A Kind of Magic

by Shanna Swendson

  Since their names were in the official police report, Michael assumed that they’d ended up in some media outlet. Or Sophie was right and Josephine was the one who’d dumped the kids and had been there to see them being found. If Sophie was at all surprised that Josephine knew or was admitting that she knew, she didn’t show it. She merely said, “We were just in the right place at the right time, I guess. Really, Beauregard deserves all the credit. He’s the one who found them.”

  Michael knew Sophie had scored a point when Josephine actually reacted to that and asked, “Beauregard?” before she could catch herself.

  “My sister’s dog.” Sophie glanced up at Michael, and a delicate pink flush tinted her cheeks before she turned away from him. “We were out walking him.”

  Michael was impressed with her ability to blush on cue. He figured she was giving Josephine the impression that the two of them had been out together on entirely non-magic-related business. Playing along, he moved his arm so that it was slightly behind Sophie on the couch, not quite touching her, but still suggesting that he was on the verge of putting his arm around her.

  “I don’t know what whoever took them was thinking,” Sophie continued, her drawl thickening ever so slightly. “Leaving those poor babies out on a night like that. They could have died of exposure.”

  “It does seem like it was someone who’d be sure the children would be found soon,” Josephine said, her voice dripping with sarcasm and her glare pointed firmly at Sophie. “It was almost as though they were set up to be found by the right people.”

  Was she trying to say that Sophie took the kids so she could find them? He tensed, ready to defend her, but she brushed the side of his leg with her fingers as she leaned over to put a small piece of cake on her plate. He thought for a second he heard a faint “shush” from inside his head.

  “Or someone was baiting a trap for the fae,” Sophie said before taking a dainty bite of cake. Michael thought that sounded like another point scored.

  Again, Josephine lost enough control to blurt, “A trap?”

  Sophie calmly finished chewing her cake and took a sip of tea. “Well, who else would you expect to find children left alone in a nearly empty park on a cold night with only a sliver of moonlight? Fairies may not have been able to take them out of their beds in a midtown high-rise, but they wouldn’t be able to resist them in the park. It was almost as though someone was determined to make it look like the fae were up to some mischief.”

  And that was another point, by Michael’s calculation. Josephine’s grasp on her fork tightened until her knuckles went white. Athena said, “Anyone need a refill? And please, help yourself to cake. We should have made scones, I suppose, but we didn’t realize we’d have company when we made tea.”

  Sophie continued as though Athena hadn’t spoken. “Of course, whoever did this was only revealing how little they knew about the fae in the first place. If you really wanted to make it look like children were taken by fairies, you’d steal those already in the park or at least take them from an adjacent building. Even I’d have suspected them in that case. This was just sloppy. I can’t believe they expected enchantresses to fall for it.” She added a soft “tsk” for good measure.

  The tea in Josephine’s cup sloshed, not quite going over the rim. Athena audibly held her breath. Amelia uncrossed her ankles and leaned slightly forward, shifting her weight onto her feet in preparation for standing quickly. Michael was torn between putting a protective arm around Sophie and putting his hand on his sidearm. Sophie took another bite of cake, dabbed icing off her lips with her napkin and said, “Athena, this cake is so moist. You’ll have to give me your secret.”

  “I substitute honey for some of the sugar,” Athena said, her voice a little higher than normal and taut with nerves. Her glance darted from Josephine to Sophie to Amelia and back again.

  “Do you add it with the liquid or when you’re creaming together the butter and sugar?” Sophie asked, sounding for all the world like this was some kind of church social. If Michael didn’t know her, he’d have thought she alone was oblivious to the tension in the room, but he recognized the subtle signs that her apparent calm was actually yet another strike in this battle. Her posture was stiff, and her feet were square on the floor, still in their shoes. Her voice had a syrupy quality that was so sweet it came back around to being poisonous.

  “It depends on when I remember to do it,” Athena said with a nervous little laugh and a sidelong glance at Josephine, who was starting to simmer down.

  “The cake is good,” Josephine said stiffly. “I’d love to stay and have some more, but I really must run.”

  “Oh, so soon?” Amelia said, not even trying to fake sincerity. “Let me show you out.”

  As soon as Josephine was gone, Sophie let out a long, deep breath and sagged back against the sofa. She tensed slightly when she hit Michael’s arm instead, but she didn’t move away. He wasn’t sure if he should actually put his arm around her. She looked like she could use the comfort, but Sophie wasn’t the touchy type. “Okay, now we know she did it,” she said.

  “That’s what it looked like to me,” he agreed. “I don’t think she’d have been so angry if she’d had nothing to do with it. If I’d had her in an interrogation room, that’s when I’d have known to really go after her.” He glanced around at the women. “You weren’t expecting me to go after her, were you?”

  “You’d never find any actual evidence of her involvement,” Amelia said with a shake of her head. “Nothing that would stand up in your courts.”

  “I’m afraid she is going to come after me,” Sophie said, sounding so dejected that Michael rested his hand lightly on her shoulder in a show of solidarity.

  “How do you mean?” Athena asked.

  “Think about it—this totally failed for her plan A of making it look like the fae were stealing children. Her plan B of saving the kids from the fae when they were dumped in the park also failed. I really messed things up by scaring off any fae in the park instead of fighting them when we found the children. But now she can say about me everything I’ve been saying about her and claim that I took the kids so I could look like a hero in finding them. I have no more evidence than she does, and now she can look like the white knight saving the enchantresses from a bad element.”

  “Not if I have any say about it,” Amelia said, then turned and stalked from the room.

  Sophie bounced to her feet. “I need to take a walk.”

  “Do you want company?” Michael asked.

  She turned to look at him with eyes that were suspiciously bright. “Sure,” she said with a one-shouldered shrug.

  Even though the wind off the river was bitter, they walked through Riverside Park. Sophie was so angry that she practically radiated enough heat to keep both of them warm, though. “I fell right into it,” she fumed.

  “You stopped her other plans. Maybe someone had to make the sacrifice,” Michael suggested tentatively. “You don’t think she’s learned who you really are, do you?”

  She stopped and looked at him, her face lighting up. “You know, you’re right! For all she knows, I’m a very junior enchantress. I may be on her hit list for vengeance, but I’m not that important in the grand scheme of things. Taking me down does little good, other than making her feel better. You really are brilliant.” She surprised him by throwing her arms around him in a quick hug, but before he had a chance to hug her back, she’d already pulled away. “So I’ll keep playing the junior enchantress who’s having fun foiling her because I’m a terrible queen bee. Let her take it out on me, and that distracts her from Amelia and Athena.”

  “Okay, that part is your plan. I just came up with the part about you not being all that important to her.”

  She didn’t seem to have heard him because she was on a tear. “But that means I need to be extra careful about the fairy stuff, just at the time when I really could use the firepower. Are you up for heading over to Central Park? I need to talk to your Mrs.
Smith.”

  “Sure.”

  A few flakes of snow began fluttering earthward as they walked. “Is this early for snow?” she asked. “I don’t remember it before Thanksgiving.”

  “It depends. It’s not the heavy stuff we get later in the year, but we get a few flurries.” He looked up. “There’s something different about this, though.”

  “It’s almost magical, huh?”

  “You think so?”

  “I don’t know. But is it so bad if the world does become a little more magical?” She lifted her hand and the snowflakes formed themselves into an icy flower before scattering again.

  “I don’t suppose there’s any harm in that kind of thing,” he said.

  “On the other extreme, we have evil fairy horses dragging people into the water. Josephine may be up to something nefarious, but she’s not entirely wrong about things changing and the danger that might bring. It’s been so long since the fae could be active in our world on such a scale that we’ve lost the knowledge of how to deal safely with them.”

  “I thought if no one believed in fairies, they’d die off.”

  “It’s rather an existential question. If no one regards the actions of the fae as being supernatural, if it’s just another drowning or missing person, do they lose their power over us? Who’s in more danger from a kelpie, someone whose unbelief is so strong that they don’t even see a magical horse or someone who believes and hopes just enough to see, but who doesn’t know the danger?”

  “The woman killed by the kelpie seems to have fallen into that last category. So, is it better to encourage enough belief to make people take the danger seriously or to encourage a lack of belief strong enough that it counts as protection?” he mused.

  “I’m not sure it’s possible to do either deliberately. Can you imagine trying to get booked on a cable news show to talk about the growing fairy threat and how to prepare yourself? And how do you even go about telling people not to believe in fairies? That’s pretty much the status quo, aside from a few dreamers.”

  They reached Broadway and were suddenly no longer quite so alone on the sidewalk, so both of them, by unspoken agreement, changed the subject. He couldn’t help but admire the way Sophie moved through a crowd as though she didn’t see the other people, and yet she never ran into anyone or acted like she expected them to get out of her way. She just seemed to somehow flow, and he followed in her wake. Was it a function of her personality, her dancer’s grace, her fae heritage, her magical gifts, or perhaps a combination?

  “I wonder if we should stop and get Beau,” she said as they neared Michael and Emily’s building.

  He checked his watch. “Emily should be getting out of the Sunday matinee soon, so I think Beau would rather wait for her.” He caught her fleeting smile and asked, “What?”

  “You have Beau all figured out, do you?”

  “He’s my best bud. We’ve got a real bromance going on.”

  “Oh dear, we really do need to get you a life.”

  “Hey, I just went to a tea party, I’m about to take a nice walk in the park with a pretty lady, and I was out last night with the same pretty lady. I think my social life is looking good right now.”

  “If you say so,” she said, but she kept her eyes straight ahead and picked up her pace slightly, so that he had to jog to catch up. Had he made her angry? Should he tell her he was just joking about the pretty lady part? But he wasn’t, he had to admit. She was pretty, and he enjoyed her company. He might even enjoy it more if they could ever spend time together without dealing with fairies and enchantresses.

  Someone was playing the violin on the sidewalk outside the park, and he didn’t think it was the same player he’d seen the day before. A small crowd had gathered, and a few children danced to the music.

  “And the world becomes a little more magical,” Sophie murmured, echoing his own thoughts. If this really had anything to do with a growth in magic, could it be that bad?

  He led her down the paths where he was most likely to encounter Mrs. Smith. Although he’d been the one to say they should leave Beau behind, it felt weird to him to be walking in the park without the dog. It had become such a habit lately.

  “She might not be out today,” he suggested when they’d walked a while without seeing the wise woman. “I asked if she had a place to stay when it was cold, and she laughed at me, so maybe she’s inside somewhere warm.”

  They both turned their heads at the sound of distant music. “That’s no street-corner violinist,” he said. It was wilder, odder, a pure melody that he couldn’t manage to hum, played to a rhythm that made him want to dance, and he didn’t dance.

  She listened for a moment. The toe of her right foot tapped along with the music, then she seemed to notice it and stopped. “No. It’s not,” she agreed.

  “We should probably look into it, huh?”

  “Maybe.” She glanced around, looking worried.

  “You really think Cruella’s evil twin is stalking you? She’s probably too busy telling every enchantress on the East Coast that you’re trying to use the increased fae activity to boost your own position.”

  “Gee, thanks, that makes me feel so much better.” With a rueful smile, she added, “But you’re probably right. I’m not important enough to be stalked.”

  They continued down the path, following the sound of the music. Michael wasn’t entirely sure he’d have been able to resist seeking out the source. It drew him closer, his feet operating outside his own control.

  They reached a lamppost twined with a thorny vine. He was pretty sure he’d seen it in the park before, but it could just as easily have come straight from Narnia. Was it possible for something to exist simultaneously in both the real world and the fairy realm?

  He had to wonder, because around and behind the lamppost, the late autumn starkness of the park was replaced with the lush greenery of summer. Inside the green area, fairies in the wispy attire of the free fae danced and played music. Little lights that looked like fireflies, but that he suspected were some of the tiny fae creatures, darted around the flowers.

  “What is it, the Realm seeping through?” he whispered.

  “Possibly.” She moved forward until her toes nearly touched the border between November and endless summer. She raised one hand, and the air shimmered around it, temporarily distorting the view of the dancers. After a moment, she said, “Actually, I think we’re seeing the Realm. There’s hardly a barrier between the worlds.”

  “I thought the Realm was underground,” Michael protested. “When we went in through the passage to the Borderlands, we went through a tunnel, and the tree roots were like tree trunks there.”

  “Well, yes and no. You can reach it physically that way, but it’s also a different plane of existence.”

  “And now those planes are merging?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “That can’t be good.”

  Seventeen

  Central Park

  Immediately afterward

  Sophie knew what she was seeing, but she was having a hard time wrapping her mind around it and all the implications that went with it. From the sounds of it, Michael was also struggling. “So if we can get to the Realm by going underground, then how are we seeing it here, on the same level?”

  “This is like a window into that plane. Most of the time, it’s like there’s a wall between the planes. There are gateways that can be opened by people who know how to do it. If they’re open, you might be able to see through them if you’ve got the gift of seeing the fae. If they’re closed, it’s like the wall is intact. This is like someone knocked a hole in the wall, creating a gateway that stays open. Any fae could get through it into our world.”

  “Haven’t they been getting through all along? Eamon practically commutes between worlds.”

  “Do you remember the Berlin Wall?”

  “Not personally, but yeah, I recall the concept.”

  “You could get through it at the checkp
oints if you had the right clearance, but not everyone could get through all the time. The usual gateways are like Checkpoint Charlie—some fae can get through and visit our world for a limited amount of time. Some aren’t allowed to go back and are stuck here for good. This is like someone knocked a hole in the Berlin Wall, and now everyone can get through.”

  “Which could explain the kelpies, selkies, and nixies showing up all of a sudden. Is it an invasion?”

  She tried accessing the haphazard array of fairy information that had come when she put on the crown of the Realm, looking for precedents or explanations. “I think a lot of the barriers are to protect our side—the human side—from the fae. They seem to have been put up by human enchanters. But that doesn’t tell us who’s punching holes in them. The fae may be breaking free, in which case we probably ought to warn Nana. Or someone might be trying to let them out.”

  “Or get in.”

  She turned to look at him. “Maybe, but only if they had no clue what they were getting into. Let’s test it. You can see through it. Try walking through it.”

  He took a deep breath before stepping forward. She was impressed that he didn’t flinch as he approached the border. Nothing held him back, but he also didn’t seem to be in the summer world. “It’s cold over here. I think I’m still in the park,” he reported.

  “Then let’s see if it works like a regular gateway, where I can get you through.” He returned to her, and she held out her hand for him to take. They were both wearing gloves, so there was no actual contact, but she could have sworn there was a spark that felt like static electricity. His eyes widened slightly, telling her he’d felt it, too. “Sorry, I think I had a lot of magic built up from not doing anything to Josephine this afternoon,” she said. “I should probably turn someone into a frog to get it out of my system.”

  “Find someone else. I don’t have any candidates for kissing me to break the curse.”

  “You know, in the original story, the princess broke the curse by throwing the frog against the wall,” she said with a grin, mostly to stop herself from telling him she could take care of the kissing.