by Ruth Vincent
“Have you ever met any of these adopted families?” Obadiah asked me.
I was about to retort something, but his words stopped me.
“No, I haven’t,” I admitted, “but I’ve heard a lot about them. When I was younger, I used to help the Queen on rescue missions, before she lied to me . . .”
“I don’t think that was the first time the Queen lied to you,” said Obadiah. “I don’t think there are any such adoptive families.”
“What do you mean?” But my mind was whirling, a sick dread filling my gut. I thought of the children we’d led out of those hellish homes, their big, hollow eyes—I thought we were saving a human child and comforting a grieving fairy family at the same time. I saw my own Shadow in my mind’s eye, happy and cooing in her crib. The only way I could bear what we’d done to her was to think that somewhere in the Vale, she was growing up with loving fairy parents. Was it not true?
“I think the Fairy Queen tricked you twice,” Obadiah said again.
I felt like I was going to vomit. But why would she kill the children?
“Look, I have no love for the Fairy Queen. I’ll never forgive her for what she did to me—trapping me in this human body, severing my powers. She betrayed me!” I said, my voice hot, fists clenched. “The Queen is evil. But what reason would she have for kidnapping and killing human children?”
Obadiah frowned. “I don’t know why she kills them,” he said at last. “I just know that she does.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because I’ve seen it,” he said, a darkness passing over his face. “I’ve seen her dragging them away to her secret room. I’ve heard them screaming. And when they go into that room, they don’t come out again . . .”
My whole body felt cold as he said it. I knew he wasn’t lying. In my head, I could see the baby I’d switched places with—her tiny face turning purple as she cried, the Goblin shoving her little kicking feet into the sack. Was she . . . ? If the Queen killed her—it’s your fault, the little voice in my head whispered.
“She’s killed all the children . . . ?” I asked, dread in my voice.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I managed to escape. I don’t know what happened to all the others.”
My shoulders slumped. So there was a chance my Shadow was still alive.
“Do you know what the Shadows used to whisper to each other in prison?” Obadiah asked, his voice devoid of emotion.
He stepped closer to me, arms crossed, a cold fire burning in his eyes.
I shook my head numbly. The iciness in his voice terrified me more than if he had yelled and cursed. I didn’t want to know what he was about to say. I just wanted to run—run to someplace where I could be alone and think clearly. But there was nowhere to go.
“Tell me,” I said, my voice almost inaudible.
“If a changeling dies in human form, its Shadow can return to the human world.” His eyes sparkled darkly. “If you kill a changeling, its Shadow is freed.”
A sudden dread filled my stomach.
“That’s not true!”
“How do you know?” he asked. “Have you ever tried it?”
The cold logic of his words cut into me. I opened my mouth to protest, but—how did I know? I’d lived my whole life believing a version of reality I’d gotten from the Fairy Queen—and what a reliable narrator she’d turned out to be.
The gleam in Obadiah’s eyes frightened me.
Surely he wasn’t going to put this crazy theory to the test? Surely, he wouldn’t try to hurt me?
I tried to gauge whether or not I should be afraid. His dark eyes were menacing, but he hadn’t made a move towards me. Not yet.
But we were inside a secret room. No one else knew how to get in here except him and whatever lucky customer he chose to bring inside. Why had he taken me here? He’d said it was so that we could talk in private, and I believed him. But if something were to happen to me here in this secret room, no one but Obadiah would know.
Now I was starting to panic.
Think, I told myself.
I watched him. There was a change in his eyes. Beneath the hard, cold anger, I glimpsed for a moment a young, scared boy who’d clung to any rumor he heard in captivity, if it resembled hope, because what was the alternative? I saw the wild desperation in him, and I trembled at what he might be capable of. I could see the deep hatred he had of all fairies in his eyes, and I understood where it came from, after what the Queen had done to him. But still, I didn’t think he was going to hurt me. There was something else in his eyes too, something that held that hatred in check. When at last I opened my mouth to speak, I tried to speak to that other part of him.
“Obadiah, listen to me,” I said, moving closer to him, my fingers brushing his forearm. “I know I’ve been wrong about a lot of things. I know the Queen lied to me. But what you heard from the Shadows—it can’t be true. The fairies rarely put a changeling in a Shadow’s place. My mission was the exception. The rest of the time, we just left a Fetch—a piece of enchanted wood bespelled to look like the child that would wither and sicken and ‘fail to thrive.’ I’m sorry if you thought that was a way to free your Shadow friends, but it’s just not true.”
Obadiah studied me, his arms folded tight over his chest; I could see by the subtle change in his expression that he was considering my point. He walked over to the fireplace and threw another log on the blaze, sending up sparks. I could see both sides of him battling it out. There was a demon in him, but there was an angel too that held it back. I decided to hold my ground.
He turned to me and his eyes grew narrow and cold.
“You know what the Shadows also say?” he said, his voice low.
I shook my head.
“They said there’s a test to see whether or not a fairy is lying.”
My heartbeat quickened. He went on.
“If a changeling is in mortal danger, they regain their magical powers in time to save themselves, so long as the last word they spoke is true. So, for example, if I were to hold you over this fire . . .”
“I really don’t like the sound of this,” I interrupted him, but he continued, the wild light growing in his eyes.
“ . . . if you’d been honest with me, you’d be able to fly and save yourself. But if you had lied, you’d burn like any mortal.”
“Obadiah, that is ridiculous!” I was yelling, but I didn’t care. “I don’t care what century you were born in, I can’t believe you would believe nonsense like that. Changelings don’t retain any of their magical powers in human form. I’m human now, and humans can’t do magic.”
“But what if you could do magic, at least temporarily?”
“What are you saying? I just told you I can’t . . .”
“But what if you drank some Elixir?”
My heartbeat quickened. He had used Elixir to power his glamour-detection lamps—Obadiah knew where to get the magic waters. If he could give some to me—would I be able to do magic again? Hope rose in me, but I squashed it quickly.
“That would never work,” I said. “I’m human now. It wouldn’t make any difference if I drank all the Elixir in the world. Humans can’t do magic,” I repeated.
Obadiah sat down on the bar stool beside me, and swiveled so that we were face to face. A smile flickered on his lips.
“That’s not true, Mab.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean humans can do magic.”
“But . . .”
“We can’t do magic as well as fairies, I’ll admit. It’s messier for us, and has more side effects; plus, it’s only temporary. The power can wear off at any time. But once you know that, you learn how to work with it. Humans can do magic.”
I didn’t understand. It went against everything I knew. Humans couldn’t do magic—that was a fact.
But Obadiah was sitting across from me, smirking.
“Want me to prove it?” he asked.
“Please,” I replied defiantly.
Obadiah rose from his chair and reached up to the shelf above the bar and produced a tiny glass vial. It looked like something one might find in a laboratory; the kind of vessel in which dangerous substances are contained. There was a label, but I couldn’t read it from where I sat.
Obadiah lifted off the stopper and at once I was enveloped in the scent of Elixir—that just-before-a-thunderstorm smell that made me so homesick I felt like I was going to cry.
“Watch this,” he said.
I held my breath as he raised the vial to his lips.
He closed his eyes. And then I gasped in horror and awe as he opened his mouth and sprinkled a drop of Elixir on his tongue.
Without opening his eyes, he put the stopper back on the bottle. Then he just stood there, still, with his eyes closed, not doing anything.
It didn’t seem like anything was happening. I watched his chest rise and fall through the open V of his shirt. Crossing my arms, I sighed, satisfied that I had been right. Humans couldn’t do magic.
But my attention was brought back to Obadiah when he made a sound, a tiny grunt of effort. His handsome face was furrowed in an expression I couldn’t tell was pain or ecstasy.
And then I screamed. His boots had left the floor. He was levitating!
I jumped up from my chair, backing towards the wall, my breath coming in short, sharp heaves. He was flying! How was that possible?
He opened his eyes and looked at me, his mouth twitching upwards into a satisfied smile.
“Do you believe now?”
I gaped at him, unable to form words.
He said nothing more, but with a motion of his arms, he propelled himself in midair, his body angling out horizontally. He flew towards the window at the back of the room. I ran after him, wishing I could fly instead of running on these awkward feet.
Obadiah lifted up the sash and opened the window. A rush of cold air filled the room, snuffing the fire out, making me scramble for my coat. He glided through the open window and inclined his head towards the fire escape outside, motioning me to follow him.
I stepped out onto the old, rusted platform.
The air was shockingly cold outside. The fire escape was covered with about half a foot of thick, wet snow from the night before.
Obadiah was already about a flight above me, heading for the roof.
“Where are you going?” I called after him.
It sounded like he said something in reply, but his words were muffled by the wind.
Cursing, I began to climb the rickety steps. I walked gingerly, trying to not let my heels fall through the icy slats.
At last I reached the rooftop and climbed up onto it. It was flat, like a big patio, and covered with snow. The cold wind whipped round my face. The night city spread out below us like a sea of fallen stars.
Obadiah had alighted on the rooftop next to me, his big boots crunching on the covering of snow, and he winked at me.
“I give Elixir to humans all the time. It works the same on them just as it works on me. It gives them magical powers. Unfortunately, the power is only temporary.”
I gaped at him.
“Do you want to know what really happened to Charley?” he moved towards me. “The kid needed help,” he said, and his eyes seemed to be asking for my sympathy. “She couldn’t find a way out of her problems. No human way, anyway. So I gave her a vial of Elixir, just enough to do one spell. I gave her a way out, a whole other set of options, the gift of temporary power. Of course I warned her that the power doesn’t last. I warn all my human customers that the power is only temporary, to not get used to it, to know its limits.” His voice was thick with emotion. “I can’t help it if they never listen to me.”
“You can’t do this!” I said at last. “You can’t just give Elixir to human beings! What you’re doing is dangerous. They don’t know how to handle magic. Magic shouldn’t come from outside yourself—magic should come from within. Humans aren’t meant to do magic!”
“Why not?” Obadiah said, a wild light in his eyes. We were standing quite close to each other on the rooftop now, face to face. “Who says? Why do they deserve magic any less than the fairies do? The fairies have had all the magic in the universe at their disposal for centuries, and how much good have they done with it?”
I opened my mouth to speak, to defend us, but I didn’t know what to say.
“We . . .” I started, but the words died in my throat.
“You kidnap and kill innocent children,” he said. “Maybe you didn’t, but your leader does and you don’t stop it . . . Well, it’s time to take the power back. You’ve abused your power; it’s time for someone else to have a turn. So I found a way to steal Elixir from the Vale and bring it to the human world. I figure it’s payback. It’s time to rectify the balance.”
“You’ve been stealing Elixir?” I said, aghast, as the cold wind whipped around us. “Elixir is precious; it’s in limited supply. Fairies have died for the lack of it—we need it to do magic, but we also need it to live! That’s what I originally came to this world for—to find out if humans might be causing the Elixir drought. You stealing Elixir and giving it to humans could be killing someone in the Vale!”
I was full-out yelling at him now, but I didn’t care; I was so aghast by what he was saying. “How could you have so little respect for life?”
“How could the fairies have so little respect for my life? I was a child, and they treated me worse than an animal. Pardon me if I don’t exactly care about the fairies’ welfare.”
We glared at each other in the tense silence.
“I don’t think you should be giving magic to humans,” I said at last. “I don’t think it’s right. Look what happened to Charley—she’s missing right now—we don’t know whether she’s alive or dead. And what about all the other humans you helped. How did they fare? Do you even know?”
Obadiah frowned. I wasn’t sure he knew, but I could tell from the wrinkle on his forehead that it bothered him deeply.
“I give them the magic,” he said, quietly. “I have no control over what they do with it.”
I scowled at him. I was so angry at what he’d just told me I wanted to smack him across the face. How could he be so reckless? I hated the way he was looking at me, hands cocked on his hips, so smugly handsome—and I hated myself for even noticing that. This man was dangerous—he could be the source of the Elixir drought! And yet my heart clenched—it was the first time in twenty-two years that I’d been able to speak of the Vale, of Elixir, of magic, to someone who understood what I was talking about. Obadiah got it. He knew what it felt like to fly. I didn’t think I’d ever see magic again and yet here was magic, standing before me, smirking.
I was about to say something in retort when he interrupted me. He stepped closer, as if he was leaning in to whisper a secret, and I could feel the heat of his breath on my neck.
“You’re so upset that I give magic to humans, Mab,” he said, and that infuriating smile flickered over his face again, “but what if I gave magic to you? Admit it. You miss it, don’t you—having power?”
My mouth went dry, and I felt lightheaded, my heart pounding in my chest. Obadiah had magic right here in his store—I’d seen him drink from the vial of Elixir. If he could have it, I could have it too. If I took a drink of Elixir—would I be able to do Fey magic again? It had made Obadiah levitate. But could it make me turn back into a fairy?
My heart was beating so hard in my chest it was painful. What if I could go back? What if I could go home?
It won’t work, I told myself. I wasn’t made up of Feydust anymore; Elixir didn’t flow through my veins. I was made of flesh and blood. Maybe it would be enough to do
one trick—to fly to the rooftop—but not enough to transform. This human body couldn’t change. What’s done is done; you can’t go back.
But the possibility dangled tantalizingly in front of me.
One drop, I thought. What if with just one drop I could undo everything the Queen did to me?
Obadiah produced a tiny vial from his pocket and held it out in the flat of his large palm. He waited, silently, for my answer. I stared at the vial, the liquid gleaming with possibility. I wanted it more than I’d ever wanted anything. My fingers twitched, reaching for it. But I stopped myself. If I changed back, what would become of my human life? My human parents? Eva? They would never understand. They would think I had died. They would think I’d abandoned them. I couldn’t do that to them . . .
The vial sparkled before me in the moonlight. Obadiah’s eyes were a question—a challenge.
In the background, I heard a buzzing sound vying for my attention. I tried to ignore it, to keep my eyes on Obadiah and the vial of Elixir in his hand. The sound continued to buzz, shattering the tense silence between us. It took all my will not to look in its direction. Then I realized it was my cell phone. Sheepishly, I turned to my purse.
It was Eva.
I had completely forgotten to text her! I had been here almost three hours and I hadn’t let her know I was even at the club. I’d been so distracted by everything I’d seen here. But Eva was probably worried sick about me. I felt like such a horrible friend.
“Shit!” I said, rummaging through my purse.
“What’s wrong?” I heard Obadiah say.
“Eva!” I muttered.
I rummaged around in my purse, cursing, till at last I felt my phone. Everything from this evening before I met Obadiah felt like a past life—my conversation with Eva, my assignment from Reggie, the case of Charlotte Mercado—it felt like all of that had happened in a different world to a different girl.
But I never should have forgotten to call Eva. Guiltily I reached for my cell.
There were six missed calls and four texts, all from her.
