by A W Hartoin
I rotated in the air to come nose-to-nose with Lrag, a red teufel with curving horns and diamond-patterned skin.
“Elbows are not part of fencing,” he said.
“Well,” I said, still dangling. “You keep telling me I have to use weapons other than fire.”
Lrag laughed, a deep rumbling I could feel through his arm. He set me down gently and I was nose-to-chest. He turned to Bentha. “Didn’t you hear the announcement?”
“No announcement can stop warriors in training,” said Bentha, jumping to his feet and brandishing his sword.
“It can this time. The pilot says we’re landing. Get yourself to a safe position.”
“Safety is my middle name.” Bentha ran to the edge of the seat back and hurled himself off, somersaulted in the air, and disappeared.
Lrag bent low and said in my ear so that I would be sure to hear. “I think his middle name is spastic.”
“I was thinking hyperactive.”
“Good one. Why don’t you flap over to Iris?”
I looked down at my little sister sitting in the seat beside Tess, clutching the commander’s egg to her chest. She murmured to the phalanx egg and caressed the shiny black surface. The commander had entrusted me with his only egg because of the civil war going on in the antique mall where he lived. I entrusted the egg to Iris. Disaster didn’t follow her the way it did me.
“She looks like she’s lost her best friend,” said Lrag.
“She has.”
I spread my purple and green wings wide and their luminescent colors put patterns of light on the dull fabric. I lifted off and floated down to land beside Iris. Her eyes were swollen and the blond curls around her round face damp.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“I can’t learn it all.” Iris flipped a page in the oversized book lying in her lap. “It’s too big.”
I tucked my wings and sat down. “Gerald didn’t give it to you as a homework assignment. It’s supposed to be helpful, not a job.”
“But he’s not here and he knows everything.”
I put my arm around her and let her snuffle into my shoulder, getting it all moist. We could’ve used Gerald. There was no doubt about that. For a nine-year-old wood fairy, he was exceptionally knowledgeable, but our trip to get the root for Miss Penrose had caused Gerald’s mother to cut off ties with us. They stayed home with baby Easy’s family because I was a bad influence. I wanted to tell Eunice she was wrong (my influence wasn’t bad; it just looked that way to the casual observer) but I couldn’t. I was a bad influence. Gerald ran away to the mall where he got into battles and learned to use swords because of me. Eunice considered anything that might give Gerald a paper cut to be exceptionally bad. She made my mom look positively calm in comparison.
“I’ll help you learn everything in the book,” I said.
Iris looked up and closed the book. Speciesapedia, A Practical Guide to all Species in the Fae was printed on the thick vellum hide. I didn’t know what was so practical about it. The thing was huge and detailed every fairy species in the known world. And Gerald knew them all, but he was in Tess and Judd’s house back in the United States. His parents decided he would never have anything to do with me again, so Iris had to go to Paris without her best friend.
“We can’t learn it all in time,” said Iris. “We’re almost there.”
“We don’t need to know every single species. We’ll get the cure and get out. Three months and it’ll all be over.”
“You heard what everyone said. Paris is dangerous.”
“We also heard that the royal family has returned to power. They’re taking control. Everything will be fine.” I smiled so that my sweet little sister might believe that I believed it. The royal family was back, but they’d been driven out before, multiple times. And Paris had the most dense fairy population in the world. The most volatile, too.
Iris shivered as if she felt my doubt, but this wasn’t a showy mission. We were undercover. We weren’t going to be Whipplethorns in Paris. We were going to use Tess and Judd’s last name, Elliot. Nobody would care about us. No one would know the Whipplethorns were ever there.
Read the rest in A Monster’s Paradise.
Available now.
A.W. Hartoin grew up in rural Missouri, but her grandmother lived in the Central West End area of St. Louis. The CWE fascinated her with it’s enormous houses, every one unique. She was sure there was a story behind each ornate door. Going to Grandma’s house was a treat and an adventure. As the only grandchild around for many years, A.W. spent her visits exploring the many rooms with their many secrets. That’s how Mercy Watts and the fairies of Whipplethorn came to be.
As an adult, A.W. Hartoin decided she needed a whole lot more life experience if she was going to write good characters so she joined the Air Force. It was the best education she could’ve hoped for. She met her husband and traveled the world, living in Alaska, Italy, and Germany before settling in Colorado where she now lives with her family, a Great Dane, a skanky cat, and six bad chickens.