Of Giants and Ice (Ever Afters, The)

by Bach, Shelby

  Dozens of glittering lights darted and buzzed over the windshield, like a swarm of gnats in summer. Then one light zipped away and landed on one of the Tree’s lower branches, and I saw her tiny lean body, even smaller than Sarah Thumb’s, her dress made from lily petals, her long silver hair, and her sky-blue wings threaded with black, like a monarch butterfly.

  Then she spit at the truck and gnashed her teeth, which kind of spoiled the image of loveliness.

  Lena grinned. “Guess what I have in my backpack.”

  It looked normal enough—green with pink zippers, but plenty of other things hadn’t struck me as very magical either. “Three medium-sized cars?”

  “What? No.”

  “A gently used pine Table of Plenty with a talent for blueberry pancakes and upside-down cake?”

  “No, this is even better.” Lena unzipped her backpack and pulled out a book even older than the volumes in Rumpel’s library. The wooden covers were painted gold, and the leather spine was cracked and peeling. She handed it to me.

  “It’s a book.” It was heavier than it looked.

  “Look at the first page.”

  I lifted the cover. The page was blank except for the bottom left-hand corner:

  “It’s Madame Benne’s symbol,” Lena said in a little singsong. I braced myself. She really did talk a lot when she got excited. “See the three lines here. It’s supposed to represent her first invention—the singing harp. She kept it with her until her death. This symbol is on everything we inherited from her.”

  “You inherited stuff from her? I thought she lived a thousand years ago.”

  A group of one-foot-tall men passed in front of us. Brownies. I recognized them from a picture in Lena’s sketchbook. They were the color of mud, from the skin on their hands to the caps on their heads and the jackets they wore. All of them gave the truck a wide berth, and one even threw a rock at it, so hard that it scratched the paint.

  “Well, we have a spoon of hers. And a mitten Grandma swears Madame Benne knitted herself. And now,” Lena said with that faraway smile she got whenever she talked about her ancestress, “her spell book. Everything she invented—all the Tables of Plenty, rings of invisibility, magic mirrors, singing harps, seven-league boots, even the Glass Mountain—her notes on how to make them are in this book.”

  I examined the old, beat-up book with more respect. “And you bought this here?”

  Lena nodded eagerly. “I don’t know if the dwarf who sold it to me knew how valuable it is. I could never afford it otherwise. It was just sitting in this box of books. I started looking in it, because I was trying not to look too interested in the Table of Plenty he had—Jenny said that’s the most important thing in bargaining—but once I saw the spellbook, the table really was no comparison—”

  “Wait,” I interrupted. “You didn’t buy the table?”

  “No, I just said that,” she said impatiently. “I only had enough money for one.”

  With a prickle of nervousness, I asked, “Does Jenny know that you didn’t get a Table of Plenty?”

  “Not yet.” Lena’s chin was jutting out, the way it gets when she feels stubborn. “But, Rory, you aren’t listening. With Madame Benne’s spellbook, I don’t need to buy one. I can make as many Tables of Plenty as I want. The instructions are in there.”

  Jenny would definitely be upset if she found out that Lena didn’t follow her plan. “Is it easy? Maybe we can make one before Jenny finds out.”

  “Well . . . ,” Lena said uncomfortably.

  I flipped to the middle of the book. The pages were covered in elaborate symbols that looked a lot like Celtic knots, and I hoped that they were just some sort of weird decoration, not the actual text.

  “It’s written in Fey,” Lena told me slowly. “I’ve been meaning to learn the language for years, and now I’ll actually do it.”

  “You mean, you can’t read this?”

  “Some of it.” Lena pointed to a symbol with a long squiggle hanging off of it, like a tail. “That word means ‘mushroom.’”

  “Lena . . . ,” I said slowly with that sinking sensation that usually happens right before I get in trouble.

  “Jenny will be glad. I know she will,” Lena said in her most cheerful voice. But a shadow passed over her face, and I knew she was feeling the same thing I was. I started to say that we could find the stall and see what their exchange policy was, but then Lena added quickly, “Please, Rory. I don’t want to think about what could happen right now. Let’s just enjoy the Market. Okay?”

  So, I put the book into Lena’s backpack and zipped it up.

  Lena smiled gratefully, and slung her backpack on.

  “Quick question,” I said, as the tiny winged figures buzzed around the truck. Someone had produced a basket of eggs so big it took five of them to lift it. One by one, they each picked up an egg, hugging it in both arms, and zoomed six feet above the vehicle. Then, with a gleeful sound like Christmas bells, one dropped her egg. It splattered across the windshield in a yolky mess. “Why are the little fair—”

  Lena gasped. “Don’t say it!”

  “Say what?”

  “They’re pixies, not fairies.” Lena had lowered her voice so much that I had to lean in to hear her. “Fairies are always much bigger and more powerful. Don’t let anyone catch you calling them fairies. If the Fey take offense, they might turn you into a pig for a century. They’ve done it before.”

  “Oh.” I made a mental note not to talk about fairies at all, if I could help it. I was pretty sure that Mom and Amy would still force me to go to school if I got turned into a piglet. “But why are they egging that truck?”

  Lena glanced over at the gunk on the windshield, and then the cluster of pixies armed with eggs hovering above it. “Oh, my gumdrops.” She yanked me out of the splash zone.

  “Shouldn’t we do something?” I asked Lena, but it was too late. All the pixies dropped their eggs at once, with a huge crunch. The splatter hit passersby, including a dwarf dressed in a double-breasted suit. Seeing eggshells in his beard, he shook his fist at the pixies.

  “It’s Jack’s truck. He calls it the Axe. I’m sure he knew what he was doing,” Lena said, as we walked away.

  “Is it magic?” I asked.

  Lena snorted. “Only a minor glamour. To make it look shiny.”

  The truck was so polished that it shone as brightly as real silver, even under a layer of egg slime. This was Chase’s dad we were talking about.

  “Usually, before a Market, the Director clears the courtyard of all iron and steel, as a courtesy to our guests,” Lena explained.

  “Why?”

  “Because the Fey and most nonhumans can’t touch iron. If you pressed it against their skin, then they get these big welts, like jellyfish stings. That’s why the elves have to work with Fey-tempered silver. Didn’t Sarah Thumb cover that in orientation?”

  She tugged me down the cobblestone path, lined with stalls and stands. It stretched on and on and ended in a lake, maybe a mile away, but the whole aisle was filled with figures. The only humans I saw were two fifth graders goggling a stall with mini-demonstrations of fireworks. “Parking the truck here is like a slap in the face to the Fey. Jack had to do it on purpose. He hardly ever uses that truck. He even leaves the keys inside.”

  Half-listening, I stared at a pottery stall where twenty centaur figurines battled each other so fiercely that ceramic bits flew everywhere.

  The fairy in charge of the stand wore a T-shirt that said I ♥ HUMANS, so I thought at first he might be friendly. But then he saw me looking and turned around with a tiny smirk. The back of the T-shirt read EACH ONE IS GOOD FOR AT LEAST SEVEN YEARS OF TORTURE. I immediately hurried on, hoping he wouldn’t get any ideas.

  Up ahead, near the Tree of Hope, the Shoemaker’s elves noticed Lena and waved her over. Some of them had green veins showing behind their pale skin, but besides that, it always surprised me how human they looked—no wings, no pointed ears. They had dressed up for the
occasion. The one Lena introduced as Kefmin wore a tuxedo with tails—a foxtail, a raccoon tail, and a dog tail. (The last one wagged so hard it kept hitting people.)

  The one named Bob showed off the carnival rides the elves had set up, and Lena asked questions full of magical jargon I couldn’t follow. The Ferris wheel looked like an enormous circular vine. The mechanical horses on the carousel came to life and galloped straight off the ride. A scarlet roller coaster threaded through the branches of the giant tree. When it paused on the grass for new passengers, you could see each metal sleigh, shaped like a maple leaf curling elegantly.

  “George’s duel doesn’t start for a while. Do you want to try one?” Lena said, as the roller coaster entered a corkscrew loop, half its passengers screaming. A fairy rider panicked and flew out of her seat, gliding away on silver wings fifty feet above us.

  I suppressed a shudder, my mouth very dry. Just the idea of being up that high made me feel sick to my stomach. “Maybe the carousel later.” That was the only ride that stayed relatively close to the ground. Lena and the elves looked a little disappointed, but nobody pushed it.

  After we said good-bye to the elves, we passed a carnival stand, and Lena whispered, “That’s a goblin.”

  The stallkeeper tossed and caught a golden ball with a long-fingered hand that had too many joints to be human. A wig of thick brown curls sat a little askew over batlike ears, and when he licked his lips, his tongue was bright red and forked, like a snake’s.

  “They feed on your fears and dreams,” Lena explained as we hurried past. “The strongest among them can sense yours, just by looking at you, but they all use them to manipulate people. It’s how their magic works.”

  A dwarf mechanically threw a golden ball at a tower of goblets. Every throw would knock a couple over, but never more than that. The dwarf swore and yanked whole chunks of his beard out, but when the goblin stallkeeper extended a hand palm up with a smile, the dwarf drew a silver coin out of his pocket and paid for another turn.

  “He probably can’t leave,” Lena said, a little pityingly. “The stallkeeper must’ve cast a spell to make the customer think that he’ll win if—”

  “Lena, what are you doing here?” asked someone beside us, low to the ground. Puss had changed into a new silk dress. “George’s match is about to start.”

  “But—” Lena checked her watch. “He’s not supposed to go on for another half an hour.”

  The cat shook her head. “The competitor ahead of him saw who he was matched with and dropped out. George is up next.”

  “Where are they?” Lena asked.

  “Over there.” Puss flicked her white tail to our right. “Dueling on top of the Ivory Tower.”

  When I looked up, Lena had disappeared. She may not be the most athletic Character in the world, but that girl can really move when she feels like it.

  I followed as quickly as I could, dodging scowling Fey, big groups of tipsy dwarves, and a herd of short, red-bearded, green-clad men that had to be leprechauns.

  Finally, a few hundred meters beyond the Tree of Hope, I saw the Ivory Tower—a white marble structure that I was sure hadn’t been there when I arrived. It was about the size of a tennis court and two or three stories tall. The walls were perfectly smooth—without a door or a window or even a seam to show where the slabs joined together. I ran around it, searching for Lena and the rest of the audience.

  Then I turned the corner and froze. At least a hundred Fey milled around, more than I had ever seen in one place. A Fey with yellow wings and a dark suit shook his dark gold hair like it was a mane, blinking tawny eyes. A row of Fey knights waited for their turn in a line, fidgeting in armor that gleamed with jewels, twisting long hair under their helmets, checking their swords and maces. Another—with green hair and the kind of ballgown that I would’ve expected to see on a fairy godmother—saw someone she knew across the clearing and flew up over everyone’s heads to land beside her friend.

  I wished I could do that. Somehow, it didn’t seem like a good idea to push through the cranky Fey just to see if there were EASers on the other side.

  “Rory, over here!” Lena stood on top of a convenient boulder, waving both arms. She was so loud that half of the Fey looked at her and then at me. Face burning, I hugged the Ivory Tower wall and rushed past.

  “Rory, he won!” Lena cried. Miriam grinned just behind her. “It took less than thirty seconds. George disarmed Torlauth and had his sword at the Fey’s throat. He won!”

  “What? The whole thing?” I asked, thinking of the waiting Fey knights.

  “No, just this round,” Miriam explained. “There are three matches.”

  “Why did they stop then?” I asked.

  “They’re taking a break,” Miriam said. “Standard duel procedure.”

  “In honor or political duels, an unbiased third party shall deliver one undiluted spoonful of the Water of Life to each contestant prior to each match so that they may be restored to full health,” Lena said in her tinny, reciting way. Then she sighed and added in her regular voice, “But this really isn’t that serious.”

  “Here, they just get five minutes,” Miriam said.

  “But why are there so many Fey here?” I whispered. Two of them—a male and a female wearing matching red tunics with golden embroidery—watched us dispassionately, probably wondering who to torment first.

  Lena shrugged. “Well, I don’t think the rivalry will ever go away completely. The Fey and human Characters haven’t been allies for all that long, just since the last war.”

  “Really?” Miriam said, which made me feel better about being confused.

  “Yeah, Maerwynne of Lorraine got tired of the Fey manipulating humans all the time and founded Ever After School to help educate people,” Lena said. “She started just walking around the countryside, telling stories about Characters besting magical creatures. Most of them were about the Fey. People started calling them ‘fairy tales,’ and the name stuck.”

  Miriam and I stared at Lena blankly.

  “Sarah Thumb didn’t tell you that, either?” Lena said.

  “Rory, do you ever feel like maybe we should have another orientation?” Miriam muttered, and I laughed.

  Before I could ask more about the rivalry, a bell sounded.

  Lena and Miriam immediately stared straight up. Two figures fought on top of the structure, and above them, two larger images battled across the sky—a lot like a hologram or a light-show projection—kind of see-through, but larger than life. At first, they moved too fast for me to recognize them, but then one stepped back for a breather. The smaller one was George, and the big, bronze blur was Torlauth di Morgian.

  I shuddered. He wouldn’t be a Fey I wanted to fight.

  George pressed forward, leaping and jabbing at once, and Torlauth fell another step back. George was making the Fey retreat! He was winning! George hooked his hilt around his opponent’s and twisted. He disarmed Torlauth. The Fey’s blade flew in the air.

  Then Torlauth planted a kick on George’s chest, and George tumbled head over heels across the platform. It was a move I had seen before, between Chase and a dummy in Hansel’s training courts, so I wasn’t surprised when Torlauth caught his sword.

  High above our heads, a smile curled slowly across the fairy’s face, and I knew Torlauth wanted to kill George.

  I scanned the crowd desperately for a grown-up to stop the fight—Gretel, Stu, even Hansel. The Director hadn’t mentioned anything about a duel to the death. All I saw were students and Fey. My blood ran cold. Every single fairy leaned forward, licking their lips, eager for blood.

  Then Torlauth launched forward, drawing his sword back for a slash at George’s throat.

  Lena gasped. “George!”

  third figure appeared—a smaller Fey with very pale green wings—and blocked Torlauth’s sword with a small dagger, just inches from George’s skin. Then they retreated out of sight.

  I breathed again. Lena stared at the ground, blinking hard.


  “It’s okay.” Miriam patted Lena’s shoulder. “The Director knows that fairies can get a little carried away. The ref is up there with them. George is safe.”

  “He lost the match, though,” Lena said in a very small voice.

  Miriam smiled. “Still one more.”

  But that wasn’t how the Fey saw it. Most of them smirked and glanced slyly at each other, like Torlauth had already won. Many also looked a little disappointed that no one had gotten hurt. If these people were our allies, I wondered what the bad guys were like.

  “Hey! He’s going to finish his story!” Conner called from around the corner of the Ivory Tower, and Kevin came running.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The self-appointed halftime entertainment.” Miriam shrugged, annoyed. “Go see if you want.”

  Lena led the way. My first guess was Chase, but when we rounded the corner, we found a college-aged guy in jeans and a ripped T-shirt leaning against a tree in a grove of birches. His arms were crossed, but he kept running a hand through his dark curly hair as he talked. Half of Ever After School had gathered around him, listening. The triplets had front-row seats, eyes wide, mouths gaping a little—even Kyle, the most sensible of the three.

  “Wow,” Lena whispered. “He actually made it.”

  “Who?” I asked again, because I was pretty sure she didn’t mean Kyle.

  “Jack.” Lena pointed to the college-aged guy. “Chase’s father.”

  “He’s too young to be Chase’s dad,” I said.

  “He’s older than he looks,” Lena said. “He was only twenty when he became part of the Canon.”

  “Cannon? Is that some sort of secret warrior society?” I asked.

  Lena gave me a weird look, clearly stunned at how much I didn’t know. “No. Canon. As in a body of literature. It’s the council of Characters who are kind of in charge. Every Tale has a representative. Ellie, Hansel, Gretel, Sarah Thumb—they’re all in it. You stop aging when you join.”

  “Really?” I had a sudden vision of Jack in a powdered wig like George Washington. “How old is he?”