Anti-Gonzo v. Fairy World: The ruling of Mintwave v. Wandflick, that Fairies who practice magic under the influence of processed sugar shall receive triple fines and suspension of their wand for a period of up to three months (as determined by the Keeper of the Delegating Administrative Rules of the Known Universe) does not apply beyond the Fairykind on the grounds of Anti-Cosma v. Adelinda von Strangle, that Fairies hold no jurisdiction over other legally-recognized classes of beings so long as they act as neutral parties.

I didn't have an excuse myself, but H.P.'s was that after being attacked by Cupid and the Tooth Fairy, after our drive from Nevada to Kansas, after escaping the two humans in the cornfield, and after staying up to some forsaken hour engaged in what must have been the most intense single-player game of miniature golf in the history of pixiekind (my exaggeration, not his), he'd been exhausted.

We're talking, he must have been really, really exhausted. Like I said, I can't even begin to grasp at an excuse myself. To this day, I don't understand why I didn't wake up. That's the part that hits me most; not knowing the reason and not working to prevent it meant it had potential to happen again. And I would be completely okay with that.

I woke up smothered in blue and white hand towels, and everything smelled like chocolate and salt. My suit coat was among the pile, evidently having slipped off my injured wing during the night. I'd put it on in a minute. Before I did so, I stretched my arms out in a lazy sort of way that I'm just realizing I probably shouldn't have admitted to. My first thought was that it must be my birthday, until I was awake enough to remember that H.P. had given up trying to celebrate each one of ours individually at least seventy thousand years ago and invented a new holiday simply named Pixalchia Day. It occurred once a decade on February 12th and was the one night we were allowed to mingle with our anti-selves. Even me, although H.P. really hadn't liked letting me near Anti-Sanderson since he pulled that coup.

Regardless, I could tell I was about to have a better morning than yesterday's rude awakening of being splashed in the face with hot syrup and overcooked bacon. H.P. would twist my wings if he heard me spilling the secret, but pixies were something like the wasps of the magical world: we rolled over on our backs with all four limbs in the air, tongues panting and bellies ready to be rubbed whenever sugar hit the scene.

That, and we shared their instincts to swarm when hurt or bury ourselves in nests of paper. You really are missing out on something in life if you've never been there to watch one of the nymphs float into the basement filing room for the first time. It always begins with a piercing squeal before they dive headfirst into a drawer and stake out a claim with tiny teeth bared. We don't even keep paper shredders in the office- we just tear everything neatly in half once down the center and then chew it to a paste. There's a reason we pluck at the wallpaper for security if you chase us into the corners. And, future tip free of charge, don't overthink our holiday presents. Shiny wrapping paper is a fascination we all share. Anti-Pixies are even worse about it, but without regular access to paperwork, they tend to roll around in the colored streamers left behind when one of their fellows explodes from celebratory back-up, Anti-Caudwell tells me…

I was halfway through the M&Ms and wrist-deep in cinnamon bears before I had the sense to wonder where the candy had come from. Crunching still, I sat back on my knees. All of it lay before me, individually bagged by type, in a black wire basket bigger than my entire body. Polished granite, flecked with dark gray and gold, made up the surface below me before abruptly dropping away on the far side of the candy basket. It was a round counter, sort of a semi-circle, and ran from where I sat to my right, past a metal wall covering, and across to the other end. When I checked behind me, I found solid wood.

So we were in a small building - something like a trailer - and the wall to my left side was lined with nothing but more sweets. Shreds of M&M shell dropped from my mouth when I saw it. Almond Joys. Twizzlers. Sugar-filled drinks. SweetTarts. Chewing gum. Atomic Fireballs. Dots. Now & Laters. Mike & Ikes. Whoppers. Strawberry Laces. Lemonheads. Swedish Fish. Rocky Roads. Pez. Half a dozen candies that I couldn't even name. So many edible necklaces and gummy worms and chocolate coins and wax bottles and Fizzies and Jawbreakers that they spilled from their baskets and onto the counter. The occasional box of napkins or board listing prices was thrown in along with bags of chips that I didn't much care for, but for the most part, staring at that wall was like watching a river of flavored syrup sweep through a utopian jungle crafted by unicorns and then crash over the edge of a rock candy cliff in a total waterfall of deliciously pure sugary sin while butterflies swarmed around my head like tiny will o' the wisps.

"Heaven," I realized, and stuck an Opal Fruit on my tongue. "We've died somehow."

I considered what this meant for a few seconds, then split open the first packet of Fun-Dip. It's hard to see flaws in your situation when you have Fun-Dip.

The entire bag of Jolly Ranchers had been devoured by the time H.P. began to stir from his own heap of rags. He rolled over onto his back and rubbed his eyes. When he looked at me, it seemed to take him a few seconds to recognize my face, perhaps because his glasses had gone missing with my shades. Then he flipped onto his feet and jolted into the air, wings buzzing.

"Light- Overslept- We need to move before- What do you have in your mouth, Sanderson?"

"Five Lik-M-Aid sticks? Wait." I counted again. "Six. Six Lik-M-Aid sticks, sir."

He stared at me, then slapped me on the back of the head so I nearly choked and my floating cap was in serious danger of being knocked from its little gravitational field. "Why would you put more than one of those in your mouth at a time? The tang blends together so all you're doing is wasting five of them that you could have otherwise used to stretch out their taste. I know I pay you to be smarter than this."

"I found Pixy Stix," I said, holding up two handfuls of open straws. H.P.'s fluffy brows lifted together. His eyes traced down my suit to my lap, stuffed with candy wrappers, to the wire basket beside me, and from there to the rest of our little snippet of heaven. He squinted.

"What in…? How long have you been awake?"

"I'm not entirely certain." My stomach churned with sugar. I pressed the backs of my wrists against my eyes. "Awhile, at least. Maybe ten minutes. I'm not feeling like I'm in prime condition anymore."

"You've gone tingle-fritzy. Just look at the mess you made of your magic lines. Fantastic. We'll give you a bit longer and see if this stuff was poisoned before I go for that chocolate bar. Oh, Sanderson, don't…"

He withdrew, some cross between annoyed and smug, as I grabbed the edge of the counter and heaved my insides over the edge. When I'd finished I kept there with my stomach firmly pressed to the granite, arms dangling, and let the Pixy Stix wrappers drift one by one between my fingers and into the gray puddle I'd left below.

"What kind of cruel, twisted paradise is this? I'd like to have a word with the one in charge of installing consequences for my actions."

H.P. licked his palm and rubbed my head to flatten the cowlick he considered so unprofessional. "You're not seventy anymore. I refuse to clean this up."

I found the strength to groan, "What was I like when I was seventy?"

He paused for several seconds, gathering together either a memory or an excuse to dodge the question, and was spared from answering when the room's screen door opened at the far end of heaven. Both of us jerked backwards, straining to ping away out of instinct, but without our starpieces we weren't any better off than downed ducks in a lake with a couple of retrievers surging towards us.

Two humans stepped into the room, but I refused to be slammed with guilt at having been caught amongst their candy. The first was taller and dressed in a simple white shirt that stood out beneath the long black strands of his hair. Some triangular sort of cloth that I didn't have a name for - at least in this sugarloaded state - hung from his waist, like slacks with both legs through the same hole. The second figure had a younger face, slicker hair, and carried a bit more weight around the middle. He hung behind the first human, but his smile wasn't any less curious or genuine.

"Good morning," said the first human, stopping a respective distance away. I'd thought that with his clean appearance (I could forgive the long hair) and the way the younger figure held back, he might be the boss of the establishment. That assumption dissipated as I realized with shock that the speaker, voice high, must be a damsel. I hadn't had much personal contact with human damsels apart from, like, Alma Schindler, Ella Fitzgerald, Carly Simon- You know, musical types that you can curl up near on a shelf and listen to them sing their pretty hearts out. And I'm not even sure it counts as personal contact if it consists mostly of me creeping into their kitchens to listen to them try out different tunes while I throw inspiring pixie dust down on their heads when they pull together something I approve of.

But being greeted by a damsel first thing in the morning, and when my stomach was already churning, only offset my mood further. Really, I thought damsels did wonderful things to this world by lending us their voices. I liked listening to them, but I didn't much… like… them. I swear, if I get assigned to one more shift at Wish Fixers and end up dragged into another flirting lesson or casual conversation over coffee that diverges into trying to set me up with some needy imp when I'm just trying to fix the smoofing copy machine because (not pointing fingers) Thanaline Sparxa forgot that magical objects repel spells that try to change their nature and sometimes have a nasty habit of bouncing such a spell back on the user and forcing them to cough up ink for the remainder of the day and somehow it's all my company's fault that this has happened on more than one occasion, and yet apparently I'm "not allowed" to explain what the problem is because I sound like I'm "talking down to a damsel" (which I guess is a real, actual problem among species that have two distinct sexes?) and this is "all that one can expect from me" because "I'm a member of a species made up entirely of beings with two ZZ chromosomes" and therefore "inherently misogynistic" (along with being a "poor, lonely soul who is too cute and sweet to have gone this long without dating anyone and who must be guilt-tripped into giving Skylette discounts and Earth flowers with no time to lose"), then I will quite possibly yank out my own teeth and pitch them through a window. But doing so would be disrespectful to the Tooth Fairy, and we can't have that.

Why am I going on about- Wasn't I supposed to be talking about something?

The damsel's eyes flicked down to the sickly mess on the floor, then back up to me without her emotions ever wavering (as near as I could figure). She continued her careful greeting with, "I very much hope you aren't upset that we moved you here into the Snack Shack. I was going to let you sleep on, but people were rattling at the gate and time is money, after all. Pretty soon, my husband and I ran out of excuses not to open. It wouldn't do, I felt, to leave any of them hitting you with balls or poking at your faces, so my son and I brought you in here so you may wake when you felt ready."

As was proper protocol, I deferred to H.P. to speak in their presence. That, and another round of bile was gathering in my mouth. At the arrival of the humans, and when his ping had failed, the Head Pixie's wings had drooped, and he'd clung to the heap of towels that had been provided for us like blankets. One of his long wasp-like wings hovered above my back. Now he gripped the rags even tighter in his fists, squinting and silent.

"… That was most kind of you," he said at last, and I could see their shoulders relax.

"What do you make of it, H.P.?" I muttered, not daring to lift myself. It was a phrase I'd almost said twice every day of my life.

He leaned his head nearer to mine as the humans examined us, apparently intrigued by our existence and struggling to restrain themselves for fear that we'd be offended and disappear. "You remember when I told you a former fairy godkid ran the place now?"

"Did you?" That note must have slipped past my awareness.

H.P. never took his eyes from the pair, even as he brought his mouth within a finger's breadth of my ear and further lowered his whisper. "Her memories were of course wiped with their separation, but I think… I think we must offer her a sense of familiarity."

I wished again to be a fairy so Jorgen might poof us home. Need I reiterate the details?

… Had he said the damsel was the one who managed the place? And had a child to raise? Does that happen? Among Fairies, it was always the drake who gave birth to the child while the damsel gathered necessary materials for raising it. After its birth, she was meant to somewhat limit her magic usage, sugar intake, and quick movements for a year as she developed milk in her breasts to provide it with nutrients that physical food couldn't, like buohyrine, to aid in floating. Too much stress kills the strain. Even pixie nymphs had milkmothers. I… preferred not to dwell on mine, nor too much on her daughter. She was a will o' the wisp and they keep harems. There's enough said there.

So I was both impressed and unnerved by the ability of this human damsel to not simply participate in work functions while raising her nymph, but to run an entire business while doing so. I think that… that was the direction I was trying to go with that.

… I wanted to be home again, perched in my soft seat in the conference room while H.P. gave one of his Friday morning lectures about quotas and self-improvement, gesturing to his chalkboard while Verona lay curled up asleep in his left arm, nibbling on a pen cap. I wondered if Longwood would be giving the weekly summary today ad litem. And suddenly the thought of Verona interrupting the meeting to beg for "hold yous" annoyed me to the tip of my crumpled cap. Verona was H.P.'s offspring and Longwood had no right to act as surrogate.

"Did you find our offering satisfying?" asked the damsel, and tightened her lips after the words left her, like she regretted her decision to draw our attention back to her. The offering, I presumed, was the one basket of assorted candy that had been placed on the counter beside us. I moaned and covered my face with my arms.

H.P. lay the tip of his wing against my shoulder. I could hear mirth in his voice when he replied, "Very much so. Although I must admit, it seems my companion indulged himself upon most all of it before I awoke."

"Sugar is leaking from my nose," I mumbled.

"Yes, it is."

"Might I…?"

That was the damsel, though she stopped herself. H.P. inclined his head to allow her to speak, and so she did.

"Might I ask, what brought the two of you to our humble miniature golf course in the dredges of Kansas? I haven't seen you… before."

"Oh, passing through," H.P. answered vaguely. "I lived in this area some two hundred and fifty thousand years ago, and it's the place my companion here was born. Don't concern yourself with his miserable state; it's well deserved. Have you my glasses? I can't see beyond an arm's length without them."

The damsel glanced at the drake, who drew both H.P.'s glasses and my shades from some pocket and crossed the floor towards us. H.P. held out his hands. That made the drake hesitate, but in the end he sort of shoved them into his waiting palms.

"Call me Sam. It's not my real name, but Mom says you're not supposed to hand that information out to the nature spirits or they could use it against you."

"Your name is Quincy," H.P. said.

"How did you-?"

"It's on your name tag."

Quincy looked down at his shirt. "Well, that's a bad idea."

I didn't move, so H.P. unfolded the arms of my shades and stuck them on my nose. Then he rubbed a smudge from his own lenses and put them on. As I turned my head, I saw him blink.

"Eunice Tuckfield!"

The damsel started. "I see you know my name too. Although I'm not wearing mine, so I'll admit that does surprise me."

"I… I have some connections with a friend of yours. He once dated the damsel who, er… she married the cousin of an associate of mine. Anyway, we met once, when you were younger. I suppose you don't remember that." He looked about the shack, with its inexorably-delectable treats. They called my name: Eat us, Sanderson! Fulfill our destiny! With the ends of my strength, I grasped a Hershey's bar and dragged it across the counter towards me.

H.P. took it away and unfolded the wrapper from one end. "Manners, Sanderson. I haven't had a taste yet. Must we squabble over the pecking order like anencephalic chickens?"

I'm pretty sure I should have gotten assigned fairy godparents after that, because right then, I was the most miserable creature on the face of the entire planet.

I struggled to push myself into a sitting position, choking back my whimpers, as he finished off the entire bar and licked chocolate smudges from his fingers. He didn't even pretend he'd forgotten that I wanted some. "Again, I thank you for your generosity," he told Eunice and her offspring. "I am the Head Pixie himself, and we aren't nature spirits so much as spirits of wealth, and I can personally guarantee your future prosperity if you continue maintaining my beloved miniature golf course and allowing it to be a safehaven for all my kind who may stop to rest in it during their travels."

Quincy pumped his fist behind his mother's back. Eunice smiled faintly - almost distractedly - as though she'd known who we were all along.

By that point, I had examined every corner I could see of the shack, and something was starting to bother me. Dreadfully, dreadfully bother me. I lay my arm on H.P.'s sleeve and tugged the fabric.

"H.P.? Do you see Flappy Bob?"

"He was in my arms when- Oh." H.P. looked about, then lifted a handful of rags from his makeshift nest. Twice. "Oh, then. Well. That… is a thing. I'll ask. Eunice? Where is the baby?"

The light dimmed from her eyes. "What baby?"

There wasn't even a way to respond to that. H.P. and I sat there, flecked with bits of sugar and chocolate, and there was no telling what section of the golf course the baby had wandered into. Somehow, I doubted he'd be stopped for long by a sand trap.

H.P. didn't have to order me to my feet. I was up before even he was, and he caught me by the elbow when I lurched too far to the right. "We have to get out there- There's a child, a tiny… black-haired… violet-eyed…"

"Quincy-"

"I'm on it." The drake threw his red jacket on over his shirt. Inside out. Both H.P. and I twitched at the shoulders. Then he was gone before either of us could ask him to fix it. Not that it mattered, really, if he'd just accidentally rendered himself immune to pixie powers. We didn't have our starpieces on hand anyway. I stared at the screen door long after it had banged shut, feeling so very, very sick from all the sweets rolling about in my stomach.

"I'm sure Quincy's a fair scout," H.P. was saying, "but I would feel much more comfortable if Sanderson and I were out there on the hunt as well."

Eunice glanced at the metal barrier that Flappy and I had tried and failed to lift the night before, from the outside. "Er, there are patrons out there now, and I don't think it's wise to assume that all of them will accept and let living-"

"Do you want me to revoke my blessing of prosperity upon this establishment?"

Eunice pushed open the screen door. H.P. jumped from the counter and zipped over to it, not even sparing her a glance. Grabbing a parting handful of candy for the hunt, I sprang after him.

And plunged. Never before and never since had I smacked my jaw as hard as I did that day. M&Ms scattered across the floor. My shades skimmed away with them. Head and wings and legs and arms tumbled like snowballs in an avalanche until I bumped into Eunice's shoes and blinked up at her. Bewildered, she blinked back. Her eyes darted away for half a second and she bit her lip. Ashamed on my behalf, trying to hold back a bubble of laughter… Maybe both. I had wet and gray, er, sickness splattered across my tie. The fingertips of H.P.'s right hand rested against one temple. His entire face was pinched into a pure, The amount of ridiculousness emanating from your entire being is severely tempting me to cut my wings clean off at the jugal folds right now, kind of expression.

"Sanderson, in case you have forgotten, a little human drake shot a hole through your wing yesterday when we were running through Flappy's cornfield. You can't fly until that heals up, and that will take five-to-eight business days without the influence of a starpiece."

That would probably be easier to remember if pixie wings could feel pain.

Eunice crouched down, picked up my shades, and held them out to me. I accidentally made eye contact with her for an instant when I took them back. She smiled at me like the Fairy Elder had on the day the Bit Bridge had been formed to connect Pixie World to Earth, and I'd been trying my best to be a "professional young man" while the other three hundred and twenty-three pixies ran about cheering and clapping and waving their sodas. My ears went up in flames as I lowered my gaze. Scraping the fallen candy back into my hand, I scampered out the door after H.P., who let it swing shut behind me with a low mutter.

"Oh," I said, drawing at once to a stop. Partially because of the rush of dizziness that had slammed into my head, and partially because of the view. "This place looks a great deal bigger in the light."

Greener, too. In fact, all colors were everywhere. The water glinted far bluer than the cloudy sky. Giraffe and zebra sculptures made warbled reflections across it in interesting designs. The still-rising sun pierced yellow-white between the oaks guarding the eastern end; it must have been half past eleven o'clock. Little huts and decorative sheds bore every range in the rainbow ("They painted the tallest windmill with pink polkadots!" was H.P.'s outraged remark, followed by, "There aren't windmills in Africa!").

It was true that the paint peeled from the wood in multiple places, so when I saw the entire landscape, only one word came to mind: Quaint. Nothing else seemed to fit it. The shining grass, still wet with either morning dew or the splash of sprinklers, gathered in small rolling hills. And all around them, humans walked with golf clubs slung over their shoulders. Maybe twenty of them in all on this side of the shack, from a few older ones to some not much bigger than I was. Quincy ran between them, gasping out a question only to be met with startled shaking heads. H.P. grumbled something under his breath and lighted on the brick walkway beside me.

"Any clues on where we ought to begin our search, sir?"

"It's been so long now. I suppose he could have gone off anywhere. I was introducing him to the rhinos before we came to join you."

"That's a start. Er, isn't it, H.P.? I fell asleep before you two came back. Where exactly did you bed down?"

"Just two or so wingspans from you, right beside the little oasis pond on Hole 10, between the pyramids."

The Snack Shack stood, red and faded and proud, in the center of the entire course, and we had to circle around to the eastern side to see the spot in question. Together, we gazed past the lions and the cheetah mother and cubs ("I don't remember those cubs,") to the palm-dotted and sand-trap-heavy Egyptian hole. I could tell H.P. was thinking it, but of course he wasn't about to give the words life. I decided to do it for him.

"You left the baby unsupervised directly next to a pond?"

"I wasn't aware he could crawl! He was bundled in his blanket with his head on my chest, deep asleep long before I drifted off."

I tossed the M&Ms into my mouth. Hey, I wasn't about to let them go to waste. "Would this be the same pond that you tried to drown me in just after I was born, and I was spared because my amniotic sac hadn't split and so I survived via my placenta no matter how long you held me under for?"

"We are not having this conversation right now, Sanderson." H.P. rubbed the knuckles of his left hand as he leaned back against his maple tree. "Did Flappy show any signs of favoritism towards a particular area when you were perusing with him?"

"… No. No, I don't believe so."

"I do hope the crocodiles didn't get him."

"The metal crocodiles, sir?"

"Any luck yet?" Eunice asked from behind us, and we both jerked up our wings.

"Erm…" H.P. twisted his hands. "Not as such yet, no, thank you. We were about to search around the Sphinx."

"Your wings are whirring," she noted. "Someone might see that."

"It can't be helped."

"I think it can be. If you stay here, I'll grab the golf cart, unless my husband already rented it out to someone, but we ought to be able to situate you both in the rear basket and throw my coat over you. I'll drive and you can scan behind for-"

"Hey!" cried a spritely child's voice. Automatically, H.P. and I tried to trigger our fagiggly glands - I could see it from the way he wrinkled his brow - to no avail. We spun around to find a tiny damsel dressed in brown and white at the corner of the Snack Shack, gawking. One finger went up to point. "Dad! Dad, look look look! Fairies! Real fairies! With wings!"

"We're pix-"

Everything died on my lips when the arm circled around me. I yipped and squirmed, then tried to twist so I could bite. My captor had me around the chest, and though I kicked and bent, I couldn't get a fair nip on skin. "Stop that," Eunice mumbled as she turned and started speedwalking down the slight rise towards Hole 11. Her fingers crawled along my side as she readjusted her grip. "I'm getting you away from the shack fast. I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

"Sanderson," H.P. snapped from his place at her other arm. "Behave yourself."

Behave myself? After this betrayal? I kept my teeth embedded in Eunice's sleeve, panting hot pants. My wings were crumpled between her torso and my back. Pressure was building against my chest. If my stomach took a sharp jar, I was going to be sick again. The little comfort I did draw from H.P. was that he didn't appear to like being held by an unfamiliar human, past experience with a fairy godparent or not, any more than I did, but he didn't see the need to struggle.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I know this can't be comfortable or usual for you, but I have to give off the impression that you're toys or decorations. Trust me, I know little Anita's father and he isn't the type either of you will ever want to meet. He doesn't believe humanoid creatures with wings could ever exist, and since you're so small and well-dressed, you don't exactly blend in with the rest of the patrons. He'd be very interested in tearing open your insides and… Can't you disguise yourselves somehow? I feel like you should be able to do that."

"Normally, yes, and we would have when you first startled us in the shack. However, the wands we use to channel our magic were stolen by Cupid and the Tooth Fairy yesterday."

"Oh," Eunice said, taken back a couple of ticks.

I chewed deeper into her sleeve, not trying to swallow it so much as swallow my rising distress. My wrists could twitch, but my arms wouldn't bend. My wings didn't have room to flutter, and they really wanted to flutter. Every step bumped me up and down, so I felt like I was darting through an ice storm. A thin trail of gray dribbled from my mouth. I didn't like being touched. I didn't like being held. My unspoken rule was that no one was allowed to hug me. No one except some of the anti-pixies so drunk on sugary sodas that they could hardly keep themselves on two feet, and a few of my coworkers that I happened to like. And Flappy Bob, who couldn't walk for himself and needed to be cradled like a fragile thing, since fragile things could break and be lost.

I started to chew like Wilcox on a bundle of carrots.

Eunice stopped in front of a shed some ways beyond the crowds and loosened her arms. H.P. flared his wings and kept aloft near her shoulder, but I lunged for the ground, hit, and flashed towards the nearest shrub. "There ought to be one in here," she muttered, pulling a key on a cord from beneath the collar of her shirt. "I don't think it should have… There we go, just a little…" She cast me a glance as she jabbed the key into the padlock. "I didn't hurt you, did I? For some reason I thought your wings didn't have the nerves to feel if they were awkwardly bent. I don't know why I thought that. Actually, I didn't even think about it. That was really rude of me. I really am sorry for grabbing you without first-"

"Ignore him," H.P. said. He snapped his fingers twice and pointed to the ground below him. "Sanderson."

I skulked over to his shadow as Eunice pulled the door open. Her face crumpled. Her arms slapped either side of her legs. "It must be out on the course already. It is seniors-get-in-half-off day. I'm sorry. I really hoped this would work."

"That's no real bother," H.P. said, examining a stain of chocolate he had just found on the hem of his sleeve. "I'll get a view from the air and focus my attention on the northern holes. You and Sanderson can search the southern portion. If you carry him, the fact that he's a living pixie won't be obvious."

I stiffened, my fist still against my face. I'd been in the process of wiping away any hint that I was still sick from my overdose of sugar. "I don't mean to question your decision, H.P., but-"

"Then don't."

"Sir, I don't intend any offense, but I would rather we didn't-"

"Sanderson, you can't fly and you hardly stand up. I seriously doubt your ability to walk in a straight line. I don't want to risk leaving you here and losing both Flappy and you. Go with Eunice. I'll cover ground much faster on my own."

"I'd rather kiss a brownie, sir."

She bit her lip. "Are you sure you'd rather we split up? What about you?"

He patted her shoulder, smiling thinly. "I'll be celebrating my seven hundred and forty-five thousandth birthday before the next millennia is out. I can manage myself."

"Fair. Fair… Just, shout either mine or Quincy's names if you get into any trouble."

"I don't expect to, but I will take that information into account, thank you. Sanderson? Don't cause trouble for her."

"Yes, sir."

H.P. sped away, keeping near the trees and relatively low. At one point he paused and landed, staring at something over a short hill, before taking off again. He vanished behind a tiny hut on the empty Hole 14, skirted two little damsels, and angled for the Snack Shack and nine holes beyond.

"Well," Eunice said, watching him go. "Shall we head southside?"

"I would prefer to walk." I tottered away from the shed door as Eunice heaved it shut, my arms and wings held out to either side. There was a slight wobble in my step, but I attributed that more to lack of experience on the ground than struggling through a sugar crash. Satisfied, I nodded. That almost knocked me off my feet. I pretended I had paused to examine a yellow leaf in the grass.

Eunice finished locking up the shed and followed me along the dirt path. It led down and around the curve of Hole 16, then wound back up to 17. The final hole - the Zimbabwe hole, with its scale Victoria Falls - was beyond that, with the park entrance a short ways off. No one was coming in at the moment, but there were humans about nonetheless, and as I watched, another grimy car pulled into the parking lot.

I hesitated, eyeing the fluffy tops of human hair that bobbed above the next hill. My wings twitched at the pterostigmata. Refusing to process what I was doing, I backed along the path the way I had come, lay one hand against Eunice's knee, and ducked behind her leg.

"I'd better pick you up."

I shook my head, rattling my shades.

"The Head Pixie said-"

"I don't like being restrained."

"They're going to see you."

In answer, I tightened my grip on her calf. They wouldn't be able to dissect me if they couldn't pry me away first. I wasn't going to let them scoop me up. They'd drop me once I bit the thin web of skin between their forefinger and thumb; they always did. Anti-Wanda and H.P. had been the only ones I'd ever seen take a nipping from a furious pixie without quickly making the decision to let them go. And if the humans didn't drop me, I'd yell for H.P to sweep to my rescue. Even if they gagged me, he'd still come if I ended up injured. He always had before. Thick pheromones ran through my bloodstream, ready to trigger the swarming instinct once they came in contact with the air.

"I'm going to pick you up," Eunice warned, shrugging out of her coat. In response, I readied my teeth. But before I could have threatened her, she dropped the coat over me.

Inside out.

The world was a dark place.