Foxglove Page 11

  “Neither of those sound particularly promising.”

  Maeve bent down and picked up Maddie’s knife from the floor. “I do have another option.”

  “And that is?”

  “You could become my apprentice,” she said, handing her the blade. “I will teach you to become a witch and to harness the power you carry. Achieve that, and even someone as powerful as Gwynedd will be beneath your concern.”

  Maddie turned the thought over in her head as she turned her eyes toward the glossy surface of the potion.

  Black veins and dark eyes stared back.

  A Noble Pursuit

  Maddie rested her chin on the desk as Finn sat across from her, staring.

  “Will you stop looking at me like that?” she asked.

  He leaned down and reached out a finger towards her face. “It’s just… incredible,” he said.

  She swatted his hand away.

  “Back off! I feel weird enough already.”

  “But you’re—”

  “The Foxglove, I know. Don’t remind me.”

  “So, have you decided yet?”

  “Decided what?”

  “About becoming a witch.”

  Maeve had given her two weeks to think it over. If Maddie became her apprentice, her other studies would have to be abandoned. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day, and Maeve worked at night, which meant that Maddie’s sleep schedule would have to be reversed. Nine days had come and gone since then, and Maddie was no closer to a final decision. In fact, she was beginning to think that hiding out in the woods somewhere might not be such a bad idea.

  At least Ebba had come through with the goods. It felt great to be back in jeans.

  “I don’t know,” Maddie said. “I don’t even know if I want to be a witch.”

  Finn leaned back in his chair and kicked his feet up onto his desk. “Well, it seems like it’d be right up your alley.”

  “And what makes you say that?”

  “You’re smart, driven, and you love to feel like the smartest person in the room.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handful of candies wrapped in wax paper. Unwrapping one, he popped it into his mouth. “Plus, no need for people skills.”

  “You’re an ass.”

  “What?! I’m just saying, you like to be the one to make the power play. A little egocentric, maybe, but it’s actually kind of attractive.”

  “Gee, thanks,” Maddie said, slumping onto her desk. “Jerk.”

  Finn paused. “I’m sorry,” he said, pushing a candy towards her across the desk. “I didn’t mean to upset you..”

  Maddie took it. “I’ve only ever done what was expected of me,” she said. “And the worst part is, I’ve been doing it so long that now, even if I see something I like, I can’t be sure it’s me who wants it or if I’m just rising to meet the same expectations I’ve been chasing my whole life.”

  “So, then you admit you liked it?”

  Maddie peered up at him and ate the candy. “It was kinda cool.”

  Finn looked up at the ceiling. “Truthfully, I’m jealous,” he said. “I’ve only ever had my sister and mother to look up to.”

  “That’s not such a problem,” Maddie replied. “They’re certainly good role models.”

  Finn drummed his fingers on his desk. “True, but no matter how much I learn from them: all the studying, and the tutors, and the fencing lessons. None of it really matters. I can make myself look like them, but I can never have the life they’re leading me towards.”

  Maddie listened. It was a little hard to relate to the burdens of an aristocrat.

  He got up and walked to the blackboard, idly reading Cedric’s leftover notes. “We’re a pretty antiquated society. Chalk it up to being a member of a species that lives hundreds of years. Old habits die pretty hard when the original habit-formers are all still around. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not really built for high office.”

  He let out a sigh. “It’s going to be a long time before our culture changes, if it ever does.”

  “I’m sorry,” Maddie said.

  He spun around, came back to the desks, and flopped back into his chair. “Anyway, you see my point. You’re lucky.”

  “Except for the part where I’m basically a weapon of mass destruction.”

  Finn put his feet back up. “Yeah, except for that.” He tossed her another candy.

  “I guess it would be nice for you,” Maddie said, catching it. “Me giving up my studies. You’d have the classroom to yourself again. No more arguments.”

  Finn let his head fall back and stared up at the ceiling. “Actually, I kind of like the arguments.”

  “You do not.”

  “At least they keep things interesting. It’ll be awfully boring around here without you.”

  Maddie straightened up and cracked her back. “I don’t even know what’s involved with being a witch.”

  “Well, we’re in a library,” Finn replied, gesturing at the books. “Look it up.”

  Maddie looked around, scanning the stacks. “I just don’t think that will help. I’ve already seen magic, and I’ve experienced it, but we’re talking about a career that could last a lifetime. What if I want to go home someday?”

  Finn sat quietly for a moment, arms folded, before springing out of his chair. He crossed the room to the door.

  “What are you doing?” Maddie asked.

  “I figured out what you need.”

  “Oh? What’s that?”

  “A field trip,” he said.

  “A field trip?”

  “That’s right,” he said, whispering as he cracked the door open. “Get your stuff. We’re going out.”

  Field Trip

  Finn led Maddie to the front hall of the palace, where a circle cut from the outer bark of the tree served as the main door. The faeries had it propped open to let in the breeze.

  “It’s always so windy here,” Maddie said. “Why is that?”

  Finn took her outside. “They do call it the Windy City.”

  “But not because it’s actually windy.”

  “I know,” he said. “The weather is the way it is because of the Veil. Every layer has its own special quality. There are some where it never stops raining, others where it’s always night, but here, it’s windy. My mother built the city here because of that, actually. It’s good for windmills.”

  “There were windmills when she built the city?”

  “When she built the city, it was a bar,” he said, smirking. “But she knew that someday it would grow. That’s my mom. Always keeping an eye on the future.”

  They crossed a sweeping courtyard. A dozen guards stood in attendance, each one carrying a tall spear. Long red ribbons fluttered in the breeze, fixed to the weapons’ thin, lethal points. Their bodies were clad in shining steel, engraved with the same stalk-like flowers that had adorned the princess’s armor.

  “And the flowers?” Maddie asked.

  “Amaranth,” Finn answered. “For my father. Same with the city. She did it after the war with the Erlkin. She took his death pretty hard, and I think seeing his namesake around really helped her.”

  “Does it help you?”

  He stopped walking. For a moment, he turned his eyes to the ground and put a hand on his neck, fidgeting. “I was really young when my father died. I never knew him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Maddie said.

  Finn spun around, forcing cheerfulness back onto his face. “It’s alright. It was a long time ago, and we’re out here for you. The cable cars are this way.”

  There was a carriage house at the far end of the courtyard. A gear set with a thick, metal cord rotated slowly over the roof. The lines went all the way down to the city, where they met in a matching structure at one end of an open plaza.

  “I’m not supposed to leave the palace,” Maddie said.

  “Prince,” Finn replied, pointing a finger towards himself. “Something tells me they won’t stop us. Just do
n’t freak out when we get inside.”

  “Why would I freak out?”

  Finn took her into the carriage house and Maddie paused.

  “Oh,” she said.

  The gears powering the lift were driven by team of ants, each one the size of a VW bug. A pair of handlers urged them on with globs of sugar on long wooden poles.

  “Good afternoon, your highness,” they said in unison.

  Glistening black lacquer and gold filigree encased the cable car like a candy shell. Finn skipped over to the carriage as it swept around a shallow track in the floor.

  “Your chariot awaits,” he said, opening the door.

  Polished wood and thick black cushions adorned the carriage’s interior. As they took their seats, red cloth window shades thumped and billowed in the wind.

  Maddie turned to Finn as the carriage bobbed out into the air. “Okay, seriously. What is it with the giant animals?”

  “What about them?”

  “They’re the size of pick-up trucks!”

  The prince laughed. “I’m not the one who flies through the air in a metal tube powered by exploding chemicals. We work with what we have. Not a lot of oil drilling in the Veil, and this way we don’t have to worry about a carbon footprint.”

  Maddie shook her head. “But wouldn’t it be easier to use an engine? It’s not like you couldn’t pull one into the Veil, right?”

  “True,” Finn said. “But then we’d have to steal gasoline to power it. Moral considerations aside, we prefer to be self-sufficient, and as far as the insects are concerned, this is just the way things are. The Veil is a reflection of the human world, but it’s not the same. There’s magic in the air. If you go deep enough, you can see it with the naked eye. It makes sense that things here would be a little different, including the wildlife.”

  Maddie look a long breath and mumbled, “Just when I think I’m getting used to this place.” She glanced out the window and said, “What about other animals?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ve seen birds, and ants, and beetles. Are there any hotel-sized pigs I should be aware of?”

  Finn leaned back against the cushions and let his head rest against the windowsill. The sun cut across his face, lighting up his hair as he sighed in contentment.

  “Not really,” he said, eyes closed. “Maybe in the deep Veil. I’ve never seen anything larger than a cat, and it was massive. We caught a glimpse of him on a hunting trip. He turned to look at us and you could almost see him thinking. I half-expected him to open up his mouth and speak.”

  “Him?”

  “We’re pretty sure, but we weren’t that close. Thank goodness he wasn’t hungry. An animal that size would be practically unstoppable. As for the rest, we have mice and rats, and some large birds. The higher orders of animal never seem to get through the barrier.”

  He paused to give her a sideways grin. “Which says a lot about you.”

  Maddie hit him on the shoulder as the carriage came around to hover along the edge off a short, wooden platform. Finn jumped out and helped Maddie down. Together, they descended a staircase to the street.

  The market was much bigger up close. There had to be a thousand people in the street, wearing clothing from what looked like every conceivable era, from tailcoats to denim jeans. And the smells! The aromas of a dozen cultures drifted through the air like clouds of fragrant dust.

  They walked past an open-air rotisserie roasting insect legs on spits. Someone was selling peanut-sized larvae, batter-fried and served in paper cones like popcorn shrimp, and there was a sandwich-bar specializing in beetle. Across the square, an enormous dead caterpillar hung in a window like a side of beef. The butcher cut away steaks with a huge knife, some of which went onto a grill, while others got wrapped in paper and sold raw to the passing throng.

  The street rose and fell, following the contours of the underlying branches, and with every step, the hollow thump of open air under the boardwalk thudded beneath their feet.

  “They call this the Spiral Market,” Finn said, leading the way along the crowded street. He pointed to a pair of huge ramps in the middle of the square. They descended from street level and wrapped around the trunk of the city tree: one with traffic going up, the other going down.

  Finn went on. “It’s the largest shopping center in the city. The shops run for almost half a mile, all the way around the trunk and out like a spider web. There are others, of course, but this one is the oldest and the busiest. When the centennial comes, most of the festivities will be organized here. This whole place will be full of tents and stalls in a couple of weeks.”

  Maddie glanced around. “Sounds like the Taste.”

  “The what?”

  “You really need to get out more,” Maddie said. “The Taste of Chicago is a kind of food festival. It happens every year. Restaurants from all over the city set up tents in Grant Park.”

  “I haven’t spent much time at the Veil surface,” Finn said. “I only went once, with Cedric. I think we went to a museum, but I was pretty young, so I don’t know for sure. All I remember is that everything smelled like car exhaust.”

  “Well, it’s worth it. You haven’t lived until you’ve tried a genuine Lou Malnati’s pizza, or a real steak.”

  “I’ve had steak.”

  Maddie huffed. “Sure. Bug steak.”

  “It counts!”

  “It does not.”

  They passed a cloth merchant. The storefront looked like a rainbow captured in a loom. Maddie’s eyes lingered on a bolt of white fabric woven through with gold.

  “How do they get the metal into it?” she asked.

  The store owner pounced.

  “You like this one?” she asked. “It’s my best. Very beautiful. Perfect for a dress. How many yards do you need? Or I can measure you, if you’re not sure.”

  Finn waved her off. “Thank you. We’re fine for now. We might be back.”

  They left and split off the main road, following a twisting branch that dropped down before curving under the road. Here, wooden shingles advertised less glamorous wares. They passed an apothecary with dried herbs hanging in the windows, a woodcarver specializing in canes, a haberdasher, and a music studio before they finally arrived at their destination.

  A tiny, round hut sat alone in the center of a plaza barely larger than the building itself. It had the feeling of a church or a mortuary—not avoiding society, but maintaining a discrete distance to escape the hustle and bustle of the city. The walls were made from brown clay, overgrown with tall grass and cream-colored mushrooms that covered the roof like a blanket. A single window faced the street, and there wasn’t a soul in sight.

  Darkened windows loomed in the buildings that surrounded the square. Their drawn curtains allowed only a few faint glimmers of fungal glow and candle-light to escape.

  “It’s a little creepy,” Maddie said.

  Finn swept his eyes across the square. “Really? I never thought so.”

  “It’s like the set of Jack the Ripper.”

  Finn chuckled as he approached the hut. “Do you see the signs on the doors?”

  She looked and discovered that the entrances were all marked with a red cross.

  “The apartments are for long-term care,” Finn said. “The practitioner makes rounds twice a day. The hut is for aesthetics. Witches have to connect to the natural world, so they craft their environment extremely carefully. A cramped office simply wouldn’t do.”

  Maddie turned a full circle in place. “You’re saying that this is a hospital?”

  “And this is an operating theater,” Finn said, knocking softly on the door. “Come on. Let’s see if they’ll let us watch.”

  Higher Education

  The door creaked open, revealing a woman in a long, off-white robe holding a butcher’s cleaver.

  “Your highness!” she yelped, dropping the knife on the ground.

  Bloody smears in a variety of colors stained an apron that hung loose her sh
oulders. Finn bowed and extended a hand. She bent down and kissed it. As she straightened up, she brushed her hair away from her face, leaving a yellow-green smudge. Finn took a step aside and gestured to Maddie.

  “This is my friend Maddie,” he said. “She’s considering becoming a practitioner. Is there any chance she might be able to speak with your mistress?”

  The woman glanced back into the hut. “Um, she’s working with a patient right now. Could you come back later? I could make you an appointment.”

  “Actually, we were hoping she might be busy. If we promise to stay out of the way, could we watch the procedure?”

  The nurse glanced nervously into the room again.

  “Please?” Finn asked. “It would mean a lot to her. You won’t even notice we’re there.”

  The woman wavered for a moment before she said, “I’ll ask.”

  The door shut. Maddie could hear people talking inside. When it opened again, the woman leaned out and whispered, “She says it’s alright. Just don’t make a fuss.”

  Finn bowed again and thanked her as she led them in.

  “Don’t we have to scrub down or something?” Maddie asked, stopping at the threshold.

  Finn took her by the shoulders and ushered her through the door. “It’s not that kind of medicine,” he said. “Just watch and try to stay quiet.”

  Glowing orange fungus blanketed the ceiling inside, filling the hut’s single room with warm light that flowed into every corner. A broad fireplace burned on one side, set with swinging iron hooks to hold dangling pots, filled with bubbling liquid. Around the walls, piles of boxes and heavy jars rose almost to the ceiling. Maddie noted a little bed in the corner beside a dresser and a stout wardrobe.

  A young woman in her thirties, wearing a deep green robe, stood over a long table in the center of the room. Dark brown braids fell over her shoulders nearly to the floor, while in front of her, a young boy no more than eight lay sleeping on the table.