Before the queen could respond, a shrieking blue blur streaked through the forest and into the pixie ring, collapsing in the pile of mushrooms. A bedraggled blue pixie with wings like a dragonfly and flour in her hair panted and squeaked at her compatriots. The swarm fell silent as they listened to her chitter.
“I’m not fluent in pixie,” the queen said quietly, “but that does not sound good.”
“Dialects is tricky,” Nudd whispered to the queen, “but I can tell they’re chirpin’ about humans and about traps and about . . . I’m fair sure that last word was revenge.”
The queen winced.
The air was suddenly hot as the whole colony began to buzz. Blue appeared to have concluded her report, and the hive was breaking into a flurry of furious discussion. Instinctively, the queen glanced up at the spriggan sentinel.
The sober watchman had become not one but a dozen spriggans now, all following the developments silently from the branch. Glistening, beady eyes narrowed as they took in the news unfolding below them. Oh, perfect, thought the queen. The whole forest seemed to have become a coiled spring.
The pixies rose into the air as a single entity, the swarm humming with wrathful energy.
“No, no, no. Stay calm.” The queen held out her hands, but the pixies burst past her like azure arrows launching from an invisible bowstring. “Stop!” she commanded.
The pixies did not spare her a backward glance.
“This,” said the queen, “is going to end badly.”
The branch above them shook, and when the queen glanced up, the spriggans were gone, too.
“This is going to end very badly,” said Nudd.
“I have a feeling that pixie might have been your small thing,” the queen mused darkly. “And if you were waiting for your chance to nudge the Wild Wood away from a war—your right time may have just passed.”
The scruffy bogle watched the cloud of pixies vanish into the woods before turning back to the queen. “I takes the mushrooms now?”
The queen’s eye twitched. “Have them.” And without another word, she took off after the pixies as quickly as her legs could carry her, Chief Nudd close at her heels.
TWENTY-TWO
Endsborough simmered. The streets were still crowded, but the tension in the air had shifted from a purposeful rush to a restless discontent. Townsfolk paced the sidewalks or leaned against buildings, gossiping and shaking their heads. Several people had charcoal-black smudges up and down their arms.
“Boys!”
Annie heaved a sigh of relief as her twins jogged across the street to meet her. Soot streaked her face, and her dress was damp at the hip and ash gray at the hem. “The fire is finally out. They had to refill the pumper twice before it was fully doused. Fable! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” said Fable, catching up to the boys. “I think your town is kinda broken, though.”
“Can’t argue with that. Oh, your dress is an absolute mess. But I suppose mine isn’t much better at the moment.”
“Yeah.” Fable looked down at herself. “Washing things is not as much fun as getting them dirty.”
“And mark my words, ladies and gentlemen!” a voice was booming from the town square. “It will only get worse unless we take a stand! It will only get worse!”
A crowd was gradually coalescing around the center of the grass, where Jacob Hill was orating like a preacher.
“What is he going on about now?” Annie mumbled, and they moved closer to listen in.
“These creatures constitute a public menace!” Hill continued. He stood in front of the same bench where he had carried Oliver Warner after the accident. “A threat to your homes, your families, your children. Now, I’ve come to know a lot of you personally over the past several weeks. I know Endsborough is full of good, salt-of-the-earth folks. But frankly, I am shocked you’ve let this go on for so long! Shocked!”
“Hold on just a minute,” Mr. Zervos called from the back of the crowd. “I’ve lived here my whole life, and we’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“Haven’t you, though?” Hill mused aloud. “How many of you have had an experience?” He passed his eyes over the crowd. “Strange occurrences? Bumps in the night?”
Heads began to nod and meaningful glances were exchanged.
“When I stand on my back porch I can see some kind of lights floating around the garden,” someone said. “They show up around sundown, every night, like they’re watchin’ us.”
“Sometimes I find things all moved about in my kitchen in the morning,” said someone else. “Feel like I’m going crazy.”
“Something took a piece out of my dog’s ear,” yet another voice cried. “Poor thing growls at the tree line to this day.”
“Everyone knows you can’t trust them!” said another.
Them. Fable’s heart was starting to beat hard against her ribs. She was a them.
“They’ve taken people,” Old Jim Warner declared loudly. The whispers in the crowd quieted. His eyes turned to Cole and Tinn. “They’ve stolen people.”
Fable could see Tinn shrink under Jim’s gaze. If Kull had not botched the changeling ritual thirteen years ago, that’s exactly what would have happened to the Burtons—Cole would have been stolen away and sold to the fairies, and Tinn would have returned to the Wild Wood to be raised by goblins like he was supposed to be. Old Jim might have gotten used to seeing the twins around town, but he never let them forget that there should only have been one of them. Tinn’s obvious discomfort made Fable bristle with anger.
“It’s true,” Helen Grouse blurted. “Tell him about Joseph, Annie!”
“I don’t want to talk about Joseph,” Annie said.
“People kept trying to say Annie’s husband ran away because of the boys,” Helen persisted.
Cole gritted his teeth.
“But she always insisted he would never, didn’t you, Annie?” Eyes moved from Mrs. Grouse to Annie. “Those things tried to steal your baby, and when they couldn’t take him,
