Pink Princess Fairytini (Fairy Files #2) (4 page)

My alarm woke me far too early the next morning. The decorating might not have been to my taste, but the bed was one of the most comfortable I’d ever slept in, and I was tempted to stay there all day. I considered going back to the apartment I shared with Sapphire and Knuffington, but I had a closet full of delicious clothes and a fridge full of food at my new place, so I dressed in a slinky, back-less shirt with three-quarter length sleeves, and a pair of simple black pants, got coffee and some breakfast and headed out.

The late October morning was cool without being chilly, unusually pleasant for a Florida fall day, and I decided to pass on the car Hieronymus had offered me and walk the eight blocks to Frost’s office. I called Vin on the way and let her know both about the change of plans for the morning and my party that evening. Vin was training me to lead the rebellion in Rubalia, should such a rebellion become necessary. I thought it was ridiculous. With my grandfather, the fairy king dead, I didn’t see that there was a need for a rebellion in Rubalia, but the rebels didn’t trust my mother and they wanted to be prepared. Plus, they paid Vin well enough for her to be able to help support her parents in Sarsaparilla, and that was good enough for me.

I met Vin half-way to Frost’s office, outside the one-bedroom efficiency apartment she shared with her parents in a nice neighborhood. She gave me a broad smile when she saw me, but there were dark circles under her eyes and her face looked drawn and pale.

“Rough night?” I asked.

She nodded, and yawned. “My parents both got jobs waiting tables, which actually suits them, since they’re so social, but it means they come in at all hours of the night and it’s just impossible for them not to wake me up.”

“That sucks, but I might have a solution.” As much as I wanted to think I could keep living with Knuffington and Sapphire, I knew my mother would pitch a fit if I ‘threw her generosity back in her face’ and didn’t stay in the apartment she’d bought me. Since her fits could now affect an entire population of fae in Rubalia, I figured I could do my part to avoid them.

“You’re going to let me move into your swanky new apartment?”

I shrugged. “It’s an option. How do you think my mother would react?”

She cringed. “Last week, she had a servant publicly beaten for spilling soup on her, so I’d guess…badly.”

“My mother did that?” I knew my mother could be dramatic and self-centered, but beating a servant in public seemed beyond the pale.

Vin nodded. “She needs to present herself as a strong leader who shows no mercy. Some would argue it’s what the fairies expect and need right now. With time, she could still soften and rule more generously, but the rebels are not pleased with her iron rule so far.”

“Do you have any idea how she could afford to buy me a penthouse apartment in the center of downtown?”

“None,” she said. “The fairies don’t trade with humans or have human money any more than the rest of the fae in Rubalia. I’ll broach the subject with Missella when I speak to her.”

I nodded and we walked in silence for a bit. “I think you should move in with me, anyway. I’ve got two extra bedrooms and it would make your training me that much easier. Mercury’s miserable at his place and he could move in with us, too.”

She paled. “Was that his suggestion?”

I considered lying, but Vin was my friend and I didn’t lie to friends. “No.”

“Right, because I know he’s not ready for that. Can he take your room at Sapphire’s?”

I shrugged. “With Knuffington’s new job as a concierge at The Inland Palms, I don’t think they need help with the rent, but we can ask.”

She nodded. “Okay. If I have to live with Mercury, I will. I know Galena is making him insane, and my parents really deserve their own space. I’m holding out hope they can find better jobs and a bigger place, but there’s not much call for a woodcutter or a gardener in the city.”

I nodded and didn’t speak. If I spoke, I’d have to admit that I hoped Vin and Mercury didn’t end up living with me together. I didn’t need the drama or the tension, but Vin didn’t need to hear that. I would put up with drama and tension if it made life easier for Vin’s parents and Mercury’s daughter and ex, after everything they’d sacrificed. Especially since they’d had to make those sacrifices because of me.

We arrived at Frost’s place and strode past his employees without a word. None of them had ever spoken to me, all of them always busy and working, their focus on their computer screens. Their work ethic impressed me. I could use some employees like that.

Frost waved us into his small inner office, not much bigger than my new walk-in closet, and we sat down across from him, in front of his cluttered desk. He tossed a folder into my lap. “Look that over and tell me what you think.”

I smirked at Vin, who shook her head. “Good morning, Frost. It’s good to see you, too,” I said. “I’m doing fine, thank you.”

Frost frowned and looked at me as though he were seeing me for the first time. He looked good in the morning, his amber eyes lighting up his rough and rugged features. Frost was no pretty boy, but I didn’t like pretty boys. He needed a shave three days ago and his hair needed a cut, but his well-formed face and his muscled body made his lack of hygiene seem like a fashion choice. The bad boy look. “You win the lottery last night?”

“What?”

“Your clothes. You can’t afford them.”

“Is this your idea of polite pleasantries? Or are you accusing me of a crime?” Even as annoyed as I was, I was also impressed by his attention to detail. He was damn good at his job.

“She got them from her mother,” Vin said. She noticed my glare and shrugged. “As much fun as it is to watch you two trade verbal punches, I have things to do today and I’d like to know what Frost called us in here for.”

“Your mother gave you new clothes?” Frost asked.

I didn’t like the accusatory tone of his voice or the look of disgust on his face. “And a new penthouse apartment. I’m having a party there tonight, to try to make the place look more lived in. You aren’t invited.”

“What does she expect from you in return?”

“Probably the same things she expected before,” I said, my annoyance rising. “Would you like me to try to return them? Invoke her anger and have her rescind her offer not to go after my friends?”

He growled low in his throat. “You can’t let her control your life.”

“She’s the queen of the fairies, Frost. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for me to choose my battles. If she does something I don’t like or asks me to do something I hate, I’ll walk away from the clothes and the apartment in a heartbeat. This is a small thing.”

“You don’t even smell like yourself.” He wrinkled his nose in distaste.

“Enough,” Vin said. “Your foreplay is boring me.”

“Foreplay?” I asked, spinning on Vin. Frost growled and threw a stapler. Vin gestured at his response as though he’d just proven her point.

I wanted to storm out of the office, but Frost wouldn’t have called us there if he didn’t have a good reason. I flipped the file open and was greeted with a picture of a teenage girl with thick, dark hair and sparkling brown eyes. The photo was paper clipped to a form detailing the circumstances of her death. Her name was Abby Fernwood and she’d been sixteen when she was killed in the crossfire of a gang fight. She was a wood nymph who’d emigrated to the Non from Rubalia six months earlier. I flipped the photo and the form over, my heart in my throat, at what I might see next. The next photo was of a male teenager, and there was only a page of notes attached to it. His name was Rodney Elder and he was fifteen. He wasn’t dead, but he was missing. He was a brownie and looked younger than fifteen, he had soft blue eyes and a sweet smile. The last was a photo of a girl who looked like she’d just entered her teen years. She was another pixy, Brianna Foxglove, and she was thirteen and missing. Her hair was strawberry blonde and her green eyes twinkled with mischief. I passed the folder to Vin, and she gasped as she looked at the pictures.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“These three have all gone missing this week,” Frost said. “The one on top, Abby, she joined a gang and was killed in a drive-by shooting.”

“She joined a gang?” I asked, unable to imagine the beautiful, innocent looking girl doing anything illegal.

“She’s a wood nymph,” Frost said. “She’s young enough to adapt, but her parents…they’re like Galena, they hate the city and they don’t want to leave their apartment. They were all starving and Abby’s part-time job at the local bodega wasn’t enough to change their circumstances. Her parents didn’t know she’d joined the gang, but her friends told me she did it for the chance to make some money. She thought she could deal drugs.”

“And the others?”

“Just missing. As far as we know. But they are from similar situations. Their parents are more willing to work, but their skills don’t apply to jobs in the city.”

“And they can’t go back to Rubalia? Now that the Fairy king is gone?”

He shook his head and I noticed the dark circles under his eyes and the lines of exhaustion on his face. “They fear your mother and the war they expect will erupt any moment. The faun king has made no secret of how much he hates your mother, and the refugees expect him to move against her. They don’t want to be around when that happens. I suspect they have more reasons, but they haven’t shared them with me.”

I sighed. I might never understand the layers of politics in Rubalia. “You want me and Vin to help you find the missing kids?”

“I want you to talk to the refugees as fae who’ve lived here and learned to survive. I want you to teach them about the dangers of the human world and help them out when you can.”

“And if we hear anything about missing kids while we’re at it …?”

“You let me know and you leave it alone.”

“Right,” I said, getting to my feet. “Because I’m so good at that.”

Frost smirked. Vin stood with me and we turned toward the door together. A sharp intake of breath from Frost made me turn back to look at him. “Nice shirt,” he said. “I like the way it shows off your tattoo.”

Compliments from Frost were rare enough that I just stared at him for a long moment.

“Too bad you can’t have your wings out all the time,” he said, his amber eyes molten. “They’re gorgeous.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I sort of miss them.”

He nodded and returned his attention to his work. The moment was over.

Everyone is afraid of something and some are afraid of everything. Sometimes fear keeps you alive
. –Chloe Frangipani

Fear is weakness
. –Althea Frangipani

“We can skip our usual training session today,” Vin said. “The rebellion would approve of us helping the refugees.”

“And where do we even start?” I asked. “How are we going to tell the fae from the humans?”

“I have an idea. It’s something we used to do to recruit for the rebellion.”

We walked away from Frost’s office and toward the east side of the city, where the first girl had lived before she’d been killed. The buildings were in worse shape the farther into the East side we got, and I kept my eyes open for trouble. I didn’t venture to this side of town often, had no reason to, but I knew enough to understand it was dangerous. I felt bad for all of the fae, forced to live there while I lived in an apartment big enough for two families and had clothes worth enough to feed five families for a month. Vin took a right into the first apartment building she saw and knocked on the first door.

“Hi,” she said to the elderly woman who answered. “I’m looking for my cousin Horace. Have you seen him?”

“No,” the old lady said, shoving the door closed. Vin blocked it with her foot. “Oh, okay, well if you see him, can you tell him we’re having a reunion for residents of Rubalia at Ephemeral tomorrow at four? There will be free food and drinks.”

“Sure, whatever,” the old lady said. She kicked Vin’s foot out of the way and slammed the door.

I stared at Vin. “Free food? What’s stopping every person in this building, fae or human, from showing up for the food?”

“We screen at the door. Frost can smell fae, right?”

“Okay, but what about the fae? Why would they trust us? Won’t they think it’s a trap?”

She shrugged. “Maybe, and maybe they stay away. If they’re that afraid, though, they won’t last long here, anyway.”

“Or it’s just good sense,” I said. “They don’t know anything about us or what we want.”

“Not everyone is as paranoid as you. They’re running from a potential war, not assassins.”

“Okay. I guess going door to door is better than another lesson on rebel tactics.”

We knocked on doors and offered the same information to every person we encountered until mid-morning. “Well,” I said. “This has been fun, but I’ve got to get ready for my date.”

“Date?” Vin’s eyes were wide, her mouth a perfect O of surprise. Sometimes she was so cute, I wanted to punch her.

“Yep,” I said, turning and heading to the bus stop we’d just passed.

“With Frost?” She followed me.

I stopped and glared at her. I seemed to glare at her a lot. “With Harvey.”

“Oh.” Her shoulders slumped a bit. “I guess he’s okay.”

“Okay? He’s damn fine, and he’s a police detective. He’s a hero and he…he gets me.”

She nodded, but her expression was guarded. “Does he know you’re fae?”

The bus pulled up, for once in my life arriving just when I most needed it. I took a step forward as it slowed, determined to ignore Vin.

“That’s a no. He probably doesn’t tell you how gorgeous your wings are either, does he?”

I got on the bus, pretending I hadn’t heard what she’d said.

Back at Sapphire’s place, I changed into my own clothes. As fancy as the ones Hieronymus had bought me were, they’d gotten a bit sweaty and a change was much needed. I was dressed and ready to go when Harvey knocked on my door.

“Chloe,” he said, a wide smile on his face. “You take my breath away every time I see you.”

My heart pittered and pattered more than I cared to admit. “Pretty words for such a rough guy.”