It’s my turn to shake my head.
“Does that bother you?” he asks.
“Yes!”
“Why?”
“Because… it’snone of your business.It’s not your world—it’s ours. You have no right to our secrets!”
“What makes it yours?”
“What do you mean? It’s obvious.”
“Not to me. What makes magic yours?”
I laugh. “We’re magickal. And you’re not.”
He turns his head completely to look at me. “We aremadeof magic. Without our magic, you’re worse than Normal. You’re useless.”
31
SHEPARD
Welp. I screwed that up.
I was supposed to charm her. Some people do find me charming, believe it or not. When I was 18, I got a creek dryad to tell me her life story. She gave me mulberry cakes and dandelion wine. It’s the first time I ever got drunk.
How did I learn so much about magic?
My strategy is simple: I tell the truth.
I always use my real name (even though fairy tales tell you not to). I always say exactly what I want from a situation and exactly what I mean.
These magical beings are always running a con.… They’ve been lying low for so long, they only know how to talk in tricks and riddles.
If you come in with your real face and your real name, and you tell them exactly what to make of you? It throws them off their game.
Yes,occasionally,they’ll repay your honesty with a magical ass-kicking. (I’m probably never going to have kids, because Iowe at least three imps my firstborn.) But often they find it refreshing! There’s a hinkypunk in my mom’s subdivision who just likes to complain to me about her migraines.
Who else will listen?
Who else wants to hear their stories?
There are trolls who’ve spent the last two hundred years sitting alone under a bridge. If you can get past the bluster and the wooden clubs, if you bring them a little bone broth, they’re just grateful to have a sympathetic ear.
If you tell them that youmeanno harm, and then you neverdoany harm…
They start to like you. They start to look forward to you coming around.
I’m not saying this approach would work for everyone. I’m not saying it isn’tdangerous.…
It’s not worth trying to charm something truly dark. And sometimes you can’t tell if they’retruly dark.Sometimes you give them your real name, and they never give it back.
And sometimes they just ignore you.…
Magicians are the worst.
They call themselves“magicians.” Everybody else calls them “Speakers.”
