Page 44 of A Killing Frost

The pixies began landing all around me, and some of them were taller than I was, their bodies glowing bright in the dim Berkeleyevening. Many of them were armed, tiny knives and bows that I hadn’t been able to see well enough to notice before. I clutched May to my chest and tried to keep smiling.

I had asked for this, after all.

But no one ever accused me of being a genius.

TWELVE

THE NYQUIL-COLORED PIXIEwho’d been sitting on my shoulder before gestured toward the fence as she stepped forward. “Our magic can only sustain you at this size for so long,” she said. She had a surprisingly pleasant speaking voice, low alto and sweet. It had sounded like the chittering of a chipmunk or some other small mammal when we’d been different sizes.

We miss so much of the world around us. No matter how much attention we think we’re paying. We miss so, so much.

“I appreciate this more than I can say,” I said, and started toward the fence again. The distance that had only seemed so reasonable before seemed like the length of a football field now. No matter. I could carry May a lot farther than that if that was what I needed to do.

“My flock hasn’t had much interaction with you, but we’ve heard about you,” said the pixie, pacing me. “The changeling who thinks our lives are worth saving. You’re a story we’re happy to repeat. Although some of the things the other flocks say are ridiculous enough to be unbelievable.”

“Well, that makes sense. My life can be pretty unbelievable sometimes.” I didn’t like the looks of one of the pixies who was walking with us, a hulking male with candy-pink wings and the expression of a professional wrestler getting ready to turn heel in order to win the match.

“The Swampland flock says one of their number left them to gowith you, and never returned,” said the NyQuil pixie. “They say she traded her home and harbor for the service of the sea witch and walks among the bigger people now.”

Oh, swell. We were going to rehash this. Just what I always wanted. “Poppy felt she owed a debt to Simon Torquill for saving her flock when she was a child,” I said. “So when the magic her flock used to knock us out made him sick, she sold her own magic to the Luidaeg for a cure. She’s Aes Sidhe now, and Simon is...” I trailed off. How to explain what Simon was, without causing the pixies to rescind their willingness to help? “Simon is fine,” I concluded.

The pixie blinked. “So they tell truly?” she asked, tone disbelieving.

“I can’t say whether they tell truly about everything, since I don’t know everything they’ve been saying, but the broad strokes are probably true,” I said. “Most of the pixies I’ve known have been essentially honest.” It’s probably easier to be honest when no one understands what you’re saying. Not much benefit to falsehood. But maybe lying was just one of those habits the pixies never picked up.

The pixie gave me a thoughtful look. “You’re not as I expected you’d be.”

“I hope that’s a good thing.”

“Everyone says you’re a hero. A kingbreaker. Heroes are supposed to demand, not ask. And certainly not offer to pay for what they need.”

“Speaking of which, while I can understand you, are there any specific sides you want with your turkey dinner? I’ll make sure you get the standards, but I can’t predict anything I don’t know about.”

“Can we have real cranberry sauce?” asked a pale blue pixie. “The kind you make yourself, not the kind that comes out of a can.”

“You can, although it won’t be the kindImake myself, because I don’t know how to make cranberry sauce,” I said. We had reached the looming wall of the fence. The lowest bar was slightly below my waist. I’d have to climb over it. “But I can promise homemade cranberry sauce as a part of your payment, absolutely.”

I stopped, looking at the fence, and adjusted my grasp on May. The NyQuil-colored pixie followed my gaze, smirked, and snapped her fingers. “Zinnia, get her over the fence,” she commanded.

Most of Faerie follows a strict set of rules where names are concerned, doing our absolute best never to name anyone after anyone else, save by inference; I’m October in part because I’m technically a Torquill, and Simon and Sylvester’s sister had been a woman named September. Also because my mother’s first daughter was August, and I’d been born as part of a foolish attempt to patch the hole August’s absence had torn in the world. Pixies don’t follow those rules. Their lives are too short, on average; even when you’re a glowing, flying, magic-using person the size of a Skipper doll, you’re still the size of a Skipper doll, and the world is filled with terrible dangers, many of which can be traced back to fae my usual size. So they name their children after things the same color as their wings, keeping their rosters simple, and they never retire a name. They’d run out.

The scowling pink pixie scowled even more before flinging himself into the air, swooping over, and grabbing me under the armpits, not pausing to ask if I was ready. I squawked, startled by the speed of his movements, but I didn’t lose my grip on May, not even as he carried us over the iron crossbar of the fence and set me—none too gently—on my feet at the edge of the sidewalk.

“You may have convinced Rose that you’re our friend, but bigs aren’t for trusting, never,” he said, spinning me to face him. “You’d best not be around here again in a hand of days, asking for more, or it’s going to end bad for you. Understand?”

Pixie idiom can be hard to follow—their grasp of grammar is fluid at best—but I’ve spent enough time around Poppy to have a pretty decent idea of what’s being said, usually. “Understand,” I said. “I assume Rose is the red pixie who helped convince the rest of you to make us small? Please let her know I appreciate it, and I’ll arrange delivery of your promised dinner as soon as I can talk to Shade. Now, if you can just re-big us, we’ll get out of your hair, and you can have your evening back.”

The pixie—Zinnia—scowled again before leaping into the air and returning to where Rose and the others waited. Rose smiled and clapped her hands, and I abruptly couldn’t make out the expression on her face anymore. It was too small, and she was too far away, a diminutive figure standing in the scrubby grass on the other side of the fence.

I glanced around me as I straightened, checking to make sureno one had seen my amazingAlice in Wonderlandimpression. Pixies are protected from mortal eyes by their innate wild magic, which is less controlled than the magic of larger fae, but is older, and keeps them safely hidden. Fae like me or May lost that ability a long time ago. We can be seen.

Fortunately, this time, there was no one else on the sidewalk, and if any of the people living in the nearby houses had security cameras pointed at the street, they would doubtless attribute my sudden appearance to a glitch in their software. Humans are predictable that way. At least we looked like we belonged to their number. I adjusted my grasp on May once again and began plodding toward campus.

Berkeley is not a city built on level ground. Little hills and uneven sidewalks dominate even the most over-priced and gentrified of areas. I had barely gone two blocks before my arms started to ache in earnest, making the rest of my journey feel insurmountable. I took a deep breath, focusing on how worried I was about Quentin, and resumed pressing forward.

By the time the familiar outline of campus loomed ahead of me, my arms felt like they were going to drop off, and there was a deep, throbbing pain in my lower back that spoke to strained muscles and severe overexertion. My body was patching itself back together as quickly as it could, but the injury was ongoing, and would be until I found a place where I could set my sister down. That place was hopefully somewhere up ahead.

Maybe it wasn’t fair of me to assume Walther would be at work—he must have had a life outside of being my alchemist on call, and I sort of thought he might have something going on with my honorary niece, Cassandra, who definitely wore shorter shorts and tighter shirts when she knew he was going to be around—but to be fair, in my experience, he was almost always in his office when there wasn’t some terrible disaster happening. Also to be fair, the terrible disaster was usually either my fault or happening to me.

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