Page 10

Chapter

Ten

F or a second I froze and then I broke into a run, towards the sound of the beating dragonfly wings. It wasn’t a dragonfly. It was a big metal machine with whirling blades on the top that cut through the air and anything else that got too close. It was a death machine, but I climbed inside anyway, without a moment’s hesitation.

Max strapped me in, then sat beside me, his fingers tapping his knee as the bug lifted off the ground and then darted into the gathering darkness.

“What kind of poison was it?” I asked after a few minutes of stomach-tangling guilt.

“I don’t know.”

My stomach churned with the knowledge that I should have stopped this. But what was a factory for snacks? I didn’t understand anything until it slapped me in the face. I should have told Max right away. Not because I was worried about war, but because it was the right thing to do. Why hadn’t I warned him, really warned him, before his people were poisoned? Was I really worried that he’d be furious with all fairies and not just the ones trying to kill his pack? Did I not think that he could discern between good and bad intent?

I was exactly like those pixie dust fairies who couldn’t see what they should do, who ran away stupidly.

“Princess Sparkles,” Max said, brushing the back of my hand with his. “Are you all right?”

I looked up at him. “No. Did Ruin…” My throat clogged up at the thought of the wild girl poisoned by one of mine, who I’d been incapable of stopping.

His warm hand wrapped around mine, and I squeezed his back, taking a shaky breath through my tight chest. I felt sicker than I had for a few days. And his touch always gave me more comfort than it should, more than I deserved.

“I don’t know, but she’s a tough kid. Also, she’s in detention and shouldn’t have any snacks she hasn’t earned.”

I hesitated for a moment and then wrapped my arms around his arm and leaned my head on his shoulder, squeezing my eyes tightly closed. “Then she’s probably poisoned.”

He rumbled a laugh and leaned his head on mine. “It’ll be okay. I know a necromancer who can bring her back to life. He owes me a favor or two.”

I looked up at him in horror, but his eyes were twinkling. “You’re joking.”

“I’m joking. She’s going to be fine. Like I said, she’s tough.”

I bit him, right there on the shoulder, because how could he joke about turning Ruin into an undead…

His gasp changed to laughter, real laughter that made his body shake while he grinned at me. “Did you just bite me, Princess Sparkles? Didn’t you know that only werewolves bit?”

“You’ve never bitten me. You should.” For being afraid of warning him clearly.

His eyes flickered gold. “Should I?” He made it sound so flirty.

I released his arm and folded mine, scowling when I noticed the other wolves in the black bug, watching me in the growing darkness. I looked down at my hands, and they had a light sheen, more glow than I’d had for a long time. How could I glow at a time like this? Honestly, in spite of my worry about Ruin and the rest of the wolves, I didn’t feel nearly as sick as I had when I left Fairyland.

It didn’t make sense. None of this made sense. Who would want the caverns to be used for fairies? Who would have access to a far-away factory to poison snacks? It seemed so far-fetched. I didn’t understand enough about this world. I needed to talk to someone who did.

I looked up at Max, then around at the watching wolves. They were studying us so intently. Were they concerned that he’d decide to gobble me up for good, or that I’d manage to kill him? This wasn’t the place to talk about fairies wanting to kill werewolves, but the next time we were alone…A memory of Shotglass, what she’d do with Max if they were alone, went through me like a burning knife. Is that why they were looking at me like that? Because I was one of those fairies who wanted Max for pleasure or status in the case of the female werewolf? They’d seen me grab his arm like that, but he hadn’t pushed me away. Did he think I wanted him?

I felt cold and alone, wrapped in my own arms, and it struck me. I did want him. Not the way Shotglass wanted him, because I didn’t understand lust and pleasure the way that she did, but I wanted to hold his hand right this second, and I’d love it if he put his arm over my shoulders and pulled me close so I could rest my head and fall asleep. I’d slept with his beast. I shouldn’t have been able to relax enough to sleep, but I had, and I’d felt so good waking up with him. A beast.

Was I going insane? What else could possibly explain why I’d cling to a werewolf for comfort? And yes, I found his bare face disturbingly attractive. And his bare chest. At least if we were talking about Max and not his beast. His beast was too terrifying, and yet, I’d slept in his arms.

I shook my head because I didn’t have time to think about whether I was insane or something even worse. I had to find out who was trying to slaughter the werewolves, and I had to do it quickly. I searched fairy minds far and wide, but none of them knew anything about poisoning Singsong City’s wolves.

The ride ended after we flew over the surrounding golden wall and landed on a lawn inside Singsong. A large house was at the end of the grass, white, pillared, very boring except for the messy illustrations drawn all over it in glowing purple, green, pink, and other unnatural colors that positively assaulted the eye in the darkness. Max unfastened my straps and took my hand while he stayed crouched over because the roof was too short to stand up in while I stared at the house.

He said, “We’ll take the elevator down to the caverns. The sick are in the warehouse, and your fairies are in the caves.”

I stared at him in horror. “The fairies were poisoned too?”

He rubbed his chin. “I don’t think so. To my people, it looks like mass hysteria combined with horticulture, but with fairies, who can say? They weren’t poisoned like the wolves and goblins.”

Of course. They were planting trees for the terraform. Relieved that they weren’t poisoned, I pulled my hand out of his and stepped around him, leaping lightly to the ground with barely a flicker of my tattered wings to soften the fall. I needed to get to the poisoned wolves as fast as possible. If I had functional wings, I’d be so much faster. I should pull these ones off and hope a better set grew in. But it hurt, and was so depressing when another lackluster set flapped at me. So what? I needed to do it anyway, so I wasn’t stuck with my slow legs when there was an emergency.

“We’ll take the elevator down to the caverns in my house,” Max said, gesturing towards the neon house, but not taking my hand again. Good. He shouldn’t offer me comfort when it was so easy to be addicted to it. He should guard his space more carefully, particularly around fairies, because apparently we all craved his strength, goodness, and…Shotglass’s memories hit me again. I definitely shouldn’t have been in her head while she touched him. How long would I keep getting these flashbacks? It didn’t help me forget about the poisoning, just added another layer of panic. I could not want a warrior wolf. Can you imagine what Vervain would say?

We jogged across the grass until we reached the house. Max stepped in front of me to open the door. He gestured me inside with a smile on his mouth. His lips were so interesting to Shotglass. I shook myself and walked past him. They were interesting to me, too. I’d love to see how long it took for my venom-poison to work on him. No. I wanted to see how long I could taste his lips before he pushed me away. He would push me away, like he did Shotglass and the werewolf woman. He was bound to the moon, not to me. Good. I had a duty to my world, to my people, and that included taking a consort and the mantle of queenship. The thought made my skin itch. Maybe that was from being so close to Max.

The elevator felt crowded with just the two of us, even though I was sure it wasn’t iron. I tried not to touch him, but I kept bumping into him, or maybe he was bumping into me. He wasn’t careful not to touch me. He didn’t seem to notice how close he was, how many times his arm brushed mine. I was wearing Ruin’s hoodie, so it wasn’t skin on skin, not like when we were snuggled in the blanket. Except that had been his beast. Why was his beast like that? He was Max’s opposite, but he claimed they were the same. What would it be like to kiss the beast?

“Don’t worry, Princess,” Max murmured.

I inhaled sharply and looked up at him, startled. “What?” I felt guilty as his fascinating lips curved in a delicious smile.

“You seem worried. Don’t be. Werewolves are very tough, and the poisoning was caught early.”

“Good.” I needed to tell him why I was really here. But how could I?

“You’re still worried. What can I do to help?”

I gave him a look. “They’re your wolves. What can I do to help you?”

He held out his hand towards me. “I feel better when we’re holding hands.”

I stared at him, shocked and delighted. I shouldn’t be happy about him finding comfort in my touch, but I was. I slipped my hand in his and squeezed it tight. “Of course you do. That way, you know I won’t run off to find some pixie dust. Will you teach me how to read?” I asked, feeling nervous and shy as the doors opened into the big owl cavern.

We stepped out together, still holding hands. “What do you want to read?”

We broke into a jog, him keeping up with my pace. “Catch-22. It put me right to sleep, so in the future, I’ll take it out and drift away.”

“Do you have trouble sleeping?” He looked concerned even as we made good time through the owl cavern. The owls flew around us, a wing even brushed his shoulder, but he didn’t look away from me. There was something so terribly, wonderfully magical about that moment, us rushing to save something together, the mystical white owls whirling around us like fat snowflakes.

“Why are you smiling?” he asked.

“It’s like Christmas,” I said. Even in Fairyland, there were stories of Christmas on earth. Their best time for magic. That’s how it felt like with Max. So magical.

He rumbled a low laugh that made me shiver.

When we got to the cavern with the cave-in, the distant moaning that had been growing in the background made sense. There were fairies, more fairies than had been at the dock, and all of them were weeping over a tree. Some trees were taller than Max. Shotglass was sobbing over the biggest one like her heart was broken. She still looked magical, glistening, and beautiful. It was wrong to see all those trees in the dark cave. They needed light, a breeze, rain, life. They couldn’t grow the trees with their tears forever.

“Here,” Max said, handing me the shampoo bottle with his beautiful sky inside of it, like he could read my mind.

“But we should hurry to the warehouse.”

He squeezed my hand. “The healers are already hard at work. We brought in the best. If it takes you as long to put it in place as it did to gather it up, you may as well do it while we walk through.”

I hesitated. It wasn’t like that. I was calling the sky from the moment I stepped out of the white plane of terror. Still, it shouldn’t take very long to set the sky. I let go of his hand and raised the bottle up to eye-level while I walked, sending my will and intention into my borrowed sky until I was certain it knew what it had to do.

I uncapped the bottle and the night breeze swept out of it, rushing up, spreading above us along with a sea of shimmering stars.

“Ooooh!” The fairies looked up, drinking in the beauty of the night.

Everyone gasped as the moon came out, passing behind a silvery cloud. Then they ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed,’ like they’d never seen a moon before. Well, not that one. Max had taken me to a very good sky. Even I basked in its glow as the last shimmer of stars slipped from the bottle.

And now it was time to hurry to the warehouse. I glanced at Max, and he was watching me with golden glowing eyes filled with approval. I wanted to preen like I’d done something spectacular, but I’d just mumbled a few spells and opened a lid.

I headed for the exit, done with these weird feelings I had no business cultivating.

A fairy stared at me as I walked past, looking at me in a way that told me my skin was glowing. I couldn’t help it. I felt so much better after spending so much time soaking up Max’s beautiful world filled with sunshine and wind and… I’d woken up feeling so good from drawing in his beast’s strength and warmth. I really liked being someone else’s duty.

“Is that why you came here?” a fairy asked, stepping in front of me. It was one of the gruel servers, the same one with silver hair and speckled wings who had given me a bowl.

“What?”

“To capture our knowledge? Is that why you came?”

I shrugged. “I’m learning how to read. Until books are conventional in Fairyland, imprinting is necessary. Your memories and experiences, as well as your knowledge, are all priceless. Each person here, however long they’ve forgotten who they are, is a necessary part in the tale that we weave together.”

“You sound like your mother,” she said, tilting her head as she studied me skeptically.

I shrunk under the gaze and some of my pride in releasing the sky shrunk too. I wasn’t the Queen. I couldn’t be responsible for the happiness of a people I’d ruined. And yet, here we were, in a terraformed werewolf cavern filled with weeping fairies with nothing better to do. Werewolves who had been poisoned by a fairy. Responsibility could be shared, if they were willing.

I took a deep breath because I wasn’t a give-speeches-and-gather-the-people-for-a-good-cause kind of fairy. Still, we were all responsible for those who had been poisoned.

I snapped my wings out, a sound like a whip that cut through the noise so I had their complete attention. “I’m going to the warehouse to help heal the goblins and werewolves.”

Berry sneered as he looked at me. “You think you can heal as well as you can terraform?” That was a slur. He apparently didn’t appreciate my lack of skill. “You have no source of water. How can you grow trees without water? You can’t.” He made an excellent point. Also, he was incredibly disrespectful, almost like he wanted me to publicly rip out his spine or something else totally on-trend for the death fairy.

I sighed. “No, I am even worse at healing than I am at terraforming. But I can do something, and so I will. Each of you is invited to join me. This isn’t a command, but an offer to help pay back Singsong City’s pack in this small way.”

“You expect us to heal goblins?” a fairy boy said with a look of shocked distaste.

I gave him a hard smile that made him flinch. “No. I only invite. I do not expect.” I walked briskly towards the cave entrance, not looking to see if anyone had accepted my invitation or not, Max at my side. When we left the cavern, I glanced up at the soft warrior wolf. He had a thoughtful expression on his face as he looked ahead.

He was taking me to the warehouse to help heal his people, but what good could I do? “I really am not a great healer,” I admitted.

He glanced at me. “What? I already told you that the city’s healers and magic users will trace the poison and neutralize it. Leaders don’t have to do anything other than go ahead in the right direction. Or the wrong direction as long as it’s done with confidence.” He gave me a quick wink.

I exhaled a breath of relief. I wasn’t alone down here trying to fix the error of one of my own. I grabbed his hand, squeezing it tight for a moment. “Thank you.”

His hand wrapped around mine, and for a moment I felt almost all right, but then he released my hand, and I was left without that connection I was starting to crave. I didn’t want to be alone. I hated it. I should be used to it, but instead, I was sick of it. I was tired of feeling the weight of the world without anyone to back me up. Maybe I was ready to choose a consort. A consort was the Queen’s greatest strength. Not that I was the Queen, except that back there was absolutely queenly behavior. A Queen would tell Max the truth, so he’d know where to look for the poisoner. A friend would also do that.

I sighed heavily then spoke quickly. “Max, you’ve been working with fairies for a long time, and you've got a lot of books about us, right?”

“That’s right.”

I licked my lips. “I think one of my kind is trying to kill all of your werewolves, to steal your caverns. Do you know any fairies who aren’t pixie dust addicts who would have a strong motivation to do that?” There it was, all out in the open. What would he do? Would he show me his scary beast and try to rip off my head? I might let him without any struggle, like he hadn’t struggled when I’d had my claws in his chest, bleeding him out.

He rumbled low in his chest, not quite a growl, but something that made my skin tighten. “You think a fairy is trying to kill my pack? That’s why you’re really here?”

I hesitated then nodded. “I can hear the thoughts of other fairies, so when I heard someone talk about it, I came to stop them.”

“You can read minds, but you can’t tell whose mind you’re reading?” He didn’t look at me, just kept his gaze forward, weirdly expressionless. I couldn’t read him. I needed to know what he was thinking, really thinking.

“Yes, I mean, no. I can usually trace thoughts to the source, but this time I was blocked. It shouldn’t be possible for one of mine to be able to block me, but they did, and I have no idea who it was or how they did it.” My shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry.”

He hesitated then patted my shoulder. “Don’t be sorry for coming all this way to try and save my people. I understand how impossible it is to control those you lead. All you can do is provide an example to follow. Perfect control is impossible for any amount of time. And I wouldn’t want it.” His voice was hard at the end. He removed his hand from me and squeezed it into a fist while he frowned into the distance.

“Yes. Actually, no, I didn’t come here to save wolves.”

He looked at me with a slight brow furrow. “You wanted to watch us get poisoned?”

I wrinkled my nose at him. “No, I just thought that the repercussions would prove deadly for my people. I’m not looking for another invasion.”

He nodded slowly. “You were there?”

I shrugged. “Not for the first slaughter, but I led our armies against Malamech.” The memory was so bitter in my mouth. So many of mine lost. So many broken.

“I didn’t know Fairyland had armies.”

“We didn’t until I called them to war.” I still remembered it like it was yesterday, screaming my war cry as I called my people to blood and rage.

He cleared his throat. “You killed the werewolf leader who invaded? How did he get into Fairyland? All the ways should have been blocked.”

I blinked at him. “They should have been. They were, but Malamech was a great Lupin Sorcerer. He had very few limits.”

“Or, he was working with someone from Fairyland, someone who could have betrayed you to them.”

I was shocked at the accusation. “You think one of my people would work with an invading army? Impossible!”

He shrugged. “Betrayal is common. Fairies aren’t an entirely virtuous species. Even angels have their traitors. Malamech channeled infernal magic, if I recall correctly. Such dark magic may be able to work against the natural fairy connection you share with your people. That could be what’s blocking you from tracing the thoughts of the person that wants to poison my people.”

I frowned as I considered. It was ridiculous to think that anyone would be stupid enough to think that allowing werewolves into our land would be beneficial to them, but someone had blocked me after I heard them talk about poisoning an entire pack of wolves. I hated werewolves in general, but I’d never kill all of them. That was extreme in a very dark direction. Strange that such a soft wolf knew so much about it.

“You’ve studied a lot about the werewolf invasion of Fairyland. Why?” I finally asked, looking up at him.

He shrugged and gave me a wry smile. “It’s a weird thing. Malamech in general is the sort of… leader that leaves a terrifying impression to everyone, even generations later. He enslaved the souls of his armies. Did you know that? He stole their will, their power, and turned them into the same kind of monster he was.” He shuddered theatrically. “Thinking about it will give me nightmares.”

I swallowed hard. “I’m glad I killed him.”

“To be honest, it’s kind of hard to believe a little thing like you could kill a big bad wolf like him.”

I gave him a look. “I’m not that little. Also, your beast is too weird and poetic to be turned into one of Malamech’s monsters. He didn’t take their souls unwillingly. You can’t do that. They agreed to it in exchange for something. Lies, no doubt, but still, they chose to follow a monster. I still think about whether it was the right thing to let them leave after Malamech died.”

“You chose to not become a monster like Malamech.”

I sighed heavily. “No. I chose to become a worse monster than Malamech. Otherwise, I couldn’t have beaten him.”

“You’re saying that virtue doesn’t always conquer evil?”

I glanced at the soft, na?ve, warrior wolf. “I would never. Of course good always wins. There are stained glass windows depicting countless scenes of virtues overcoming all obstacles. They’re around the square where my extremely virtuous mother was slaughtered. Stained glass never lies.”

He rubbed his chin. “One thing, your detoxing process, your scent is the same as pixie-dust addicts. I think that your medication for your death sickness is made out of pixie-dust.”

I frowned at him. “What do you mean? Why would you bring that up? What kind of connections…”

He flashed me a sharp smile. “I’m just saying that maybe you should ask the person who gave you your medicine where they got it.”

“It was developed over decades. The entire court was involved.”

“And after it was developed for optimal effectiveness at numbing you, weakening you, it spread from Fairyland across earth to the other fairies who struggled with exile or your death-sickness.”

His words hurt. I wanted to cover my ears and find somewhere to hide. It’s like he really thought there was a fairy behind all the misery in the whole world. I would discount his theory, except there was a fairy who had been able to block me. That made me question everything. Also, I functioned much better without the medicine. Maybe I had been sicker from the medicine than from the death-sickness, but how was that possible for a fairy with ill intent to hide from me? Because they could block me. Was a fairy truly meddling in demonic magic? Had a fairy invited Malamech into Fairyland? But why?

“You make good points. I will consider it,” I finally said, stiffly. It would be foolish not to consider all the possibilities, however unpleasant they were. We didn’t hold hands for the rest of the walk to the werewolf gym, or juvenile detention center.

It was filled with people on the blue mats, mostly younger in age, goblins and werewolves who were hooked up to bags of water, while their eyes had a greenish cast.

Ruin ran up to me right away, her eyes big as she threw her arms around me and squeezed me tight. I squeezed her back and felt better again, connected. She pulled away to glare at me. “You were gone forever! I thought you’d never come back.”

I tugged on a strand of her hair that had come out of her ponytail. “I thought you were dead, poisoned with a decomposing corpse that I’d have to take to the necromancer. Max knows a guy.”

She snorted and rolled her eyes. Knowing she was safe was such a relief. I could help those I didn’t know much more easily. I turned to the nearest person lying on a blue mat. It was a woman with green skin, pointed teeth, and an inability to focus her eyes. I dropped to my knees beside her and summoned the strength of the moon as it was rising over the city so high above us. I put my hand over her face and sent strength in her while searching for the underlying poison and killing it. She turned to the side and started throwing up, violently, until strands of brown started coming out of her throat. I squeezed her shoulder until she’d gotten it all out, then helped the mess decompose into a nice rich compost.

“That’s cool,” Ruin said, at my shoulder, making me jump.

I smiled at her. “Yeah. Can you get her some water? Are there bottles? Make sure it’s clean water. Not poisoned or laced with silver.”

She nodded and darted off, leaving me to smile encouragingly at the woman who was looking at me with horror in her eyes before I went to the next prone figure, a boy a little younger than Ruin, a werewolf this time. The process was the same, the strength of the moon, the killing of the poison, and then the vomiting. Finally, it was all broken down into usable compost, and I moved onto the next. Ruin handed him a water bottle then followed me.

“What spells do you use? You don’t have runes on your arms and you don’t chant anything.”

“I don’t know any healing spells, just composting spells thanks to the terraformer. This is just will and raw power. A real healer would be able to start them on the process of recovery without the trauma of coughing up the poison. I don’t know how to do it gently or without using too much energy. I won’t be able to help more than a dozen people before I collapse. Maybe less, depending.” I’d had a very good nap in the Beast’s arms, and I still felt stronger than I had in ages.

She snorted. “You’re not a good healer? Are you serious? I’ve got to see a good fairy healer then.”

I looked around, searching the minds that I hadn’t really noticed until now. Shotglass’s mind was incredibly focused, potent, and clear. She was a healer? Yes, and a very good one, too. Surprise, surprise. And she’d come here to help werewolves and goblins. Maybe she thought they were all attractive.

I pointed at Shotglass. She looked up like she’d heard me. “She’s the best fairy healer here. The way that she works with the person’s strength is the biggest part of why she’s so good.”

Shotglass’s eyes were shocked for a moment before she blinked and refocused on her patient. Her mind was back the next second, focusing on isolating the poison, drawing it gently from the goblin.

I went from person to person until I stood up too fast and started to fall over.

Ruin grabbed my waist and slung my arm over her shoulder. “You’re done here. You did sixteen people. Nice. Max said to take you to the closet to rest, so that’s where you’re going.”

“Max…” I looked around to find him, needing to make sure that he was safe, not poisoned.

He was on the other side of the room, talking to an older goblin with long dark dreadlocks. He met my gaze and smiled for a moment before nodding towards the far end. He didn’t look tired in spite of him staying awake to hold me while I slept. I let Ruin pull me towards the closet where they kept pads and even more mats.

I collapsed on the one closest to the door and was out.