Must Be Magic by Lani Aames

smashed or out of alignment.
And everything he said meshed with what she knew about Myghal—little as it was.
    Now, she started to worry about
Myghal. If the Faerie King commanded they stop Myghal at all cost, and if the
Troll had no honor, this Tredje might kill Myghal.
    He must have read the concern on
her face because he smiled a little. “Tredje is too lazy to expend the energy
to hurt the Prince and too vain to think his plan of holding him captive will
fail. I can distract Tredje, but you’ll have to free the Prince. The Troll
mustn’t know I’ve helped the Prince or I would do it myself. The Gnomes’
honor-bound liege to the Pixies has to remain a secret in case another occasion
should arise when our help is needed.”
    Kerry ran a hand through her
hair. The surreal quality of the past few days since meeting Myghal had
increased tenfold. “I thought all you fairy-tale type people had powers. Why
couldn’t Myghal just zap the Troll or something?”
    Gomit
shook his head. “It’s not that easy in this realm. We Gnomes have never had any
special powers. And here, the Pixies have almost no magic. The Prince is as
vulnerable as any human. The Troll has a bit of limited magic. When he uses it,
he has to take the time to recover his energy before he can use it again.”
    “All
right.” Obviously, there were rules that had never made it into any book of
fairy-tales Kerry had ever read. “Where is the Troll holding him?”
    “In
Tredje’s dwelling beneath the bridge across the street.”
    “At Sir Plantsalot? You mean,
Trolls really do live under bridges?”
    Gomit’s
eyes widened, showing how startlingly yellow the irises were. Not golden-yellow
or amber-yellow, but bright buttercup-yellow. And now, Kerry realized, it was
more than the unusual color. The pupils were vertically slitted, like the eyes
of a reptile.
    “Of
course. Where else would Trolls live? Most are too lazy to do more than sleep
in the rushes underneath. But Tredje has been uncommonly industrious in this
case. He has excavated an extensive series of tunnels and chambers in the
embankment between the two bridges. He says you must always go into his
dwelling beneath the bridge marked ‘enter’ and leave beneath the bridge marked
‘exit’. He’s quite proud to have two bridges to himself, especially near a
castle, even if it isn’t real. Castles are quite a rarity in this country.”
    “Quite,” Kerry said absently.
Myghal held in an underground dwelling. The Troll was probably no bigger than
Gomit, so the tunnels and chambers would be small and dark and suffocating. She
broke into a sweat just thinking about it.
    She couldn’t…
Could she? She had to be the one to save Myghal because no one else would
believe the story, and Gomit had to preserve the secrecy of his allegiance to
the Pixies. But how was she supposed to force herself into the cramped quarters
of the Troll?

Chapter Fourteen
    Kerry slipped on dark coveralls
and strapped on a tool belt with an array of tools that could be used as
weapons in case Tredje the Troll saw through Gomit’s distraction and discovered
what she was doing. She also carried a box cutter to release Myghal’s bonds.
Gomit had assured her that Myghal was bound with rope, not chains.
    She checked the bright beam of
the heavy-duty flashlight several times as they crossed the five lanes to Sir
Plantsalot. By that time of night all businesses along the thoroughfare were
closed and very little traffic moved along the street.
    Gomit lead her to the exit
bridge. Kerry watched as he quickly scrambled down the side of the drainage
ditch. She glanced around to make sure no cars were coming and no one was lurking
about then went after him.
    The ditch was deeper than she was
tall, so no one would be able to see what they were doing unless they were
right on the side of the street or on the bridge above. Kerry switched on a
small penlight as they moved into the shadows beneath the bridge.
    “Tredje’s sitting