Some days start on the downdraft, and you can’t fly higher, no matter what you do. I was already suffering from a lack of sleep after spending all night stranded on a wretched sea rock.
Then, I got stuck feeding my half-sister’s hungry hatchlings. I shoved the woodlice and beetles through the woven twigs as quickly as I could, before they bit me. Baby fae had sharp teeth and they was a large hatch. Glanna had laid ten eggs in her nursery shortly before a goshawk ate her mate. The entire teylu was helping her to raise them, and I couldn’t wait until the youngsters were safe enough to come out.
This made me late for the noon-pot. Jenn winked at me as she dabbed up the last drops of stew whilst our older brother, Enyon, kindly pushed some mouse jerky my way. They were all dressed in short adult tunics of green and brown, together with soft grey leggings. Whether they were hunting, stealing or fighting, their clothes would blend into the woods without the need for glamour. I was the only one left in my plain childhood smock.
I grabbed the jerky and nodded my thanks at Enyon.
“Not long until leaf-fall,” he said apologetically. “Then, it’s feasting and fattening all the way.”
“Thanks,” I said glumly. “Does that mean we are hibernating this year instead of flying south?”
Enyon shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. “There’s a Harmonic meeting late tonight, and we’ll hear more then. Most of the Sky fae will fly out, and our lineage will go underground with the Earth Clan. We’ve got five clutches to guard this year: the parents will need all the help they can get.”
“You’d think they’d have the sense to mate in the spring,” Jenn grumbled. “Winter eggs never all make it.”
“Like my hatch?” Enyon asked mildly. Jenn flushed red and fluttered an apology. Enyon was the sole survivor from his brood, after a gull had broken into the nest and eaten the unattended eggs. He was only a year older, so he flew around with us instead of our older half-siblings.
I perked up, when I saw Jago fly by, carrying a lump of cheese larger than his head. “Eeeai!” I screeched. “Hey - please - let me have a bite.”
Jago alighted on the branch with a sigh. “Here, little sister,” he said graciously. I mumbled my thanks with my mouth full and slapped away Jenn’s hand. “You had my share of stew,” I told her primly. “Besides, Jago owes me.”
“I do?” Jago asked, puzzled.
I reached out for another handful. The cheese was soft and slightly nutty. Jago must’ve stolen it from a local farm.
“Your Ilneth fae flew by whilst you were out. I told her you’re about to be cross-crafted, and she needed to look elsewhere for a mate. You’ve got a reprieve for a solar cycle, at least.”
Jago looked worried. “Only until she finds out it’s a lie, Junya. Then I’ll have her entire hatch chasing me through the trees. Besides, why would I move? This is the best lineage in the best Clan across the whole West.”
I swallowed my last mouthful and licked my fingers. “Who said it’s a lie? I’ve got a lesson with Elder Shayde later on. I’ll ask him for you. He mentioned that the Earth lineages are struggling to find enough musicians this year - and you know they enjoy hosting parties. Yes, they live in tunnels, but you’ll learn new tunes and instruments. What’s the point of being in the best if all you sing are stale old songs?”
Jago chewed his lip. “I’ve always wanted to try their drums,” he said, uncertainly.
I stood up and stretched out my wings, feeling the dried sea salt rasp away in the joints. When it next rained, I planned to stand under the biggest leaf run-off I could find and scrub myself clean.
“At worst, you will be there for one season,” I coaxed him. “And I’ll be around.”
“C’mon Junya,” Jenn drawled. “It’s not going to take you that long for you to grasp magic.”
I flushed red. “Not everyone can get by in life with a sharp tongue and tail waggle,” I said. “Besides, Shayde researched more of our history than the rest of the Harmonics combined. He’s worth listening to.”
Jenn wrinkled her nose. “Father says he’s cracked. Most of his stories are made up.”
I shook my head. “They sound exaggerated, but I don’t think they are,” I said. “He’s sailed with humans, Jenn! You find human-made things scattered around when you go to his workshop.”
“Stolen,” Jago said with a bored voice. “We all do it.”
“Even iron?” I retorted. “Shayde doesn’t just pick it up - I’ve seen him work with it! He’s a Harmonic for a reason.”
Jago flapped a hand. “Maybe, maybe not. Even you must admit it was strange how the elders held a closed session when he returned. Harmonics are supposed to do grand magic, and all I’ve ever seen Shayde do are those weird inventions. Half of the time, we can’t even touch them! It’s not very fae-like.”
I scowled. Obscurely, I knew Jago was right, but so was I. The Clans thrived on controlled chaos, but you became a threat if you went too far off the path. Entire teylu’s had been infected with the madness of just one fae. At the same time, humans were changing the world faster than we could comprehend. There were more of them and more machines, too. We needed people like Shayde who understood them.
Trying to explain all that to my hatch would provoke another argument, and I wanted Jago with me in the winter. I held my tongue.
Enyon grabbed my frock as I stamped past, preparing to fly off. “Remember, we’re hosting a craft show tonight with the Earth Clan”, he warned. “The whole lineage has to be there. No exceptions!”
“As you will,” I grumbled.
“No - this is Mama’s will. She was unhappy you disappeared last night, and she’ll set us all to work stripping nettles if you’re not there again. The Elders noticed.”
That made me pause. “I didn’t think I messed up that badly,” I said.
Jenn got up, wiping her hands on her dinner leaf before letting it flutter to the ground.
“You didn’t,” she said. “Treath wanted to talk to you, which meant Sennan was looking for you.”
I groaned. I liked Treath, but he was Sennan’s mate, which meant that whatever he paid attention to, so did she. I could do without our Harmonic’s scrutiny.
“I’ll be there, and I’ll meet with Treath,” I said glumly. “When is Pa home?”
“He’s back with the sun tomorrow,” Enyon said. “So behave yourself.”
I decided to try the cove again. It wasn’t that far out of the way, and I could fly extra fast afterwards to reach Shayde’s dwellings. He often asked about my beads during our lessons, and I didn’t want to admit I had lost them.
*
The cove was quiet. I flew over the water in a zig-zag pattern, carefully staying high enough to avoid the spray but low enough to spot fish shadows in the water. I saw two small shoals and a basking shark, but nothing fae-like.
The wind blew me off-course, leading me past a tempting elderberry bush. I was still hungry after missing lunch, so I made another short diversion. That turned into a longer one when I spotted wild strawberries. By the time I made it to Shayde’s mound, my hands and sleeves were stained with berry juice.
Shayde didn’t seem to mind, though. He visibly jumped when I dropped into the tunnel entrance. “Ah, the flighty lass,” he said genially. He leaned over to smack the wooden side door closed to his sleeping cave, then smoothed back his hair. His one silver streak was over the left temple today. “Shall we begin?”
He waddled down the entrance to the messy workshop that took up most of the room under the tree roots where he lived. The workshop was big enough to house an entire teylu of fairies, but I had only seen Shayde live there. There were rumours that it was haunted.
“I offer contrition for my delays, Earth Harmony,” I said formally to his back. Shayde had neatly folded bee wings that always looked too small for his body. “I was…”
“Eating berries, I can see,” he sniffed. “I have eyes, flightling. Did you save any for me?”
“I didn’t know you wanted some.”
“That would be a ‘no’ then. Come on. We need to get started this side of sundown.”
I followed him closely into the central area. As always, it was a crazy jigsaw of tools, earth benches, inventions, interesting finds, and sketches. Shayde had the human habit of drawing everything on plant paper, and you could always get on his good side by stealing pencils for him. I could spend a happy hour just walking around his walls to look at the drawings with a glowlight in hand.
Since my last visit, he had shifted projects from gears and paddles to a fox skeleton. The entire thing was wired together with bronze and hung from the ceiling. I drifted closer to inspect it.
“Never mind that, flightling! It’s a work in progress!” Shayde snapped. “Over here!”
He stood in a side corner that almost turned in on itself to create a hidden alcove. Unlike the rest of the workshop, it was bare, and when I stepped on it, my boots crunched the floor. The top was brittle and cracked, with tiny chips in the corners.
“Baked clay,” Shayde said gruffly to my questioning look. “Unavoidable.”
“Oh,” I said, confused. “What…?”
Shayde held up a calloused finger for silence. “Over this past summer, we have tried various techniques from the earth, water and air elements to unlock your magic,” he said formally. “Whilst you have grasped the basics of each, none flow easily and certainly not enough for your trip to Nion.”
My heart sank. To be considered an adult, every fae had to make a trip across the Nine Realms to the World Ash Tree that we called Nion. We obtained our ancestors' blessing and our place in the Clan there.
“Then what?” My voice came out higher with the stress. “Everyone else in my hatch has already Crossed! If I can’t use any of the elements…”
Shayde closed his upraised hand into a fist for silence, and I obliged. “I never said that, flightling. There is one element we have not yet tried. Fire.”
I stared at him in stunned disbelief. “We are the People of the Ash!” I almost shouted. “We don’t touch fire! It’s a wicked human thing, it eats iron and kills trees, it…”
“It’s necessary for the balance,” Shayde boomed, suddenly angry. He stood straighter, broader somehow, his eyes flashing and his jaw clenched. The mild-mannered inventor in his tattered coat was gone, replaced by the stern Harmonic.
“It’s a fae thing,” he went on grimly. “It’s as much your heritage as the sky, the sea and the land. Fire faeries can summon heat from the ground and lighting from the sky. They were powerful.”
“So why don’t we have any?” I retorted.
Shayde sighed, rubbing his temple. “Because they were wiped out a millennia ago in the Elemental Wars.”
“I was taught about the Wars,” I said. “That’s how we ended up with the Clans. But Pa never mentioned the Fire fae.”
Shayde grimaced. “Kenel probably doesn’t know. It’s not talked about, even amongst the Harmonics. They prefer to ignore that slice of history.” He mumbled under his breath, “hypocrites.”
“How -”
“I will tell you more another time. Today, I want you to focus on fire. The element should burn away the blocks on your air magic if you can summon it.”
I gulped. I had a vision of getting it wrong, the fire raging out of control under my skin until it blackened and peeled.
“Put your hand on your belly,” Shayde said.
Trembling, I did so.
“Feel the warmth there. Breathe in and out. Feel your body move under your hand. Focus on that movement.”
I did so, staring at Shayde's chin. It had a smudge on the jawline. I frowned, feeling my nose itch and breathed in deeply.
“Empty your mind,” he intoned. “Close your eyes. Focus on the warmth. Focus on the movement.”
I tried; I did. Then my mind started racing, and I felt a tickle under my fingertips that grew until I blurted it out as a giggle. I opened my eyes to see Shayde’s resigned frown.
“Huh,” he huffed. “Let’s try a heated stone instead.”
We spent another hour playing with hot things. Shayde wrapped me in furs, pushed my hands into hot water and stuck stones around my feet. I was sweating by the end, but I could not connect to Fire even with his endless yell of “FOCUS!” in my ears.
“Can you show me what it looks like, at least?” I begged.
Shayde walked me back to the original corner. I watched with wide eyes as he concentrated, one hand splayed on his stomach. With three breaths, he sent a crack of light against the wall, so bright that I could see the aftershock on my eyelids. I felt the backwash of heated air on my face, followed by a burnt, acrid smell that made my eyes water. Coughing, I staggered back.
Shayde clapped me on the back. “It does get in your throat,” he said sympathetically. “Here.” He thrust a stone flask into my hand. “Drink.”
I obeyed and winced as the humans’ horrible burning liquid filled my mouth. Without thinking, I moved my arm and the tingling sensation from my tongue transferred to my hand. Like Shayde, I threw it against the wall. The magic barely registered - it raised a puff of dust - but left the Harmonic dumbfounded.
“Oh!” he said. “You did it.”
“I did?” I said, just as amazed. “That’s it?”
Shayde went over and ran one hand over the wall. “Yes, that’s it.” He gave me a gleeful look. “You’ve been overthinking it all this time. Now that we know the problem, I can prescribe the cure.”
“Which is?” I asked nervously. Shayde often got carried away.
“We need to loosen you up,” he proclaimed. “Get more chaotic. When you simply react, the magic works.”
“Oh, great,” I grumbled.
“No, it’s good. We’ll have you throwing spells by the solstice.” He passed me the flask again. “Drink some more.”
Sighing, I took the container and dropped it with a yell. The surface was scorching hot, as though Shayde had left it to bake in the sun. It shattered at my feet, and I jumped back as the boiling liquid seethed and bubbled on the floor. Shayde looked stunned.
“Not again,” he muttered.
“Look!” I wailed, waving my hand in his face. Blisters were already forming on my fingertips.
“Aaoow - wait there whilst I get the lavender ointment. We’ll get this fixed in a heartbeat.”
He bustled off, leaving me deep in shock. I knew from my summer lessons that magic took focus, direction, and control. For a Harmonic to spell-slip like that was unthinkable.
What was going on with Shayde?