A Kind of Magic (13 page)

“It depends. It’s not the heavy stuff we get later in the year, but we get a few flurries.” He looked up. “There’s something different about this, though.”

“It’s almost magical, huh?”

“You think so?”

“I don’t know. But is it so bad if the world does become a little more magical?” She lifted her hand and the snowflakes formed themselves into an icy flower before scattering again.

“I don’t suppose there’s any harm in that kind of thing,” he said.

“On the other extreme, we have evil fairy horses dragging people into the water. Josephine may be up to something nefarious, but she’s not entirely wrong about things changing and the danger that might bring. It’s been so long since the fae could be active in our world on such a scale that we’ve lost the knowledge of how to deal safely with them.”

“I thought if no one believed in fairies, they’d die off.”

“It’s rather an existential question. If no one regards the actions of the fae as being supernatural, if it’s just another drowning or missing person, do they lose their power over us? Who’s in more danger from a kelpie, someone whose unbelief is so strong that they don’t even see a magical horse or someone who believes and hopes just enough to see, but who doesn’t know the danger?”

“The woman killed by the kelpie seems to have fallen into that last category. So, is it better to encourage enough belief to make people take the danger seriously or to encourage a lack of belief strong enough that it counts as protection?” he mused.

“I’m not sure it’s possible to do either deliberately. Can you imagine trying to get booked on a cable news show to talk about the growing fairy threat and how to prepare yourself? And how do you even go about telling people
not
to believe in fairies? That’s pretty much the status quo, aside from a few dreamers.”

They reached Broadway and were suddenly no longer quite so alone on the sidewalk, so both of them, by unspoken agreement, changed the subject. He couldn’t help but admire the way Sophie moved through a crowd as though she didn’t see the other people, and yet she never ran into anyone or acted like she expected them to get out of her way. She just seemed to somehow flow, and he followed in her wake. Was it a function of her personality, her dancer’s grace, her fae heritage, her magical gifts, or perhaps a combination?

“I wonder if we should stop and get Beau,” she said as they neared Michael and Emily’s building.

He checked his watch. “Emily should be getting out of the Sunday matinee soon, so I think Beau would rather wait for her.” He caught her fleeting smile and asked, “What?”

“You have Beau all figured out, do you?”

“He’s my best bud. We’ve got a real bromance going on.”

“Oh dear, we really do need to get you a life.”

“Hey, I just went to a tea party, I’m about to take a nice walk in the park with a pretty lady, and I was out last night with the same pretty lady. I think my social life is looking good right now.”

“If you say so,” she said, but she kept her eyes straight ahead and picked up her pace slightly, so that he had to jog to catch up. Had he made her angry? Should he tell her he was just joking about the pretty lady part? But he wasn’t, he had to admit. She
was
pretty, and he enjoyed her company. He might even enjoy it more if they could ever spend time together without dealing with fairies and enchantresses.

Someone was playing the violin on the sidewalk outside the park, and he didn’t think it was the same player he’d seen the day before. A small crowd had gathered, and a few children danced to the music.

“And the world becomes a little more magical,” Sophie murmured, echoing his own thoughts. If this really had anything to do with a growth in magic, could it be that bad?

He led her down the paths where he was most likely to encounter Mrs. Smith. Although he’d been the one to say they should leave Beau behind, it felt weird to him to be walking in the park without the dog. It had become such a habit lately.

“She might not be out today,” he suggested when they’d walked a while without seeing the wise woman. “I asked if she had a place to stay when it was cold, and she laughed at me, so maybe she’s inside somewhere warm.”

They both turned their heads at the sound of distant music. “That’s no street-corner violinist,” he said. It was wilder, odder, a pure melody that he couldn’t manage to hum, played to a rhythm that made him want to dance, and he didn’t dance.

She listened for a moment. The toe of her right foot tapped along with the music, then she seemed to notice it and stopped. “No. It’s not,” she agreed.

“We should probably look into it, huh?”

“Maybe.” She glanced around, looking worried.

“You really think Cruella’s evil twin is stalking you? She’s probably too busy telling every enchantress on the East Coast that you’re trying to use the increased fae activity to boost your own position.”

“Gee, thanks, that makes me feel so much better.” With a rueful smile, she added, “But you’re probably right. I’m not important enough to be stalked.”

They continued down the path, following the sound of the music. Michael wasn’t entirely sure he’d have been able to resist seeking out the source. It drew him closer, his feet operating outside his own control.

They reached a lamppost twined with a thorny vine. He was pretty sure he’d seen it in the park before, but it could just as easily have come straight from Narnia. Was it possible for something to exist simultaneously in both the real world and the fairy realm?

He had to wonder, because around and behind the lamppost, the late autumn starkness of the park was replaced with the lush greenery of summer. Inside the green area, fairies in the wispy attire of the free fae danced and played music. Little lights that looked like fireflies, but that he suspected were some of the tiny fae creatures, darted around the flowers.

“What is it, the Realm seeping through?” he whispered.

“Possibly.” She moved forward until her toes nearly touched the border between November and endless summer. She raised one hand, and the air shimmered around it, temporarily distorting the view of the dancers. After a moment, she said, “Actually, I think we’re seeing the Realm. There’s hardly a barrier between the worlds.”

“I thought the Realm was underground,” Michael protested. “When we went in through the passage to the Borderlands, we went through a tunnel, and the tree roots were like tree trunks there.”

“Well, yes and no. You can reach it physically that way, but it’s also a different plane of existence.”

“And now those planes are merging?”

“Looks like it.”

“That can’t be good.”

Central Park

Immediately afterward

Sophie knew what she was seeing, but she was having a hard time wrapping her mind around it and all the implications that went with it. From the sounds of it, Michael was also struggling. “So if we can get to the Realm by going underground, then how are we seeing it here, on the same level?”

“This is like a window into that plane. Most of the time, it’s like there’s a wall between the planes. There are gateways that can be opened by people who know how to do it. If they’re open, you might be able to see through them if you’ve got the gift of seeing the fae. If they’re closed, it’s like the wall is intact. This is like someone knocked a hole in the wall, creating a gateway that stays open. Any fae could get through it into our world.”

“Haven’t they been getting through all along? Eamon practically commutes between worlds.”

“Do you remember the Berlin Wall?”

“Not personally, but yeah, I recall the concept.”

“You could get through it at the checkpoints if you had the right clearance, but not everyone could get through all the time. The usual gateways are like Checkpoint Charlie—some fae can get through and visit our world for a limited amount of time. Some aren’t allowed to go back and are stuck here for good. This is like someone knocked a hole in the Berlin Wall, and now everyone can get through.”

“Which could explain the kelpies, selkies, and nixies showing up all of a sudden. Is it an invasion?”

She tried accessing the haphazard array of fairy information that had come when she put on the crown of the Realm, looking for precedents or explanations. “I think a lot of the barriers are to protect our side—the human side—from the fae. They seem to have been put up by human enchanters. But that doesn’t tell us who’s punching holes in them. The fae may be breaking free, in which case we probably ought to warn Nana. Or someone might be trying to let them out.”

“Or get in.”

She turned to look at him. “Maybe, but only if they had no clue what they were getting into. Let’s test it. You can see through it. Try walking through it.”

He took a deep breath before stepping forward. She was impressed that he didn’t flinch as he approached the border. Nothing held him back, but he also didn’t seem to be in the summer world. “It’s cold over here. I think I’m still in the park,” he reported.

“Then let’s see if it works like a regular gateway, where I can get you through.” He returned to her, and she held out her hand for him to take. They were both wearing gloves, so there was no actual contact, but she could have sworn there was a spark that felt like static electricity. His eyes widened slightly, telling her he’d felt it, too. “Sorry, I think I had a lot of magic built up from not doing anything to Josephine this afternoon,” she said. “I should probably turn someone into a frog to get it out of my system.”

“Find someone else. I don’t have any candidates for kissing me to break the curse.”

“You know, in the original story, the princess broke the curse by throwing the frog against the wall,” she said with a grin, mostly to stop herself from telling him she could take care of the kissing.

“Yeah, I still would rather not go there.”

Before they could step across the border, a shout from nearby made both of them whirl to see what was happening. They were just in time to see a white horse tearing down the path behind them, a woman on its back, clinging to its mane and calling out, “Help me!”

“Kelpie?” Michael asked.

“Most likely.”

“And it’s heading toward the Turtle Pond. That’s nasty even if she doesn’t drown.”

Michael was already chasing after the horse before Sophie had a chance to tell him not to, and his hand was reaching for his weapon. “No, don’t!” she shouted after him.

Hoping no one was watching her, she sent a wave of fae magic at the horse, shattering its glamour. A moment later, a naked man with a woman sitting on his shoulders tumbled to the ground. Michael didn’t miss a beat in grabbing the woman and getting her away from the scene. Sophie focused on the man.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” she asked as she strode toward him. “I’ll have none of that in my world.”

He turned to look at her, startled. He looked more or less human, but there were still some horse-like qualities to his face, with a long, rounded nose and large teeth. His hair grew like a mane, looking something like a long, untidy Mohawk. He didn’t have a chance to react before she grabbed him by the earlobe. “Now it’s back home with you.”

He was much taller than she was, so he had to bend over to walk with his ear in her grip. She could feel him attempting to change forms, but she exerted her will on him, forcing him to stay in his somewhat human form. She hoped he was freezing. That might teach him a lesson or two.

Michael had returned alone to the spot by the lamppost where the barrier was still down. “I took a statement—that I doubt I’ll be turning in—and sent her home. She’d already convinced herself that it never was a horse, just a strange man. And how is he a man?”

“They can take either form. But this one should be staying out of our world for the foreseeable future, won’t you?”

The kelpie made a choking sound that resembled a whinny, and she gave him a good shove, sending him through the open barrier into the Realm. On the other side, he immediately resumed his horse form and galloped away.

“Now, to make sure this doesn’t happen again, at least not in this spot,” she murmured, more to herself than to Michael. Her first impression that the barrier hadn’t been of fae origin proved correct as she found the frayed edges using her magical senses. She didn’t know the precise spell that had been used, but it had all the flavor of enchantress magic. It wasn’t too difficult to repair the hole, but she had to use some fae magic to complete it because she was still such a novice as enchantress. The resulting patch was a mesh of enchantress and fae magic, which should make it more difficult for either side to break down.

When she opened her eyes, the bubble of summer was gone. “So, things are all sealed off?” Michael said, breaking the silence that had ensued when the wild music was stifled by the barrier.

“At this spot. Goodness knows how many other breaches there might be.”

“It’s kind of a pity. It looked a lot warmer there.”

“They’re lucky, then, that it seems to have been a one-way passage. They’d have been invaded if just anyone here could have wandered through, and who could resist a lovely summer evening on a day like today?”

“Who broke down the wall? Josephine? Is she that powerful?”

“I’m not sure tearing it down requires power so much as will. No enchantress would want to take down the barriers because they make our lives much easier.”

“Unless someone wanted to make herself look more important by creating a crisis to react to.”

As much as she wanted to vilify Josephine on general principles, Sophie couldn’t bring herself to come to a firm conclusion yet. “It seems rather extreme to create a situation like this just so she can make a power play.”

“Could it have happened accidentally?”

“Not likely.”

“Then someone had to do it, and she’s the one who’s been making noise.”

She couldn’t resist smiling archly at him. “Is this how you conduct police investigations—pick a suspect and then look for evidence to support your suspicion?”

“No, but I do take a good, hard look at anyone who reports finding a body, especially if they go about seeking attention for it.”