Trees formed a lush tunnel at the foot of the hillside. Their branches grew into one another as if the trees had been touching each other their entire lives.

It was a beautiful sight. You only saw such majestic, dense evergreen woods in fairy tales and pre-industrial legends. Everything about it was beautiful. The light warming my skin, the silence refreshing my ears, the lush colors pleasing my eyes, the rose scents soothing my nose. Everything.

I couldn't stop myself from walking through the tunnel. It was too enchanting. As an urban kid, I lacked experience with forests so big you got lost there. I played hide-and-seek in parks but it was nothing compared to that. This felt like the dusky forest where staying too long meant staying forever.

No birds chirped here. Instead of raccoons and squirrels, I saw nymphs and dryads playing in the treetops. Instead of white-tailed deer, this one had unicorns in it. Oh, yeah, I think I already told you about my "princess phase" where I wanted a fairy godmother. I also wanted a unicorn back then. Of course, all that glitters is not gold and there were rules for walking through Fairyland. Rules like "don't eat anything", "don't accept gifts", and "don't stay too long if you don't want to age for a thousand years". Whatever I was gonna do here, I had to do it quick. I had to resist this place's allure.

At the end of the trail waited a lake without borders. It was a calm lake full of glittering water with a weeping willow stroking its surface from the shore like a favorite pet.

Darcy stood under the willow, dressed in the same blue robe with white sleeves and the same wooden staff she held when I first met her. She had her feet roughly shoulder-width apart and her mouth drawn in a thin-lipped, impassive line under her owl mask.

While Darcy's blue robe was a robe first and foremost, it wouldn't look out of place on a prom or another formal event. Its bottom portion didn't reach as far as most robes did, making it look more like the skirt portion of a stereotypical dress. She wasn't my type, but if she was a few years younger, I wouldn't have minded asking her out for homecoming. The blue bracelet and the red hair band added to the air of elegance while the white parts formed a nice contrast against her dark skin. Only the staff did remind me that this was, in fact, a magical robe.

"You're two minutes late," she said.

"So?"

"You could at least be running to show that you're worried. And your dress still looks terrible. No need to be so edgy."

"Thanks, yours looks pretty, too," I said. "Isn't this the Seelie Kingdom? You said fairies can be dangerous."

"Yes and yes, but we have been kindly granted hospitality by the Lady of the Lake. She was the fairy who raised Lancelot and gave King Arthur his Excalibur. She is an ally to Western supernatural societies. Each time a new practitioner gets Initiated, they are allowed passage to our Tower in Salem and back for the ritual. The distance will be much shorter than it would have been on Earth."

"And you can't use your extradimensional shortcuts for your thin-spread Hunters?"

"The Lady only allows them for formal occasions, like the Initiation of a new practitioner. Her paths follow ley lines that can be detected. Our enemies have allies in Seelie, too. If we stay here for too long, they will find us. Show me what you can do with a pen and I will fly you to the Thaumaturgic Council's Tower."

I put out the pen and called Siris next to me. He was sleepy, that adorable little fuzzball. Aw. Who would dare to disturb his rest? I would. Clutching my mother's necklace, I focused and formed the order in my mind. "Move!"

Siris jumped to his feet as if cold water had forced him to. Together, we formed an aether cloud to catch the pen I released into the gentle breeze.

I closed my eyes, and stopped looking at the pen. I had to feel its distance. Eight feet, nine feet, ten. My cloud became thinner and thinner the farther the pen moved away, but it was still there.

I didn't nearly make it to forty feet back on Earth. However, this Seelie Kingdom was brimming with ambient aether.

I breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth. The warm summer air nourished me like a plant. With all this energy, I maintained my magical cloud far longer.

Nineteen feet, twenty feet, twenty-one feet.

My cloud scattered and my head ached from the excess aether I had drawn in.

Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one – nothing.

Try again.

Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two – nothing.

Try again.

Try again.

Try again.

That was my rhythm, my mantra, my incantation for the remaining day. I repeated it until Siris lay on his back in the grass, gasping for air.

Visitors more colorful than the rainbow emerged from the surrounding shrubs. Green dryads, blue nymphs, silver unicorns, black Church Grim, and brown dwarves formed a menagerie of spectators curious about our practice.

I froze. I was being watched. Watched by Otherworlders who had come for the life energy I spilled. Were those the enemies Darcy warned me of?

"Calm," Siris said and gasped, "down."

"There are Otherworlders here!"

"I'm an Otherworlder, too, babe. Not all of us are out to eat you. You spilled some magic and now they're curious. You don't need to do anything unless they do something first."

I tried my best not to panic. So long as Darcy was here, there was no reason to.

Was it true what they said? That the Seelie creatures were the good ones and the Unseelies the bad ones? Or did the creatures in the basement only attack because they were likely guards?

The creatures walked away.

I needed to try something else. Something more energy efficient that didn't attract attention. Something like shaping.

I enwrapped the pen in another cloud of life energy. I didn't push it away. I kept it close to my heart and flicked my wrist like a magician holding a wand. The aether cloud rippled into a swirling vortex. In this whirlpool of mist, the feather spun around its axis with the ease and elegance of a ballerina during her pirouette.

One rotation, two, three, four, five, six.

It was so effortless. I did it as often as I wanted. I didn't practice my shaping as much as my range or my power, but this place of life and energy revealed my skills and weaknesses in their rawest form.

Darcy showed the results on her app. F for range, D for power, and C for shaping.

Did this have anything to do with my personality? I mean, I sucked at spatial thinking or visualizing distances, not to mention that I kinda lacked the courage to go "all out". But I loved drawing and I had an eye for line-work which might have made the fine detail work easier for me. Just a theory.

"Satisfied?" Darcy asked.

"Not sure," I said. "Flipping a pen won't help me to shoot fireballs in the faces of uglies trying to eat me."

"You do need to rub some molecules against each other to make a lightning bolt or a fireball," Darcy said. "But if the distance doesn't work, maybe elemental magic isn't right for you. You can try transfiguration."

"You mean I can turn monsters into frogs?"

"No, that's too complicated. Maybe you can make potions that heal you and others by transfigurating your body to a healthier state."

"I'd rather have something that makes healing unnecessary. Something that kills the creepies before they can kill me."

"The Veil already protects you," Darcy said. "As do our people. It is best to pick a discipline at which you are better than your peers while the others cover for your weaknesses."

"Will these people be at my college though?" Marissa said. "You said you're Hunter logistics aren't reliable. Your brother's attending a demon nest with a certain Klaus Kringle in it, just saying."

"Trust me, we argued about this during the weekend 'til the crows came home. He won't get himself killed as long as I'm here. If you try to help before you can help yourself, you can help no-one."

I pouted. "How long 'til I can get going then?"

"We can't stay in the Otherworld for long without cracking, so this will be the last question I answer. Give it until Halloween. Otherworlders get crazy around that season and even the Wild Hunt might happen there. It'll be hard to even touch them before then."

Halloween was in about two months and so far, all I could do were simple levitation spells. I didn't argue. "You said you wanted to fly us?"

"Yes. I don't have the life energy to levitate two people, but there's a ley line over there."

She pointed at a massive boulder looming at a lake's shore. A trail of white mist streamed out of it, arching into the Seelie Kingdom's horizon like a rainbow over the lake.

We walked closer to the boulder. No-one knew where aether came from. It was so similar yet different to the life energy we breathe in our souls. Aristotle thought aether came from beyond the terrestrial sphere, but even he had no idea how vast the non-magical universe was.

Places of power and the ley lines between them might have been the source. This bridge of power that arched from the boulder into the sky looked nothing short of breathtaking.

Darcy mounted her staff at the bottom of the rock. She told me to grab her by the shoulders while she clutched onto the tip of her staff. There wasn't much room at its butt end and I worried I'd slide down.

I gulped. Since I was a child, I had dreamed of flying on a broomstick and playing Quidditch. But broom or staff riding was like riding a horse; it seemed awesome, but once you climbed the horse, the horse could feel your fear.

I had many fears. Fears of flying and fears of the looming Halloween deadline. They evaporated once we took off.