Violet Wings

by Victoria Hanley

  A Violet fairy. That was who I was to them--who I was and always would be. Not Zaria Tourmaline, who loved both Earth and Feyland, a fairy with friends she would die for, a unique being with a full heart.

  Good. I found myself glad I didn't have to explain how

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  I overcame troll magic. I had done it. For now, that was all I knew about it anyway.

  "The question is," Renclair was saying, "what does Lily Morganite want?"

  While they paused to think, Leona spoke up. "Now that you know Lily Morganite is the real criminal," she said in a ringing voice, "you should stop using your radia against me and my friends."

  They were silent. Silent, and very grim-faced.

  Finally Zircon spoke. "Quite right," he rumbled. "You youngsters have helped uncover a malevolent plot."

  "And," Leona continued, brandishing her wand, "there will be no more talk of how Violet fairies should not be friends with other Violet fairies."

  The magistria looked flustered. "I suppose if you are friends, you are friends," she mumbled.

  Leona and I exchanged smiles.

  "Good," Leona said. "So, what is the Council going to do about Lily Morganite?"

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  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  IF THE DURABLE SPELLS WERE TO FAIL, IMPORTANT STRUCTURES WOULD DEGENERATE. FOR EXAMPLE, WITHOUT THE ALARMS EMBEDDED IN THE GATEWAY OF GALENA, YOUNG FAIRIES AND GENIES WOULD NOT HAVE THE CHANCE TO GROW UP INSIDE PROTECTED TERRITORY.

  IMPORTANT LINKS BETWEEN FEY FOLK AND HUMANS WOULD BE UNDONE. IT WOULD NO LONGER BE POSSIBLE TO SEND GIFTS TO HUMAN CHILDREN THROUGH THE SENDING PORTS OF SCOPES, NOR WOULD IT BE POSSIBLE TO WATCH OVER THEIR WELFARE.

  PERHAPS EVEN THE NECESSARY AND EVER-PRESENT FLOW OF THE ENERGY OF HAPPINESS MADE BY HUMANS WOULD BE DISRUPTED, THOUGH MOST SCHOLARS DISPUTE THAT IDEA.

  --Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland

  Everyone seemed to be talking at once. Leona, the councilors, Meteor . . . they were asking and answering, discussing and exclaiming, arguing and persuading. Their

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  words jumbled together in my ears. I hovered silent, immersed in my own thoughts.

  Five years ago the durable spells had begun to show signs of wear, and five years ago my brother had told me Feyland was about to change. "Forgood," he had said confidently. "For good."

  Then he was gone. And so, a short time later, were my parents.

  Wolframite had reported that they had traveled to Earth. Bloodstone had often sneered about my "foolhardy" family. And Beryl had always assured me they died at the hands of humans.

  But the more I thought about it, the more those stories seemed like nursery tales, made up to explain a disaster to an orphaned child.

  Why would my father, a genie even Lily had called resourceful--and my mother, a Blue fairy with a spellbook full of advanced magic--fall prey to vicious humans on Earth? My brother was no fool, either!

  What if laying the blame on humans was totally wrong? What if Jett, Gilead, and Cinna Tourmaline had discovered Lily Morganite was stealing radia and tried to stop her?

  Lily's pearly eyes appeared in my memory, and I heard her sweet voice goading me: "You want to hear about your family. Naturally, you do. And I can tell you, Zaria. The whole story."

  I stood lost to the scene around me, my anguished mind beating the same idea up and down, around and

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  through, over and over: it was Lily who had made my family disappear.

  Leona had said I drove Lily away. It was true, but only because I had been lucky enough to catch her off her guard. But what now? How many radia did she have in reserve? "Many millions," 'Wolframite had said.

  I opened my watch-face cover to check my own reserves. What I saw horrified me. The tiny golden hand had moved a full notch. It pointed to the mark just under nine million radia.

  In less than one day, I had used a million radia!

  Frantically, I thought back. Since I had last checked the radia hand on my watch, I had thrown up the wall to block the chamber from the dais and tampered with the blue curtain. That might have used as much as five hundred radia. The spells to banish layered magic on Leona and then the councilors ... a protection spell against layered magic for Andalonus ...

  Even added together, the amount would not make the golden hand on my watch drop so far.

  What else had I done?

  The indigo bottle in my pocket felt suddenly heavier. With a jolt, I realized it must have taken great quantities of magic to make the troll cloak disintegrate. Close to a million radia.

  I had summoned all that magic involuntarily, and without the use of my wand.

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  How?

  My head was beginning to hurt, and then suddenly Meteor was hugging me, his smile deep and warm, his emerald eyes sparkling.

  "We did it," he said. "We did it!"

  Puzzled, I pulled back. He bent his head down, and his smile faded. "Aren't you happy? We'll be exonerated. And the Council will proclaim Lily Morganite an outcast."

  "Of course I'm happy," I said dully.

  I watched Leona and Andalonus passing out wands to the councilors, their movements bouncy and joyful.

  The councilors seemed less enthusiastic.

  Meteor put a finger under my chin. "You're exhausted," he said.

  I sighed. Later, I would tell him my thoughts. Later, when I could grasp the meaning.

  "Well," Magistria Lodestone declared, "this has been a productive meeting. But now we councilors have more work to do--and you youngsters should get some rest."

  She rose loftily from her perch. As she sailed toward the curtain, followed by the other councilors and Renclair, I waved my wand.

  "The exit is open," I muttered.

  None of them took any more notice of me than they took of the sleeping members of the Radia Guard, but Meteor stared, his green eyes full of curiosity.

  Andalonus gave a mighty yawn. "Let's go home."

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  Home. The word tolled in my heart. How could I go back to my empty dwelling alone? No Beryl to greet me. No Beryl ever again. Now, when I understood how much she had cared about me, she was dead. Murdered. Sobs threatened to engulf me again. I choked them back.

  Andalonus looked stricken. "I'm sorry, Zaria. I didn't think about Miss Danburite."

  Meteor patted my shoulder. "They took her body away," he said. "I wish I could have revived her, Zaree. I did all I could, but she was gone."

  "Thank you," I whispered.

  "I'll stay with you tonight," Leona said, her silver eyes soft. "You shouldn't be alone."

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  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  WHEN FAIRIES AND GENIES REACH THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN, THEY LEAVE GALENA FOR OBERON CLTY OR ONE OF THE PROVINCES.

  --Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland

  I lifted the spell on the curtain but left the wall of granite where it was. If the councilors wanted it removed, they could do it themselves.

  The heavy bottle of powder weighed me down as I flew toward the Gateway of Galena with my friends. I flapped almost as much as Leona did with her injured wing. As usual, she refused help. "I'm learning to adapt," she said when Andalonus offered his support. "But thank you."

  I looked covertly at Meteor, wondering how many bruises he was hiding as he floated beside me.

  I dreaded passing through the gateway, but the councilors must have done something to quell any crowds; it was almost deserted. Leona hesitated, but when she saw me go past the pillars, she followed.

  The genies asked whether they could come over later to keep Leona and me company for a while. I said,

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  "Of course," and watched them race away.

  Leona showed no desire to go home. "My father will be there, taking care of my mother. If he doesn't see me today, he'll shout at me tomorrow. But if I go home now, he'll shout at me today. He says it was my mother's fault she got burned by a human; I'm sure he'll say I became a criminal to spite hi
m."

  After Leona and I landed outside my door, it took me a few minutes to get up the courage to enter. The hush inside covered every surface and stuck to me like cobwebs. Without Leona, I 'would have felt paralyzed.

  "We should go through this place and get rid of any lurking enchantments," she said, drawing her wand.

  "I don't want to come across the spell that killed Beryl," I said, my voice rasping.

  "We don't have to see the spells. We can banish them without revealing them."

  I dragged forth my stylus. "I'll do it. You should start conserving your radia."

  She wouldn't listen, running her wand across walls and floors, calling out, "Banjan ex lomel!"

  I joined her, and together we finished the rooms downstairs. I paid special attention to all the jars of tea.

  Leona cleared Beryl's room so I wouldn't have to look at my guardian's silent nest or the neat rows of baskets where she had kept her things.

  I went slowly up to my mother's room. As I cleared it of hidden enchantments, I began to feel a sense of peace. At last,

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  this room could be a haven again. I touched the trees in the painting and let myself remember how good it felt to be near real trees on Earth.

  "Zaria?" Leona called.

  She was in the hallway by the last door. It was made of a sheet of raw copper, dark green. "I'll clear your fathers room," she said.

  How well she knew me. Soon, I would let myself remember my father and all the ways I missed him. Soon, I would explore the room he'd called his own.

  Soon, but not now.

  "Thank you," I told Leona, and drifted downstairs.

  I pulled the bottle of powder from my pocket and set it on the granite shelf next to the stove. It had a sinister air of waiting.

  "Waiting for what? Or whom?

  "What are you good for?" I asked the bottle uneasily.

  I doubted it was good for anything. Or anyone. It was probably extremely dangerous, something I should guard with great care.

  I lifted my wand and spoke quietly. "Only those who love me may enter this house as long as I'm alive; no one and nothing else may come into this house in any form. Without my permission, no spell may cross the threshold."

  Magic flowed through my wand, and into the stones and metal from which the house was built. The spell would use a lot of radia, but it was worth it to have a refuge.

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  Leona nestled among the patched pillows of Beryl's perch, looking tired and in pain.

  "How bad is your wing?" I asked.

  She sighed. "Better than it was. If that troggy gnome hadn't twisted it..."

  Silence began to build as I wished in vain for a way to drive away her suffering.

  "Have you ever wanted to enchant yourself with a forgetting spell?" she asked.

  I took the perch opposite her and thought for a while. "No," I answered. "I've tried to forget many things. But in the end, I would rather remember."

  "We'll all remember Beryl," she said.

  "Yes," I whispered.

  "But remembering some things is terrible. Being caged. Layered magic. Telling lies about my best friend." Leona looked haunted. "I've done so many things I regret."

  "Me, too," I said.

  "I let being a Violet go to my head. I went too far, Zaree. Putting a compulsion spell on my own mother! And I should never have blown up that human's house." She bit her lip. "I wish I could forget."

  I thought of Michael Seabolt and the way he had fallen to the ground when his memory was restored.

  "I keep thinking of Beryl the last time I saw her," I said. "So worn and tired, because of me."

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  "We could do a forgetting spell on each other," Leona said.

  I shook my head. "If we couldn't remember, we might make the same mistakes."

  She was quiet for a while. "At first, I thought it would be fun to be Violet," she said. "But now, I feel horribly responsible. I know I should use my powers with wisdom. Wisdom I don't have."

  "Maybe," I said, "we can help each other be more wise."

  In the evening, Andalonus and Meteor arrived with an enormous bowl of freshly picked sonnia. We gobbled the scarlet flowers and told one another the stories of our separate adventures.

  Leona's time in the Iron Lands had been short. "It's a hideous place," she said. "A desert, without magic of any kind. No one can even fly there." Gnomes had tried to get her to talk by threatening her wings. She had pretended to be unable to speak. Then they had moved her back into Feyland and taken her to Lily Morganite.

  "She laid layers and layers of magic on me, including a compulsion spell." Leona's silver wings flared out angrily. "Now she knows everything that I know." She gave me a meaningful look. "I'm sorry."

  "No one blames you," I said, shivering. "I can't imagine anything worse than being under a compulsion to Lily."

  Leona shook back her hair. "It's lucky the transfer of radia

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  can't be compelled. If it could, Lily would be much richer, and my reserves would be zero."

  It turned out that Leona had been looking for me when the gateway snared her.

  "But why?" I asked. It wasn't like her to wait for someone.

  She made a face. "I was afraid of the troll elixir for sealing the portal. I was hoping you would drink it, Zaree."

  Andalonus's smile reached his ears. "Afraid? You?'" he said.

  "Troll magic," Leona answered. "Unpredictable! What if I lost control?" She took another sonnia flower. "Where were you?" she asked me.

  "Sidetracked," I answered, pushing Sam to the back of my mind. "I'm very sorry."

  Before Leona could pursue it, Meteor launched into our side of the tale. When he got to what I did after drinking the elixir, Andalonus laughed long and loud, but Leona cringed.

  Meteor described how we'd sent Jason home unharmed. "Sorry we undid your spell, Leona," he said. "But it seemed best."

  She didn't argue.

  Fright tingled along my wings as I realized what came next in Meteor's tale. Sam had walked through the boulder right after I transported Jason away. I shot Meteor what I hoped was an eloquent glance.

  "You should tell the rest, Zaree," he said. "I want to hear about the cloak."

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  I smiled at him. When I took up the story, there was no word of Sam in anything I said. I skipped ahead to how Meteor and I had gone through the Golden Station and discovered that all Feyland was searching for Zaria Tourmaline.

  Meteor didn't correct me about Sam. But he wasn't satisfied with my report of how the troll cloak had turned to powder.

  "What you did was impossible," he insisted. "The councilors might have decided you weren't really wrapped in troll magic, but I think you were."

  "If it was impossible, then how did I do it?"

  "I don't know." His white eyebrows came together in a frown of concentration. "I'm beginning to believe there's something very different about you, Zaria. You seem to have unusual talents. How did you put up that wall? And how did you seal the indigo bottle?" His eyes gleamed. "And why did you act like you were giving permission to anyone who left FOOM through the blue curtain?"

  I shrugged uncomfortably. I didn't feel ready to talk about making up spells.

  "And," Meteor went on, "what sort of enchantment made all those spells rebound off you?"

  I sighed. Sometimes Meteor was too observant. "I'll tell you another time," I said, "if I ever understand it myself."

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  CHAPTER FIFTY NINE

  THE CREATION OF GLACIER CLOTH SHOWCASES FEY COMPREHENSION OF THE PRINCIPLES UNDERLYING TIME ITSELF, AND REQUIRES LEVEL IOO MAGIC. GLACIER CLOTH IS A FABRIC THAT FREEZES WHATEVER IT TOUCHES, THOUGH NOT AS ICE FREEZES IT FREEZES IN time.

  THE PRINCESS WHO BECAME KNOWN AS "SLEEPING BEAUTY" WAS WRAPPED IN GLACIER CLOTH. SHE DID NOT FIND THE EXPERIENCE UNPLEASANT, BUT SHE WAS A HUMAN, AFTER ALL. SHE DID NOT HAVE MAGIC OF HER OWN, ONLY THE MANY GIFTS HEAPED ON HER BY COMPETING GO
DMOTHERS. FOR HER, THE YEARS SPENT FROZEN WOULD HAVE SEEMED MUCH LIKE A DREAM.

  BUT GLACIER CLOTH IS NOT SO KIND TO FEY FOLK, A FAIRY OR GENIE IN GLACIER CLOTH DOES NOT SLEEP BUT IS PRESERVED, AWAKE BUT UNABLE TO MOVE. IT IS A LIVING DEATH, AN EXISTENCE OUTSIDE OF TIME. ANY WHO TRY TO FIGHT THE EFFECTS BECOME DRAINED OF THEIR RADIA RESERVES.

  --Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland

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  In the morning, I was barely aware of Leona nudging me to say good-bye before she left. We'd both gone to sleep in the main room on the perches where we'd been resting. I muttered something and fell back to sleep.

  I woke in the afternoon and stretched my cramped wings.

  There was so much to do.

  Several things gave me the strength to seek out Banburus Lazuli again. First, I was well protected. Second, I doubted that Laz had any more enchanted cloaks--or if he did, he wouldn't waste them on me. Third, he didn't seem to be friendly with gnomes. If he'd had a private legion to serve him, I would have seen them before.

  Last, and most important, I was desperate.

  The Ugly Mug had not changed. I don't know why I expected it would have. Though it was afternoon, plenty of tables were filled with energetic patrons swilling various aromatic brews. In the back of the room, a card game was happening. On the makeshift stage, a band of genies was setting up drums and tuning fiddles, blowing a few notes on silver flutes.

  I discovered that entering the place while visible was quite different from slinking along the walls unseen. Young as I was, before I was a wingspan past the door, I received many invitations to share a drink--everything from coffee to cocoa.

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  The stir I caused drew Laz's attention. He slapped his cards facedown and left the game. He ambled toward me, lank and unhurried, a large cup in one hand. I turned and left the tavern, knowing he would follow--and he did, around the side of his disreputable building.

  We faced each other. He shuffled his feet and then floated a few inches off the ground. I matched him, rising until our eyes were on a level.

  "Impressive bit of magic making that cloak disappear," he said, as if discussing the weather. "And what a moment you chose for it." His eyes shifted back and forth before settling on me. "It's good to know I can still be swindled now and again."