The School between Winter and Fairyland

by Heather Fawcett

  “He’s always got to be helping someone, you see,” Gawain said. “It’s a compulsion.”

  Autumn would have thought Gawain cruel if not for the warmth in his voice. He and Winifred clearly held this blushing, stammering, ridiculously polite boy in high regard. And Gawain knew about his fear of dragons! It was puzzling.

  Cai said goodbye to Winifred and Gawain and led Autumn to the back of the library.

  “Sorry about that,” he muttered, scratching his face. Autumn observed with interest that he seemed to be breaking out in hives. Just from being put on the spot by his friends! What a strange boy he was. No wonder he was afraid of Amfidzel. Even the wisps could eat Cai for breakfast.

  Autumn mulled over what Gawain had said. Cai was always having adventures at Inglenook. Why, when he was ten years old, he’d gone into the Gentlewood to rescue two apprentices and a master who had lost their way. It hadn’t seemed strange to Cai’s friends that he was helping Autumn, because that was what Cai did.

  Was that what she was to Cai? Just another chapter in a book about his heroics, or a stanza in a ballad? It made Autumn feel strange. Small. She didn’t think she wanted to be a stanza.

  Don’t be silly, Autumn thought. You’re barely a couplet. When’s the last time you heard a bard sing about a servant girl with muddy boots?

  She remembered Anurin’s words. You get yourself tangled up in their world, you may never get untangled. But she wasn’t tangled up in anything—Cai would help Winter, the way he helped everyone, and then they would go their separate ways.

  You’ll never believe this story when you hear it, Winter, she thought.

  They came to a staircase with a librarian’s desk guarding it. The librarian jumped at the sight of Cai, spilling his tea all over his book, which filled the librarian’s face with such horror that at first Autumn thought he must have scalded himself. Cai stepped forward, and Autumn didn’t see what he did, but a second later the book was dry. Now it looked as if the librarian was about to burst into tears. He nearly begged to help Cai find his books, so earnestly that you’d think Cai had rescued him from the maw of a dragon, not mopped up a tea stain. Cai brushed aside the librarian’s exclamations with his usual politeness.

  What a fuss! Autumn thought. The effect Cai had on other people was exhausting.

  They climbed the staircase, which was so twisty Autumn felt dizzy. “Where are we going?” she called.

  “I told you,” Cai said over his shoulder. “The skybrary.”

  “What’s a skybrary?”

  Cai just smiled. “Come on.”

  Autumn and Cai huffed and puffed their way up the stairs. Autumn found herself losing track of how far they’d come and how long they’d been climbing. Was that magic?

  Light flickered ahead, and a door appeared before them, slightly ajar. Through it came a cold wind and a sound like dry fingers rubbing together. Cai took her hand and pushed their way through.

  Autumn’s cry caught in her throat.

  She stood on a round platform of white marble in the middle of nowhere. Literally. They were up in the sky, surrounded by thin clouds and an infinity of stars. The moon was enormous, a cold eye glaring down as if resenting their company.

  “What—?” was all Autumn could get out.

  “Don’t worry,” Cai said. “You won’t fall.” He reached out and tapped what looked like empty space, but his knuckles made a pinging sound. The platform was surrounded by the clearest, thinnest glass.

  He led her to a row of stacks. Autumn went slowly, testing each step. Cloud tendrils swirled around her feet like ghostly fingers, and wind lifted her hair. The glass let in some of the night, or perhaps it was one-way glass: things could pass through from outside, but nothing that belonged in the library could leave it. Such as, to choose an example completely at random, a girl falling to her death.

  Cai began pulling books off shelves. He tossed them onto a table topped with an ornate Inglenook lamp patterned with bluebells. The flame shone steadily through the wind.

  “The librarians store all the oldest books in the skybrary,” Cai explained. “The cold air preserves them.”

  Autumn looked around, being very, very careful not to look in any downward directions. “Why’s it empty?”

  “Most students aren’t allowed here. You need special permission from the head librarian. Now, as far as maps go … Ah, here.”

  He opened one of the books. Most of the pages were taken up by complicated drawings.

  “These are old,” Cai explained. “Drawn before the school was even built.”

  Autumn touched a page. It felt as fragile as a moth’s wing.

  “The thing is, we need more than a map of the school if we’re going to work out where to look for Winter,” Cai said, scratching his fading hives. “We need a map of enchantments.”

  “What?”

  “The school is enchanted. I don’t just mean the spells that created it. I mean all the spells that the masters—and probably a few students—have cast on it over the years. Spells to make rooms bigger or divide them in two, or to make them yellow. Spells that made a portal between one end of the castle and the other, because some magician wanted a shorter walk to his office.”

  “Right.” The boggart had said something like this—spells overlaying spells. It made Autumn’s head hurt.

  “The thing is,” Cai said, absently tapping one of the maps, “all magic has consequences. That’s the first lesson you’re taught at Inglenook. Summoning a spring could mean creating a drought several miles away. Let’s say some magician decides to make two rooms into one. That spell might create a whole other room somewhere that nobody knows about. Or say she seals off the stairs leading to one of the towers. That might create a hidden staircase leading underground.”

  Autumn’s head was pounding now. Hidden staircases? Disappearing rooms? “What a mess this place is!” she said. “Why haven’t the masters tidied things up, instead of leaving spells lying around like old socks?”

  “I guess they’ve never seen the need. And anyway, ancient magic is hard to spot. It loses its glitter.”

  Autumn thought of the bay window overlooking the valley. Had some professor tried to add more windows somewhere and accidentally created a window-world, which Winter had fallen into? It seemed as likely as anything else.

  “How are we supposed to find these hidden bits?” she said. “It sounds impossible.”

  “I’ve found a few over the years,” Cai said. “It’s tricky, but not impossible. I was thinking I could make a list of places to explore, and this Sunday we can—”

  “Sunday?” Autumn stared at him. A heavy weight settled in her stomach, something like disappointment, but darker, and her fear came rushing back. Cai didn’t believe her, and now he wanted to put her off. “What are you talking about? Why would we wait?”

  Cai blinked. “Students aren’t allowed to be wandering around the castle at night.”

  “You wander around all the time, Cai Morrigan,” she said heatedly. “I’ve heard the stories, same as everyone else.”

  “Yes, but I’ve always known where I’m going beforehand.”

  Autumn stabbed her finger at the book, so roughly that the page tore. All she could see was Winter’s face in the window. “What else are these dusty old maps for?” she demanded. “I thought you knew the school inside and out. Winter could be in danger. He could—”

  Autumn realized that her voice had risen. Button it, Autumn, a little whisper said.

  She stepped back, her cheeks heating. She felt like a shuttle on a loom, clanking back and forth between two versions of Cai: the hero of Eryree and the blushing scaredy-cat. “I’m sorry, sir. I mean, Cai—”

  “It’s all right.” He looked down at the book, which was not only torn but scattered with bits of seaweed that must have fallen out of Autumn’s sleeve. He reached up absently and pooled starlight in his palm. It glimmered like a handful of melted butter, and he smoothed it over the book, murmuring. The torn
page knitted together.

  “I think it’s time you told me why you think Winter is trapped in the castle,” Cai said. “And why you’re in such a hurry when he’s been missing since last year. Has something happened?”

  Autumn didn’t hear him at first. She was too busy staring at the book, which now had a faint shimmer. She’d never seen anyone cast a spell before—not up close, anyway. She wished he would do it again.

  “I can see that you don’t trust me.” Cai’s voice was mild. “But if you tell me what you know, it will be easier for me to help.”

  Autumn shuffled her feet. Cai was right, of course. Even if he didn’t believe her, or only pretended to, she had to try to convince him. He was Winter’s best hope.

  So she told him everything. Not just about the window, but about her trips into the forest, the cloak, the boots. She stumbled through the story, wishing she was better at that sort of thing. She kept leaving out parts and having to go back, or not describing things as well as she wanted to.

  But to her surprise, Cai listened carefully without interrupting. He asked questions: Which window had it been, and how long had Winter stayed there? Where had the boots been found? What exactly had the slumbering monsters in the Gentlewood said?

  “The thing is,” he said, tapping his chin with a pen after Autumn had finished, “the ones who saw Winter in the Gentlewood could have seen him anytime—years ago, even. Those old logs barely notice anything anymore. So your theory that it was a false trail could be right.”

  “Do you think I’m imagining things?”

  “I don’t know,” Cai said. “It’s possible. But it’s also possible that you’re right.”

  To Autumn’s astonishment, she felt her eyes well with tears. She turned away from Cai quickly, pretending to examine another book. She didn’t know why his words meant so much to her. Maybe because she was so used to people thinking she was just a silly girl, or half-mad with sorrow. Cai Morrigan was the only person who had ever taken her seriously. How perfectly ridiculous was that? She felt like pinching herself.

  Fortunately, Cai either failed to notice her tears or politely pretended not to. He pressed his hand flat against the table, and starlight pooled beneath it, watery and undulating. It spread over the table and caught the books and papers in a tide, and they drifted into neat piles.

  Autumn stared. “Isn’t that a waste of magic?”

  “It’s a simple spell,” Cai said, lifting the maps. Starlight dripped onto his boots. He caught sight of her expression, and his brow creased. “Are you all right?”

  Autumn couldn’t stop staring at the table. “How does it feel?”

  “How does what feel?”

  “To have magic. To have all that light inside you, ready to organize books or kill dragons or turn wood into gold.”

  Cai smiled. “Magicians can’t turn things to gold.” His gaze turned inward. “I’m not the best person to ask. I’ve always had magic, but I don’t think it’s the same for me. Other magicians talk about magic as if it’s the sea. Something you can wade in, or fish in, or put in a bucket and carry around. But I can feel the magic inside me, all salty and cold, and it doesn’t feel like it belongs there. Have you ever swallowed seawater?” He blinked. “I’m not making any sense, am I? You don’t understand.”

  Autumn sighed quietly. “I wish I did.”

  Cai stood, his expression closed. The starlight was gone, and they were alone with the whistling wind and the cold. Autumn flushed, wondering if Cai thought her impertinent for asking such things. But he seemed to guess what she was thinking and smiled at her.

  “I know you’re scared,” he said, “but I need time to think about all this, and I doubt one more day will hurt Winter. Let’s meet again tomorrow night.”

  Autumn nodded, so relieved her legs wobbled. “You can come by the cottage for your first lesson in the morning.”

  He brightened. “Thanks.”

  She chewed her lip, watching him. “Why are you doing this?”

  “What?”

  The question had been too blunt, but Autumn pushed on anyway. “Why did you come to me for help?”

  He slowly placed the books on a shelf. “The prophecy says I’m going to slay the Hollow Dragon. I can’t very well do that when I’m—the way I am.”

  Autumn thought back to what Gran had said. “And you believe the prophecy?”

  Cai gave her a blank look, and Autumn understood that to Cai, prophecies were not just things you heard people talk about, the way they spoke of magic or long-dead heroes. They were part of his world as much as air or rain. She looked down at her hands, suddenly feeling very small again. Much less than a couplet, less than a word.

  Cai reached for a different book, opened it. “Look.”

  It was a map not just of Eryree, but the entire Island of Annan. There was the Gentlewood stretching east to the Asgorn Sea and north to the snowbound Boreal Wastes. There were the Southern Realms—tiny, perpetually squabbling kingdoms like Gormer Hills and Mittlebree. Autumn had never seen the Southern Realms, of course, but she knew the people who lived there were strange. They saw magicians as little more than craftspeople, and they didn’t plant ghost trees outside their homes to gather the family memories. Some of them didn’t even believe in monsters and thought the tales of Eryree carried to their ears by bards were nonsense.

  Cai tapped the map. “The kings and queens in the Southern Realms are keeping an eye on Eryree. Some of their kingdoms are only a few miles wide, and they’d love to add our lands to theirs. They know that Eryree is weakening. They know we’ve been losing more and more of our villages to the Gentlewood, especially since the Hollow Dragon came down from the Boreal Wastes. He hates us, and his anger feeds the forest.” Cai looked as if he’d half forgotten that Autumn was there. “If I don’t kill the Hollow Dragon, it’s not just the Gentlewood we’ll have to worry about.”

  Autumn didn’t know what to say. It was strange to hear a boy her age talk this way. Shouldn’t the king and his knights be the ones worrying about the Southern Realms? But then, she reminded herself, he was Cai Morrigan, wasn’t he? It probably wasn’t strange at all.

  She thought of all the stories of the Hollow Dragon. They were contradictory—some said he stood taller than the tallest tree; others that his whole body burned like a fire built dense and hot. But they all agreed on a few points: a towering beast little more than skin and bone, his terrible hunger a living thing inside him. She watched in wonderment as Cai calmly stuffed the remaining books into his bag.

  She wrapped her trembling arms around herself. Cai didn’t think she was mad. He hadn’t shaken his head and told her there was nothing he could do. He was going to help her!

  She could hear Winter’s familiar laugh, feel his soft white hair against her cheek when he rested his head on her shoulder—hair that always smelled of grass and wool. She didn’t dare to speak, in case Cai changed his mind.

  Fortunately, Cai seemed lost in his own thoughts. He blew out the lantern, and the wind swallowed the curl of smoke. Then, to Autumn’s relief, they left the skybrary behind.

  Autumn had just tucked herself back into bed when she heard Gran’s boots thudding up the front steps and the clank of the lantern being put back on its hook.

  Having finished her rounds along the forest’s edge, Gran did her rounds of the other Malogs, first looking in on the boys’ room, from which arose a storm of snores, then thumping her way up the ladder to the attic.

  “Still awake, are we?”

  Autumn nodded, tucking her hands under her blankets. She thought of Anurin and wondered if Gran noticed any telltale glow upon her, if just talking to Cai had left smudges of light on her like ink. She was relieved that Gran had been out all evening—Autumn wouldn’t have to explain her visit to the skybrary. Her stomach was still churning from the strangeness of it all.

  “Waiting for a story, I suppose.”

  A smile broke across Autumn’s face. A part of her thought she was too old for be
dtime stories, but she didn’t care.

  “Which one?” Gran settled on the edge of her bed with a grunt. “Not—”

  “The fox and the magician.”

  Gran groaned. “You could tell me that tale backward and sideways by now, girl.”

  Autumn only propped the pillow up behind her and settled into the bed with relish. This was just what she needed. And it wasn’t as if she’d be able to fall asleep anytime soon.

  Gran grumbled some and then began the tale, as Autumn had known she would. She lay back and let the story envelop her like a well-worn quilt.

  “Now,” Gran began, “there once was a fox living deep in the Gentlewood—”

  “A fox with snow-white fur.”

  Gran rolled her eyes. “A fox with snow-white fur. And living nearby, all on her lonesome, was a powerful magician. See, this was back in the days when the Gentlewood was halfway to gentle, and many a magician made their home under those old boughs. One day, the magician gave birth to a lovely girl with hair like raven feathers. Not an hour later, the fox gave birth to a kit, with fur even whiter than his dam’s—if snow had bones inside it, that’s how pale he’d be. Now the magician and the fox were great friends, and so they made a pact between them to keep their children safe. They took the kit’s heart, and they put it inside the magician’s daughter, and they took the heart of the magician’s daughter and put it inside the kit. Each child would carry the other’s heart for as long as they lived.

  “The fox’s son and the magician’s daughter grew to be great friends, too. One day, when they were about as old as you are now, they came upon a frozen lake. The girl promised the fox she wouldn’t skate too far, but the fox knew her heart better than she did—it was beating in his chest, after all. He knew she wouldn’t be able to resist the call of that lovely ice shining in the moonlight, and so he took the end of her braid between his teeth and held tight to it. And when the girl skated too far and fell through the thin place in the middle of the lake, he pulled her out.

  “When they were older, and the girl was about to be married, the fox offered to bring her and her husband a beautiful wedding present. The girl didn’t want him to go too far, because it was spring and the dragons were beginning to stir, so she asked only for a bucket of water from the hot spring to warm her feet. The fox pretended to agree, and brought her the bucket, but then he snuck away in secret. He traveled far, far to the north, where the dragons are all bones and teeth and hunger, and there are hot springs so deep they could fill a hundred buckets, enough to make a pond for the girl to bathe in. But the girl knew the fox’s heart. She followed him with a basket of the rarest snow roses and used them to lure the dragons away. And so the fox filled up his buckets and returned home safely.