Sometimes contemplated the idea. ‘Hmm, yes, perhaps there is a counter-spell on the scroll. If it worked for whoever used it to take away the day, perhaps it could work for one of us too. Like I said, the old magic was here before, so if we found some of it, it’s possible we could still use it. I’m not sure, though.’
Willow had to at least try. It was worth trying to summon the spell scroll in any case. She closed her eyes and raised her hand to the sky. All she had to do was try to find it. It was a lost spell after all. She concentrated hard. But it would not come. It was as if somehow something was blocking her from getting it.
‘It’s no good – I feel it, but it won’t come.’
Sometimes gasped, perhaps as if he too realised something at the same time she did.
She opened her eyes and whispered, ‘Practical makes perfect.’
Had it been Moreg’s plan all along?
‘Pardon?’ asked Feathering.
Sometimes’s eyes went blank and he keeled over.
Willow explained. ‘I think I know which fortress the memory flower was referring to. I tried to summon the spell but I couldn’t. It was like something was blocking me, and I think I know why. It’s because the spell is in the one place in all of Starfell that can’t be penetrated with magic: Wolkana. The monastery of the Brothers of Wol. It’s a fortress. And the only way a witch can get inside is—’
‘If she gets captured,’ said Sometimes, sitting up. His eyes were going blue once more and he sounded awed. ‘Moreg meant to be! It was part of her plan!’
‘Practical makes perfect,’ repeated Willow. ‘It makes sense – she wanted them to take her so she could get inside!’
‘But how does that help us?’ asked Feathering. ‘If we can’t get inside? Can a dragon?’
Sometimes shook his head. ‘I think Wolkana is sealed off from all magical creatures.’
Willow blinked. ‘Maybe not.’ Something had just occurred to her.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Sometimes.
She grinned at them. ‘Moreg said whenever she’s lost she looks inside her pantry and that’s where she finds the answers …’
They all looked blank, so she continued. ‘Moreg’s cloak – which she was wearing when they took her – it’s a portal to the pantry in her home. If we can get inside that pantry, we can get to her!’
‘Brilliant, absolutely brilliant,’ said Nolin Sometimes.
‘So can you show us the way to Moreg’s house?’ Willow asked Sometimes.
‘Hmm, I was afraid you were going to say that,’ said Sometimes, before he keeled over backwards again.
Willow fished the StoryPass out of her pocket. The needle was currently aimed at ‘Turning Point’. It then swung around to point to ‘One Might Have Suspected as Such’, and she sighed.
‘I wish he’d stop that,’ said Feathering. ‘This is no time to fall apart.’
Willow looked from the StoryPass to Nolin Sometimes’s still form, then said, ‘I think that’s the problem, you see …’
‘None of us know where it is,’ agreed Sometimes, sitting up and rubbing his head.
‘How is that possible?’ asked Feathering, incredulous.
Willow stared. ‘Well, she is Moreg Vaine, you know?’
The dragon just stared. ‘Oh, yes, quite.’
‘She’s the most powerful witch in Starfell. There are rumours about where she lives …’
‘Some say it’s in the Mists of Mitlaire, or the Lake of the Undead,’ agreed Willow.
‘But the truth is, no one really knows,’ continued Sometimes. ‘And she’s fiercely secretive; it’s not like she has friends we can just go and ask—’ He turned to look at Willow, then his eyes went pale and white.
‘Except, what if she does?’ Willow finished for him, guessing he’d just seen her memory of when Moreg had first come to her cottage. ‘Moreg told me that long ago she and my mother were friends. That they grew up together in Ditchwater … What if my mum knows where she lives?’
Sometimes started muttering to himself. ‘I’ll just have to let Harold know that I might be gone for a while. He’s capable of feeding himself … and I doubt he’d be up for the journey … anyway. It’s Sunday night, so the fair is probably at the Midnight Market now …’ Sometimes turned to Willow. ‘Looks like we’re going to have to go to the Travelling Fortune Fair,’ he said.
Willow didn’t bother asking him how he knew where her mother was or what the next stop on the travelling fair was likely to be – he must have read her memories. Her stomach plummeted in sudden fear at the thought of facing her family and having to explain why she’d lied … and why she was now in the company of a dragon and a forgotten teller. ‘I was afraid you were going to say that.’
13
The Midnight Market
Under cover of darkness Feathering set Willow and her friends down in a wooded valley close to the Midnight Market, which was one of the stops of the Travelling Fortune Fair. Landing in a valley a little away from the market had been Willow’s idea as she’d pictured the screams of terror that arriving in the centre of the fair on a dragon may have caused.
Admittedly, for one glorious second, she had also pictured the look on Camille and Juniper’s shocked faces when they saw her on the back of the dragon … But then she had decided, somewhat regretfully, that doing so wouldn’t help their ultimate cause.
‘I’ll wait here for your return,’ said Feathering.
‘Me too,’ said Oswin, using a paw to cover a yawn, and turning over inside the hairy carpetbag.
Willow shot him A Look, then picked up the hairy bag, and he grumbled, ‘Why does ’e get to stay?’
‘Because Feathering is a dragon – and therefore really hard to disguise. You, however, are not. You’re coming with me.’
There was a harrumph, but he agreed. Mainly because she promised him something to eat along the way.
Hairy bag in hand, Willow and Sometimes followed the sound of people’s voices, the scent of wood fires and the twinkling lights until they’d found the Midnight Market.
String lights cast their amber beams on tents of all shapes, sizes and colours. People weaved in and out, their arms filled with goods they’d bought or traded. Many of the goods looked dangerous, or deadly … the sort of thing you might expect only to get at midnight … There were curly wots’ tails, which, if slipped inside a bed, found their way on to a person’s neck and began to strangle them, and glass flowers that had a strange sweet scent that could put someone into an enchanted sleep forevermore.
Willow passed two women who were having a heated argument. ‘I don’t know what you’re playing at, Gardelia, I never took your money. Even if I can’t recall right now what I did last Tuesday, that doesn’t mean I took your purse …’
‘Yes it does!’ screeched the other woman, red in the face. ‘I saw you eyeing it on Monday – and it’s now missing, so you must have!’
Near to one of the bigger tents a wizard with purple dreadlocks, wearing multi-coloured trousers was intoning, ‘Heva spice, heva spice! Throw it at your enemies, blast them off their feet!’