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him.
    â€œâ€˜Tam Lin.’ The fairies have to sacrifice one of their own to hell every seven years. ‘Tiend to hell.’ Tam Lin was a prince who wascaptured by the Fairy Queen.”
    Bee looked around the room for the first time. The walls glowed yellow green, like a bruise. Everything was made of steel.
    â€œâ€˜Tiend to hell,’” she said, looking into his eyes. “They sacrificed Tam Lin? Because he was fair? They wanted his eyes?”
    â€œIt’s just an old ballad,” the boy said.
    â€œBut what if I’m the tiend to hell? What if I’m the sacrifice?” Her eyes seemed to flare like candles about to go out. “What if this is hell?” she asked him. “Because I want to go back. To the other place, the place I belong.”
    â€œMaybe you’ve done the work you were supposed to do and the sacrifice is over,” he said. “Maybe if someone loves you enough to let go of you, then you can go back.”

13
The Journey
    S he woke and looked at the clock. It was three in the morning, the time when, she’d heard, people most often die, the time for spells.
    Uranun caripe baglen ol
    Gemeganza de-noan chiis gosaa
    Zamicmage oleo lag-sapah arphe
    Oresa ethamz taa tabegisoroch
    Resa ethamz taa tabesgisoroch
    Esa ethamz taa tabegisoroch
    Zodinu ar zurah paremu
    Zodimibe papnorge maninua
    Zonac dodsih hoxmarch train
    Amonons pare das niis kures
    She bit down on her lip and ripped the tube from her arm, then pressed some gauze to stanch the blood. Surprisingly, she felt no pain.
    She was still wearing the gown. It was a sickly green color and open in the back, exposing her rear end, so she took it off and went naked. It didn’t matter. No one could see her. The invisibility spell had worked. It was easier not to make the unsightly gowninvisible along with the rest of her, anyway.
    She left the hospital.
    She stood on the sidewalk in front of Cedars-Sinai. The sky was hazy with night fog. Not much traffic. Not much breeze, but she lifted her arms and closed her eyes. Now it was time for the second spell.
    Â 
    The city stretched below her, different than she had ever seen it. Beautiful, really. A grid of lights giving off a phosphorescent glow.
    She flew north toward the shimmering hills, then east above Sunset. From this high up the billboards looked different, even huger. Giant boys and girls in designer sunglasses weren’t just reminding her she could never be like them; now they were threatening to eat her alive. But they were so outrageously pretty, she wasn’t sure she’dmind. She passed the fancy shops, the hotels, the record store, the restaurants, the nightclubs. Deena used to hang out here when she was a kid. A hippie born a little too late, coming of age when the kids were shaving their hair off and wearing swastikas instead of peace signs. Luckily, there were still remnants of an earlier time then; Deena had told Bee about having sprout sandwiches and hibiscus tea at a ramshackle place called the Source, seeing Cat Stevens browsing at Tower Records and Joni Mitchell holding court at the Rainbow. Now the Source was some cantina for hipsters, Cat Stevens was a Muslim named Yusef and Joni never left her house in Bel Air. Bee thought, What a strange place this is. If you made up a city like this, no one would have believed you. It seemed more like myth than reality—awhole metropolis built up around an industry that recorded dreams on giant screens, a city bordered by an ocean and a desert and snowcapped mountains. And right through the middle of the urban sprawl were canyons full of flowers, wild animals and secrets.
    The French chateau on the corner was hidden behind a hedge, but you could see the peaked roof, especially from above. She landed softly and walked down the steep tiled driveway and entered, took the elevator to the lobby. No one stopped her—there were a few employees behind the desk—so the invisibility