Magic Under Stone (8 page)

The women turned their attention back to him, a little nervously. He supposed he must seem very foreign in their small cottage, with his gold cuffs and earrings, the woven sash belting his tunic and leather boots of home, the straight black hair that fell halfway down his back, caught with a leather tie.

“Can you tell me anything about King Luka?” Ifra asked. “And Erris Tanharrow? I must do the king’s bidding, but nevertheless there are things I can do to shape circumstances ... if I understood them better.”

The women shared a glance, and the dark-haired one shrugged a little. “The Tanharrow family has ruled the fairy throne for centuries, through many wars with the humans. The city folk have always been different, with their glamours and feasts and fancy things, but they took care of us. If there was a long winter, we could go to the capital and ask for magic to help our patch of the forest survive, and if the humans came onto our territory, they’d send a patrol.”

The red-haired women nodded. “We’re supposed to trust our king. It’s said that as long as trees grow in the Hall of Oak and Ash, all is well. The wisdom of the trees is supposed to reflect upon our ruler. But ...”

“I don’t understand what King Luka is trying to do with the humans,” the dark-haired one said. “After the last war, he gave the humans far too much leeway. Any fool could have told him
they’d take advantage, and now he wants to go to war with them again. Disaster all around, and he brought it upon himself.”

“King Luka says there won’t be peace until he’s wiped the humans off the continent,” Ifra said.

“Or they destroy us!” the red-haired woman cried out. “That’s how it will go, if we pursue war!” The little girl’s eyes widened. Alarm crossed the woman’s flushed face. “I’ve said too much.”

“I’m not going to report any of this back to him,” Ifra said.
Unless he asks ... I can’t really lie to him
. But hopefully Luka would have no reason to ask. “I’m very grateful for your hospitality.” He bowed to them. “My name is Ifra, by the way.”

“Keyelle,” said the red-haired woman.

“I’m Etana. And this is my little one, Sery. Keyelle’s brother was my partner, but we had a dispute about this very thing. He supports King Luka.”

She frowned and turned to the shelf that held the kitchen implements, wooden bowls, and plates, and began setting the table. She looked cross, probably at herself, for speaking freely to someone she didn’t know.

“King Luka is ill, you know,” Ifra said.

“Ill?” Keyelle looked skeptical. “I haven’t heard.”

Ifra knew he shouldn’t speak freely with her either, but he wanted to gain her trust and as much information as he could. But more than that, he simply wanted someone to talk to. The isolation of a jinn’s life was hard to bear. He told them everything he had seen in the capital—the way Luka looked beneath his glamour, his sons, Luka’s coy answer about what he would do with Erris once he found him. The women listened, obviously rapt, but all the while they worked in silent harmony—cleaning, moving,
arranging, stirring—preparing for dinner, answering a question Sery whispered in their ears.

Ifra soaked in the warmth of the place, hoping he could store the feeling. When the stew was done, Etana brought it to the table. Sery settled into her chair, holding on her lap a doll made of cloth scraps and buttons. Keyelle poured hot water into a teapot, stirring up a memory of Hami’s coffeepot.

“You look sad, Ifra,” Etana said, sitting across from him.

“I’m fine.”

Etana smiled faintly. “That’s what I say when I’m not fine at all.” She hesitated. “If you don’t mind me asking ... I know jinn aren’t supposed to age, but are you as young as you look?”

“We do age,” he replied. “And yes. I am as young as I look. We only age while we’re actively granting wishes. Our bodies might live a very long while, but we will only experience a normal life span.”

“In captivity?”

“Well, we hope to die free. If we’re lucky.”

“I don’t know much about jinn,” Keyelle said. “Do you have parents?”

“Of course.”

“And where do they live?”

“My mother is a servant in a wealthy man’s house.”

“Is she free?”

“No. The wealthy man is my father.” He didn’t talk about this much. “I wasn’t raised by her, of course. Free jinn always take in young jinn whose parents aren’t free. But she wrote me many letters.” He realized how strange this must all sound to a family like this, where children never had to be taken from their parents. “There are a lot of myths about jinn. It’s part of the magic—once
people make wishes, they forget what they wished and how it worked. It would be chaos if people were too informed. Not that we’re capable of some of the great feats we’ve been credited with in tales either. We can only manipulate the world as it is. We can’t remake it.”

“But you can find the missing fairy prince?”

“I can, although he does have a confusing spirit. King Luka told me his spirit is trapped in a clockwork body, and I can pick up the trail of that spirit, but it’s weak.”

Etana looked alarmed. “Weak? Why?”

“I don’t really know. Maybe his tether on the world is weak. But then I sense a connection between him and King Luka. The king said it must be because he died there, and it wasn’t a proper death, but ... it’s unusual.”

Keyelle sat straighter in her chair, almost rising. “That would certainly fit the suspicions of the other Green Hoods. There have always been rumors that the king did something to Erris—that he didn’t die properly.”

“Green Hoods?”

Keyelle motioned to a pair of green capes hanging by the door. “That’s what we call ourselves. Supporters of the Tanharrows.”

“I saw lots of people wearing green capes in the capital,” Ifra said. “Are they all Green Hoods?”

“No,” Keyelle said. “Most people own a green cape, but that doesn’t make them a Green Hood. Hundreds of years ago, in the troubled times in the old country when the human king’s men were after us, a group called the Green Hoods used to protect the people. We’ve taken cues from those stories, using ballads for code and such. We see a parallel with those times and now, only it’s our own king causing the trouble.”

Ifra glanced at the green capes once more, intrigued by the idea of rebellion. If only his people had such a concrete enemy to rebel against. At the same time, he thought of King Luka and felt a curious sense of pity for the man who looked so frail beneath his glamour.

“I can’t alert anyone of my mission,” Ifra said. “It’s part of the magic of the wish. I’ve been wiping the memories of everyone I pass. But I’m not going to wipe all of yours. You’ll remember me, even if you don’t remember exactly why I was here. I’ll see what I can do.”

Chapter 8

Weeks passed, and we settled comfortably into our new lives. I helped Celestina pick apples and turn the uglier ones into pies and jars of apple butter. Erris couldn’t bear the sweet comforting smell, but he was happier outside anyway, roaming the forest hour upon hour, or sitting with Violet on the lawn, telling her stories of the fairy kingdom. Sometimes I sat to listen, but mostly jealousy crawled up my spine within moments and I returned to my business. I knew I shouldn’t be jealous, and I lay awake at night trying to reason myself out of it but never quite managed.

Autumn broke out in earnest, and it was no wonder Erris wanted to be outdoors, as the woods erupted in shades of furious red and cheerful gold, dotted with the permanent green-black fringe of fir and spruce.

Early one morning, Celestina and I laced each other into our corsets and donned our best dresses and hats and gloves so we could go to town for supplies.

Violet raged that she could not go. I stayed out of her way, but I heard her throwing things, and Celestina emerged flushed from the effort of calming her down.

“Usually she likes staying with Lean Joe,” she said. “He’s happy to take the day off and play games with her. I guess it’s just been too much excitement.”

“Maybe we should take her,” Erris said.

Celestina’s mouth opened. “But she’s sick! And even with the enchantment as protection, we can’t risk the townspeople seeing her.”

Erris shrugged, apparently thinking it not worth arguing about. He fussed with his ponytail. “Do you think I should cut my hair? None of the men in town wear it long like this. I worry they’ll recognize me as a fairy.”

“I saw men with hair longer than yours in New Sweeling,” I said.

“This is hardly New Sweeling,” Celestina said.

But in the end, we decided it was better not to take the time to fuss with Erris’s hair. Celestina loaned him a bowler of Ordorio’s to make him look more respectable. Lean Joe readied the horses, and we rode to town piled into a rattling cart. Celestina became quite businesslike at the reins, her gloved hands capable, her back straight as a tree, with a fine little hat atop her head, but I knew going to town made her as nervous as it made me.

In fact, Erris seemed the most relaxed when he should have been the biggest oddity of all, a clockwork fairy with the hair of a city aesthete. He made most of the conversation on the trip, effusively complimenting Ordorio’s fine brown pacers, although I was sure they must have been nothing compared to the royal fairy horses, which were known throughout the world. But then, I suppose he hadn’t seen those horses in an awfully long time.

Cernan was a larger town than I had realized from the train station alone. To be sure, it was no city, but it was, as my old dancing troupe manager used to say, “worth a dime, not a penny.” Two streets ran parallel with a plaza in the middle, where merchants set up booths of wares like fruit and even birds in tiny cages. I had often passed a similar plaza in New Sweeling, only it had a statue in the center instead of the gloomy obelisk Celestina told us was to commemorate the casualties of some shipwreck.

Celestina marched into a shop without any word for the craggy old men milling about in front, smoking pipes and muttering to one another in some unfamiliar language. Erris and I hurried after her.

Inside, the shop was lit by spacious windows but no gaslight. Two younger men lounged at the counter, almost identical in their worn hats and vests. When they stared at us, Erris adjusted his bowler to a jaunty angle. No one else in town seemed to be wearing bowlers. I nudged him to move along.

“Celestina,” one of them said, leering, while the other one snickered. “Haven’t seen you in a while. Still rattling around that old dungeon?”

She ignored them in a practiced way, consulting her list and picking up an empty basket from the counter to fill.

Naturally, their attention turned to us next. “Who’s your company?”

The shopkeeper, a plump man with an impressive black mustache, ignored all of us to help another young woman select cloth.

“It’s those people who came on the train a little while ago,” the snickering one said. “What’s your name, ponytail?”

Erris looked at them, not quite nervous, but gauging the situation.

“I don’t give my name out to just anyone,” he said after a
moment, and although he said it about as politely as he could, they were predictably displeased.

“Oh, why? Is your name special or something? You can’t tell me your name? You think I’m going to cast a magic spell on you?” His snicker got louder. “I heard you’re a student of magic, is that right?”

Celestina suddenly dumped a tin of baking powder in her basket and whirled on them. “Do you have nothing better to do? We’re just here for our groceries and that’s it.”

“Hey, don’t twist your petticoat, Little Scar. We’re just curious.”

Her cheeks burned at the name.

“Watch out,” the leering one said. “They might put a curse on us.” There was a threatening note to his voice.

The young woman left with her cloth, looking all too eager to depart the scene, and the shopkeeper finally turned his attention on us. “All right, Celestina, find what you want and be done with it. And I don’t want to hear any talk of curses.”

“Celestina never said one word about curses!” I said, my indignance suddenly overflowing.

“I won’t hesitate to ask you to leave my shop,” the shopkeeper said slowly. I was used to a certain level of mistreatment, but it was rare to hear such pure vitriol pointed at me without cause. I felt a twist of fear in my stomach and had to force myself not to leave that moment. Ordorio’s house suddenly felt very vulnerable, surrounded by these townspeople who didn’t even know who we were and would only grow angrier if they found out.

A boy walked into the shop, clearly with the intention of finding his friends, and stopped short at the sight of Celestina. The family resemblance to her was immediately apparent. He dropped his eyes to the ground and edged over to the wall.

Celestina put down her basket. “Let’s go,” she said, sounding
choked, and she walked out with a straight arm swinging and head high, but I could see it was an effort. Erris looked at me and reached for her basket.

“I’d listen to her if I were you,” the leering fellow said.

I wasn’t sure if we ought to give our money to the shop, but then, we needed our supplies from somewhere. Erris must’ve been thinking the same thing, because he put the basket on the counter and motioned for me to hand him the money that I carried in a purse at my wrist.

Thankfully, the boys did not challenge our right to buy groceries, but their eyes bored into the side of my head as the shopkeeper tallied our goods, and they bored into our backs as we departed.

Celestina was standing outside, head bowed, wiping at the remnants of tears.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

She nodded, but it was a lie.

“That boy who came in was your brother, wasn’t he?”

She nodded again.

“He would side with those louts and not his own sister?” Erris said. He looked like he wanted to go back in the shop and give the boy a talking-to, but I put a hand to his arm.

“Don’t make things worse,” I said.

“Those boys grew up playing with my brothers,” Celestina said. “Playing with me, even. Mr. Caldero, the shopkeeper ... we would go in with our pennies for candy. Now they all do their best to make me feel like the dirt on their shoes. I can’t ... really blame my brother for ...” She shrugged. I could tell she wasn’t the sort of person who ever liked to cry, and it was easier not to explain too much.