“The underground streams of magma and water don't come anywhere near this area.”
“I know. They cross beneath the Forgetful.” I crouched and sniffed.”
“Oh, yes!” Rory crouched with me. “I forgot that Dragon-Sidhe are talented trackers. Can you smell anything?”
“I can smell a lot.” I grimaced in the direction of the villagers. “I'll have to compare their scents to what's here.” I sniffed again. “But I definitely smell salt.”
“Salt?”
“Seawater, King Rory. I smell seawater.”
Rory stood and stared in the direction of the Water Kingdom. A resolved expression came over his face. “I will make a bargain with you, Queen Vervain.”
“Oh?” I was already grinning.
“Help me solve this puzzle, and I will help you get back to your time.” He held up the hand bearing his ring of remembrance.
“You've got a deal, King Rory.” I grabbed his hand and shook it. “Now, let's go sniff your people.”
Rory chuckled as he followed me to the gathering of villagers. He spoke to them in Fey while I sniffed and sniffed and sniffed. Turning my head, I compared their scents to the ones hovering around the mud. I could find deeper smells than that if I focused, but I wanted to know who to rule out first. Once I found a scent that didn't belong, I could get a better idea of who was behind this. If it was a who and not simply a natural phenomenon.
Oh, who was I kidding? This was Faerie. The entire realm was magic. Nothing like this happened unless someone messed with the magic. Or dug a really big hole.
With the villagers' scents cataloged in my head, I left the King with them and headed back to the mud pit. Could it simply be a sinkhole? If someone had dug beneath the village and accidentally, or even purposefully, tunneled into the Water Kingdom, it could have caused something like this. Would such a hole be cataclysmic to Water and Earth? Would the Water Kingdom's ocean drain away, pouring out into Earth? I didn't think it worked like that.
Past the treetops, I could just make out the mountains that formed the border between the Kingdoms of Earth and Water. The range also formed a gigantic basin that held the ocean that composed most of the Water Kingdom. Which meant it was at a higher altitude than the Earth Kingdom. If the mountains crumbled, that ocean would spew forth, but a tunnel beneath it wouldn't do much. Not unless it was a massive tunnel. Even then, I believe it would fill with water, but only to a point.
“What are you thinking?” King Rory asked as he stepped up beside me.
“If someone tunneled from below us and into the Water Kingdom, what would it do?”
He considered this. “If the tunnel was large enough, it might create a lake here.”
“A lake?”
“Yes. Or a pool, depending on the size. It might produce something like this, but there would be more than the scent of seawater. There would be water bubbling up.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am. And no faerie would want to jeopardize the realm by doing something like that.”
“You'd be surprised,” I muttered. I sniffed again and crouched, sending my senses deeper. “Someone small.”
“What's that?”
“I smell a small creature. No more than a foot high.”
Suddenly, a creature of just that size popped up out of the mud a few feet away from me. I jerked back, barely biting back a shriek, then narrowed my eyes at the thing. Even covered in mud, there was no mistaking it. Or maybebecauseit was covered in mud. It was an animal at all, but a faerie.
“Ballybogs,” I said and pointed.
The Ballybog rolled happily toward the side of the pit, his spherical body making this the perfect way for him to travel. When he reached solid ground, he climbed up on the grass and stood on a pair of spindly legs much too thin for his round torso. Grinning at us, he rubbed the mud in.
Rory snorted. “They're just here for the mud. Ballybogs love mud.”
“Yes, I know. But they're the only other scent I can smell.” Huffing, I put my hands on my hips. “All right, let's bring it up.”
“Excuse me?”
