Chapter 4

  "Well," Ken said as I sat at the little table by the fireplace in the kitchen, "that's precisely the kind of insane troll logic and self-righteous arrogance I've come to expect from the ICOA." He sighed and paced aimlessly around the kitchen. "I suppose that's strike three, to use the American parlance."

  I sipped the mug of hot cocoa I'd made to soothe my frazzled nerves. "They really seem to be going out of their way to give me the worst possible impression of the way they operate."

  Penny, sitting across from me in her human form, sipped her own cocoa tentatively. "I like this. You're not wrong, though. I would apologize for my part in that, but you already know that I had only the barest sliver of control over my own actions."

  "And what that cost you," I said gently. "Don't think I didn't see the strain resisting that collar put on you. I don't know how those collars work, and I don't particularly want to, but the discomfort it was causing you was very obvious. I'm glad I was able to free you from it."

  She bowed her head briefly in acknowledgment, then sipped her cocoa again.

  "To be honest," I added, feeling a sudden need to get this off my chest, "I still feel rather guilty about binding you to me when you were free."

  Sparkle, still human-sized and sitting beside her looked up in surprise from nibbling on a cookie. "What?"

  Penny also gave me a look of surprise.

  Under their mutually surprised gazes, I shrugged uncomfortably. "Maybe it's a human thing. I'm uncomfortable with the idea of owning people."

  They looked at one another, and I got the distinct impression of some silent communication passing between them before they returned their gaze to me and Penny said, "We…don't understand, Caley. We bound ourselves to your service, and did so voluntarily."

  "Technically I bound myself to Mistress Chessie," Sparkle interjected, "but she asked me if I'd be willing to be passed to you when the time came, and I agreed. Wholeheartedly." She gave me a gentle smile.

  "Trust me," Penny continued, "when I say that the relationship we have with you is as different from what von Einhardt did to me as day from night."

  "But they're both forms of control," I said, holding up the hand on which their rings - the physical mark of their bond with me - rode. "Your will is subordinate to mine."

  They briefly looked at one another again, this time sharing an amused look, before Penny said, "How is that different from you going out and getting a job? Your will would be subordinate to whoever employed you, wouldn't it?"

  "Well, yes…" I said.

  "And your will is technically subordinate to the laws of the nation you live in, is it not?" Penny asked.

  "Yes…" I replied, starting to feel a bit uneasy.

  "And are we not better off putting ourselves in your hands," Sparkle asked, smirking, "than living wild out in Faerie, or being claimed by a monster like von Einhardt? Aren't the Fairies of the Hall better off than they were before you claimed them as yours?"

  It was so easy to forget that my fairy friend was so much more than the flighty, easily-distracted, giggly and bubbly creature that she often seemed to be. And that she was quite a lot older than she appeared. I held up my hands in surrender. "But wouldn't you rather be making your own choices?"

  They shared another look, this one confused. "But…we have made our choices," Penny said. "We chose to serve someone we knew would treat us well, protect us, make our lives more comfortable and help us be more than we were."

  Sparkle nodded. "Free will is super overrated. We don't need it."

  "That," Ken interjected, smiling at Penny and Sparkle, "is a gross oversimplification. You both still have free will, you've just used it to narrow the range of decisions you'll have to make for yourselves." He looked at me then, "They are right, though. While you do, in a very real way, own them - as far as the rules of Faerie are concerned - it might be better to think of them as very dedicated employees."

  I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I think I'll stick with friends."

  When I looked up again, Penny was beaming at me and Sparkle was literally glowing brighter purple.

  "And that," Penny said, "is the difference. Yes, we're yours. Your friends. Your companions. Your guardians, helpers…your family."

  Sparkle nodded. "Family."

  I reached out and took their hands across the table, squeezing gently. "Yeah, that'll work. Thank you for being patient with the dumb mortal human."

  They both squeezed back gently before releasing my hands.

  "Not dumb," Penny said. "Far from it. Just…limited."

  Sparkle nodded. "It's not your fault you don't understand Faerie. You're not from there. We're your guides to it, the same way you help us understand the mortal world."

  Ken, now 'leaning' against the counter, smiled. "Your relationship with them is a bit more give-and-take than you thought, hm?"

  "I give up," I said. "You're right, I'm oversimplifying it in the wrong way." I sighed. "All of which is a pleasant distraction from the topic at hand. What do I do about the ICOA?"

  "You've already started on the right path," Ken said, "by sending a copy of your conversation with Mr. Chapman to Margrave. Let him decide what the appropriate course of action is. For now, it will likely just be collecting evidence of their misguided actions.

  "Odds are very good," he added after a moment's pause, "that he's already looking into taking legal action against them for their breach of the vassal agreement your family had with Penny's clan."

  Penny nodded. "I don't know what, if anything, that will do for my kin, but I appreciate that freeing them is a complicated and difficult thing at best."

  Sparkle plucked another cookie from the plate in front of her and nibbled on it. I was rather pleased to see her self-control improving. A few months ago the entire plate of cookies would've been gone already. She could still be a glutton when she was hungry - or just felt like it - but this was progress.

  I drained what was left in my mug and sighed. "I'd rather have at least genial relations with them than anything else. I feel like I'm getting off on a bad start rebuilding the neutrality that you said," I nodded to Ken, "my family is famous for."

  He made a face. "The ICOA are the bad actors here, not you, Caley. They're the ones acting in bad faith. It's one thing to be a reliable neutral party for negotiations, it's another to let the ICOA walk all over you the way they seem to want to. Yes, it's better to have cordial relations with the other parties in the supernatural world, but if you don't stand up for yourself, nobody will trust you to do anything else."

  "Fair," I said, rising and going to put my mug in the sink.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Penny followed me, putting her empty mug beside mine and slipping an arm around my waist. "Sparkle and I will be by your side the whole way, no matter what."

  Sparkle seemed to materialize on my other side, slipping an arm around my waist as well. "What Penny said. Whatever else comes, you can always count on us to keep you steady."

  I wrapped my arms around them in return, pulling them closer and hugging them tightly. "Thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me."

  "Yes we do," Sparkle said with a giggle. "We can feel your emotions very clearly."

  "I'm still not used to that," I admitted, letting go of them. "All right, I want to get out of this outfit, and it's early enough for me to get some more practice in. I've got nervous energy to burn and I'd rather do something productive than spend the whole evening worrying about the ICOA."

  "Excellent idea!" Ken clapped his hands. "I'll get the workshop ready. I'd like to see you casting your transfiguration spells silently."

  It was almost midnight by the time I'd worn myself out to the point where I thought I could tune out my anxiety enough to sleep, and as a result I slept later than usual. It's not like I had a fixed schedule to follow beyond any I set for myself, so I'd stopped fretting about staying on one.

  As a result, it was a little before ten the next morning when I stepped through my bedroom windows into the clearing outside and surveyed the industry of my very own clan of fairies. Since claiming them as being under my protection almost by accident a few months earlier, they'd built an entire settlement in the area of the clearing that ran around behind where my bedroom windows appeared to float in mid-air.

  The clearing itself existed in what Ken called the Otherworld, in a region of said…dimension, for lack of a better term…that was called Faerie. I knew beyond all doubt that the clearing didn't exist anywhere on Earth, and that was pretty much where my understanding of it ended. Ken promised that as I learned more about the supernatural world, Otherworld and its myriad regions (many of which had been written about in fictional stories) would slowly become more comprehensible to me.

  To say the buildings the fairies had raised were eclectic was, in my opinion, one of the great understatements of all time. I saw homes built in giant mushrooms, tree stumps, rose bushes, and made of all manner of materials from the surrounding woods and which I'd procured for them from mortal sources. They had left a wide swath of the clearing directly in front of my windows clear of any construction, and it was there that the fairies danced and played nightly, looking like wildly colored fireflies, a practice that I loved to sit and watch before bed.

  Out at the edge of the clearing, which was somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty meters across, the fairies had raised an honest-to-goodness fairy circle. A perfect ring of mushrooms in every shape and size, some of which I was reasonably certain had never grown on Earth, where even now I could see fairy guards on patrol and to all appearances taking their jobs very seriously. Just beyond that ring of mushrooms, I had worked hard to raise protective wards, the magic of which I could clearly feel was still holding strong. Between those two layers of protection, Ken was reasonably certain that nothing could enter the clearing without our permission.

  At least, not without someone noticing.

  One fairy home in particular stood out because of its proximity to the right side of my windows (facing out), which put it almost directly beside the trio of soda-bottle feeders and pair of bird baths that sort of served as the social center of the charming village. The home in question was a uneven construction of three floors, the base of which was a custom made two-story fairy house I'd purchased online for the purpose.

  Growing out of the second story of the house, extending through its roof as if it had always been there, was a miniature but perfectly formed oak tree. Around the top of the tiny tree, just above waist-high on me, a combination observation platform and deck had been built.

  Sitting on the deck, on miniature chaise lounges, were the nominal leaders of the settlement, Spice and Shine. Spice was a fiery, energetic little fairy, bright red in clothes and hair, and fair-skinned. Shine was just as energetic as her partner, but was much more reserved and almost utterly silent; I had, in fact, gotten the impression that some old injury had left her unable to speak at all. Her skin and hair were both a shade of pale silver that was almost reflective, and she dressed exclusively in shades of silver.

  They were always together, and I was quite certain they were a couple. A belief which was reinforced that morning as they were stretched out in the sun, side-by-side, holding hands. I smiled at the sight and bowed politely to them. "Good morning!"

  Shine waved cheerfully with her free hand and Spice pushed up a tiny pair of sunglasses (where she'd gotten them I had no idea) to smile at me. "Good morning, Lady Reid! How fare you this fine morning?"

  "A bit unsettled, I'm afraid," I said as Penny handed out my yoga mat, then shifted back to her natural form and climbed out after me. Sparkle, already at her natural size, buzzed over and landed on the observation platform with Spice and Shine. "Even Sparkle couldn't completely keep my sleep from being restless last night."

  "Not for lack of trying," Sparkle said grumpily. "That jerk from the ICOA upset you even more than you let on."

  As I watched, Shine rose and collected a third chair for Sparkle, while Spice offered her a small cup of something steaming. The other two fairies were about half a head shorter than Sparkle, which I thought was somehow influenced by their standing in the community, since all of the other fairies I'd seen were, in turn, smaller than Spice and Shine.

  Smiling, I left the three fairies to their business and unrolled my yoga mat.

  The village's hierarchy was me at the very peak, then Sparkle, and then Spice and Shine together. Since Sparkle was almost always with me, we'd put Spice and Shine in charge of the Fairies of the Hall and their village.

  I had yet to have any cause to regret the decision. They'd organized and expanded the fairies who wanted to live under my protection - and protected that entrance to my home in turn - astoundingly well. So well, that the village, less than six months old, looked as if it had always been there. But Spice and Shine liked to give Sparkle a report on the village's doings and growth every couple of days.

  Sparkle seemed to enjoy it, and would tell me anything that I really needed to know. Or which might amuse me.

  As I settled in to stretch and do my exercises, Penny gave me a nod and went to prowl the perimeter of the clearing. It was almost like Sparkle was my operations chief, and Penny my security chief.

  Almost.

  A half-hour of yoga finished waking me up and had me feeling more centered and more myself. I rolled up my mat and dropped it on the bench seat just inside my bedroom windows, then padded barefoot over to Spice and Shine's home. I settled to my knees in the soft grass, which put my head just about level with the observation deck, where the three fairies were watching me.

  "Mortal wizards," Spice opined, "are jerks."

  Shine nodded firmly.

  "You'll get no argument from me," I said. "None of the three I've met so far were worth taking the time to get to know. I take it Sparkle filled you in on my day yesterday."

  "Yes," Spice said, then smiled impishly. "When are you bringing this Dejah Thoris Burroughs to meet us?"

  I laughed. "Told you everything, did she? I'll bring her once she's a bit better read into all of the weirdness that goes on in my life."

  Spice nodded firmly. "If she's a prospective mate, we'd like to meet her. Of course, the ultimate decision is yours, but as your mate she would have standing equal to yours in our community."

  That set me back on my heels a little. Not only had I not been thinking far enough ahead to ever apply the term 'mate' to D.T.…at least not in the way Spice meant it…it hadn't occurred to me that having a significant other (to put it politely) might affect my fairies.

  "Then if our relationship looks to be going in that direction," I said, "I will definitely bring her to meet you."

  Spice nodded again. "As far as mortal wizards go, it's depressing how often fairy encounters with them are the result of them trying to trap us." Apparently, that was the beginning and end of the subject, as far as D.T. went. Subject change. Conversations with fairies were like that…I'd learned to keep up.

  "That's terrible," I said earnestly. "Why would they do that?"

  Spice shrugged. "Well, I mean…look at us." She stood up and spread her arms.

  She was dressed in a two piece outfit, a sleeveless halter top and a short, frilly skirt, both of which appeared to be made of red silk, and was barefoot. I had to admit she cut a striking, beautiful figure.

  I grimaced. "They see fairies as ornamental or something?"

  She glanced at Shine, who was busily not looking at us. Had the actions of a mortal wizard led to Shine's mute state?

  "Something like that," Spice said more softly. "And…there are less savory uses to which they can put us if bound. It depends on the wizard, of course. But in our experience, few mortals are as respectful of us as you and your family have been."

  I sighed softly. It's not like I had a ton of faith in humanity as species to begin with, so what she said didn't surprise me particularly. But it was still sad. "On behalf of my species, I'm sorry. We're not all like that, honest."

  She smiled. "We know not all humans are bad. But it's wiser for us to avoid them whenever possible anyway."

  "Makes sense," I agreed, wondering at how little I knew about Spice and Shine. "You know," I said, "I feel I haven't spent enough time getting to know you both."

  Spice laughed softly. "You have, as Sparkle has let us know, been extremely busy of late. I have little doubt that you'll spend more time with us as it permits." She nodded past me. "Greetings, Miss Penny."

  Penny sat down beside me, still in her natural fox form, and bowed her head politely. "Good morning to you, Spice, Shine."

  "Is our perimeter secure?" Spice asked. She sounded, to my ear, completely sincere in her question. She really seemed to want Penny's reassurance that the clearing was still as safe as we could all make it.

  Penny nodded. "Quite secure," she said. "And yes, Caley has been extremely busy of late. Since my arrival, in fact, I haven't seen her take an entire day for herself."

  I blinked a few times. Had it really been that long since I'd taken a day off?

  Yeah. Yeah, it had.

  Oof.

  "Okay, I'll take a day to myself soon," I said.

  Penny snorted, and Sparkle giggled. Shine laughed silently, and Spice shook her head.

  "I will!" I said earnestly. "I promise!"