The Wrong Side of Magic (11 page)

He looked at Charlotte to see if she was as surprised—as outraged—by this change as he was. She calmly fluttered her hand in the direction of the castle. “You only have five minutes until you transform back. You've got to hurry.”

If birds could growl, he would have. Instead, he let out an angry chirp and headed across the river.

Really, there are some things a person should be warned about. Being turned into a bird was on that list.

Below him, the river didn't seem to move at all. It was a placid, dark street. He soared higher into the air to make it over the city walls. The wind rushed around him, holding him aloft. He felt light and sleek as he sped over the city.

Flying might have been fun if he didn't have to worry about how long he'd been up in the sky. Had a minute already passed? Down below him, rows of homes and shops spread out. Roads snaked between them, made visible by the lantern posts that dotted the way. A few people were out on the streets coming and going. They looked like the troll villagers, wearing the same sort of bright medieval clothes and elaborate hats. He saw one woman who seemed to be carrying a wedding cake on her head.

Hudson zoomed downward, maneuvering himself into one of the city's roads that headed toward the castle. The lower to the ground he was, the less his fall would hurt when he changed back to his human form.

He read the signs on the buildings he passed. One outside an armory read
SHOOT THE BREEZE HERE
. The words over a restaurant door read
GRAMMARIA'S BEST REST-A-RANT
.

Well, it was nice to know rants needed a rest, too.

A shop window displayed multiple versions of the word
good
. There were puffy goods, sleek black goods, tiny glass goods, and thick wooden goods. A sign above the shop door read
THE BEST GOODS: WHEN OTHER WORDS JUST AREN'T GOOD ENOUGH.

What a peculiar place Charlotte had come from.

The castle drew closer. In another minute, he would reach the courtyard. Two old men were slowly shuffling down the middle of the street, and Hudson pushed upward and went over them. It was then that he transformed back into himself. Arms replaced wings, and he fell, tumbling to the ground right in front of the men's feet. For a moment, Hudson just lay there sprawled out, the air knocked from his lungs.

One of the old men peered down at him curiously. “That boy just fell from the sky.”

The other man cocked his head. “This is exactly the sort of thing I've been talking about. Since King Vaygran took the throne, nothing's been right. Now it's raining boys.” He looked up warily, holding his hand over his head as though he might be deluged by a downpour of children.

Hudson didn't say anything. By the time he'd caught his breath, the two men had ambled around him, still mumbling complaints.

With his arms still stinging from his fall, Hudson stood and brushed himself off. Nothing appeared to be broken. Besides a couple of dirty spots he'd gotten when he'd hit the ground, his clothes were exactly as they had been before he'd been turned into a bird. He felt his pocket. The bell and coins still sat there. The bottle wasn't broken.

He set off down the street, forcing himself to run. The sooner he finished this task and got away from King Vaygran's city, the better.

Finally, he reached the castle courtyard. He had never seen a real castle before, and he couldn't stop staring. Its white stone towers pierced the night sky. A large balcony ran along the front side, a place for the king to address his subjects. Underneath the balcony, two huge doors led into the castle. It should have been too dark to see much detail on the building, but the stone glowed with its own inner light. Carvings lined each arched doorway and window, swirls and letters mixing together. The inscription above them read
WORDS CREATE
.

The courtyard spread out in front of the castle, paved in the same white stone. A circular garden area stood in the back of the courtyard, and two trees grew there: a huge steel-colored one with crooked, grasping branches, and a smaller, droopier tree with royal-blue leaves. It was a larger version of the tree growing in Charlotte's living room: Princess Nomira's.

Hudson walked to it and ran his hand along a low branch. It felt like bumpy velvet. He petted one of the wilting leaves. Perhaps he'd been in this strange land too long, because he couldn't resist leaning closer and whispering, “Don't worry. We're coming to find you.” He never would have talked to a tree back home.

He looked at the bigger tree again, at its many crowded branches. He supposed it must be King Vaygran's tree. The thought made him keep a wary distance. He was almost afraid one of its long branches would reach out and grab him.

Hudson made his way down the courtyard and around the left side of the castle until he came to a walled garden. Lantern posts lit up the area so the treetops poking over the wall were visible. Brightly colored fruit weighed down their branches. What, he wondered, did turquoise fruit taste like? While he and Charlotte had ridden through the forest, he'd eaten a couple of sandwiches, but all the walking and flying had made him hungry again.

He saw the arched gate that led into the garden and strode up to a guard sitting in a chair in the doorway. He was a big man, dressed in silver armor with a large yellow plume that stuck straight out of his helmet. His eyes were shut in sleep, his head tilted down so his bushy gray beard lay tangled against his chest. A soft snore rattled his lips.

Hudson cleared his throat. “Excuse me.”

The man didn't wake, didn't even stir. His beard twitched with every snore.

“Hello?” Hudson said a bit louder.

He still didn't wake.

Hudson gently nudged the guard's shoulder. “I need to go inside the garden.”

The man stayed firmly asleep.

Hudson supposed he could just walk in, but that was probably illegal. The last thing he needed was to get in trouble before he and Charlotte had even started searching for the princess. He reached into his pocket. He could leave the silver coin on the man's lap, then go through the gate.

As soon as the coin was out of Hudson's pocket, the guard jolted awake and held out his hand.

Hudson was so startled he nearly dropped his coin. “Sorry, I thought you were asleep.”

“I was,” the man said gruffly. “There was no point waking up, was there, until you had money to pay.”

“Um, I guess not.” It seemed like the polite thing to say. He dropped the coin in the man's outstretched palm.

The man slipped Hudson's coin into his pocket. “This isn't the place for guessing. If you want to throw around guesses, you can do that at the economic advisers' policy meeting tomorrow.”

“Oh. Um, I just want to go to the garden.” Hudson edged away from the guard and went through the gate before the guard spoke to him again.

Things were so odd in this place he wouldn't have been surprised by anything he found in the garden. Umbrellas and lollipops could have grown next to the bushes.

For the most part, the garden seemed normal enough. Pathways led through rows of trees. Bushes and flowers were planted in colorful arrangements. Some of the flowers glowed like nightlights, and dandelions kept puffing out their seeds in firework-like explosions, but the rest of the plants behaved respectably.

Hudson walked by the statue of the deer. She was a beautiful bronze statue, so lifelike that she even had sculpted eyelashes. She turned her head and blinked at him with soft eyes. He didn't stop to talk.

Farther down the path, Hudson came across a silver wolf statue the size of a Great Dane. The statue perked up its ears and barked playfully. Hudson waved at the dog and walked on. He didn't see the owl statue at first. As he walked under a tree with fruit like a popcorn ball, a voice called down, “Who?”

“What?” Hudson asked, and looked up. A statue of a white marble owl sat perched on a tree branch above him.

The owl surveyed him with large eyes. “Witch.”

“Where?” Hudson asked, spinning around to check behind him. He didn't see anything. Then he realized the owl had probably meant “Which.”

“When?” the owl asked, and then added, “How?” He cocked his head sideways. “I know the answer to all those questions if you have a gold coin.”

“No thanks,” Hudson said. “I'm looking for the bee.”

The owl lifted his head haughtily. “Be that way.”

Or maybe the owl meant “Bee, that way.” It was hard to tell in this place. Hudson mumbled, “Thanks,” in case the owl was being helpful instead of offended, and then walked down the path again.

He kept noticing the fruit hanging from the trees. Charlotte had told him not to eat any fruit from the compliment trees, because eating it might distract him, but that didn't mean he couldn't pick some to eat tomorrow. The food they'd brought with them would run out soon.

He walked under a tree with red-and-white-striped fruit. It smelled like Italian food—manicotti or spaghetti. Hudson ran his finger over one on a low-hanging branch. It was bumpy but not messy. He plucked off two pieces of fruit and put them in his jacket pockets.

The next tree had pink fruit that smelled like snow cones. He added a couple of those to his pockets. He did the same with a fruit that smelled like french fries. Even though his pockets were bulging, he had the urge to collect fruit from every single tree. He and Charlotte could have a feast when he got back. Then he remembered that Charlotte didn't want to feast; she wanted an answer about the princess. He stopped picking fruit and went and found the lion statue.

It was as large as a real lion and made from shining gold that made the beast look even more majestic. He sat on a raised platform, swishing his tail into the shrubbery that surrounded him.

When Hudson walked up, the lion lifted his head in a royal manner, and his thick mane glistened in the lantern light. “Welcome, my young adventurer,” he said in a deep, rich voice. “For a gold coin, I will give you knowledge.”

“Thanks,” Hudson felt around his pocket for the coin. It was somewhere underneath the fruit. “But I came to talk to the bee.”

The lion let out a growl, a low rumble of disapproval. “I can tell you anything that the bee knows, and many things besides. What do you seek?”

Right now, his gold coin. He still couldn't find it. He took out the fruit piece by piece, laying them on the pedestal so he could search better. “That's nice of you to offer, but I really need to talk to the bee. She's somewhere around here, right?”

The lion swished his tail angrily and then turned away, ignoring Hudson. “Bees,” the lion said disdainfully, “are only good for making honey and spelling things.”

Hudson pulled out the jar of hope and finally found the gold coin at the bottom of his pocket. He walked around the statue of the lion, examining the area by his tail. That's where Charlotte said the bee was. He didn't see it. Of course, since the lion could move his tail, and did often enough—he nearly smacked Hudson in the face with it once—Hudson had a large area to search.

And if the lion could move, couldn't the bee move, too? Maybe she had moved someplace completely different. If Hudson were a bee, he wouldn't stick around by the lion's tail. He'd be over in the snow-cone tree.

Hudson looked around the garden, searching. If the bee had flown off, how would he ever find it? Bees were tiny, and it was dark.

Before he became completely discouraged, he shook the bottle of hope. At first nothing happened, and Hudson wondered if he was hopeless after all, then a tiny spark of light appeared in the middle of the jar. Just a glimmer. It grew stronger and stronger until the light shone brighter than a flashlight.

He held the bottle over the surrounding flowers. A gray stone bee sat on top of a daisy, wings outstretched. Hudson bent his head to see her better, and the bee buzzed happily.

“I need to ask you a question.” Hudson laid the gold coin near the daisy. To his amazement, the coin disappeared, making a clinking sound like it had fallen into a slot. “My friend wants to find and rescue Princess Nomira. How can we do that?”

The bee tilted her head up, antennae swaying. “With bravery and perseverance.”

Hudson waited for more instructions. They didn't come. The bee turned her attention back to the daisy.

“So where do we go to rescue the princess?” he asked. “Where is she?”

The bee tromped around on the surface of the flower, gathering bits of pollen. “She is closer than you think. Rescuing her, however, is a process, not an event.”

What did that mean? Maybe Hudson should have gone with the lion after all. He tried to coax more information out of the insect. “We need to find Princess Nomira before we can rescue her.”

“That's always a necessary step,” the bee agreed.

“So where is she hidden? Where did King Vaygran lock her up?”

The bee rubbed her antennae together. “To get the correct answer, you must ask the correct question.”

“I thought I was,” Hudson said, frustrated. “How do we rescue the princess?”

The bee let out an angry buzz. Hudson didn't know why. She wasn't the one who had paid a piece of gold and wasn't getting any information.

Wings fluttering, the bee paced around the circumference of the flower. “The Cliff of Faces has the answers you seek.”

“And where is the Cliff of Faces?”

“Past the Sea of Life. Charlotte knows where it is.”

Hudson straightened in surprise. “How did you know my friend's name was Charlotte? I didn't tell you that.”

Another buzz from the bee. “People pay gold for my answers because I know many things. Bees see without being seen.”

For the first time, Hudson believed the bee might actually know what she was talking about.

“If Charlotte is successful in her quest,” the bee continued, “she'll be called Colette. Victory for the people.”