She didn’t look as she had in the woods. Color filled her cheeks. Gone were the rabbit ears and fur, affording him a better view of her. She had a kindly look, her face the shape and shade of an acorn. If not for her round ears and the absence of wings, he’d have thought she belonged to the southern moorlands.
“Jessa,” he said, and she looked at him. “Your name is Jessa.”
She turned to the other young female—Relle. “You’ve got to untie him. This is crazy.”
“We can’t.”
Her gazed hardened. “Because he’s dangerous, or because he’s a hostage?”
Ionia rapped her knuckles against the metal arm of her chair, lips thinning as she addressed Relle. “You were meant to spell these memories from her. That task will prove more difficult each time she sees something she shouldn’t.”
“I told you I wouldn’t do that unless she agreed, and she hasn’t.”
“And I’m not going to either,” Jessa said, though her voice wasn’t entirely steady. “I don’t know what spelling is, but I doubt it’s healthy for my—for me.” Some thought he couldn’t read passed behind her eyes as she glanced down at herself.
“I would never do anything to harm you, Jessa.” Hurt flashed over Relle’s face.
Jessa knelt beside his chair. “His hands are turning blue. I’m untying him.”
“You see now?” Ionia pointed. “She doesn’t understand, and you are too young to see the danger in her ignorance. Or your own, for that matter.”
Despite her words, she must have decided he wasn’t the threat they’d claimed, for she made no move to stop Jessa as she worked on the knots that bound him. And truly, without his knives, his blade, or magic, any attack would be suicidal. When the ropes came free, he subdued a hiss as blood rushed back into his fingers.
“Sorry,” she murmured, bringing to mind her other stricken apologies after removing the arrow from his shoulder.
“It’s I who should apologize,” he said. “My pain is not your doing.”
“No, that task falls to me,” Ionia observed, angling the sword like a bar across his chest. It seemed less a threat than a way to discourage him from moving from his seat. She turned her attention to Relle. “I know you value Katie, but setting aside that I refuse to be blackmailed by trolls, it’s too risky to give the pixie to them. He can’t be allowed to return to his world under any circumstances. He’ll tell the fairies about our existence. That’s why he’s here, after all.”
Simith barely kept himself from arguing the point again. She would listen to nothing more from him. If it came to it, he’d rather she had her attention elsewhere when he tried to escape, even a far-fetched, likely futile attempt.
Relle shook her head. “Everyone knows Katie in this town, Granny. If she disappears, there’ll be consequences. More people will come snooping around here.”
“This is exactly the reason I told you to stay away.” Her mouth twisted. “What do you suggest, child?”
Relle paced a few steps. “What if we simply agree to the exchange, get Katie, and recapture him afterward?”
“And how shall we agree to an exchange we have no intention of honoring? Neither of us can lie.”
She smiled. “We just won’t say how long they can have him. Once Katie is safe, we can let the trees take care of the trolls.”
“Along with the pixie.” Her grandmother’s eyes glinted. “That has potential.”
Simith’s chin dipped. It seemed there was avoiding the torment awaiting him. Hopefully those trees would crush him before the trolls resumed what they’d started. Relle cut a worried look at Jessa who watched with a tight expression.
“Couldn’t we just make him promise not to say anything?” Relle tried.
“Nonsense. The fairies have his true name. They’ll compel him to foreswear himself. Go and ready a return missive—"
“No,” Jessa said in a low voice. “No, you can’t give him to them.”
Startled silence fell. All eyes turned to her, including his. She grimaced beneath their collective scrutiny.
“It’s just so we can get Katie back,” Relle told her gently. “And we’ll,” she glanced sidelong at Ionia, “discuss about what happens afterward once she’s safe.”
“They were doing something to him.” Jessa knotted her fingers together. “There was a strange knife and some kind of magic. The sounds he made when it touched him,” she shuddered and Simith nearly did the same. “They’ll do it again as soon as you hand him over. You can’t.”
He stared at her. Was she…defending him? She didn’t even know him. The appreciation he felt before swelled in his chest.
“A knife,” Ionia settled her flinty regard to him. “What kind of knife?”
“They have a Sorrow Blade,” he said.
“Do they.” She exhaled between her teeth and removed the barricade of his sword to set it across her lap again. “Well then. That changes things.”
“What’s a Sorrow Blade?” Relle asked. “You’ve never spoken of them before.”
“It’s something the Fae should never have forged. A living blade so ravenous for grief, its hunger nearly destroyed our civilization.” She laughed humorlessly. “Until the fairies, of course. I’d have thought those feckless usurpers would know better than to raid the forbidden armories. How do trolls have possession of one?”
“They were used in the war,” Simith said. With the sword gone, he covertly assessed the room for exits. He spied a window. Closed, unfortunately. “Some were lost in battle and used against us. A pact was made to no longer wield them.”
“Another broken oath? These are strange trolls pursuing you, pixie.” She tapped one foot against the floorboards. “I can annul the blade if it’s separated from the handler. That must be our priority.”
Relle stepped forward. “But Katie—”
“Her welfare will be secured with the trolls’ defeat,” her grandmother snapped. “We cannot have a Sorrow Blade loose in a realm as defenseless against magic as this one. Believe me, you don’t wish to see the reach of its power when unchecked.”
“How long until dawn?” Simith asked.
“Not for hours yet.”
“Why does dawn matter?” Jessa said and Simith turned, surprised to find her still beside his chair.
“Sunlight turns their flesh to stone.” He looked at Relle. “What of the trees? You had planned to let them smother the trolls after the exchange.”
“The trees on this side are much younger than the ones you came by. They might hurt Katie in the process.”
Quiet descended. Every possibility he considered fell short of success.
Jessa cleared her throat. “I have an idea.”
Chapter Six
It was a terrible idea.
By the time she and Simith approached her greenhouse at the back of her gardens, Jessa was certain her plan would get them all killed. What was she thinking, piping up in a conversation about creatures that had only existed in fairytales for her until now? It wasn’t as if she knew much about them regardless. Magical realism was as fantastical as her adult literature tastes extended.
“This way,” she motioned him toward the side entrance and away from the glass double doors at the front. “Those squeak when they open, um…It’s Simith, right? Not Smith?”
He nodded, surveying their surroundings in the same ceaseless manner since they’d left the Neverstem house. They’d given the trees a wide berth in case their enemy was watching. Relle had assured them the trolls couldn’t leave the forest until they opened the border to arrange the swap, but he’d remained on guard nonetheless. Jessa appreciated his vigilance but since he was unarmed, she questioned what he could do if an attack came. Ionia outright refused to return his sword and knives to him. Part of her was glad—she couldn’t help but feel wary after what had happened before—but a greater part feared the old woman had done it less out of distrust than for ease of recapture. Relle said they’d discuss his fate afterward. Jessa didn’t lik
e the sound of that at all.
“Your garden is vast,” Simith commented as she closed the greenhouse door behind him. “You and your kin must have great skill in the green world for it to flourish so.”
“The fuse box is this way.” Grabbing the flashlight from the shelf beside the door, she side-stepped him to head toward the back. Her arm brushed the side of his wings hanging down his back. Shockingly soft. “We’ll be able to turn on all the lights at once from there.”
“And these mimic the sun.” He gazed upward at the LED tubes affixed to the ceiling. “How do you capture daylight without magic?”
“Science.” She pushed a clay planter out of their path with her foot, annoyed that she hadn’t taken the time to clean up the place since replanting in the spring. “It’s the ultra-violet rays that make sunlight different from regular light.”
“Your people study such things?”
“Some do. I’m just a liberal arts major.” Reaching the back corner, she popped open the fuse box, checking to make sure none had been tripped or appeared damaged. The plan was to set Simith out as bait. When the trolls came in, Jessa would flip on all the grow lights and turn them to stone. Hopefully.
In theory, it was a sound strategy, but it also assumed the laws of nature functioned the same here as they did in the other world. Who could say if their sunlight didn’t have some additional hocus pocus that petrified their bodies? If this didn’t work, they’d kill Simith and Katie. Anxious sweat beaded between her shoulder blades. Simith didn’t deserve the fate they’d deal him, and Katie…Jessa prayed she wasn’t going through anything like what they’d done to him. She couldn’t lose her. Jessa wasn’t the type to have best friends, even before the accident. What would become of her if the worst happened? No family. No friends. She’d disappear entirely.
Concentrate on what you can control.
The fuse box. That was her job. If this whole thing failed it wouldn’t be because of a busted wire.
As she finished her inspection a few minutes later, the noisy drag of table legs over tile made her turn. Simith pulled one closer to her.
“What’re you doing?”
“You haven’t ample cover back here,” he said, nudging it into place. “Trolls can see in the dark. Your position must be concealed. What are these bags?” He pointed and she cast her flashlight at a lump of shadows.
“Pea gravel. Landscape stones.”
Her eyebrows went up as he hefted two fifty-pound bags like they were filled with feathers and stacked them on the table. She peered around the tower to see him frowning at them.
“Still too exposed,” he muttered. “Do you have more?”
She extended a hand toward a few buckets full of potting soil standing in the corner. He hauled them over.
“You’re not how I’d imagine a pixie,” she found herself saying.
He slid a curious glance her way before lifting both buckets onto the table. “I thought my kind didn’t exist here.”
“It doesn’t, but we do have stories. Fairytales.”
“Fairytales.” That seemed to amuse him. “How are we imagined in them?”
“As fluttery things. Lots of bright color and glitter.”
“And I have insufficient sparkle?”
“Not insufficient per se. Your wings are pretty.”
“Are they?” The corners of his eyes crinkled.
Her face heated. “I don’t often contemplate mythical creatures, but I wouldn’t have thought pixies would be so…”
He shifted the weight-laden table behind a few crates. “Yes?”
She waggled her fingers, adjectives abandoning her utterly. “Substantial.” There, that was a neutral word.
He came around the open side of the table and thumped one corner. “This will have to do, but be careful you aren’t spotted between any gaps.”
“I will.”
“Come, it’s time to tie me up.”
Jessa pointed the flashlight ahead and led the way.
“It’s sprites you’re thinking of,” Simith said.
“Sorry?”
“The willowy creatures with colorful, glitter-dust wings are sprites, not pixies. As you say, we are more,” he paused, “substantial.”
The emphasis he gave that made her squirm. So much for neutral words.
She slowed as they neared the center. “Is this far enough?”
“A bit closer to the doors. I don’t wish them to balk at the entry.” He hesitated. “You are certain none of your kin could venture this direction? If so, you must warn them to—”
“The house is empty.” Jessa realized how sharply she’d snapped when he didn’t reply. It took her aback. She hadn’t bristled at anyone like that since the funerals. No one asked about the house. They knew it was empty. Silence lived there; the loving home it had once been gone forever. She brushed a hand across her abdomen. Children needed love in their home…
“Are you all right?” Simith asked quietly.
“Fine.”
She shouldn’t have snapped at him. Should she apologize? He didn’t look offended.
“Why are you at war with the trolls?” Jessa asked, opting to change the subject.
“All peoples in my world require a conduit to wield their magic,” he said. “Each race uses something different, something that enhances their magic better than anything else. The fairies can use any gemstone, but the diamonds of the Twilight Grotto work better than the stones found in their lands.”
“I’m guessing these grottos belong to the trolls.”
“Correct. There was an attempt at trade, but it devolved into conflict that spilled across the realm a century past. The pixie clans joined the fairy legion ten years ago after the trolls burned our moorlands.” His voice lowered. “Attacking our homes is a tactic they continue to use.”
Jessa glanced over her shoulder at him. His eyes held a faraway look she knew from herself, full of old pain, ground in so deep it was impossible to imagine a time when it wasn't there.
She dropped back to walk beside him. “What do pixies use for conduits?”
“A tattoo carved into our skin with evergreen ink. The ink is rare, made from the sap of trees found in a forest near the Giant Hills. On our eighth name day, our parents take us to collect the sap and decide the emblem we wish to bear.” He touched his chest with a faint smile. “Afterward, there’s a celebration.”
It sounded like a lovely tradition. Jessa thought of her own tattoo, the letters and numbers written down the column of her spine to the small of her back. The pain of the needle had seemed cleansing at the time, but now she could swear she felt each of them like a weight that would never lift.
FLIGHT 276
She cleared her throat and halted. "Let's put you here, by my workbench. There's a clear view to this spot from the front doors and more room to maneuver in case you need it." She gestured to the wedge of space separating it from the aisles.
"Very well."
He turned his back to her, joining his hands behind him so Jessa could tie the bonds. She took the ropes Relle had given her from her pocket, and grimaced at the raw, bruised circle of skin at his wrists. Spying a succulent on her workbench, she paused.
“Wait. Let me put this on first.”
He faced her. “We haven’t much time.”
“This won’t take a second.” She snapped off one of the fleshy leaves. “It’s just a bit of aloe. It works as an ointment on cuts and burns.”
He allowed her to take his arm, watching as she squeezed the plant’s clear gel-like liquid onto one wrist. “You’re a healer?”
She snorted. “This is the extent of my expertise unless you count knowing Band-Aids should be applied with the sticky side down.”
Gently, she spread the aloe over the abrasion. It felt cool on her fingers in contrast to the warm night and his even warmer skin.
He exhaled softly. “It is soothing.”
“Good. You’ve had a lot of hurts over the past few hours.”
/>
“It has been a long night,” he agreed. “What is your occupation, if not a healer?”
Such a common question. She wondered if it would ever stop feeling so loaded.
“I used to write poetry,” she said. “Now, I just teach it.”
He stilled. “You are a maker of verse?”
The reverence in his voice was endearing. “That’s a more heroic description than I’d give it.” She switched to his other wrist.
“Those who use words as their instrument are held in high esteem among my kind. From your fingers, whole realms of thought are sprung.” He eased his wrist from her grasp. “And they should not be salving the cuts of a mere soldier.”
“Soldiers aren’t viewed highly?”
“Violence wasn’t our way until the war, but the courage of knights is valued.” A muscle moved along his jaw. “Brutality is not.”
The shame in his voice pulled on her stomach. She didn’t know anything about war, but she understood the look in his eyes; the devouring grief, the vanishing self. She, too, had seen the stranger staring back from the mirror.
Jessa set the ropes on the workbench. “I’m not tying you up.”
He glanced at her empty hands. “What?”
“Relle and Ionia only want to make sure you can’t run, but if something goes wrong, you’ll need to defend yourself.”
His brown eyes held hers, inscrutable. “You shouldn’t trust that I won’t abandon you if something does go wrong. You don’t know me.”
“You saved my life.”
"After causing the harm, and you had already saved my life."
"Yes, and it was a lot of trouble, so I'm not about to let you lose it now."
"Jessa." He ran a hand over his mouth and sighed. "If this works, I will run. The Fae won’t let me go even if we succeed."
"I know. That’s why I’m not tying you up."
He gazed down at her.
“You didn’t come here looking for them. I was there. You didn’t even know where you were.”
He moved closer. “Why do you defend me?” he asked, though it sounded more like a plea.
“I…don’t know.”
“Jessa—” His head snapped toward the door. His hand closed over hers on the flashlight. “They’re coming.”
Hidden Magic Page 6