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“Do I need to be able to see the faerie wine in order to drink the faerie wine?” Zahra asks.
“The party is thick with natural glamour, so you wouldn’t really be able to perceive anything too well. All the food and things are brought from Faerie, so they won’t be perceptible to humans until the essence of magic wears thin. Daddy has faerie wine, though. If you want to try it, I’ll ask him. It reacts funny with humans, but it’s very sweet.”
Of course her father has “faerie wine,” and of course she’s tried it. Leaving a little kid in a big house full of unlocked liquor cabinets is a recipe for disaster.
Andromeda tells Zahra about different kinds of faerie wines while my teaching assistant picks apart the child’s lunch, so I take the time to remind myself about my attainable goals.
I just have to survive today.
And, if possible, stop thinking about last night.
Chapter 10
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Nothing makes sense, but movie night ever looms.
“So the moth faerie princess learned she actually was living her best life, thriving, and only occasionally leaving her lane to give kidnapping advice to possibly evil, but maybe just misunderstood, faerie princes. She took her prescribed drugs when she was supposed to, and never ever stopped singing. In that way, she lived—really, truly lived—ever after, sometimes happily, sometimes sadly, but always fully. The end.”
I…might be crying.
Swallowing hard, I stare at Willow as she stands from the head of the circle of children utterly fixated on her story, closes a book that one thousand percent did not contain whatever it is she just shared, and fixes her attention dead on me.
My heart jumps as she glides from the throngs of kids and silently finds her way to where I’m waiting by a window.
Folding her arms, she looks up at me. “Yes?”
“Um. Hi. Willow Harding, right? I’m Kassandra Role, Andromeda’s teacher? We met once a few months ago when you enrolled her at Noble Faith?”
“Yes?” Her head tilts. “Is everything all right with Meda? She’s not biting people, is she?”
Why is that even a concern? Why is that the first thing the adult people in her life ask me?
“Um. No. It’s just…I wanted to ask a couple questions?”
A perfect brow arches above Willow’s fiercely dark eye makeup, then her black lips curve. “About the fae?”
Well, no. But now that it’s been brought up… “Your story did seem remarkably similar to the ones that Meda brings to school.”
Willow passes me and takes a seat at a table in the corner. Inexplicably, a black cat jumps from beneath the table onto her lap, then flops onto the wood in front of her. She scratches behind his ears as I take my seat.
“Does she get her stories from you?” I ask.
“I think we both just get them from the source content.”
“What does that mean?”
She stares at me for several, long, uncomfortable moments. “Weird. Pollux doesn’t seem like the type to be scared to tell you all the things. I wonder what his reasoning is.” She sniffs. “I smell miscommunication. What has that unfortunate man done that has you hunting me down instead of talking to him?”
I take a deep breath and find my resolve. “Mrs. Harding, I’m here to ask about Meda’s relationship with your husband.”
“She doesn’t have one. They’ve never met.” She looks down at the cat. “Right?”
The cat jumps up onto her neck and mews in her ear.
“Yep. They’ve never met. Zy stays as far as he can from Pollux and his brood most of the time.”
“Why’s that?”
