Free Magic Under Stone by Jaclyn Dolamore

on her lap a doll made of cloth scraps and buttons. Keyelle poured hot water into a teapot, stirring up a memory of Hami’s coffeepot.
    “You look sad, Ifra,” Etana said, sitting across from him.
    “I’m fine.”
    Etana smiled faintly. “That’s what I say when I’m not fine at all.” She hesitated. “If you don’t mind me asking ... I know jinn aren’t supposed to age, but are you as young as you look?”
    “We do age,” he replied. “And yes. I am as young as I look. We only age while we’re actively granting wishes. Our bodies might live a very long while, but we will only experience a normal life span.”
    “In captivity?”
    “Well, we hope to die free. If we’re lucky.”
    “I don’t know much about jinn,” Keyelle said. “Do you have parents?”
    “Of course.”
    “And where do they live?”
    “My mother is a servant in a wealthy man’s house.”
    “Is she free?”
    “No. The wealthy man is my father.” He didn’t talk about this much. “I wasn’t raised by her, of course. Free jinn always take in young jinn whose parents aren’t free. But she wrote me many letters.” He realized how strange this must all sound to a family like this, where children never had to be taken from their parents. “There are a lot of myths about jinn. It’s part of the magic—oncepeople make wishes, they forget what they wished and how it worked. It would be chaos if people were too informed. Not that we’re capable of some of the great feats we’ve been credited with in tales either. We can only manipulate the world as it is. We can’t remake it.”
    “But you can find the missing fairy prince?”
    “I can, although he does have a confusing spirit. King Luka told me his spirit is trapped in a clockwork body, and I can pick up the trail of that spirit, but it’s weak.”
    Etana looked alarmed. “Weak? Why?”
    “I don’t really know. Maybe his tether on the world is weak. But then I sense a connection between him and King Luka. The king said it must be because he died there, and it wasn’t a proper death, but ... it’s unusual.”
    Keyelle sat straighter in her chair, almost rising. “That would certainly fit the suspicions of the other Green Hoods. There have always been rumors that the king did something to Erris—that he didn’t die properly.”
    “Green Hoods?”
    Keyelle motioned to a pair of green capes hanging by the door. “That’s what we call ourselves. Supporters of the Tanharrows.”
    “I saw lots of people wearing green capes in the capital,” Ifra said. “Are they all Green Hoods?”
    “No,” Keyelle said. “Most people own a green cape, but that doesn’t make them a Green Hood. Hundreds of years ago, in the troubled times in the old country when the human king’s men were after us, a group called the Green Hoods used to protect the people. We’ve taken cues from those stories, using ballads for code and such. We see a parallel with those times and now, only it’s our own king causing the trouble.”
    Ifra glanced at the green capes once more, intrigued by the idea of rebellion. If only his people had such a concrete enemy to rebel against. At the same time, he thought of King Luka and felt a curious sense of pity for the man who looked so frail beneath his glamour.
    “I can’t alert anyone of my mission,” Ifra said. “It’s part of the magic of the wish. I’ve been wiping the memories of everyone I pass. But I’m not going to wipe all of yours. You’ll remember me, even if you don’t remember exactly why I was here. I’ll see what I can do.”

Chapter 8
    Weeks passed, and we settled comfortably into our new lives. I helped Celestina pick apples and turn the uglier ones into pies and jars of apple butter. Erris couldn’t bear the sweet comforting smell, but he was happier outside anyway, roaming the forest hour upon hour, or sitting with Violet on the lawn, telling her stories of the fairy kingdom. Sometimes I sat to listen, but mostly jealousy crawled