Page 2 of The Hocus Pocus Handbook

I can hear the wild fae as many cannot. The high fae have lost these powers in exchange for more glamour and elevated magic. They can create gemstones and conjure silver and gold, travel through mirrors as well as stone and mushroom circles, make mortals wish to sell their souls for a kiss, but they don’t seem particularly happy about any of these abilities. To me, they seem like they’re starving; no excess or pleasure can ever be enough. They will never touch a pooka’s mind, cavort with pixies, swim in a moonlit brook with the river nymphs, or sit on a lonely beach as a naiad serenades her lost love. I would never trade those moments; I feel at home in the glades and loughs, where the magic is thick as honey and twice as sweet.

Soon, I’ll be back out there, and if I time it right, so will the pookas. This time, I’m careful as can be, and I burn just enough magic to give myself a boost and borrow the bounce to scramble onto Ferghus’s back. He doesn’t break stride, leading the charge through the garden toward the gates.

Fire crackles behind us, an acrid smell nearly unknown in the heart of the Winter stronghold. Everything here is white and silver, apart from the gardens. Those are carefully curated with deep green and icy blue, flashing past in a blur of cool and wintry hues.

We nearly trample several wild fae servants in our ride to freedom, but shouts echo in our wake, and the sentries will be expecting us.

I hunch low, aligning my body against Ferghus’s back, and hope nobody gets a good look at my face. The mud and verdant paste will help obscure my features, but there’s a short list of folk who would dare such an uproar. With magical aid, it probably won’t take them long to hunt me down, despite the precaution of concealing my identity. The reckless ride jolts my spine as we vault the hedge that separates the courtyard from the ward, a common area where guests are made to wait so they understand the importance of those who dwell deeper within the palace.

The gates are closing in response to the smoke or the horns or perhaps even the baying of the coin-shìth, who will be tasked with tracking us. I’m lucky they’re howling and not barking; that would be a death sentence for the pookas and me alike. I calculate our speed and find it will be close, too close, if I don’t stack the odds in our favor.

When I reach for the magic again, it burns, a slipping-slithering badness that creates a dark and fraying thread around the periphery of my vision. The black bleeds red when I insist on pulling taut, holding the gates steady, steady, steady—

Stop.

Stop.

I hold and I hold and I hold until pain is a color, glowing all over my body, brightness and burrowing, a worm made of needles trying to eat my skin. My ears whoosh and pop. We’re through, and the pookas put on speed, a glorious and thundering escape. Behind us, the gates crash closed too late, and the silver metal rings out a peculiarly dissonant tone.

Ahead, the wildlands unfold before us. No easy paths, just light game trails and flora that smells like home. Ferghus trots to a stop as soon as it’s safe, and I slide off his back.

We honor you, he sings. Thea-friend, we are a whisper away. We guard you, always.

We are kin, I sing back. Always, Ferghus-friend.

The herd shifts. Scatters. They’re ravens and cats and goats and hares now, all racing in different directions. It will be impossible for House Winter to provide the scheduled entertainment, and they will lose face before House Summer. Concern for my dad often keeps me relatively compliant, but I have no loyalty to Winter. I’ve seen how they treat the wild fae.

I’m on my own, no regrets. Ferghus has been a good friend, and the other pookas deserved my aid as well. Returning to the palace would be a terrible idea, especially since I don’t like the place at the best of times. Mudge, my da, has a suite in the stable complex, and I’m always welcome in the loft I occupied as a child, but I prefer his sylvan cottage, Miremorel House, a cozy little nest within a hollowed-out mushroom. Da told me that they’re tiny in the mortal realm, but plants and fungi grow to towering sizes here, feeding on the magic.

I have spent my best times at Miremorel. But it might not be wise to show up where they’d expect me to hide, as there will be hell to pay for today’s work.

It might behoove me to go a-roving in the wild, drink with brownies, and barter with hobgoblins, some of my favorite people in the entire world. I’ve read stories that travel across the fairy rings, tatty books left by human visitors, and the writers always get it wrong. Brownies may complete house chores, but they’re not peaceful like the fables say. If I gave a brownie a dish of cream in exchange for housework, I’d be slapped so hard, my ears would ring. And I’ve never been swindled by a hobgoblin. Not once.

I pause, breathing in the sweetness of the air. Inside the palace, it smells…tame, purified by layers of protective magic. Out here, there’s earth and moss and peat and the complexity of so many flowers that there’s a war of enticing scents. Darkly luscious inkberry mingles with the bell ambrosia, marrying the appeal of velvety darkness with a silvery sheen, an aromatic echo of the swirls of scintillating light in the sky. This is where I feel most free, entirely at home. I can breathe out here.

In a luxuriously self-indulgent motion, I stretch, feeling my shoulders ease. More tension trickles away when I pull my shoes off and sink my toes into the loamy earth. The wilds love me back, as brambles never tear at my skin and leaves caress me when I pass by. A dangling strand of ivy shivers in delight when I whisper, “Good day to you, green-friend.”

I set my course in the opposite direction of Miremorel House. Da doesn’t need my troubles to come knocking at his door, even if he’s not in residence. The guards might wreck up the place if they’re aggravated enough.

Hmm. I could visit Macha. She lives a day’s walk from the palace, past the point where the glade becomes fen. Though I know the way in my sleep, she can be cantankerous. I once spent some time as a lizard because I showed up without notice, and I have no desire to repeat the experience. Not Macha, then.

Who else would take me in?

As I walk, I contemplate where I might find refuge. Ordinarily, one’s parents should be their first port in a storm, but Rain and Fen have never been that for me. Nominally, I am their daughter, but not by blood. Their indifference has haunted me my entire life. No one has ever addressed the fact that my presence is a crime that’s received no redress—that the culprits among the Winter Court who stole me from my mortal kin to punish Rain and Fen for their forbidden love have yet to be uncovered. I feel so conflicted because I shouldn’t even be here, yet I love the wildlands with my entire soul.

And that brings me back to the changeling status, a tarnish to my name that I can’t shake, no matter how virtuously I behave.

And I decided long ago that I much prefer to be bad.

2

Silent Resistance

The artist carved this piece as a frieze in a granite wall. It depicts a figure trying to hold back a wave with their hands, but it is obvious to the observer that the person will soon be swept away. It is the intention that matters and that moment of resistance. The outcome may be foretold, but the subject will hold for as long as they can. Even if the struggle is futile, they still devote themself to it. And the struggle matters.

Kerboros

“Find the culprit,” Lord Liskaal orders.