Present day
I frowned as I looked in the mirror. That was…odd. For several days now, I’d felt better than normal, which seemed particularly strange for winter months when normally my aged joints were less happy with me. But it wasn’t just that I was standing up straighter or that my joints hurt less. I could swear that some strands of my hair, which had been white for decades, were no longer white. That…shouldn’t be possible, should it?
It was almost like – but no. Elf magic hadn’t been restored. Nothing we’d done had worked, and I would know if it had. I mean, I was the only one trying anymore, and I hadn’t done anything recently, so…yeah. That was impossible.
Feeling a bit bewildered, I went to the shop and opened up for the day, checking on my custom orders and the repair pieces. They were all ready to go whenever the customers arrived.
To my surprise, my first customer of the day was the human boy who’d come in several months ago. He’d already picked up his order a couple of weeks later, but the shop had been busy that day due to the holidays and apart from noticing that he seemed happy with the result, I hadn’t gotten to speak to him.
Today, the boy seemed almost excited. He came over to the counter and looked at me expectantly.
“Hello again,” I told him, a little amused at his obvious excitement. “What can I help you with today?”
His expression fell a bit. “Oh, I thought…. Um, I actually didn’t come here to buy something today, I came to tell you something.”
Tell me something? We didn’t know each other well enough to share life events or whatever. We’d only talked the one day when I’d told him stories about elves.
But his next words made me pause and stare at him.
“I wanted to let you know that elf magic has been reconnected! Not to the crown,” he added swiftly, “but a book. In Rosen Library. It, uh, seemed better that way – the librarians look after all the books and keep the place safe, so no one would ever be able to harm it even if they tried. Plus there are what, several million books there? Even if someone realized that a book there was what protects elves, they wouldn’t know which one, and the librarians wouldn’t let anyone destroy one or steal it, so I think elves are safe now.” He looked at me anxiously. “Or did it not work? I’d have thought you’d have started to feel the effects by now, but maybe it takes longer.” He frowned to himself.
I stared at him. I might not have believed him if I hadn’t started to wonder over the past few days, but…was it possible? And if so, how?
“You reconnected the magic?” I asked softly. “How?”
“Ah, oh – well, can we just say that someone did, and they want to be anonymous?” The boy seemed nervous. “I can’t really explain all the details, it’s not really mine to tell, but, uh, can we just go with it being fixed and ignore the how?”
When I still stared at him in shock, he rushed to continue. “There are some librarians there that might be able to help if anything like that happens again, because they know – only the three of them, in the oldest part of the library? They know what happened, all of it. But they didn’t think it would break again, so, um, you should be good now.”
A book. In the most protected library in the world. I…couldn’t disagree that if elven magic were linked to anything, that would be the safest thing. And it almost was better if none of us knew which book, because then it could never be placed in danger.
“I checked with the librarians many times over the years,” I murmured, “and they were never able to help.”
He shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know why – but maybe you didn’t talk to the right ones? These ones were helpful. Um, well, they didn’t fix it themselves, but they know how to now so there’s that. But you believe me?” He looked at me hopefully.
“Does it matter?” I asked with a slightly incredulous laugh. “In a few years, you’ll be proven right or wrong either way, but if I had to guess – I think I do, actually. Weird as it is. I’ve been searching for an answer for almost 200 years and somehow you found one in months. But I can’t deny that I’ve started feeling better lately and I can’t help but think that might have to do with the magic being reconnected.”
He beamed happily. “Oh, I’m glad it worked! I wasn’t entirely sure it would, but that’s a relief. If anything goes wrong again, you still have my number? Or you can talk to the librarians, they would know what to do. I’m pretty sure it won’t, but just in case.”
He wasn’t able to stay long – he had something to do back at home, apparently – but as he left I couldn’t help by shake my head.
I didn’t know if this boy had fixed it somehow himself – which I didn’t see how, he was human – or if he just knew someone who’d been able to fix it, but whatever he’d done, in barely a blink of time he’d somehow found an answer that I had been grasping at for years without success.
I wasn’t about to begrudge him that, though. I didn’t care who saved my people, just that they were saved. If he was right, as the change in my body was starting to tell me, I couldn’t help but think that yes, elves had a future again. Maybe it would never be the one I had once hoped for, but the doom had been removed and for the first time in over 180 years, I could breathe deeply, easily, without a burden that had been haunting my every waking moment.
We were going to be okay. How, I wasn’t still entirely sure, but I would accept this miracle whole-heartedly. I almost laughed to myself as I realized that after all these years, I still didn’t know the answer – but it didn’t matter anymore. Salvation hadn’t come at my hand, or any of those who had helped me over the years, but it had still come. That was all that mattered.
“You hear that, Nicole? Charles? Ophelia?” Them and all the others who’d left me alone with this task. “It’s actually done. After all this time…it’s actually fixed.”
Relief. Hope. I could start to live again. It wouldn’t be picking up the same life as before all of this had happened – too much had changed since then – but still, maybe I had more than a few years. Maybe there was still time for me to live a full life that didn’t involve running around chasing after a solution I had never been able to find.
I spent the rest of the day in a remarkably good mood, dealing with my customers and calling the two people still alive who knew the truth about the crown. They were both elated, understandably, and while they were perhaps more confused about how it came to be and wanted some answers, they were, like me, willing to accept this miracle and take advantage of the second chance we’d been given.
Other elves might never know the truth. Maybe eventually I would tell them, make it public knowledge about what happened while leaving out the part about how it had gotten resolved, but maybe not. Maybe it was best to just let my people never realize how fragile our existence could be.
Instead, they would start living longer lives again, and in time, maybe we could regain some of our former strength in battle. Maybe never all of it – I had no idea if the magic was fully restored or if it had been fading over the past 180 years as well, but it was enough. Whatever was restored, was enough to bring my people back from the brink of death, of that I was sure.
I carefully removed the customer card for the human boy and decided to store it someplace safe, so like he said, just in case, I would have a way to contact him again. Then I looked at the crown in the cabinet behind me, thoughtfully.
It was just a relic now. A beautiful, expensive one, but still just a relic. No longer was it a piece that connected my people to their magic and offered them a future.
And somehow, I wanted to do something for that boy. He might not have been the one to restore the magic, but he’d been the one who’d gotten it restored – he’d known the right people to talk to, that was clear. When I’d told him the story, I’d just intended for it to be an entertaining bit for a customer, but he’d taken it and actually changed our future. I wanted to thank him, and somehow…somehow it seemed fitting that the crown was the method to do that. It was the original link to our magic and the reason all of this had started. Sure, it was my family’s last heirloom, but did I care? Not one bit. I didn’t love any of my family, just my people, and the boy had saved my people.
It felt like woefully inadequate thanks, actually, since at the end of the day it was just stuff. But it was the best thing I could offer.
Carefully, I removed it from the display case and found a box to place it in, addressing it before setting it aside to mail later. Or maybe I should just run it by his house – I had his address, that would probably be safer to drop it off myself, right?
It was the end of the day, and I was about to close up shop and take the box with me when one last customer entered.
“I’m about to close,” I announced automatically, before looking up and freezing in my tracks.
Just inside the doorway, with a tentative smile on her face, was my old friend. My fairy friend back from my brawler’s days.
“Hello, Kaleen,” she said softly. “Have time for a cup of tea?”
I’d once told her I never wanted to see her again, but now, as she stood in my shop looking a little uncertain of my answer, I just felt overwhelmed with joy and relief.
“For you? Always.”
Today I’d found out that my people were saved and I had a second chance at life, and now my old friend appeared and I might have a second chance with her, too.
Today was a very good day.
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