Page 172 of Sigils & Spells

“So… What” I looked at the board. “What does that list mean? I’m still super lost.”

Ruby huffed, pushing some of her pink hair behind her ears. “Okay, so fairy circles—or fairy rings, or mushroom circles—are entrances to Elfhame. And they are the worst way to get there because they are normally directly tied to one of the Fae Nobles who enslave humans by tricking them into thinking they’re at parties and getting them to eat something. Once you eat something in Elfhame you can’t leave, and that Noble owns you forever. When humans consume fairy dust they get drawn to Elfhame. Sometimes they go crazy if they can’t get there. The dust pulls at them from the inside.”

“So, that’s what happened to me?” I sat forward in the chair. My heart was beating fast in my chest. Ruby nodded.

“That’s my working theory. Whoever that guy was, he was a Fae of some kind sending humans to Elfhame on purpose. The drink wasn’t meant for you, but when you drank it you got sent to Elfhame instead. And the only reason you were able to leave was because you didn’t actually finish the apple. That’s why she got so angry. Most people can’t stop themselves after they’ve taken a bite. You must hate apples.”

“I do, but,” I pointed at the board over her shoulder, “What are those names? And what do strawberries and flour have to do with it?”

“I don’t know about the last two, but Sterling thought it was important. As for the names.” Ruby flicked her wrist as she talked, and the chalk circled the names. “Titania and Maeve. Maeve is a Fae Noble. A nasty one too. Titania is the Fae Queen. The head honcho. Sterling smelled both of them on you.”

My eyes felt like they were bugging out of my head again and I had to sit back. “How… why… there was only one fairy lady in my dream… I mean my not-dream. And none of this explains how I keep waking up naked in random places.”

Ruby pursed her lips, pinching her chin in deep thought. I sat back in my seat and reread the board. Flour, Apples, Titania, Maeve, Toad Stools, Horse, Strawberries, and Elfhame. Everything on it made sense. I’d been near them all in the past two days, and if Sterling’s sense of smell was really that strong it made sense. I tried to place them all. The flour from when I’d been kneading dough with Magnolia, and the strawberries from the scent in Alice’s apartment. Horse from waking up naked underneath one.

As important and riveting as the conversation was, it looked like my roommate had fallen asleep on the couch behind Ruby. His feet were propped up in a way that made it look like he should have a cowboy hat over his eyes.

Looking at Minho, I missed Ruby walking across the room to a table full of jars and bottles. She gathered a handful of what looked like roots, petals and spices, and poured them into an empty mug with a cat wearing a scarf on the front. Ruby put her hands on her hips and looked at the table for a second, before reaching into a drawer and pulling out a small bottle of purple liquid that seemed to swirl and sparkle on its own. She uncorked it, a little swirl of purple smoke floating past her head, and stirred about half of it into the mug with the end of her wand, muttering something I couldn’t understand and came back to me.

“Drink this.” She handed me the drink which smelled awful. Like cough syrup’s evil older brother. I raised my eyebrows and she gave me a look that convinced me very quickly to drink. I plugged my nose and threw the weird potion back like a shot.

It heated and gurgled in my stomach as soon as it went down. I shifted uncomfortably on the chair, pressing a hand into my abdomen. Ruby stepped back, out of the chalk circle and closed her eyes. She drew something in the air with her wand that left a fiery red ghost mark behind. She kept her eyes closed and whispered something I couldn’t understand under her breath over and over.

For some reason I closed my eyes too. Listening to the sound of her voice. It was almost like I could hear the sizzle of the magic trace in the air. She chanted for what could have been a moment, or what could have been eternity, I was so tired they blended together.

Suddenly Ruby stopped chanting and yelped. “Oh my god!”

I opened my eyes in time to watch Ruby scramble back, tripping over the carpet. I wanted to ask her what was wrong, but I realized that something was wrong with me. I felt weird, and everything looked different. Like I’d suddenly gotten taller. Like the room was smaller.

“What’s going on?” I tried to say but it was like my mouth didn’t work right and the sound that came out was… a whiney?

“Oh my god!” Ruby repeated. “Julian, you’re not a werewolf. You’re a HORSE!”

If I’d had a human mouth a lot of expletives would have come out of it, but instead, for some reason all I could make was loud snorts and whinnies. I am not a horse!

I tried to turn around, but I found that I was so much larger than I had been a minute ago. My butt knocked something over, and then I realized how far away my butt was. It was not normally that far away from my head. Neither were my legs.

Oh my god. I was a horse. A loud whinny escaped my mouth and I realized I was only kind of in control of this body that wasn’t quite mine, and I reared up on hind legs that had never felt so powerful. Terror filled me, and my heart felt so much louder than it had before, but I also felt… different. I felt so much stronger than I had. There was power in my legs. I could feel muscles move as I fell back to all fours. I was breathing hard. The world looked weird. I was seeing so much more of it than I was used to. I could see around me, but not straight in front of me. I blinked hard, trying to make sense of what almost felt like a fish lens. I saw Ruby. I tried to focus on her. The longer I looked the easier it got to understand what I was seeing.

Ruby approached me with one hand out like she was about to bond with a dragon for the first time. “Julian. Hey, it’s okay. I think I know what’s happening. I can undo this, ok? At least for now.”

She put a hand on my snout—I had a snout—and pet it gently. It was very calming, and since I was a horse, not at all weird somehow. Though absolutely all of this was weird as balls.

“Close your eyes and listen again, ok?”

I did what she said, and heard her step back and mutter the same things she had before, and the air sizzled around the end of her wand as she traced the spell in the air.

I took a deep breath, and all at once I felt normal again. I couldn’t place what it was, but I felt weaker again, and the world smelled different.

I cracked my eyes open. I was laying sprawled on the ground like a giant had tossed me. Worried I was naked again I sat bolt upright, covering my privates, only to discover I was still dressed.

I tried to stand, but my legs were noodles gave out from under me. I ended up sitting cross-legged. Ruby was looking at me in deep thought, wand tucked under her arm.

“Huh.” She said.

“Huh? What do you mean huh? Why am I a horse!” I demanded.

Ruby made a face and sat on the ground across from me, resting her head in her hands. “Ugh, I don’t know, let me think.”

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