11 159 Twig ~Bargain~

I cannot believe I'm delaying a date with my very cute boyfriend to scan pages from The Encyclopedia of Herbology and send them to my sister. At least my magic dimension phone can scan text.

Dreamdrake roots are a relative of the common mandrake mutated by Wild Magic, whatever that is. They're the color of oil on water, according to the illustration in the book. They're poisonous to eat, useful in a lot of nasty spells, and not useful for any good magic. So they're illegal, sensibly. Vera's detective-show idea of tracking our enemy by his purchase might actually work, if I can figure out where to purchase them. The black market? There's got to be a black market even in Magix, there's one everywhere people want to buy creepy stuff and people everywhere want to buy creepy stuff.

And I have an idea where I can find it. I text my boyfriend.

When we meet up at the cafe Tetsuo asks, "Why did you want to invite my sister on our date?"

Said sister smiles wickedly. "Because I'm great. Hi Twig." Hanabi has her face painted red and black, a demon's face over her real one. The fad has spread to a bunch of her classmates at Cloud Tower, but none of them do as good a job as she does. I'd kind of like to try it but I'm pretty sure the look is witches only.

"Hi Hana. I wanted to ask you about something fairies wouldn't know about."

"Yeah? Come on, let's walk down here. What do you need?"

Tetsuo gives a pointed look back at the cafe where there are desserts and interesting tea and open mic night. I want to see the acts too, but this is important. "We'll get back to our date, I hope. But Hana, I'm looking for somewhere to get illegal magical plants. Something called dreamdrake root."

"Whoooa, fairy, you got cool all of a sudden!"

"I don't want to buy any, I just need to find out who else bought some."

"And now you're boring again. But I might know who to talk to. He's open tonight but not until late so you've got time to go to your lame talent show with my lame brother."

Tetsuo rolls his eyes. Hana actually loves her brother and likes me ok, but she has to keep up her witch cred. So she goes off to do something witchy and we go back to the cafe. We get tea and a bunch of appetizers to share and watch the entertainment. There's a band, a solo singer, then a bad standup comic, a Hex Girls tribute band made up of students, and some poetry reading. It's a lot of fun and we stay pretty late.

When we get out Hanabi's waiting, leaning against a wall and tapping away at her phone like every student at my school back in Gardenia, which looks super weird with her painted face. "You two losers ready to go?"

"Sure." I say, not quite sure.

"Where are we going?"

"Just somewhere… it isn't far."

"Somewhere Aunt Kaoru would approve of?"

"You're not allowed to tell on me when I'm helping your girlfriend."

Tetsuo considers that. "Fair. As long as you're being careful."

It is not witchy to admit to being careful just because your brother is worried, so Hanabi rolls her eyes and beckons us to follow her. She blows off Tetsuo trying to ask where she's going or what she gets up to. It must be annoying being related to a teenage witch, they take pride in being bad and not being afraid of anything, which is kind of dangerous. Mom isn't like that so much, maybe because she's a grownup.

Hanabi leads us away from the well traveled parts of the city into an area of closed shops and unlit signs. Clearly not a place people are supposed to be at night, especially a couple of teenagers. I start to worry… and then realize that's Earth talking. If anyone messes with us we can just fly away. Or zap them.

Hanabi leads us to a closed flower shop, and around to the back. Where there's a door with crates stacked outside and some trash cans and stuff. Hana knocks on the door and someone on the other side opens a little peephole and looks out at us. I remember a movie where the password was 'Swordfish' but Hanabi just says, "They're with me. The fairy's all right for a fairy." The person on the other side of the door grumbles but lets us into a very dark hall, at the other end of which is a… nightclub, I think. Tables and a stage, it's a lot like where we just were watching open mike night. Just darker since the only light comes from candles on the tables and a muted spotlight over the stage. Where a witch with long black hair falling over her face is crooning into a microphone. Hanabi gives us a look like she's so much more mature and cool for hanging out in a place like this.

All the girls in the room are witches and some of the guys are wearing wizards' robes. They aren't all teenagers like us either; most of them are actually grownups.

It's one of those grownups that Hanabi's going over to, a fat wizard sitting alone at a table with a scatter of notebooks in front of him. He's writing with a quill pen with a big feather.

Tetsuo gives me a look that says he's not sure about this place. I'm not sure either. What kind of stuff is Hana into?

The fat wizard greets us with a grouchy, "What's with the fairy?"

"Oh she's all right. And she wants to buy ingredients."

"I don't..."

"This is Ziggy, the best source for hard to find potion ingredients. And this is Twyla, my brother's girlfriend. She's not so objectionable, for a fairy."

To forestall any more witchyness I say, "I don't need to buy anything, I'm looking for someone who bought dreamdrake root."

"So you wanna buy information! And I just sold the last two dreamdrake roots. But it'll cost ya."

"I have some money..." Not a whole lot, just the couple hundred bucks I saved on Earth converted to Magix money.

"To betray the identity of a customer? That'll cost more than money."

Tetsuo asks, "Then what?"

"I needs to be able to grow more dreamdrake roots. Bring me a vial of Wild Magic and I'll tell you everything I know about the person who bought the last ones."

I still don't know what Wild Magic is but Tetsuo is giving me a look that says it's not something we should be giving to a wizard who talks like some kind of mobster. So I try, "Don't know if I can get that, is there some other way I could pay?"

"Sorry. Nuthin' else I need from a fairy. Wild Magic or you can find the buyer yourself."

"Ok. I'll try." I probably shouldn't promise. I get up and we collect Hanabi from the bar where she's trying unsuccessfully to buy alcohol. Even with the face paint she doesn't look old enough to drink.

Once we're outside Tetsuo jumps on his sister. "You hang out at a creepy witch speakeasy?"

"The singer's my friend. It's no big deal."

"Aunt Kaoru would have a litter of kittens."

"Not if you don't tell her."

I let them argue, since I know it'll end with Tetsuo agreeing not to tell, and look up Wild Magic on my phone—walking while surfing, since we need to get out of this part of the city. Wild Magic is a toxic concentration of positive energy that mutates living things that come into contact with it. The realmwide web says it's located underground but also at Alfea. So that's why Ziggy needed a fairy to get it; it's at the fairy school. Of course the realmwide web doesn't say where at Alfea, and the school is pretty big. I'll have to search for it… if I'm really going to do this. "Soooo… trying to steal a dangerous magical substance from my school to give to a wizard mobster so he can make evil roots with it, is this a good idea?"

Tetsuo answers, "Well, no. Obviously."

"Oh don't be such a fairy." Hanabi says.

I think it's sensible to worry about things like that… except Ziggy said he sold two dreamdrake roots and Vera only found one Nemesis. It's kind of important to find the other one before it gets big and attacks somebody.

"You're not going to do it are you?"

"I think I have to, if the enemy is making another Nemesis. If it finishes growing it'll be dangerous and we don't know who it'll be after. So far it's been people connected with the Winx's adventure on Earth so it might be the president or somebody or even someone important here. Isn't that worse than whatever Ziggy's going to do with some Wild Magic?" I look at Hanabi, who's most likely to know what Ziggy might do.

"He's not going to use it for anything that'll hurt business. Or people, because people give him business. He's not all that evil; you're probably in more danger from the Wild Magic."

"A whole 'nother reason to tell your headmistress instead of trying some crazy stunt."

I have to think about it. "Well I'm not doing anything tonight except sleeping." I yawn and everyone else yawns after me. It must be after midnight and we split up back to our own schools and our own beds.

The next day I take different routes between my classes, paying extra attention to the walls. Alfea is big, and not all of it is contained in the building we can see. There are lots of halls and, now that I'm looking for them, lots of doors. Tiny doors that must be for pixies, door-sized doors to normal rooms except when they're locked, and some giant doors. All of those are locked.

So I need to learn an unlocking spell. Cassie knows one, and teaches it to me in exchange for candy. It's not a very strong unlocking spell, but all the strong ones are illegal, I guess they'd have to be just like lockpicks are on Earth. But we have fun locking and unlocking the door to our room.

I also need to learn what Wild Magic looks like. Phe says I'll know it when I see it. He doesn't know where the Wild Magic at Alfea is, just that it's here because the school was built over something called a wild Magic font.

So after dinner when everyone else is settling in with their homework (In Cassie's case) or video game (In Phe's) or an interrealm diplomatic call (In Amber's) I go searching. I find a few ordinary empty classrooms, a spare kitchen covered in dust, lots of storage, and what seems to be an art gallery that nobody's been in for years. One of the big doors, the ones shaped like Alfea's front gate, has a ballet studio behind it, barre and mirrored walls and everything. The door was locked but this room isn't dusty and doesn't feel forgotten. But ballet isn't what I'm looking for.

The most obviously magical door opens to the outside—but not the lawns and benches and topiary that's actually outside Alfea. It opens to some kind of jungle with giant flowers. I'm afraid if I go into the jungle I won't be able to find my way back. If the wild Magic is hidden in there I won't be finding it without a guide.

Of course I don't find the right door the first time, or the second—though I do find a greenhouse that's way bigger inside than outside.

I snitch a tiny crystal vial from the potions lab, it's the size of my little finger and only holds a few drops of liquid. I'm not giving Ziggy much Wild Magic.

I didn't tell any of the teachers what I'm up to. Not that I don't trust them, I just… don't trust them to believe me about all this and think the fate of some Earth celebrities is worth doing risky things. Why would they care about Earth stuff when they already take care of the entire magic dimension?

I find it late one night, wandering the halls of the school after lights out. There's a giant door, and I cast the unlocking spell—then cast it again, twisting the spell with my mind into a slightly different shape, fiddling with it. I have a sudden flashback to Harry Potter; what if there's a giant three-headed dog behind the door? But nobody's ever warned us there's anything dangerous in the school.

I try the spell again and the door opens.

This must be the Wild Magic.

The room isn't large, maybe the size of a bedroom but with a cool vaulted ceiling. In the center, floating, is a ball of light that swirls bright pink and purple. It's beautiful—but something about it feels dangerous. The light boils, overflowing from itself and spilling down, drops fading away before they hit the floor.

The… invisible floor. When I look down I can see through the floor, through the ground, through solid rock to a blazing pillar of energy somewhere deep below me. The little glowing sphere in this room is the tail end, the weakest part of that power, and whoever made this room magicked the floor so everyone could see that.

I stick my foot out carefully, and touch solid floor that I just can't see. So all I have to do is walk a few steps and catch one of those drops in my vial. All right.

But I hesitate because the magic looks beautiful but feels dangerous. There's a heaviness in the air like the charge before a storm. Like there's too much magic somehow, like ordinary magic has been concentrated in a way it isn't supposed to be.

I'm going to be really careful not to touch it.

I scoot out on the invisible floor holding the vial at arm's length to catch a spark of overflowing magic. The thing doesn't boil over in any kind of pattern so I have to jerk my hand out of the way a few times before a drop falls right into the vial—and the next one hits the back of my hand.

I yelp and jump and wipe my hand on my pants. It doesn't hurt or anything, just prickles a little. Is it poisonous? The prickling spreads all over my skin, then concentrates at the base of my spine. It's just itchy and when I scratch under the waist of my jeans something pokes my fingers.

Uh-oh.

If something weird is happening I definitely don't want to be caught here. I put the vial in my pocket and rush back to my room.

By the time I get there I have a full peacock tail. Peacock tails and pants do not really work together so there was some uncomfortable squirming halfway and now I'm rocking the low-rider trouser look. Phe and Cassie burst out laughing when they see me.

"What spell did you mess up?"

"There's a shapeshifting elective second year, you know."

"Yeah yeah." I go past them into the room I share with Cassie, hide the vial in my jewelry box, and switch to a skirt. "Ok, how do I get rid of this tail? I can't sit in chairs!"

Amber looks over the back of the couch. None of my roommates look worried, so sprouting new body parts can't be that big a deal. It's a nice tail, peacock shaped but the same reddish brown as my hair. I unfold the feathers under my skirt and fold them down again. Pretty cool, except for the chairs and pants problems.

With a sigh Amber closes one textbook and opens another. "I suppose we get to practice our restorative charms."

The next night, tailless again, I go back to the flower shop with Tetsuo and Hanabi. Tetsuo still isn't enthusiastic about the project but he doesn't want us girls to go alone. It's very chivalrous and sweet, and of course Hanabi points out that our magic makes us tougher than he is.

Mister Ziggy greets us with, "Ya got what I wanted?"

"Got some. After you tell me who bought your dreamdrake roots." Because I don't want him to see how little I actually got.

"Well he wasn't my usual sort of customer, I can tell you. Not a witch or a wizard. It was a boy, younger than you three."

"Named..?" Hanabi prompts.

"He wouldn't say."

Hana and I share a look. "Ok, what did he look like then?"

"Well I couldn't see much. He wore a hood. Pale skin, dark eyes. Not wearing a school uniform. Ordinary clothes, yellow sweatshirt with the hood up."

"That's it?" Hanabi demands.

"All I know, dolls. Where's my payment?"

I hand it over.

"That's it?"

"All I could get." I semi-lie, not feeling bad about it now!

Hanabi scowls, "That's all you earned! A kid in a yellow sweatshirt? How many kids like that are in Magix?"

"He had a knife." Ziggy adds. "A funny one, curved like a hook. Aren't a lot of those around."

That does tell me something. I saw that knife in a book, Captain Hook's knife. Did someone find it or is it Captain Hook himself… but how could Hook still be a kid? He was a teenager when the Winx met him before I was born so he should be our parents' age.

Hanabi says, "Maybe Twyla could get you more Wild Magic if you help us find this boy. Or tell us if you see him again"

Ziggy is looking at the vial, holding it up to the light. "I'll t'ink about it. I can't betray my customers, you understand, but I could use more of this to make my most special ingredients. I'll be in touch. Maybe."

I say ok, and we leave the flower shop/nightclub. I ask if it's really a flower shop during the day and Hanabi says it is. While we walk back to the bus I text to Vera what I learned, which isn't really much. It's definitely maybe Captain Hook, or a kid in a hoodie and there are lots of kids in hoodies both on Earth and in Magix. I say I'll read more about Nemesises (Nemeses?) but tomorrow's a holiday so I might be busy. Apparently there's a race on flying bikes, but I can't ride one so I can only watch.

Vera replies that she's going to England to meet a rock star. Then she says, What about Amber's sailor friend? He wears a hoodie.