AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Lifting my face, I inhale and catch faint touches of something sweet. It’s getting colder each day and the weather reports have been periodically teasing a snow we have yet to see, so there shouldn’t be any more flowers around to infiltrate the fullness of pine.
Yet there is definitely something almost floral, almost honey on the breeze.
With every step, it grows stronger and more complicated.
The windsong deepens, turning dreamlike. As though there is an actual melody sitting just outside my perception. It’s craziness. It’s late. I’m tired from dragging my sits-all-day-grading rump out here.
Magic and faeries are fairy tales. Fiction. Not real.
Zahra stops in a clearing awash in silver moonlight, and my skin prickles beneath my coat.
There’s nothing here.
Just grass and wind and an array of scents riddling the chilled air.
But Zahra’s gone still in a way that makes it hard to breathe.
“Zahr?” I squeeze her hand.
She startles and looks back at me.
A tear slides down her cheek.
She hardens the second she realizes it and scrubs her face. “What? I’m not crying. I’m washing my eyes. You have to do that when you wear eye shadow.”
I press my lips together. “What can you hear?”
Her eyes close, and her nostrils flare as she fills her lungs. “It’s a—” She swears. “—faerie party, Kass. There’s music and laughter and conversations about things I can’t even begin to understand.” Her grip crushes my hand as her eyes snap open. Abruptly, she stomps forward. “Hey, would someone mind talking to me? Please. I’ve always been able to hear your voices, my entire life. I want to know why.”
“Zahr…” I touch her back with my free hand.
She jerks away from that touch while still crushing my fingers in her grip. So much pain fills her eyes when they meet mine, and I get the distinct feeling that something inside her is shattering. “I’m not insane. My brain isn’t broken. I need to know why I can hear them.” Her voice cracks. She looks back at the nothingness. “Please. Could somebody please talk to me?”
We stay there for an hour.
But no one responds.
?
“And that is why I would like your help, my dearest family, in building Mrs. Role a playground tonight.” Andromeda finished her speech by showing a picture she’d drawn of a brightly-painted wooden playground including a pirate ship, a small house, multiple slides, several rock walls…
Elaborate could not begin to describe what Pollux was looking at.
The child had taped four extra pages to her book in order to fit the entire picture, and they had all but dramatically fanned open at the start of her spiel.
“This image is not a blueprint,” Alexios offered from where he was seated beside Pollux on the parlor couch. “It doesn’t contain suitable instructions for collaborative efforts.”
Andromeda scowled. “I’m not even three yet, Yama-nii-nii. I have done my best, and now I am asking for help. This is how it works in Uncle Cael’s domain.”
“Sephin can turn it into a blueprint in about ten minutes. Then it’s just a matter of figuring out where to get tools and materials and manpower. If you want it all done tonight, the three of us seem insufficient.” Alexios planted a hand at his chin.
“Don’t you think Uncle Cael and Lana will help?”
“Absolutely. I can blackmail A if she doesn’t want to, and anything she does, the prince will do.”
Pollux rocked his jaw and interjected, “However, five people still might not be enough to get everything finished tonight.”
“Everyone else is seelie and scared of us, Daddy,” Andromeda reminded him. “It feels a little mean to ask for help if we’d make everyone uncomfortable by being there.”
