Safe Houses

The woodland was not a place where an enchantress could afford to lose time. Zuha shut her eyes, willing her focus. She of all people knew the perils of being out here with the dark canopy pressing around her, because once time was up, there was no going back. She had been raised to know this, the warning pounded into her since before she could learn to use her charge, even before she could walk and talk.

“Have you done it yet?” Hesther demanded.

The magic flared in Zuha’s blood. She felt it humming, spreading through her arms, down to the tips of her long fingers.

“Trying,” she said with gritted teeth. “Almost there.” Panic threatened to overcome her, but she kept it hampered down. Just a little bit more, and the field would form, cocooning them both.

Oak and dry shrub stretched as far ahead as Zuha’s eyes could see, appearing denser and larger the deeper she gazed into the forest.

“I’m nearing zero couls,Zuha!” Hesther wrung her hands, her right hand clutched over her left wrist. Zuha saw her friend’s large brown eyes dilate and her face flush with the energy of keeping up her electro-homeostasis. She hid her annoyance with Hesther for being careless with her charge and focused instead on conjuring her field.

“Stop checking how much you’ve lost; it’ll drain you more.”

Zuha pictured Safe House Nineteen and its warmth, dinner waiting for her with a family of nine, the energy flowing from her own body to Hesther’s. The barest hunk of a field the color of tangerines began to form.

“Please, Zuha, please, I don’t want to become one of them,please!”

“Calm down, I’ve got you. I’m getting you out of here.”

And then the field formed, spherical and large and popping with color, the largest Zuha had ever made. She felt her charge start to drain, but it was alright now. The field wrapped itself around the two enchantresses, freezing their couls, giving them time.

It gave them the few minutes they needed to run back to the Zone.

******

Hesther’s father frowned down at them. Zuha tried not to flinch. President Arman Secin was an imposing enchanter, and Zuha had never known quite how to behave around him. She stood awkwardly while the president, who wore a robe of dark silk, lay his daughter back in a chair and took her wrist in his hands. The chair leaned against a stunning wall that stretched along the length of the entire safe house. All colors were present in it this wall; they shimmered like the source of all life was contained within them, and it was— not the source of all life, but the source of all magic. The wall of Safe House One was studded with crystals so bright, so kaleidoscopic, that even Zuha, who had seen it often before, could not help but be awed by it again every time.

Zuha could tell that the president was barely controlling his fury. He took his daughter’s wrist and held it against the wall, not roughly but not gently either. Hesther’s breathing slowed, her face lost its unnatural flush, and she seemed to grow taller right where she sat. When she looked up at Zuha, Hesther was smiling, satisfied — back to her normal, confident self.

Zuha’s turn came next, though she had not lost as much charge as Hesther. Mr. Secin steered her so she faced the great wall, then he took her wrist and set it against the crystals, directing charge to flow into it. It was generous of him to do it, for he could have very well have left her to run for it and pray she made it to her own family’s house in time.

“Whose idea was this?” His voice was stern.

“It was mine, daddy,” said Hesther.

Two servants entered, carrying trays laden with hot bread, meat, fruits, and freshly baked sweets. They laid the food in front of Hesther, on an upholstered coffee table made of marble. Hesther bit into a fresh pear, smiling, her panic forgotten.

“Do you love the humans so much, daughter, that you wish to become one of them?”

“We wanted to get a glimpse of the woodland, that’s all. We didn’t mean to linger, but then Zuha saw the human and—” Hesther’s mouth snapped shut.

“What’s this?” Mr. Secin released Zuha’s hand and turned to fix his gaze on her. Her body had revived; she felt the tingle in her blood, the curls in her hair growing longer and more voluminous, the bones of her long limbs rejuvenated. “You saw a human?”

“I thought I did,” Zuha admitted. “I saw a face peeking through the trees.” She paused, wondering for a moment if she had really seen what she had seen.

“We realized we’d gone too far in, and we turned back right away, I swear!” Hesther looked up at her frowning father.

This was a lie. They had not bolted back, because Zuha had stood there, and had stared and stared, and the human had stared back. Thatwas there they had lost the time, almost ending their magical selves in the process.

“Did you see this human also, Hesther?” asked Mr. Secin.

Hesther shook her head.

“I might have imagined what I saw,” said Zuha. But even as she said the words, she knew their falsehood. The human’s face, with all the horror and misery of a magic-less creature contained within it, could not have been a figment of her imagination. She continued nevertheless, trying to assure the president. “It was too close by the Zone for a human to be there.”

“Or,” murmured Mr. Secin. “If it was not you who went so far, then perhaps it was the human who came too near.”

******

Zuha retraced her steps and hurried through the Zone’s pristine, well-kept lawns, past the charming, sequined gates that surrounded its sprawling safe houses. There was no chance of hiding her little escapade from her own father. Word traveled fast inside their town, and by nightfall all nineteen families would know that Zuha Awan and Hesther Secin had been this close to losing their charge inside the human territory.

Safe House Nineteen sat on the far side of town, near the Zone end. Its brick was old but sturdy, and its enchanted wall was small, encapsulating only a section of the kitchen and occupying an unusually shaped segment of the sitting room’s unenchanted wall, giving both rooms an odd, variegated appearance. The magic wall was being attended to by her eldest brother, while Mr. and Mrs. Awan enchanted dinner.

Zuha’s father looked up at her. He seemed tired, his face thin and steeped with worry. He must have already received a call from President Secin.

“Zuha. Have you forgotten what I told you about what families need to do to survive in the Zone?”

She shook her head. Survival had been drilled into her since birth: practice enchanting, maintain electro-homeostasis, replenish charge regularly, never get turned into a human, and above all: never leave the safe house without a family member to guard it.

The ancient magical walls had been left behind for them by their ancestors, a gift of nature. The walls were alive, touched by the source of all things, natural systems which breathed in air to build up charge, gave it up to enchanters and then gained it back from the air again. But like everything that lived, the walls died, and new enchanted sections could not be created from nothing. They could only be merged with or broken off from other enchanted walls.

“Do you know what would have happened had you not made it back to a wall in time?” her father reprimanded.

“I know, dad. I would have been turned into a human and left to survive on my own in the woodland.”

“Not only that. Do you not recall what happened to Safe House Twenty?”

Zuha shivered. Safe House Twenty had been gone for years, the family exiled, its wall having long since merged with the Secins’.

“If Hesther had lost her charge,” her father said, “Our family would have been held responsible. We are, after all, next in line to be Zoned out.”

******

At dinner, Zuha’s older brother Amir angled his chair so that the enchanted wall remained fully in his line of vision. He grumbled about not having servants to tend to their wall like the Secins and the Khans did. Mr. Awan told his son he ought to know by now that they were not like the Secins, and that the Secins’ wall was simply too big for just one person to guard at a time.

“Did the human scare you?” said Dan, the youngest.

“Humans aren’t frightening,” Zahra, the oldest, said. “It’s not their fault they can’t have charge or enchant their own food. That’s why they have to hunt. But they’re more likely to be hunted, you know, by the hyeagles.”

“But if you get too near one and they bite you, you Turn even if you’ve still got your charge,” said Serine.

Zahra scoffed. “They’re humans, Serine, not vampires.”

“I’ve seen humans,” Amir said, “when they take us out for Forest school. “They creep around and watch us. You can’t go too near or they’ll attack. That’s why younger kids aren’t allowed. You need to learn how to defend yourself first.”

“You’re only two years older than me,” Zuha snapped, “and I make a better field than you.”

“Myfield could summon the energy of a charge booster if I wanted it to,” said Dan, and everyone laughed and scoffed.

Later, Zuha’s mother came to talk to her. She took her hand, gentle brown eyes searching her daughter’s. The electric power seemed to jump from her warm skin. It was from her, Zuha knew, that she’d inherited her own innate talents for maintaining her charge, of channeling small quantities efficiently into complex enchantments and fields.

“What did the human look like?”

“Afraid,” said Zuha. “Afraid, and angry, and sick. The way they looked at me, mama, that was the worst part. Like there was something obvious I was supposed to be doing, but I had no idea what it was.”

Alya squeezed her daughter’s hand.

******

The woodland was quite beautiful, when Zuha stopped to think about it. That peculiar mix of lush green and dry scrubland, wildness and barrenness, held ­a magic of its own, full of secrets waiting to be discovered. And she wanted to see the human again.

She held back, heeding her father’s warnings, until her curiosity could no longer bear it, and the human’s face had haunted enough of her nights to leave her eyes dark-rimmed and her sleep fitful.

This time, she would not take Hesther with her.

On one of the last days of the dry season, when the day was long and cold and the sun would fall longest upon the woodland, Zuha told her parents she was going to see Hesther. She told Hesther she would be studying. All she had to do was maintain her charge for two hours, a simple enough task for an enchantress of Zuha’s skill.

Her high-necked cloak hugged her hips, a swirl of orange satin that matched the color of her field. Soon, the chargeless Zone wall loomed before her, its tall spikes curling sharper than a hyeagle’s talons.

Zuha felt the shudder of magicless-ness as she approached the cursed wall. There was no magic here, no crystals: only towering gray stone dried out of all charge and topped with metal. She knew to expect the fear that gripped every enchanter when confronted with the absence of charge, the absence of magical life, but it was still deeply unsettling every time.

Shivering, she conjured an enchantment. A crack opened in the stones, and the spikes withdrew into the stone. As she passed through, the enchantment faded, and the wall reformed its barriers, closing behind her. Then she was in a different world, the scrubland looming through the trail of stones at her feet.

Darkness spread before her. It would brighten as she moved inside, she knew. The silence seemed almost to have a charge of its own, a thick fog penetrated only by the rustling of leaves in the orangeberry bushes, which now appeared everywhere, their spiky thickets tearing at her cloak.

She allowed herself a quick check on her charge. Ninety couls. She still had at least an hour with time to spare.

She was farther into the woods than she had ever been before. The light now filtered in; the enchanters always said, only partly as a joke, that there were two different suns, one for the Zone and one for the human forest. She thought she heard the screeching laugh of a creature that was half eagle, half hyena, leaving its nest on the prowl for prey.

She bent to examine one of the orangeberry bushes, taller than the rest and thick with vines and covered with pale white flowers. As her fingers reached for it, a yelp sounded from below her.

“Ouch!”

Zuha leaped back, charge at the ready. When nothing happened, she stepped forward, brushing apart the branches.

It was the round, untidy head of a human girl.

The head bobbed upwards, revealing a pair of frightened eyes. Zuha stared into them, while they stared back into hers. And so it went for a full minute, until finally Zuha stepped back and said: “Hello.”

The child continued to stare at her.

“Won’t you come out?” said Zuha. “I won’t hurt you.”

The girl hesitated. Finally, the small body extracted itself from the bush, rising to its feet and peering up at Zuha.

How short she was! And her hair — it was so entangled that Zuha had mistaken it for part of the wildlife. It was ash-brown and clean and must have been river-washed.

Zuha summoned charge, and a hairbrush appeared, small with a bright pink handle. She held it out to the human child. “Here. That’ll help make your hair long and beautiful.”

Small hands reached for the hairbrush, the fingers running over the ivory handle. It had cost Zuha ten couls to make.

“Do you have something to eat? I’m tired of eating orangeberries.” The human girl’s voice as high and sweet as that of any young enchantress. “They make my stomach sick. Daddy says you can die if you eat too many.”

Zuha made a hot pasty filled with raisins and olives. Five couls. She hesitated, then made another, this one filled with chocolate. Ten couls. She wrapped the pasties in paper and put them in the girl’s hands.

“Leave the second one till later,” Zuha said. “It’s a special treat.”

The human girl wolfed down the olive pasty. When she was done, her eyes lingered longingly on the chocolate one.

“What’s your name?” Zuha asked.

“Jenny.”

Zuha realized that the human was not as young as she had first thought. She might have been ten or eleven, but the difference in size and power made her look much younger than an enchantress of the same age.

“Do you have a mother and father?”

“Mama’s long gone. Daddy said it was the orangeberries.”

“I’m sorry,” Zuha said awkwardly. “I saw someone here last time, though I don’t think it was you.”

“It must have been my father. He comes over to this side sometimes. A few of us do. The other day, he was trying to find food on the other side of the wall. He tried to climb over it and—” A shadow passed over Jenny’s face.

“What?” said Zuha.

“A thing like electricity hit him, so he couldn’t pass,” Jenny said. “That’s why most of us don’t come out here this far. It’s better to stay in our holes. Daddy was in so much pain…I never thought I’d come so close to the other side, but then I heard you coming, and I saw you in your beautiful coat. I hid in the bushes to watch you. Do you have more food, Enchantress? I really liked the olive pie.”

“I can’t,” said Zuha. “Not now.”

Jenny frowned. “Why not?”

“It comes at a cost. I can’t make things for free, you see,” Zuha tried to explain. What was she supposed to say? I don’t want to lost all my charge and end up like you.

“Oh.” Jenny looked unconvinced, but her young face lit up when Zuha assured her that she would be back the next day with more pasties.

******

Zuha fulfilled her promise, enchanting more pasties for Jenny, and fresh fruit, and steamed chocolate drinks. She went back at the same time every day, finding Jenny waiting in the bright clearing behind the orangeberry bushes. When Zuha approached, Jenny would offer a tentative smile, the radiant smile of a human child.

She made Jenny a coat that matched the color of her eyes. She made her a sturdy hat to make it harder for the hyeagles to pluck her up by her hair. She conjured as much nutritious food as she could without risk to her charge.

“You should come let me see your hole,” Zuha offered. “I can make it bigger, install thermal insulation, build a proper roof — we could even make you a small hut with proper walls.”

It was an empty promise, a fantasy of wishful thinking. The smallest heating enchantment would cost hundreds of couls, and building any kind of structure into Jenny’s hole would be just as costly, never mind constructing an entire hut. It might take days and weeks of consecutive visits to the woodlands while Zuha ran back for charge. Maybe months.

Jenny shook her head. “We never stay in one place for long. When we see a new hyeagle nest, we have to pick up our things and leave. Sometimes the rain destroys our holes. Sometimes they’re taken over by caracals. You’d have to do it all over again, Enchantress.”

******

They were going to lock down the chargeless wall, preventing even enchanters from being able to open it.

It was a few weeks into Zuha’s new friendship with Jenny. The enchanter families had apparently had enough of human trouble. After Zuha’s stunt with Hesther the other day, there had been another incident, a child of Safe House Five who had gotten lost outside the Zone and had to be emergency-transported by field back home.

“But they can’t lock us in here,” Zuha protested. “How can they just lock it down? They’re even cancelling Forest school?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart,” said Mrs. Awan. “We’ll learn more at the Khans’ tomorrow.”

Family Two had announced a town hall at their home. On the day of the meeting, the clouds were gray with the promise of a vicious storm, and the Khans’ capacious safe house had been enchanted for warmth. Zuha sat with Hesther and the other children, fidgeting in her seat on the heated cushions. Outside, the wind hissed and the trees shook. Zuha’s dread mounted with every moment the meeting went on.

“Where’ve you been these days?” Hesther asked her, while the rain pounded the richly curtained windows. “I can never seem to find you after school anymore.”

“They want me to spend more time on homework,” Zuha lied.

“You’re always doing homework.”

“Well, dad thinks I’m good enough to be a Zone guard, and you need to study hard for that.” Zuha wished Hesther would leave her in peace so she could concentrate on her worries about the chargeless wall.

“I don’t think I’d want to be a guard. I’m going to be a robe designer. I’ll make designer cloaks, the ones that look like they have wall crystals in them,” Hesther said.

Zuha ran her hand over her plain orange robe, the one Jenny had loved. “Sure, you can be a robe designer,” she snapped. “That’sreally useful.”

Her friend stared at her, hurt. Zuha got to her feet. She didn’t know how to explain the anger and resentment she felt at the power Hesther’s family had over hers.

******

Servants in white and black tailcoats weaved around Zuha, enchanting delicate mugs onto serving trays. Zuha shook her head at the servant offering her hot chocolate. She found her parents squashed in velvet-embroidered armchairs near Family Sixteen, at the edge of the proceedings.

“Zuha?” Her father looked up at her.

“I want to hear what’s going on.”

Frowning, Mr. Awan patted the space next to him. From his seat in the center of the room, President Secin glanced Zuha’s way and raised his eyebrows. “Locking down the wall won’t be enough,” he told his audience. “We need to ensure they don’t cross it from their side. Spikes and electric jolts won’t be enough.”

“I know of a stronger enchantment,” Leader Khan said. “It would mimic a sawing motion, targeted towards the body part that touches it.”

The family leaders shifted uncomfortably, not liking the idea of such explicit violence. Zuha’s parents exchanged uneasy glances. “What if a human’s arm or leg gets severed?” her father said.

Mr. Khan gave him an irritated look. “The Zone’s responsibility is to protect enchanters, not humans, Aref.”

Family leaders began talking over each other, and President Secin raised a hand for silence. “We will investigate benevolent options for barring humans from entry. We are not opposed to humans finding shelter, but they can find somewhere else. They have no use for enchanted walls. We do.” His dark gaze fell on each of the attendees in turn, finally landing on Zuha’s father. “Now, for locking down the cursed gate to all enchantments. I believe we are all in agreement that for the safety of our children and members—”

“We’re not in agreement,” Zuha burst out, and all eyes turned to her, the room falling silent.

Mr. Awan’s cheeks went pink.

Zuha plunged on, charge racing along with her heart. “You can’t just shut off an entire forest. You’re going to pretend this whole other world doesn’t exist?”

Her father turned to Amir. “Take Zuha home,” he ground out.

As she was led out by her brother, the president’s cool gaze fell on Zuha. “You are a child,” he said. “You have not yet learned that humans are not like you or me. They cannot learn to help themselves like we do. That is why they are so wretched.”

******

Zuha didn’t know when the Zone wall was going to be locked down, but she wasn’t going to wait to find out. When Amir and Serine switched turns to guard the house, Zuha slipped out before either of them could take notice.

She held her breath when she reached the old graying wall, tufts of weed peeking out between its ancient stones. But the wall still obeyed her enchantment, opening for her as easily as it always had.

She waited for Jenny in the bright clearing, hoping that she was not too late. She kept thinking she heard footsteps, imagining she heard the rustling of leaves.

“Come on, Jenny,” Zuha whispered. “Please, so I can explain.”

At last, the child appeared from within the depths of the forest, her small figure silhouetted against the drizzly gray air. Her unkempt hair flew around her face. She looked tiny in the flowing dark blue coat that Zuha had made for her.

Zuha ran to her. “You came! Listen, Jenny, they’ve made some new rules in the Zone — What’s wrong?” Up close, she had seen the tearstains on Jenny’s ashen face.

“Daddy’s dead.”

Zuha’s first thought was that she had been too late. The families had already cursed the chargeless wall and Jenny’s father, the human who had haunted Zuha’s dreams, had succumbed to it. He had died and Zuha had not been able to save him.

She took another step towards Jenny. She wanted to reach for her, but there was a part of her that still believed the old stories, that the mere touch of a human would irrevocably Turn her. “Did the outer wall hurt him?"

Jenny shook her head.

“Orangeberries, then?”

“No.”

“What then?”

“Yesterday was very cold and windy. Daddy told me to stay down in the hole and not leave it no matter what. He went to get more wood to cover the roof because it kept falling off,” Jenny said, and Zuha’s heart sank. “He didn’t come back. I waited half the night, and then I went to look for him. I knew I’d promised to stay, but I was so worried. I was all alone in the storm and there was thunder and I was cold and wet but I kept searching for him.” Jenny’s eyes filled with tears. “And then I found his body was lying on the mud with a huge tree on top of him.”

Zuha gathered the human girl in her arms and wrapped them around her, her fear all but forgotten, replaced instead by shame, shame that wrapped her in a cloak of its own heavy charge. She had been inside and warm in Safe House Two. She had been listening to enchanters argue over electric jolts and slicing motions, and not once had she thought about Jenny and her father, out in the woods at the mercy of the winds.

“Come back with me,” Zuha said. She knew that her time must be running out, that her charge was slowly draining. “Come back and stay with my family. We have a safe house. You’ll be a family member. You’ll get to eat, and to sleep sheltered from the winds and the winged beasts.”

There was an ache in Zuha’s side, and her body felt weak in a way it never had before. She was running out of charge.

“I have three sisters.” She could almost feel the magic evaporating from her veins, offering itself back to the air. “You’ll like them.”

She would not be able to conjure a field, not in this state—she would not be able to carry them both through the chargeless wall, locked down or not. Perhaps she could hang on to her charge just long enough to push Jenny through.

But Jenny looked frightened. She was shaking her head. “I can’t.”

“Please, Jenny.”

“No,” said Jenny. “You have to go back, before you hurt yourself. I know it’s not good for you to stay out here for long.”

Zuha’s vision blurred blue. She had always thought that if the day ever came when she lost her charge, she would see black, or tangerine like the color of her field. But the world was a glaring azure, like the sky that welcomed back the last few particles of her charge with open arms.

“Zuha, I really think you should go back!”

“It’s too late, Jenny,” Zuha said softly.

Everything went blue. Only for a moment, like a glitch in an enchantment. Then the sclerophyll forest came into focus around her, dry green with the orange and white of the toxic fruit. Everything was still the same, but not really. She was still standing in the same thicket, an anxious Jenny before her, pulling at her arm. But Jenny no longer seemed so short, and her arms were no longer dwarfed by Zuha’s.

Zuha reached for the familiar brush of magic in her veins, but there was only stillness. She tried to conjure a field, but there wasn’t even a spark. No charge, only the empty pit of dread in her stomach.

******

The treetops seemed to close in on them, the woodlands now even darker and more forbidding. Zuha’s human legs felt short and sluggish, and her small-sized lungs strained to breathe. She forced herself to slow down and adjust her breathing to her new body.

Jenny reached an arm out to her. She looked frightened, but said nothing about the change she must have seen in Zuha. “We should find a place to shelter. The beasts will be leaving their nests.”

Zuha followed her. It was true that she had been trained to survive, but they were in Jenny’s turf now. Zuha was no match for the human’s survival instincts. There was a foreign feeling in her stomach, painful and insistent. After a few minutes of walking in silence, Jenny pulled two leathery orangeberries out of her pocket and offered one to Zuha. “You’re probably hungry.”

She didn’t want to, but she took it. The berry was both sour and sweet, acidic on her tongue, then suddenly filling her body with a burst of frenetic energy. She shuddered from it, hating the taste, knowing what eating too many of them would do to her, but it helped her walk faster, and she followed Jenny without a word.

Jenny kicked aside a mass of dead weeds, revealing a gaping hole in the ground. “That’s my old home. We can climb down there when we want to sleep.” She sat and dangled her feet inside it, and Zuha did the same. The effect of the orangeberry wore off quickly, and a drowsy exhaustion coursed through her body.

She imagined what everyone in the Zone would say when they found out. Foolish girl, trying to save a human. Poor girl’s family, what must they be going through. Would anyone see what she had done as brave and right? She hugged her arms around herself and shivered. As night deepened, the temperature would fall further and quicker.

Zuha closed her eyes, allowing visions of charge to fill her mind, dreaming of what had once been and was now lost, the magic that now seemed like a long-lost dream, a figment of her human imagination.

“I’m sorry I made you human.” Jenny’s voice broke into her reverie, and Zuha’s eyes snapped open.

“Don’t be silly. It was my choice.” She forced herself to smile. “I helped you before, and now it’s going to be your turn to help me.”

******

Zuha was dreaming of charge. Orange at first, like her own, and then a vibrant pink, electric swirls of magenta and cherry blossom. Her eyelids fluttered. She must be missing Hesther, or blaming her, acting out her resentment on her. Beside her, she felt Jenny shift.

When her eyes opened, the pink swirls were still there. Zuha blinked, trying to shake them off, and standing there was no other than Hesther, appearing before them like a mage-queen, tall and giantlike in her gem-studded enchantress robes.

“What – Hesther – how did you?” Zuha said weakly, not sure if she was still dreaming.

“I followed you.” It really was her friend, towering over Zuha as she never had before. Hesther came closer, looking from Zuha to Jenny, their feet dangling into Jenny’s roofless hole. “I guessed what you were up to, where you were disappearing. I knew today was the last time I could do it. They were all still in that stupid meeting. I stole a charge booster from my dad and snuck out.”

“A charge booster?” Zuha shook her head in wonder. Even a family like the Secins would have a hard time getting their hands on this rarest of items that could store the charge equivalent of two, even three fields.

Hesther threw a wary glance at Jenny. “I hid in the trees and then you wandered off with her. I got lost, you were going too fast—and then I picked up your trail through the clearing and followed you here.” She eyed Zuha. “You’re smaller and paler since I last saw you.”

Memories of magic and power sent a deep wave of loss and grief through Zuha’s chest. “Yes. It’s true. I’m human now, Hesther. I’ve lost my charge, and it can’t be revived. I’m an enchantress no more.”

“But that’s not possible—”

“You’ve been a better friend than I deserved, but you should go back. Even a charge booster has its limits. Give my love to them. Tell them I’m sorry.”

“At least let me take you back through the wall to say goodbye,” Hesther insisted. In Hesther’s desperation, Zuha saw a reflection of her own pleading to Jenny only hours before.

“Alright,” said Zuha. “But Jenny comes too.”

******

“Zuha?” Mr. and Mrs. Awan appeared in the doorway of House Nineteen. “Zuha.”They saw it at once, their Turned daughter, her shrunken frame, and then their wide eyes fell on Jenny. Zuha could not bear to look at their pained, frozen faces.

“Come in,” Aref said at last. “All of you, before anyone sees us.”

Mr. Awan locked the door and drew the curtains around the windows. Alya bent down to touch her daughter’s face, her arms, the sleeves of her enchantress’s robes now much too big for her.

“It’s true.” Zuha tried to keep her voice steady. “I’ve come to say goodbye.” She pulled Jenny close to her. “This is Jenny. Her father died in the hurricane.” They were almost the same height now, Zuha still having the slighter advantage of age and genetics.

She looked into her parents’ horrified faces. “Nothing has to change.” Of course this wasn’t true. Everything was going to change. “You don’t have to come with me or take any responsibility for what I did. You’ll all stay here and keep your Safe House. I’ll go back with Jenny. Hesther will tell her father it was my fault and not yours.”

They were all gathered around Zuha, siblings and parents, stunned to silence and looking at her like she’d been sentenced to death, with Hesther hovering awkwardly beside them. Then Zuha felt a warm hand taking hold of her wrist. She looked up at her mother’s frightened, determined face.

“Mama. It’s not going to work. I’m done. There’s not a drop of source left in my body.”

“Perhaps not, daughter. But one day, the source will leave us all. I have long suspected that the Zone is afflicted with illness, and I have remained silent for far too long about it.”

“Alya,” interjected Zuha’s father, but she ignored him.

“ Our charge feeds the source just as the source feeds us. And the source only feeds us when there are enough of us to give back to it. Five families have been exiled since I was a child. Some of their children were lucky enough to be torn from their families and adopted into the Zone, or turned into servants. Where else do you think all these servants come from?” Zuha’s mother gave a steely look in Hesther’s direction.

“It is time our enchanters were protected, trulyprotected, by ensuring there are more of us, not less. You need not tell your father I said this, Hesther, for I will tell him myself. Our town will keep growing smaller, until there is no one left but the Khans and the Secins; and one day, they will be gone too. But there is one other thing I must do first.”

Zuha’s mother held her wrist up against the Awans’ enchanted wall. Despite its smaller size, it now seemed to glow brighter, its light warmer and livelier, as though the magic was simply bursting to escape it.

“Mama, what are you doing—” Zuha tried to wrench her arm away, unable to bear the humiliation of what was coming, but Alya’s firm hand held her back, resting it against the crystals.

“Just in case,” her mother whispered.

A familiar tingle rose up Zuha’s arm, soft and hesitant at first, then spreading down into her fingers and up through her chest, then stronger as it merged with her human-made organs and vessels, becoming one with the person and the enchantress. Zuha stood feeling it, trembling. The others saw it on her face. Then they saw her grow taller, her bones wider and her limbs stronger. Aref raised his eyes skyward in silent prayer. Alya’s fingers were still wrapped around her daughter’s wrist, but Zuha felt them relax and saw her lips twitch into a smile.

Zuha flexed her hands, and a warm spark of tangerine sent the fragrance of fresh fruit and jasmine through the room. As she watched the charge release joyfully into the air, the dance of air and charge, human and magic, she understood.

She went to Jenny, her newly awakened charge erupting through her veins. She took her hand and held it up to the wall. “Your turn,” she whispered.

THE END

Bio: N. H. Farrell lives in Seattle, Washington. She is an avid reader and writer of speculative fiction. When she’s not writing or reading, Farrell enjoys cooking, spending time with loved ones, and finding ways to stay active that don’t involve the gym.

E-mail: N. H. Farrell

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