Of Witches and Wind (8 page)

“Today is Chase's birthday,” said Lady Aspenwind.

“It is?” My voice rose about a million times too loud for the little garden. It couldn't be his birthday. If it was, Chase would have talked about it for weeks beforehand. He would have dropped a thousand hints about the presents he wanted—

Chase wouldn't meet my eyes.

“Of course. That is why we are here to visit.” The huge smile vanished from her face, and her eyes glittered brightly. “Chase, he is growing so old.”

Old was clearly a tragedy to her.

“Amya,” Chase said softly. There had to be a reason he kept calling her that. Maybe that was Ayalla's nickname.

She smiled again. It was a little forced now. “A happy occasion. A happy birthday.”

“A happy birthday,” echoed the other two Fey mournfully.

“Thank you,” Chase said, clearly relieved. “Don't you need to head back now?”

Hurt flashed in her eyes. She
had
come all this way to see him. She turned to me, like she hadn't heard. “Rory, he speaks of you so highly, but my son did not mention his birthday to you?”

“No, he—” Then I realized what she'd said.

Son.

This weird fairy was Chase's mother.

If you ignored all the dots on her face, you could see the resemblance. The broad, high cheekbones. The smile that took up half her face. They even had the same sunshine-yellow shade of blond hair.

“Clever human,” whispered the shortest fairy. “Now you've discovered it.”

Nobody knew much about Chase's mom—except that his parents weren't together anymore, so she didn't live with Chase and his dad. Chase almost never mentioned her. Now I knew why.

Chase was half Fey.

I closed my mouth. This was why he didn't want me here. This was the secret he wanted to protect.

I glanced at Chase. His face was turning red, a sign he was really mad.

“We should return, Lady,” murmured the cobalt-skinned Fey.

Lady Aspenwind nodded, her eyes on Chase. Her mouth quivered. I was just thinking how weird it would be to see a fairy cry, when she actually started sobbing. So loud it echoed in the small chamber.

Her tears were green, solid, and shaped like tiny aspen leaves.

I froze. Watching grown-ups cry in public always made me feel panicky, like I should join in.

“You are turning out just like Cal. You shouldn't grow up so quickly.” She buried her face in Chase's neck, which looked awkward since she was taller than he was. With a huge sigh, Chase patted her back lightly and murmured something in Fey.

The other two fairies looked faintly embarrassed for her, like she had sneezed and a big undignified gob of snot had come shooting out.

“Come, milady. We have no time for this.” The cobalt fairy tugged on Lady Aspenwind's arm until she gave one last shaky sob, kissed Chase wetly on the forehead, and let herself be drawn away.

“You will think about what I said? If you want to live with me again?” she asked Chase.

Live with her? As in move? He couldn't leave.

“I'll think about it,” Chase said.

Lady Aspenwind half smiled, comforted.

The two Fey steered her over the garden's gravel paths and through a midnight-blue door with silver hinges. Then they were gone.

I wanted to ask Chase if his mom always cried when she told him good-bye, but he was scowling at me.

So of course I blurted out exactly what came to mind. “Is it really your birthday?”

“Yeah.” Then he turned and strode away. “You coming? You wanted to train, right?”

Sure, I wanted to train, but at the moment I wanted to address the strange development that one of my best friends was half fairy and that he'd never told me. I hurried after him.

He slammed through the door I'd just exited, stalked down the hallway, and stomped around the corner to the Three Little Pigs corridor without looking back once.

I trotted past the scarlet doors, trying to keep up and wondering what his problem was. I had caught him keeping a major secret from everyone. I had every right to be mad, but Chase acted like
I
had done something wrong.

I turned to Chase, all set to tell him off.

But he shoved a hand through his hair. Sweat had gathered at his temples. The last time he'd looked so freaked was when we'd gotten trapped in a skeleton-filled bread box with human-eating giants having dinner right outside.

I could relate, I guess. Last year I'd made a point of not telling anyone at EAS who my parents were. I hadn't wanted people to judge me differently just for being related to famous people. I
probably would have done the same thing even if my mom had been a fairy instead of an actress.

Plus, his mom had outed him—whether he liked it or not. On his birthday.

We stepped inside the training courts, and Chase immediately disappeared into the weapons closet to grab our swords. Without a word he came out and passed me mine. We'd been together when I'd found it—in a Yellowstone cave, cornered by a dragon. My first day at EAS. We had been enemies them, but hurling insults at each other had never left much room for awkward silences.

If it had been me with the fairy mother, Chase would just have made some sort of stupid joke by now—eased the tension a little.

So I stepped away and stared—very obviously—at the side of his head.

“What?” Chase said.

“Just checking to see if your ears are pointed,” I said. They weren't—they had the same human curve as anybody else's—but they did turn slightly red.

I worried that I'd insulted him instead of cheering him up, but then Chase grinned. “Nah. That's a myth. Only a few Fey clans have pointed ears.”

I wished Lena had been here. She would have known what Chase meant by clans. I might have asked Chase, but I was too relieved he'd started acting like his normal self.

“I do have wings, though,” he said.

“Yeah? Where are they? Detachable?”

“No.” Chase looked a little grossed out. “They're invisible—most of the time.”

“Can I see them?”

Chase smirked. “No way. I'm saving that for something really impressive.”

Still awkward, but not as bad. Neither of us made any move to get out the practice dummies, though. Maybe Chase didn't want to spend his birthday training me.

My big mouth struck again. “I can't believe you didn't tell me.”

His smile vanished. “Really, Rory? You can't figure out why I wouldn't want anyone to know I was only half human?”

“No, I did work that out, thanks,” I said. “I was talking about your birthday.”

“Oh.” Chase shrugged, slightly abashed. “It just didn't occur to me.”

I rolled my eyes. “It didn't occur to you to throw a huge party, or tell us what kind of presents you wanted, or—”

“No, that's not how it works among the Fey,” Chase said. “For birthdays it's the mother who is celebrated. She gets the presents. She invites her friends. That's why she came to visit today.”

“You mean, that was your birthday party?” I didn't mean to sound so pitying, but come on—there hadn't even been any cake.

“She did all the work when I was born. Why wouldn't we celebrate her achievement every year?” he said. I must have looked kind of shocked, because he added, “That's what she says, anyway.”

I suddenly wanted to hug him, or give him an awesome present, or explain what birthdays were supposed to be like. But I just changed the subject. “So how old are you?”

Chase paused. “How old are you?”

I didn't stop to guess why he asked. “Twelve.”

“I'm thirteen,” Chase replied. “Thirteen today exactly.”

“You're lying! You turned twelve today, didn't you?” He would
be really tall for his age, but it was still possible. I would love to be older than him. It might cut back on his bossiness.

“Trust me, Rory—I've got you beat on this one.”

The silence stretched out between us. Chase still didn't look me in the eye. I knew what he was really upset about.

“I won't tell anyone,” I said quietly.

“Yeah?” Chase looked more fierce rather than less. Bringing it up clearly wasn't helping. “Will you swear it?”

I nodded.

“On the sword? On its enchantment?”

“If you want.” If it would stop him from flipping out any more. I raised it between us, my hand on the hilt.

Chase wrapped his hand around mine. “Repeat after me: I do swear upon this sword . . .”

“I do swear upon this sword . . .” The hairs stood up on my arms, kind of like static but without the stinging crackle. This felt warm and ticklish in a bubbly way, like immersing myself in a soapy bath. I was pretty sure this didn't happen every time two people held the sword.

“Not to tell anyone that the person I see before me, Chase Turnleaf, is half Fey, half human. Not by voice, or written text, or insinuation . . .”

I repeated all this after him, more and more ticked off with every word.

“Not even Mom, Dad, and that scary woman Amy. Not even Lena.”

I hesitated. “Lena's really smart. She's going to figure it out.” And get really mad at me for keeping such a big secret from her.

Chase shook his head. “No, her head is full of her inventions. She won't solve a mystery she's not looking for. Finish repeating it.”

He was being kind of a jerk.

I was tempted to stop repeating right then, but . . . he was just so freaked out.

I sighed. “Not even Mom, Dad, and that scary woman Amy. Not even Lena.”

Something invisible rushed over my arms and into the sword, like warm water swirling down a drain. I didn't know why I was even surprised. Of course he could do magic. He was half fairy.

“That was a spell?” I said sharply.

“Yeah. A Binding Oath.” He sagged. At first I thought the spell thing had taken more out of him than I expected, but when he smiled at me, his biggest grin, the one that took up half his face, I realized it was just relief.

“Why didn't you tell me you were casting a spell?” I said, but that wasn't what I really wanted to know. I wanted to know why my word wasn't good enough for him—why he felt like I needed to be enchanted to keep his secret.

His relieved smile shrank.

Then the door flew open, and someone launched herself at me so fast I staggered back. “I knew I would find you here!” Lena said triumphantly.

I hugged her back, glad she had interrupted. I wasn't sure if I was ready to know Chase's answer. “Don't you have school?”

“Not really. But I did it! You have to come see.” She tugged me back to the courtyard.

“Lena, please tell me that you're skipping class,” Chase said, following us outside. His voice gave me the creeps. He sounded so normal—teasing, cocky—like the last half hour hadn't happened. “That would make my day. It would mean I've corrupted you forever.”

“No, just study hall. I don't know who scheduled that—a
study hall last period on Friday before spring break. But”—Lena stamped her foot on the grass impatiently—“you guys aren't looking.”

About twenty feet from the Tree of Hope, a doorway-size rectangle hung in the air. The edges were on fire, the inside darker than the rest.

“Crap! You made a portal!” Chase yelped, and Lena looked very pleased.

I'd never heard of a kid making a portal. Actually, I'd never heard of any Characters making a portal into EAS besides Ellie—and she only did it using the Door Trek doors that ringed the courtyard, and only when the Director said it was okay.

Beside the flaming doorway Melodie stood on Lena's humongous duffel, scowling. She clearly didn't appreciate being left behind. “Lena, you really need to invent me some legs.”

Lena nodded, but I couldn't tell if she was agreeing with the harp or just excited. “I got the idea last year, up the beanstalk. If the Snow Queen could make one from the Glass Mountain to Matilda Searcaster's desk using just a letter, then technically you should be able to make one into EAS the same way. It's a simple spell if you're not linking it up to an existing Door Trek system. It just takes a lot of power.”

The breeze wafted some of the doorway's smoke toward us, and I wrinkled my nose. Only dragons and their scales could stink like a hot bowl of sulfur.

Chase sounded impressed. “You're not supposed to be able to do that, you know.”

Melodie nodded. “The campus is designed to reject foreign and/or unapproved magics. I've seen it before. We had to take extra precautions.”

“Instead of introducing something foreign, we took some dirt that was already here. Right there, to be exact.” Lena pointed to the spot below the flaming rectangle. “And then I just substituted it for the pillar in the regular old portal spell. So that's all you need: some dirt, a doorway, and about twenty dragon scales.”

I squinted into the dark inside it and spotted old mops and brooms. Probably a janitor's closet in her school.

“Wait, let me get this straight,” Chase said. “Nobody knows that you did this?”

“Well, you two. And George and Jenny. They would worry otherwise.”

“But none of the grown-ups? Not the Director?”

“No, I didn't want to bother them. I wasn't sure it would work,” Lena said uncertainly. “Why?”

“We need to go tell them,” Chase said, “unless you want all the instructors running around going, ‘Security breach! Security breach!' ”

Lena laughed, but then the amethyst door to the Director's office banged open. Lena and I both jumped.

Grown-ups filed out—Hansel and Gretel first, wearing identical tunics of golden chain mail, swords raised. Then came Stu, the Shoemaker, sunlight glinting off his silver breastplate, spear at the ready.

Another door opened on the other side of the courtyard, and iron figures marched out—evil fairies, giant wolves, ugly trolls, and wizened witches. The enchanted dummies we practiced on in the training courts apparently doubled as EAS's army.