Four.

Bev was having a river cleanup day, and Abigail had been volunteered to help out. So had Brent, Neckinger, and all of Fleet's foster kids, including Nicole. Their job was to walk the banks of the river, pick up trash, and keep a lookout for various plant and animal species Bev wanted a count on. Abigail was entrusted both with the roll of extra bin bags and the clipboard to list things they spotted. Both went in her backpack until called for.

Once Bev had given them their marching orders, they fanned out, with Brent and Neckinger (who was Nicky, today) closest to the river and Abigail and Nicole further up the bank. On the other bank were Fleet and the rest of her kids.

"If I'm going to be picking up trash, I'd rather be doing it in my own watershed," Brent said.

Nicky shrugged as she grabbed half a Styrofoam container and stuffed it in her bin bag. "I'd rather pick it up now than after it's been in the river forever," she said.

"Maybe Bev will organize a day for everyone to go do this in Hanwell," Abigail said.

"And what about my river?" Nicky asked. "Nobody's going to come do a cleanup of my river."

"Talk to Fleet," Abigail said. "She knows how to handle things when you're underground."

"What you need is better clean water standards," Brent said. "Not a trash pickup."

Nicole, Abigail noted, was not actually picking up any trash. "You missed that one," Abigail said as Nicole walked past a plastic bag caught on a twig.

Nicole shot her a withering glance. "I'm not a servant," she said.

"None of us are," Abigail pointed out. She grasped a piece of paper with her pincer, and put it in her bag. "You think you're too good to get your hands dirty?"

"Obviously," Nicole said.

"Don't have to get your hands dirty, that's the whole point of the pincers," Abigail said.

"Still not a servant."

"And neither are we," Abigail said. "If you're not going to help, then go back to Bev and tell her so. Or Fleet."

Nicole heaved a loud sigh and rolled her eyes.

"I'm serious," Abigail said. "If you're not going to help, we don't need you here. You'll just get in the way of the people who aren't lazy and pretentious. Or are you too scared of her to stand up to her?"

"I'm not scared," Nicole said. "Not of you, uggz girl, nosy parker, wizard's toady. And not of a river, either." (Though she didn't insult any of the rivers, Abigail noticed.)

Abigail gave her the look her mum used on doctors or nurses or social workers or whoever when they weren't listening or talked down to her because they lived in a council flat.

Nicole held out for a bit, but then she made a face and muttered "fine," under her breath. She stomped over to the bag she'd walked past, yanked it off the twig, and stuck it in the bin bag. "Happy now?" she said snottily.

"Sure," Abigail said, though she was disappointed that Nicole had stuck with them instead of leaving when she was challenged.

"I didn't have to do anything like this back home," Nicole said. "We had servants at home to wait on us."

"What was it like?" Abigail asked. "Where you grew up."

"It was big, and wild, and free," Nicole said. "Nobody ever made me do anything, and we'd ride wherever the Queen wanted and play games with the trees." She sighed. "And I had all the pretty clothes and things I wanted, and servants to dance rushing to meet my every whim. It was lovely. Not like here." She whacked a tree with her pincer. "Where the trees are dead and I'm forced to work like a slave."

"Pretty sure the actual slaves in the world get treated a lot worse than you do," Abigail said. This was the girl Brent and Nicky were looking up to? She was so whiny. "All you're being asked to do is pitch in and help with the same work everyone else is doing."

"It's demeaning, the way the goddesses here work," Nicole said.

"So, like, how did people become servants where you're from?" Abigail was pretty sure she already knew. "Was that a job choice or was it an aptitude thing?" If Abigail found herself in a foreign land, no family, no friends, but there was another English person around, she'd want to meet them. And from what Peter had said, Molly was probably closest to the kind of fae Nicole had grown up with, while Thistle was very different. But Nicole had never come to the Folly to meet Molly.

"Of course not," Nicole said with a sniff. "Some fae are simply born inferior, and their place in the Queen's domain is to serve their betters. Fleet tells me that it's different among humans, that no human is naturally subservient." The look she gave Abigail said she plainly doubted that.

There were all sorts of things wrong with that statement, and Abigail could give her chapter and verse on why people liked to label others as inferior—Miss Redmayne was really thorough about power dynamics and who benefitted from them and how. But Abigail thought some other subject might be more useful. "So, what was your place in the Queen's domain? She was your mum, wasn't she? Were you a princess?"

"The Queen rules alone, and the Queen is immortal," Nicole said. "She has no need of an heir. I was a beloved favorite."

"Beloved favorite, but she traded you away for the other Nicole easily enough," Abigail said. She'd heard the whole story from Peter, when he'd got back. "Was she going to change the two of you back, eventually? Or was the plan always that you were going to live in the human world?"

Nicole didn't answer. Which was answer enough.

"Seems to me the Queen's way is pretty rotten, if it led her to raise a girl for twelve years and then trade her in for a new model," Abigail said.

Nicky broke the silence. "There's a Snake's head fritillary," she said, pointing to a small purple and white flower.

Abigail got out the clipboard and noted it. "Thank you, Nicky," she said.