Celesta looked at him over her shoulder. The path here was narrow enough that they had to walk in single file. “I told you that Drosselmeyer heard your music, right? And that Stahlmaus was there because he wanted your magic for himself?”
Alex nodded once. “But it still doesn’t make much sense.”
She turned around and walked backwards–something that seemed to be a habit of hers–and hummed thoughtfully. “Let me see if I can lay it out for you. My uncle has always been ambitious and hungry for power. It's why he–”
Her heel caught on a stone and she started to fall backwards. Alex lunged forward to catch her. His right hand grabbed onto her arm and pulled her forwards, but he misjudged the amount of force needed to steady her small frame and she instead came crashing the other way into his chest. He froze, suddenly aware of the fact that Celesta was now wrapped securely in his arms.
And she happened to fit there perfectly.
The little pixie seemed to be just as surprised, for she waited a moment before clearing her throat and patting his chest as she pushed away. “Thank you for the rescue.” Her voice was a little breathless.
Alex hoped his blush wasn’t too visible. “Maybe stick to walking forwards,” he said gruffly. His right hand still tingled from where it had touched her elbow and his left hand…
Well, the left hand was still numb and didn’t feel anything. But it probably would have tingled, too.
“Right.” Celesta gave him a penitent smile. “Now, where was I?” She turned around and resumed walking.
“You have a power-hungry uncle.”
“Ah, yes. Well, as you know or have seen, magic in Faerie is accessed through music. Uncle is an elf, which means he can use creative magic and not just natural magic.”
“What does that mean? What's the difference?”
“All fae have natural magic–you saw it this morning with the dryads. Dryads and fauns have a natural magic that allows them to tend to all growing things. The dwarves and gnomes have magic that helps them use and manipulate the earth–stone and metal and the like. The mermaids and selkies have an affinity for water, and so on. But for all of them, their magic only allows them to manipulate elements or objects that are already in existence. A dryad can’t make a completely new seed, for example, or a gnome can’t make gold out of thin air. Creative magic is different. Someone using creative magic can do those things, as long as they know the right song.”
“That seems dreadfully unbalanced, in terms of power.”
“It is and it isn’t. It does certainly cause most elves to think themselves above the so-called ‘lesser’ fae, but there are some limitations. Most magic—natural or creative—works best channeled through a specific type of instrument, depending on what the purpose is. It’s rare to find someone proficient on all of them. And then, like I said, there is the fact that in order to create something, the musician has to know the right song.”
Alex mulled over this information. “You said it’s rare to find someone proficient on all the instruments. I’m guessing your uncle is one of them?”
Celesta nodded but kept her eyes forward. “Yes. As a young man, he spent years studying the various instruments, though he kept each of his instructors ignorant of the rest so that no one would know exactly what he was doing until he had mastered all of them. Combined with his nearly perfect recall—rather like Prince Tamric over in the Spring Court, actually—Stahlmaus is probably second only to Drosselmeyer in terms of power. Unlike Drosselmeyer, he wants to use it to rule over all of Faerie himself.”
“But if he already has so much power, what on earth does he need me for?”
Celesta stopped and looked up at him, her normally cheerful face suddenly serious. “You have an ability he never had. It was evident that night in the garden. You don’t just play the music, you make the music your own.”
Alex shifted uncomfortably at the praise. It was suddenly much too warm, and he shrugged out of his jacket. “It is my own,” he mumbled.
“You wrote it?” Celesta gasped and her eyes filled with wonder.
He shrugged, twisting the fabric of his coat in his fingers to give him something to focus on besides her wide brown eyes. The way she was looking at him did funny things to his insides, and it would be much too easy to allow that small spark to burn into something bigger.
And the bigger the flames, the more it would burn when he returned to his own home and lost her.
You are a wooden soldier. You don’t feel, and you can’t be hurt.
“I rarely take the time to write it down. I just improvise. But you have musicians here; surely it can’t be that uncommon.”
She shook her head slowly. “No. There are composers, of course. But they spend years just learning the musical and magical theory in order to write music that will achieve the desired results, and often they are too focused on the technical and logical side of things to play with enough feeling and emotion to actually cast magic. Theyknowhow it should sound and can hear it in here,” she tapped the side of her head, “but they can’t let their emotions in for fear of playing something wrong.”
Alex understood; he had met classmates and professors who were the same in his brief year at the university. “But what about the others?”
“They master the music that has already been written.” Celesta tapped her chin thoughtfully. “We rely upon our composers to provide us with music–and therefore spells–that will be beneficial and useful, but perhaps in doing so we have convinced ourselves that they are the only ones capable of doing so. At any rate, that’s what uncle is doubtless after. He’s limited by his repertoire and lacks the skills and knowledge necessary to increase it on his own–both things thatyouhave.”
His mouth turned down in a scowl. “So he was going to what? Take me captive to ask for composition lessons?”
Celesta shrugged. “To put it mildly, yes. He wants the power you have, and he’s willing to go to whatever lengths he must go to in order to get it.”
