by Holly Hook
"Irving," I said, realizing it was the biggest shirt.
The first of the swans walked forward and stood still, watching me.
I did the best I could. I slid the shirt down over the bird’s neck and spread it over his body.
And feathers exploded.
“Ignacia!” Irving practically knocked me over with his hug. “You’re alive. I thought you were going to be burned to death. That would suck even more than having feathers in places. I’m glad you yelled.”
He understood.
Irving didn’t hate me for saving my own life.
“I’ll be a better brother and help you take care of the midgets more,” he said, releasing me.
Irving got a hard peck from another one of the swans.
“Um, brothers,” he said. “Manly, manly brothers.”
The swan nodded and I laughed.
Irving and I went to work putting the rest of the shirts on, and one by one, my brothers returned in a storm of feathers. What little remained of Annie’s curse fluttered to the ground and hitched a ride on the wind. White feathers landed on the water and drifted across a lake where real swans might roost for all I knew.
“If I ever forget, remind me that swans are the one living creature I will not mess with,” Mica said once all six of my brothers stood there, fully in their human forms and wearing the flower shirts.
“We’ve lived with them all our lives,” Immanuel said. “You do not mess in the affairs of swans.”
We all laughed. The lake was beautiful and the breeze was cool but felt good. I wanted to sit here with Mica and Brie and my brothers and enjoy the scenery, but one thing pressed at my mind.
“Annie,” I said. “She’s still out there.”
“And injured,” Irving said.
Stilt held up the purple ball of yarn. “We should get to a portal. One that she doesn’t know about, anyway.” He held up the yarn ball. “Show us a portal that Annie will never think to use.”
The ball rose and unraveled, casting a line right down the drive and onto the road. Thankfully, it headed away from the village.
Hopefully far away.
“What about Rae and Henry?” Mica asked. “I can’t leave my cousin here. We might need Rae. She’s the only one I know who can cure darkness. Even the villagers can’t stay here. They won’t survive the winter.”
Stilt motioned for us to return to the car. “We’ll come back for them. They’ll be okay for a little bit. I think we should first get ourselves to the Star Kingdom. The Queen there is sympathetic to our situation.”
Stilt and Brie were still refugees. They didn’t have anywhere to go, unlike Mica and I. My brothers and I still had to get home if at all possible and at least let Father know we were alive.
I slipped my hand into Mica’s. “Come on,” I said. “I want to see if the Sun Kingdom is as bright as they say.”
Chapter One
"Devil spawn."
I stopped in the middle of the hallway, clutching my staff.
"I think he heard you."
I couldn't see the two knights anywhere in the hall, but I knew where they lurked. They always hung out in the entrance to the wine cellar, pretending to be guarding the place from thieves. I knew better. The idiots would sample the contents throughout the day. Already a bitter, unmistakable smell wafted out and it was only eight in the morning. I didn't get why in Fable these guys had gotten hired and managed to keep their jobs.
Whatever the reason, their sole purpose was to try to make me crack.
Every day. No matter where I went in the castle, they were there.
It had all started when I walked in on them one night and found the two of them laughing in the back of the wine cellar, an open bottle of my grandmother's hundred-year-old wine between them. The looks of horror on their faces made it easy for me to convince them to let me have a taste but after that night, once they thought they were safe, the words started behind my back and they weren't even good at hiding it.
Ebert and Humphrey. It sounded like some horrible cartoon that they showed in the other world, where televisions existed and where my girlfriend, Candice, had spent most of her life thinking that Fable wasn't real. I imagined a couple of animated donkeys trying to toast each other and down more royal wine, laughing all the time.
I had to keep walking. It wasn't the first time I'd been called devil spawn or bad influence. Evil Eye. Monster. I'd heard them all.
It happened when your father was the most powerful dark wizard in Fable.
"I swear, I think he heard you."
I kept walking, clutching the new staff in one hand, hating that my grandmother had convinced me to throw on a magician’s robe for this simple errand. Real fitting.
“He might curse us.”
"Or kill us, like he did the prince."
I turned around and tightened my grip on the staff. No one was supposed to talk about that. They had said the one thing that I would rather leave behind. “I just might,” I said, hating the words as soon as they left my mouth. I didn't mean them, but anger rolled through my chest like smoke from a wildfire.
The sound of either Ebert or Humphrey stumbling followed and I walked into the darkness that marked the start of the wine cellar. Humphrey stood against the wall while Ebert struggled to get up, but his armor was stopping him. It must suck to wear about forty pounds when you went to work every day. I took the staff and pounded it on the brick for good effect. Humphrey sidestepped back, visor up and surveying me with dread.
“Maybe I should,” I said, relishing the looks on their faces. “Or maybe I should just tell the queen that you were enjoying her prize wine. I've been waiting to do that for a long time.”
That really got the terror going. “No. No no no,” Ebert said, still struggling to get up. “Shorty, we’re sorry. I didn’t think you could hear us.”
“I know what you think of me,” I said. My threat was empty. The cursing one, anyway. I wasn’t using dark magic unless it was some life or death situation. Magic could go to hell, especially since I had already been forced to take a life with it. Prince Lawrence of the Fox Kingdom had been trying to kill me so he could have my girlfriend. He was also a major sneak that worked with my father in secret, helping to get my mother imprisoned somewhere in a glass coffin right after I had been born. It was partly thanks to him that my life was this swell.
But killing wasn’t something you did lightly.
I wasn’t my father. I didn’t enjoy using dark magic even though I knew it ran through me, lurking and waiting to be used.
“We're really sorry,” Humphrey said, helping Ebert to his feet.
Light magic I could feel less crappy about.
I eyed the staff and the clear jewel that crowned it, the one shaped like a five-pointed star. Light magic ran on my mother’s side of the family but these two morons probably didn’t know that. I allowed the warm tingling sensation to run up my right arm and feed into the staff. The star on top glowed as the air around me turned electric. Lights danced on the walls and brightened the space enough so I could see the wine bottles on the other side of the knights. They backed towards the stash like they were trying to protect it. Neither one of them bothered to reach for their swords.
They shouldn’t have passed as knights at all.
“We’ll be reporting this to Queen Nori,” Ebert said, trying to salvage his manhood.
“And I’ll be reporting your theft to her as well,” I said, letting the staff grow brighter. “You can think whatever you want of me, but if I hear you mention the thing I was forced to do again, things are going to hit the fan.”
“Hit the fan?” Humphrey asked. He was confused by the common saying from the other world.
“Things won’t be good,” I said. I stopped letting energy flow to the staff. This staff was for show, anyway, and couldn’t do anything more than create shooting stars in the night sky. The worst thing that would happen if I zapped these guys with it would be some magical, purple flowers growing over them.
Maybe that would be a good punishment.
I raised the staff.
"No!" Humphrey shouted.
Then he unsheathed his sword.
These guys really thought I was going to hurt them.
On one level, I did want to hurt them, to make them suffer for making me remember with those two words. A cold power pulsed through me, begging to be released. My muscles hurt with it. Holding in magic never had good effects on the body.
But I pushed that aside. The air fizzled with warm, tingling energy and I pointed the staff right when Humphrey's jaw fell open. I focused on sending all my magic down my right arm in a river of fire. I hated the way it felt, like sunshine trying to mix in with a cold, dark void. Some people had light magic and others dark magic.
I might be the only person alive who had both.
A stream of white light shot out of the star gem and hit Humphrey head on. He flew back and caught himself on the wine shelf. A bottle fell off and shattered, spilling its contents. Ebert ducked down. The white, fizzling light bounced off Humphrey's armor and circled around the wine cellar, trying to find a place to land. Shadows tilted and the shooting star made a faint cracking sound, gave up, and landed in the middle of the floor.
Darkness fell except for a circle of purplish-white light on the brick.
And through a tiny crack, a green stem emerged, unfurling like some mutant butterfly's long mouth. A leaf spread out and a purple blossom opened. Light pulsed through tiny veins in the petals and it was actually kind of cool. Rampion. It always grew wherever shooting stars landed.
I turned away. Marveling at the flower would erode my sense of manhood faster than wearing this silvery magicians' robe. "There's your dark magic," I said. "Have a good day."
Storming out of the wine cellar, I lowered the staff and headed up the closest flight of stairs. I'd do anything to get away from those two losers. The two of them, sitting there and calling me the devil spawn. I walked so fast that the torches on the walls flickered when I passed. I walked past a stained glass window decorated with the night sky, walking through blue light and letting the staff hit each step.
It wasn't until I had reached the top of the stairs when I realized that no one in this castle had ever spoken about my killing Prince Lawrence.
My grandmother, Queen Nori, had vowed that it would remain silent. Nori kept to herself most of the time and was busy sending out shooting stars to other parts of Fable in the last few months. She hadn't spoken to anybody. My mother's mother had offered to let me stay here without my asking, which I thought was more about keeping me from Alric's side. But things could be worse. At least this wasn't Henrik's old castle back in the dark region, which Alric took over when the king got sucked into the underworld. I could breathe in this place.
Candice wouldn't have said a word about it to anyone. I'd stopped Lawrence from forcing her to marry him. She kind of owed me and besides, she'd never do something like that after the hell we had gone through together.
Franco, maybe.
Candice's best friend had it out for me ever since my deadbeat father sent me to the other world to search for the frog prince. He could have done it and I hoped that was the real explanation, but this might be way more serious.
There was another way Ebert and Humphrey could have found out the truth.
Meeting time, then.
I climbed another flight of stairs, passing more stained glass windows full of constellations. The one clear window showed the courtyard and the gardens of the Star Kingdom's castle. A large road was open to the small city beyond it, a city filled with pointed houses, moving carts and people milling around.
It was wide enough for an invasion.
I pumped my legs faster until I reached the Queen's tower. The door was always locked and she was coming out of there less and less. My grandmother hadn't spoken to me much since she had brought Candice and I back from the Fox Kingdom.
She had better open up now. I'd walked all the way to the apothecary shop on the other side of town to get this new staff. The old one had finally cracked from all the use and she'd sent me out to get a new one.
I knocked. "Open up!" I shouted. "It's the police!"
"What?" the Queen asked.
"It's a joke," I said. "I've got your staff." I checked behind me. "And...possible news."
A lock clicked from the other side and the Queen opened the door. She had put on a silvery dress today. It was the same shade of the robe she'd insisted I appear in public in. Awesome.
I handed her the artifact. Nori didn't like to advertise that she could use magic. Some people in Fable didn't trust anyone with magic at all. Mine would go over well. My silver robe was a silent signal to the shop owner that I was there for something besides herbs. Thankfully, most common people didn't recognize this as magical wear.
My grandmother eyed the staff. "It's warm," she said, turning it over in her hands. "You used this." Her tone was neutral.
"About that," I said. "Ebert and Humphrey." I had stayed quiet about their theft until now, mainly because they'd let me sample some of the wine.
"What about them?" she asked. The Queen had bags under her eyes that I'd never seen before. Her gray-blond hair now had a lot more gray and stray hairs popped out from around her tiara. She looked like she just wanted me to go away.
"They're great guys," I said.
Nori leaned against the door frame, impatient. "What did they do now?"
I explained how they had mentioned Prince Lawrence and she stood there for a minute, not comprehending. She was tired. Exhausted.
"No one's supposed to know," I said. "About that."
Then her eyes widened like she was trying to catch up.
"You're right," she said. "I've never told anyone in this castle. Franco could have spoken with them."
"He could have," I agreed. Candice had of course told everything to her best friend. While I hated that, I understood. "When did you hire those morons?" I asked. "You know, they can't even handle swords right. I've seen little kids fight better with sticks."
Nori thought. "About a month ago, if I remember right. I've been very busy, Shorty. Things are slipping my mind sometimes."
My grandmother seemed to be aging faster and faster but I had to say it. "What if they're spies from the Fox Kingdom? You know, where they know what I did? We're not exactly friends with the Queen there anymore."
A dark look came over my grandmother's face. An axe had fallen between the two allies since Lawrence had keeled over under my killing spell. The word I'd yelled at him still rang through my mind, a magic word from Fable's Old Language.
"That could be how they know," I finished.
Nori turned and sighed. A breeze came through the window of the circular astronomy tower, one that had a globe in the middle. The bronze telescope that now had a cobweb between it and the floor. My grandmother didn't stargaze anymore like she said she used to. She had slowed down after my mother had fled this place, first with Alric and then with Lawrence. Now she had stopped. The only astronomy she did now was sending those shooting stars out to the dark spots growing through Fable. My grandmother was doing all she could to heal the spreading darkness, but it was gaining ground too fast.
There were even reports of dark spots in the Star Kingdom now, the farthest kingdom from the dark region. Many people called this the lightest kingdom.
"The Fox Kingdom is many days away," she said. "You're right. It would take word a long time to travel out here so they might be from there. I'll investigate those two. Steer very clear of them. In fact, steer clear of any part of the castle you would be isolated in."
She was saying I was in danger. Great.
"We don't need to lose you. You're a vital part of this fight." She gave me a tired smile.
I put my hands behind my back because I was clenching them. “I’ll be careful,” I said.
The Queen closed the door.
I was a pawn once again. Alric had used me before and
this was the same thing, just with smiles instead of orders. Nori was uncomfortable with me being here and I was best kept at a distance. I wondered how my mother would have been about this kind of thing.
But she was trapped in a glass coffin somewhere. Alric had made sure that I knew that. I'd never spoken to her.
I had to talk to Candice.
The Fox Kingdom wouldn’t be happy with her, either. She had tossed me the wand I had used to end Prince Lawrence’s life. About a dozen knights had seen it and the Queen there knew about it, too.
I ran downstairs, hating that I had wasted the time on Nori. I passed the wine cellar again and headed out to the gardens, where I found Candice and Franco reading separate books underneath the fig tree. The sun shone and I had to squint my eyes to avoid another headache. Using magic made me prone to them as if my conscience were trying to punish me.
Candice looked up. I leaned down and gave her a kiss. It didn’t hurt to soften the news. Next to her, Franco tensed and went back to his reading. It was obvious where I stood with that guy.
“What’s up?” she asked.
What’s up. It was a saying from the other world and things didn’t necessarily have to be up.
I searched the gardens, making sure there weren’t any knights posted behind the tree trunks or anyone crouching in the beds of white flowers. A few more clumps of the magic purple rampion grew, one in each bed, their glow mixing in with the sunlight. I regretted surrendering the staff. If I had to do magic again, I needed a focus and the right word. Some really experienced people could do magic without one, like Alric, but I wasn’t wading into those waters for a long time.
And then I told Candice and Franco what had happened.
“You used the staff on them?” Candice asked, rising. She was holding back a laugh.
“Yeah. I did,” I admitted. “It didn’t do much to them but I think it shook them up.” I checked the garden again. “I’m an idiot. I should have summoned a lightning bolt like Zeus. Now they’re not going to be scared of a guy that plants flowers.”
Franco snorted.
“Would you shut up?” I asked.
