The tea the Weftwitch poured for us was just tea, and didn’t bubble or turn green or melt a hole in the rough pottery cups. Her cottage stayed solid on its foundations and didn’t shimmer, or shiver, or show any signs of life at all.
I sat in one of the chairs and accepted a cup, and Sylvester sat on the very edge of another, folding himself awkwardly into something that resembled a human sitting on a chair.
Without his throne to lounge in, he looked a little lost, and ridiculously too tall and lanky for the little room. Being half naked didn’t help.
In this terribly ordinary place, however, he looked even more extraordinary than he usually did—his cheekbones more dramatically slanted, his eyes more piercingly gray blue, and his whole being so strange, so unnaturally beautiful, that even the cat half asleep on the stove twitched an eye open to stare.
The witch woman, however, didn’t seem intimidated. She pushed another cup of tea over to him, and the sugar bowl.
“These magic folks,” she said to me. “Mad about sugar, all of them. Anything sweet. It’s the magic, you see. Makes everything taste just a little sour. Something to do with how it reacts with the body ... coats the tongue somewhat.”
Sylvester gave a grudging, “Thank you,” and I noticed that he spooned about six heaps of sugar into his tea.
“How do you know?” I asked. “Do you have magic-workers in your kingdom?”
She snorted. “Like him? No, we wouldn’t stand for it. Not anymore. Not that sort. Poor thing.”
I couldn’t imagine why anyone would call Sylvester a poor thing. Even dressed as oddly as he was, he looked lordly, and nowhere near an object of pity.
“We have our own type of magic-workers here. Not in the way you understand them,” she continued.
“We saw a boy, in the settlement,” I said. “He had magic, a little ...”
“Yes, no one has more than a little.” She sipped her tea. “Your king saw to that.”
“What?” I said sharply. “How?”
“Our kingdoms used to be one and the same,” she explained. “A very long time ago. Did you know that? No, of course not. Your king has an unnaturally long life, as you may know, because of his ... practices.” She sipped her tea.
“He was prince over both our lands, once, but craved more power. He saw that some children were born with something—a spark, a brightness—that could be turned to magic. It happened a few times in every generation. People knew about it but did not trouble themselves overly. For the most part, the children used it for childish pursuits—magicking themselves odd little toys, starting fires, playing pranks.”
I shot a glance at Sylvester.
“Your king, however, saw the potential for great power. He had a similar spark, and started experimenting on himself and these others to see exactly what could be achieved. He did this in secret for a while, but you can imagine that people did not take kindly to it when it was found out—particularly as the children he took for these purposes were never seen again.
“His own father, our king, did not take kindly to it either. He disowned his son, and would have banished him, but when he announced the banishment in front of his council, Prince Darius murdered his father in a rage. The rest of the royal family sought to capture and punish him, but Darius took his magic and his new knowledge, and split the kingdom in two, walling one half off from the other. Us, and you. The Invisible Kingdom.” She paused to take another sip.
“Over the last century, the boundary between us has grown stronger, almost too strong for us to penetrate, and we knew little about what was happening there. Occasionally someone wandered through without being entirely consumed, but usually the mist had stolen both their wits and their health, and they didn’t last long.”
This was all astonishing to hear. “And King Darius is still trying to expand the kingdom,” I said. “And pushing into yours.”
“More and more each year. If no one tries to stop him, he will swallow us completely. And not just us, but other nations too. Yes, there is a whole world out there, beyond your borders. That’s why I’m here and why I do the work that I do, to resist it.”
I glared at Sylvester. “Did you know any of this?”
“I had suspicions,” admitted Sylvester. “I found it odd that the kingdom was closed in on itself, reliant on our magic. But no, I did not know. And I’m ashamed to say I didn’t care much before ...” He flushed.
“Before? Before what?”
“Before you,” he finished simply.
I stared at him. The Weftwitch swallowed the last of her tea, swirled the dregs around, then stared at the leaves. “Hmmm. Interesting. Now, you and I will take a walk, and leave your magic friend here to amuse himself for a few minutes. We need to talk.”
I looked over at Sylvester, who shrugged, nearly dislodging his makeshift garment.
“Don’t get into any trouble while I’m gone,” I said, standing up.
“Sweet boy,” said the Weftwitch. “For a magic-worker.”
