“I take it from the improvement in your attitude that you managed to find Koshei for a little fun and games?” Chudo-Yudo said snidely.
“Actually, he wasn’t around,” Barbara said, ignoring his innuendo from long practice. “But I got one of the Queen’s courtiers to spar with me for a bit, which was almost as good.” She fingered a small tear across the front of her tee shirt. “Man, those guys are fast.”
She reopened the wardrobe to put the sword away, then started walking around the Airstream collecting the various garments she’d tossed around before she left, making a little face as she did so.
“Cleaning up?” Chudo-Yudo inquired. “Or getting ready to burn them?”
“Neither,” she said. “I’m going to need to wear them again.”
“Aha!” Chudo-Yudo said. “You weren’t just playing around over there. You found something helpful on the other side.”
Barbara pulled a small handful of white flowers out of her pants pocket. They didn’t look particularly impressive, with their white petals, pale yellow centers, and ragged greenish-blue edges. They didn’t even have any thorns. “Ta-da!”
Chudo-Yudo sniffed at them dubiously. “Ta-da? Are you sure? They don’t even have a scent.”
“They don’t need to,” Barbara said. Her eyes sparkled. “Don’t you know what these are?”
“I’m a dragon, not a botanist,” he said with a woof of indignation.
“Right.” Barbara stifled a grin. Chudo-Yudo, like most other immortals, hated it when someone younger than him knew something he didn’t. “Sorry. I’m not surprised you’re not familiar with them; they’re pretty rare, and they only grow in the Otherworld. They’re called Mage’s Bane. They’re the only flower ever discovered that cancels out magical spells.”
“Cool!” Chudo-Yudo said, then thought about it a little more and backed away rapidly. “Wait a minute—aren’t you worried they’re going to undo the magic holding the Airstream in its current form or me in mine?”
She laughed. “Don’t panic. They don’t work on natural magic, like the kind you and I use. A Baba Yaga’s magic is innate—she can be trained to use it, but it has to be something she’s born with, which is how we’re chosen for the job in the first place. And all the magic a Baba works, including creating an enchanted hut and then transforming it into an equally enchanted trailer, is backed by her own innate power. The same with dragons. Mage’s Bane doesn’t have any effect on that kind of magic.”
“Then what good is it?” Chudo-Yudo asked, sounding indignant as he tried to pretend he hadn’t been concerned.
“It’s called Mage’s Bane because it works against the kind of magic that magicians, mages, and wizards use. They all channel power from outside themselves into spells or charms. Many of them spend their whole lives studying, and they can become very powerful, but their magic comes from outside themselves, not inside. Mage’s Bane unravels those kinds of spells, rendering them useless and negating their effects instantly, hence the name.”
“And you think that Jonathan Bellingwood’s necklace was created by Selkie or Mer mages, and therefore the flowers will make it stop working,” Chudo-Yudo said, teeth gleaming whitely in a huge doggy grin. “Excellent.”
“I’m guessing Mr. Bellingwood won’t think so,” Barbara said with an answering smirk, twirling the innocuous-looking flowers around in her strong fingers. “Especially since the flowers have to be activated by some of the magic-user’s blood.”
“Nice.” Chudo-Yudo cocked his head to the side, gazing at her quizzically. “If these things are so rare, how did you know where to find them?” he asked. The Otherworld had a tendency to move around constantly, changing on a whim. Only the Queen’s palace and the surrounding grounds could be depended on to stay the same, kept in place by the force of her formidable will and her right as longtime ruler, along with her consort the King.
“I didn’t,” Barbara said confessed. “The Otherworld led me to Bella, and she led me to the flowers. Truth is, I’d never come across them before today.” She shrugged, her expression somewhere between relieved and smug. “You know how the Otherworld is. Sometimes it decides to help, sometimes it kicks you in the teeth. I just got lucky.”
Chudo-Yudo shook his head. “I think the Otherworld is partial to the Baba Yagas. That wasn’t luck—it was years of sucking up by your predecessors, mixed with a healthy dose of cranky intimidation.”
“Well, whatever it was, I have what I need, and that’s good enough for me.”