Pink Princess Fairytini (Fairy Files #2) (23 page)

He yawned. “Sorry.”

“No, you go back to sleep,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“I’m glad you’re okay, Chloe. Goodnight.”

I hung up and rejoined the others, relieved to find Frost dressed. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“I think so.” I looked at Hieronymus. “We need to talk, about several things, but I’m starving and all of the restaurants are closed, so why don’t we go back to my place?”

Everyone agreed and we shared a cab back to my condo.

I stepped into a wonderland. My jaw dropped at the beauty before me. I walked the condo, only to find that every room, every wall, every piece of furniture had touches of kitsch added to it. Not only that, but the amazing dresser from the flea market was in my bedroom. If I hadn’t already guessed, the note attached to the dresser made it clear who had kitsch-bombed my home.

To: Clarinda

The dresser is a house-warming gift. The other kitsch is yours, I just put it in its proper place. I love you.

Sapphire

I pulled my phone out to call her, only to be reminded that it was one in the morning, so she’d probably be sleeping. I blew a kiss to the dresser and returned to the guys in the living room.

“Sapphire?” Frost asked.

“Uh-huh.” I was a bit dazed, still awed by the beauty of my home.

“It looks good.”

“It looks like a harpy’s nest,” Hieronymus said with a sneer.

“Good,” I said, ignoring the sneer with a wide grin. “Who’s hungry?”

Both men raised their hands, so I headed to the kitchen.

“Need help?” Frost asked, following me.

“No,” I said. “Go put your feet up. I’ve got this.”

I’m not much of a cook, even on the best of days, but I can make spaghetti with sauce from a jar. I’ve lived on little more for months at a time, when I was putting myself through business school tending bar. I cooked up the food and set everything out on the table.

“Hope this hits the spot,” I said to the guys, who’d been talking in hushed voices while I cooked. I’d let my wings out as soon as we’d walked into my condo, as had Hieronymus, his own shirt back-less, but in a less obvious way than mine.

“Looks fine, princess,” Hieronymus said, taking a small bite.

Frost just grunted around a huge bite and gave me a thumbs up.

“I’m sorry,” Frost said when he’d cleared his plate. Hieronymus and I were only a third of the way through our meals. “I’m always starving after a shift. And that spaghetti was delicious. I should ask for you to cook for me more often.”

“Do you need more to eat? I can’t actually make anything else, but I’ve got plenty of noodles and sauce.”

“Thanks,” he said. “But I’m full.”

“Good. Then Hieronymus can tell us why he paid Neil to rob and trash my club.”

As I’d hoped, Hieronymus was taken off guard by the question. He stuffed more noodles into his mouth to buy some time.

“We know you did it,” I said. “Frost found proof that you paid for Neil’s brand-new apartment.”

Hieronymus swallowed hard and straightened. “I was following orders.”

“From my mother?”

“Yes. I think you should talk to her.”

“I’m trying to save myself a trip to Rubalia. She doesn’t seem to appreciate my visits. Why did she ask you to destroy my club?”

“I’m not at will to say.”

“So you know why, but you aren’t going to tell me?”

“That’s correct,” Hieronymus said.

I gnawed on my bottom lip and considered my options. I’d been agreeing to do everything my mother asked in order to keep my friends safe, but it had been several months since they’d been in any danger. The fairies who were after them had moved on and the fae in Rubalia had bigger problems, like the encroaching land of nightmares. I could go to my mother and demand answers, but I doubted she’d give them to me until I’d backed her into a corner. “Fine,” I said, doing my best to stay calm and not reveal my anger at the audacity of my mother and Hieronymus to go after my club, my baby.

“Then I’ll move out tomorrow,” I said. “I’ll move in with Frost.” I looked at him, a question in my eyes, and he nodded his agreement. “I won’t be having any more lessons with you Hieronymus, and I want it publicly declared to whomever wants to listen that I’m denouncing my role as princess.”

“Princess, I—”

“Oops,” I said. “I don’t think you were listening. I’m denouncing my role as princess, which means you can no longer call me princess. In fact, after you leave here tonight, I never want to see you or my mother again.”

“Clarinda, you don’t understand—”

“Oh,” I said. “I understand perfectly. My mother is trying to control my life, but she isn’t willing to let me in on any of her little secrets and political machinations. I’m willing to play along to a certain extent, to live in the condo she chooses and wear the clothes she thinks appropriate, but I won't give up my club and I won’t allow her to dictate my friends.”

“What do you want?” Hieronymus asked, giving up arguing with me way too easily, in my opinion.

“I want my club back. I want Neil to confess to robbing my place and making sure I failed the inspection.”

Hieronymus nodded and stood. “I understand.”

“Wait,” Frost said. “The missing kids in Rubalia. Do you have any idea who’s taking them?”

Hieronymus sat back down. “None, I’m afraid. They are of varying ages and varying species. The one thing they have in common is an uncanny level of magical ability. Judging by what we saw tonight, I am certain the nightmare realm is involved, but I don’t know in what capacity.”

“You don’t think they’re kidnapping the kids directly?”

Hieronymus sighed. “The denizens of the nightmare realm are magically rather weak. They can only cross through our magical barriers when they are perforated, and even then, it is the shadows who arrive first. A barely sentient, parasitic life form that attaches onto whatever fae it can and takes them over, feeding off their magic and making their personality a bit darker. Once the shadows have paved the way, so to speak, the other beings of the realm can cross over. Those dragons we saw tonight were the first humanoid creatures from the realm I’ve seen, and the shadows cannot manipulate people to the extent of being able to force them to kidnap children. The nightmare realm is assisting the kidnapper in some way, but the kidnapper is of our realm.”

“But Benny is a dragon,” I said. “And he lives in the Non. You’re saying he’s from the nightmare realm?”

Hieronymus nodded. “He crossed over and chose not to leave. Once they are over, it is difficult to force them back. That’s why we keep our magic walls so strong. But, with the change in regime and so many fae leaving Rubalia, the walls are weak, the barriers becoming more porous by the day.”

“And can those in the nightmare realm cross over to the Non?” Frost asked.

Hieronymus nodded. “Yes, of course, with little trouble.”

“So it’s possible,” he said. “That someone from the nightmare realm could have crossed over ahead of his or her brethren and begun the kidnapping.”

“Yes,” Hieronymus said. “I suppose it is. It’s just…the magic signature I found at the scene of one of the kidnappings was fae, not a nightmare signature.”

“Okay, that’s helpful,” Frost said. “Thank you.”

“One more question,” I asked. “I have a friend who might be the orphaned child of nightmare realm denizens. Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

“No,” Hieronymus said. “But I don’t claim to know everything that happens in Rubalia.”

“Right,” I said. “I guess this is goodbye, then.”

“Yes,” Hieronymus said. “I suppose it is.” He stood and left.

I just stared at Frost for a long moment, taking in what Hieronymus had said. He stared back. I assumed he was thinking about the case, but he didn’t let me into his thoughts.

“Do you think I made a mistake?” I asked. “Do you think he could have helped us with the case?”

He shook his head. “He needs to be looking for the missing kids in Rubalia. And I think you have to stop worrying about everyone else and do what’s right for you. Is Harvey going to be okay with you staying with me?”

“I don’t know.” I hadn’t considered Harvey in all of this. “I don’t think we’re at a place in our relationship where living together is a good idea, though. And I don’t have any other options.”

“It’s a shame to leave all this kitsch behind, again.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking around at all of it. I hopped up onto the couch and took down the hula clock, which was quickly becoming my favorite piece. “We’ll take this one with us.”

The books and movies and fairy tales suggest love is simple. But real-life love is hard work, it’s fitting your life with someone else’s even if they are your complete opposite
.—Chloe Frangipani

Love is a delusion and a curse
. –Althea Frangipani

I was awoken by the smell of coffee and a werewolf staring at me, his amber eyes molten and his smirk deadly. “You snore,” Frost said.

I sat up in bed, grabbed the coffee, and took a nice, long sip. “You stare like a creeper. What the hell are you doing in my room?”

His smirk grew smirkier. “Just wondering how you slept.”

I smirked back. He’d short-sheeted my bed, which was slightly annoying, but easily fixed. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of letting him know he’d bothered me. “Great. What’s the plan for today?”

He smiled, like he knew I was changing the subject on purpose, then he got serious. “Now that we know about the kids in Rubalia having extra-strength magic, I want to go back and talk to the parents again.”

I nodded. “Yeah, okay, just let me get dressed.”

“You want to shower, too?” he asked. “You smell like shadows.”

“You say the sweetest things,” I said to his retreating back. “I thought you loved the way I smell.”

I’d meant it as a joke, a faux-flirting, because the idea of Frost loving anything about me seemed so farfetched. He stopped in the door and turned and the look on his face, like he was hungry for wicked things, slowed my heart and made goosebumps rise on my skin, made something tighten deep in my belly. He drew in a long sniff, which should have been creepy but only made me blush when I remembered that wolves could scent arousal. “Chloe,” he said my name like a prayer. “I do love the way you smell. I hate the way the smell of shadows covers your scent.”

I blinked and he was gone, leaving me to wonder if I’d imagined the whole interaction.

We started with the parents of the first girl who’d gone missing, Abby Fernwood, the one who’d joined a gang and been killed. Her mother was a frail, too-thin faun in her late thirties. “No,” she said, when Frost asked if her daughter had super-supernatural abilities. “Her only extra ability, if you could call it that, was her charm. She loved people, loved life, and could charm you with just a smile. From a block away she could flirt with just a look. She had more boyfriends than she knew what to do with.”

Each of the other kids who’d gone missing, though, did have extra-supernatural abilities, strengths far beyond what ordinary fae of their species should have, but it was the Elderwoods, parents of three-year-old Herbert, whose response was the most surprising.

“Yes,” Mrs. Elderwood said. “Even though he was so young, he could already do things…Things that frightened us.”

“What sorts of things?” I asked.

“When he got angry …” Mr. Elderwood said. “He lashed out with magic and it was…very powerful. He nearly severed his mother’s–”

“Fresne,” Mrs. Elderwood said. “It was fine. I’m fine.”

I didn’t know a great deal about elves, my mother had always seemed to feel they were a lesser species, their magic weak. She’d told me their magic was mostly about creation and cleaning. “I’ve never heard of elves with such magic,” I said.

“Yes,” Mr. Elderwood said. “It is quite common for elves to have a weak defensive magic, able to create shields and the sort. It is less common, but not rare, for elves to have an even weaker offensive magic. Herbert’s magic was more than we’d ever heard any elf to possess, it was part…part of the reason we left Rubalia. We hoped his magic would be nulled to some degree in the Non.”

A few of the other parents had told us the same thing, that they’d feared what would become of their children in Rubalia once word of their strong magic got out. Apparently, the fairy king had often seen fit to cage such fae, to make sure they didn’t hurt anyone with their magic. Or so he claimed, anyway. I suspected he was just jealous of their magic.

“Did anyone else know what Herbert could do?” Frost asked.

Mrs. Elderwood lowered her head. “My mother and sister were there when Herbert hurt me. He wanted another cupcake and got angry when I said no. He didn’t mean to hurt me, but he lashed out without even knowing what he was doing. My mother was appalled and said it was because my father had been infected with shadows. She made a bit of a fuss, telling everyone in the village about Herbert and insisting he should be caged. Fresne left immediately and we followed later. Luckily, Herbert is cute enough that my mother had trouble convincing others that he was dangerous, especially when I denied that he had ever hurt me.”

I nodded and tried not to reveal my shock. Could the curse of the shadows be passed on through the generations and produce a new kind of magic in the descendants of the first affected? It might not matter if it was true if enough people believed in it.

“Thank you,” Frost said, getting to his feet. “We’ll be in touch.”

I stood with Frost. “Do you think it will help you find him?” Mr. Elderwood asked.

“We are doing everything we can,” Frost said, his expression and his tone tense. “The information you’ve provided has been extremely helpful.”

My phone and Frost’s rang simultaneously as we stepped onto the sidewalk outside the Elderwoods’ building. We took a couple of steps away from each other and answered.

“Hi, Harvey,” I said.

“Frangipani,” Harvey said. “Go to lunch with me today?”

I glanced over at Frost, wondering what his call was about. Nothing good, judging by the expression on his face. Still, if I was going to give this thing with Harvey a shot, I had to make a real effort. “Yeah, sure. I’ll meet you in an hour at Gray’s Goose?”