by Brian Olsen
“Gildglass, you know who I am, right?”
“You’re the Human King.”
“And do you know how human laws work?”
He shrugs. “The king and queen make the laws?”
“No.” I hope what I’m about to say is true. “There’s a king and a queen, but only one of them is the real ruler who can make laws. The other is just their spouse. And do you know which of us is the real ruler?”
He tilts his head. “Her?”
“Nope. Me. She didn’t have the authority to make that bargain with you. She can’t keep up her end of it.”
Gildglass’s jaw drops. He puts his fingers into his mouth and whistles, and a dozen more fairies drop out of the storm. They fly around one another, chattering agitatedly.
“Did you hear?” Gildglass asks.
“We heard!”
“Is it true?”
“It sounds true!”
“It’s true! I’ve been to the human capital! It’s true!”
“She lied!”
“She lied!”
“She broke a bargain!”
“Punish her! Punish her!” The rest join in, all chanting, “Punish her! Punish her!”
I whistle. It gets their attention. They stop chanting and fly around my head, while Gildglass floats in place.
“So is it off?” I ask. “Your bargain with the Nightmare Queen.”
“It’s off,” Gildglass says. “A bargain under false pretenses is no bargain.”
I let out a huge breath. So much tension leaves my body. “You can stop what you’re doing, right? Ending the Moment? There’s still time?”
“Oh, there’s still time.”
“Great.”
“But we’re not going to.”
“What?” I resist the urge to grab the little bug in my fist. “You said the bargain was off!”
“Oh, it is, it is!” He twirls in place happily. “But our magic is so, so strong now! This is our only chance to put the world back the way it was!”
“But…but…” I unclench my fists. “But you like new things! Don’t you want to explore this new world?”
He makes a sour face. “The gray logomancer showed us images of this new world.”
Another fairy drops down in front of my face. “It’s so ugly!”
Another flies out from between my legs. “So much metal! Not enough trees!”
“And only humans!” Gildglass sticks out his tongue and blows a raspberry. “Where are the elves? Elves are great at bargaining.”
“And all our cousin fairies!” another says. “This world has no pixies or sylphs or any of the rest!”
“That’s right.” Gildglass folds his arms. “And in the old world, we weren’t trapped in an ugly painting. We want to be free!”
“But you can be free,” I say. “We’ll fix it. We’ll bring all the elves and other fairies back. We just need a little time.”
Gildglass purses his lips while he considers. “Hm.” He shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”
A chorus of fairy voices echo his response: “Nope.” “No.” “No, thank you.” “Better luck next time.”
One by one the fairies zip back into the whirlwind until only Gildglass is left.
“Gildglass, please,” I say. “People will die.”
“Nothing I can do, Human King. I’m sorry.” He flies up, but just before he reaches the fairy horde, he stops. “Unless.” He turns back to me with a wicked smile. “You said something about a bargain?”
“Yes!” I fly a little higher, level with him. The fairies zip by inches from the top of my head. “Yes, yes, yes, a bargain.”
Gildglass rubs his hands together. “Excellent! First tell us what you wish, Human King. And then I’ll tell you our price.”
“Okay, yeah, right.” I swallow. “I should probably word this carefully, huh?”
He rolls his eyes. “We’re not genies, Human King. We keep to the spirit of a bargain, not the letter. Tell me what you wish to happen. We don’t cheat.” He winks. “As long as you keep up your end.”
“Right.” I nod. “Okay. First off, don’t break the Moment.”
He laughs. “We’d best take care of that first. Although I like these clothes much better on you!”
I’m wearing a tunic and breeches under a golden cloak. I didn’t even notice.
Gildglass whistles again. I wait, but nothing happens. The fairies keep flying and my clothes haven’t changed back.
“Did they stop?” I ask.
“They paused. We’ll resume if you and I can’t come to an agreement. Is that all?”
“No! The Nightmare Queen weakened the Moment even before she made her bargain with you. She revealed magic and magical creatures to the world. Can you do something about that?”
“Easy!” He snaps his fingers. “This spell you’re trying to fix is very powerful. It wants people to forget about magic. We can help it along.”
“Great.”
“But!”
“But?”
“Humans without a connection to the Logos are easy to manipulate. Logomancers, less so.”
“So, you’re saying, if any logomancers saw werewolves or minotaurs on the news and got some of their memories back, they might keep them?”
Gildglass laughs. “I don’t know what ‘the news’ means! But yes!”
“Fine, fine. We’ll deal with that.” I close my eyes while I think. This is a big opportunity and I can’t waste it. It’s like I’m single-handedly recasting the Moment, but I can do it right this time. I open my eyes. “Okay, the book. The magical creatures. Can you make it so that if somebody is freed from it, they don’t get sucked back in?”
“Sure!”
“And the Common King’s personality. Can you erase it from my mind? Can you make it so I can have his power while still staying Chris?”
“Of course!”
“And my mom, and Jasmine, and Mr. Miller! Can you…” Wait. Do I have the right to change somebody’s mind without their permission? “Can you…help them? Maybe remind them about the people they became in this new world? Let them make the right choice themselves about what kind of people they want to be?”
“That’s vague, but absolutely!”
“And take Mr. Miller’s powers away from him? I don’t trust him to make the right choice.”
“Consider it done!”
“Uh…great.”
Gildglass smiles at me. “Anything else?”
“Probably. I mean, can you really do all of these things I asked?”
“We really can! And we’ll wrap it all up in one bargain, too, even though they should be separate.”
“Awesome! Thank you, Gildglass.”
This is amazing. What else can I fix?
Oh.
“Andy Palakiko. I burned him. Can you heal him? Fix his scars?”
“How selfless of you, Human King!” Gildglass flits closer and squints at me. “You’re nowhere near as evil as I heard.”
“So you can do it? Heal Andy, on top of everything else?”
Gildglass opens his mouth to answer, but then his shoulders slump. He covers his eyes with his palm. “I can’t do it.”
“What? You can’t heal Andy? That seems way easier than—”
He waves his arms to stop me. “Oh, we could do it. We could do everything I promised and more. Do you know why?”
“Yeah, because…oh.” I look down. I can’t see the ground past the lights, but I know who’s down there. “Because you’re drawing power from Kenny.”
Gildglass nods. “I’ll be honest, Human King, I was ready to grant all your wishes and then enjoy your reaction when you realized you turned your friend into a dried-out husk. But you’re being so considerate of other people that now I feel a little bad about it.”
Another fairy flies out of the storm and swats Gildglass across the back of his head. “Spoilsport!”
Gildglass shoves her away. “Get back in formation, Dewspun!”
De
wspun gives me the stink-eye before rejoining the rest.
“You’d have to kill Kenny to grant these wishes?” I ask.
“Not all,” he answers. “We can let the great spell take hold again. That’ll happen by itself, once we stop what we’re doing, and the forgetting you requested will follow. But your logomancer doesn’t have much life left in him. If we drain his power again, he’ll die.” Gildglass’s wings stop beating, but he stays floating in front of me. “We will do so, if that is your bargain. What is your decision, Human King?”
“There’s no decision to be made,” I say. “Just fix the Moment. We’ll solve the rest on our own. Can I ask one more thing? It won’t require any extra power.”
“Of course.”
“Don’t take revenge on Jasmine. The Nightmare Queen. For breaking her bargain.”
He tilts his head. “Isn’t she your enemy? It looked like you were fighting.”
“She is. But she’s my friend, too. And I made a promise that I’d try to save her.”
“Selfless and merciful. Rare traits in a human.” The fairy man smiles. “Done. Our side of the bargain is understood, and we agree to it.”
He clasps his hands together. His eyes gleam and his smile curls inward.
“Now. Here is what we require of you…”
Thirty-five
The fairies stop their frenzied circular flight. Their lights dim a little and they scatter throughout the woods. The ground reappears below me and I lower myself to the grass.
My clothes are back to normal. Jeans and a t-shirt.
My father runs to me. My mother hangs back, near Jasmine, with a worried look.
“Chris.” Dad cups my face in his hands. “Are you all right?”
“I’m okay,” I say. He puts his arm around my shoulder and squeezes as I turn to address everybody watching. “It’s all set. The fairies are going to make everything right. The Moment won’t be broken. Not today.”
“Attaboy.” Dad gives me a shake. “There’s my hero.”
Kenny moans. “Can somebody tell me what’s going on? I don’t know who’s on who’s side.”
Alisa crouches down next to him. “We’ll fill you in, Kenny. But you rest up.”
He drags his hand down his face. “I still feel kind of funny.”
“The fairies were draining your power, Kenny,” I say. “But they’ve stopped now.”
“What did it cost?” Mom’s voice is sharp. “Fairy bargains always have a cost.”
Everyone looks at me. They’re all concerned. Even Miller and Jasmine look worried.
“I’m sorry, everyone.”
I step away from my dad. At a nearby edge of the clearing, some fairies have gathered. They fly around in a circle and a glowing light appears in the air. The light grows and stretches until it extends several feet up from the ground. The fairies who made it fly into it, and don’t come out the other side.
“No,” Mr. Miller whispers. “No, Your Majesty. You didn’t.”
“Chris?” Dad looks at the light. “What is that?”
“It’s a portal to the fay,” I answer. “The fairy’s home. Another world, I guess. I don’t really know.” I swallow. “I have to go there. And I won’t be coming back.”
“No.” Dad shakes his head. “No. Not a chance. No.”
“That was the bargain, Dad. They want me. I’m quite a catch, apparently. King of the humans and all.”
“You know what this means, Chris?” Mom joins us. “Do you know what the fairies do to humans in fairyland?”
Jasmine answers. “It’s like a dream that never ends. They dance and sing and play games.”
I manage a weak smile. “That doesn’t sound so bad.”
“There’s no rest,” Mom finishes. “They never stop. Time is different there, Chris. You don’t know what forever means. You have no idea.” She extends a hand slightly, as if to touch mine, then lets it drop. “It’ll drive you mad.”
“It’s done. I had to agree.”
“No. Not going to happen.” Dad runs towards the portal. “I want to talk to these fairies!”
“Dad.”
“He’s just a boy!” he shouts. “He can’t make deals like that!”
“Dad!”
“I’m his father!” Dad smacks his chest with his fist. “I’ll go! Take me!”
The fairies ignore him.
“It’s better this way,” I say. “If I’m gone, there’s no Common King. There’s nobody left for Miller or anybody to try to bring back. They can leave the world as it is, while the rest of you get on with fixing the messes that the Moment caused.”
“It’s not better!” Zane shoves me. “This is stupid! Stupid…stupid golden boy!” He rubs his eyes with his palms. “Don’t go. I don’t want you to go.”
I grab him. He’s stiff in my arms. “I don’t want to go.” I kiss him. “But I have to.”
“We can fight them. Their magic is weak, right? That’s what Tannyl said.”
I shake my head. “We’re not starting a war with the fairyfolk. Not over me.”
“Dude, no.” Nate drops the book into the grass at his feet. “You can’t. I can’t. No.”
I go to him and rest my forehead against his. “I’m sorry.”
He hugs me. “I can’t lose you, too.”
“You’re losing me already.” I hold him tight and whisper in his ear, so that only he can hear me. “I’m losing myself, Nate. I feel it. If I stay, I’ll climb those stairs and he’ll be free.”
“You won’t—”
“I will. I don’t want that. I’d rather die than stop being me. I’d rather go mad with the fairies. I’d rather anything else. I won’t lose my identity.” I kiss his cheek. “Please tell me you understand that. You, of anyone. I need you to understand that.”
He drops his arms. We step apart and he wipes his nose with his sleeve.
He nods. “Yeah. Yeah. Okay.”
“Look after my dad.”
“We’ll look after each other.”
Alisa runs over and hugs me.
“You get it, don’t you?” I ask.
“I get it. I hate it, but I get it.” She swallows. “How do we do this without you?”
“You’ll do great. You’ll find a way to put the best of both worlds together. I know you will.” I tap her sternum, where the tree necklace hangs. “You’ve got help.”
She touches the necklace and nods. “We’ll finish the plan. We’ll find a place for all the magical creatures.”
“Sorry to leave you in charge like this.”
She forces a smile. “Chris, I hate to break this to you, but I was always in charge.”
I laugh, then turn to the rest of the group.
More goodbyes. No time. Zane deserves more but I don’t know what else to say to him. Jasmine isn’t looking at me and I don’t even know who I’d be talking to if I said goodbye to her.
Dad’s still by the portal. He’ll be last.
“Mom.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not—”
“Please.” I grab her wrist. “Please be my mom again. Just for a minute.”
We stand together, motionless, her wrist in my hand.
Then she whispers, so low I almost can’t hear, “I love you, hero.”
She pulls away and turns her back on me.
Mr. Miller nods towards me. It’s the only gesture he can make, since Zane still has him cocooned in shadow. “No goodbye for me, Chris?”
I walk over to stand in front of him. “I said goodbye to you at the prom, Muln.”
He smiles. “Calling me by my real name? That’s a good sign.”
“The Mr. Miller I knew, my teacher and my friend, he’s gone.” I glance back over my shoulder. “Everybody else who got memories back? Their lives are blending together, old and new. But not you. If there’s any trace of the real Mr. Miller in there, I can’t see it.”
“There isn’t.” He sneers. “Muln is one of the most powerful logomancers to ever live! He�
�s a titan! A kingmaker! Why would I want to be pathetic, weak old Mr. Miller again?”
“Because he was a good man. People liked him. I liked him.”
“You?” He snorts. “You’re no more real than Mr. Miller. I will bring my king back.”
“Too late. You’ve failed. There’s no escape from the fay. Even if I become the Common King again, I’ll be trapped there.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Your father was willing to sacrifice his life for you, wasn’t he? Charging up those stairs might have killed him.”
The change of subject takes me by surprise, but I nod. “That’s what parents do, I guess. Sacrifice themselves for their kids.”
He purses his lips thoughtfully. “Some of them, yes. Some of them. Did Jasmine show you memories of the two of us?”
“Yes.”
“You remember our relationship? Our friendship? You felt it?”
I shift my weight. “Yes.”
“Then you must know…although I never said it…I could not have loved you more if you were my actual son.”
My stomach twists. “Don’t.”
“It’s easier if you can dismiss me as a monster, I know.” He smiles at me. It seems genuine, but sad. “I love you, Kirt. Please remember that, whatever comes next. I love you, and would do anything to keep you safe.”
“Shut up!” I stick my finger in his face. “My name is not Kirt and you are not my father!” I point back behind me. “That man is my father, and he’s a better man than you, in this world or any other!”
Miller looks behind me. “Not for much longer.”
I spin. My dad is still by himself back by the portal, yelling at fairies. He doesn’t see the little green creature creeping up behind him. One of the goblins conjured by Jasmine. She never sent them away. The goblin has a long dagger and he’s about to stick it in my father’s back.
“Dad!”
I break into a run. My friends are all screaming but I charge past them.
They’re too far away. The goblin pulls the blade back.
“Sun!”
“Chris, stop! It’s not—”
I hear Alisa’s voice but it’s done. The ball of fire flies from my hand, across the clearing towards the goblin. It’s going to hit him. I did it. I saved my dad.