“Don’t worry,” the small woman assured me. “I don’t plan to use it on you.”
I let out a soft chuckle. “Thank you for your kindness.” Immediately, I was annoyed at myself for being so informal. “So take me to Port Land.”
A larger smile broke across her face, and she laughed. I got the sense it had something to do with my pronunciation and frowned, but she didn’t say anything else. She grabbed my arm, her small hands fitting only about halfway around my biceps, and we jumped through the darkness to land a street corner. I turned to look at the concrete building that seemed half made of windows behind me and scoffed.
“What?” she questioned.
“The architecture is absurd. It would take nothing more than a few stones to destroy that place in battle.”
“It’s a library,” she grinned. “I don’t think anyone will be battling it anytime soon.”
“If you say so,” I shrugged. “Knowledge is power; don’t humans say that?”
“Yeah,” she laughed. “Sometimes, humans say that. Well, when a new fae becomes King or Queen, you can suggest they wage war on Earth’s libraries. In the meantime, can you sense where the magic is centered?”
I looked around. Fae magic seemed to be coming from everywhere. “If I had to guess, I’d say it’s coming from a few places. It’s everywhere. It’s coming off people in waves.”
She looked around. “So, what do we do to fix it?”
“Well… you may be able to eliminate the magic without being at the source, the same way you can jump somewhere you’ve never actually been. Unless you’re still too afraid to use your hellfire-”
“I’m not,” she glared. “I’ve been using it successfully. I just couldn’t use it there.”
I eyed her back, annoyed with the expression on her face. “Whatever you say. So do it. Start with the people, perhaps. Pick one, eliminate the magic, see if you sense a connection to where it came from, like a spider’s web. If you were to cut a single thread on the outside, it should ripple back to the center.”
I watched her look around at the people. Her eyes rested in the direction of one woman stopped a little way down the street. She had tripped over a shoelace and was trying to undo the knot so she could re-tie it, none of which was going her way. She had magic surrounding her. I felt a bit sorry for the woman. I knew with the strength of the magic she was experiencing, she must have had a horrible past few weeks. I watched Myrcedes stare in her direction, glancing every so often at her scythe, just making sure to keep an eye on the weapon. Soon, I flinched as the woman seemed to be consumed by purple flames. It took me a moment to realize that no one besides the two of us could see it, aside from the other magical creatures hiding in plain sight, of course. I’d only been there for a few minutes, but Port Land seemed to be rife with inhuman creatures.
The woman down the street paused as the fire burned and stopped messing with her shoe. Once the flames died down, she finished tying a new knot and stood. There was no more magic surrounding her.
“That… that’s impressive,” I muttered. Myrcedes turned to me and grinned. I immediately regretted the compliment. “Now, see if you can sense anything else.” She regained focus. I didn’t distract her as she concentrated for a few moments.
“I think I have an idea…” she said, grabbing my arm once again. In a moment, we were in a completely different part of town.
This place was different. The air was cold, and I felt magic so thick Myrcedes could have cut it with her scythe. “Where are we?”
“I’m not sure…”
We were on a sidewalk at the end of a large bridge that had two massive towers toward the center.
“Wherever we are,” I advised, “it’s got a lot of magic here. It’s likely that a few different Unseelie cast spells around here, and they interacted poorly. It’s created a very dangerous miasma.”
Personally, I didn’t quite care that humans didn’t know about magic, but I assumed she didn’t want to perform some massive spell in the middle of a highly populated area. “We need to find somewhere that’s not out in the open…”
“Down there.” She nodded toward the shoreline underneath the bridge. We made our way down there, and my jaw was tense the entire time.
“This is disgusting.”
“What is?”
“Everything,” I huffed. “The water is polluted, there’s trash everywhere.”
She smiled with amusement. “Actually, it’s not that bad. I’ve seen far worse.”
“That should not be the standard!”
“Alright.” She rolled her eyes, and I felt something shift in the pit of my stomach. I wanted to watch her do that again. “We can discuss the ethics of Earth’s water pollution after we fix this miagma or whatever you called it.”
I smiled a bit before composing myself. She was right; as cute as her made-up word was, we had a task. I could admonish myself later for getting distracted.
“Very well. You’ll want to go slow, bit by bit. This might take a while.”
“Kalian.” I was taken aback at hearing her say my name for some reason. She’d said it before, so I had no idea why it shocked my senses this time. “Will you help me?”
“Oh. Of course,” I nodded.
She smiled. “Thank you. I’ll jump to the other side of the river and take the bridge from that side. I’ll come back when I don’t feel anything anymore.”
I nodded and bowed slightly as she disappeared. I could barely see her figure reappear across the large river. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on the reason I was there, removing her from my thoughts.
This magic was easy to sense because it was everywhere. As I began to try to dismantle it, I was curious as to how exactly Myrcedes was able
