Flicker (20 page)

“Filo and Alice,” Lee asked. “What did they do after you left?”

“They kept working, just like always. Alice was
terrified
of
Neman
and
Morgan
, though. She stayed at Flicker for as long as she could she could bear to be around them, but she finally left last year.
Neman
and
Morgan
decided to leave her alone, too.”

“Why did Filo stay?”

“That’s probably a better question for him.”

A great clomping filled the stairs. Lee turned toward the door on the far side of the room in ti
me to see Filo shoulder it open, carrying
a stack of books.

“As long as you’re here,” Filo said, passing some of
the books
to Nasser, “you can make yourselves useful and help me look something
up
.” He
thrust
three books into Lee’s hands.

“What am I looking for?”

“Lock charms—
the kind you need a counter-spell to remove, not just an equal application of energy. There’ll b
e a picture of a lock,
or something.”

Lee opened the first book. It was filled with
detailed
pencil and watercolor illustrations of plants and animals, surrounded by handwritten text.
The next book
seemed to be centered around the translation
s of runes. Lee
picked up the third book. It had a dark blue cover, and looked fairly n
ew
.

The first page announced it to be a book of basic magical theory and spells for new stud
ents.
Lee found a chapter that looked promising: “Spells for
Keeping, Holding, and Hiding.”

Holding up the book, she asked, “Is this it?”

Filo snatched the book from her hands without a word,
flipping through the chapter. He grabbed a blank sheet of paper from amid the clutter, then laid the book and paper side by side. He ran his hand slowly over the book page, then over the blank sheet.
As he did, the print from the book appeared o
n the sheet,
in
shimmering
ink as blue as his eyes.

At the far end of the counter, Nasser was examining a book. Lee saw him slide it into his backpack when Filo wasn’t looking.

“So,” she said finally, feeling more like she was speaking to the dusty spirit of the shop than to either of the boys. “What is this place?”

“
Flicker,” Filo said simply,
“
is a place w
here humans with magical problems can get help. People come here with problems, and I try to fix them.”

“That’s what Seers do,” Nasser added. “Jason and I don’t work here, but our job is the same as Filo’s. We break curses, brew potions, cast spells, identify objects.
Really, we do anything related to magic,
if
you can pay fo
r it
.”

“Anything?”

“Just about. The only thing Seers don’t do is sell harmful magic.
No curses, no poisons, no enchanted murder weapons.
The Guild has laws about that, and they come down pretty hard on anyone
they catch breaking them.”

Filo leaned over and punched Nasser in the arm. “Nasser!” he hissed.

Nasser frowned, rubbing his arm. “What harm could it do?”

“If someone from the Guild finds out that we’ve been spilling secrets, they
could have us thrown in prison
like
that
,” Filo admonished, snapping his fingers. “They could
have us stripped of our Sight!”

“That’s a
n old wives’ tale. You
couldn’t possibly
strip someone of their Sight without killing them.”

“Exactly,” Filo said darkly.

“Don’t be melodramatic. They would just put
out our eyes and call it a day,” Nasser replied calmly.
“
Besides, no one will find out. We’re not Guild memb
ers. They have no records of us, and we keep our heads down.
I doubt they even know we exist.”

“I prefer to err on the side of caution,” Filo pressed. “Or, at the very least, on the side of
keeping my eyes.
”

“What are you talking about?” Lee
pressed
. “What’s the Guild?”

“
Nasser
,” Filo warned.

“This is the kind of stuff she should know,” Nasser said
sternly, his mouth set in a firm line. Filo glared at him for a moment, then lowered his gaze and dropped his shoulders—it seemed like an almost submissive gesture.

Apparently satisfied, Nasser turned back to Lee.

“There are many kinds of magical work,” he said. “Most of it is divided among three
main
groups
. The first are the Seers
, the people on the ground
working directly with humans and creatures
.
Next are Doctors, who use magic to hea
l. Third are the
Scholars, the record-keepers and historian
s
.”

“And these groups make up the Guild?”

He nodded. “The Guild consists of all eligible Seers, Doctors, and Scholars. They share ideas, come up with laws to govern themselves, and decide the best ways to go about their business while staying as hidden as possible from the normal world.”

“But you’re not members.”

“No.” He said it like the very idea was ludicrous.
“
We’re not even eligibl
e. To be
a Guild member, you have to apprentice under a Guild master. We apprenticed under faeries, and faeri
es aren’t allowed in the Guild.”

“Why not?”

“Since the
Guild sees itself as
a
defense
against magical creatures, they think it would
be hypocritical to accept them,” Nasser said dryly.
“
Half-breeds get in
sometimes, but it’s rare.”

“I thought faeries didn’t like humans,” Lee
mused
. “Why would a couple of faeries take you as apprentices?”

“‘
Take’
being the operative word,” Filo said
.
H
is eyes were dark. “Faeries can live thousands of years. Most of their lives ar
e spent trying to get ahead by killing other fey
, or otherwise being connivi
ng
little
bastards. Some
get b
ored of rehashing the same
disputes
an
d dealing with the same enemies
for ages on end. So they come to our world.”

“Why?”

“To faeries, our world is sport. Powerful fey can do any
thing they want here
, so long as they don’t step on the toes of the Courts
. Some open businesses, or experiment with living among humans
, or involve themselves in human politics and wars
. Others teach magic. Whatever seems mo
st interesting at any given moment
.”

Lee was struck
by the bitterness in his tone.
“
Do people hire Guild members to help them out, the way people hire you guys?”

“
Not usually. The Guild
works secretly, and it has its own channels for figuring out where humans are having magical problems. Even then, they try to solve the problem without the humans in question ever finding out.
It’s all about containment.
The Guild is mostly concerned with hiding the magical world from  normal humans.”

“Why are they so
worried about magic being exposed?”

“
Well,” he started, “i
magine what it would be like if, all of a sudden, the whole world found out about magic and faeries and everything else. It would change everything
. We’d have to rewrite every history book, reevaluate science—”

“T
hey’d get a bunch of physic
ists to start breaking down
mag
ic,
figuring out how it works,
” Lee said with a snort.

“Exactly!
Now imagine how terrified everyone would be of all these creatures. Humans don’t react well to that
kind of fear. We’d have
witch hunts f
or vampires and werecreatures, and probably Seers, too.
”

“Forests would be razed to the ground to exterminate faeries,” Filo added. “Which would just provoke them. Before you know it, we’d be at war with the fey and all the other creatures—and we wouldn’t win.”

Nasser shook his head at the thought. “
That’s
why the Guild keeps itself hidden
,” he
affirmed
. “
That’s wh
y it exists
.
T
o keep the magical world and the
human
world separate
, so they can both go on undisturbed
.”

Lee gave a low whistle. “This is top-secret spy stuff, isn’t it?”

He nodded solemnly.
“
Normals are happier not
knowing, anyway.”

“I guess I can see why
they would be
,” Lee admitted
.
Magic
had already tilted her world on its axis.

“The Guild
has rules about this,”
Nasser
continued. “What
you can and can’t disclose.
We may not be Guild members, but we ca
n still be punished
if they catch wind of our operations.
We’re not supposed to share things like this with normals.
”

She winced,
recalling his words
:
They would just put out our eyes
.

“Do I still count as a normal?” she asked. “After all this?”

“I don’t think so,” Nasser
answered, a bit sadly
. “That’s why I told you.”

Chapter Seven:

Like Gravity

“One more thing,” Filo said, as Nasser started toward the door.
He
dropped his voice and nodded toward the
other side of the shop
, where Lee was elbows-deep in a chest filled with old dresses and dusty costume jewelry. “When are you gonna take her?”

“I don’t know,” Nasser said. “We can make room for her, and Jason doesn’t mind, but I get the feeling that she really wouldn’t be comfortable with us just yet.”

“
I really don’t care about what makes her h
appy,” Filo grumbled.

Nasser sighed. “I’m
really
sorry about all this.
Neman
and
Morgan
are pissed, aren’t they?”

Filo shrugged. “Not so much,” he lied. “They mostly just think it’s funny.”

“I can’t re
member them ever having
a sense of humor,” Nasser said.
“
Not a good one, anyway.”

“You’ve been away for a long time,” Filo said icily. “Things change.”

Nasser shook his head. He must’ve caught the edge in
Filo’s voice. “
I’ll see you soon
, Filo
.” He started for the door.

“You should send Jason down here sometime,” Filo blurted, almost without thi
nking. He felt guilty again, and wondered how
Nasser seemed to be able to turn
Filo’s
conscience on
at will, like
a faucet. Alice ha
d the same curious ability.
“If he gives you much trouble, I mean. I’ll straighten him out for you.”

“Yeah. Yeah,
I will.” Nasser tried to smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I’ll finish getting everything around tonight.
I’ll pick her up in the morning.
”

He shook his
head. “
It’s no great rush.
She’s not
bad company
—f
or a normal, anyway.
”

Nasser’s smile widened a little. It looked almost
genuine
. “Thanks
, Filo.”

Filo shrugged and
returned
to the counter. He watched as Nasser opened the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, bells ringing loudly behind him.