by Lucia Ashta
Silence stretched between us again before Quinn asked, “Your wings, why do you think you have them? I get that you don’t know, but do you suspect? Did something with wings, I don’t know … bite you or something?”
“Bite me?” I laughed. “Why would something with wings bite me?”
He shrugged, broad shoulders crunching in his t-shirt. “The ability to shift doesn’t appear out of nowhere.”
“Then why did you tell me to shift when I was dying?”
“Because I figured that’s why this Mulunu would send you to Uncle Irving.”
I didn’t want to seem any denser than I’d already revealed myself to be, but apparently there was no helping it. “And why is that, exactly?”
“Uh, because Uncle Irving is a shapeshifter. He’s an expert in all things shapeshifting. He might not look it, but the man hasn’t met a book he didn’t want to devour or a source he couldn’t ply for information. When Uncle Irving comes asking, people tell him what he wants to know. He can be very … persuasive.”
“I must be one of these shifters, then.”
He nodded. “But why is the question.”
“I’d imagine it’s because my father is an angel.”
“Your father is an angel?” he nearly yelled.
“Don’t announce it to the whole damn neighborhood!” an unknown voice snapped.
Quinn jumped to his feet and crouched as if he were going to attack whoever had entered our space with his bare hands. I went to stand too, but he halted me with a shake of his head, though he didn’t bother making sure I understood his message.
No, his eyes were sweeping the back porch and the thick forest that surrounded the house, looking for the intruder. He scanned each uneven paving stone and every shaded corner. He even looked beneath the table next to the outdoor couch; though it was glass, coated in dirt.
I trained my eyes on two … small birds? Or maybe butterflies of some sort? They flew behind Quinn’s head.
“Up here, you dingdong,” another tiny voice said, and this time I sprang to my feet no matter what Quinn suggested.
Hovering behind him were two flying creatures that, upon closer inspection, I would have said were women if not for the fact they were also the size of hummingbirds, with wings that fluttered equally rapidly, and had ears that culminated in points at the top.
Quinn jumped in front of me, bending his legs and flinging his fists out in front of him, as if he’d protect me with his body.
I chuckled without meaning to. “They’re so small. What do you think they’ll do to me?”
“Just because something is small doesn’t necessarily mean it’s inoffensive,” Quinn said, eyeing the tiny intruders warily.
“Well, at least the boy has brains. That’s something,” the tiny woman dressed in crimson said. Her short skirt and top, which revealed her stomach, were similar to my own clothing.
“Stay away,” he said.
“Never mind. I take that back,” she said.
“We’re here to help,” said a second tiny woman in sky blue so striking it was nearly fluorescent. “So you can stop preparing for a shift. Trust me, we’re harder to catch in your animal form.”
“Animal form?” I said, swiveling on Quinn.
“Yeah, I thought that was obvious,” he said. “Sorry. I assumed you’d figured that out.”
“I hadn’t.”
“Oh boy,” said the diminutive woman decked out in red, from her clothes to her shockingly bright hair. “It looks like we have our work cut out for us with this one.”
“This one? You mean me?” I asked.
“Yep. She’s definitely not going to make our job any easier,” the blue tiny person said, ignoring me entirely.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
The second flying woman tsked while shaking her head, tiny strands of red hair sliding across her shoulders. “We’re talking about you, obviously, and how hard it’s going to be to get you ready.”
“Ready for what?” I realized they all thought I sounded like an ignoramus, probably even Quinn, but what did they expect from a girl who’d lived her entire life, up until today, in the ocean?
“Why, ready for the Magical Creatures Academy, of course,” the cerulean woman said.
Quinn growled. “Over my dead body.”
“That can be arranged, of course,” the crimson woman said, and dive-bombed Quinn with a warrior’s cry.
I jumped out of the way, uncaring that I looked like a coward in addition to an ignoramus now. That little woman was scary. Her bright red lips peeled back as she laughed wickedly and pushed her hands forward.
“Save yourself!” Quinn yelled to me, as the tiny person dressed in blue joined the other woman in attacking the large, very strong-looking man as if they were his size, though neither of the women was much larger than his pinky finger.
“What the hell is going on out here?” Irving boomed.
The tiny women shifted course mid-flight, turning to face the older man. The one dressed in red tucked her hands behind her back, plastered an innocent expression on her wicked face, and batted her diminutive eyelashes, to great effect. “Oh, nothing’s going on. We’re just here to collect our recruit.”
“You’re not taking her anywhere,” Irving growled, sounding much like his nephew, only his growl was deeper.
“What’s going on?” a voice squeaked from the other side of an apparatus Irving held in his hand. “Irving? Don’t you dare ignore me,” said the female voice from somewhere inside it.
He brought the thing to his ear and barked, “I’ll talk to you later. Just get me my answers.”
I couldn’t decide who to stare at first: Quinn and the tiny women trying to attack us, or Irving and what must be an even smaller woman inside the small plastic box he held to his head.
“I’ll—” But that was all I heard of the woman’s tinny voice before Irving pressed a button and tossed the box onto the couch I’d recently vacated.
He stalked the small attacking women. I had no difficulty seeing that he was indeed a predator, and from the way he moved, a very dangerous one.
4
“What the hell is going on?” Irving asked for the second time, his narrowed gaze traveling from Quinn to me, and finally to the hovering ladies.
This time everyone but me rushed to answer him. Both tiny women spoke at once, squeaky and hard to hear over the enraged Quinn. “These fairies entered the yard without my permission and attacked us!” he boomed.
Ah, so they were fairies! I’d heard of them, but had never seen one before.
“We did no such thing,” one fairy said, flipping her scarlet hair over her shoulder in indignation.
“That’s exactly what you did!” Quinn insisted.
She looked at him, deadpan, and said, “All right, maybe we did enter without permission, but we’re under the authority of the Magical Creatures Academy.”
“Who cares about the Magical Creatures Academy? It has no authority here. You attacked us. You were in the middle of dive-bombing me when Uncle came out. He saw you.”
The fairy crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Yes, well, let’s not get bogged down in details. Those aren’t important now.”
“Haven’t you heard?” Irving said. “The devil is in the details.”
She scoffed. “We’re no devils. We’re fairies.”
Irving scowled. “There are times when it’s difficult to tell the difference.”
The one with azure hair gasped. “How could you say that? Actually, how dare you say that? We’re fairies of the highest order. We’re special.”
“Not in my home y’aren’t, especially not when you enter without permission.”
“How’d they get through the wards anyhow?” Quinn asked. “What did Naomi say about what happened? Are the wards even working?”
Red Hair chortled. “Oh no, the boy can’t even sense when magic’s at work.” When Quinn and Irving both growled, she quickly added, “The gi
rl here shorted out your wards. That’s how we got in.”
“It’s also what alerted the Academy to her presence here,” Blue Hair said. “Whenever there’s a surge of unexplained magic anywhere in the world, the school’s headmaster finds out about it. So do a bunch of other places—the Magical Arts Academy and all of its other satellite schools, along with the Enforcers of course. Because it was creature magic, we got sent out.”
She adjusted her skin-tight blue skirt with a certain amount of pride. “We’ve been assigned a mission of the utmost importance.”
“What did Naomi say?” Quinn asked his uncle, ignoring the fairies.
“She says she doesn’t know what happened. She says the ward should have kept out anyone who wasn’t invited.” Irving and all the rest of them turned to look at me then, and they really looked, studying me from top to bottom. “She says she programmed the ward to keep out all members of the supernatural community.”
“Ah, well there’s your problem now, isn’t it?” Red Hair said. “This girl isn’t a part of the supernatural community at all yet.”
“Hence, our mission,” Blue Hair added.
Irving waved his hand as if to actually wave their comments away. The fairies flew another foot away from him as if afraid he might swat them. “I’m not concerned about your mission,” he said.
“You should be,” Blue Hair said. “We come under the highest authority of the Magical Crea—”
“The Magical Creatures Academy has no authority here.”
“Isn’t it just a school?” Quinn asked.
Blue Hair gasped so hard she choked and the other fairy had to reach over to pat her on the back between her blur of wings.
“Just a school?” Red Hair said in a murderous tone that had me unconsciously taking a step back—until I remembered she wasn’t even three inches tall. I moved forward again with a nervous glance around me, hoping no one had noticed I was afraid of a fairy.
But no one was looking at me anymore. The fairies were glaring at Quinn. Even Blue Hair, who was a bit red in the face from choking, didn’t hold back.
“The Magical Creatures Academy is not just a school,” Red Hair said, spittle actually flying from her mouth in a fine spray. “It’s the finest institute of magical learning for any being of the supernatural community, shifters included.” She said “shifter” with a certain amount of disdain. “You did register that it’s a branch of the Magical Arts Academy, the oldest institute of magic in the entire world?”
Quinn shot Irving an unsure glance. The older man laughed a deep bass sound that reminded me of a walrus. Hey, maybe that’s what he shifted into!
“Just because something’s old doesn’t mean it’s good,” he said, inciting a series of offended gasps and mutterings from the fairies.
“The Magical Creatures Academy, and the fine institute it’s a branch of, is spectacular not because of its age…” Blue Hair paused to draw in a breath. I hoped she wouldn’t choke again; she looked angry enough. “It’s the best chance any creature will ever get at a superb supernatural education. You should know when one deals with magic, there’s great worth in learning from the trial and error of others.”
“I won’t debate this last bit. No point in inventing the wheel a hundred times over.” But the way Irving smiled suggested that was the only thing he accepted of the fairy’s argument.
“Hmph,” she huffed, peering at Irving like he was either the stupidest person she’d ever met or the host of a contagious disease—it was hard to tell from her diminutive scrunched-up features.
“No matter where ya want to take her, you’re not gonna.” The fairies opened their mouths to retort. Irving raised a large hand. “Mulunu sent her to me, which means she’s my responsibility, and I’m not sending her anywhere just yet. And I’m especially not sending her to the MCA.”
I expected the fairies to argue all over again, but instead they shared worried looks. “You say Mulunu sent her?” Red Hair finally asked.
Ah, so they knew Mulunu. That made sense. Anyone who knew the crone should be frightened of her. Even the greatest warriors of my tribe gave her wide berth.
Irving nodded. “The lass only just arrived. I haven’t had the chance to figure anything out yet, especially when Naomi’s wards tried to kill her.”
“And almost managed it, too,” Quinn said, with the appropriate amount of heaviness for my near death.
Blue Hair gulped, her sky blue eyebrows drawing low. “Are you referring to Naomi Nettles by any chance?”
“The one and the same,” Irving said. “You know ‘er?”
She shook her head quickly, blue hair flying all over the place. “I’ve only heard of her.”
“Everything we’ve ever heard is bad,” Red Hair added.
“She’s a skilled witch, and a skilled witch always has her uses,” Irving said.
“Not that witch.” The fairy shook her head fervently, crimson hair sliding in a mess across her bare shoulders.
“Even that witch. I know how to handle her.”
But Quinn didn’t seem so sure from the sudden frown on his face.
Red Hair whistled, and it sounded like a mosquito buzzing near my ear. “You sure know how to surround yourself with dangerous witches, then. Naomi Nettles. Mulunu. You couldn’t get much more dangerous than that.”
Irving took several steps toward them and the fairies shared a nervous glance. “If you are who I think you are, then you’re just as dangerous as they are.”
“What? Us?” Red Hair waved tiny hands around, spluttering. “We’re harmless.”
“Harmless my hairy behind.”
I grimaced at the imagery right along with the fairies.
“Now … that was uncalled for,” Blue Hair said. “No need to play dirty.”
“You were in the middle of attacking me,” Quinn pointed out.
“But we didn’t attack you, now did we?” Red Hair brought tiny hands to tiny hips while she buzzed in the air around us. “We might have stopped before touching you, you can’t be sure. You can’t accuse us of something we didn’t actually do.”
“You were going to do it, for sure.”
“No, you’re not sure, and that’s why I just proved my point.”
The fairies plastered triumph on their faces, turning to stare at me again.
“What?” I finally asked. Their small gazes tickled like minnows swimming against my face.
Red Hair narrowed her eyes at me. “Oh, just trying to figure you out.”
“By all means, please do.”
She laughed, and I really hadn’t been expecting that. She said, “I wouldn’t trust these buffoons to—”
“Watch who you’re calling a buffoon,” Quinn growled, but Irving just looked amused.
“I wouldn’t trust these shifters,” she amended, but the way “shifter” rolled across her tongue didn’t sound much better, “to figure out anything too important. We’ll get you sorted, though. Nessa certainly will.”
Irving said, “If the blue one’s Nessa—”
“Sapphire,” Nessa corrected.
“The blue one’s Nessa the Sapphire, which must mean the red one’s Fianna the Crimson.”
“Which means even an ape like you should be able to figure out that I’m ‘crimson,’ not red,” Fianna snapped.
“So I’m right?” Irving didn’t appear perturbed in the least at the insults the fairies hurled as readily as fairy dust, which I was hoping was real. I was in need of all the help I could get.
“You are,” Fianna said stiffly. “And if you know who we are, then you know we mean business.”
“I have no doubt you do. That doesn’t change what I told you. You’re not taking the lass anywhere without my say-so.”
“Oh, we always get our way.”
“There’s a first for everything, now isn’t there? Even you should know that.” Irving actually seemed to be enjoying the banter.
Fianna the Crimson bared her teeth and I jumped a step backward.
Quinn moved to my side, draping a protective hand across my shoulders, mindful of the wings that were still there despite my difficulty in accepting them.
His arm felt … nice, and I inched closer to him, plastering my side against him.
“We’re under direct orders from Sir Lancelot to bring the girl back,” she said.
Irving only laughed some more. “You mean the talking owl?”
“That’s precisely who I mean. The headmaster of the Magical Creatures Academy.”
“I’m not worried, then.”
“You should be,” Nessa said, and I wondered at this talking owl. The world on land was already as confusing and overwhelming as I’d feared it would be, and I’d lost my tail no more than an hour ago. The sun was still shining brightly, directly overhead.
I was in the middle of hoping Mulunu might allow me back when Nessa added, “Not a second to lose. Let’s get to figuring the girl out.”
Answers were the one thing I longed for more than my home.
5
“I’d like answers too,” Irving said. “And let’s start with what I want since you’re on my property.”
“Property ownership is a ridiculous invention of the modern age,” Nessa said.
“You don’t seem like you have any problem with property ownership with your constant mention of the Magical Creatures Academy like it’s some godsend. Doesn’t the Academy own vast property?” Quinn said.
Property ownership did seem like an odd idea when the water and the land belonged to every creature and no creature.
Irving ignored the way Nessa glared at Quinn and barreled on. “How did you know to come find the lass here?”
“Um … my name is Selene,” I said. I couldn’t take being referred to as “girl” or “lass” one more time.
“Selene what?” Fianna asked.
“Selene of the Kunu Clan.” Though I wasn’t really, not anymore.
“The Kunu Clan?” Fianna whistled again. “That’s a powerful tribe.”
“It is.” All except for me. I was the anomaly, the sole one who didn’t fit in. “My name means ‘moon goddess.’ My mother named me that because when she gazed upon the moon, she felt close to my father.”