Julia

  A moment passes. My eyes wander around the room, looking for changes. The lab remains just as before: black-topped benches and metal cabinets bearing a ponderous array of nuclear instrumentation modules, all lit by the press light I’ve placed on the counter. No Rumpelstiltskins.

  I take a deep breath and knock again, five times on the counter. When this, again, yields no apparent result, my trepidation gives way to annoyance.

  “Excuse me!” I shout, pulling out the mysterious business card and brandishing it in the air. “I happened to find this card for a gentleman who says that he can spin straw into gold and caesium into barium! I’m interested in having some transmutations done, and I was hoping to inquire about rates!”

  Only the silence answers me.

  I throw the card down on the counter with a soft slap and rest my chin on the knuckles of my left hand. “This is no way to run a business,” I mutter.

  All this way, I think. All of this hesitation. And for what? He’s not even here. And why would he be? No one else is.

  I scowl and take the card up in my free hand. “Maybe I have the wrong room?” I sigh.

  “Maybe you have the wrong life.”

  I stand suddenly rigid. The voice is a playful, taunting singsong—and it originates mere centimetres away from my ear.

  I spin around to face my interlocutor. He (for his appearance is just on the masculine side of androgynous) is tall and slight of build, with violet eyes, a tangled mess of fiery red hair and skin ranging in colour from silver to gold at the highlights. He is dressed in a forest-green tailcoat, his pointed ears (as well as just about everything else about him) instantly marking him as a member of “the Gentry”.

  I search in vain for words. My first inclination is to say “Rumpelstiltskin, I presume,” but I stay my tongue when I remember that that name almost got me killed the last time I said it to him. Instead, I finally settle on a flat: “Hello.”

  The gentleman grins; and then, in a single, fluid motion, he leaps up and lands with his hand planted on the countertop between his bent knees.

  “Julia Huiling Horschak-Chen!” he exclaims. “Born June 1st, 1988, Kitsilano, British Columbia, Canada. Honours BScs in physics and mathematics from the University of British Columbia, both awarded 2010; PhD in theoretical physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, awarded 2016. Thesis on the holographic duals of perturbed, quantum-corrected, n+1 dimensional black holes with radially asymmetric vector hair—absolutely scintillating stuff, I’m sure.”

  “…You seem to have me at a disadvantage,” I reply, drawing back very slightly. My eyes dart quickly and almost involuntarily toward the exit—far too far away, and with him in between. I force a smile.

  “Oh, I have you at several disadvantages,” he says with a laugh, crawling forward slightly. “Though I suspect you already know that. In any case, you need not read anything ominous into my knowledge of you; I simply read your CV in the department secretary’s office. I make a point of knowing all about customers before they walk in my door. And you’ve been walking in, hesitating, and leaving without summoning me so many times over the past few days that I was almost getting offended. I do hope I didn’t make too bad of an impression on you during our earliest encounter.”

  “You mean…when you tried to kill me,” I say levelly.

  “Hm.” He draws back a few blessed centimetres. “That was an overreaction on my part. I’m afraid I become a bit…upset…when people demean my profession through comparison with that silly ‘Rumpelstiltskin’ legend.”

  “You—” I cough. “You object to that whole ‘trafficking-in-firstborn-children’ thing, I suppose?”

  “On the contrary!” he says, leaping back down to the floor and standing up to face me. “I accept many forms of restitution, including children of all ages. What I object to is this notion that we ore-spinners are so easily swindled.” At this pronouncement, he smiles with teeth that I at first take to simply be gleamingly white before noticing that they’re actually made of diamond.

  “Well,” I say, straightening out. “I’m not here to swindle you.”

  “No,” he chuckles. “You came here to bonk me over the head with something heavy, didn’t you? Or did you suppose that I didn’t notice that rather large cast-iron utensil you had on your person when you came in yesterday? Where is it now, incidentally?”

  I feel my face burn with embarrassment. Carrying a frying pan with me into a potentially life-threatening situation was a damned silly thing to do, especially given that I have no actual evidence that cast iron is proof against the Gentry. And yet, carry it I did—more as a good luck charm than anything.

  “It’s in the bag,” I say. Lying doesn’t seem like a good policy at this juncture.

  “Ah!” the gentleman exclaims. With that, he reaches into my backpack on the counter, produces the skillet with a single, pale hand, and swishes it casually through the air like he’s taking a practice swing with a badminton racket. “You know,” he muses, “it’s remarkable that we Fairies managed to take over the world given that we can apparently be defeated using common household cooking implements.”

  He grins and proffers it back to me. I keep my expression studiously neutral as I accept it, and then set it down against the wall.

  The Fairy claps his hands together. “Now then! Since we’ve finally progressed beyond our stale, adversarial relationship, we can, as they say, ‘talk turkey’. [REDACTED] is my name, transmutation is my game, and my rates—”

  “Sorry, I didn’t catch that,” I interrupt. “Do you mind repeating it?”

  “Certainly not!” he replies crisply. “My name—that is to say, my true name, which gives its knower power over me—is: [REDACTED].”

  I can see the Fairy’s lips move as he speaks; I’m even cognizant of his voice reverberating in my ears. But somehow, the name leaves no impression on my brain. It is literally in one ear and out the other.

  “…You’ve enchanted it,” I realize.

  He shrugs. “I told you that you wouldn’t be swindling me.”

  “Well then, Mister…Not-Rumpelstiltskin,” I say, making a desperate grab to reassert some control over the situation. “I am—well—not actually interested in transmutation at this time. There’s…another matter on which I’d like to engage your services.”

  “Hm, yes, I thought there might be,” he says, taking a seat on the counter and steepling his fingers. “Fortunately, I’m something of a jack of all trades. Simply name the service and I’m sure we can come to an agreement—well…unless you’re poor.”

  I hesitate for a moment and then say: “I want information. About…physics. The Shift…Magic.”

  “Information!” he scoffs. “The currency of the old order!”

  “Then you can’t provide it for me.”

  “Oh, I can provide it for you,” says Not-Rumpelstiltskin, sliding again to his feet, “though it is rather beneath my dignity as an ore-spinner. But I don’t think that I should. Because in all honesty, I don’t think it’s what you really want.”

  My lips tighten into a grimace. “And what, pray tell, do you think that I really want?”

  He laughs. “I think that’s rather obvious, don’t you?”

  I cross my arms. “Not really.”

  “Well, tell me this, dear woman: what were you before the Shift? A mistress of arcane lore? A priestess of the Old Religion?”

  “A scientist.”

  “Same difference,” he scoffs. “The point is that you had knowledge—not information, but knowledge—about how the world worked at its most fundamental level. Knowledge beyond that of lesser mortals, and with it, perhaps, just a smidgeon of respect. But now look at you! Filthy, frost-bitten, half-starved, and scrounging for whatever packets of food everyone else neglected to steal!”

  I admit that his words hit uncomfortably close to home. But: “That’s just as true of anyone else right now.”

  “True,” he purrs. “But you were supposed to be better than them, weren’t you?”

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  I pause. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, come now! You never felt even a little bit of superiority? Not when you heard them rambling on with their obvious falsehoods while you knew better? Not when you knew that they knew that you knew all about stars and equations and the earth and the atoms and how to blow up a city by banging two pieces of metal together just right?”

  “That wasn’t really my field—”

  “That never made you feel like you were special?” he demands, ignoring my protest and leaning in toward me. “Like you were made for higher things? And such a feeling has absolutely nothing to do with why you are currently risking your life in an abandoned radioactivity lab seeking ‘information’ whilst everyone else of your city is simply trying to survive? You’ve simply never felt that way?”

  I hesitate—just an instant too long. “No. Never.”

  He chuckles. “Ah, your kind lie so readily! I do envy you that.” He turns away from me in a flourish of green coattails. “Very well. You shall have your information if this is what you want so very badly. Though I do, of course, charge a modest fee.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “How much?”

  “The standard rate,” he replies, looking over his shoulder, “is one year per question answered.”

  “…I don’t understand.”

  “It’s quite simple, really. Each question that you ask—which I will answer fully, truthfully, and to the best of my ability—will cost you one year off the span of your life.”

  I open my mouth. “…What?”

  He shrugs. “One question, one year. What could be simpler?”

  “No but—you mean like…indentured servitude, or…?”

  “Hardly! No, I shall simply take a year from you. A quantity of subjective time. I’m sure that it has resale value somewhere.”

  I wince. “Off the end of my life, I assume.”

  He shakes his head. “No, I have no idea when you’re going to die. I shall just…age you up for each answer.”

  He seems to register my horror at the prospect because he adds: “Really, I’m the one taking on the risk here. I mean, imagine if I give you an answer and it turns out you only have two days’ worth of life left in you—”

  “That’s not how life works! But also—no! No! Hard no! I can get help elsewhere!”

  “You can’t actually,” he replies with a condescending shake of his head. “There are few enough ore-spinners left in these sorrowful days that you will not find another. Certainly not in this country. I can all but assure you that I’m the best chance you will ever have. And I swear to that on my honour as a Fairy.”

  I study him for a long minute. “And I’m supposed to just…believe that.”

  “You can believe it or disbelieve it at your liberty,” he intones. “But do consider: not two weeks ago, this country was invaded by the Fairy Kingdom of Everglace. They hacked effortlessly through your troops, cut a swathe through your countryside, and took not a single prisoner along their short, victorious plunge towards your capital. They had both the ability and the inclination to kill every last one of you. And yet you’re still alive. Why? Because they accepted your surrender. That was an oath, and we Fairies take our oaths very seriously. Therefore, if I swear to you, upon my honour, that I am the only ore-spinner you’re ever likely to meet…then I am the only ore-spinner you are ever likely to meet. You will therefore either pay my price…or die as ignorant as the common rabble. It’s your choice.”

  I am at a loss for words. I don’t necessarily believe him, but I also don’t know where I’d find another “ore-spinner” if one existed. And yet…one year per question! You can make 1.3333 entire humans in a year!

  “I don’t suppose…the rate is negotiable?” I say, hating myself ever more with each word. “Maybe a bundle deal. Fifteen years for twenty questions, sort of thing?”

  Will I be post-menopausal in fifteen years? I find myself wondering. Will I have arthritis in my knees? Or some delightful new vision problem?

  “I mean, you could always try your luck with the frying pan,” laughs Not-Rumpelstiltskin. And then, after a pause: “Or—”

  I look up sharply at him.

  He shakes his head and waves his hand dismissively. “No, you’d never go for it. Never mind.”

  I am very well aware that I am being played. Which makes it all the worse when I find myself asking: “What?”

  “Never mind, never mind. It’s not important.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake, tell me what it is!”

  He smiles and gives me a look like a cat amongst the pigeons. “Well, there’s always the possibility of…apprenticeship.”

  *

  It takes me a second to satisfy myself that I heard him right. “Apprenticeship,” I echo. “As in—”

  “Apprenticeship as in apprenticeship,” Not-Rumpelstiltskin retorts. “Spirits, woman, I thought you were supposed to be clever! Apprenticeship as in: you would learn the tricks of the trade of ore-spinning. As in: you would be offered membership in our guild. As in: anything that I can teach you would be yours to learn; all of the information that you could ever want about magic and the crossroads between it and your science. I happen to know that my guild has a space that urgently must be filled, and you—with the appropriate training, of course—might just be the lucky one to do it.” He inclines his head toward me. “So, what do you say?”

  I credit myself with having enough savvy to answer correctly. “What’s the catch?”

  “Well, if you’re not interested—”

  “No,” I say, a little too hastily. “What does it entail? What would be involved?”

  His diamond grin widens. “Access to our citadel, of course—and, before that, an education with me as your humble master, graciously offering you my tutelage. And before that, we must venture into Faerie, you and I, and you can perhaps gain an appreciation for why an ore-spinner is needed. And before that—or perhaps during, I’m not particular…” He fixes me with a glance. “Ten questions.”

  “Questions?”

  “Yes. Ten of them. To judge your worthiness.” He shakes his head. “We can’t go around letting just anybody into our guild, of course.”

  “So, it’s a job interview basically.”

  The Fairy scoffs. “Hardly. Ore-spinning isn’t a job, it’s a calling. Learn that, or you won’t have a prayer of making it.”

  I scowl. To be fair, his attitude isn’t all that much different from that of some of the people I’d worked with in academia. But I still don’t appreciate the rudeness.

  “What sort of questions?” I ask, deciding to let the matter slide.

  “Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it?”

  I furrow my brow. “Sorry, I don’t—Wait, are you saying that I’m asking the questions?”

  “Well, how else am I to judge your fitness as a student if not by the questions that you ask? And what possible value could there be in asking you questions when you know so little?” He assumes a seat on the edge of the counter. “Honestly, you humans do everything so backwardly, it’s a wonder your civilization lasted as long as it did.”

  “And—I assume that the questions I’ve already asked don’t count,” I say, careful to make it sound like a statement.

  Not-Rumpelstiltskin thinks about it. “Nah. I’ll be nice. You haven’t agreed to anything yet. No questions count until you do.”

  I feel a private note of relief. “And if and when I do accept,” I say, “you will answer my questions?”

  “Fully, truthfully, and to the best of my ability,” he replies. “So long, of course, as none of them are any variation on ‘What sort of question am I supposed to ask’? Or, for that matter, ‘What is your real name’?”

  “I see.”

  He tilts his head. “Do we have a deal, then?”

  “Wait, just—you’re judging me on the quality of my questions, yes?”

  “Yes, as I have already said,” he retorts peevishly. “I do hope you’re less redundant with your real questions.”

  “Okay, but—what happens if you judge me unworthy?”

  “Ah yes, that.” He smiles and shrugs beatifically. “In such an unfortunate event, it would be necessary for me to seek restitution for my time and effort. You see, I’m taking rather a gamble on you. It would be a shame if it failed to pay dividends.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “You’d take years off my life, in other words.”

  “For the questions, yes. For the time and loss of any possible ore-spinning income—and for my expenses incurred along the way—I may find it necessary to claim other things.”

  “Other things.”

  “Oh, happy memories, love, sanity, eyes—that sort of thing. Best not to dwell on it.” He sits up. “Plus, of course, I would take back everything that you had learned.”

  I press my lips together into a line. I rather like having eyes, actually. My sanity, though, is apparently not in mint condition because, after a moment, I look up at him and speak in as businesslike of a tone as I can. “So, to summarize: I will be risking just about everything that I am, whereas you will be risking absolutely nothing. I will be judged, by you, according to criteria that you refuse to reveal, and if I fail, I won’t even get to keep the knowledge that I gained. Is that about the size of it?”

  “Well, you leave out the most critical part,” he says coyly, reclining on the counter. “If you succeed, you earn knowledge and power undreamt of. Surely that’s worth something.”

  “For which I have only your word to go on.”

  “My word as a Fairy, yes.”

  I straighten out my scarf, feel a dull throb of pain from a bruise that Lester’s corpse left on my neck, and look away. “I hope you can understand why that doesn’t exactly sound like a great deal from my perspective.”

  He chuckles and wags a finger. “Ah, but you must weigh it against the alternative, mustn’t you?”

  “Which is?”

  “Well, starvation, I should think,” he says, sitting up. “Maybe the cold. Maybe something else. You, uh, don’t exactly seem to be surviving by your wits alone.”

  I draw in a breath. “There are worse things than dying.”

  “Yes,” he agrees. “But that’s just another way of saying that there’s more to life than not dying. Dignity, for example—something of which you seem to be in critically short supply.” Not-Rumpelstiltskin rolls onto his knees and then leans toward me, fingers gripped on the edge of the counter. “That’s what you really want, isn’t it? Not information, not even knowledge, but the dignity of knowing that you know it. And that’s precisely what I’m offering: a chance at dignity.”

  He falls back onto his haunches and adjusts his lapels. “Now. I have laid out my terms and conditions; I have made my promises and I have made my threats. Trust me, or do not. Accept my offer, or do not. But whatever you decide, do it now.”

  In the end, there is no choice. Or rather, it’s already been made. I made it the moment I’d summoned him—perhaps even the moment I’d decided to set foot in the laboratory. And yet I feel my hand extending nonetheless.

  “I think we have a deal.”

  *

  My hand hovers in the air for a good thirty seconds as Not-Rumpelstiltskin looks at it in increasing bewilderment. “What are you doing with that?” he demands finally.

  “I’m…offering it to you,” I stammer. “Like. A handshake. It’s how humans seal deals. Well—in this part of the world, anyways.”

  “I see,” he intones. “Well, it’s hardly necessary now. You’ve already agreed to my terms. I’ll let you keep your hand; I suspect you’ll be needing it.”

  I let it sink to my side. Note to self: don’t use idioms around fairies.

  “Now then,” says Not-Rumpelstiltskin, easing back into a sitting position. “Let’s hear these ten questions of yours.”

  “What, right now?”

  Instantly, I realize my mistake. Shit.

  A broad smile spreads over Not-Rumpelstiltskin’s face. “Not necessarily! In fact, I would strongly advise you to pace yourself. Take time and care in formulating your questions, and never let them slip away idly, especially not when someone manages to discombobulate or disorient you! Or you’ll soon find yourself without any—and where would we be then?”

  I glare. I’m angry at him, of course, but I’m angrier at myself for falling for such a cheap trick. And all in less than a minute!

  “I trust that this answer satisfactorily answered your question?” he asks, leaning in towards me.

  It takes me several seconds before I can bring myself to say anything at all. “Yes.”

  “Splendid!” he replies. “One down; nine to go.”