Indigo Magic by Victoria Hanley Read Free Book Online Page B

HE MAJORITY OF GODMOTHERS AND GODFATHERS BEING R ED, THE CAPACITY TO GIVE ASSSISTANCE TO HUMANS HAS DECLINED . H OWEVER, MOST FAIRIES AND GENIES STILL LOOK IN UPON THEIR GODCHILDREN BY USING THE FEY SCOPES . T HE SCHEDULE OF VIEWING BOOTHS REMAINS BUSY, DAY AND NIGHT .
    F EY SCOPES THAT VIEW E ARTH ARE A GLORIOUS CREATION OF THE A NCIENTS . A SCOPE CAN TRACE THE MOVEMENTS OF ANY PERSONAGE – INCLUDING NOT ONLY HUMANS, BUT ALSO INHABITANTS OF T IRFEYNE WHO ARE VISITING E ARTH: FAIRIES, GENIES, LEPRECHAUNS, PIXIES, GREMLINS, TROLLS, GNOMES, ET CETERA . T HE ONLY THING NEEDED TO FIND AN INDIVIDUAL IN A SCOPE IS TO KNOW THAT INDIVIDUAL’S NAME . T HERE IS BUT ONE BLIND SPOT IN THE SCOPES: THEY CANNOT PENETRATE E ARTH’S SURFACE TO SEE UNDERGROUND .
    Orville Gold, genie historian of Feyland
    TIRED AND REELING , I felt burdened with both the weight of the indigo bottle and the weight of Laz’s words.
    What
was
this extra magic, this Feynere power? Why had no one else ever mentioned it? Not even Meteor had come across it in his studies; if he had, wouldn’t he have suspected something when I told him how my magic behaved?
    I would rather have heard it from Meteor.
    How
could I be a Feynere? It seemed dangerous. When I’d turned the cloak into aevum derk, I had drained myself of almost a million radia without knowing it. Was there any way to control it? Maybe I should have asked Laz that question. No. If I had, he would have sensed my weakness. How I wished he didn’t know so much about me. Remembering his sneer, I was tempted to steal his cap and cast a forgetting spell on him. But if I did that, wouldn’t I be as bad as Lily Morganite? Let him go his troggy way, and I would go mine.
    Carrying the indigo bottle was like travelling with the end of the world hanging around my neck. I had to get rid of it. I didn’t dare keep it in my home any longer. The rooms apart from the hearth room might still be safe, but what if Lily found a way to widen the opening in my protections?
    I had made the right decision, refusing to give her the aevum derk. She must never, never get hold of it! Now, where could I hide the indigo bottle so no one –
no one
could take it?
    Of course, I thought of Earth.
    Yes, Earth, that place of gentle breezes and lovely trees, that fascinating land of humans – Earth could hide the aevum derk. I could bury it there. Not even fey scopes could find anything in the human world once it was underground. And though I would normally need to be invisible to escape the view of the scopes myself, last week I had created a spell to ensure that no magical means could find me, no matter where I happened to be.
    I loved Earth. Loved it with an unreasoning and helpless affection that drew me when it shouldn’t. Yes, I, Zaria, was Earth-struck. I didn’t know why, I only knew that I loved the human world from the moment I first beheld it through the visor of a fey scope. That day, I had crossed through a portal for the first time, risking painful penalties and worse. And after that first visit, nothing could persuade me to stay away.
    I suspected my mother felt the same. She had never spoken of it, of course, but she didn’t have to. The painting in her room told me. I had even tried to write to her about it, in the letter I never finished.
    Though it’s unlawful for a fairy of fourteen, I’ve been to Earth more than once. I would hesitate to confess it, but I believe you will understand. The painting in your room shows a forest on Earth. You love the human world as I do, don’t you?
    Have you ever been friends with a human, Mother? Ever watched a human in secret, longing to know more about him? I have. Not as a godmother-in-training might do; something else entirely
.
    That was as close as I had come to telling anyone about Sam Seabolt, a human boy not much older than me. We’d met only a short while ago, but it seemed that I’d known him much longer than a few weeks. None of my fey friends knew what he meant to