from his pocket. No, not a bag. It was a pouch. A fairy-sized dust pouch. And it didn’t look empty.

  “How’d you get that?”

  “It doesn’t matter; you don’t appear to have any on you and once I get this thing running you’re going to need it. Quick, resize yourself so you can be protected from the effects of the equipment and get out of here. I’ll make some excuse if the sensors pick up your magic, but you need to be gone.”

  Not for all the depth of the seas did Kyne wish to stay here any longer. He did, however, have a problem. Where was Raea? He couldn’t leave without her.

  Snatching the pouch that Baylor held out for him, Kyne darted up into the trees. He found a safe spot in a deep gash left by a lightning strike to the trunk of a tall maple and hid himself there. Feeling inside the pouch he found it did indeed contain dust. He was just about to use it when Wain and his partner came into view, flapping angrily through the brush and into the slight clearing around the rock formation below. They glared suspiciously at Baylor and scanned everything around them.

  “What happened?” Wain asked. “Where’s Kyne?”

  “He’s not here.”

  “Then why were we alerted?”

  “It’s a malfunction,” Baylor said, waving his device around, moving away from the tree where Kyne hid and looking closely at the rocks.

  “What sort of malfunction? Intentional sabotage?”

  “No, nothing like that. This is complicated technology. It isn’t as if we can just expect it to run flawlessly. Something must have simply shorted out.”

  “Well, why were we summoned?”

  “An energy surge probably triggered the sensors. Trust me, I’ve checked the place out. There’s no sign of anyone.”

  “It’s quite a coincidence that Kyne was just here a short while ago, and now this…”

  “His energy trail dissipated quickly. When he came through here before, he didn’t stay long and he didn’t come back. I see no sign that anyone tampered with anything.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  Baylor put his device on the ground and began feeling around the rocks with his hands. Kyne pressed more tightly into the gnarled bark of the old tree, but he had a fairly clear view of the proceedings below. One of the rocks shifted under Baylor’s hand and revealed a hidden compartment behind it.

  A panel of lights blinked in the darkness. So the rocks themselves did hide a secret machine. Maybe they were even magically altered to better obscure whatever was in there. All of this was more than foreign to him—human technology had never been coupled with magic before. He couldn’t see anything good to come from a union like that. No wonder everyone here was on edge.

  “How long before you can get it working again?” Wain asked.

  “Everything seems fine. I just need to reset it.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “Not long. I’ll just wait for you to get a safe distance away.”

  “No. Start it now. We used our Sizing Dust; we are protected.”

  “Not for very long.”

  “Long enough. We just need to reassure ourselves that your efforts are diligent, that you’ve been telling the truth. If the machine doesn’t work and you have no proof that someone else tampered with it, you will be held liable.”

  “And what will you do, lock me in one of your tiny buildings somewhere? Throw dust at me and turn me into a frog? How will that help your cause any, Wain? No, just trust me on this.”

  “I don’t trust you, Baylor. Remember that.”

  “Well, then at least acknowl
edge that I know more about this machine than you do. When I turn it back on, it’s going to go through an initialization cycle, and that tends to heighten the Regulator’s effect. That Sizing Dust you love so much won’t hold up long, and if you start throwing more of it around, you’ll only succeed in setting off the sensor alarms. You don’t want to be the cause for sending yet more faulty readings back to the council, do you? No, I didn’t think so.”

  “We are not leaving until we know the cause of this malfunction. Period.”

  The larger of the two fairies moved in on Baylor, hovering over him and giving off the most menacing aura that a human-sized lavender-colored fairy could. Baylor seemed unaffected by it. He simply rolled his eyes and pushed at some of the blinking lights inside that panel. The blinking pattern changed and he seemed satisfied by it.

  “There, you see that? This indicates a simple energy surge. All I need to do is activate the starting sequence and we’ll be back in business.”

  “You are certain of that?”

  “Yes. This is experimental technology; there are bound to be a few bugs that need to be worked out before we have the magical integration perfected.”

  “So it will run as needed now?”

  “In a matter of minutes, it will be back up to full capacity. You can go tell your superiors all is well.”

  “You have no doubt it was an energy surge?” Wain asked.

  “One hundred percent certain. No sign of anything more than that; sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Very well. We will go and tell our partners in this that things appear to be under control. For now.”

  “Yeah. You do that. And tell them if they’re going to want me stalking fugitive fairies for you, as well as keeping all this equipment humming along nicely, then I’m going to need a boost in my funding.”

  “Just do your job and you’ll get what we’ve agreed on,” Wain said, leaning toward his companion to mumble something.

  The large lavender fairy gave a dull-witted chortle, but backed away from Baylor. It appeared they weren’t as bold as they sounded, inching away slowly when Baylor began poking around more inside that panel. Kyne had the distinct impression Baylor wasn’t really accomplishing anything, just toying with the thing for the sake of his unwitting audience.

  “Yeah, whatever. I’ll keep a close eye on this tonight, and tomorrow I’ll head to the other side of the mountain and check out the machinery there. If I find anything unusual, you’ll know about it immediately.”

  “Make sure that we do,” Wain ordered. “Very well, then. We’ll return to Council Hall and continue efforts to locate our fugitive. You will notify us if you see any sign of his return.”

  “Of course.”

  Wain scowled and gave one last look over the area. Kyne ducked deeper into the gnarled tree. Wain apparently saw nothing unusual, so he gave an order to his companion. They rose into the air. A torrent of dry leaves was stirred up around them, forcing Baylor to turn his head and shield his eyes. The fairies appeared not to care, enjoying their larger-than-usual size and flapping off in a faint glow, pushing through underbrush until they were gone.

  “Assholes,” Baylor grumbled once the forest was silent again.

  “You don’t have to work with them, you know,” Kyne called, coming out of his hiding place but not descending from treetop level. “Why do you?”

  “I’ve got my reasons. Now get out of here while I turn this thing on. I wasn’t kidding about the start-up effects being stronger than normal.”

  “First I need to know—”

  “No. Go. You could tell how much they trust me; they’ll be back at the first sign of anything strange. I’ll program the sequence and you use that damn dust. The two should cancel each other out long enough for you to get out of here without setting off all the sensors. They’ll be back here in a heartbeat if you do.”

  Kyne knew he was right. There was no point in arguing. He needed to find Raea and get her somewhere safe. So far no one knew she was with him and he intended to keep it that way. If Baylor said now was the time to leave undetected, he had no choice but to go. He pulled a handful of dust from the pouch and looked around, hoping for some sign of her.

  “Raea, wherever you are…,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth.

  “I’m here,” she replied, not too far away from him.

  Just the sound of her voice sent electricity through him. Good. She was here; he hoped she was close enough. He tossed the Sizing Dust up into the air. Would it work to resize both of them? He couldn’t tell if it had reached Raea or not, but he felt his body change. Yes, he became larger, though not human this time. He still possessed magic and his wings were strong. Hopefully that Sizing Dust would give them both protection from the machine yet still keep Raea safely invisible.

  “All right,” he called down to Baylor. “You can start it now.”

  Baylor turned back to the panel, punching a few more seemingly random buttons inside. But this time the blinking lights took on a distinct pattern. The same low humming sound they had heard earlier started up from somewhere deep below the rocks. Baylor must have repaired the machine as quickly as he said he could.

  “There. Now get out of here, Kyne,” Baylor said, shutting the panel and smoothing the edges so that the rock returned to its original appearance.

  Even knowing there was a magical panel inside, Kyne could not see it once Baylor stepped away. The rock seemed as solid and unaltered as any other rock in the forest. Baylor brushed off his hands and retrieved his scanning device, waving it around and nodding his head.

  “Good, good. You’re not being detected. Sensors probably can’t see you, either.”

  “I’ll leave then,” Kyne said, hovering in midair since the Sizing Dust had done its work and he was too large for the branch he’d been on. “But you know this is not over, Baylor.”

  The human nodded, finally ignoring his device and staring directly up at Kyne. “No, it isn’t.”

  “I’ll find you again and make you give me some answers.”

  “No doubt that’s exactly what you will do.”

  At least they agreed on that. “Fine. Until then.”

  “Yes. Take care of yourself, Kyne,” Baylor said with something almost like a smile. “And look out for your friend. She must be kind of special if she’s sticking by you through all of this.”

  Kyne gritted his teeth. So Baylor had picked up on Raea, had he? That was unfortunate. Kyne was still hoping he could somehow extricate her from this mess.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he growled, feeling the brush of Raea’s wings as she hovered closer to him.

  “No, of course not,” Baylor said with a shrug. “But just so you know, there’s a lookout post at the top of this mountain. It’s abandoned. And, oddly enough, my equipment doesn’t work there. Strangest thing.”

  “Why should I care about your faulty equipment?”

  “I don’t know. You might find it interesting, though, to hear that only certain magic works there, too.”

  “And what magic would that be?”

  “Specially formulated magic,” Baylor replied. “You can’t get it just anywhere. Only someone with the right recipe can mix up that kind of magical dust.”

  “And who’s got that recipe?”

  Baylor simply shrugged, playing with his device and turning his back on Kyne.

  “I really can’t say. I guess you’ll have to look into it. Someplace safe, though. Not here.”

  “Damn it, Baylor—”

  The man hushed him. “You need to leave, Kyne. You’ll figure it out. You’ll figure it all out.”

  And then he waved his flashlight into the darkness and moved out of the clearing. Kyne watched, but he could feel the effects of the machine even through the Sizing Dust. He was growing weaker already. They needed to leave.

  “You still with me?” he asked into the air.

  “Yes… barely,” Raea replied.

  He instinctively
glanced toward the sound of her voice. Yes, there she was. He could just make out her form. By the Skies, she was still small. He must not have used enough of that Sizing Dust. And her invisibility was wearing off, too. He could see she was struggling. Her wings beat in uneven rhythm; her bright, worried eyes blinked helplessly at him.

  He scooped her up and took off. Damn that manipulative human. He must have known Raea’s magic was weakening if he’d been able to detect her so clearly. What did he expect Kyne to do with all that cryptic information about some mysterious nearby outpost? Was it a trap? Kyne wasn’t falling for it. Nothing else mattered now except keeping Raea safe.

  Chapter Six

  “Where are we going?” Raea asked, tucking her tired body up against Kyne’s as he soared with her over the dark forest below.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think we should go up the mountain, to that abandoned outpost.”

  “No.”

  “But your father clearly wanted you to go there.”

  “That’s exactly why we won’t go there.”

  Obviously, it was futile to use his father as a means to motivate him. She should have known that would be the case. But there was a reason the man had hinted about the outpost. It would be worth their while to check it out.

  “You think it’s a trap?” she asked carefully. “Why would he do that? He could have just turned you over to Wain twice already.”

  “He’s playing some sort of game. I refuse to play with him.”

  “It could be important.”

  “Getting you someplace safe is important.”

  “And where will that be, Kyne? Everyone’s looking for us.”

  “No, everyone’s looking for me. They don’t know about you.”

  He was being sweet. Misguided, but sweet. She wasn’t about to let him put what he thought she needed ahead of the bigger picture here, though.

  “Of course they know about me. How could they not? I was with you at the lake when Swift found us. He’s bound to know I never went back to the gathering place. Everyone will know I’m missing. If I return there right now, it will only draw more attention to the fact that I’ve been gone.”