I found Maggie and Aunt Kay in the basement in a room that looked like it belonged in a mad scientist's house. Bottles and containers of things I didn't recognize lined the walls. On the table, there were glass vials and a set up of glass bottles, rubber tubes, and measuring tools. It reminded me of my high school chemistry lab. I thought setups like this only existed in the movies. Or drug dealers houses. "What are you guys doing down here?"

Maggie looked up from where she was weighing something on a scale. "We're making iron powder. You really have been cut off."

I stepped completely into the room and looked at the small piles of shimmery silver powder on the scale. "Iron powder? Like shaved nails?"

Aunt Kay laughed. "Something like that. There's a Sayge supplier we purchase specialty supplies from."

I shook my head. There is a special supplier just for Sayge spells? How big was the Sayge community? From what they all had been saying it sounded like it was a small group of people. And now I find out about hidden villages and special mail-order services. Part of me wanted to learn more about this community and part of me wanted to get as far away as possible.

I leaned in closer to an iron powder, and Maggie jumped shoving me away from it. "What are you doing?"

"I was just trying to get a closer look."

"You do realize your half Fae," Maggie said.

"I don't understand any of this. What does that have to do with anything?" I said.

Aunt Kay let out a sigh. "Good catch, Maggie."

"What is going on here? Can somebody please explain this whole iron powder thing to me and how it has anything to do with me being half-Fae?"

Maggie wiped the iron dust off of the scale and into a small container and set it on a shelf behind her. "Iron is deadly to the Fae. It's like their kryptonite or something. I don't really know how to explain it, but we do know that it can kill them."

"That can't be," I said. "I mean, if I'm half-fae, why aren't I dead yet? I've touched iron many times during my life."

"You've touched earth iron," Maggie said. "This is iron from Faerie. There's a few Sayges who stockpiled it before the gates closed."

"It's the only thing that can kill them," Kay said. "We have several different recipes for iron powder, depending on what we're going to use it for.

"We can use it in spells, or make weapons," Maggie added.

"Weapons?" I looked around the room, half expecting to see cross-bows hanging on the wall. All I saw was a washer and dryer in the corner. Not exactly unusual.

"There isn't much in the way of Iron weapons or iron dust weapons anymore," Aunt Kay said. "We haven't had a reason to use them in a long time."

I walked over to the shelf where Maggie had set the powder. "So what's your plan for this?" I pointed to the container.

Aunt Kay took a few steps over to where I was standing and picked up the container. She poured it into a small glass container, then added in a scoop of something purple and shimmery.

"What's that?" I asked.

Maggie wrinkled her nose. "You don't want to know."

Aunt Kay looked up at me. "She's right. You probably don't."

I sighed. "Fine."

"Hand me that vial," Aunt Kay said without looking up.

Maggie pushed a tray of a dozen glass vials over to my aunt.

Carefully, Aunt Kay poured the newly mixed powder into each of the vials. When they were all filled, she stood back and put her hands on her hips, then looked up at me. "These are made of fragile glass. They'll shatter on impact, then explode."

"They're iron dust grenades?" I asked.

She considered. "Yeah, I guess so."

Before I could stop myself, I reached out and picked up one of the vials. The substance inside shifted as I moved it and a tiny bit spilled on my finger.

Aunt Kay tore the vial away from me as I started screaming. Intense pain shot through me, and for a moment, I couldn't focus on anything but the searing feeling in my hand. Then, almost as quickly as it had come, it subsided.

Gasping, I held my hand, staring at it. I'd never felt anything like that. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I did that."

Aunt Kay grabbed my hand and ran her fingers over it. "You didn't get much in you. I think you'll be okay. But from now on, let's avoid touching Faerie iron."

"Do you think it could kill me?" I asked. "I'm half Sayge, after all, and it doesn't seem to hurt you."

"I'm not sure," Aunt Kay said. "You're the only half-fae, half-Sayge I've ever met. I would hope that the Sayge part of you would keep you protected from iron, but we don't know for sure."

Either way, I wasn't willing to experiment. If that small amount had caused that much pain, I didn't want to know what it would feel like to try it with more. I took a few steps away from the table. "I think I'll go wait upstairs."