Page 92 of The Pushy Pixies Are Going Down
They shook their heads, so Miles walked up the stairs, obviously not making a big deal out of this.
The kids looked at me.
“What?”
They both shook their heads at me.
“Uh… you guys can go up now, if you want?” I wasn’t sure what they wanted or needed. But then it dawned on me. “Oh, shit. Do you have clothes? I can grab some sweatpants and t-shirts from Miles…”
Aeson shook his head and held up a bag. “We’re good. We had extra clothes in the car.”
“Okay, that’s good. Need anything else?”
They both shook their heads again, and I was at a loss for what to do or what they needed, but then finally, Aeson started for the stairs, and Chaos followed behind him.
I shook my head because that was weird—kids were weird sometimes—then I went to the kitchen to wash my hands so I could pet the animals while I waited for my turn. I was pretty sure I didn’t have any pixie dust on my hands at this point, but better safe than sorry.
It didn’t take long for everyone to get showered and changed, and we found ourselves sitting in the living room with a scary movie on while we waited for some pizza to arrive.
Miles had ordered, so I was absolutely positive there would be at least an entire pizza left over, if not more.
Since he was beside me, and the kids had their eyes on the television, I leaned in and kissed his cheek, then whispered, “This is exactly what I wanted to do with you today.” I tapped the laptop in his lap—he was doing pixie research. Sigh. “Well, without this. I wanted to relax with you.”
“I know. Same. I was looking forward to sleeping in all week.”
“We can still sleep in tomorrow.”
He nodded and leaned into me a little, clearly not even thinking about what he was doing. That trust right there was more than I’d ever expected from him when I’d first seen him back in high school. And after getting to know him as an adult, I knew just how difficult it’d been for him to actually lean into touch, to actually want it.
With a smile on my lips, I kissed his temple.
He glanced at me. “What?”
I shook my head and kissed his temple again. “Nothing, sugar butt.”
He shrugged, then went back to his pixie research.
A few minutes later, he pointed to something on his screen and tapped my leg. “Hey, look at this. It’s a report of a pixie infestation at a huge garden center. Apparently, the pixies ended up latching onto some kind of lawn ornament or something? It doesn’t really go into detail about the object, but they latched on and got violent, and after trying a million different things, they ended up destroying the thing and throwing it away.
“The pixies were so upset and sad that they attacked people for a few months after that, but eventually, they calmed down and went back to worrying about the plant life.”
“Huh. That sounds like what’s going on here.”
“Right? But they tried everything… everything I can think of to try and more. And Sharp said the museum doesn’t want to destroy the dragon egg fossil. So… what the hell are we going to do?”
Chaos looked at us from his spot on the floor—I hadn’t even realized he was listening—and said, “What if you make a magical artifact?”
We both blinked at him. “Uh… what?”
Aeson glanced at us, but I could tell he was only half listening, more interested in the movie.
Chaos huffed. “A magical artifact. You know, those things, those items or objects or whatever you want to call them, that are infused with magic?”
I lifted my eyebrows, exasperated. “I know what an artifact is. I meant… you know how to make one? I thought they were all old? I thought that was why they called them artifacts?”
“That’s where the name came from when they first discovered magical artifacts a bazillion years ago. Practitioners forgot how to make them or that type of magic was lost from time or something. But someone figured out how to make them about ten years ago—it was in the news. It was a big deal. Don’t you guys remember it?”
I shook my head, but a frowning Miles said, “I kind of remember that a little, yeah. But I didn’t think… I didn’t think an empath was a practitioner back then, so I didn’t pay attention.”
