Lachlan frowned, looking uncomfortable, I thought but Bran only shrugged.
“The last time I saw Lachlan in the Realm, before my family went into hiding, he was being attacked by an ogre. I drew my sword and fought it before it could kill him.”
“What, an actual ogre?” I exclaimed. “What do they even look like?”
“Pray you never find out,” Lachlan said darkly. “They are denizens of the Winter Court and one reason the High Sidhe of the Summer Court despise those of us from the Dark Lands.”
“Ogres aren’t going to win any beauty contests,” Bran said frankly. “But at least this one only had two heads.”
“Wait—only two?” I asked. “How many can they have?”
Bran shrugged. “Up to twenty, I believe, in the larger varieties. There’s a legend about an especially huge ogre with twenty heads who captured twenty human princesses and forced them each to rub one of his heads every night before he fell asleep.”
“Ugh!” I made a face. “Poor princesses!”
“Any female captured by an ogre is to be pitied,” Lachlan said in a low voice. For some reason he was looking down at his hands as he spoke. “They are creatures of darkness—unrelentingly evil and abusive.”
I didn’t know why, but what he said touched me—it almost sounded like he was speaking from personal experience. Had someone he loved been captured that way?
“Well, this one certainly shouldn’t be bothering anyone ever again. I wounded it badly—hopefully it died after it crawled off.” Bran frowned at his friend. “I still don’t understand why you didn’t kill that ogre yourself, you know. Your magic is certainly powerful enough. Did it catch you off guard?”
“Something like that.” Lachlan was still looking at his hands. “I was…embarrassed that it bested me so easily,” he said. “Which was one reason I left before you could declare saving my life a gift.”
“I wouldn’t have done that anyway,” Bran said calmly. “I knew that with a life-debt between us, I could call you to me. I was hoping when I did, our friendship could be healed.”
“And so it was.” Lachlan looked up at last, the familiar mocking half-smile on his face. “I suppose you could say that our lady healed it and brought us back together.” He nodded at me.
“Yes, she did.” Bran smiled at me and I smiled back at both of them.
“I’m glad I was able to.”
I took both their hands and squeezed again—but I had a feeling that there was more to Lachlan’s story. Something he didn’t want to tell either me or Bran. As Avery would have said, I smell a secret. But since Lachlan clearly didn’t want to talk about it, I decided to wait and let him tell us in his own time.
“How will the pendant you made out of your emerald and Bran’s ring help me focus my power?” I asked, changing the subject.
“It’s going to help you feel your power instead of just doing things by accident. Have you ever felt anything when you did magic in the past?” Lachlan asked.
I frowned, trying to remember.
“Once or twice I thought I felt a kind of tingling,” I admitted. “Could that have been it?”
Lachlan nodded.
“Yes. That’s your connection to the Realm that you’re feeling—because you’re drawing your power from there. If you ever went through the Obsidian Portal and entered the Realm, you’d feel it much more. But here, in the human world, it’s distant and somewhat diffused.”
“Would my power be greater than it is here if I went to the Realm?” I asked him. “Not that I want to go—I really don’t—I’m just curious.”
“Greater than it already is?” Bran raised his eyebrows. “Nature save us!”
But Lachlan nodded thoughtfully.
“In all probability, yes. But let’s worry about controlling what you have first before we think about increasing it tenfold. Now, as I told you before, the nature of Fae magic is transactional. Which means, you have to pay for what you take—which is White Magic—or else pass the payment off into the natural world.”
“Which is Grey Magic,” Bran said. He frowned. “It’s what most of the High Sidhe at Court do—and it’s also what Morganna and her friends do.”
“I don’t understand the difference,” I said. “How do you ‘pay’ for your magic?”
“With pain,” Lachlan said simply. “Or if you don’t want to take the pain, you can allow the magic to drain your powers, leaving you in a weakened state for the next hour or day or however long it takes to recoup your losses, which will be proportional to how big the spell you cast was.” He frowned. “Though you’re not really casting spells like the Sisters do with symbols and charms—it’s more like you’re drawing on a supply of magic and pushing it out into the world, making it do what you want.”
“Like healing Spike or turning cigarette butts into a coin or lifting the curse of addiction from my mom?” I asked.
Lachlan nodded.
“Exactly. And you have to pay every time. Unless you want to do Grey Magic and push the cost off onto the Natural World.”
“What does that mean, though?” I frowned.
“The Natural World means the forest and trees and animals that are wild around us,” Bran explained. “So if you work a spell and don’t pay the cost yourself, something in the Natural World will pay it for you.”
“Somewhere a flower will wilt or a squirrel or some other small creature may lose its life,” Lachlan explained. “Or, if you use a great deal of power, you might kill something bigger. An ancient oak tree that’s been alive for centuries might wither and die.”
“But that’s awful!” I exclaimed. “That’s no better than Morganna and the other Fae girls using live butterflies as hair ornaments!”
“They were probably using the butterflies’ own life force in the spell that fixed them in place,” Bran said, nodding. “Another example of Grey Magic—they didn’t have to feel the pain of the small death they were causing to feed their vanity.”
“That’s horrible,” I said. “How can anyone do that?” Now that I knew how Fae magic worked, I disliked Morganna and her crew even more. “Does everyone in the Realm do that?”
“My family never did,” Bran said. “The High Sidhe of the Summer Court aren’t supposed to—Queen Elia has forbidden anything but White Magic in her court.”
“They aren’t supposed to,” Lachlan said. “But they still do. One way I earned my gold in the Realm was to heal the natural things the High Sidhe had harmed with their careless Grey Magic. Healing doesn’t cost as much as other forms of magic, but it’s time consuming and painful,” he added.
“How did I pay for healing Spike?” I asked, frowning. “I don’t remember feeling any pain.”
“Not all pain is physical,” Bran pointed out. “You healed him with your emotional pain, I believe. You were very upset, as I recall.”
“Oh…” I nodded, remembering how I had cried my heart out over the little chimeling. “That makes sense.” I looked at Lachlan. “So White Magic is when you pay for your magic and Grey Magic is when you make someone or something else pay. Is there such a thing as Black Magic?”