Tinn leaned his back against the cave wall. “I just don’t see why it has to be so hard for me. Do other changelings have this much trouble controlling their powers?”
Kull hopped up on a worn old stool and rubbed his splotchy head. “Other changelings are na you,” he said. “Ya got ta understand, lad, most changelings dinna stay human more’n a few days. Once, in the era of the Manky Basilisk, a changelin’ managed ta stay human fer a full fortnight. They wrote all about it. It was a big deal. And after they come home—well—that’s it. Most changelings dinna have any magic left after the first go-round. None of ’em have ever touched the fabric o’ the universe fer a recharge the way you did. They get their big day, impersonate a child, and then they’re back in the horde, just one o’ the lot with nothin’ ta set them apart except a fine story ta tell.”
“What does that mean for me?” asked Tinn. He had been impersonating a child his whole life, although it had never felt like an impersonation before. He hadn’t known how to be anything else. He was beginning to feel he didn’t know how to be anything at all.
“It means yer unique,” said Kull. “Ya gotta learn how ta be you an’ stop worryin’ about how ta be someone else.”
“What if I’m never any good at changing?” Tinn asked. “I mean—I haven’t gotten it right once. Not really right. What if I never do?”
Kull regarded him thoughtfully for a moment. “Hm. Ya see them lights?” Along the back wall was a line of messy wires hung with bright, glowing coils in glass tubes. Tinn had marveled at the electric lights on his first visit. Endsborough still relied on oil lamps, but Tinn had heard all about electricity from his classmate Hana Sakai, whose parents had taken her to Glanville for the fair last year. On his first visit, Tinn had asked Kull if he could touch one of the coils, and Kull had said, “Sure!” So Tinn had poked it, and the jolt had sent him tumbling backward across the floor. It had been hours before the feeling had fully returned to his arm. Goblin education looked different than human education.
“Rigged those lights up myself,” Kull said. “I knew nothin’ about electricity when I started. First time I turned ’em on, they didn’a do a thing. Hummed a bit is all. Made my tongue tingly when I gnawed on ’em. So, ya know what I did?”
Tinn shook his head.
“I adjusted. Tinkered with the couplin’s, turned up the generator, added a bit more solder ta the connections. Second go-round, I blasted a burnt strip clear across the wall and gave three o’ my neighbors heart attacks. I didn’a wake up fer days. Nudd tells me he had good money on me fer dead.”
“Wait—you almost died? You let me poke those!”
“Oh, huck up. Yer fine. Point is: what do ya think I did as soon as I finally woke up?”
“Got medical attention?”
“I adjusted. And I tried again. And again. I learned more each time, see? I learned about fuses and dampeners and conductivity. Iffin it wasn’a fer all the times my plans didn’a go the way I wanted ’em to, we’d still be in the dark right now.” Kull jabbed a stubby finger at Tinn. “Yer still sortin’ out how ya work, boy. Yer learnin’ what ya can do and who’s inside ya. Dinna be afraid of a few sparks or a burnout from time to time. That’s na failure. That’s fine-tuning.”
Tinn nodded. “I think I understand,” he said. “Although gnawing on live wires probably isn’t the best way to learn about power.”
Kull waved his hand. “Bah,” he said. “Ya know what they say. Never learn nothin’ iffin ya dinna gnaw on a few live wires.”
“That is definitely not a thing that anybody says. That’s a terrible idea, and it is probably going to kill you. I mean, point taken and all, but maybe don’t do that.”
Kull chuckled. “Shall we get to it, then? Straight ta transformation again, or maybe shanties first this time?”
Tinn took a deep breath. “Transformation,” he said. “I’m ready to try some fine-tuning.”
ELEVEN
Fable hugged the tree trunk with one arm and let her feet dangle down from the high branch, feeling the tree sway lazily beneath her. The air was crisp, and leafy treetops rippled in the morning breeze. The sky was just waking up, still rimmed with gentle pinks, but it was growing brighter by the minute. From her pine tree vantage point, Fable could not yet see the rising sun over the tops of the forested hills, but she could see the house. She watched the house.
Her mother had been very clear about Fable not leaving the forest, so she hadn’t. Endsborough was absolutely, positively out of bounds. Fable had become an expert in bending her mother’s rules, finding loopholes and cutting the corners ever so slightly—but she knew better than to actually break any of them. Her mother had been grumpy about something all yesterday afternoon, but for once she did not seem to be grumpy about Fable—and Fable was happy to keep it that way for as long as possible.
There was movement behind one of the windows. Fable straightened. It might be nothing more than the Burtons’ chubby cat again. Fable could see infuriatingly little from so far away. A distant click. Had that been the front door? Annie stepped into view, walking down the road toward town, wearing that pretty coat that came down to her knees, the one with the bright, shiny buttons. Apparently, dresses needed to hide their buttons in the back, but it was fine for coats to have them in the front.
“Good morning, Annie Burton!” Fable yelled. “Hello!” She waved broadly, and the tree swayed wildly with her movements.
Annie could not hear her. She continued to march on down
