Page 61 of Fairies Don't Fall

“How do you keep your heart employed? What do you pay it?”

“Sushi. At any rate, you care. That’s why your aunt dared come face you, knowing that she could bind Malamech’s second with those infernal chains, because she knew that you wouldn’t kill her when it would injure him. You care about him most of all. He hasn’t been Slaughter for a long time. Like you haven’t been the death fairy. Right. My second favor to you is telling you that you need to find the person working with the Traitor of all of Fairyland, the one who gave her the binding over Slaughter. I think her plan was to have him kill you. She had a great deal of faith in those bindings, but that’s folly. They broke in the first place. I wonder how Slaughter was liberated from Malamech’s grasp.” He clucked his tongue. “Such a mystery.”

I turned to frown at him. He looked back at me with weirdly glowing eyes somewhere between green and gold. “Are you finished with your favors, or are there more? If not, feel free to go. I’m enjoying my solitude.”

“Is that what you call it? When I sulk on the roof, I call it wallowing in misery, but to each their own.” He rolled off the roof without the slightest warning.

For a second, I stared at the space where he’d been. Had I accidentally on purpose pushed him off? I leaned forward and looked to see a blur of black swallowed up in the shadows. And to think that I could have had the satisfaction of pushing him off the roof the whole time.

“My Queen,” Vervain said after he’d left me alone for longer than he normally would. Wallowing in misery is exactly what he’d call it.

“My betrayer,” I returned evenly without looking at him.

He sighed and came closer, dropping on his heels to look out into the night, searching for the enemy so I didn’t have to. He was so familiar, it was almost comforting to know that some things never changed.

“He’s unconscious,” he said after a long pause. “The dagger was a spelled infernal blade made to kill you. He’s not quite dying, but he’s not healing, either.”

“Perfect. He can stay like that forever.”

He nudged me with his elbow while I stared into the darkness. “My Queen, he is your consort.”

“Yes. And you are my bodyguard and court spy. The next time you touch me with your elbow or anything else, I will shatter it. Why didn’t you tell me that Slaughter had betrayed Malamech and was working with us?”

“Because I couldn’t risk you being gentle with him once you thought of him as your ally. If Malamech suspected his treachery, he would have crushed him, and we would have lost any advantage we had.”

“You trust yourself, but not me? He’s Slaughter. I wanted him to refuse to leave so that I could kill him like I did his master. And you got between us every time he came close. You wouldn’t let me fight him.”

“Because I knew that he’d give it away by being too gentle with you.”

I turned to frown at him. “Because he wanted Malamech to lose and saw that I had impressive potential for destruction.”

“Because he fell for you.”

I blinked at him. “What do you mean by that?”

He shrugged. “Something about you spoke to him.”

“The way I killed his people spoke to him?”

“You’re more than a death machine.”

“And you’re going to say that so is he. Slaughter the death machine is more than a death machine.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. He looked rather stressed out. Usually he was utterly impassive and emotionless, but this had knocked him off balance. Did it bother him to know that I’d never trust him again?

“He’s not fighting to live,” he finally said. “He’s actually willing himself to die. If you don’t do something, I don’t think he’ll ever wake up again. He might not be technically dead, but…”

“I’m a terrible healer,” I said, crossing my arms and staring out at the night. “What can I do that the best healers in all of Fairyland can’t do?”

“You can give him back the strength you took from him. You can be his Queen. You can give him the will to live.”

I shuddered. “I’m too angry. My aunt, you, and Slaughter. You all betrayed me. I can’t heal anyone when I want to tear the world apart.”

He hesitated and then put his hand on my shoulder. Was I going to shatter it? “Of course you can. You’re the Queen. You do what you must, no matter what you want.” He squeezed once and then released me and stood at attention, on guard, doing his duty. Like I was going to do mine.

Chapter

Eighteen

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