A Kind of Magic

by Shanna Swendson

  Sophie instantly grabbed Michael’s hand, and together they followed the fairy away. “Are you getting a good look at her?” Sophie asked as they jogged in pursuit.

  “Yeah, I think so. I’d recognize her if I saw her again.”

  The woman they were following soon seemed to be miles away, and she disappeared a split-second later. “Good. Because it’s nearly impossible to follow someone that way. I can try, though.”

  Michael braced himself for the disconcerting sense of traveling great distances with a single step. When they arrived, or when the world stopped shifting, their quarry was nowhere in sight. “We lost her,” he said with a sigh.

  “Maybe. Maybe not. Judging by the general direction she was heading, I think I know where she might have been going.” They took another impossibly long step, and when Michael blinked, they were outside the palace where Sophie’s grandmother ruled the fairy realm. Sophie didn’t miss a step or slow her stride as they approached the palace, and she waved the towering doors open with a flick of her wrist.

  The throne room was quite different from the last time Michael had seen it. It was still massive, but it also seemed more intimate. The silver throne stood on its dais, but more furniture had been added on the floor, in comfortable room-scale clusters near the windows down the sides of the room. It looked about as home-like and cozy as anyone could expect a palace room to appear. It was the kind of palace where a sweet little old Southern lady would rule.

  The courtiers who filled the room wore a variety of styles of clothes. Michael wondered if they were here as diplomats representing other courts or if Leonie Drake had drawn adherents from the other courts and hadn’t yet taken on a signature style of her own. He wasn’t quite sure how all that worked.

  He had to readjust his mental image of “little old Southern lady” when Leonie came down the dais steps to greet them. After some time in the Realm, she’d lost all signs of age. Her posture was erect, her skin was smooth, and her hair was a bright red. The only way he could tell she was any older than Sophie was that she had an aura of maturity and wisdom that her granddaughter hadn’t fully developed. It was hard to believe that this was the same woman who’d felt like a fragile bundle of bones when he carried her away from her home.

  “Oh, good, there you are,” she said, kissing Sophie on the cheek. “I was hoping to hear from you.” Turning to Michael, she added, “It’s nice to see you, Detective.” She sounded like they’d just popped by for a visit.

  “It’s not a social call,” Sophie said.

  “Of course it isn’t. But we shouldn’t discuss that here.” She escorted them to a parlor-like room at the back of the dais. As soon as the door was closed, she said. “We have problems.”

  “Like the holes in the barriers that are letting fae through, so we’re seeing activity in our world that hasn’t been seen in centuries?”

  Leonie smiled. “I knew I could count on you to be on top of things. You’ll get those sealed?”

  “The ones I can find. There’s just one problem with trying to get all of them taken care of.”

  “The enchantress who’s breaking them in the first place.”

  Sophie didn’t show any surprise, but Michael couldn’t be sure if she expected her grandmother to know or if she was playing it cool. “So you know.”

  “Of course. I can sense what’s going on in my Realm, and this attack is coming from the outside.”

  “I don’t think it’s so much an attack on the Realm as it is an excuse for a power play.”

  “You know who’s doing it?”

  “Yes. She seems to be trying to make the fae a bigger threat so she can step up and make all the enchantresses answer to her—and she’s not working alone. She’s got fae allies, and we followed one of them to your court.”

  “I feared as much. I suppose that it would be too much to ask to solidify my reign without another challenge so soon, but then I can hardly expect them to just accept me. Though I’m worried about anyone allying with enchantresses to attempt a coup.”

  “Do you know who it is?” Sophie asked.

  “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “I’m pretty sure I’d recognize the one we followed if I saw her again,” Michael said.

  “Then we should get you back out in the hall to mingle and see if you spot her. But don’t move on her yet. I want to see what she does and who she talks to.” Leonie led them back out into the throne room.

  It wasn’t the most inconspicuous way to enter a surveillance situation. Michael would have preferred to sneak in via a side door so that his entrance might go unnoticed. Standing on a dais at the head of the room beside the queen and the princess meant everyone knew he was there, including their quarry. Since casual mingling was out of the question, he used the vantage point of the dais to scan the room.

  He had to admit that the fairy they’d followed wasn’t the only face he sought in the crowd. Was Jen still here, or had she gone somewhere else in the Realm? He didn’t want to make her change her mind about staying—he’d come to understand her reasons—but he wanted to know she was okay and sure of her decision. He wasn’t entirely sure whether or not he actually wanted to see her. It would be too much to bear if she’d already forgotten him. He’d broken the spells that were forcing her to stay in the Realm, so she was in her right mind, but there was still the chance that she’d moved on completely, and he didn’t know if he could take that.

  So he supposed he was fortunate not to see that familiar red head in the crowd. He did think he saw the woman from Fiontan’s court who’d met with Josephine’s contact. Nudging Sophie slightly, he subtly pointed out their quarry. Together, they made their way down the steps, moving casually, with no sense of purpose. That went against both their natures, but he thought they were doing a reasonable job of it. He forced himself not to look directly at the fairy they sought. Instead, he kept tabs on her out of the corner of his eye while he faced a different direction.

  As far as he could tell, the conspirator wasn’t meeting with anyone. She didn’t appear to be looking for anyone, either. Did that mean this was her home base and she wasn’t there on business? Or had she figured out that she was being watched and was lying low for a while? It would have been convenient if she’d gone straight to her ally with a report, but she wasn’t doing anything. He was about to suggest to Sophie that they clue her grandmother in on the mole’s identity and let the guards watch her for a while when the woman appeared to notice them.

  She stared straight at them, frozen for a second, and Michael tried to keep his reaction in line with what any unsuspecting person might think of someone suddenly going stiff and freezing. Then she whirled and made a run for it.

  “She is definitely guilty,” Sophie muttered. “And not very good at scheming.”

  The fleeing fairy didn’t get very far. The exits were well guarded. This might look like a friendly gathering, but security was probably tighter, if less obtrusive, than at the average airport. Most of the palace guards were former members of the Hunt, and Michael remembered what they’d been like before Sophie transformed them.

  They might not have looked quite so fearsome anymore, but they were still very effective. They surrounded the woman before she could go anywhere and dragged her to the dais to face the queen. Sophie and Michael followed.

  Leonie Drake was small, but she managed to look imposing as she glared down at the woman the guards held. “Oh honey, don’t you know, running makes you look guilty,” she said. Addressing her granddaughter, she added, “Sophie, dear, would you and the detective mind interrogating our friend?” Without waiting for an answer, she waved a hand at the guards, who dragged the prisoner back to the room behind the dais.

  Sophie smiled up at Michael, “So, Detective, are you up for an interrogation session? I don’t think the usual rules apply here.”

  “Do you want to be the good cop or the bad cop?”

  Her grin gave him chills. “What do you think?”

  “T
hen it looks like I get to keep my usual role. Mari always gets to be the bad cop.”

  She patted him on the arm. “No offense, but I can’t imagine you being bad.”

  They joined the prisoner in the sitting room. The only reminders that this wasn’t going to be a friendly chat were the scary Hunt guards flanking the door and the fact that the prisoner seemed to have been magically immobilized in her comfortable chair. Sophie seated herself on the sofa facing the prisoner. Michael joined her on the sofa and leaned back casually, letting Sophie take the lead so he could step in and “rescue” the subject once Sophie started tearing into her. At least, that was the way he and Mari usually played it. Maybe he and Sophie should have discussed this further.

  “Now, I’m sure this has been a huge misunderstanding,” Sophie said, her drawl thicker and sweeter than usual. “But you do understand that we saw you with Josephine, and then you tried to run when you saw us. That doesn’t look good.”

  If this was “bad cop,” it was some new variety he’d never seen. Then again, he noticed the steel in Sophie’s eyes and the iron in her voice. It was subtle, but it was there. He wondered if the fae would be able to read it.

  The woman smirked. “You don’t know anything.”

  Sophie laughed—not a real one, but what to Michael was clearly a fake “aren’t you adorable?” kind of laugh. “You’d be surprised.” The edge in her voice grew ever so slightly sharper. “Now, I didn’t quite catch your name.”

  “I do not give my name away so readily.”

  “Oh, I understand that, and I respect your culture. How about I call you Alice? It seems rude to call you ‘hey you.’” The woman didn’t respond, so Sophie said, “Okay, then, Alice, why don’t you tell us what you’re up to?”

  “I do not recognize your authority.”

  “You don’t?” An aura so bright that Michael was sure he could have seen it even without whatever his fae encounters had done to his senses flared around Sophie, leaving her with the glowing suggestion of a crown over her head. For a split second, she appeared to be wearing the gem-encrusted royal robes she’d had when she’d first taken the throne. “Alice” flinched and probably would have shied away if she could have moved. In a much more commanding voice, Sophie said, “Tell me what you have going on with Josephine.”

  Michael figured that was his cue. “Soph,” he said softly, like he was soothing a wild animal. Then he darted a sympathetic glance at Alice.

  “I don’t know anyone named Josephine,” Alice said.

  “Well, you know someone who knows her. You were the first person that fairy came to when she returned from her meeting, and then you came straight here, which looks awfully suspicious. Why would you want to work with an enchantress, a sworn enemy of the fae? Are you a traitor to your own people?”

  “I am loyal to the rightful queen.”

  “You don’t look familiar. I didn’t see you on the day my grandmother took the throne. I thought almost the whole Realm was there then. Have you sworn loyalty to the queen?”

  Michael studied Alice, watching for the usual tics that told him someone was lying. He was considered a human lie detector in the police department, but it was harder to judge the fae. They didn’t have the same tells, and the magical restraints on this woman kept her from doing the kinds of things he normally looked for. She did look afraid, he thought. He just wasn’t sure if she was afraid of Sophie or of someone else.

  “You wouldn’t have noticed someone like me,” Alice said.

  “You’d be surprised. And you weren’t there.” Sophie’s voice went so hard that Michael flinched.

  He jumped in with the air of someone trying to ease the situation. “It’s probably a misunderstanding, right? I mean, if you were conspiring against the whole Realm, you wouldn’t be stupid enough to show yourself at court, would you?”

  “I’m not conspiring against the Realm. I support the true queen.”

  “Carrying messages from an enchantress is a funny way of showing that.”

  Alice’s smirk told Michael that there was something big they were missing, but he doubted they’d get anything else out of her. She’d known what she was doing in bolting the way she had because it kept them from being able to watch her and had likely alerted anyone else in on the plot. They were back to square one. Sophie seemed to agree, for she stood and headed out of the room. Michael hurried to follow her, leaving the guards to deal with the prisoner.

  “She’s not talking,” Sophie reported to her grandmother. “I suspect she was going to meet with someone in your court, but they’ve probably gone to ground for now.”

  Leonie sighed. “I just wish I knew who to trust around here. The only people I’m sure are on my side are the guards, and they don’t exactly encourage people to open up and relax. I haven’t had time to cultivate my own agents.”

  “Jen might help,” Michael suggested. “I doubt she’s caught up in any scheme.”

  “That’s a good idea. Thank you. In the meantime, I need you two to work on this from your end. Maybe you can figure out what this Josephine really wants and who she’s working with.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Sophie said.

  “And I’ll see what Mrs. Smith can find out,” Michael added.

  They left the palace, and Sophie opened a gateway that brought them back to the freezing park. As they headed for home, Sophie remarked, “I guess you’ll think twice the next time you’re invited for tea.”

  “Yeah, it wasn’t quite what I had planned for the afternoon, but it wasn’t boring.”

  Twenty

  Emily’s Apartment

  9:00 p.m.

  Emily couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone to bed so early, and she was probably sick whenever that was because she’d always been a night owl. But she couldn’t wait one more minute.

  She put on her best nightgown, one Sophie had given her for Christmas a few years ago that she’d never worn because she usually slept in an old T-shirt. Since she’d seen Will dancing in the clothes he’d been wearing when he fell asleep, she didn’t want to take a chance of being out and about in the fairy world in something tacky, and this nightgown was the closest thing to a ballgown she owned. She couldn’t help but wonder if this was the kind of thing Sophie wore to bed regularly. She wouldn’t be surprised.

  It was like trying to go to sleep on Christmas Eve. She wanted to nod off right away to make the good stuff come sooner, but she was too excited to sleep. She’d found the fairy tale about the twelve dancing princesses and read it out loud to a snoring Beau as a bedtime story. It wasn’t exactly the same as what seemed to be going on here, since the princesses were choosing to go dance, but she could see how this story might have been inspired by nighttime trips to a fairy world.

  At the end of the story, she put the book down and turned out the light, then tried to figure out her next step. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was supposed to do, and she didn’t know if it was something she could consciously bring about, since most people who had this happen probably had no idea what was going on. All she could hope was that Eamon would sense her invitation and come for her.

  She lay on her back, closed her eyes, and instead of counting sheep, she imagined dancers whirling through a ballroom, one after another. At first, they were dressed like characters in her show, in Regency gowns, but she made the skirts fuller, so they swirled around the dancers, enveloping them in a cloud of tulle and chiffon. One dancer, two dancers, three dancers, four, five, six …

  Then she was dancing among them, feeling her shoes slide along the marble floor and her skirt brush against her legs as she turned. Was she there? Had it worked? In the dream, she didn’t care.

  She heard music, not in the dream, but elsewhere. Opening her eyes, she found herself back in her room, but she still heard the music, and it wasn’t coming from the street, the stairwell, or upstairs. It was coming from the big mirror on the wall over her bed, the one that was supposed to make the tiny room look bigger. Now
instead of reflecting the bookcase on the opposite wall, it was glowing, looking like light was streaming in from another room where all the lamps were on.

  That had to be what she was hoping for. Throwing back the covers, she sprang to her feet, caught her balance on the mattress, and jumped forward into the mirror.

  She found herself on an outdoor lane lined with trees. It reminded her of the grounds of old plantation houses back home. Strains of distant music floated toward her, and she hurried down the lane in the direction of the sound. It felt like she’d been running forever, and yet at the same time like she’d only taken a few steps, when she came upon a pavilion. Delicate arches twined with ivy and roses supported a crystal roof, under which a grand ball was in progress. Dancers like the ones in her dream circled through the pavilion to music played by a small ensemble sitting in the garden.

  She was glad she’d put on a good nightgown because all the dancers wore elaborate formal wear. She thought she spotted Eamon on the other side of the pavilion and ran down the garden path to reach him. Glancing down to check her footing when she reached a short flight of steps, she saw that she was dressed the same as the other female dancers. Eamon, too, wore something like the uniform of Cinderella’s prince.

  “It worked!” she cried out, throwing her arms around him. The other dancers continued circling the floor, acting like they didn’t even see them. “So, this is where everyone goes?”

  “This is where you go. Each person’s experience is likely perceived differently.”

  “So I’m only here in my head? But how are people ending up with stress fractures?”

  “Your body is in a place, and it will dance. Your mind is in a different place.”

  “Okay. That’s weird.”

  He smiled at her, his silvery eyes glittering. “You are dealing with the fae. I believe weird is to be expected. Now, shall we dance?”