“Nothing,” Bal said. “Absolutely nothing.”

“That can’t be,” said Moment, who was still staring at me as though I’d done something wrong or had somehow screwed up the beheading.

“The magic should be back. We all agreed. Destroy the monster restore the magic. We made a deal with the devil, a literal devil, to destroy the monster and now we have nothing to show for it.”

“I’ve got my satchel,” I said.

“Speaking of which,” Moment said, “we need to look inside your satchel.”

“Why?”

“We believe that something was placed in there that shouldn’t have been and we would like to see if it’s there and retrieve it. For the queen,” Moment said.

“For the queen,” I said, repeating – remember the rule.

“Yes. For the queen. May we look inside?” Moment asked, and for a brief instance I considered telling her “No,” just to see what she’d do and then decided against it. I didn’t have any skin in the Faelix game and besides, had Moment come out and used Faelix’s name I probably would’ve said, “Yes. He’s right here,” and then opened my satchel with a flourish and there Faelix would be.

When I did open my bag, far too slowly for Moment’s liking, “Get on with it,” Bal said. “We need to regroup and figure out why she failed.”

“Whoah, I didn’t fail,” I said, still opening my satchel but not paying any attention to what Moment and the retinue of faeries were seeing or doing. “You can tell I didn’t fail. See the head,” I pointed at the head, “that was separated from the body,” I gesticulated at the body, “which was what you asked me to do. Even gave me this neat thing,” I added holding up the re-sheathed sword.

“Where is he?” Moment hissed at one of the other faeries who shrugged. I wasn’t watching them, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t paying attention. Listening when people think you’re doing something else is always a good way to get what you want out of someone. Even if it is just to mess with them, a lot.

“Mortal was certain he’d be in here,” Moment said, she looked like she was in serious thought, but then snapped out of it. “Go tell Mortal and then the queen. In that order. Mortal and then the queen. Understand?”

The faerie, who was wearing some pretty impressive armor over her rather svelte frame, flew off without, what I’d just now realized, a trail of light behind her. Faeries were sneaky. They were secretive. They could be complete pains in the ass. But one of their characteristics was the trail of light, even in sunlight.

Curious.

“What are you looking for?” I asked as Sveltey took off, much like one would expect a bat to take off out of hell.

“The queen has not granted us permission to speak to you or anyone about what may or may not be missing,” Moment said, and then she blushed.

Also interesting.

Moment blushed. I didn’t know the faerie woman from Lolita (goddess of goddesses or something like that), but her blushing indicated something strange and strange was my bread and butter.

Speaking of which, I wasn’t hungry, even more so now that Ethan – the monster – was beheaded (I was questioning death at this point), but I was curious and being curious meant I was far more willing to participate in mindless and meaningless and even dangerous and moral-less things. As well as things that lack ethics, propriety, or perspicacity. I am also more willing to become persuasive and peripatetic in terms of people just so I can have the information I want at whatever cost ends up being paid by other people.

So far I had my satchel back. I’d met a boy faerie, which has never happened for me before. And I got a sword and the opportunity to separate a head from a body, which – at this point – was actually far more interesting to me than Moment or Sveltey or the elven fit Bal was clearly throwing.

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All of this was disrupted when Wander and Olga came from around my tent and Olga said, “The gnomes think our next step is to enter the structure.”

“Why?” Bal asked, and instead of throwing an elven fit, she stepped away from the structure as though it was suddenly infested with something far more disgusting than the remnants of Ethan’s head, which she seemed perfectly fine standing over.

“They don’t know,” Olga said. “Though they seem to think the path to the answer is inside and we should enter.”

“We?” Bal asked and looked around.

“Less we and more she,” Olga said, clearly indicating me.

“Why me?” I asked, not surprised nor upset, just curious as not only was this curious but also curiouser and curiouser.

“You are from outside,” Olga said.

“I was trapped inside like everyone else,” I said. “Just at a different time.”

“Precisely,” Olga said and turned to look at Wander.

As I looked at him, I realized that anyone who considered Wander an idiot, other than not being able to speak, didn’t understand gnomes and had no clear idea of what gnomes were or what intelligence truly looked like.

Another piece to the faerie puzzle, though now that the faeries were out of my satchel and I’d closed the flap, I was wondering what had happened to Faelix. He’d gone in. He hadn’t come out. And Moment had sent a faerie, Sveltey, off to inform Mortal and then Maeve.

If I wasn’t somewhat invested in regaining my powers, there would be so much here to work with. However, focus. Time to focus. Focus on Olga and Wander and the next steps.

“Yes,” Olga continued, almost like my attention being returned was her cue to begin speaking, “Wander says you should try to breach the entry and see what’s on the other side. He and the gnomes believe you will find answers and in finding those will lead us to the next step in recovering our freedom.”

“Are there any benefits to my going in?” I asked.

“What?”

“What’re you going to pay me?” I asked, decided crass capitalism was better than subtle hints and waiting for someone to realize I wanted something.

“How about this?” Olga said and motioned for me to approach Wander.

Wander, for his part, held out a small stick.

“What is that?”

“Clearly it’s a stick,” Olga said.

I rolled my eyes, hard. Like, hard enough that everyone felt it. And then looked at Wander with a greater amount of expectancy.

“He says it’s a magic wand that might be useful,” Olga said.

“Got it,” I said and looked closer at the stick and the markings on its surface. There were a lot of marks, carved lines in intricate circles and geometric patterns. I knew if I looked closer, there would also be lines and lines of writing so small the human eye wouldn’t be able to make it out. But I didn’t have time top look at the writing to try to figure out the extent to which this particular wand had been made or designed to do.

Instead, I was directed toward the door into Ethan’s tent structure thing and feeling a sense of apprehension, I was guessing it was apprehension as I felt like I didn’t really want to try the door. What if, in all of this confounding experience, the door could do something to me?

I took a deep breath and there a second when Olga said, “We don’t have all day,” and Moment said, “Let’s go.”

In response I reached out and touched what looked like a flap of the weird fabric and then felt my hand pass through it and then my body and on the other side was a small alcove and a door. The door was obvious complete with a handle and I considered sticking my head back out and yelling I’d found something, but decided against it. Pushing forward by grabbing the handle and turning it and pushing against the door. It swung in silently and effortlessly and the inside suddenly came alive with light and noise. Nothing too bright and nothing too loud, but enough that it startled me.

When I turned back to the door, it had swung silently closed. I took a mental note of where it was and how it looked and then began to poke around in the large room that was clearly bigger than what I could see on the outside. As had been true when I’d tried to listen near the tent, there was no bleed over with noise from the outside.

Instead, the noise she could hear was consistent and seemed to come from all around her. It came from everything, most of which had little lights that flashed or throbbed in time with other aspects of the device, mostly the rhythm of something spinning and slowing and then spinning up again.

The thing that really caught my attention was the magical windows that had come to life, going from black to filled with numbers and letters on some, there were pictures and graphs on others, and then there were there were the different views of outside the structure where I could see Olga and a few of the chipmunks and squirrels who’d followed the main entourage into the camp and had started looking around. I’d wondered why Moment or Wander or others of the less mundane creatures weren’t visible and then noticed an entire window dedicated to the inside of my tent, the exterior, there were views from all directions at where Ethan had swept me up to sleep.

I don’t know where the next feeling came from, but I found myself upset and somehow violated at finding out that he could see everything I was doing. I figured it was in real time because I watched as Bal entered and then left the tent. Unlike the moving windows around the outside of the building I was now in, the cameras around and within my tent showed almost everything. I still wasn’t seeing any of the faeries and for some reason I knew Bal had a small contingent of faerie with her wherever she went.