Page 73 of Fairies Don't Fall

I looked down at Ruin’s big eyes in her pale face. “Are you okay?” I asked her.

She gave me a tiny nod before refocusing on Slaughter-Max.

He landed on the floor in front of the mayor, walked over to him, picked him up, chair and all, and then walked up the basement steps, which somehow also hadn’t melted. Slaughter-Max’s eyes burned red, like the runes in his dusky blue skin.

“You’ll contain the book,” he ordered the Librarian who was still on the ground, staring at him like he was the biggest monster she’d ever seen. I guess librarians don’t see a lot of monsters. Then again, Slaughter-Max was pretty terrifying.

He thudded the mayor’s chair on the ground and turned to me. He made a come-here gesture, and I spread my wings, floating towards him with Ruin’s hand in mine.

“Consort,” I said as we landed delicately on the solid ground next to the librarian. “You saved the mayor. You are as clever as you are handsome.”

“Saved the mayor?” the librarian asked, slowly climbing to her feet, but crouching like she was about to throw an attack spell at someone. “He looks dead.”

I looked at him in alarm. I didn’t put up with all of this stress for a corpse. I hurried over and put my hands on either side of his head. Slaughter-Max growled and grabbed me, pulling me into his arms and picking me off the ground.

“You don’t touch him,” he hissed in that evil voice that gave me all the goosebumps.

“Let him die!” A vicious fairy cried. Shotglass. Because we needed to look more suspicious to the librarian.

“He worked with the traitor,” another voice agreed.

On the field of grass between the two houses, or rather the half demolished house and the melted house, were thousands of fairies from my court. Terraformers were there, of course, because I’d agreed that they could come and check my grove, but what were all the others doing? My entire court was here. Including Vervain. Hadn’t I given him a direct order to stay in Fairyland? Behind him was a doorway, full-sized, and through it were pouring more and more of my people. I’d healed every single one of them of death-sickness in the last hundred years.

That’s when a dragon showed up, winging through the sky to come and land in a big, blue lump next to the Librarian. In a flurry of shadows, it reformed into a man, actually the vampire I’d met in the laboratory. Ah. They were together. This might be a problem.

“Kill the mayor and everyone who dares threaten our queen!” someone else yelled. Barry?

I raised my hand. “Actually, we’re just here for pizza. And to make sure the juvenile delinquents are safe during the pack war. Also, the bed was a draw. I was going to shrink it and take it back to Fairyland with me.”

Vervain smiled at me from across the field, but it was a smug smirk, like every time he got me to do what he’d been badgering me to do for centuries. Why wasn’t he in Fairyland? I’d given him a direct… Ah. I’d told him to stay with my court. And now my court was here. Hopefully Slaughter-Max didn’t kill him. Then again, maybe that would be a perk.

“You definitely need a lawyer,” a newcomer said, frowning at the mayor like he didn’t mind if he died. Did I know him?

“Who are you?” I demanded.

He smiled. “I’m the lawyer that Max requested.” He gave my consort-mate a squinty look. “That is Max, isn’t it?”

Just then, Mirabel the music master pushed through the fairies, her ogre prince close behind. “You’re invading SingsongCity?” she demanded, scowling at me. She sounded pretty upset. Looked it, too, like I’d betrayed her, tricked her into thinking I wasn’t really a death-fairy before I unleashed my consort-mate on the world.

I sighed heavily and leaned against said monster, wrapping my arms around his waist. They barely fit. “When are you going to wash my hair? I don’t want to go to war today. I’m not wearing the right shoes.”

He chuckled, dark and evil and then pulled the green statue the owl had coughed up out of thin air. “Only a moment, my mate. The mayor is saved. But there is still the pack war, the fight for dominance that must be resolved.” He shattered the statue into pale green shards that hung in the air, glittering like poison and then the werewolves started howling.

The sounds of their howls got closer and closer until they were filling in all the spaces the fairies weren’t in, more and more and more until the fairies were surrounded. They didn’t seem to mind, not with the way they were smiling with their claws out. Particularly Shotglass.

I sighed heavily. “If resolution means war, I’d have to heal everyone’s death sickness again. I hate doing that.” I looked up at Slaughter-Max. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan, my precious poison flower, is to reveal Malamech’s mate.” He made a fist and then someone fell from the sky, a writhing figure wrapped in red infernal lines.

It was Dominia, the mean girl who hated me so much.

She glared at me, ignoring Slaughter-Max like he didn’t exist. She tossed her fabulous hair and raised her chin. “Fine. Kill me. Show the world what you really are.”

“The gargoyles are on their way,” the lawyer said, his voice carrying surprisingly well considering how he kept his distance from Slaughter-Max, like he understood the danger better than I did.

“We can defeat them,” my consort-mate said, smiling at Dominia in a very unpleasant way. I didn’t like him smiling at someone else, even if it was the smile of rage and cruelty.

I grabbed his chin and pulled it down so he was forced to look at me. “Hey. Why doesn’t Dominia have any power? She did all of those things to the mayor, but it’s like she’s just a regular person. Was she not the villain after all?”

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