Page 61 of Ryld's Shadows
“I have offered you no harm and will continue to do so. This is not how things should be, sir. You know this. While I can’t promise to make everything right, I can try to help the children. For their sakes. Please. Come speak to me.” Kai patted the gravel road. “On neutral ground, the road traveled by all.”
The pixie man spat on the ground and the gleam of a short dagger appeared in his hand. “The old ways are dead and gone on the other side of the benighted gash that brought us here. Get your arse up out of the dirt, you sharp-tongued fuck. You and your orc friend come with me.”
Both Kai’s eyebrows had climbed to his hairline, but he rose gracefully and nodded to Hank. “As you wish, sir.”
Hank jogged over to join him, and they followed the rude pixie to one of the caravans, where they all climbed the steps and entered. The interior was relatively clean and hung with faded colored scarves. A scent of honey and mildew clung to everything.
“I don’t suppose you have any proof you are who you say?” the man asked.
Kai reached into his pocket, slowly, and took out his AURA ID card. “I’m Kai Hiltas, director of Research in New York.” He handed the card over for the pixie to examine. “This is my associate, Hank Onyx-Wainwright. We came to Pacific Elvenhome in the hopes of finding a teacher for a young drow who struggles with his magic but have found far more than we bargained for.”
The pixie flicked the card back to Kai after a cursory glance. He gestured for them to sit. “We know about your visit. You were through here two days ago with an aelfe. Doesher ladyshipknow you’re here now?”
“She does not. For now, I’d rather keep it that way,” Kai answered in that same calm voice. Hank had become so used to Kai fussing at things that the effect was a little eerie.
The pixie smirked. “So you don’t entirely trust Ms. Fancypants either. That’s a point in your favor, I guess. If you’re telling the truth.”
“I presume you mean Lady Jessamine?”
He cocked his head slightly in acknowledgment. “I’m Sean Dove-Feather. I’d say I was a council member, but we don’t officially have a council here in Pixieland.” He sized them up again. “Why didn’t you just ask her your questions?”
Kai let out a breath, maybe one he’d been holding for a while. “Because if she doesn’t know about what’s truly happening at the orphanage, she would merely deny and perhaps tip our hand too soon before we have proof. If—and my human friend would call this my drow paranoia—if she, the Mother forfend,doesknow? Then we truly would allow them room to cover their tracks.”
Sean eyed them. He opened a drawer and rummaged, pulling out a sheaf of papers, and handed it to Kai.
On top were printed copies of screenshots. Several pages worth showed ads aimed at pixie crossovers that were missing their community and offering to pay for relocation.
As Kai looked at these Sean said, “They call the number, someone on the other end buys them a bus ticket. Not so many now, but several years ago they would arrive by the busload. All lonely, broke, and thinking there was more for them here than they had where they were.”
Kai continued lifting pages and the relocation ads gave way to different ads, these for escort services, all featuring young pixie women and men. The final few pages were forms from Kent City Orphanage.
“May I?” Kai held up his phone and the papers.
Sean shrugged, and Kai wasted no time setting the papers down and taking photographs of each sheet. He slowed when he reached the papers from the orphanage, and Hank read over his shoulder.
“This can’t be legal, can it?” Hank pointed to a paragraph buried on the second page. “Signing away parental rights without social services or the courts being involved?”
Kai took a picture of just that paragraph. “I’m not an expert on child welfare, Hank. Though it doesn’t look right at all to me. We’ll have to run this by Legal to be certain.”
“There’s nothing that ties any of those things together.” Sean indicated the stacks of papers. “I can tell you though, an internet search on pixies will bring back hundreds of results like those.” He pointed to the ads for pixie escorts. “You want to know what’s going on? Come with me.”
He stepped out of the wagon and Kai and Hank followed. He took them a short distance and knocked on a door. A pixie woman opened it a crack.
“Ella, can we come in?”
She reluctantly opened the door and let them inside. Both Kai and Hank had to stoop to enter, and the ceiling nearly touched their heads. The floor was dirt, and there were only two rickety kitchen chairs, so they stood.
“Tell them about when the orphanage people came,” Sean said. Ella wrung her hands, her wings flattening to her back. “It’s okay, tell them.”
Without looking at them, she started to speak. “They came like usual. A couple humans with goblins. We have more twin and triplet births than singles. So they came, and my boys were only a few weeks old, and they said they could take them, find them a home where they wouldn’t starve, they could go to school. I asked when I could see them, and they said when they were grown a little, so they could bond with their new family. I said I’d have to think about it but…they just kept saying if I didn’t sign the paper and give them up, they would say I wasn’t fit to care for them, and they would get them anyway."
“Did they threaten you?” Kai asked softly. “That you would be charged with child endangerment?”
She nodded, tears pooling in her eyes.
“This is how it always happens?” Hank turned to Sean. “Any idea how many?”
“Enough that many of the women try to hide when they come. The colony here is bigger than the one I lived in before crossing over. As Ella said, most women give birth to multiples.”
