50

The four-hour flight north was easier this time, in part because Ophelia wasn’t almost run out of the sky by an airplane, but mostly because she had company.

The whistling helped pass the time.

She flew slower than usual (and at a guild-approved altitude of eight hundred feet) under the excuse that she didn’t want to leave her companion behind, though truthfully she couldn’t have gone any faster if she’d tried. Her left wing no longer hurt, but it wasn’t quite as strong as it had been before, and Pudge had told her not to push it. Charlie kept telling her the same thing.

He insisted on coming along this time. That was no surprise; he’d wanted to the first time. The surprise was that, this time, Squint let him.

He’d been waiting for her the moment she came down from Squint’s office, sitting at her desk again, looking even more smug than usual. “Whatchya got there?” he asked, pointing at the folder in her hands, even though he already knew. It was his idea, in fact, pitched to Squint the day before. A way for Ophelia to make amends and for Squint to preserve his precious record. Zero ungranted wishes.

More or less.

The folder Squint gave her contained very little: Kasarah Quinn’s home address. Some directions. A requisitions order for some supplies, including a full day’s worth of camo. But no dust. The wish itself wasn’t listed. It didn’t matter, of course. She’d only heard Kasarah make it a million times already.

“It’s impossible,” she told Charlie, pushing his feet off her desk again. “You can’t grant a wish without magic.”

“Oh, you can,” he said. “You just have to make some magic of your own.”

That made no sense, of course. If fairies could just make magic whenever they wanted, they wouldn’t be in this position to begin with. But Charlie told her not to worry. He had a plan.

Which of course only made her worry more.

They suited up—Ophelia going with sky blue this time and Charlie choosing something called hot-rod red, which clashed horribly with his hair—and packed their satchels. Charlie’s was bursting with stuff (and he called her an overpacker), including a couple more M&Ms and a map he’d drawn himself. Squint didn’t bother to see them off this time. Apparently his day was full of important meetings with Pouts and the other guild leaders about the current state of magic regulation in the Haven and the process by which wishes were fulfilled. Maybe it’s time we rethink how we do things around here.

She secretly wished him the best of luck.

Four hours later she found herself hovering over ground that was much more familiar this time, passing the giant river and the ponds full of geese, swooping over the houses and fields that had marked her way before. “There’s the mall.” Ophelia pointed to the sprawling box of a building with its fountain full of coins. She wondered how many wishes had been added to it since she’d been there and if the old man had come and gathered them up again to buy another bowl of soup. She felt guilty for cursing him before. A dozen ungranted wishes transformed into a warm meal. There was another kind of alchemy at work there—one that fairies had no part in—but it weighed on her heart regardless.

She hoped that if the old man ever made a wish, she would get the chance to grant it.

They were just above the fountain when Charlie grabbed her arm and pulled her off course.

“Where are we going?” Ophelia asked, but Charlie said, “Trust me,” and made her follow him for a change. She could tell he was happy to be out here, granting a wish for the first time in years; his whistling grew more boisterous than ever.

They touched down several ticks later in front of a sign that said Big Al’s Lot-O-Junk and included a crude drawing of what Ophelia assumed to be Big Al himself, complete with a big tummy, reminding her a little of a cat she’d met not too long ago. We pay cash for your trash, the sign said.

Big Al must have had a lot of cash to spare, because he had accumulated a whole world of rubbish. The place was a wasteland. Lopsided piles of metal and plastic as tall as houses, most of them just stacks of beat-up old cars, rolling turtles that had outlived their usefulness, their shells sent here for scrap. Dented dishwashers. Broken furniture. A rocking horse without a head. A pyramid of tires as tall as a tree. Even a mountain of old, cracked commodes. A huge chain-link fence ran around the perimeter, keeping out anything that couldn’t fly or squeeze and scurry through the holes, like the mouse she noticed darting in and out of a toppled refrigerator. Otherwise the place looked deserted.

“Where are we?” Ophelia asked

“Junkyard,” Charlie said. “Scavengers love these places. Easiest way to pick up artifacts without attracting too much attention. I mean, most of it’s worthless. And filthy. And it smells bad. But occasionally you can find something valuable.”

“Reminds me of your house,” Ophelia told him, stepping over broken glass.

“Funny,” he said. “Now close your eyes. I’ve got a surprise for you.”

She rolled them first, but she shut them as ordered, then gave Charlie her hand and let him lead her, afraid she would trip and impale herself on some jagged bit of scrap. She thought about Gabe’s father, Corporal Morales. Shrapnel, they call it. But he was fortunate.

She wondered if he felt fortunate or not.

Charlie brought her to a halt. “All right. You can open them now.”

Sitting in front of her was a bicycle. Sunflower yellow with a white wicker basket and tarnished silver fenders. The paint was chipped in places and the seat had a couple of small tears, but otherwise it seemed in good shape. She couldn’t be sure, of course—she’d never rode one before. And recent events hadn’t made her any fonder of things on wheels.

“The chain slipped, but that was easy enough to fix. The seat’s a little worn, but otherwise it looks all right, don’t you think?” Charlie beamed proudly.

“OMW,” Ophelia said.

“I know, right?”

“I mean . . . it’s terrific.” And it was. She couldn’t believe the effort he’d gone to find it, presumably while she was in the infirmary, on the mend. “Really, really terrific . . .”

“But . . .” Charlie goaded.

“But what?”

“But you trailed off, like, Wow, it’s terrific, Charlie, except for this one part that you completely screwed up and it ruined the whole thing,” he said, doing a terrible, high-pitched imitation of her voice. “So what’s the problem?”

Ophelia shrugged. “Well. It’s just . . . so . . . you know . . . yellow,” she said at last.

“Ah,” Charlie said.

“Which is great,” she added quickly. “I love yellow. I adore yellow. But Kasarah, you know. She was kinda specific.”

“Uh-huh,” Charlie said.

“And if we’re going to do this . . .”

“No. I gotcha. Enough said.” He put two fingers in his mouth and startled her with a piercing whistle.

Ophelia heard feet scrabbling over gravel. Something large tearing around the corner. Something large and fast and probably a little bit smelly. Or a lot. Her throat clenched as a bundle of beige fur exploded from behind a smashed car, nearly bowling her over, paws kicking up tiny whirlwinds of dirt as he skidded to a halt beside her.

“Sam!”

Ophelia wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed, burying her face in his fur. She fully expected to feel a warm tongue sliming her from head to toe, except Sam was holding something in his mouth, a canister much like the ones that contained Arnold Rolleye’s knockout spray, only bigger. He dropped it at her feet and licked his chops.

The label on the front said Quik-Dry EZ Paint. The color of the lid was a rich, royal purple.

“I brought you a present,” he said. He pawed at the can of paint, just in case there was any confusion.

“Oh, Sam. But how did you . . . where did you . . . ?” Ophelia stammered. She looked back and forth from fairy to dog.

“It wasn’t easy,” Charlie admitted. “Several blocks away a bunch of hardware store employees are probably still telling a story about a dog who snuck into their store and stole a can of purple spray paint. This mutt is a pretty good thief.”

“I am a very good thief,” Sam corrected.

Ophelia hugged him again, this time making sure to scratch behind the ears. His back leg thumped like a rabbit’s as he let out a long groan of satisfaction.

“All right. Reunion’s over,” Charlie said, popping the lid off the can, which was nearly as tall as he was. “This bike isn’t going to purple itself.”

They set to work, Charlie holding the can while Ophelia pressed the button, Sam wandering around, sniffing everything (broken commodes included), looking for something worth burying in a hole. In between coats they savored Charlie’s M&Ms and Ophelia told him all about her mission, from Olivier’s insults to Anna’s net, impressing him with her ability to find trouble at every turn. When they got to the part where Ophelia fell in the pond, Sam came over to sing his song.

She skipped the part about the stuffed bear. She knew she’d never hear the end of it.

Fortunately Big Al’s didn’t see a lot of business on weekdays, and the few people who wandered onto the lot just dropped off more garbage and left. It was easy for Ophelia and Charlie to stay hidden, and nobody thought twice about a scraggly-looking mutt hanging around a junkyard. But by the time the second coat was dry enough to touch it was already dark, and Big Al’s front gate was shut and locked for the night.

“It’s very purple,” Sam said, squinting at it in the moonlight. Ophelia wasn’t sure whether that meant he liked it or not. You couldn’t eat it, but you could chase it, so it could go either way.

“Now we just need to find a way to get it to her,” Ophelia said with a smirk. A locked gate posed little problem for two fairies, but neither the bike nor the dog came with wings. “Did you have a plan for that, too?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Charlie replied, producing a set of wire cutters from his bag. “But it might require breaking a few rules. That is, if you think you’re up for it?”

As if he even needed to ask.