(Posted November 1, 2016)

My Unfair Lady

Summer - Autumn of the Charged Waters

There was no way out. It wasn't that I hadn't believed Kalysta- simply that I chose to ignore her insistence, what with me being her prisoner and all. I was a fairy, and fairies did not belong in will o' the wisp burrows. It was as simple as that. Of course there would be a way out.

So after Sandy and I had been dressed in identical brown shirts and pants like the other drakes (and I stripped of my shoes, towel, and kitchen wand), I searched the tunnels for the remainder of the afternoon, chipping my fingernails on stone and catching dirt in the creases of my palms. Or I searched for what I imagined to be the remainder of the afternoon, anyway. Tobie followed me for most of it, yakking nonstop about what he'd been doing since our Spellementary days nearly five hundred thousand years ago, and I found myself wishing magical beings needed to draw in oxygen through their throats like the angels so I could have at least one precious half-instant of silence.

My relief came when we were both summoned to the kitchen to make those omelettes Kalysta had asked for, and Tobie targeted Otto's pointed ears instead. Drawers were opened. Utensils were gathered. Kalysta lit a candle for us with my own kitchen wand, and Jakey used the candle to light the stove because Kalysta wouldn't let us touch the wand itself. The nymphs discovered the joys of bashing pans with their fists, and bashing pans into each other. "Don't be that fairy," I muttered to Sandy, who ignored me and trotted off to chew on Idona's golden hair. She seemed to find that cute, and began to shower him with kisses. When he licked her face back, she squealed and pushed him to the ground. That of course startled him, and he whined until she stroked his cowlick and cooed her apologies.

"Grab the eggs, Fergus?" Otto asked as he wrestled a frying pan away from River.

"No," I said, not taking my arms or head from the counter.

"Fergus?" Tobie tilted his head. "We're cooking dinner. It's for all of us to eat. Aren't you going to help?"

I wrinkled my nose. "Cooking is a damsel's job."

"Maybe where you come from," said Walt, taking the frying pan from Otto and sliding it over the stove, "but you're in will o' the wisp country now, friend. Down here, we cook for Kalysta."

"What is she going to do if I refuse? Lock me up? It's a little late for that, I think."

Walt considered this for a moment. Then he left the kitchen. A few minutes later he came back with Kalysta in tow, still wearing that same absent smile and pink sweater from earlier. I wondered if Ellowi's dust was sprinkled among the loops of wool. She put her crossed arms on the counter and lay her chin on top of them, in perfect imitation of me. For several wingbeats I refused to look at her. My eyes finally shifted over almost of their own choice. Kalysta reached up to ruffle the cowlicked hair beneath my broken crown.

"Who invited you, lousy-lines? Walt told me you think cooking is beneath you."

"I never implied it was beneath me- I simply stated I felt it wasn't my job. In contrast, my fair lady, I meant to imply it is above me. I wouldn't even know where to start." Not without that kitchen wand.

"That's a shame. You'll have to learn quick, because in my burrow, the rule is that if you're a drake over a thousand years old and you don't help to cook, you don't eat."

"Fine," I said, "then let me starve, Kalysta. I welcome the sweet kiss of eternal sleep. You already ruined my day when you told me it was impossible to drown in the washing cave."

Kalysta tickled the stray hairs on my chin. "You're cute, Fergus, so I'm going to feel really bad about tormenting you like this, but it can't be helped." Her arms slid from the counter, and she moved around behind me. Two hands traced down my shoulders and settled into place along the knobs of my wings. She snapped her fingers twice above my head. Then, taking hold, she twisted my wings inward simultaneously.

Those weren't supposed to have the nerves to feel pain. Evidently, that applied only to the translucent membrane itself, and not to the costas that ran along the upper edge. My wings lit up with fire on both sides. The rough patch of skin on my back where they connected seemed to snap muscle. Multiple muscles, even, almost overlapping; in fact, my whole spine convulsed. Spinning around the moment she let me go, I flattened myself against the rough stone wall. One hand crept over my shoulder. Kalysta tapped my nose with a single knuckle.

"Next time, I think, I'll twist your wings and tear off your crown for awhile. Maybe the dizzy spells caused by the latter will numb your awareness of the former. Maybe not. But it won't come to that, I hope?" She snapped her fingers twice above my head. Recoiling, I withdrew my wings. "There we go," she said, and pointed further into the kitchen. I went, still massaging the sore spots.

"Eggs?" Walt asked innocently as I slunk by.

"I'm going. Don't flap your wings dustless." Otto pointed the acorn-capped hatch in the floor out to me, and I lifted it away to find a square hole lined with blocks of ice. I tugged loose the green carton with the silhouette of a dragon blazed across it and returned to Walt. "His majesty's eggs."

"I might advise you not to let Jakey hear you say that," he muttered, taking one and rapping it against the frying pan until it cracked. "Ever since he had Idona, he's been lording it over the rest of us, and me especially. Really, we're all equals here."

"Is that how you break eggs in will o' the wisp country?" I asked, honestly taken aback.

"How do you do it?"

"Like this." Picking up an egg, I put it between my teeth and twisted. It crunched and split into a neat little bowl, which I used to dribble the yolk into the pan.

"That's disgusting," Walt decided. "I changed my mind- you're done cooking. Go set the table with Tobie."

The glass table was long, but it was a tight fit for all of us regardless. Idona pleaded through her "Poof!"s to sit near her new friend Sandy as Jakey lifted her onto the rock beside him. I raised my eyebrow when I watched Kalysta remove the plates I'd set out for the nymphs and replace them with strips of bark and a few colored styluses. Reflecting on it later, I had to slap my forehead. Of course it made sense that the nymphs draw at the table; they were each young and not weaned yet, and couldn't be left to wander around the burrow unsupervised.

The omelette wasn't bad, I think. It was my first one at the time. A little chewier in the middle than I thought was necessary, and crunchy around the edges. Kalysta watched me as I picked my way through the last forkfuls, then tapped the glass of the table beside my plate.

"I want to see you in my quarters when you're done. Bring Sanders' son. I still need to nurse him."

"Delightful," I grunted once she'd left. My fork stabbed through another scrap of egg. "Nearly five hundred millennia of waiting for the prime time to take a mate and copulate with her, and now the evening has finally arrived. It's exactly my dream come true."

"That's good, isn't it?" asked Otto.

"They don't have sarcasm down here in will o' the wisp country either, do they? Here," I said, taking my plate and clinking it on top of Tobie's. "Enjoy dish duty. I have a damsel to satisfy."

Tucking Sandy between my chest and my hands, I followed the glowing stones along the burrow walls around through Kalysta's office and into her room. She was already waiting among her cushions, sweater removed, examining her swollen breasts. I stopped in my tracks when I spotted the baptism medal dangling from the hook above her round bed.

"You worship the memories of the Tuatha Dé Danann and the Aos Sí too."

She looked up. "Does that matter very much?"

I twitched. "I imagine it doesn't. However, it was my understanding that will o' the wisps couldn't get baptized."

"We can't, you know. Being a mutated 'red flag' race; one of the 'unnatural' and 'unchosen', et cetera. The medal isn't real."

"Ah." Steeling my shoulders, I came over with the nymph. Kalysta crooned and held out her arms.

"Hello, Sanders' son. Look at you. You're just adorable. Let's see what we can do with you… I've never tried to nurse a hexagon rather than a cone before. Speaking of which, Fergus, are you planning to give this child a proper name before the night is out?"

"Naming him may result in emotional attachment, which I don't necessarily desire given what you plan to do to him when he's older. 'Sanderson' will do fine as a title."

"I can understand that. We don't name the drake nymphs for the first three months until we know they're healthy."

"Wonder why," I muttered.

Sanderson latched onto the red teat easily enough, like he were born to do it. Tiny fingers splayed themselves against her tan neck, then curled and fell away as his eyelids drooped. A bit of rosy color began to light his face at last.

"I ought to assist the others in rinsing off the dishes," I said. "I'd hate to have my sink privileges revoked because I didn't."

Kalysta snapped her fingers twice, making a muscle jump in my cheek. "I'd prefer you stayed here. Have you ever watched the flight casings fall off a nymph's wings, Fergus?"

"I have not, my fair lady."

She beckoned me closer. I came, but did not sit among her white cushions; simply crossed my arms and remained standing. After a few minutes of nursing, the hard covers over Sanderson's wings cracked down the center. The veils split and dropped, leaving shriveled stubs behind along with a soft, sweet taste in the energy field. The four tiny wings were brown-sheened, almost leafy, and resembled mine to the apex- forewings long, hindwings drastically stunted. He flapped them with a rustling sound, and then folded them into place again and returned his full attention to suckling.

"I see. Thank you for this enlightenment, my fair lady. If it's all the same to you, I'm going to see about cleaning your dishes now."

"Not just yet. I'm not through with you. Sit down."

I grimaced. I'd thought as much. Keeping my own wings pressed to my back, I lowered myself among the fluffy whiteness of her bed and pulled my knees up to my chin. Kalysta ignored my body language and pointed to a row of tiny, colored bottles near her elbow.

"I can't decide which color to paint my nails tonight. May I have your opinion?"

That would be difficult, seeing as I really had none. I examined the collection for a moment before pointing to a simple purple vial. As far as colors went, purple was a decent one. Lagelyn yellows and greens were fine too. Kalysta studied my finger. Then, plucking up the indicated polish, she said, "Thank you, Fergus. That will be all."

I didn't move. "That's it?"

"That's it. Actually," she said as I made a twitching motion towards the doorway. Kalysta thought for a moment, then snapped her fingers twice and beckoned for me to come back. I did, albeit slowly. She handed me the purple polish bottle, and kept her arm extended. "Would you get my right hand for me? I'm terrible with my left, even if I weren't holding a nymph."

"Get… it?"

Her eyebrows went up together and touched at the tips. "You really don't know how to do this, do you? I forget. You're not a wisp. Come, sit again. I'll teach you."

I perched uncertainly with one leg over the edge of the cushion heap, ready to spring up if necessary. After repositioning Sanderson with her knee so he could continue his nursing, Kalysta uncapped the bottle to reveal a tiny brush attached to the lid. The bottle went between my toes so it wouldn't fall over. The brush went into my hand. She lay her right palm in my left, and at her coaxing I applied swishes of paint to the first long fingernail. The purple color stuck. It just stuck. I squinted at it. What odd stuff damsels had figured out.

"Good. Now then. Do you come from Fairy World, Fergus? Do the natives call it that, or is that just us Earthsiders?"

"Yes, and we do," I said, touching the brush to her nail again. "Fairy World is its colloquial name; no one uses Tír Ildáthach anymore except in official documents, unless they wish to come off sounding like a pretentious smart-aleck. Much too frustrating to spell. I was brought up in a small town called Novakiin, about three dozen cloudlengths Cloudland West of the capital city. That would be Faeheim, if you don't remember, where the Rainbow Bridge connects from here to Plane 5, although Novakiin rested two planes below that. But the environment wasn't entirely to my tastes and I've wandered across Earth for the last three hundred and twenty millennia. Terrible mistake, sometimes. I didn't realize at first that the Great Ice Times could be quite so harsh."

"They say the ice is partly what drove my people underground in the first place."

"Not nearly deep enough," I said, moving to the next finger.

"Excuse me?"

"Your burrow is a little near the surface. It gets quite cold down here at times, I've already noticed. That's what I meant."

"I can warm you up." Kalysta nodded towards a stack of blankets at the foot of her bed. "While you were working on dinner, I prepared a nest for you and Sanderson in the cave with the other drakes. There's a blanket in there already, but you're welcome to come back and grab another if that isn't enough. I just ask that you knock first, since my door might be locked. I most always lock it at night, especially if I'm writing."

"You've thought of everything."

"I have been doing this for awhile now. Ouch! Wha-? Sanderson, do you have teeth already? No, no. Don't bite. No."

"You have four nymphs here. How many have you mothered in all the years, might you guess?"

She smiled ruefully. "Drakes or damsels?"

"Does it matter? Damsels, I suppose. Are the numbers close?"

"I've had perhaps a dozen damsels in my lifetime. Maybe a hundred drakes, at least. About a fourth of them survived through instar. We get the Kiss of Frost each year, but wisp sperm is only fertile for twenty-four months every two millennia. And then only in late winter to early summer, so it's more like twelve. The gender ratio is rather skewed among our kind and our nymphs have always been so awfully fragile."

"Ah… That's where the harems come in." Not to mention the cannibalism. That much I remembered from Spellementary.

Her face lit up. "It is, actually! The novel I'm working on is about a young damsel who attempts to start a harem above surface because she grows afraid of the underground after a flood, and she struggles to keep her nymphs from freezing once the Great Ice Times hit. You can read, can't you? Perfect." She pointed her nose towards a thick stack of bark strips on the desk over in her office. "Remind me to show it to you sometime- this is the project that ensures I won't die unhappy. But it's a bit of a sequel in a way, so you'd have to read the original book first. And to really understand it you'd need to read all my notes, and that'll take you a month alone; I have a difficult time backing off once my wings begin to flutter. There's also this spin-off that's kind of a future version, about her and one of her nymphs who lives. I recently started planning out the backstory of a sort-of minor sort-of major character that parallels this story, and then I'm doing this short-story collection, and on top of that I'm really considering writing a piece that takes place much further in the future and connects the two protagonists from each story engaging in shady deals, and I've considered throwing together one that involves my protagonist and her eldest daughter going into hiding in the cave systems throughout Giant Bucket of Acid World and all the children she left behind fretting over what's become of them because of reasons I won't reveal due to spoilers, but I'm not entirely sold on that idea just yet and I might just take it to Plane 23 with me when I go dusty one day."

That monologue was the exact moment I realized that living in a will o' the wisp burrow was going to be beyond my worst nightmares. I couldn't help but shake my head. "What, you wrote all that, and they're merely novels? For entertainment, as opposed to conveying information and laying out the facts?"

She turned on me, blue eyes burning. "It's a respectable profession. Do you know what it means to create characters shimmering with multiple facets, setting after setting that almost doesn't matter and yet sets the entire scene, dialogue that flows on both as is natural and as is useful, decisions and words that can tear long-time friends apart, weeding the mistakes until the remaining scraps blossom into something that makes it all so agonizingly, unfairly worth it?"

"It seems I must apologize, my fair lady, but I don't." I swirled her brush around the polish bottle. "It's simply not a thing that interests me. As far as I'm concerned, all 'creative' stories are the same. There is a kindhearted hero who leaves his struggling home to protect his family or homeland. He falls in love with more or less the first damsel he meets and will do anything to return to her. Fortunately, she adores him in return. He prepares for most of the tale to overcome those obstacles that drove him away in the first place. He willingly and directly confronts his villain. Defeats him. He is praised. He wins that damsel he wanted. True love conquers all. They go on to live happily ever after, and he is everyone's hero."

Her fingers twitched out of my grip. I drew the polish brush away as she snapped, "The hero's journey is a crucial element of storytelling. One cannot write a real piece of literature without it and expect to call that a success. It's not. By its very nature, it's automatically a failure. It would attract few readers, if any. Of those it did, most would never see in it what its author does and would lose interest partway through, and the author, delighted as they may be to receive feedback, isn't likely to be fortunate enough to bear witness to even one person speaking their mind on it as they go along. If there is no clear motivation from the start, the story is purposeless. If there is no clear love interest early on, there is no romance for the reader to root for and no satisfying reward at all to be gained in the end. If there is no clear villain, the protagonist is weak and may as well not exist. If there are too many side-plots, the story becomes too complicated and should be abandoned. If the foreshadowing isn't glaringly obvious, the potential future scene should simply be removed. If the hero is given traits and flaws that don't come up in the climax when he overcomes them, they are pointless filler and a waste of my time to incorporate into my head. If there is no clear and positive moral at the end, the piece should not have even been written. Such a work would not be worthy of being called a story."

"As you wi-"

"And that's handing out a lot of credit by assuming the characters were any good in the first place. I can't tell you how many times I've read the same basic tropes played again and again. Or the outright copying! Ha. I'm proud to tell you that I design my own characters, deep and dimensional, and never steal them from anyone else who already did all the work for me. Those who do are weak and pathetic!"

I took her hand back and lifted my brush. "You're upset," I noted, painting her thumb. "I will say no more on it."

Kalysta sighed for a long time and pressed her other palm to my cheek. I didn't look up even as she said, "Don't do that, Fergus. I'd rather communicate than be left in silence."

"You're afraid of being left alone, my fair lady?"

"Not enough that it could be used against me."

The polish brush slipped from her nail and ran a line across her knuckle. Kalysta watched me dab my fingertip with my tongue and try to rub it away.

"Oh, poor Fergus," was all she said. I chose not to meet her gaze. When all eight fingers were at last done, and Sanderson had finished nursing, we were sent to the nesting cave. The will o' the wisp drakes had yet to return from their work, so I settled in the third of the five nests, just off-center from the door, and lay on my back. I placed Sanderson on my stomach and stared at him for almost five minutes in the dim light while he whined and plucked at my skin with his fat fingers. I let go of him only to rub my eyes. That was when, to my horror, Sanderson wriggled beneath my tight-fitting brown shirt and around into the pouch on my stomach.

"Oh my dust, Sandy," I said, sitting up fast and plunging my hands into my marsupium after him. I dragged him out, along with the broken leg of my rain deer carving that he'd grabbed in his chunky hands. "Don't go in there! My pouch is for- It's for-"

He gave me a squinted look with his bright eyes, putting his thumb into his mouth. Grimacing, I repositioned myself in the nest, still holding him in my lap with the other. "Um… Well, I guess it's for nymphs, so I don't drop you while I'm flying, since I can tighten it shut behind you and all…"

Dust, did I really say that out loud? That was an embarrassing thought, even for me. I lifted my hand to rub my cheek. Once I was no longer holding him in place, Sanderson turned tail with a chirp and burrowed inside again.

"How do you know how to do that? Is it the smell? Do you smell something? Is it the tug of magic?"

Over the course of the next two minutes, Sanderson popped in and out of my pouch to clumsily push out the styluses, food wrappers, lagelyn bills, click and lyn coins, and scraps of wood that I'd squirreled away over the past few days. He looked so exasperated about it, like it was my fault I hadn't had the space clean and ready for him. Once it had been tidied up to his liking, he disappeared inside and didn't come out again for the remainder of the night.

By this point, my face was - and I'll readily admit it - rather heated. I tried to remind myself that it wasn't Sanderson's fault for not clarifying my rules and permission first; he was only acting as he was biologically programmed to. But still, there was a thing preparing to nest in my pouch. I could feel him squirming inside as he tried to make himself comfortable. He was moving. Mortified, I lay there with both hands over my pouch until the others returned from their dish-washing duties and their baths.

"You're back early," Jakey said when he saw me, awed. "How did you convince Kaly to let you slip away? We thought you'd be trapped there all night, listening to her spout on and on about her books."

"The sequel's never better," Otto said wistfully.

"I'm still messed up from Page 130 of her short-story project."

"I liked the sickly kid," mumbled Walt.

Jakey rolled his eyes. "You would. Although things started going bad straight from Page 28, and only worsened by the time 42 came along. No one ever expects platonic friendship to drive anyone anywhere, am I right?"

"Anyway, so how did it go?" Tobie chirped as he nestled down in the bed beside mine, about a wingspan away. I turned my head, watching Tick crawl into his sire's pouch and trying not to focus on Sanderson shifting about as he settled down for sleep in mine. Slotting one end of his digestive system against the nipple that would feed him liquid magic from my lines, tuning him into my "emotional state", teaching his body not to reject the various tastes, promoting the secretion of dust from his pores, pumping him with growth hormones, ensuring that he didn't drain too much from his own reserves simply in his fight to stay alive… Fastening the other end to… Dust, I didn't even want to think about it.

"What?" I muttered, rubbing circles around my temples.

"Your quality time with Kalysta."

"Fine, I suppose. She just had me put color on her fingernails."

He nodded. "I like it when she does that. It's fun. She's been my favorite damsel."

"Hm. Have you had many before? Ah-!" Curse those baby teeth of Sanderson's.

"Only three. Jakey and Otto have had four. Walt I think has had six."

"Seven," he spat from Tobie's other side. "And I'm determined to make Kalysta my last. This year, I won't be traded off."

"He's still new and insecure," Tobie explained, rubbing Tick's red-gold hair, so like Kalysta's and unlike his own dusty brown. "And he's salty because he's never had a daughter. Never, never, ever."

Walt sat up, silhouetted against the dim lights that never brightened nor went out. "Next time for sure. I'm overdue."

"Better get on that," called Otto from along the cave. "It's barely three months 'til the Gathering."

Bristling, Walt fixed his gaze on me. "My place in this burrow was secure while I was still raising Ellowi. But if my next nymph is another drake, like all the other damsels have been telling Kalysta I'll have, she might really believe I am cursed, and I'm gone without question. If that should happen, I will not forgive you. I happen to like it here better than I've liked other burrows. But if I leave, then come the next Gathering, you're mine."

I frowned at the ceiling. "What's a Gathering?"

The details would be cleared for me in full three months later, on the last day of summer. First, I had the "pleasure" of dealing with Sanderson. He was an odd thing, like a ball that didn't roll right whenever I nudged him across the dirt floor with my foot. Our favorite thing to do with him was play the stranger-danger game. If ever any of the drakes apart from myself approached him from behind, he would turn around and shift into the most horrified, gape-mouthed stare you can imagine. Then he'd scamper out of reach, wait for a moment poised on his toes to reassure himself of his safety, and then give himself a big brush-down with his fingertips from crown to pterostigmata and glance around as if to say, What, me? Startled? No, I just got up to stretch, before he'd settle back down and start to play again. No matter how many times this happened, his reaction was always the same, like it was scripted.

Only I was permitted to approach him and watch over his shoulder while he pushed tin unicorns and birds through the soil between his feet, and chewed on all the wooden figures. I'd learned enough in psychology class that as time wore on I had my suspicions he'd turn out to be an unfreckled drone after shedding his exoskeleton; as a gyne, I'd always pushed my way into nymphhood games, engaging in "cooperative play" and assigning roles. You four be the Council Robes, you two be the witnesses, you be the prosecutor, you be the defendant, I'll be both lawyers. But Sanderson only played by himself, never sharing his toys or asking for others or associating with his fellow nymphs if he could at all avoid it…

He snuggled frequently into my warm marsupium when he was cold since in his exoskeleton he couldn't regulate his own body temperature, although I never let him crawl in while anyone else was watching. Not yet. Such things were still new to me. He drank plenty of milk, though he didn't appear keen to give up the nipping behavior when he nursed. Kalysta's breasts were beginning to show it, criss-crossed with white scars. To be honest, during our stay in her burrow, I believed I sucked my thumb more than he did; rather than sucking on fingers, Sanderson would suck on the tip of his left wing. He knew how to pronounce his "Poof poof"s, but he rarely elected to. When he wanted something, he preferred to make noise some other way.

And did he ever like to make noise. I would prop myself up in my itchy nest with one of Kalysta's bark strip books (Most of it agonizingly not my genre, but what else was I supposed to read?) and Sanderson would sit in my lap with a few stones or toys or styluses and bash them together. Over and over. Drone traits, I would one day learn: repetition was a near necessity.

For a few weeks, even when he engaged in play with the will o' the wisps, he would make noise on anything within reach of his small hands. His toys. Their toys. Dishes. Their faces. Finally I began to take such things away from him when he started to get annoying. That worked well for about five minutes, until he learned to clap. Constantly. Some fairies had nymphs who cried when they had needs to be met. I had a clapping child. We offered him styluses and bark strips to play with, and that finally distracted him. Apparently, drawing endless tangles of hair and pasta noodles was more rewarding than making pointless noises. I imagine the picking, scraping sounds of the stylus proved to be satisfactory enough for his ears, and these ones came with physical representations and cheerful colors.

Sanderson had another problem: he didn't always play well with the others. It was baffling to me. He seemed to like them well enough- if they approached first, he shared his toys with them and patted them and vocalized with them. He just had a tendency to take their hands and bite his milkbrothers for no apparent reason until they cried. I'd call for him to apologize, although he never seemed to exhibit remorse for his random acts of cruelty. Not even Idona was immune from his nips despite the fact that for weeks on end he took a high shine to her, which he showed by drizzling her head with handfuls of dirt and poking her with sharp objects.

And sharing kisses. For being a mere two months older than Sanderson, Idona seemed to know a lot about her destiny. She'd walk straight up to him, take his cheeks in her hands, and smooch him on the lips. "Okay. Now, you too."

I wasn't entirely sure what to think about that.

On some days, rather than await a curious response, she would abandon him at once for something more interesting, like someone's hangnail or loose thread and leave him sitting by himself all confused. Although in the end, she must have said something in one of their baby conversations to injure his ego, because he ran straight through our snapjik game, scattering pieces that the rules stated we had to play where they landed, and threw himself into my lap to cry and beg for attention.

"What did you tell him?" I asked the small blonde damsel, stroking Sanderson's cowlicks as I reached for one of my fallen phoenixes.

She shrugged. "Gat'ering."

One morning, just a flap after midnight, I felt something cold and damp slip its way into my pouch. Sanderson awoke, screaming, wingbeats later. Blearily, I raised my head and found him convulsing. I pulled him out at once, holding him near my chest and clicking my tongue. Eventually, he managed to reject the source of his panic- a glob of golden vapor that poured from his nostrils and mouth.

"The Dame Sanderson," I muttered as the vapor glob shook itself off. Then it whizzed beneath the door to the nesting cave and presumably back towards whatever crack in the burrow that had allowed it to squeeze in. "She got here first. Now that's interesting."

"Poof?"

"Well." I repositioned myself until I lay on my back, Sanderson sprawled across my stomach. "As a Refract, she and her dam live very far away from us, in the High Kingdom. Somewhere between Planes 19 and 21. It's been three months since I had you, keep or spare some, so she came here to absorb a piece of your core and be born. So, where is your anti-self? Did I miss him?"

No. We met him precisely ten days later - on what, I thought, was well after Friday the 13th - while Sanderson sat working on his latest intestine-shaped masterpiece. "You're very late," I scolded, but the smoke had work to do and ignored me. It plowed into Sanderson's mouth so fast, it knocked him out of his sitting position and sent him writhing on the floor. His hands even went for his throat. Hardly five wingbeats later, it leaked from his mouth and nose and made itself scarce the same way their Refract counterpart had. In and out, and no forwarding address.

"That smoke is going to become the spirit of the Anti-Sanderson," I explained to my Sanderson as he coughed and complained about whatever bad taste had flooded his nostrils. "His mother spent the last three months culminating it inside of her until it all burst out, and his father formed the body up until a few weeks ago, when he would have delivered a small, fluffy, blue, mostly-lifeless thing from his brood pouch to hers so body and spirit could unite."

Sanderson dragged himself back into my marsupium and fell asleep, as if to indicate how little he cared. I noticed, upon his waking, that his striking out against his playmates occurred less often, he no longer walked on his toes, and all of a sudden he switched to holding his styluses in his left hand.

The promised Gathering rolled around at last, a few days following the encounter with the lifesmoke of Sanderson's anti-fairy counterpart. Year of the Charged Waters, Mother Nature had named it. I was starting to see why. The water we drank and cooked with tasted slightly off. Pollution from the cloudlands interfering with lightning, I'd find out later. It contaminated everything and poisoned the fruits and vegetables Kalysta brought from Little Sidhe.

Even my once-trusted coffee turned its back on me after a time, but I'd always drain every drop regardless and lick religiously at the insides of my mug until it gleamed, because for the most part that watery, bitter drink was the only source of caffeine I had. Kalysta said there was nothing she could do to fix it, and she seemed to derive cruel pleasure from keeping anything that appealed to me in the slightest behind that locked food storage door. She said I had an "unhealthy reliance" on the stuff and wouldn't allow me to drink a sip of my treasured soy milk and caramel-cinnamon blends unless I'd managed to impress her the night before. That meant that most days, I had to fight through my mornings with absolutely nothing at all.

The day of my first Gathering, I sighed down at my lopsided, mostly-sugar-free cake and rubbed my temples while Sanderson poked at it (I having given up on keeping his dirty fingers away from the frosting because I hated everyone who was going to eat it anyway). Along with the poor water, there hadn't been good yale butter, either. I'd substituted applesauce for it, but we were running low at this time of year. Kalysta had said the Gathering deserved a feast, but next week we'd be returning to rationing. I was sick of acorns and earthworms.

"You know, it's really stupid to have your giant party right before harvest season instead of after it," I said to Walt. He sat in the corner with the nymph he'd birthed yesterday poking from his pouch: a drake, yellow-haired with streaks of blue around the crown. Though Kalysta wouldn't acknowledge it, he'd named him Ever. We teased him sometimes that he should have called him Ender. Walt had been dreading this day for the last two weeks. Even Sanderson had drawn him a farewell scribble on a strip of bark.

"Out with the old, in with the new?" he offered.

"I suppose. It's just not the way I would choose to run the world. I love to splurge as much as anybody, but I would never do so if I didn't have the next paycheck securely in hand. Take note of that, Sanderson; I want you to turn out like me, not your milkmother."

Sanderson was chewing on the membrane of his own wing again. I leaned my folded arms against the counter and stared at him eye to eye. "Why are you like this?"

Kalysta strode into the kitchen then, holding a key on a chain around her neck. Unlocking the door to the food storage cave, she ushered us in with two snaps, all our pans and trays and bowls in hand. I'd been inside there several times, of course, but never through the second locked door in its rear. It opened into an unfamiliar tunnel so narrow, my wings brushed the walls even when mostly folded. We entered one by one, and Kalysta brought up the rear.

The tunnel sloped downwards, which killed my naive hope that we might travel outside. After nearly five minutes, we reached a dark curtain. Jakey, in the lead, pushed it aside. As soon as I ducked beneath it after him, I felt my wings lift. Begging to flap. We found ourselves in a great cavern freckled with glowing stones in multiple colors, covering most of if not every available space on the rounded walls, and the ceiling too- a beautiful quarter-cloudlength or so above our heads. I could have flown. Up, up, up.

"So this is where she disappears to when I can't find her," I murmured. Glancing back over my shoulder for Sanderson, I caught a glimpse of Kalysta's name embroidered on the curtain. That told me enough about where we were and who we'd come to meet.

I wasn't wrong. Three circles of cushions took up the majority of the floor. There were perhaps thirty of them in each circle, maybe thirty-five, and about half in total already occupied by damsels. Around the perimeter of the room were four stone tables.

"You can place what we brought over there," Kalysta said, gesturing to one of the closer ones. "Entertain yourselves with the other drakes, but be quick to respond if you're asked to bring the nearest platter of food. You all know the drill. Fergus, follow their lead. Act presentable, respectful, and obedient, but don't be overcome with stress; this is meant to be a place of relaxation. You're welcome to eat, though it's expected you'll defer to the damsels as supplies run low. Your waste cave is over there through the arch outlined by the red stones. And Fergus?"

"My fair lady?"

"Don't bother searching for an exit."

She moved off towards the nearest circle of cushions, and we followed vaguely because the indicated table was near. Then, midstep, Walt's tray all but clattered to the dirt. I was barely fast enough to catch it, but it took him a moment to peel his hands from his mouth. When I followed his gaze, I couldn't blame him.

"Ellowi."

The damsels in the circle gazed at us with light amusement as Walt held out his arms toward the nymph, not so much of a cone anymore. The old double-tufted cowlick that Kalysta used as her brand had been traded out for some other damsel's mark- a single curl that drooped over his eyes. Ellowi looked to a wisp with pink and yellow wings, who inclined her head, and he scampered over to accept the embrace.

"Thank you for taking over his nursing, Coral," Kalysta said, lifting a soft ball of bread or dough from a tray that one of the other drakes had brought over. "He's always been a gentle one, and I didn't want to have to strangle him by the windpipe."

"You're very welcome. Though I won't be doing it again. Both my daughters view him as a brother now, so I have to give him off again anyway. And," Coral went on, sticking out her lower lip, "I couldn't touch Markus until at least one of the nymphs was weaned. He was just coming into heat, too."

The other damsels murmured condolences. Since Walt still hadn't released Ellowi and would probably move on to introducing him to Ever, I wandered over to the refreshment table and set both my cake and his tray down.

"Oh!" one of Kalysta's companions cried as I turned my back to them. "You have a fairy. Or a crossbreed, anyway. And a gyne!"

"He's called Fergus. Fergus? Would you bring us the orange juice there?"

Taking up the pitcher with a grimace, I approached the circle. Sanderson kept underfoot as usual, and that was at least part of the reason for my slow movements. Envious eyes hovered over each step. One of them, a dark-skinned one whom I would later realize was named Gabbi, even reached up to rub my hair as I paused beside Kalysta with the drink.

"He's cute. Where did you get him?"

"He came to me, actually," Kalysta announced as she took back her cup, now foaming with the juice. I attempted to leave, but two soft snaps kept me rooted where I was.

"Really! Pray tell!"

"How did you convince him to give up his wand?" one of the green-haired damsels asked. "Or did you steal it?"

"He'd lost it centuries ago and never had it replaced. I didn't have to say a word."

"What about magical backup?"

"With no wand in hand and so many of us nearby sucking up most of the field, he doesn't seem to have enough natural pink magic in his system to attract much of the field towards him. Guessing from the color of his costas and how he chirps when you tickle behind his ear or coax him with the pressure of your tongue to wriggle a certain way, his father was a bit of a brownie-kisser."

There was a disappointed murmur from Coral, who squinted at Sanderson as if sizing up his nose, but one of the others said, "Does he fight you much? I've heard fairies can be difficult."

Kalysta tickled my stubbled chin. I bit my tongue, gazing straight ahead and refusing to blink, while the metal pitcher chilled my fingers. "Fergus has his moments. He does tend to nip skin when you hit the wrong spots, and sometimes when you hit the right spots, but we adjust."

Gabbi noticed Sanderson for the first time then. "And you got a gorgeous nymph out of him, too. How is his temperament? Is he spoken for?"

"My little chatterbox. He already responds with interest to the sacrificial prayer sung in Mother Nature and Father Time's shrine." Kalysta picked up Sanderson and handed him to Gabbi. Coral and a silver-haired damsel leaned in and prodded him beneath the arms and across his squirming feet. I felt my eye twitch as I listened to Sanderson's mewls and "Poof, poof?"s. They were upsetting him.

"Ooh!" Gabbi dropped Sanderson, and he made a dash for me and ducked behind my legs. She chuckled, flipping her hand over and back. "He bit me. Takes more after his sire than you then, doesn't he?"

Kalysta smiled thinly. "It's too early to tell for sure. He does bite when he nurses."

"He has so many teeth already?" Coral asked, looking mildly perturbed again. "What is he- three months?"

"The teeth allow him to defend himself from overly-invasive damsels," I said in my usual monotone. Kalysta shot me a dirty look. I cocked one eyebrow back.

"I might like him nonetheless," said Gabbi, studying Sanderson with her chin on her knuckles. "What do you think of the little fairy, Veruka?"

Veruka, I found out, was one of the wisp nymphs peeking out from behind her. She shook her head and pressed her face into her mother's skirts. "He doesn't have pretty wings. He's ugly. He'd have to be a really good kisser."

Gabbi ignored her. "He's adorable. Have you any interest, Kalysta?"

"Hmm," said Kalysta, reclining luxuriously (her word, not mine) back in her cushion with her juice. It seemed my pitcher wasn't needed any longer, but I wasn't about to leave without hearing the end of this discussion. "Idona's taken a liking to your little green-haired one. Perhaps I might trade for him once the fairy nymph is weaned."

Idona dropped the green-haired drake's hand instantly. "What? Mama, you can't do that. I want to keep Sandyson."

Sanderson gave a chirrup as though agreeing with her. Then, abandoning my leg, he ran over to Idona with arms outstretched. The pair clasped fingers and bumped noses, and Idona turned on her heels to face her mother. "See? He actually likes me. He's smart and handsome and draws me good things."

"Oh, all right. What about River, then? River, come here."

I passed most of the day in the company of several drakes I didn't know, asking them about their damsels and trying to learn if there were any obvious exit points in their respective burrows. Occasionally I'd be called upon to fetch platters of food or display my wings. Though Kalysta had insisted that there weren't any ways to escape from the large cave, her words didn't stop me from searching. But, as usual, she turned out to be right.

I'd been eyeing Gabbi all night, and at one point, I managed to catch her alone over by one of the tables. I took her glass and poured water and clinking ice cubes from my pitcher. "So you're Gabriella Farnfell, Number 17 for the Wasps."

Gabbi's remaining half of banana plunged from her hand. I'd been anticipating that reaction, however, and had timed my pouring and setting down the pitcher just right so I could swipe my hand around to catch it. I offered it up, but she didn't take.

"Was that my number?"

"Unless I'm mistaken; it was almost five hundred thousand years ago. I was at the 'flies-Centis-Wasps match in the Summer of the Vibrant Sparks."

"Only year I played. Saucerbee wasn't really for me."

"I seem to remember that you were very good."

She hesitated. One hand crept back to her buttery yellow wings. "Do you… want my autograph or something?"

I gave a dry chuckle and repeated the first line of the Dragonflies fight song. She smashed her banana into my nose and stalked away before I could get to the best part. Never had I been fond of Wasps, and never would I be.

Too late did I wonder if she might have agreed to sneak one of her only fans out from the burrow system if he had asked her nicely.

River and Tick were exchanged for a pair of new nymphs who would be moving to the back room with Idona- likely the beginnings of her first harem, should they turn out to be agreeable. I supposed there would be romping about and pecked kisses and building blocks and snuggling and storybooks for the next several dozen millennia. As for we older drakes, Kalysta didn't trade off any of us- not even Walt.

"I'll give him a couple more tries," she told the white-winged damsel who must have had him last, in front of us all, "and we'll see what we can do about that drake curse." At the end of the day, Idona held Sanderson's hand in her right, and with her left led her trail of newfound friends.

"How long until Idona starts her own burrow?" I asked Tobie, and he said, "First she gets her wand and goes to Spellementary School for basic education. Maybe takes one of the drakes with her so she has a friend. Wisps are kinda looked down on up there."

I thought about that as I gathered up the dishes of ours that I could hold from the refreshment table. "Do you remember Magalee Dustfinger?"

"Of course. She was for me almost like what Idona is for Sanderson right now." He drummed his fingers on his highly pregnant belly. "She's still around here, actually. I saw her several times today… Yes- there!"

His finger guided me towards a will o' the wisp with sweeping blue and black wings, her light brown hair pulled back in a pegasus tail, as she knelt down to scoop up a tiny damsel nymph in each arm. "I didn't even recognize her," I murmured. She snapped her fingers for her drakes to follow her through a pale pink curtain. It fluttered shut when she left. "I wonder if she'd know me now through all my dark freckles."

Sanderson came up to me then, dragging Idona and the others, and reached up his hand in quiet begging to hold my finger. I pushed the empty dishes into my pouch and allowed him to as we headed back to Kalysta's tunnel. The trays and bowls went to the kitchen. Idona and the new little drakes went to her room. Tobie, Otto, Walt, Jakey, and Ever went to the nesting cave. When I'd shut the last cupboard, I picked up Sanderson and started after them.

"Fergus?"

I paused, hovering on the tips of my toes in the middle of the dining room. Stifling my groan, I turned back to face Kalysta. She tilted her head in the direction of her chambers.

"Give Sanderson to Tobie. You can spend the night with me."

When Tobie took him away and began walking, Sanderson instantly broke into a fit of screaming and kicking. Somehow, he managed to clamp his teeth into Tobie's windpipe and fritz his lines. Understandably startled, Tobie yanked his hands away. Sanderson plopped to the ground. Like he had in the larger cave with the damsels, he raced to me for comfort, crying little "Poof!"s all the while.

"It's been a long day of stranger-danger for him," I said, scooping him up. "You know he doesn't do well when he can't taste my magic nearby. Perhaps I ought to take him to bed."

Kalysta sighed and made a motion with her wrist. "If he screams when someone else holds him and you're still in the room, he'll only be worse when you're not there. He'll upset Ever, Idona will want to come and see, Kace and Dip will follow her, and we'll hear them all the way in here and it'll give us both a headache. Just bring him in so he'll stay quiet. I can get him some bark strips and colored styluses, and he can play until he falls asleep. I'll sing him that shrine prayer song he seems to like."

With Sanderson happily absorbed in his scribbling on the floor, Kalysta returned her attentions to me. "This morning I visited my mother's burrow to see if she would lend me this dress, and she thought my hair was too plain for the occasion and tied however many itchy white ribbons into it. Get those out for me? It feels like there are two hundred. And here's a brush after that."

I took up the red and yellow strands of her hair and put my fingers to work. As I yanked the bows free one by one, Kalysta then asked, "What did you think of the Gathering, Fergus? Fairies don't have anything like that, do they?"

My hands hovered over the next ribbon. "I never knew." It was all I could say at first. Kalysta asked me to expound, and I did so haltingly. "I saw a damsel there with whom I went to school. Never once did I think she might have been born and raised in a place like this while I spent my days fetching paper or water or clay tablets for my father back in the family business."

Kalysta turned her head. "You've never mentioned a family business before."

"Do you know Wish Fixers?" I asked, tugging loose another bow.

For three wingbeats, she was silent. Then she muttered a dark word. I pulled back my hands.

"You do, don't you?"

"I used to, when I was younger. I went through a rebellious juvenile phase where I tried to go tomte."

"You tried to-"

Kalysta tightened her fingers in the folds of dress in her lap. "That's behind me now. I don't want to talk about it."

"Ambrosine concerned himself with those under the age of eight lines, but Lawrence Karowel worked with older juveniles and such. He looked after you?" When she nodded, I brought my fingers near her shoulder again. "In that case, I'm sure your name must have crossed my path at some point. I was responsible for keeping track of the record books."

"I paid little attention to it before, but your family name was Whimsifinado, isn't it? That's right… I remember now. Your ancestors did their best to capitalize on the concept that every act of behavioral therapy to go on behind those doors would occur with the utmost schooling and logical expert care."

"The word you seem to be reaching for is 'aficionado', and yes, it's our way. My father's owned the place practically since the end of the war. He was pulled from the Academy to answer the draft, actually, albeit temporarily. He was still fighting to finish off those last graduate classes when I was in Spellementary."

Kalysta dropped her face in her hands. "Ambrosine, then. I landed myself the offspring of Ambrosine Whimsifinado, firstborn and only surviving son of Nettle Gumswood, who played for the Dragonflies until that lightning-through-the-eye-sockets incident disabled her permanently back in the Winter of the Sweeping Starlight. I have all three variations of his 'Celebrity Families' trading card in my old make-up box here under my bed."

My knuckles twitched in her hair. "That's him."

"The third card was limited edition, the shot plucked from the timestream the day his son was born. He's gowned in gray, curled up in a nest of straw in the dull hospital, surrounded by stacks of tablets, supposedly nineteen lines to his core, holding a preemie nymph visible only as a tuft of black hair in a purple blanket, with one hand up to partially shield his face. Oh my dust. You're on my trading card." She turned halfway around. "What in the name of smoof went wrong? He's sexy and desirable, and you're… Well, you're kind of okay."

"Genetic mutation. Anyway, since you almost asked, Wish Fixers will go to me someday. I am his only offspring, after all. I suppose Sanderson will take over when he's older…" I trailed off. Idona had pleaded for Sanderson one night months ago when I was nearly asleep, and I'd mumbled my permission for her to have him when they came of age, so far as Kalysta agreed. Idona claimed she had.

Not that my word was either necessary or binding down here the way it would be if I ever made it back to the surface. With or without it, he wasn't too likely to leave the underground. Idona would take him along to her new burrow. Although he was likely to turn out a drone and therefore had a 75% chance of being infertile, there remained the possibility that he might bear her nymphs. Dozens of them, maybe, until he ran dry of eggs and they sentenced him to the slicing cave for the last Kiss he'd ever receive. His offspring would grow up with my blood in them and I'd never know their names.

"I might have another nymph once I get out of here," I decided. "It's the family business and I want it to stay in my line. Perhaps I'll name him Kershaw. If I have a damsel, she can be Emery. I always liked the name Emery. It isn't quite so damseline as some."

"No siblings at all. What about your mother?"

I grimaced. "I never knew my mother as more than a touch and a scent."

"Surely she nursed you?"

"Not beyond the first few weeks. Then I had a substitute, much as Sanderson has you now."

Kalysta paused. "I'm sorry. I didn't know. Do you mind if I asked how she died?"

I snorted. "She didn't. She just left. Didn't want anything to do with me- only Ambrosine. Not only was I an accident and she busy with school, but I was loud and needy. Too much for her. Perhaps she'd have stayed if I was healthier, but with my broken crown and squarish wings… no."

The concept was, apparently, entirely unfamiliar to the will o' the wisp. Dumbfounded, she scratched her ear. "But you had your father and her other drakes to look after you, I hope, unless they all went with her."

I tossed another ribbon to the dirt. "Fairies don't have these harem families the way you do. There are exceptions to everything, but most take only one mate for life and never have another should the first pass away or, on rarer occasion still, leave them behind and shift their attentions to someone else. We don't really encourage the casual dating culture of the cherubs or the gnomes, either- fairies bond young and it leads to courtship and then to lasting pairs, with both parents staying on to look after the child forever after. Or that's how society thinks it's supposed to be. Inborn monogamy is part of the reason we're higher on the social ladder than your kind."

"You give your souls away only once," she said, gazing at the nymph coloring on the floor. My fingers snagged. I clucked my tongue.

"Typically, on the first night of genuine courtship advances and pair bonding, fairies begin work on their mating dance. Dances tend to be somewhat unique for each pair, though carry the same central core and major points. They'll mate, usually, on that night and not again for the following three seasons. If they're serious, the pair will continue molding their dance frequently throughout the remainder of their courtship. When the first season returns and finds them still happily together, they're considered to belong to one another for life. You can tell they're not in the courting pool any longer from the notches they tip in each other's wings around the pterostigmata then. The notching tradition has spread a little across the ladder. But that's the biggest reason cross-species partnerships don't last too long where I'm from: too many differences in basic social behavior, not even bringing other cultural norms and taxes into it."

"Oh, don't even talk to me about the taxes." Kalysta pressed her fingertips to her lips and stewed over my words. "I'm likely going to need to rewrite about half of my latest manuscript. You'll have to tell me everything one of these days. But, in the meantime, I want to hear about Sanderson's mother." Nestling, tucking her legs beneath her, she went on with, "I'm a romantic, Fergus. Tell me how you met."

Never slowing my fingers, I eased another ribbon from her hair and shook my head. "I don't know. I remember nothing. No dance. No copulation. No courtship. No damsel at all. It was a shock to learn I was pregnant with him. If my mind was wiped, it was done so without leaving any blanks. But-"

I shouldn't have said 'But-'. Kalysta caught on and demanded I expand. I finished with the ribbons and took up the brush.

"There was a… an Anti-Fairy that I knew, once. An anti-cherub, actually. I never even learned her name. But she…"

"Members of the Seelie Court can't reproduce with the Unseelie. It's anti-damsels who give birth. Their reproductive systems are completely different."

"I know. That's why it doesn't make sense. Wouldn't, I mean. It wouldn't make sense. If she and I had copulated. Not that I'm saying we did. I probably would have dissolved from the touch of her acid, and it's not supposed to be physically possible anyway, although of course I wouldn't know. No, thank you." Taking several strands of Kalysta's hair, I began to wrestle with the knots. "That's fairies. Did you see any relations of yours at the Gathering, aside from your mother? Perhaps a sister?"

"My father belongs to a friend of mine named Kenyi now."

Neither of us spoke, only brushed hair and watched Sanderson draw scribbles, until Kalysta began prodding me about what all I'd been doing before I'd strayed into her territory. I was alone, I told her, and it was very nice. I had my little patch of grass with my hills and ponds. I had my garden and my coffee and my logs.

"What I miss most is my maple tree," I admitted, nipping another tangle from her hair. "I used to take a sharp stone and smack it for hours until the sap leaked out, and then I'd lick a taste from the bark and gather the rest to sprinkle over what food I had. I'm not sure if it was very good, but it was my tree and there weren't a lot of them around."

"None, actually. My mother used to look. But she does import maple syrup from further east." Kalysta rolled to her feet. "I'll zip over to her burrow and get you some of that, and you can taste a bit tonight and we'll eat the rest tomorrow. With waffles. And perhaps a coffee for you?"

"I think that sounds charming, my fair lady."

I watched as Kalysta strode into her private waste cave and spread her wings. She bunched her muscles, then sprang up flapping. Her acorn-cap hatch flipped open. Instant light flooded the area, temporarily disappeared as Kalysta's body concealed the hole, brightened as she left, then vanished as she shut the lid.

For a moment I just sat, kneading my foot with my knuckles. That was the same entrance she had brought me in through three months ago. With quiet steps, I crept into the waste cave and studied the ceiling. The hatch was there, about five wingspans up, and looked like it was held shut only by a simple hook. Had she really just… gone out and left me so near the exit?

Then, all at once, it struck me: She'd never had to worry before. Those of us blessed with flight had to take in buohyrine from nursing milk, and then learn how to channel it in order to hover using wings that, without the assistance of magic, should have been too small to function. That was why nymphs were given training wands in the first place- they plugged into the Big Wand's energy field and made channeling it much, much easier.

But back in Spellementary, Tobie hadn't had a wand. Magalee had even lent him hers on occasion for safekeeping when she left for the washroom, but though we'd seen him wave it, he'd never been taught how to make it work. And of course, if not channeled and maintained, the buohyrine would eventually pass out of the bloodstream, with no hope of return if one did not drink nursing milk again, and soon.

Kalysta's drakes couldn't fly. And I could. The other ceilings were all so low, did she even know that? She'd never thought to ask. Thankfully, I'd had the brains to stay on the floor in the Gathering chamber with the rest of the grounded drakes. Even when we'd met, I'd been on foot. She'd never even seen me.

There wasn't time to waste. The blue-black walls were smooth and lacked handholds or ledges or chips, and they were far enough apart that one could not brace himself and attempt to spider-crawl his way up. I had plenty of room to unfurl my wings and shove them downwards. It took a couple of tries to pick up the magic in the air again, but then I began to rise, all the way up. After unhooking the latch, I pushed the lid open. It fell back into the grass. Warm air flowed across my face. Shielding my eyes against the searing orange sunset, I attempted to push my way through.

My wings crashed against the sides of the hole and nearly sent me plunging downwards. I grabbed two handfuls of weeds for support, kicking with my legs until I had clumsily managed to draw my wings in. My body wriggled through. Evening light! A real, living breeze! Flicking dirt from my hands, I took off scrambling over the wild summer-autumn grass.

I made it about ten paces before I remembered Sanderson. Running back, I squeezed again into the hole and hit the ground. He was waiting there and all ready to go, arms up. I scooped him to my neck and beat my way upwards once more.

Sanderson fit through the gap easily. But just as I popped my first shoulder out, someone touched down in front of me with a snap of dark butterfly wings. I looked up to find Kalysta's arms folded behind her back. The sharp heel of her shoe hovered above my face.

"Did you get lost on your way to the washing cave again, Fergus?"

"I'm not going to get my coffee tomorrow," I guessed, instantly regretting all my sins. "Am I?"

"You are not. No coffee for two weeks. And don't think it excuses you from bedroom duty either; I have too many plot bunnies I need to work out with you, and I still expect you to have finished revising that latest piece by Friday."

I sunk back into the hole, clinging to the edge with my fingertips. Kalysta clicked her fingers twice and pointed downwards. I dropped. She followed with Sanderson.

"I almost missed you," she said dryly, handing him back. "If you'd been out of there ten wingbeats earlier, I'd have flown right on by to my sister's burrow, and you'd have gotten a head start while we're in the midst of the season my Kiss of Frost doesn't work."

Sanderson squirmed into my pouch. I placed my palms against the bulge he made and said nothing. Kalysta nodded.

"Go back to your room now. I'm going to use this cave for its intended purpose."

Since I wouldn't likely have been able to fight her off while attempting to unlock and lift the hatch, Kiss of Frost or no Kiss of Frost, and especially if she expected me to struggle, I headed back through her private quarters and into the office. What I saw on the desk between her unfinished manuscript and her stylus made me freeze in my bare tracks.

Kalysta had left her wand unguarded.

Seizing the opportunity the instant I recognized it, I snatched it up and gave it a wave, drawing magic through it with every ounce of thought I could manage. A single flick could poof me out of here before she realized her mistake. If nothing else, I could trigger my fagiggly gland, morph my shape into that of some lizard, and scuttle through a crevice at least until she fell asleep.

But it didn't work. The light in the star-shaped end did not glow, no matter how fruitlessly I waved it. After a couple moments spent trying, I uncapped it. It was empty. Dry. So numb with disappointment was I that I sunk to my knees and didn't even attempt to hide what I'd been doing when I heard Kalysta's feet come stepping back over the dirt.

"The starpiece at the end is drained of purified rosewater, of course," she said in surprise when she saw me lying on the ground. "We usually dump it all or rewire the insides of the shaft after we finish decorating our burrows and start collecting drakes for exactly this reason. Standard practice; I keep it only for sentimentality's sake. Didn't you learn about will o' the wisps in school?"

Grinding my teeth, I replaced the useless wand on her desk. "I must have been doing something else I thought was really important that day."

"Come on." Half-turning, Kalysta offered me a hand that I didn't take. "I'll walk you back."

I lay down in my nest with the sleeping Sanderson as Kalysta threw my blanket over me. Snapping her fingers twice, she called for Jakey to untangle the last of the ribbons from her hair. They went off. I followed their movements with my eyes until the door shut behind them.

Then I jolted upright. The finger snaps! That was the answer. An honest, obtainable, stupidly-simple answer!

A/N: Text to Life - A marsupial's pouch is officially called a marsupium. One thing that I found absolutely fascinating while I was researching them is that kangaroos can constrict or "seal" their pouches to prevent their joey from escaping. I didn't know that! Did you guys know that? That would be perfect for beings who need to ascend or dive between various levels of clouds and not worry about dropping their babies!

These pouches aren't exactly like the kind you'd see in our marsupials given the fact that Fairy births have evolved to be more similar to the ways of humans. Fairy pouches are less for nurturing young and more for carrying them (and so the term brood pouch would be inaccurate); thus, both male and female Fairies have them. Anti-Fairy pouches actually are brood pouches, but we won't be getting into that here in Origin. Another day.