Page 50 of Fairies Don't Fall

“Do I? You’ve been associating with werewolves and pixie dust fairies. I believe you have gotten unused to my habitual seriousness.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Don’t you ever smile?”

He smiled. It was a beautiful smile, but cold, calculating, and extremely unsettling, because it’s the smile he had before he stabbed someone. “Of course. I will smile for you any time you like. In fact, if you turn over your aunt entirely to me, I will be smiling for years.”

I shook my head. “She will be exiled according to law.”

“Of course, after I’ve questioned her thoroughly.”

“Vervain, you’re supposed to be the sanity here. How am I supposed to be whimsical and wild if you’re a vengeful vigilante?”

His smile remained as he took a flower off my plate and held it to my lips. “I will be whatever you desire.” As long as he could twist it into precisely what he wanted.

I snapped the flower in my teeth and then proceeded to eat like a good little charge. He raised a brow in surprise at my reasonableness.

“You’ll also have to teach me to read all the usual languages. Apparently literacy is a useful thing after all. Who would have thought that you’d be right about everything?”

His brow furrowed slightly. “The world has ended. He truly healed what was broken.”

I frowned and studied my salad, taking a careful bite. I wasn’t talking about Max. It hurt so much to be apart from him, but I’d survive. And I’d find another fairy to become my consort. I turned when I noticed a commotion at the door. A uniformed guard was dragging a reluctant and petulant Ruin towards our table. I inhaled and stood, rushing over to them.

“Take your hands off her! Ruin, are you all right?”

The guard released her while her eyes filled with sudden tears and she sniffed. “You really left. I thought you’d at least stay for the celebration. Max didn’t come, either. You said I could come to Fairyland, so I came. You can’t be mad at me.”

“Of course I’m not mad at you,” I said, pulling her in for a hug. She squeezed me tight, suddenly desperate. “I did say that you could come to Fairyland. And the train is very nice on the inside, with very comfortable beds. Are you hungry?” I pulled away so I could look at her.

She nodded. “I’m starving to death.”

I patted her hair and smiled at Vervain. If he were Max, he’d have a softness in his eyes at the ridiculous hijinks Ruin was capable of, sneaking on a train being one of them, but Vervain was studying her with calculating eyes, considering what piece she would play in court politics and my reign. Was I really going to be Queen? Yes. And I would do my best.

He bowed. “I will secure an extra ticket for the young lady.”

She looked at him like she’d only just seen him, and then she blushed bright pink before he turned and strode away. Once he’d left the dining car, she grabbed my arm. “Who’s that? He’s the hottest fairy boy I’ve ever seen. They’re all pretty, but he’s deadly. Are you dating him now instead of Max? He’s probably better looking, and I can’t tell how his muscles are under his fairy shirt. Max is probably better. So pretty, though. And deadly.”

I laughed and pushed her down into a chair before sitting next to her. “That’s Vervain the Terrible.”

She gasped and leaned forward. “Really? The one who’s always rejecting you? We should prank him hard. Like rocks under his pillows, replace his sugar with salt, all the typical things, but also maybe cut his hair in his sleep so he looks like a hedgehog.”

I laughed and felt slightly better. I’d been feeling blue and slodgy since I’d left the city, since I’d left Max. Hopefully my attachment faded quickly. “That’s perfect. The trouble with Vervain is that if I ask him to cut his hair so he looks like a hedgehog, he’ll do it without question. So I must protect his dignity.”

She frowned as she studied me. “You really are the fairy queen? That’s what I heard someone call you when you came into the caverns with your glow-up.”

“My glow-up?”

She gestured at me. “New dress, new skin. The whole new you. Maybe I can get a glow-up in Fairyland and be irresistible to all the other wolf boys.”

I laughed. “Oh, definitely, the court would be in total heaven if I brought you in for grooming with me. I’ve kind of avoided them for a century, but it’s their life purpose to make you unrecognizable to yourself. I guess I have to do that kind of thing if I’m going to be Queen. Too bad.”

She elbowed me. “You always looked like a Queen.”

I laughed and elbowed her back. “That’s because all the fairies you knew were dust addicts. I’m going to be horribly respectable from now on, like Vervain only hopefully less…”

She grinned at me. “Snobbish? That’s the thing about you. Even the dust addicts are snobs about being fairies, but you’re not at all, and you’re the Queen.”

“I’m not. I mean, I haven’t had the official coronation and chosen my consort. It’s a process that involves so much grooming.” I sighed glumly. Mostly because I had to find another fairy boy since Vervain was off the table. Berry was in love with Shotglass, and all the other fairies I knew, I didn’t really know.

“Oh! You can have a ball, and all the eligible men can attend, and you can dance with them and decide which one is the hottest. Like Cinderella, only reverse. We should find a hottie poor boy and dress him up. You can be disguised as the fairy godmother, and he can be so surprised when he realizes that it was you all along. That’s what that story needed, some kind of relationship before they danced, you know?”

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