“It’s the first time in my life that I’m enjoying working with humans. It had been so long since I trusted them not to stake me. It’s scary and refreshing as well.” Fergus told him it had taken him a long time to do that as well. “I still find myself keeping an eye out for trouble. I suppose that’s a good thing. But since I’ve met CJ, it’s a little less stressful.”
“You should talk to either your mate or Melisandre. I do believe that one of your perks for being mated to CJ will be something along the lines of you being able to withstand more trauma to your body. Stakes and the like might not be a factor in you being killed anymore.” Don asked him why he thought that. “Well, you sort of glow with this untapped magic. I’m not sure that’s the right term for it, but you look like you have this bubble around you, just waiting for someone to take you on. Like a protective shield. I noticed it around CJ too when I saw her today.”
“I’ll write that one down too. I have a list of things I’m going to ask Melisandre when we have our meeting tomorrow afternoon. If you’d like to come to the meeting with us, that would be fine with me. We’re meeting her in her castle. She said she’d feel safer there with what she has to impart to us all. Bancroft and the others have been given magic as well. There is no reason for me to think you might not have gotten some of it.” Fergus told him he thought he’d like to do that. “Good. She’s sending a guard to pick us up at noon. I’m not entirely sure what that entails, but we’ll be transported to her kingdom from this house.”
“I’ll be here then.”
As he made his way to the building he was to look at, several faeries joined him on his walk. Sometimes he was a little afraid of the little creatures. Not that he’d ever been harmed by any of them, but they were so tiny he was terrified of hurting one of them. The one that was currently sitting on his shoulder began speaking as they were nearing the building.
“The building is very old, not in our years, but to the humans. It wasn’t torn down when it was replaced because they had plans to turn it into a hotel. That never happened, as I’m sure you’re aware. There was too much money to be sunk into it, so it was just abandoned. Another time it was thought to make a nice antique shop, with each room being for one of the renters. But that too fell through when it was discovered the building wasn’t up to code for as many people as it would need to hold.” Don asked him if he knew how bad of shape the building was in. “For its age, it’s held up well. We have been told we could take charge of the clean-up. It was very dusty inside, and some unwelcome animals had gotten in. We took care of the clean-up yesterday. I do believe it will be easier to ascertain what needs to be done to it with all the filth gone. By the way, I forgot to tell you my name. I am called Pin.”
“I’m Fergus. Nice to meet you, Pin. As for the cleaning up, I believe you’re right on that.” They entered the building in the front of the place. “I can see right now that it’s going to need new windows and doors. These wouldn’t keep a varmint out if he needed to get in out of the cold.”
“I am relaying the information to one of the faeries that are able to write. She is making the list of things you find while looking around.” Fergus thanked him. “We will make a good team, I think.”
It took them well over four hours to look the building over. It wasn’t really in bad shape, as Pin had told him, but it was going to need a great deal of work. As he moved out of doors to look at where the greenhouse was supposed to have been, he wasn’t the least bit surprised to find that someone had already installed it where he thought the old one had been. He asked Pin about it.
“Even as the building is being worked on, we can start on some of the trees that we’ll be able to sell. Mistress CJ said she didn’t care so long as we didn’t go overboard on the project. It was quite an undertaking to make sure that the others didn’t make the building too large. We have trouble with scale, you see.” Fergus laughed and said he’d done a fine job. It was perfect. “Thank you, my lord. Coming from you, that is quite a compliment. I shall tell the others that we did a good job.”
The rest of the day was spent going over the list of things that needed to be taken care of. The two of them worked on prioritizing the list into what needed to be fixed by a professional and ones that the faeries could work on now. The little creatures would just make it work by magic, and while it would be quicker, they did need to hire people for this project that needed an income. By five o’clock, he had a working list and was ready to go see the queen with the others tomorrow.
~*~
CJ had been to the castle before, of course. It was a place she would visit when she needed some downtime. That
