Page 14 of Fairies Don't Fall

She eyed Ruin, who was still trying to look cute and adorable, but only succeeded in looking devious and wily. Mindy finally scrubbed Ruin’s head and then released her. “All right. Don’t get Princess Sparkles into trouble.”

“My name’s not…” I didn’t finish my sentence, because Ruin grabbed my hand and started running. I followed, stretching my legs and wings to keep up. When we got to a blue and white building with flickering lamps hanging every three feet around the façade, she stopped and looked at me intently.

“I don’t think a fairy’s ever been in the bathhouse before, so try not to mind everyone staring at you. And if someone messes with you, I’ll protect you.” She frowned. “But hopefully that doesn’t happen, because I’m in enough trouble with Max already.”

“Okay. No more trouble, and absolutely no messes.” I was used to people staring at me like I was an unfortunately animated pile of refuse.

She raised a brow and then went to the door, a cloud of steam escaping as she opened it. I followed her inside and then stopped, looking around while she talked to someone behind a counter in a small booth on the side. It was enormous, withlayers and layers of steaming pools past the main one that filled the center of the room. It wasn’t hideously ugly, because the layers of pools were in charming patterns that reminded me of a natural fall. Oh, there were some falls from one pool to the next. The most shocking thing was how many people were in the pools, with a mixture of skin colors from the pink of raw chicken to the dark blues of a twilight sky. Ogres, goblins, vampires, and so many werewolves swam and splashed, laughed and talked, until the sound echoed off the plaster white walls. Unreal.

Ruin linked her arm in mine. “Okay, I’ve paid. I mean, I didn’t pay, pay. I just convinced the guy that Max would pay, which is so much better. This is the main pool, with mixed genders and required bathing suits. To the right, behind those doors, is the women’s bath house, and the men’s is to our left. We’ll go through the women’s bath house to get to the sauna.

I looked at her and nodded when she seemed to be waiting for a reaction from me. It was just so incomprehensibly bizarre to see all those people that close together and not killing each other. “Everyone seems very relaxed,” I said, frowning at an enormous guy who had tan skin and a beard, but a little ogre on one shoulder, grabbing his hair before he jumped off into the water. No, that was a little girl ogre. You could tell by her pink, ruffled suit in a bright unicorn print.

“Sure. The bathhouse is pretty chill. Max makes sure of that. He’s pretty strict. No fighting allowed here, or you’ll end up banned, humiliated, and fined.”

“Is he a good alpha?”

She scoffed at me. “He’s the best. Obviously, because the Singsong pack is the best.”

I smiled slightly. Her loyalty was incredibly cute. “Obviously.”

She sniffed and grabbed my hand, dragging me through two sets of double doors, into a room full of females, most of whomweren’t wearing anything at all. It would have been a fascinating study of biology if Ruin hadn’t yanked on my arm, dragging me to another side door.

“Don’t look directly at anyone,” she hissed once we were through. “It’s like you’ve never seen naked people.”

“I have.” I frowned after I said that, because had I really? Fairies tended to always have something covering something, like leaves, or flowers, or spiderweb, or silk. The Queen, before she’d been slaughtered with her court, had always worn very elaborate outfits that people sewed together with needles. I hadn’t kept up that tradition, much to Vervain’s dismay. He lived to be dismayed.

“Yeah, okay. Here. Take off your…” She gave me a skeptical look. “Whatever, and put on this towel.” She handed me a white fluffy thing.

I stared at the towel for a long moment, then at Ruin, but she was already kicking off her shoes and pulling her top over her head. I frowned at my own clothes, which were gauzy bits of this and that stuck together with my spit. I chewed on my shoulder strap until it unraveled, and then everything was falling off me in a pile of dirty, worn rags. They were dingy gray and smelled like sour milk. But what would I wear after I bathed? The towel was the obvious solution. Yes, that would do nicely. My skin was all healed up, with only a few silver lines where the owl had clawed me the deepest.

When I licked the towel and pressed it together to hold it in place, I looked up to find Ruin staring at me.

I pointed at her. “I thought we weren’t supposed to stare.”

She frowned. “Yeah, you’re just so weird. Why did you lick your towel? Are you hungry?”

I laughed, shaking my head. “It’s an adhesive. That’s how all of my clothes stay on.”

“Glue spit?” She peered at me with more interest. “That has some possibilities. You could spit in someone’s hair, and it would be doubly offensive.”

“Yeah. I guess so. Now what?”

“Now, we sweat. Prepare to glisten like a racehorse.”

She pulled me through the dressing room filled with people in various stages of nudity that I tried not to notice, but some of the skin was so interesting, with elaborate marbling, or some werewolves rippled with muscles that seemed sculpted. I focused on the back of Ruin’s head and avoided looking right or left. I couldn’t help but notice that the others stared at me, like Ruin had, even though I wasn’t supposed to stare at them. Yep. Light creatures did not belong down in the bowels of Song.

She opened another door that released a cloud of piping hot steam, then pulled me inside and closed the door behind us. The room was hot, burning my nose, but no one else was in there, so no one could stare at me. Ruin took a dipper out of a bucket and poured it over coals in a grate, letting out another hiss and a cloud of steam.

She climbed on a wide slatted bench, then another, and another, until she was on the top level of the fairly small room. She lay on the bench, so I lay down on the one beneath her, breathing in the intense heat that wrapped around me like a hug.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now we melt.”

“How long?”

“As long as you can take. Are you a tough fairy? I saw you fight those owls. It was something.”

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