useless.'
She sounded forlorn. Reaching out, I gave her a hug. The hint of ozone clinging to her mixed with something wild that might be her child growing within her. 'You aren't useless. Ceri, don't be so hard on yourself. Trent is good at this.'
The clatter of pixy wings pushed us apart, and Jax darted between us, Jenks's oldest son shedding orange sparkles of discontent. 'Ms. Morgan, what do you want to do with the wingless wonders? They're starting to stink.'
My brow furrowed as I turned to the picnic table. Giving Ceri a touch on her shoulder, I followed Jax back to Ivy and Pierce... and the fairies. Tired from a lack of sleep and the spent adrenaline, I sat beside Pierce. Before us on the old wood under a green-tinted sheet of ever-after were the survivors. Sixteen. That was it. The rest had 'accidentally' died at some point between me destroying their wings and now. The scent of hot chitin and burning hair smelled faintly like a lobster boil, and it made me ill.
I could tell the leader from the rest by the bandage around his head where Jenks had struck him. He looked proud, his long pale face stiff with anger. All his teeth were sharp, more savage than a vampire's, and they showed when he talked. His eyes were black and too big for his face. Fairies were a savage race, and without the softening of the wings, they looked like pale grim reapers in their flowing white, almost ragged clothes made from spider silk. All of them without exception had white hair, the men keeping it as long as the few women I could see. The women had smaller teeth and were somewhat shorter, but otherwise, they looked the same.
The leader was staring at us, standing proudly even though he was clearly unbalanced by his missing wings. None of them had shoes, and the belts hanging tight around their waists were empty of their swords and bows. The last of the burnable weapons was going on the fire now, and I watched a young fairy snarl and throw an ichor-soaked wad of cotton at the barrier as presumably her weapons went on the blaze.
Jax hovered beside me, his hands on his hips, looking a lot like his father. 'You should have let us kill them,' he said, worrying me.
The leader lifted his chin. 'You did that when you gave my sword to a pixy brat,' he said, his words having a soft lisp and almost lyrical pacing.
Jax rose up, shouting, 'You're an animal! Destroying everything in a garden when a little care and precision enriches it. We have to fight you or you'd destroy everything! You leave barren lots and weeds! Locusts. That's what you are. Bugs!'
The fairy looked up, hatred in his black eyes. 'I'm not talking to you, maggot.'
Pierce waved his hand to get rid of Jax's heavy dusting, and the pixy darted up and down, wings clattering. 'Are you the leader?' I asked, not surprised when the fairy nodded.
'I'm not above anyone,' he said, 'but I made the decision to be here, and others followed. I'm Sidereal.'
'Sidereal,' I echoed. 'I'm Rachel,' I said, 'but you probably already knew that.'
'The name of a lesser soon fades.' Sidereal corrected his slow tilt forward, a blush of anger coming over him at his own ineptness in maintaining his balance without his wings.
'I wish you hadn't attacked us,' I muttered.
Sidereal began walking in a careful, slow circle. His balance was better when he was moving. 'It was a good gamble. If we won, we would survive until the fall migration. If we failed, we wouldn't care.' He stopped his pacing, hand against the barrier between us. 'Keeping us alive won't give you a bargaining chip with the coven. We're tools to be discarded.'
My eyes widened. It had never occurred to me to use them as hostages. 'You aren't tools,' I said, nervously picking at the table. 'And you're not hostages either. I broke the spell because there has to be another way. You're still alive. When there is life, there are choices.'
Sidereal turned, almost falling as he overcorrected his balance. 'We are the walking dead,' he said, huge eyes dark with anger. 'Our wings won't grow back. My people are flightless. We can't migrate, and we can't fight. We were going to gain the land we needed or die in glory. Now we have nothing. Less than if we'd kept to our faded land and died as paupers. You've given us a very hard death, demon spawn.'
Pierce smacked the table to make everyone jump. 'Don't call her that,' he threatened, and Sidereal gave him a sour look.
'I was the walking dead once,' I said, and Ivy snorted. 'I am right now, actually. But I try.'
Sidereal turned away. The stumps of his wings were covered, but pale ichor had discolored the gauze. My gut twisted. Pierce was right. Without their wings, they couldn't compete. Death, though hard, would have been a blessing. A blessing I took from them.
Head tilted, Sidereal turned. 'We still have no land.'
'Then maybe you can stay here.'
'Filth!' Jax shouted, wings a harsh clatter and sword pointing. 'Never. Never!'
Ivy frowned, and Pierce looked worried. 'There's got to be a way to fix this,' I said.
Sidereal strode forward, having to catch his balance with a hand against the inside of the bubble. 'You'd make us live under the protection of pixies?' he snarled, showing his fangs. 'You'd make slaves of us?'
'They are backstabbing sneaks!' Jax exclaimed, drawing the attention of the pixies at the fire. 'We'll kill them before letting them into our garden!'
'What's the big deal?' I said tightly. 'You don't even eat the same things. It's just a matter of agreeing to abide by the rules of courtesy. And it's not your decision, it's your dad's.' Sitting straighter, I looked for Jenks. 'Jenks?' I called, tired of Jax's adolescent intolerance. It wouldn't be easy to get pixies and fairies to coexist, but they were going to try.
'They will destroy everything!' Jax exclaimed, red faced as hot glitter sifted from him. 'You're an ignorant lunker!'
Ceri was smiling with an I-told-you-so expression, her arms crossed to show off her middle, and I frowned. 'Jenks!' I shouted, listening for his wings and hearing nothing. My gaze slid to Ivy, alarm trickling through me. 'When was the last time you saw Jenks?'
'When he told me of the scout,' she said, rising fast.
'Jenks!' I shouted, and even Ceri dropped her arms and looked into the trees.
For five long seconds, we listened for his wings while fear wound tighter through me. Motions rough, I got up from the picnic table, hitting it hard enough to make my leg hurt. Ceri's hushed 'Go find your father' to Jenks's kids made my chest tighten.
'If you killed him, I will squish you myself,' I threatened Sidereal, and he bared his teeth and hissed at me like a cat.
'Looking forward to it.'
Jax was a flash of pixy dust, and he was gone, having flung himself forty feet straight up to do a rough visual.
'Where are you, Jenks?' I muttered, seeing the darting sparkles of his kids making patterns in the bright sun as they searched. There'd be no reason for him to leave unless...
My face went cold, and I looked at Ivy. 'Matalina,' I said breathlessly, and Ivy's face paled. I hadn't seen her since their last stand.
Twenty-one
'I'll check the church,' Ivy said, then took the steps two at a time. She was gone even before the door slammed shut. The fairies watched in satisfaction as the entire feeling in the garden turned to fear. But it wasn't until I saw Rex that my panic almost swallowed me.
The small orange cat was oblivious to the darting shapes, her ears pricked and her movements sure as she paced across the mown grass, let out when Ivy went in. With a little jump, she gained the small stone wall that separated the garden from the graveyard. Focus intent, she vanished into the taller grass.
'Pierce?' I said, glancing from where she'd disappeared. 'Watch the fairies, will you?'
