“Paragon.” Killian inclined his head to the most powerful fae in America—although the Paragon himself told me he was not a fae ruler but representative, which basically meant a professional fae wrangler.
The Paragon squinted at him with suspicion. “What do you want now? I heard the rumors that your wizard successfully broke her seal—well done, by the way, Hazel.”
I grinned. “Thanks!”
“She needs your advice.”
“I do?” That was certainly news to me.
Killian ignored my question. “Take us to your workshop.”
“No,” the Paragon groaned like an irritated teenager. “I’m picking my ice cream. You can wait!”
“Paragon,” Killian said in a warning tone.
“Fine—but you owe me an ice cream cake for this.” The Paragon dug a pink unicorn coin purse out of a pocket in his robe and flicked it open. A gust of wind slapped at my face, making me close my eyes, so I didn’t get to see the Paragon’s personal pocket realm settle around us.
When I opened my eyes, however, the grocery store was gone, and we stood in a strange hybrid of modern tech toys—like a sleek gaming system—and ancient magic shown by the Paragon’s personal desk which was formed by living trunks twisted together.
He’d made a few changes to the room—it was still stuffed with bookshelves, but it had a wood floor now, and he’d swapped out paintings and artifacts around the room.
The most noticeable thing that hadn’t changed, however, was the massive velvet pet bed that claimed the middle shelf of the biggest bookshelf in the whole workshop. Lounging on that bed was a gloriously hairless sphinx cat. She was flat on her back, displaying her flabby belly and pink skin to the world, though she looked up after we arrived, making the tiny gold bell on her purple collar jingle.
“Hello, Aphrodite,” I said to the cat.
She flicked her tail a few times, then let gravity drag her head back so her bald chin jutted up into the air, somewhat resembling a lazy hobgoblin.
“What a rare occasion!” the Paragon gushed. “She’s invited you to give her scratches under the chin!” He gave me a smile of rapture as he pointed to his cat. He was, I’d learned on my previous trip to his workshop, one of those really intense pet parents. Which meant I had better pet the cat, or we’d never get what we actually came here for—whatever that was.
I reluctantly approached Aphrodite’s bed and carefully stroked her cheeks. It was kind of a weird sensation. I mean, my brain told me Aphrodite was a cat, and therefore I needed to expect fur, but given that she was hairless I was just rubbing her skin.
Aphrodite didn’t seem to care, thankfully. She let out a very loud “Mmmert” and then curled into a massive ball that consisted of mostly her hindquarters and belly.
Killian leaned over my shoulder and peered down at the feline. “You need to stop feeding this thing so much.”
“She needs no such thing! Aphrodite is a beautiful and stunning example of her breed!” the Paragon said.
“You’re right about the stunning part,” Killian deadpanned.
“Killian, why don’t you explain what we need to talk to the Paragon about?” I asked, hoping to divert the conversation before things got…weird.
“I already said what—you need his help.”
“I find it intriguing you have again ventured here for Hazel’s sake.” The Paragon removed his spectacles and wiped them on his robes. “You must care for her an awful lot.”
“Or perhaps it is merely that if I’m going to train a wizard I want to get the maximum benefit out of it,” Killian said.
“Yeah, of course,” I said, having expected that reply. “But I don’t know what you think I need his help with.”
Killian shrugged, probably loosening more of those irritating vampire powers or pheromones or whatever given how smooth the motion was. “Magic,” he said.
Now it was the Paragon’s turn to frown. “But she unsealed her magic.”
“Yes, and though she has great potential, she uses it the same way all wizards use it—fireballs, a few bolts of electricity, the usual. She’s gotten rather good at wrapping her sword with electricity, but there must be more extensive methods and skills she can learn,” Killian said.
“Is that really possible?” I looked from Killian to the Paragon. “Wizards are pretty limited in the kinds of magic we can do. We can create magic versions of fire, water, wind, electricity and all those sorts of elements, but it’s not like we can enchant things like the fae.”
The Paragon twirled the tips of his white mustache, flinching when he yanked too hard. “There is truth in both of your words. Killian is right in that there is more to a wizard’s magic potential than simply scaling up your attacks, but you are right as well, Hazel, in knowing that you cannot cast spells. You use magic in its rawest form.”
“So what else is there?” I asked.
The Paragon shuffled over to his bookshelves. “Your magic can be used in more…hmm…harmful—shall we say?—ways. Techniques and styles that fell out of vogue as the infighting among supernaturals dropped off.”
He turned around to peer at me over the rims of his spectacles. “Really, you wizards just lack imagination. Everyone is so anxious to copy everyone else—not a speck of creative thinking in the lot of you.” He plucked a book bound in cracked leather from the shelf, grimaced at the dust coating the spine, then buffed it off with his silk sleeve.
“Here.” He waddled over to me and held out the book. “This might spark a few ideas. It’s not readable, but the pictures are useful. Sit down, and take a look at it.”
He marched off before I could ask where he expected me to sit—just about every surface in the room was claimed. The nearest chair wasn’t too full, though. It only had a stack of books on it, and its matching footstool just had a model globe—of a green and blue planet that was not earth.
Aphrodite peered over the edge of her pet bed and watched me transfer the books to her bookshelf before I plopped down and opened the book.
The Paragon hadn’t lied. The inked words of the book had faded to illegible smudges. Only a few random letters remained, but they weren’t even from the English alphabet. It occurred to me about then that this book was quite possibly a millennium old—or older.
I froze with my fingers sifting through the pages, but relaxed when I tasted the flower bathwater scent of fae magic—probably a preservation spell—and resumed turning the pages.
The illustrations still remained. They were slightly faded, but the use of color made it easier to decipher what I was seeing: rudimentary figures that were supposed to represent wizards, casting a variety of spells.
So far, I only saw what Killian had dubbed “the usual”—like a fireball spell, though it had a few more difficult variations I had only seen my parents ever successfully pull off, and they had only done it once or twice for demonstration—like fire walls.
I frowned at the red and orange wall of flames the book depicted and considered it. It would work against werewolves, but not—based on my fight with Gavino—vampires. They’d blow through it so fast I doubted they’d even singe their hair.
There had to be other alternatives.
I turned the page, vaguely aware of Killian’s and the Paragon’s presence.
“Might I enquire what prompted this field trip?” the Paragon asked.
“I already told you, Hazel needed your help.”
“Obviously. But something must have goaded you into deciding that she needed to level up.”
“I cannot be goaded—though the Night Court did try. Which begs the question why do you hang around if you aren’t going to actually do anything to rein in the Midwest Courts?” Killian said.
“I’m a representative, not a ruler.”
“Then leave. Your presence is giving the Courts an overinflated vision of their importance.”
“Can’t,” the Paragon said. “I’m looking for…something,” he added evasively.
“Then find it and go away.”
“What a rude thing to say when I’m helping your wizard!”
“You gave her a book. That hardly counts. And I’d be a great deal more grateful if you brought the Night Court to heel.”
“You set off that bomb long before I arrived in the Midwest.” The Paragon snorted. “It’s only right that you have to deal with the consequences of your mess. Besides, even if I interfered it’s never going to end unless the Night Queen and her consort fall out of power. You really bearded the dragon with that one.”
“It’s hardly my fault,” Killian said. “She should have been better at murdering if she wanted to get away with it.”
Chapter Three
Hazel
That yanked me out of my picture-viewing. “What?”
“You haven’t heard?” the Paragon asked me. “Why the Night Court hates His Eminence, that is.”
“I assumed it was politically motivated,” I said.
“Oh, pooh. Everyone hates Killian because of his power and pushiness when it comes to politics.” The Paragon rolled his eyes. “But no, it’s much more personal. The Night Court reflects the feelings of their ruler—Queen Nyte and her consort, Ira. And they hate Killian because he uncovered that the queen had murdered her previous husband, the King of the Night Court. When he dropped that little bomb on the local fae Courts they stripped the Night Court of some of its power and fae land—which naturally ticked off the queen.”
I squinted at Killian. “I thought you don’t care what happens between the other races?”
“I don’t,” Killian said frankly. “Unless I can use it to my advantage, as I did in this case. I informed the fae Courts of the Night Queen’s violent pastimes before we were set to vote on a particular law I wanted passed that wasn’t going to make it. We had to adjourn briefly so the fae could sort themselves out, and not all of them returned to the meeting, which made it possible to get a majority vote.”