by Elle Adams
10
“He was here all along?” I whispered to Alissa.
Alissa walked over to the elf’s table. “There you are,” she said. “Where have you been all day?”
Thistle hiccoughed. “I have seen many things and been to many places.”
“Like Sloan?” I asked. “The human town? Another normal human showed up intoxicated in front of normal witnesses, and it happened shortly after you disappeared this morning.”
“How unfortunate,” said the elf, nearly knocking over his drink with his elbow.
“We sent out a search party for you,” Alissa said, exasperated. “The entire hospital was involved. You can’t just walk out of there without being discharged. Everyone thought you’d gone back to the market.”
“The market?” he said. “It’s far too noisy. My head is in a delicate condition.”
“That’s your own fault,” said Alissa. “We found out about Pix, too. You can’t have someone sneaking you cocktails in the hospital. It’s against the rules.”
“Don’t speak so loudly.” He raised his hands over his head and let out a faint moan.
Alissa rolled her eyes. “Personally, I think you should have been discharged today anyway, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re wanted for questioning.”
He hiccoughed. “By whom?”
“By us.” I pulled out a chair and took a seat opposite him. “A normal showed up under the influence of goblin brew not far from the spot where you yourself caused a scene in front of normals the other day.”
“You accuse me of such a thing?” He rose to his feet and tried to flee, but tripped over a chair leg and landed in a heap at Alissa’s feet.
“Everything all right?” Layla called from behind the counter.
“How long has this elf been in here?” I asked her.
“Since midday,” she said.
That meant he’d been sitting here when my foster parents and I had been at the cafe… but that didn’t mean he hadn’t had time to get up to mischief before then. We didn’t know whereabouts the second victim had been before he’d shown up in Sloan, after all.
“Just tell us if you left Fairy Falls today, and we’ll leave you in peace,” Alissa told the elf. “Did you see any normals or didn’t you?”
“I have not left this wondrous town, not I.” He stumbled to his feet, catching his balance against the table. “But I may do so now, if you do not leave me be.”
“He’s not lying,” I muttered to Alissa. “Where’s his cast?”
“Did you take a potion to heal your injuries?” she asked him.
“He asked for a shot of healing potion in his coffee,” Layla said. “I thought that was for his hangover. Didn’t know you had a runaway patient.”
“There’s no point in him coming back to the hospital now,” Alissa said. “Thistle, are you absolutely certain you haven’t seen a normal today?”
“Not to my knowledge.” He tripped away from the table, tottering towards the door. “But alas, I cannot tell my ear from my elbow.”
And he was gone, the door swinging behind him.
“Did he at least pay for his drink?” asked Alissa.
“He did,” said Layla. “What was all that about?”
“He sneaked out of the hospital before getting discharged,” Alissa explained. “We’ve been running around looking for him all day, assuming he was at the market.”
“Oh.” Her brow wrinkled. “He’s been here most of the day. I don’t think he’s got himself injured again.”
“Good,” said Alissa. “Or not,” she added to me, on the way out. “At least if he’s in the hospital, we can keep an eye on him.”
“Except when it comes to sneaky cocktail deliveries and early morning escapades,” I said.
“Seriously,” she said. “To think we spent all that time searching the market. Thanks for not letting me get caught in the fairies’ spell, Blair.”
“What are friends for?” I sipped my coffee, feeling my headache subside a little. “Should we go to the hospital? If our new visitor is awake, we might as well see if he remembers anything about how he came to end up on that street.”
Outside, it was already getting dark, the winter sun sinking over the rooftops, and the other elves’ words hung over me like a personification of my hangover. It wasn’t like I hadn’t tried to find the culprit, despite what the elf king and his two friends seemed to think. Maybe I’d have better luck speaking to the second victim and seeing if he remembered any details of his arrival in Sloan.
“It’s quiet in here,” I remarked, as we entered the hospital. “Granted, the way things are going at the market, it’ll be packed by morning.”
Alissa pulled a face. “I wish they’d have more sense, but I nearly ended up falling into the fairies’ trap myself.”
“I understand why the elves suspect the goblins of being up to no good,” I acknowledged. “I just don’t see how they’d have had time to wander an hour away to bewitch a human before going back to set up their stall at the market. The guy had to have ended up in Sloan by walking on foot. It’s not like he flew there or anything.”
“Yeah, I still have people looking around Sloan trying to figure out how he came to be there,” said Alissa. “But without a coherent story from the guy himself, it’s just guesswork.”
With any luck, he might at least be able to give enough details to point us in the direction of whoever was responsible for his predicament.
We found Spud in the same ward and the same bed which Riff had vacated. He lay there, looking quite peaceful, but he startled upright when we entered the room.
“Monsters!” he said.
“What do you remember?” Alissa asked in a calm voice. “Before the monsters?”
He shook his head frantically, then pointed at me. “Wings.”
“I’m not going to harm you.” Poor guy. Seeing through my glamour without expecting it had to have hit him pretty hard. Didn’t stop me from feeling like a circus freak all the same, though. “And you’re safe here. But we’d really like to know how you came to lose your memory. Did you drink something?”
“I don’t know,” he mumbled. “Maybe.”
“Do you remember who gave it to you?” Alissa pressed.
“Did you see any elves?” I asked. “Not… uh, not like the ones in Lord of the Rings. Little elves. More like Gollum, only not quite as ugly.”
It was a good job Thistle wasn’t around at the moment. I doubt he’d be impressed at my description.
“Elves!” he said. “Tall, yes, very tall.”
“What?” said Alissa. “No, elves aren’t tall. Did you see anyone small with pointed ears?”
“Or wings?” Fairies fitted that description. But I’d have seen if any other fairies were wandering around the streets of Sloan while I’d been there. Right?
He began to rock back and forth, his eyes wide. “Monsters with wings, wings with monsters.”
Did a fairy cause him to end up in that state? Surely not the two fairies who’d met with me, but there’d been a lot of others at the market, and I hadn’t exactly been at my most observant.
We couldn’t get another word of sense out of Spud, no matter how many questions we tried. Eventually, we opted to leave him in peace.
“How long will it take to wear off?” I whispered to Alissa as she closed the door behind us.
“I’d say a day or two, but it depends how much he drank,” she said. “The last guy took more than a day to start making sense.”
“Guess I got lucky.” My hangover wasn’t entirely gone, but the aftereffects of goblin brew would be one hell of an alarming introduction to the magical world.
“Yeah, normals get the worst of it,” she said. “The shock of seeing through glamour doesn’t help.”
“No kidding,” I said. “I didn’t know I looked that monstrous to people.”
I was joking, kind of, but my failed meeting with the fairies had brought all my worries screaming ba
ck. What if one of them had been involved? Maybe the elves had good reason to be paranoid, after all.
As for Spud’s current state? I couldn’t help wondering if the goblin fruit theory had merit. Sure, I’d woken up feeling like I’d been kicked in the head by a group of elves, but I’d at least remembered my name. But if the market didn’t sell goblin fruit, where else might the victims have found it?
Alissa snorted. “Blair, he thought I was monstrous, too. I mean, I did spring an unexpected transportation spell on him and drag him from one town to another with no warning. It’s bound to leave a couple of side effects. I’d give it a day or two until he’s back to normal and we can take him back where we found him. No harm done.”
“I hope you’re right.” The market wouldn’t be in town for much longer, which increased the odds of the person responsible finding another victim before it moved on to its new destination. If they were from Fairy Falls, that is. But what might they have to gain from tormenting normals?
“Personally, I think Riff got hit worse because that bloody elf smuggled his cocktails into the hospital and shared them around,” said Alissa. “Next time he’s in here, he’ll be under constant watch.”
“But we’re reasonably confident this dude hasn’t had contact with Thistle,” I added. “Unless he learned to teleport from Charms & Caffeine.”
But now he was free to roam the town, including the market, unless we found more evidence to prove he’d been involved with the normals’ plight. Since none of Spud’s words seemed to point at an elf being responsible, we had to leave him be, for now.
In the end, I was too tired from the day’s events to do any more poking around, so I went home with Alissa. Inside the flat, I found Sky sprawled on the sofa, snoring gently. He didn’t wake up when we entered, but the instant I put some food out for the cats, he appeared at my side. “Miaow.”
“Miaow yourself,” I said. “Going to tell me why those two fairies offended you so much?”
“Miaow.” He butted past me and stuck his head in the food bowl. All right, then.
After washing my hands, I joined Alissa on the sofa. “I don’t know why he flipped out when I went to meet those fairies. They weren’t doing anything untrustworthy.”
“Usually, he’s looking out for you, isn’t he?” said Alissa.
“Yeah, but it’d be nice to understand what he’s thinking sometimes.” I glanced at Sky, who was currently swatting Roald away from his own food bowl. “He’s prone to chasing off people he doesn’t like, but maybe he was worried I was going to run away and join the fairies.”
Not happening. I didn’t belong among them, and while I longed to know more about my dad, they hadn’t known who he was. Why would they? He’d been arrested years ago.
“Miaow,” said a voice from behind my head. I twisted in my seat and spotted another little black cat sitting there in the doorway.
“Friend of yours?” I asked Sky.
“Is that—” Alissa rose to her feet. “Is that another fairy cat?”
“I saw him hanging out with a few of them at the market yesterday,” I told her. “Not sure if they have owners…”
“Miaow,” said Sky.
Alissa snorted. “I think he just said he owns you, not the other way around.”
He probably wasn’t wrong. I hesitantly approached the other fairy cat. Like Sky, he was small and black with one white paw, except for him, it was one of his back paws rather than his front ones. He had one silvery grey eye, one blue one.
“Miaow,” said the newcomer.
“What is it?” I said. “Want some food? If Sky’s willing to share, you’re welcome to it.”
I was pretty sure the cats at the market were either strays or tagged along wherever the market travelled to, but he seemed to understand me. The cat obligingly padded across the room to join Sky at the food bowl. Roald gave him a distrustful look and slunk away behind the sofa.
“Miaow,” said another voice.
“Oh, no,” said Alissa.
I turned to look where she pointed. Yet another little cat sat underneath the window. “How’d you get in?”
“Miaow,” said Sky.
“I think when you let one of them in, they all assumed they were invited inside,” Alissa said. “Do we have enough food for all of them?”
“All of…” I trailed off. No fewer than five cats sat in the kitchen, as though they’d walked through the walls… which, being fairy cats, they probably had.
This is going to be an interesting night.
We dug out the spare food bowls and left out some sustenance for our visitors, but the instant I turned my back, two of the fairy cats got into a tussle over the bowl. One turned to the size of a lion, swiping at the other, who transformed into a giant beast to match him. The two shaggy monsters squared up to one another, growling.
“Hey, cut that out!” I said, alarmed. “No turning into monsters in the house, that clear?”
“MIAOW,” said Sky.
To my surprise, the two cats turned normal-sized again, looking chastened.
“Sky’s asserting his dominance,” said Alissa. “I can’t even believe this. Has anyone ever seen so many fairy cats in the same place before?”
“We’ve probably set some kind of record,” I remarked.
Two more fairy cats appeared on the sofa, both tabbies. By now, there were at least a dozen new cats and not enough food to go around.
“Can you teach me how to do that?” I asked Sky. “Walk through walls, I mean?”
“Miaow.” Sky shook his whiskers at me.
“Does that mean no? What about turning into a monster, then?” I asked.
“Miaow.” Translation: just use glamour. Okay, then.
I snapped my fingers and turned invisible. Then I turned visible again. Nope, that wasn’t it. I’d learned to glamour myself invisible through practising for hours—and accidentally turning the cats invisible in the process—but had yet to learn how to do anything else with it. Except for switching back and forth between my human and fairy glamours, of course.
Even the books from the library on using fairy magic hadn’t explained the mechanics of using that power, so my best bet was learning from another fairy.
“Miaow.” Sky padded over to me with another shake of his whiskers. In a blink, he was monster-sized, towering over six feet tall with shaggy fur. “MIAOW.”
I suppressed the urge to back away. He might look nothing like my cat, but he wouldn’t hurt me.
Alissa gave me a wary look. “What’s he doing?”
“Demonstrating, I think.” I held up my right hand, feeling for that indescribable spark of power that I barely needed to think about before glamouring myself invisible. Then in a snap of my fingers, I vanished again. “Nope. That’s not it.”
“Miaow.” One of the cats turned into a giant beast. Then another. Within a few seconds, the whole room was full of huge shaggy creatures.
“How do you normally turn invisible, Blair?” asked Alissa, watching the whole display with a baffled expression on her face. Roald fled into her arms and she scooped him up against her chest. “Don’t worry, they won’t hurt you.”
“I guess I just picture it in my head.” I let my gaze pan over the group of monstrous giant cats. “Right?”
“Miaow,” said a dozen voices.
This was by far the weirdest magic lesson I’d ever had, and that was saying a lot. I fixed the image of the giant beast in my head and snapped my fingers, but nothing happened.
“Maybe I should start with something simpler,” I relented.
“Something human-sized, maybe,” said Alissa.
I cast my mind around. Then I focused on Alissa and snapped my fingers. Once again, no accompanying flash of glitter appeared. One of the cats turned back to his usual size and took advantage of the others’ distraction to raid the food bowls.
“C’mon.” I snapped my fingers, picturing Alissa’s face in my mind’s eye. “I know this is the trick to it
—"
Alissa gasped aloud. I turned on the spot, and Sky miaowed at me. “Did it work?” My voice sounded the same, but from the look on Alissa’s face, I’d done something.
I crossed the room and ducked into the corridor leading to the bathroom. Through the open door, Alissa’s reflection stared back at me from the mirror.
It worked. I looked exactly like Alissa.
“Wow, Blair,” she said, her voice hushed. “I’ve seen transformation spells, but… that’s on another level.”
I grinned, and Alissa’s reflection grinned back. Okay, that was weird, but cool. If I could turn into Alissa, maybe I could do more with my newfound talent. I returned to the living room and snapped my fingers, turning back into Blair. “Who should I do next?”
“Miaow,” said Sky.
“What, you?” I fixed the image of the little cat in my head and snapped my fingers.
A rushing sensation pushed me backwards onto the floor. When I looked up, the ceiling was suddenly much higher than before, while my hands—no, paws—touched down on the carpet.
Whoa.
Alissa peered down at me. “Uh. Blair, are you there?”
“Miaow,” I said.
“MIAOW,” Sky said back, taking a swipe at my nose. Startled, I tripped backwards and turned into my human form again.
I caught my balance against the sofa. “Okay, I’m not trying to usurp your position as the one and only Sky.”
“Miaow,” said Sky, which probably meant, you’d better not.
“But I can borrow your monster form?” I asked.
Alissa snorted. “I can see you getting up to all sorts of mischief with that.”
“Definitely.” I focused on the image of the giant beast, then snapped my fingers again. This time, nothing happened. “I guess I need more practise.”
The cats clustered around me, meowing instructions. Definitely the weirdest magic lesson I’ve ever had.
Still, I was faring better at this than I had at the defensive spells I’d learned earlier in the week. Maybe I wasn’t a total failure of a fairy, after all.
11