Page 29 of Finding Closure

A few were enraged that a young stupid woman would dare taunt them or whatever their bullshit was. Whatever, they could end up dead like the others or just keep their bile to themselves.

I would be fine either way.

More than that, the people of Faerie were overwhelmingly in support of my proposed changes to the local ordinances and laws. They were stepping up all over both realms to demand fairness and support it, condemning most of the corrupt nobles I’d already tossed out of power and making clear that they never wanted them back.

That worked out better than I could ever have hoped.

And the fairies who were working with supes on injuries or conditions that couldn’t be healed by their own people were working out well. They were helping left and right, and people were bending over backwards to thank fairies and offer food and more at every turn. There had been a handful of kids that Neldor and I had to go help.

One was that morning, and that was how I got roped into doing what Neldor wanted that day. I felt horrible about the pain he had to suffer as the price of healing the child, and when he said he wanted something in return, I immediately agreed.

I just didn’t realize it had been a date.

“Just trust me,” he grumbled as he had me put glamours on both of us. He wanted us to both be dark fairies, which felt a bit weird to me, but I shrugged it off, assuming we were going to thedark realm and to blend in. He did tell people we were sneaking off, but Taeral told them all not to worry.

And theydidn’t.

Huh?

Like…Huh?

“How do you get them to do that? You have to teach me that trick,” I hissed at him as he pulled me along.

“They know what we’re up to,” he drawled. “And you’re safe in Faerie. Well, you are now that the connection is broken, and you’ll be glamoured.”

Okay, if he said so. I was always safe since I was the strongest but sure, okay, whatever. I went with it because I’d promised him, and I got the night off from people hovering.

He made sure he had a lot of the currency of Faerie and in a range of denominations. Right, so we were going to have some fun in Faerie. I’d already figured that out. We were probably going to eat since we both needed to recharge.

No, it was so,somuch more than that.

It was the first festival Faerie was having since the end of the war. I’d forgotten about that. Everyone had agreed that it would be wrong to have any of the normal celebrations or yearly events with fairies still frozen, but now that they were all awake… This was the first big one that people wanted. We’d approved it months ago.

“This is a nut harvest or something, right?”I asked Neldor in his mind as I glanced around.

“It’s way more than that, but yes.”He frowned and stopped pulling me along, staring at me a moment as if trying to think of how to explain it.“It’s like the celebration of peanut butter and jelly and all the kids it feeds. It’s the nostalgia of those sandwiches to humans, but also the story and worship of the goddess who first gave us the plants and knowledge to eat them.”

“Got it. It’s cool.”It was. I glanced around and saw the tree decorations. The nuts came from them, and they were almost like almonds in look but robust like peanuts. Healthier too. More like macadamia nuts? Whichever one was the super healthy one.

And the jam was the super cheap fruit that the poor could always afford. It was easy to grow, and that was why the goddess who gave it to fairies was praised. It was practically impossible to kill the damn plant and gave off a ton of fruit, so the bounty was celebrated.

Plus, it was pretty.

The streets were decorated with harvested vines. It almost reminded me of cucumber vines with the huge leaves, but they weren’t prickly. They almost shined in all of the lights and… Kind of reminded me of Christmas garland with the vibe and celebration. Odd, but they did.

Neldor told me what we got first from a stall and basically it was like a huge Uncrustable.

But so,somuch more. It wasn’t just jelly but chunky jam almost like pie-filling chunky and not as sweet with processed sugar. No, this was all natural.

And it was so much more than peanut butter. It was chunky for one thing, and that added to the flavor for sure given the way the nuts were roasted. But it was like whipped? It was so fluffy at the same time and crazy good. The bread was unreal, so fresh that I swore they had to be grinding the damn wheat right there.

I glanced over and saw the round dough being slapped down inside some cooking tunnel thing like I’d seen in Middle Eastern cooking videos. Then while they were still warm, a slit was cut in them, and they were stuffed both with the jam and whipped nut butter.

Fucking delicious.

“Could you imagine this drizzled with Nutella?” I whispered.

“Shit, that would make this next-level,” he agreed, staring at his mostly gone one. “Okay, add it to the list of everything we want to eat. One more?”

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