The day had warmed up a little, and the sky was nice and clear. We walked along the busy sidewalk to one of the many Magic Tour bus stops in the city. John and Isabella liked to talk a lot, and since I liked to listen, this suited me just fine.
There was a goblin-green-colored Magic Tour bus waiting at the stop. We climbed aboard, and Isabella made straight for the upper deck.
“Won’t it be cold up there?” I asked.
“Ha, are you a witch or what?” Isabella plowed ahead and took a seat at the very front of the bus.
I felt embarrassed and didn’t want to admit I didn’t know ley line magic and hadn’t thought to bring any potions with me. Luckily, I didn’t have to.
“Never mind, I’ll take care of us.”
I sat next to her at the front, and John sat on the seat beside us. As soon as we were settled, Isabella put her hands together as if in prayer. “H¯æte.”
A gentle heat enveloped my body. Even the tips of my fingers, which generally felt the cold the most, suddenly tingled and were toasty. “Thank you. I’m going to have to learn that one.”
Isabella grinned. “You’re very welcome.” As if to prove the point, she took off her coat and spread her wings.
The conductor was a goblin. I would have guessed him to be quite young, though it was hard to say because his acorn hat and woolen scarf covered most of his face and head. In contrast, his feet were bare, and I wondered how cold his toes got working on the bus. He meandered down the aisle heading straight for us, since we were the only passengers on the top deck. Without so much as an upward glance, he turned his ticket machine and reeled off three individual tickets. “Thirty dollars each, and a buck for a guide.”
“Thirty dollars?” John rolled his eyes. “That’s a bit steep, isn’t it?”
“I don’t make the fares. I just sell the tickets. If you’re too cheap to pay, get off my bus.”
I knew goblins were brusque at the best of times, and this one seemed especially snarky. I wondered what on earth had induced him to take this job, since he clearly wasn’t a people person.
“Three tickets and three guides then.” John pulled out his wallet and rolled off some notes.
The goblin’s eyes lit up at the sight of the money, which he quickly stashed in his very deep pockets. He pulled out three guides, colored to match the bus, and handed them to John.
“Will there be a commentary?” Even Isabella’s most charming grin didn’t crack a smile on the miserable creature’s face.
“Wait and see.”
“How long before we leave?” I glanced at my phone. Time seemed to be passing faster than usual.
“When I have a few more passengers. This bus doesn’t run on air, you know.” And then he was off.
As soon as he was out of sight, Isabella chuckled. “I wonder what climbed under his hat!”
“If I know anything about goblins, he’s probably their employee of the month,” John said. “The ones I’ve met have been a lot worse.”
I could only half smile because I kept thinking about the time. I was sure Henry would be upset if I was late. Would he even wait for me? While John and Isabella perused their guides, I slid my phone out of my pocket. I pulled up Henry’s number, but when it rang through, I got his busy phone.
“Dang.” I started to send him a text. After all, I had promised Sylvia I’d let him know about Isabella. I was halfway through composing it when my phone died. “Huh?”
“What’s up?” John asked.
“My phone. It just turned itself off.”
“Try turning it back on then,” Isabella suggested.
I was already doing just that. I waited a moment for the screen to light up. “Nothing.”
“Maybe the battery’s dead?”
“Shouldn’t be. It was fully charged this morning, and it usually lasts all day.”
John lowered his eyes, and I wondered what he was thinking. I tried the power button again, but it just wouldn’t work.
“You can use my phone if you like.” Isabella held her phone out to me, but I shook my head.
“No use, unless you know Henry’s number. I never memorized it.”
“Look, stop worrying. We’ll be back in plenty of time,” John said. “These buses run several tours a day—it’ll be fine.”
I wasn’t so sure. “Sorry, John, I’ll pay you, of course.” Thirty bucks was a lot of cash for me, but Sylvia had left me a generous sum, and I didn’t want to take the chance and miss Henry. I stood up, determined to get off the bus. At that moment, the engine roared, and the bus rolled forward, knocking me into my seat.
“I guess more people came on downstairs.”
Isabella reminded me of my baby brother Joe, her excitement was so raw and unfettered. John didn’t seem interested in the tour at all. However, he seemed thrilled that I’d missed a chance to get off. It seemed important to him that I remain with the party. I could tell from the appraising way he kept glancing at me that he liked me. Boys had looked at me that way before. Was that all it was? He fancied me? I remembered, though, that he was fae, and that their kind were never to be trusted. Even if they were hotter than Hades.
An image of the goblin appeared before us, floating in the air like a holographic balloon. The image remained in place, about a foot over our heads and high enough for the whole deck to see him if need be. His acorn cap was still on his head, but he’d pulled the scarf down, revealing a set of very tiny and sharp pointy teeth.
“Hello and welcome to the New York Magic Bus Tour. My name is Grogwold, and I’ll be your tour guide on this journey. As always, safety first. Wands cannot be used on any part of the bus. May I also remind you the tour company is not liable for lost children who turn invisible while the bus is moving. Keep small children away from the tour guide at all times. He gets hungry.” Grogwold sniffed and wiped his nose.
“Our first stop will be the famous House of Magic, New York’s first and oldest magical supply shop. They have an awesome display of wands confiscated during the Salem trials, though these are not available for purchase. Chippings of charred firewood from the same period can be bought for a reasonable price, which I’m told are efficacious in salving potions. The shop’s quite a way on the other side of Central Park, so for now, sit back, and enjoy the ride.”
I already spent enough time in a magic shop, so I was more than delighted to give this one a miss—at least for today. Neither Isabella nor John seemed to mind. However, I couldn’t really get out of the other places they wanted to see, like the druid circle hidden in the basement of the Rockefeller Center and Tinkerbell’s Shadow over the main entrance to Macy’s. To be honest, I was glad I didn’t, because they were awesome. Each time the bus didn’t shoot off but waited for us to climb back on board. Still, since there were so few of us, we made good progress, and I began to think we’d make it back to the apartment in time after all.
We’d been out for a good couple of hours when, at last, the bus rolled into Times Square. Grogwold’s image hovered over us again.
“Get off at the next stop for the Secret Merlin Monument. Witch lore suggests it was stolen from the Cornish shores by the last of the true Celtic druids a few years after the voyage of Columbus. However, goblin lore tells a somewhat different tale. We believe the stone to be the center obsidian stone taken from Stonehenge, known locally as the Necromancer’s Stone, given as fair payment to the Goblin King for services rendered during the Fantastic Wars of 1322. It was later brought to the Americas in the bowels of the Santa Maria and hidden near the first Goblin Bank in New Holland, close to the area you now know as Wall Street. Through witchcraft and trickery”—at this point, I got the distinct impression Grogwold’s gaze was directed at me—“the enchantments protecting it were breached, and the stone relaid in its current position in Times Square. Now anyone can see it, except humans of course, if they invoke the proper spell—see page three of the tour guide for instructions and a coupon for a free tour valid for six months.”
His image popped into nonexistence as the bus rolled to a stop.
As soon as Isabella secured her wings inside her coat, we left the empty top deck and jumped out through the lower center doors. In Times Square, the buzz and activity of New York intensified threefold. Everyone and everything was moving so quickly, and for a second, I just stood on the sidewalk, taking it all in.
“This is incredible.” I stared up at the tall buildings, the advertising boards, the shops, the street vendors, the traffic, all of it, trying to capture the moment in my memory. “And it’s just how I imagined it would be.”
Isabella stood beside me with her mouth open. She seemed as impressed as I did. “I’ve never been anywhere so exciting.”
I glanced back at our bus and wondered at the awe of magic. Our bus was an ostentatious goblin green. And though we were surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of New Yorkers and tourists, none of the numpies appeared to see it. Somehow, they always seemed to be looking the other way. I loved magic.
Isabella watched me as I pulled out my phone again.
“Just checking to see if it was the bus,” I explained. “But it’s still dead.”
She nodded and cocked her head to one side in sympathy.
Still, time was pressing. While the others gawped, I opened my tour guide in search of the clues that would lead us to the Necromancer’s Stone. I turned to page three. Most of the page covered the various attractions, but at the bottom of the page was a small rhyme.
I am a number,
First under the sun,
Before all and after none
What am I?
That was easy, I thought. The number one.
I am everything.
All eyes are on me.
But I am empty.
What am I?
I am base. I seem nothing,
I am the very bottom of the top.
Everything depends on me.
What am I?
I had no idea what the second and third rhymes meant. Dad was more into puzzle stuff than I was. I found myself wishing he was here. I noticed the others had moved a few feet away and were still taking in the sights. “What do you think this means?” I asked. I read all three rhymes out loud, told them the answer to the first one, and then asked for their help on the second and third.
Isabella looked as confused as I was. John smiled. He opened his own copy and read the words for himself. “It’s funny, but I’m pretty sure I read something about this a few minutes ago.” He turned the cover over and stared at page three. “Yes, the answer is on the page, look.” John pointed to an article about the history of One Times Square a few paragraphs above the rhyme.
I scoured it quickly and read what was evidently the most critical section out loud. “Although it is one of the most iconic buildings and lucrative advertising spots in the whole world, One Times Square, also known as the Times Tower, remains notoriously empty. Although the ground floor is let, all the upper floors are unoccupied. The public at large attribute this to the cost of renovations, although we believe there are mystical powers at force preventing the building being used for any nonmagical purpose…”
“Oh,” Isabella said. “I see. But what about the third part of the rhyme? The bit about the bottom and the top?”
“I don’t know,” I confessed. “Let’s head over there and see if we can work it out.”
We edged our way through the crowds, and I watched as the endless fleet of Magic Cabs weaved their way through the sea of yellow ones, all working in complete harmony. Magical beings were a little less obvious here than in the more artsy Greenwich Village, yet here they were, merrily mixing with everyone else. I spotted dwarves on newspaper stands, gremlins selling gold watches for a buck to unwitting tourists, fauns and satyrs selling discounted tickets to Broadway shows, and succubi selling something far less savory in the shadows. Each one was perfectly disguised. You would have to be magical yourself to recognize them, yet they were there, going about their business, happily earning a living.
John was the first to reach One Times Square. There was a Walgreens on the ground level, and I craned my neck up at the 363-foot-high skyscraper—so it said in the tour guide—and wondered at the magnificent advertising above. At the moment they were showcasing Sony, Pepsi, and Hocus—the latter, I had recently learned, was a very trendy outlet for magical clothing. What did nonmagical people see when they looked at that sign?
I read the last part of the rhyme again.
I am base. I seem nothing,
I am the very bottom of the top.
Everything depends on me.
What am I?
“Hmm. Something at the bottom that everything depends on?” I scoured the ground near the base of the building but could see nothing. Looking up, I noticed a couple of elves talking animatedly over at the corner of the building. I wondered if they had been on the bus with us, which was possible since most of the other passengers had remained on the warmer lower deck. Odds were they were working on the same puzzle as us, and elves were notoriously clever, if not the friendliest of creatures.
Isabella and John followed me. The elves were chuckling, and one of them kept touching the wall. As we drew closer, they saw us coming. They frowned, and then, sticking their noses in the air, they moved off. They were clearly not the most sociable of elves, but I wasn’t offended—I knew their ways.
They had been standing in front of a large stone at the corner of the building. It wasn’t hidden at all but was there in plain sight for anyone to see, if they knew what they were looking for. Carved in the center were runes depicting all the elements: earth, wind, fire, and water. And at its heart was a rune I had never seen before. It appeared to be two wings rising upward, with a circle in the middle, possibly a head. I was no expert, but I was pretty sure this was the necromancer rune. The cornerstone probably looked like regular brick to humans.
“This must be it!” Excited, I put my hand to the wall, just as I’d seen the elves doing a few seconds before. On the eve of my birthday, a thousand voices had entered my head. Since wearing Sylvia’s ring, those voices had been silent, but now they were back, and this time louder than before. Everything inside me arrested, the world went black, and I felt my body falling. John’s strong arms caught me, and the last thing I recalled before the world went black was the look of surprise on his face. After that, I knew nothing more.