Chapter 6 I Accidentally Repaired a Fairy

The dust in the lower cellar had barely settled after our vows of dramatic tactical unity when a high-pitched, metallic thud echoed from the back storage closet.

Rowan’s hand flew to the hilt of his concealed silver blade in a motion so fast it practically blurred. "Stand behind me."

"I am holding a three-hundred-degree soldering iron, Nightshade," I replied, shoving past his velvet-clad shoulder and pointing the glowing copper tip at the closet door. "You stand behind me. I have property damage coverage; you have a silk coat."

Sir Fluffington waddled into combat formation, his neck extended, letting out a low, terrifying hiss that sounded like a tea-kettle about to blow its lid.

CLANG.

The brass handles of the disused potion cupboard rattled violently. A tiny, muffled screech echoed from behind the splintered oak panels.

"Unclasp the latch, Bellweather," Rowan commanded, stepping to my left with his blade drawn, his dark eyes sharp as flint. "On three. One"

I kicked the cabinet door open on two.

A frantic, sparkling blue blur shot out of the darkness, buzzed twice around my magnifying loupe, and crashed directly into my open palm with a wet splat.

"Ow! Watch the wing, you oversized ape!" a voice like a silver handbell squeaked from my hand.

I lifted my thumb. Sitting in the center of my palm was a fairy no larger than my index finger. She wore a dress fashioned out of a single dried hibiscus petal, her silver hair was sticking up in seven different directions, and her left wing hung at a sickening, ninety-degree angle, leaking faint, glittering golden sap onto my skin.

"Well, well, well," Rowan drawled, lowering his dagger by half an inch, his signature smirk returning with infuriating speed. "It appears the high-stakes threat to the Bellweather legacy is a three-inch intruder with a broken hinge."

"Hey! Ice-Prince!" The fairy stood up on her tiny legs, pointing a trembling, golden-dusted finger at Rowan’s nose. "You tell your tailor to put more padding in your shoulder pads! You look like a velvet rectangle!"

Rowan’s smirk instantly vanished. "I beg your pardon?"

"Pip!" I gasped, recognizing the messy silver hair immediately. "Pip, what are you doing locked in my herbal storage cupboard? And why is your wing sideways?"

"I was hiding from the shadow-creeps!" Pip squeaked, wincing as she tried to flutter her good right wing, sending a puff of glitter into my face. "They came in through the ceiling grate while you were out getting those terrible greasy pastries! They had black iron wands, Iris! They opened your top shelf, took the acorn charm, and then one of them almost stepped on me!"

Sir Fluffington leaned his long neck over my hand, sniffing Pip's dress. Pip reached out and aggressively smacked the goose's beak with a tiny fist. "Back off, bird! I am a official messenger of the Eastern Glade, not a dandelion!"

Sir Fluffington blinked, thoroughly offended, and retreated behind my skirts to sulk.

"Did you see where they went?" Rowan asked, leaning down until his dark eyes were level with my open palm. "Did they carry a crest? A family house insignia?"

Pip covered her face with both hands, shuddering. "No! They smelled like old mud and burnt iron! But they were talking about the 'Mender’s core'! They said the seal under the floor was getting warm!"

I set Pip gently on top of a velvet pincushion on my desk. "Rowan, hold her shoulders. She's bleeding glade-sap."

"Hold her?" Rowan looked at Pip as if I had asked him to hold a live venomous toad. "I do not handle Glade fairies, Bellweather. Their residue ruins velvet."

"Hold her shoulders or I am wiping my soldering iron on your coat," I said flatly.

Rowan let out a sharp, irritated breath, stepping around the desk. He reached down with two pale fingers, gently—almost delicately—pinning Pip's tiny shoulders against the red velvet cushion.

"If you bite me, fairy," Rowan warned in his lowest, icy register, "I will assign you to the biology department's dissection inventory."

"Try it, snow-boy! I’ll bite your thumb off!" Pip yelled, squirming under his fingers.

"Hold still!" I commanded, hovering my right hand over Pip’s shattered wing.

I closed my eyes and drew upon the deep, quiet warmth in my chest. The golden Mending threads spun out from my fingertips like glowing spider silk, wrapping around the fractured fairy wing. The crushed translucent lattice groaned softly, the golden glade-sap flowing backward into the leaf-veins of her wing as the bone-like structure fused together.

PING.

A soft burst of light illuminated the mahogany desk. Pip’s left wing snapped back into its flawless, iridescent position, vibrating with a high, clear hum.

Pip leaped off the pincushion, did three lightning-fast aerial loops around Rowan’s head—knocking two strands of his perfectly styled hair out of place—and landed squarely on the tip of my nose.

"You're my best friend now!" Pip announced, placing her tiny hands on my nostrils. "We're blood-bound! I am staying in this shop forever, and if anyone tries to hurt you, I will stab them in the eye with a toothpick!"

"Oh, marvelous," Rowan muttered, using one finger to smooth his ruined hair back into place. "Just what this illegal cellar needed. An unhinged, violent fairy to go with the unhinged, violent goose."

"Hey!" Pip buzzed off my nose and zipped directly up to Rowan’s ear, shouting at the top of her lungs. "I heard that, velvet rectangle!"

Rowan winced, swatting at the air around his head while Pip easily dodged his long fingers, blowing a tiny puff of golden glitter directly into his dark eyes. Rowan sneezed—a surprisingly dignified, quiet sound—and rubbed his nose with a silk handkerchief.

"Pip," I said, catching the fairy out of the air by her petal skirt before Rowan could actually deploy frost magic against her. "What did you mean when you said the seal under the floor was getting warm?"

Pip’s comedic squabbling instantly stopped. She hung upside down between my fingers, her silver hair drooping, her tiny face growing pale.

"The Whispering Woods are crying, Iris," Pip said softly, her bell-like voice dropping into a eerie, somber tone. "The elder trees are turning black at the roots. The Great Fairy Queen sent three messengers to the High City last week, but none of them came back. The elders say the ancient key was turned three days ago."

Rowan froze, his handkerchief dropping onto the desk. He looked from Pip straight down to my right wrist, where the black crescent mark was hidden beneath my linen sleeve.

"The pocket watch," Rowan said, his voice stripped of all humor.

"It wasn't just a watch, was it?" I asked, looking between the prince and the fairy. "When I mended that casing, I didn't just fix a mechanical toy for a royal customer."

"It was a catalyst," Pip whispered, fluttering her freshly mended wings to land on my shoulder, burying herself under my hair. "The Hollow King's shadows are waking up under the stone. They're looking for the Mender who broke the lock."

Sir Fluffington let out a long, haunting screech from beneath the desk, his orange beak pointing straight at the floorboards beneath our feet.

A low, deep vibration ran through the stone floor of the greenhouse. It wasn't an earthquake; it was a rhythmic, heavy thrum that vibrated straight through the soles of my boots, echoing three feet down into the bedrock where the academy foundations met the dark.

Rowan reached out, his hand wrapping firmly around my left forearm, pulling me a step back from the center of the room. His grip was warm, solid, and entirely devoid of his usual royal restraint.

"This is no longer about an illegal shop, Bellweather," Rowan said, his dark eyes burning with an intense, fierce light as he glared at the humming floorboards.

"No kidding, mate," I replied, my voice shaking slightly as I gripped my heavy brass soldering iron. "My rent just went up significantly."

"Hey!" Pip’s head popped out from behind my ear, pointing dramatically at Rowan’s face. "If we're going into the dark basement, the velvet rectangle goes first! He has the most armor!"

"If you call me a rectangle one more time," Rowan said without turning his head, "I will hand you to the goose."

"Honk!" Sir Fluffington agreed loudly, stepping up beside Rowan's boots, his feathers flared, ready for war.

I looked at the Fae Prince, the unhinged fairy on my shoulder, and the territorial goose at my feet. The mahogany desk between us was covered in soap suds, silver filings, and residual dark magic, but for the first time since the alarm bells had chimed last night, I didn't feel like running away.

"All right," I said, drawing a fresh chalk line across the mahogany wood, connecting our positions. "The shop is officially closed for standard repairs. New policy: we find the shadow-creeps, we get my acorn back, and nobody tells the Headmaster we're about to dig up his floorboards."

Rowan looked down at the chalk line, then met my eyes with a slow, dark, unreadable smile. "Agreed, partner."