Page 10 of Fairies Don't Fall

It wasn’t just fear of retaliation that motivated me anymore. Soft warrior wolf Max and young Ruin weren’t what I’d fought in the invasion. Neither one of them deserved to die.

“Sparkles? Did you hear me? Are you going to throw up again? Don’t do it near any books.”

I blinked him back into focus, my heart pounding, my stomach churning. I delicately patted my stomach. “I was just thinking.” How could I approach this without implicating my people and turning him into the kind of warrior wolf he could be? “Why do you leave your caverns so empty and sad? Why don’t you turn them into a nice forest? A fairy would turn it into a garden, but wolves prefer woods, don’t they? Shady groves, moon-speckled shadows as you run through the trees, the wind in your fur, the rustling of the…”

He tugged me into motion, his hand wrapping around mine more firmly. “Wolves don’t turn caves into forests. That’s not rational.”

“But it’s possible. Do those mean the same thing? Can something be irrational but still real? I don’t know, but I do know that you can terraform almost anything. All you’d need was a bit of sky from somewhere else, somewhere lovely with good clean air, and then water brought from far below. Crumble the stone into sand, mix it with some lovely humus, and you’d have the canvas to create any kind of place you’d like. I was inside a shell once that had the most elaborate garden. It was more difficult, because she had to draw the water from the air for her plants, and shrinking plants changes the life cycle, but it’s perfectly possible.”

He grunted. “Werewolves don’t make gardens inside shells.”

“Then you could hire it out. It is labor intensive, but if you’re the alpha, you have the numbers at your command.”

“Sure, Princess. I’ll hire you to turn our caverns into a forest.” Threads of golden will wrapped around me from him, squeezing me tight. It was like the other thing. The duty thing.

I inhaled sharply. “What?”

“You offered. I accept. Now, let’s keep moving. We need to be in and out before the Scholar gets nervous.”

“But…” I felt the bindings of the promise tighten around me. What in the world had I just done? Why would I be so careless with my words when they could be so powerful? I knew that. I was a princess. My decree could change the world. And apparently, it would change the caverns, because I was bound to the wolf with a promise I couldn’t break.

But it would only last until he died, which would happen when the plan was put into motion and the werewolves of Singsong City were slaughtered. And werewolves were supposed to be the brutal ones? It was so absolutely awful to even contemplate.

I looked up at Max, and he met my eyes with that same concern in his. He’d fed me when I hadn’t realized I was starving. He’d protected me from the old wolf who wanted my wings like it was nothing. Was it a ruse? It could be. Or things could have changed. He was different. He wasn’t one of the old warrior wolves who had taken everything from me.

“What brings you here today?” a blonde woman with skin that glowed with an inner light asked, giving us an angelic smile. She was so beautiful, light, benevolent. She was what a good fairy should look like. Was she an angel? I didn’t see wings, but she was just so glowing. I used to glow like that, only different, because her glow was golden, and mine was the moon.

Max said, “Librarian. I need everything you have about Fairyland.”

She looked at him with a raised brow. “Fairyland? No one’s been there for generations. I heard that after the war, it wasn’t the same, but no one ever documented it. Fairies don’t document anything. I heard that they keep their memories in trees.” She looked at me with a raised brow. “Oh. You’re a fairy. You look different from most of them. So skinny and small.” She immediately winced. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude, I’m just the worst at social graces. Why don’t you follow me to the mythical creatures section and we’ll see what we can find?”

“I’m here to research werewolves,” I said as we followed her towards a large set of marble steps with a golden angel statue on the right and a gold statue of a demon on the left. The artist had meant for them to strike terror into the heart. They’d succeeded.

“Oh, good. We have much more on werewolves. What languages do you read? We have a whole section divided by language and category. Fairyland is going to take some doing. We don’t have a single text by an actual fairy in my library. It doesn’t seem possible.” She frowned in concern at the thought that her library was missing a certain kind of book.

Looking around at the pillars with books stretched all the way up to the ceiling, I had to agree that it seemed impossible that there could be anything missing.

I rose on my toes to see the second floor’s tomes. “Fairies don’t have a written language. I don’t know how to read any language at all. I did know a fairy scholar who wrote scrolls and scrolls of this and that, some of the tree records and some magic spells. He left them at the bottom of the stairs, and I was always tripping on them. That was a long time ago.”

The librarian stared at me with the most peculiar expression. “You don’t know how to read any languages?” Her voice was choked with shock and horror. She tried to keep it off her face, but failed miserably.

I looked up at Max. Was he also shocked and horrified? No, he only gave me a flat smile and said, “You’d better get on that or you’ll never get your dissertation written.”

I blinked at him. Oh. Dissertations were written. I should have realized that. How embarrassing. I licked my lips and tried not to look like an idiot.

Max cleared his throat. “Any texts you have in Latin, Greek, German, French, or most dark tongues, I can read.”

She smiled at him brightly. “None of the light languages? Celestial? Elvish? Elves are the most likely to have researched the subject. They research everything.”

“I’m not perfectly fluent at elvish, but I’m sure it’ll come back to me. No on the angelic tongues.”

“Great. I’ll compile what I can find, and you can come back tomorrow for the tomes. I think your friend needs to find a bed before she curls up on the floor.”

I straightened up, because I really had been drooping, with only Max’s hand on my shoulder holding me upright. “I’m fine. I just had a long train ride.”

“You didn’t get a bed?” Libby asked. It’s like everyone knew there were beds on trains. Except for me.

I sighed heavily. “Next time, I’ll definitely get a bed.” Then again, I’d spent so much time in bed lately. It was good to get out and do something. Even if it was entirely insane.

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