by Elle Adams
“The other elves don’t want to hear it,” I said. “They think the goblins are to blame, and they won’t take no for an answer.”
“The goblins supplied the goblin brew, at least,” he said.
“Yes, but they insist they didn’t sell it to any normals, and it’s not like I have proof,” I said. “And who am I supposed to report them to? The police can’t prosecute anyone outside of Fairy Falls, not without…”
“The hunters,” he finished, his mouth pressing in a grim line.
I shook my head. “I can’t bring them here on purpose.”
“Unfortunately, this is an area where hunters would have the expertise,” he said. “They cover anywhere outside of a paranormal community, including the market. If we found proof that someone from the market was selling to humans…”
“They’d get shut down.” My heart sank. “This isn’t the fault of everyone at the market. It’s just one or two people. If the Inquisitor gets involved, a lot of people might lose their livelihoods.”
And my own freedom might well be in jeopardy if he came to Fairy Falls and found out what I’d learned about his real identity. At the very least, I could say goodbye to any hopes of speaking to my dad again.
“We don’t need to call any of the higher-ups from the hunters,” he said. “You’re forgetting we have three ex-hunters in town already.”
“You, Erin and Buck,” I said. “What do you want to do, then?”
“I’ll have to think,” he said. “Being a fairy, Buck can get more information from the market than Erin can… and if we expose the proof in front of everyone else, they’ll collectively kick out the people responsible. We won’t need to bring in the hunters.”
“Good,” I said. “Because if they show up, I won’t be able to speak to my dad, with or without a Pixie-Glass.”
I couldn’t help feeling like I’d screwed up by mentioning my dad at the market in the first place, but he was the one who’d told me to look for the Pixie-Glass and he hadn’t mentioned if any of the fairies knew his identity or not. Besides, I hadn’t told anyone he was in jail, and they’d never guess what I wanted to use the Pixie-Glass for. Right?
As for those two fairies, if they’d escaped Steve, their next target would be the market, assuming they hadn’t left town while they had the chance. As for Blythe? For all I knew, she was at the market, too, though I couldn’t picture letting her hair down and dancing with the fairies. It was weird enough that two of them had tried to rob her house on the same morning she’d come back to town.
Whatever the case, I had to expose whoever was responsible for bewitching people outside the paranormal community, before the backlash hit the whole market—and Fairy Falls by extension.
12
Nathan and I met up with Erin and Buck at Charms & Caffeine, where we all bought extra-large coffees in preparation for the day. I figured Layla could use the extra business, considering everyone in town seemed to be sleeping off their hangovers from another late-night session of dancing with the fairies.
“Is there a reason you dragged us out here on our day off, Blair?” Erin winked at me. “Joking, joking. What do you need my help with?”
“It’s about those two normals,” I explained. “We think they were exposed to goblin brew or something stronger, and while we can’t say for sure if the market was involved, we’d rather solve the case before word spreads beyond the town.”
“You mean before the hunters find out?” said Erin. “None of us has said a word, don’t worry.”
“Nathan told me that if the crime is committed outside of any magical community, it falls to the hunters by default,” I explained. “Needless to say, I’d rather solve it before it comes to that.”
“So you think someone from the market handed out goblin brew to the humans,” Buck said. “And then lied about it.”
“I think it was more than goblin brew,” I admitted. “I’m told goblin fruit has a stronger effect than the brew does, and the first victim was addled for days. I’m also told nobody sells it at the market, but the second victim gave a description that might have belonged to a fairy.”
“A fairy.” Erin’s eyes rounded. “Oh. So you want to find them before…”
“Before the rest of us take the blame.” The two who’d broken into Blythe’s house were my prime suspects, but as long as they remained hidden by glamour, they might be anywhere. If the market was their home, they’d end up back there eventually, but I’d need to be sneaky if I wanted to catch them before they fled.
It’d also help if I could find Blythe and explain the situation so I’d have one more person on my team, but she couldn’t see through fairy glamour. Only Buck and I shared that talent, and it might not be enough to pin down a couple of fairies who really didn’t want to be found.
“There’s also that elf, Thistle,” Nathan put in. “Want me to watch him?”
“Sure.” Thistle had never used glamour, as far as I’d seen, so Nathan would stand more of a chance of keeping an eye on him than on the fairies. “Um, maybe don’t tell Steve. Is he still chasing those… suspects?”
“It sounds like he lost track of them.” The reassurance in his gaze indicated he wouldn’t give me away in front of the others. But did that mean the two fairies had escaped town? “I have teams watching the borders, but when it comes to the market, it’s hard to keep track of who’s coming and going.”
Especially when a not-insignificant proportion of the market’s folk could fly and glamour themselves invisible. Still, the two fairies weren’t from this town, and likely wouldn’t go far from the market. I had to find a way to lure them out. And that meant making use of my newfound talent.
A nagging worry in the pit of my stomach told me that I might be too late to contact my dad, whether the hunters showed up or not. The pixie had vanished along with the fairies, and I wouldn’t blame him for going back into hiding.
“Then what should we do?” asked Erin. “Snoop around the market and try to catch them out?”
I nodded. “Buck and I can both see through glamour, and use it, too.”
Buck looked startled. “I can’t use glamour. I’ve never tried.”
“You can’t?” I asked. “But… you’re wearing one right now. Granted, so am I, but it was my dad who put it on me to start off with.”
“Same,” he said. “I’ve never been able to turn invisible or anything. Never had anyone to teach me.”
Huh. “I’d have thought it’d come in handy in your line of work.”
“Nah, the hunters don’t do stealth,” said Erin. “We’re supposed to kick the door in, not slink around in the shadows.”
“Just do this.” I demonstrated, snapping my fingers and transforming myself into fairy mode. “The only advice I have is to keep trying, keep focusing until you get it.”
I decided to save my newest trick until later—namely, using glamour to make myself look like someone else. I wasn’t incredibly confident in my abilities even after all the practise I’d had, in truth, but if it came down to it, perhaps I’d need to wear someone else’s face in order to get the answers I was looking for.
Still, from the way Buck’s face furrowed in concentration when he snapped his fingers, I wasn’t the only fairy who was behind on learning to use magic. I’d been imagining the hunters hiring a crack team of fairies with superpowers, but Buck had put that assumption to rest. No matter how many times he snapped his fingers, there was no change.
“Maybe use your other hand?” I suggested.
“Why would it work any different with my other hand?” he wanted to know.
“It does for me. Something about being half witch and half fairy. My wand only works properly in my other hand.” I gave another demonstration, snapping the fingers of my right hand.
Wearing a sceptical expression, he gave a snap of his fingers. This time, wings extended behind his shoulders, and his ears turned pointy. His blond hair lightened until it appeared almost silver, while his skin gaine
d an odd glowing sheen.
“Great job,” I said.
Erin gawked at him. “Wow.”
Buck hesitated. “You don’t like it?”
“No, I love it. You still look like you, just… different.” Erin grinned. “I like the wings. Are you going to fly?”
He blinked. “I’ve never flown in my life. Is now really a good time to start learning?”
“Yes, it is,” Erin said. “We don’t want the hunters coming here and ruining our fun. We moved to Fairy Falls to get away from them.”
“I know we did,” said Buck. “This is going to be weird, but I’ll give it a go.”
“I’ll be in town if you need me,” Nathan said. “Just shoot me a text and I’ll be there.”
“Sure thing. Good luck with the elf.”
Nathan and I parted ways with a kiss, and then Erin, Buck and I headed for the path leading outside the town.
The market was just opening for the day, already bustling with elves and goblins setting up their stalls. Turning invisible, I watched the goblins’ stall for a moment, though I didn’t really expect to see anything suspicious. Then I looked for the fairies, but their stall wasn’t there, and there was no sign of the male fairy who’d spoken to me before. Maybe they’d all left the town together.
I approached an elf at a nearby stall selling jewellery. “Excuse me, do you know where the two fairies, Holly and Heather, are?”
“Those two?” she said. “They went home.”
No, they didn’t. They went to rob Blythe’s house. “What about Dill?”
“Haven’t seen him. People come and go all the time at the market.”
True. She didn’t know about the robbery, and if the three of them hadn’t told anyone where they were going, even my lie-sensing power wouldn’t be able to find them.
Heart sinking, I moved to the next stall and received a similar non-answer. I needed to try another tactic. Most people were reluctant to speak to me even as a fairy, so perhaps I’d get on better if I pretended to be one of them.
It was time to test drive my new talent.
I flew the short distance downhill to the lake, where I turned visible again. Then I snapped my fingers and pictured one of the elves I’d seen at the market earlier. To my own surprise, it worked on the first go, and when I peered at my reflection in the lake, I startled at the sight of a short pointy-eared creature standing in my place.
Then I spotted two other elves sleeping in the shallows by the lake. It was a wonder the freezing water hadn’t woken them up, but they looked vaguely familiar to me. Hang on… they were the same elves Bramble and Twig had chased off. Hadn’t they learned their lesson from the last time they’d drunkenly wandered close to the lake?
“Hey,” I called to them. “Hey! Wake up.”
One of the elves cracked an eye open. “Are you the elf king?”
“Sure, why not,” I said, imitating Bramble’s growly voice. “I wish to find two fairies. How would I go about tracking them down?”
“We don’t talk to the fairies,” mumbled the elf. “They’re tricky, they are.”
“They are?” That was news to me. “I thought it was goblins you didn’t like.”
“The goblins give us brew, and so we like them,” said the second elf, lifting his head from the water.
Hmm. “Have you ever tried goblin fruit?”
“Do you think we have a death wish?” He laughed, as though I’d told a hilarious joke. “Deadly poison to us, isn’t it?”
“Deadly poison?” My heart jolted in my chest. “You mean to elves?”
“What else would I mean?” He pushed upright, then toppled back over into the water. “You’re awfully slow for a king.”
Time to go, I think. So goblin fruit was poisonous to elves? That mean Thistle couldn’t have been the one who’d given it out, unless he hadn’t eaten the fruit himself before giving it to those two normals. But that didn’t seem right, either.
I left the elves snoring in the shallows and retreated into the woods to remove my disguise without being spotted. Not that the elves were paying the slightest bit of attention. Deadly poison? His words had carried a ring of truth I couldn’t deny.
I debated heading back to the market disguised as an elf, but I had a better idea. I pictured one of the two fairies from Blythe’s house and then snapped my fingers. Then, making sure not to fly too close to the elves, I returned to the lake to check my reflection.
A stranger looked back at me. I looked so much like Heather that I actually had to turn and check she wasn’t behind me. Calm down, Blair. As long as the real fairy didn’t show up in the middle of my investigation, I might be able to pull this off.
“You’re still in town?” said a voice.
I rotated on the spot, finding the two elves had dragged themselves out of the water and crept up behind me. They didn’t see me transform, did they? From their cross-eyed expressions, they were too addled to see their own feet, so I nodded. “Yep. Still in town. That’s me.”
I tried to make my voice go higher in imitation of the fairy, but I sounded more like I’d inhaled helium.
The elf sat down in the shallows, while his companion dozed against the bank. “Thought you were making a run for it with your sister.”
Huh? “I said that, did I?”
He gave a vigorous nod. “You just did. Didn’t she?”
His companion grunted in agreement.
Perhaps the fairies hadn’t been as secretive about their mission as I’d assumed. “Yes, I’m leaving now… bye.”
I flew back uphill to the market, which had officially opened to the public for the day. Witches, shifters and elves roamed among the stalls, picking up trinkets and sipping from mugs of goblin brew. I fluttered my wings, tossed my hair back as I’d seen the fairies do, but I hadn’t spent enough time observing Heather to copy her mannerisms directly. And anyone might see through my glamour if they had a strong enough ability. I needed to avoid drawing too much attention.
My gaze fell on the stall selling goblin fruit seeds. They were the closest thing here to actual goblin fruit, so perhaps the goblin at the stall knew something. Right now, she was talking to a witch wearing a green hat. Argyle Winthrop. The gardener witch who’d got herself injured in her own flowerbed.
Treading carefully, I leaned forward to listen to their conversation, and caught the word, “Please.”
“No,” said the goblin. “We don’t deal in that stuff.”
“It’s urgent,” Argyle insisted. “Please.”
I fluttered closer, and a shout cut through the air from elsewhere in the market.
“Hunters!” yelled a voice.
Hunters.
They’re here.
Pandemonium broke out. Elves, humans and goblins alike fled the market or hid behind their stalls. My wings beat, caught up in the chaos, but I had nowhere to fly. Both ways in and out of the market were blocked, and the hunters marched into view, starkly human among the magic and wonder.
“We got a tip-off that someone here was bewitching humans,” one of them said in a loud, carrying voice. “Anyone want to confess?”
Who told them? Nobody from Fairy Falls wanted them to come here. Not even Buck and Erin, surely. Or Nathan.
Speaking of whom… I recognised him leading another group of people through the market towards the hunters. Fairy Falls’s security team was on the case, and soon enough, they had the hunters surrounded. From Nathan’s body language, he was telling them to clear off, but now they’d trekked all the way here, I doubted they’d leave without a fuss.
I have to do something. If I’d caught the person responsible for bewitching the normals early enough, I might have been able to prevent any of this, but I was operating on entirely too little information. The elves had been right to be worried. Not only had I failed to find the culprit, but the last people I wanted in town were back here and stirring up trouble. Please, please don’t let them have brought the Inquisitor along, too.
&nb
sp; Someone caught my arm, an elf leaning closer to me. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I—” Crap. I wasn’t Blair. They thought I was Heather. Or Holly. I’d forgotten which was which. “Why shouldn’t I?”
“You betrayed us,” hissed the elf. “You brought them here.”
I swivelled, spotting two hunters heading my way. In a swift beat of my wings, I launched myself behind the nearest stall and snapped my fingers to remove my disguise. Then I turned into my human form, crouching out of sight.
A fluttering noise prompted me to turn around, and I spotted two winged figures flitting across the distant hillside.
Can that be them?
One way to find out. Turning into my fairy mode once more, I took flight over the rolling hills and landed in front of Heather and Holly. “Where are you two going?”
“Where else?” one of them said. “We’re leaving. We’re not staying here with the hunters prowling around the market.”
“You wanted to steal the Pixie-Glass,” I reminded them. “Did you really think the stunt you pulled at Mrs Dailey’s house wouldn’t draw their attention?”
“I didn’t know she was with—them.” Holly shuddered.
True.
“Then why break into her house to begin with?” I asked, baffled. “To get the Pixie-Glass and sell it? You weren’t exactly stealthy about it.”
“We didn’t think there was anyone home,” Heather insisted. “He told us—”
“Dill,” I said. “He told you to steal it for him. Right?”
Holly’s shoulders slumped. “Yeah, we steal things for Dill. So what? We’re allowed to earn a living. Not much else people like us can do in this world. We can’t all pretend to be human like you do.”
I opened and closed my mouth. I had no idea what life was like for the fairies, not really, because I spent most of my days walking around as a human. If I hadn’t been a witch on my human side, I might have been recruited to the hunters like Buck—or, if my dad hadn’t put the glamour on me, I might have ended up out on the streets.
