Pink Princess Fairytini (Fairy Files #2) (11 page)

“He won’t talk to me,” Knuffington said. His gaze moved over my shoulder and his whole face lit up, his eyes warming. I turned to see my best friend, Sapphire, walking toward us. Knuffington stood and met her half-way, giving her a tight hug and a quick kiss on the lips. Sapphire’s smile couldn’t get any wider without splitting her face and something warmed in me to see my best friend so well loved and cared for.

Knuffington brought her over to sit with us.

“Were you able to get away for lunch today?” I asked. Sapphire worked as a researcher at a genetics lab and usually ate lunch at the office, so she could get back to her work more quickly. She loved her job as much as I loved Ephemeral.

“No,” she said. “Actually, Frank asked me to work in the field this afternoon. With more fae moving into the Non, he’s wondering if humans will start to notice their different attributes and start to ask questions. I’m going to give a presentation at a local school with a strong mix of fae and human and see what I can see.” Frank was Sapphire’s boss at the genetics lab where she worked. He was also an elf. Their side experiments about the fae were kept secret from the humans at the lab.

“Huh,” I said. “You think kids might be more likely to notice the different traits?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. Frank thinks the fae give off a sort of aura that humans find unattractive and causes them to look away.”

“That can’t be,” I said. “How would succubi and incubi lure in their prey if they were unattractive to humans?”

“I asked the same question and Frank said alcohol impairs human judgement.”

“Or he’s totally off-base, and the human blindness is caused by something else altogether.”

The waitress reappeared and took Sapphire’s order. “I agree,” Sapphire said. “In some cultures, people can see shades of colors that the average human walking down the street in Sarsaparilla wouldn’t recognize. I believe that as more fae come to the Non and have increased interactions with humans, the humans will start to notice their differences.”

“Would it be okay if I went with you to the school? I’d like to know what the fae kids might say to me on neutral turf without their parents around.”

“Sure, but the school is in a different neighborhood than the ones the kids you’re looking for have gone missing from, so I doubt you’ll find what you’re looking for.”

“What I’m looking for is a clue to the secrets their parents are keeping. Something big is going on and no one’s talking about it. I’m hoping the kids will be more open.”

“Don’t press them too hard,” Knuffington said. “Loyalty is of tantamount importance among most fae. If the kids say more than they should, they may feel they’ve betrayed their family. It would be best to get your answers from the gatekeeper.”

“I’ll be gentle,” I said. “I’m not going to ask them for family secrets, just what they know about a darkness consuming Rubalia.”

“Sure,” Sapphire said, her expression wry. “Because that’s just the sort of innocuous question no parent would complain about.”

People see what they want to see, whatever allows them to live with the choices they’ve made, whatever lets them live as they choose
. –Chloe Frangipani

Giving money to charity helps no one. It only enables the weak and lazy to continue being weak and lazy
. –Althea Frangipani

I called Pierson on the bus ride to the school. “How’d it go with the employee meeting?”

“Good enough,” he said, sounding like he’d just woken up. “They all promised to wait for the club to re-open and to come back to work for you. Neil wasn’t there. I called him and left three messages, but I’ve had no response.”

I mulled that over for a moment. “No sense in coming into work if you’re the guy who stole a shitload of stuff.”

“Yeah.” He yawned before continuing. “I called Harvey and Frost, let them know they might want to look into him.”

“Why didn’t you call me? And why did you call Frost? I asked you to leave him out of this.”

“He wants to help and I’m going to let him, because I love Ephemeral as much as you do and I don’t want to see it closed up for good. There’s a chance Neil was working for the mayor, as part of his plan to ruin you. Frost can find out if there’s a connection.”

“Harvey could find that out.”

Pierson was silent for a long moment. “Better to have the two of them on it, in my opinion. You know I like Harvey, but he’s got a big workload and a boss that Frost doesn’t have.”

I sighed, unable to argue with his logic. “Fine. But I want it noted that I don’t like this at all.”

Pierson laughed. “Noted.” Then he hung up on me.

The school was on a city street and looked just like the office buildings around it. I shuddered as we approached, remembering first days at too many different schools. I’m a fairly confident, brave person, but I haven’t always been and it would have taken two boatloads of confidence for any kid to walk into a new school and not feel at least a twinge of trepidation. “What are you talking to these kids about anyway?”

Sapphire smiled. “What it’s like to work in a lab. Career day, you know.”

“I could talk to them about owning and operating a bar.”

She came to a complete stop and spun on me, her face pale, her mouth open. I could only imagine the reactions of the parents if their kids came home and said they wanted to be martini bar owners and provide fantasies for women when they grew up. Sapphire studied my face long enough to realize I’d been pulling her chain. “Not funny, Chloe. Not funny at all.”

“I thought it was funny.”

Once we were in the classroom and standing in front of a room full of the shining faces of impressionable, innocent third graders, I wondered if I’d made a grave mistake. How could I nose into these kids’ lives and live with myself? What if I brought more trouble down on them? Then I thought of the missing kids, and I knew it would be worth it to save them, and maybe save the kids in that classroom.

As Sapphire started on her spiel about working in a lab and researching genetics, I studied the kids, looking for tell-tale fae traits. I made out two fauns, their nubby little horns poking through their hair, a water nymph with pale blue skin, three trolls, and a redcap. Seven kids out of twenty-two were fae and possibly more who didn’t have obvious traits. Something was definitely going on and driving more people out of Rubalia and into the Non.

Sapphire finished her talk and suggested they do an activity to learn about genetics. She called on volunteers and asked each of them to tell her about themselves and then discuss what physical traits each shared with their parents. Then she explained recessive and dominant genes to the kids, so they could understand why some of them looked like their parents and others didn’t.

One little girl raised her hand as Sapphire finished up. “Why does Bowie have horns?” she asked.

Sapphire’s eyes went wide. The children, or at least some of the children, did recognize fae traits.

“I’m sorry,” the teacher said, stepping in front of Sapphire. “Elsa likes to play pretend, don’t you?”

Elsa scowled, but didn’t argue with her teacher, which led me to believe this wasn’t the first time they’d had words about Elsa and her “imagination.” I looked at the other kids. The faun children had dropped their eyes to the floor and the other kids were staring at them with animosity, like they knew what Elsa knew and felt the faun children should speak up.

“I think this is the perfect time to discuss my job at the census office,” I said, improvising. The teacher had had no problem with me talking to the class about my job, and I’d been a bit stumped to come up with a better way to get answers from the kids without stalking them on the playground.

“Yes,” the teacher said. “Go ahead.”

I explained the basic idea of what a census taker does, having only a vague idea of the actual job of such a person myself, then I asked each of the kids to write down for me where they’d lived in their lives and why they’d moved, as a sort of demonstration of a census taker’s job. It made sense to me, but the kids seemed a bit bored with it. I collected the papers when they were all done and stowed them away for later. Then I asked the kids to tell me where they’d most like to live. Surprisingly the large majority, even the fae kids, said Hogwarts. Since the school day was about done, we were shooed out of the classroom before I could discuss Harry Potter with them.

“Wow,” Sapphire said, as we walked away from the school. “Those kids didn’t miss anything. I need to get back to Frank and tell him what happened.”

“Elsa wasn’t the only one who saw the horns,” I said. “Did you feel the tension in that room?”

Sapphire nodded. “I noticed the other kids glaring at the faun kids, like they either saw the horns or somehow sensed those kids were different. It must be really hard for fae kids in public schools with humans.”

“Yeah. And if the kids can sense or see the differences, it’s not too crazy to assume that some adults can see it, too. What if that’s why those fae kids were kidnapped? For some sort of crazy research project or fantastic collection?”

Sapphire shuddered. “Maybe. But we still haven’t discovered evidence of humans being aware of the fae. Even Evelyn didn’t know Buddy was a troll, right? And she was married to him.”

We stood at the bus stop in a contemplative silence. “You’re still coming to the flea market with me and Harvey, tomorrow, right?” I asked. “I don’t think he’s going to be much help since he’s new to it all and not terribly crazy about kitsch.”

She frowned as the bus pulled up. “Oh, honey, I’m sorry.”

I almost laughed, but I understood that she wasn’t joking. She’d just pegged my relationship with Harvey as doomed. “It’s fine,” I said, sitting next to her on the nearly empty bus. “Maybe he’ll learn to love it.”

She forced a cheery smile and nodded. “Of course.”

My phone rang, and I pulled it out with a grateful sigh. I loved Sapphire, but she could be hypercritical, and I wasn’t in any mood to be critical of Harvey. He was my first adult boyfriend and it would work out between us, because it had to. I had to prove to myself and my mother that I could commit for the long-term. What that might mean, marriage and kids, made my heart pound a bit too fast, so I pushed those thoughts away and answered my phone.

“There’s another missing kid,” Frost said. “I need you to come with me to talk to the parents.”

“Of course,” I said. “I’m on the bus now. Where should I go?”

He groaned. “The bus takes forever. Get off at the next stop and we’ll ride over there together.”

“I don’t want to ride your bike again,” I said, but I was already pulling the cord for the next stop. My curiosity outweighed my dislike of his bike.

“Where will you be?”

“Corner of Bern and Wilmington,” I said, standing as the bus pulled to a stop. I waved to Sapphire and she gave me a huge grin and waved back, mouthing
have fun
, like I was a kid going to school. “Right in front of the courthouse.”

“I’ll be there in three minutes,” Frost said, and hung up without another word.

He roared up on his bike two and a half minutes later, and handed me a helmet. “Why are you including me, again?” I was in a mood to needle him. “I thought you didn’t like a partner, thought you were the pre-eminent investigator for the fae.”

He looked away, shrugged. “I’ve had problems in the past. Some fae don’t like werewolves, but most of them understood I was their best option. These more recent transplants, though, it’s like they’re afraid of me. I don’t understand why. They call me because they’re desperate, but they cringe when I show up at their door. I get the feeling they’re keeping things from me.”

“Weird.” I climbed onto the back of his bike and held onto his hips, his strong, hard hips, and tried not to think about how much I wanted to run my hands up and feel his hard abs. It was just biology, a physical attraction controlled by nature, not my conscious mind, but I still felt a bit guilty and forced myself not to lean against Frost, not to hold on tighter, as he pulled away from the curb and into traffic, picking up speed and causing my heart to race with fear and adrenaline.

He drove about twenty city blocks. I counted, to stop thinking about his muscular shoulders and how good he smelled. Then he pulled up in front of a building with bars on the windows in a mediocre-bad neighborhood, just a few blocks from where the ten-year-old fairy had gone missing. Three women in colorful gypsy skirts and holding tambourines, sang on the corner, their sweet, lilting folk song easing my nerves a bit. I dropped a dollar in the straw hat in front of them, to thank them for the moment of peace. They smiled at me and continued singing.

Frost watched me, his expression warm and thoughtful, and I gestured at the building just to get him to stop looking at me. “Shall we?”

He led the way inside and up six flights of stairs to the third floor.

A small, pale man, who smelled of chocolate and had pointy ears, opened the door, his expression grim. Though he was a brownie, I didn’t think flirting with him to get information would be the right way to go. Brownies weren’t the sharpest scissors in the school supply closet, but they were loyal to their spouses and their families. “Hello, Mr. Fernwort,” Frost said. “I’ve brought my friend, Clarinda, with me to speak to you about your missing daughter.”

“Please come in,” Mr. Fernwort said. “And call me Lolly.”

He led us inside and gestured for us to sit on his couch. A plate of double chocolate cookies sat on the coffee table.

“I’m sorry I don’t have better to offer. If I’d known I’d be entertaining a fairy princess today, I could have baked something special.”

I looked at Frost, not understanding why he’d share my identity, but he frowned and shook his head. He hadn’t told Lolly I was a princess.

“How…How do you know who I am?”

“Word has spread since your mother took the throne,” Lolly said. “And all of us who’ve come to the Non have known we might find you here. Those who’ve seen you rave about your beauty and grace, and so I thought it might be you when I saw you and I knew it was you when Mr. Frost said your name.”