(Posted January 26, 2017)

Bells and Whistles

Spring of the Shifted River - Autumn of the Clinging Leaf

China truly had a kind soul, and I found that I admired her greatly for it. In the same way I had once argued with Sanderson that saying 'No!' was proof he needed a nap, China looked at me and interpreted my protests as a sign that I needed her charity.

It was embarrassing. I pushed through it nonetheless. We clicked well in our new home, although after a long day of job-searching on Monday, snug in my bed, I suddenly bolted upright. "Oh, smoof. Weren't Hawkins and Sanderson supposed to be finished with their hours of silence like, yesterday?"

I ran the numbers through my head, ran the distance to their room through my head, and then lay back down and nestled into my blankets. "It's already 19:00 and I don't want to get out of bed. I'll tell them in the morning." The first rule China would have to learn about living with me was, I could be super unmotivated if I was motivated to be.

Over a breakfast of eggs and bacon, I did, in fact, break the news to them: "Your hundred hours of reflection are complete. You may speak now."

"What does 'son' mean?" Sanderson burst out.

I paused, my fork halfway to my mouth. "What?"

"The pink-haired guy - Hadrian - he said me and Hawkins were the sons of you and China. What does that mean?"

"'Hawkins and I'. Son? Well. It means that... if I died, my inheritance would go to you, like Ambrosine's went to me."

Hawkins hopped up and down in his seat. "Does that mean we get to take anything we want if we can fit it in a briefcase too? Because I want all the documents that give me the Wish Fixers cloudship."

"Definitely not. Don't get so excited. Now, drink your jatican juice and don't cause trouble for China while I'm out. I found a promising opportunity sorting packages in a post office, so I have to be off for my interview. I expect to find you still on your best behavior when I return."

So it went. China provided us with shelter, I tried to provide us with funds. We had to start from the bottom. Even with this post office job secure in my grip, I never stopped hunting for things bigger and better. As time passed, eventually Sanderson, Hawkins, and I even traveled about the surrounding neighborhoods on behalf of our own little business, offering our services where we could.

It began so simply. We cleaned. We organized. We helped Fairies move in and out of homes. We painted houses. We scrubbed small alien lifeforms from the hulls of skyships. We washed clothes. We made beds. We polished mirrors. We built hen houses. We supervised business transactions and deals. We even helped some of the younger generation with school homework.

Then Hawkins let slip to someone that he had experience with budgeting, and it progressed from there. Advising. Planning. Transcribing. Listing. Informing. Filing. Record-keeping. Calculating. Warning. Confirming. Ordering. Distributing. Reviewing. Responding. Satisfying. Once, a client showed me the eviction notice that had been left on the door of his business, and we went back and examined the deed and the original contract, and exploited a child-rearing technicality that gave him another century to pull the place together. The thanks - and more importantly, the hard cash - poured in.

Yet it always seemed to disappear too fast. Four of us sheltering in an un-paid-off and uninsured home racked up expenses, especially with two of them school-aged. It didn't help that China and I were forced to file separately whenever tax day rolled around. And, that I still had to complete both forms myself, along with the dozens of those of our neighbors, which over the years turned into hundreds, and then bordered on thousands. When Emery called me via scrying bowl to mock me for how much nearer she thought she was to her goal of taking on Wish Fixers than I was, I knew something had to be done.

I had dropped out of school, but China had been an Academy student. Deductions came off that. Even student loan interest was deductible. She worked for an architect, and didn't have a large enough income to bump me into a higher tax bracket. If I went through with this, the Fairy Council wouldn't be able to pull funds from so much of her paycheck, either. That nasty gift tax which clung around potential large money exchanges would vanish entirely. Her health and life insurances could be dropped if she were covered with mine. Sanderson and Hawkins could make me eligible for earned income credit only in homes where both a legally bonded maternal and paternal figure were present for the majority of the year. As a smaller but still welcome bonus, I wouldn't have to shuffle through mountains of papers to double-check which of us had paid for the property or the tidy magic lines this time around.

For several days during the Summer of the Clinging Leaf, I paced in my office, brushing my quill along my lip and considering my options from all the angles I could find. When I was certain of my decision, I went out, bought a bundle of purple flowers and some chocolate-coated strawberries, and invited China to take a skim through the neighborhood with me.

As we turned the first corner, she began telling me about a rough experience she'd had clearing a final floor plan design with her client that day, despite the hours she'd put into arranging and rearranging items and all the chances the client could have had to reject the earlier drafts, and I lost my focus on the task at hand. It came back to me by the time we circled around and reached the door again, when I had to fumble the flowers and fruit behind my back to free a hand for the doorknob. Still silently kicking myself for flying straight past the amphitheater, I asked China to see me in my office in a few minutes' time.

"I made homemade ice cream with Sanderson and Hawkins this afternoon," the selkie said when she joined me, clinking down a bowl. "Surprise: it's more vanilla. You three and your vanilla- you're all so stubborn and silly, and I love it. But I'm still seventy-five percent sure that all three of you are faking your dislike of orange sherbet. Which reminds me- Can I have the rest of your Easter candy?"

I thanked her for the ice cream, and we ate in relative silence. Once we had both finished, I cleared my throat and slid the dishes aside.

"China," I said, setting my fingers on the edge of my desk, "I would like to marry you."

She said nothing at first, then after a minute tilted her head. "What all of a sudden brought this on?"

That made me squint. I'd been hoping for a more affirmative answer. "I've been with you for almost fifty years now and I've grown fond of your company. I don't want you to stay because I have your coat. I'd rather you stayed because you enjoy my company, too. Though I of course don't want to lose you, I want this marriage to be partially your decision. If you choose to turn me down, I'll return your coat. It isn't right for you to be held as a captive mate against your will. Oh, smoof. I had flowers and strawberries. I meant to lead in with those first. I…" I checked under my desk and my chair, and then began shuffling papers. "The emphasis is on had flowers and strawberries. Ah- Here they are. It seems I put my binder on top of them, but it looks as though most of the petals are still attached."

"I was wondering why you were carrying those." She took the flowers as I passed them over to her, and smelled them. "All right. I have just one question."

"Yes?"

"When we're married, can I finally give you hugs?"

"I suppose so. You can have one now, if you'd like." I came around the desk, and she bounced up and threw her arms around my neck, in the process whacking my glasses off with her bouquet of purple flowers. We got a chuckle out of that.

"Then no objections," China said. "Let's get married."

"We can get the papers filed and legalized in two weeks' time. I suppose you'll want a ceremony afterwards as well?"

She did. I called for Sanderson and Hawkins, and we told them the news. They examined us with twin expressions of puzzlement. "Oh," was all the latter said, in a tone that suggested he'd come in expecting a present. He started sucking on his thumb.

"Hawkins?" I slid a paper across my desk. "This number here is the money we can afford to spend on the ceremony and such. Head into the kitchen with China. She'll know better than I will what all we want and need, and you can help budget that out for us."

"We need a cake," China said first and instantly. "It has to have white frosting like little seashells, I want three layers, and the flavor should be yellow marble."

Hawkins pointed at her with his quill. "Yes. I like this plan a lot more than your birthday one."

"Okay, we all decided that the birthday plan was arguably flawed. This time, no magic touches the cake, and it definitely won't be hit in any crossfire and attempt to devour innocent bystanders. I'm glad it's you writing this up for me. You have pretty handwriting."

They went off, leaving Sanderson with me. He leaned against my desk, one hand resting against the crook of the other elbow.

"I'm not sure I understand, sir. Why do you have to marry her?"

"I don't have to do anything I don't want to. Except," I sighed, staring down at my desk, "pay these taxes to the Fairy Council. You like China, don't you?"

Sanderson's hand inched further along the desk. "I like her because this is her house and we live with her, but I don't want it to be weird, sir. What does it mean, marriage? What's going to happen to me and Hawkins?"

"Nothing much will really change around here, I don't think. We'll do our jobs and China will do hers. But she's legally allowed to sign things now- packages, checks, and at the bank and such. She'll provide for you should I disappear, and no one will take you away should anything happen to me. Not that I'm expecting anything to happen to me, but I feel more satisfied knowing you two won't be thrown out on the street."

"But does she own my stuff? I don't want to share with her." Sanderson bit his lip. "Are you going to want us to call her Mrs. Sir?"

"No. 'China' or 'Ma'am' will still be fine. You can talk to her about it. Your wings are fluttering forward. Is there something else on your mind?"

"Is it because you want more nymphs?" he asked quietly. "Did Hawkins and I do something wrong?"

I massaged my mouth as I leaned back in my seat. I hadn't even thought to ask China yet if she was going to want nymphs. She knew, surely, that fairy drakes were forbidden at this time. But still, if the ban were ever lifted… Species of the father, hat of the mother, delicate wings a mixture of the two… When Sanderson continued to hover there, I beckoned him with my hand. He came around my desk, two fingers trailing along the edge of it.

"Sanderson, can you tell me how the social hierarchy works among the Seelie Court? Legally, I mean."

From the way he squeezed his eyelids shut, I could tell he'd already been thinking it. He had the precise textbook answer perched on the tip of his tongue. "'Every species falls somewhere on the list, and though debate may arise concerning where each one falls, these are the two endpoints upon which everyone can agree: The fairies stand at the top, and the brownies at the bottom. In the eyes of society, status may be lowered through mating downwards, never elevated; thus, the Fairy Council devised an overarching system of legality concerning rank to be followed by all of the Seelie Court'. By law, inheritance rights go to the first offspring of the first mate who holds the higher point on the hierarchy chart. Then the first offspring he or she had with the second mate, if applicable, follows suit, with the first offspring of the third, so on down until that's the end of mates. Then you come back to the second offspring of the first mate." He swallowed. "And… if the other mates were never legally wed, then… Then the first one to be legally wed becomes the first mate. And the former first mate becomes the second."

I rubbed my thumb across his cheek. "Does it upset you to remember that China isn't your real mother?"

"No, sir. I understand it and I accept it."

"Do you recall the day before your baptism, when we went to the hospital? I'm not even sure if I am capable of having any more nymphs from here on out. But if I am, no matter how many I have, you are my first heir as far as I'm concerned, Sanderson. You fall only after China."

He spread his arms. "But you already live with her. You're already sort of mates in reality, if not on paper- you told me the story about when you found her coat. What difference does it make if you're married or not?"

As I picked up the next tax form I needed to file, I tapped the hard tip of my quill against my teeth. "You would be surprised."

I went out to check on China and Hawkins later that evening. They'd drawn up an impressive list of items, and Hawkins flicked the budget across the table to me as I came in. I picked it up and gave it a skim.

"Hm. I'm afraid it's a little much. We still need one of those bridal dresses."

"I already have one," China said, springing up. "Sit here and I'll fetch it." She flew up to her room, and a moment later returned clutching a file folder-green lump of fabric to her chest. She flapped it out and lay it across the glass stairs.

"That will do," I agreed. "I see you even have a veil."

"It's not like this is the first time I've been married. I'm a selkie with a loose coat up for grabs. It's in the job description."

As she refolded the dress, I tugged at one of my sleeves. If that was the case, I had two options. I could hide the coat where no other drake would find it… or offer it to China and see what she did with it now. If she truly chose to stay, the stories said, the coat deal was no longer binding and she was mine to keep until I turned to dust.

When I watched her sit back on her knees to pride herself on a job well done, I thought that perhaps I'd keep the coat myself a little longer. At least until the first nymph, if one day there ever was one, had been weaned. I didn't want a repeat of what had happened with Solara.

China went upstairs again to put the dress away, but a moment later she ran into my office. "Look what I found in my sock drawer," she crowed, flapping a triangular piece of gray fabric tipped with a silver star. "It's that old cohuleen druith you didn't want when we first met."

"Why do you have a sock drawer? You've worn sandals every day for ten years."

She stepped back, bewildered. The silly hat flopped to her side. "I love my sock drawer. I wear socks when I'm at home."

"You do?"

"Yes. Every day after work. That's the first thing I do after I give you all my hellos." Her hand went to her forehead, tugging at a loose strand of dark hair. "Well, I may possibly have to amend this statement now, but here I was thinking that we're not strangers anymore. And if we're getting married then my family will expect you to have it on hand. Would you give it a try it for me?"

"All right," I said, getting out of my chair, and when she gave it to me I made the attempt to put it on. It snagged on the broken points of my crown, until I tried again and slid the cap beneath it. The crown floated a smidgen higher.

"Hmm. Having to squeeze it through… That will be annoying if I wear this regularly."

China tapped her cheek with the whole of her webbed palm. "Doesn't it bother you when you get those double-takes about your crown?"

"Very little bothers me," I replied, still attempting to straighten the hat.

"Well, take it off. The crown, I mean."

"I'd prefer not to stumble around in a disoriented manner for the rest of my life, actually."

"You won't. I think you won't - if you do you can twist my wings - but a cohuleen druith is a special hat that feeds you magic. It's supposed to keep our mates from drowning when they want to come visit us or our families underwater."

"It prevents asphyxiation?"

"It tries to, though it still struggles some when the wind or currents are particularly bad. I haven't exactly pushed the limits, but it seems to work well."

I fingered my crown. "Let's make an attempt and see."

"Would you please just do it for me, you stubborn- Oh. Great! I'll get it for you, then?"

I nodded, shut my eyes, and stuffed the end of my tie in my mouth. China lit her wings. Clinging to my shoulder, she groped for my crown. Her fingers snagged.

"Don't knee me in the stomach," she warned, and wrenched the crown loose from its gravitational field. My teeth tightened in the fabric, but I refused to scream. China repositioned the gray hat around my ears. "There."

I opened my eyes again. At first I said nothing, and didn't really move except to beat my wings and slide my chewed tie from my mouth.

"I feel fine," I said at last. "No dizzy spells. I guess it works."

Smiling, almost smirking, she folded her arms. "It looks good on you."

"You think so?" I flicked the heavy metal star dangling from the tip. "Then if it really works as well as you claim, I might just have to keep it."

China clapped her hands with a loud smacking sound, arms out in front. "I'm going to pull out my thread and make a cute matching set for Sanderson and Hawkins to stick on their crowns. I don't have the material to make real cohuleen druiths for them - you need to kill a royal-blooded sea serpent for that, and they're endangered now and I can't afford to get arrested for poaching again with the wedding just around the corner - but they'll sort of look the part."

"Do as you think is best. As long as they're clean and presentable, I don't mind it. I've been meaning to cut Hawkins' hair again, anyway. There's no helping Sanderson's cowlick. I've attempted. The will o' the wisp saliva got into his pores."

When I joined her downstairs later in the evening, most of the table had been taken up by soft gray fabric and various pins and scissors and spools of thread. Sanderson and Hawkins were copying invitations, and China looked up when she heard me hovering in the doorway.

"Could we invite the Anti-China?"

I picked up one of the completed wedding announcments, black paper lined with silver writing, and flipped it open. China had already grabbed an image from the timestream. She'd picked the moment at the doorstep when I had fumbled. She was moving her hands as she wound up her rant. I leaned forward, an awkward sort of smile-cough on my face. The flowers and strawberries were just visible behind my back in bright bursts of color. "I see no reason not to. It's her fate we're playing with. Is she at least somewhat restrained in public?"

"She'll be fine. A sarcastic twit who likes to throw rocks, but I'll try to work around the language barrier and talk to her, and we can keep some wood around to knock on if you think we need it."

"Perhaps I ought to invite the Anti-Fergus too." I thought a moment longer, then shook my head when Anti-Kalysta's face popped up in my mind's eye. "Ooh, perhaps not. I'll visit him myself to tell him it happened after it's over. That seems like enough invitations, doesn't it? I would kind of prefer to keep it small."

"We were waiting for you to come down." China ran a length of thread around her tongue. "Do you want to invite any of your family?"

"I don't have much in the way of family. Only one sister with whom I don't get along. No living uncles, aunts, or cousins. The one grandparent I know has tried to kill me several times because I'm a gyne. Come to think of it, I'm still scratching my head over why he denied us from ever visiting any family reunions. By this point, we're a bit short on family and I'm actually not responsible for it."

"What about Ambrosine, sir?" Hawkins asked, putting his thumb in his mouth. "Isn't he coming?"

China tilted her head. "The father who disowned you? Mm. I guess he should at least get an invitation, maybe. A belated one. What about your mother? Is she around?"

I slid one card into a silver envelope. "I would like to invite her, but I'm not sure where she is now. Let me see your quill, Hawkins."

"Oh, you don't need that," said China, glancing up again. "There's squid ink in the star of that cap. It comes out if you squeeze."

"You're pulling my wing."

"I'm not."

I took off the cohuleen druith and flipped it upside down. When I wrote Ambrosine's name on the white envelope, ink bled out just as easily as from an inkwell, and without the need to dip it. My wings skipped a beat.

"That settles it. I'm definitely keeping this hat. I'm so glad I'm going to marry you."

"So is Ambrosine coming?" Hawkins asked.

I turned the envelope over in my hand as I replaced my cap. "I don't know if he'll come, but I am thinking now that I want to deliver this in person. China, do you remember what I told you about Wilcox?"

"He's your third son, isn't he?" She raised one hand. "Sorry. Not son. 'Offspring'. See, against all odds, it turns out I do listen when you talk."

"He ought to be forty-eight years old now. Ambrosine's been caring for him, but he does expect me to take him back sooner rather than later. You wouldn't mind if I took him in before the wedding, would you?"

She shrugged. "You have the coat. You're the boss."

I paused over that speckled coat later that night when I was changing out of my clothes. It lay in my bottom drawer, easily accessible. So simple for her to reclaim, so simple for another drake to steal. As she'd told me once before, technically she was only required to obey my instructions if I wore the thing while I said them. But if I wanted this relationship to last, I'd perhaps want to move it to a safer location. Somewhere I could still get to it if I wanted to take advantage of its softness and warmth. Maybe Monday, once she left for work, I could bury it in the vapor under the front path outside.

Something shifted beneath my covers. My shirt slipped from my fingers. Without looking back, I said, "Sanderson, you should be in your own bed."

Bleary-voiced, he raised his head. "What? But you always let me sleep with you over the weekends."

Right. That was another matter I'd forgotten to clear up. I picked the shirt off the floor. "Technically speaking, Sanderson, regardless of whether or not it's the weekend, it's the first real night of mine and China's courtship. You're still very young, but you're not the blissful nymph you used to be and I don't want you in here any longer."

"But I was here first," he protested as I plucked him up beneath the arms.

I put him on the floor and held his shoulders down. "China is going to be my wife now. If anyone ends up sleeping in my bed after tonight, it's going to be her."

He stared at me for a moment, lips slightly parted, then spun around and flounced down the hallway. A few minutes later, I heard him sawing at the strings of his springcase. Before China and I left the house, I rapped on his and Hawkins's door with my knuckles.

"We're going out for a few hours. Keep it down in there. It's Lights Out and decent neighbors are trying to get some rest. I don't want them pulling their business because of this."

The springcase stopped, but he didn't verbally reply.

Sourness still clung around him when the following weekend, China and Hawkins stayed behind to work on wedding preparations while he and I made the long flight southeast to Novakiin. It would have been so much faster to poof, but the expenses associated with the distance stopped me from waving my wand. Sanderson was a trooper, and we both landed on the doorstep in one piece as twilight fell. I checked through the window, spotted Ambrosine sitting in his chair near the fireplace, then yanked my face away before he could look up.

"He has a cù sith with him. Sanderson, what are the Three Deep Sins written on the first page of the Delegating Administrative Rules of the Known Universe?

He scrunched his brow. "'Tell no lies, excepting those dressed in white. Kill no one before they've engaged in fair fight. If ever in doubt, recall the Fairy Elder is sure to be right. Disobey these and you'll lose your path to the light'."

"Correct. And what are my three rules?"

"Only talk if I get the 'Okay' signal after a question, don't say anything that seems like a secret, and if you snap your fingers twice then it's really important and I need to listen or else you'll twist my wings."

I nodded and knocked on the door. "Adhere to all of those and you'll be fine."

The cù sith was only a puppy, pale violet in color with two very black ears. It lay rolled on its back on the chair where Ambrosine had been sitting, and I saw it open one eye as Ambrosine pulled back the door. He leaned against the frame to prevent us from squeezing past him. Squeezing past in a dignified manner, anyway- we could have crawled under his arm easily enough. Or, Sanderson could have.

"Hello, Fergus. I've been wondering when you'd come home. No Hawkins with you, I see. And you got a new hat. Do you have my three million?"

"I do not, but it's coming, and I do have this." I handed him the envelope. "Is Emery here?"

"She's out for an evening meal with a drake friend of hers. I'm hoping she'll be back late. She's been in this house too long for my tastes and I would like to get her wed off within the next decade."

I squinted. "I thought you ended up keeping her because you were lonely. Oh. Is this because you 'have needs' and don't want her around to witness them?"

"That's my business," he said. I waited on the doorstep as he painstakingly opened the flap, slid out the invitation, placed his spectacles on his nose, and read. Then, "Ah, so this is what my money's going towards."

"It's not your money yet. I'll get you your three million in time."

He took his spectacles off again and waved them at me without even looking up. "If you believe money ought to be wasted on frivolities, maybe you shouldn't have the family business at all."

"I told you, your money is coming. I'm almost there. I just need a little more. My fiancée wanted this ceremony and I saw no reason to deny her. May we come in now? Neighbors will talk if we argue out here rather than in there."

"How close is 'almost there'?"

"Almost enough," I said, doing my best to prevent my wings from twitching forward and knowing that they did anyway. He raised a white eyebrow.

"Do you even have the first million?"

"I'm working on it. I wasn't intending to come back here without it, but I thought I might take Wilcox off your hands, now that he'll have a supportive mother with the wedding and all. That's what you always wanted of me, isn't it?"

Ambrosine studied both of us for a moment, then waved us in. "He'll be glad to hear it, I imagine, though I might be sad to lose him. He works hard for one so young. We just had our nachos. I can warm up leftovers. Would you like some?"

That's how I ended up sitting in front of the fireplace with Sanderson, cradling a bowl of brown sugar in my lap, both of us eyeing the cù sith still upside-down in the chair. Ambrosine nodded his head towards it as he stood back. "That's Wilcox."

I paused with one chip just about to enter my mouth. "You let a cù sith steal his soul while I was gone? Which of the Three Deep Sins did him in? How did it happen? How long ago? Do you know where the body is?"

"No, that's actually your Wilcox, just as you left him. I wouldn't let a real cù sith in my own house. I'm not pious enough to manage living that way. Come on, Wilcox. Up, up. Your papa's finally here to take you home for good."

The cù sith rolled over, and I noticed the wand in its mouth for the first time. It shook its body, sprang into the air, then poofed into fairy form and held, wings beating. Once he'd caught his balance, he brought himself nearer the floor. There he floated, hands clasped around his wand near his waist.

Apart from his starkly paler skin, he was identical to both Sanderson and Hawkins.

"Wilcox," I said as my throat ran dry. "It occurred to me that could be you. Sanderson, Hawkins, and I all turn the same black-tipped purple when we change shape."

"So I go off to live with you now?" he asked, shifting his eyes between me and Sanderson. "And I heard something about a wedding?"

"I'm getting married to a selkie named China Mayfleet, up in a town called Lau Rell. The date is set for early autumn."

"What if I don't want to go? I don't even know you."

"Wilcox, we've talked about this," Ambrosine said, not uncrossing his arms. "When your father comes to claim you, you go with him. Will you leave tonight, Fergus?"

"It's dark out and we're still exhausted from the flight down. I can't afford the poof back at this time since I'm trying to save up for your three million. You may notice we didn't even take the tram." Also, the porters didn't like me much after I'd "ruined" their timetables by arranging them all alphabetically by color as opposed to the times the tram cars were supposed to depart. I was helping.

"I thought you might say that. Well. It will be cheaper for me to give you food and shelter for the night than send the three of you off myself, and aside from that it will make you work harder and I think that's funny. Finish those nachos and you can have your old room between mine and the kitchen, though it's Wilcox's now. Don't freak out when it looks different than the last time you were here. Breakfast is at six o'clock sharp, and if it's gone before you get up then I'm not making any more."

Disinterested in us now that he had looked Sanderson over, Wilcox lifted his wand. "May I go into cù sith form again?"

"How many times is that today? Are you over your limit yet?"

"I've only done five shifts. I'm allowed six."

Ambrosine waved his hand in permission, and Wilcox was back on four dusty-violet paws. He licked one of them, then circled in front of the fireplace three times and lay down before it, tail to his nose.

"Can I speak with you in private, Ambrosine?" I asked through teeth that wouldn't unclench.

"I was hoping you would," he said, and together we both said, "Stay with Wilcox, Sanderson."

Ambrosine led me into his room, which didn't seem to have changed much in five decades since I'd been here. I half-slammed the door behind me. "What the smoof was that? Why is he 'allowed six times' to shapeshift in a day? Why would he even need to? Why was he lying about as a cù sith when we got here? What did you do to him?"

"What makes you think I did anything to him?" he protested, placing the tips of all eight fingers over his chest. I jabbed my finger in the direction of the front room.

"Shapeshifting without an external cause? Unfocused eyes? Paper-pale skin? The unfinished homework on the kitchen table when I ducked in there to grab my food? Unbalanced flight and shaky wings? Don't think I don't realize what condition he was showing signs of. You're a mind and magic children's therapist who knows exactly how to prevent these things. You messed with his dopamine levels whenever he changed shape as a nymph and got him addicted to fagigglyne, didn't you? And- and now he's dependent on shapeshifting for the chemical flow from fagiggly gland to brain. You did it intentionally! Knowing that one day I would act upon my promise to reclaim him and his wand's expenses would forever after be my expenses."

He smiled. "Have fun managing your money, my soon-to-be newlywed."

I didn't sleep much at all that night, lying in Wilcox's bed with my arms strangling his pillow. The second bed had apparently been removed from the room years ago, but Wilcox himself had volunteered to sleep on the floor, because Ambrosine had been careful to teach him proper manners. In all but his crippling addiction, it seemed, he was the most perfect little fairy I could have asked Ambrosine to raise. There was no reason to reject him after coming all this way. I watched him lie curled among a few cushions and blankets, back in his default form because Ambrosine had crept in with his wand to make him shed the cù sith fur once he'd fallen asleep. He was well-kempt and healthy. Just looking at him, asleep and in the dark, you couldn't even tell that he'd been poisoned on the inside.

Breakfast the following morning was omelettes. I ate as fast as I was able to and helped Wilcox - now in purple kitten form - gather his things in a backpack while Sanderson crept into Ambrosine's room with the old lockbox key. He came away with a few bundles of creased yellow bills. Just before we headed out, Wilcox wound himself around Ambrosine's legs in farewell. He shut the door behind us as soon as we left. He didn't even watch us fly off.

Faeheim was in the opposite direction, so I decided that baptism could wait for some other day and headed straight for Lau Rell. After about three minutes, I realized that tailing me were one fairy, and one sparrow. Pulling up, I turned and snatched the wand out of Wilcox's talons. After I'd knocked him on the head with it, I forced him back to normal.

"No," I said. "Ambrosine and I finished the paperwork this morning. You're under my payment plan now, and we have a long way to fly. You'll make the journey in fairy form, as nature intended."

"Why can't we poof?"

"Perhaps Ambrosine didn't tell you, but I intend to buy Wish Fixers off him one of these days. If this shapeshifting business is a regular thing with you, you will drastically drain my funds."

He folded his arms. "I was born with a medical condition. I need my fagigglyne fix at least once every four hours, or I go into withdrawal and I could die."

I stared at him. "So that's how Ambrosine encouraged you to go along with it."

"It wasn't my idea to come with you," Wilcox pointed out, arching an eyebrow. "If you don't want me either, I'll turn around and go back to Ambrosine and Emery. They care about me."

"The only reason Ambrosine raised you at all is because it isn't in him to kill a nymph and he knew that eventually I'd come for you. But if you head back now, I imagine he's liable to toss you out the door just as he tossed Sanderson and Hawkins when they were younger."

Sanderson nodded.

"Fine," Wilcox said, just as uninterested as he had been after exchanging a few sentences the night before. "I can totally survive on my own. I'll turn into a snake. Snakes don't eat very much. Or I could be a camel, so I don't have to drink."

"And how will you pay for that when Twinkletuft comes knocking to tell you that your bank account's defaulted?" Shaking my head, I gave him back his wand. "You fly ahead of me. It's three hours to Lau Rell with the wind against us. You can have a brief moment to change your shape once we land. And call me 'sir'."

He glowered at me, but took off in his unsteady way. I motioned for Sanderson to follow him and brought up the rear myself.

As I'd expected, China and Hawkins were both outside with eyes shielded, and waved to us as we circled about overhead. "So you're the Wilcox I'm going to fall in love with," gushed the selkie, kissing him on each cheek as he stood stoically in the glinting purple grass. "I hope this place is to your liking. Designed it myself, you know. Hawkins and I made some more vanilla ice cream. Do you like vanilla as much as these three rascals do?"

"Here are your things," I said, handing Wilcox his backpack. "You sleep with Sanderson and Hawkins. Up the stairs, left hall, second door on your right. Great big room with a washroom leading off of it. We've already prepared a bed for you."

"Thank you, sir," he said without emotion. A flick of his wand, and he'd flipped from a scruffy, backpack-wearing fairy to a scruffy, backpack-wearing monkey. He disappeared up the stairs. I sighed a few seconds later when I heard the door slam down the hall. "This was a mistake."

"He's adorable," China said, folding her arms.

"He's a fagigglyne addict and he'll be far more expensive than I bargained for. This is the worst thing he could have become, now of all times."

"But he's part of the family. Everyone's adjusting to new circumstances. He'll grow on you just like the rest of us. Just give him time to warm up. You kind of did rip him away from everything he grew up with with little to no warning. Bit of a jerk move, that."

"I'll talk to him, sir," Hawkins offered, already hovering above the middle section of the stairs. I shook my head.

"Give him half an hour alone first. Be patient with him, but don't let him take advantage of you. I intend to be just as firm with him as with you and Sanderson. Just because he's already fifty years old doesn't mean he gets special treatment."

I next saw Wilcox when dinner rolled around. He was called for and he came, in fairy form without being asked, and took the farthest possible seat from the one he could tell I was going to sit in. We had homemade bread and jam for dinner, and after it was done, we all sat together in the parlor and coaxed Wilcox to tell us about his life with Ambrosine. He wasn't very willing to be open, so we played two notebook games and had dessert, and he went off to bed with Sanderson and Hawkins. I paced back and forth at the bottom of the stairs.

"Dust," I told China. "Get the broom for me, would you, please? Just look at all this purple dust. He tracks it everywhere."

She crouched down with the dustpan while I swept up. "Don't dwell on the negatives so much or you'll forget about the rest."

"Tch. I'm going to catch up on those tax forms. Don't wait up for me."

I was up and in my office again the next morning, eating oatmeal with my left hand so I could write with the other, when through my glass doors I spotted Wilcox shrugging his wings through the straps of his backpack.

"Where are you going this early?"

"To school, duh."

I put down my quill. "Spellementary?"

"Yeah, why?"

"You don't need to go there. I can teach you everything you want to know myself."

"This fairy goes, because he happens to like being there a whole lot better than being here."

"One wing twist for your sass," I warned, getting out of my seat, but he took off through the front door and perhaps shifted shape into something that I couldn't find, though I searched for a good five minutes. For most of the day I stayed in my office, watching for him to slink home, when in the late afternoon Sanderson wandered by and absentmindedly informed me that Wilcox had crawled in through the window in their room two hours ago.

I whirred up the stairs and flung open the door without first bothering to knock. Wilcox lay tucked into his sheets in the form of a violet hog. I snapped my fingers at him twice and pointed to the backpack at the foot of the bed.

"If you want to go to school instead of working like the rest of us, then you'll do your homework and keep your grades up. Whatever assignments you have, I want them done by dinner."

"Sure," he said, not even opening his eyes. I tore back the blankets and, using my own wand, poofed him back to normal. Before he could so much as squirm, I cranked his wings twice.

"Done by dinner," I repeated, and left as he sat up to massage his back. "Watch him like your namesake, Hawkins."

So it went throughout the rest of the summer. As long as Wilcox was at school or in his room and I was preparing for the upcoming wedding, we got along fine. As the month turned, I wrote to Twinkletuft requesting to see the expenses generated by our four wands. A few days later I was sent the receipt for the automatic payments. Almost all of them involved physical transformations, and for lengthy, continuously-draining periods of time. Then others were the result of Wilcox participating in magic lessons at school, which were at least mostly deductible. I rubbed my eyelids with my thumbs. Something had to be done, but not yet. Not when the wedding was taking precedent in my mind.

When the morning came, it was wintery and overcast just as I'd hoped it would be. China had long ago completed the pointed gray caps for Sanderson and Hawkins, and then Wilcox too. The three of them were wearing matching gray suits and straight black ties, just like the ones I had dressed up in for Princess Vyanda's bowling ball. Or three were supposed to, anyway; Wilcox sprawled on his side in his favorite rabbit form as Hawkins set up a few chairs in the grass around him for those who might tire of hovering and I placed my gift for China on the table with the other packages. I'd bought her shoes that she could wear socks with.

"You don't think she'll be late, do you?" I muttered to Sanderson, tugging again on the dangling star of my floppy hat as I floated back and forth in front of the cake. "She's always late to everything. I know her mother is supposed to be readying her, but I don't like her being gone this long. I should have gone with her. I don't care if some anti-brat would have shown up to mock me about deciding to see her in her dress before the ceremony."

"If I had to hazard a guess, sir, the statistical odds are that she's going to show up."

"I suppose she has to. I have her coat. How much longer until the guests begin to arrive?"

"About two hours, sir."

I halted my pacing and stared up at the winking stars- ancient Fairies gazing upon our late autumn morning. "Just over two more hours. And then I'm a married drake."

It wasn't really a surprise - our official courtship period had been going on for months now - but the concept still rang to me as foreign. Married, after all these years. In less than a year from now, my wings would be notched. China and I had already decided on a scoop-scoop-slit-scoop pattern from the distal ends of our costas towards the proximal portions. Care, diligence, spirit, unity. It perhaps wasn't the most creative or unique notch pattern, but no one in either Lau Rell or Novakiin had it yet, and that was good enough for me. No one had spoken it, but neither of us had felt comfortable with the most distal mark being a slit for love.

"Ambrosine and Emery are here," Sanderson said suddenly, and I turned around just as Wilcox made a dash for him and sprang into his arms. Ambrosine rubbed his long ears and made his way over to me, still holding the purple rabbit.

"So you came," I said, linking my hands behind my back. "I see you invited yourself along, Emery."

She bristled beneath her pink tuxedo. "Wow. I'm thrilled I got to cancel with my damefriends too, freckle-face."

"He's teasing, Em. Deadpanning is just in his nature."

She skimmed off to be annoying somewhere else anyway. Ambrosine kissed Wilcox's brow. "I wanted to see how well you were managing with your money, Fergus. I'm impressed. This is quite possibly the plainest, most basic set-up that I've ever seen for a ceremony of this kind."

"Hawkins knows how to keep to a budget."

"Where's the soda?"

"I didn't want Fairies getting drunk on my property today. Please respect my choice."

He gave a disappointed grunt and let Wilcox drop back to the grass. "Did you see the protesters out there on the street?"

"I didn't notice them. Protesting my little wedding? Are they doing much?"

"Not really- there were only two of them. They're raving on about the Cosma Mutation. How we need to end cross-species copulations before the mutation leaks from fairies into other races and all that. The usual."

I grimaced. "Let's hope they stay over there and don't wander in here. They have no right to tell me how to live my married life. One would think they would realize I went in to have my tube plugged."

Ambrosine reached into the pocket of his tan jacket. "I may as well hand this off to you now while I've got you here, just you and me. Solara always wanted me to give you this the day you took a mate. I searched for it when you came to get Wilcox, but I only found it a week ago."

The small white box was pristine. It still smelled faintly of fresh cardboard. After pulling off the yellow ribbon, I opened it to find an image of myself as a chubby hexagonal nymph, balanced on my mother's knees. I couldn't see the upper portion of her face, but her navy blue curls tumbled over my head. Nymph Fergus was looking up at her as he reached out to tug on the strands, and chew on the several he'd caught in his mouth. I flipped it around to show Ambrosine, one eyebrow raised. "This is it?"

He rolled his eyes. "Look a little harder."

I checked the box again and pulled out a thick, silver key and a note placed on top of it without a single wrinkle. "'Dear Fergus,'" I read aloud, tucking the box beneath my arm, "'If you're reading this, it means you're all grown up now. So you survived in Ambrosine's care after all. Unless he's made a mistake, you've found someone who is special to you like he was special to me. How does it feel to hold that hand? To kiss that cheek? It's okay not to feel anything at all. Allow instinct to take over, and leave the Eros Triplets to take care of the rest. Don't ever assume you can tell her she's beautiful here and there and be done with it. Show how much you care through the simple things instead. This key goes to Ambrosine's lockbox. My instructions were that he add bits of your childhood to it every few years, and you should find it contains some money and various personal items that I left for you, if you're interested. Don't forget to smile with all those nippy little teeth. Hugs and smooches, Solara Wurpixiz'." I paused. "'P.S., don't bother asking around to see if anyone recognizes my handwriting. I had Ambrosine write this and I use a different name in public nowadays'. She really did think of everything."

"Some people just don't like to be found," he said absently, and floated off to speak with Hawkins.

The rest of the guests arrived over the following two hours. When I later checked on the gift table, I found a long pink box stamped with the double-hearted Eros seal. Evidently our legal marriage papers had gone through, and they'd sent us our leather marriage bands and a double-tipped honeymoon arrow. Good. Those things sold for a high price.

I had my second meeting with China's mother, and several brothers and sisters who ran around wearing one another's coats and sometimes switching off so they might turn into seals and go sliding on their bellies across the metal chairs. A couple of them had the bright idea to play tag and tackled each other into the peacock ice sculpture one of China's ishigaq coworkers had decided to donate. It shattered. They looked up guiltily, but before any of us could speak, Ambrosine waved his wand and the pieces went flying back together, if warmer and wetter than they might have been otherwise. The children gaped and tailed him for the rest of the day, begging to see more fairy magic. "Free of charge," he said to me as he passed by, to which I was very grateful. I even had a decent conversation with Emery. Mostly decent.

China was the last to arrive, gowned in seafoam green, her inky hair pinned back in a high pegasus tail beneath her veil. As she floated between the crowd, she held the wrist of her oldest brother. I became aware that Sanderson was still lingering beside me in the center of the circle of flower vases, and shooed him off to join Hawkins and Wilcox.

Ambrosine was my closest kin, so it was he who brought up the glass bowl of rosewater and placed it on the central chesberry pedestal. As I stood opposite China, he stood opposite her brother, and we all touched the tips of our wings.

"Fergus Whimsifinado," China's brother said, still holding her arm, "I am Romania Mayfleet, and I have been informed that you intend to take my sister, China Mayfleet, as your legal wife. Is this true?"

I dipped my hands in the bowl. "It is."

"China Mayfleet," Ambrosine said then, turning to her. "I am Ambrosine Whimsifinado, and I was told that you intend to take my son, Fergus Whimsifinado, as your legal husband. Is this true?"

She submerged her hands like mine, clasping them over my knuckles. "That's right."

Ambrosine gave me a thumbs up and withdrew his bowl. "Then you're good. Don't keep us waiting."

Taking hold of China's waist well out of the way of her fin-like wings, I lifted her onto the pedestal where the bowl had been. Then, as they all watched, I drifted up to tuck the veil behind her coral crown and lean into her. She wrapped her arms behind my head and pressed me in tighter as my hands fumbled for a grip against her knees, holding the kiss there between us like a floating thing. Cheering broke out amongst the crowd- even from Wilcox and Emery, when we separated our lips and I looked. China's younger siblings came running, slapping their hands far out in front of their bodies in that way selkies did, and she bent down as they piled on her with hugs. My brood congratulated me with a pinch more restraint. We broke out the cake, and then we danced.

Emery had her springcase. One of the neighbor families were involved in music, and they'd volunteered to play free of charge for us, too. It pays to have connections that way. Saves, rather. I held China's face in my hands, my thumbs resting near the corners of her lips, and she placed her hands just behind my lower back, like the Anti-Fairies did. We moved in that fashion: me as the stronger flyer forward, of course, while she beat her wings enough to stay afloat as I eased her backwards. Round and around we go… I was half-tempted to bring my hands a little closer to my face with every slow, swaying turn we made, but Sanderson kept right at my shoulder, doing a very good job of killing the mood before it could get very far.

Our guests had pushed China and I towards the gray shed in the corner of the yard for the aesthetic of pumpkins and Earth soil while they twirled their starpieces and captured the memories permanently in their time lockboxes. We proceeded with our dance, which resulted in a lot of elbow-bashing against the door handle, until one by one our onlookers drifted away to find partners of their own, and at last we were left to ourselves. And Sanderson.

"China?"

Her name sprang almost unbidden from my tongue. I tried to swallow it, until she turned her head and our eyes met. Hers shone even brighter than her skin, and her turquoise dress matched so well with that rippling veil, the seashell imprints and tiny gems sparkling in the occasional flash of sunlight reflecting off the gray clouds. She wore special golden selkie rings that fit over the tops of her webbed fingers, and with her light red lips pursed a sliver, she… Anyway, her mom had done a good job making her face pretty and she looked nice.

I glanced away as I spun her, sucking in my cheeks. "You've seen Ambrosine. What do you think of him?"

"He seems like a pleasant fellow. And your sister too."

"But what do you think of him? When you look at him. At his face, his usual distinguished purple-red vest, his black hair and spectacles… What I'm trying to say is, if I looked like him then would you… I mean, do you think I'm…?"

China was floating very close to me at this point, and when I raised my eyes, it moved my head enough that my lips skimmed across hers. "I think you're very handsome."

I grimaced and released her round cheek to adjust my tie, regretting having voiced the question at all. "Because of all my bright freckles?"

"Maybe. You're a very pretty drake." Her fingers tightened. "But do you know what I like most about you?"

"Most?" My wings skipped a beat. My dedication? My brains? My outlook on life? My sense of humor? My ability to remain calm even when frustrated or sugar-loaded? My flowing handwriting? I mean, look at me- she had no end of things to pick.

My mouth ended up slightly open after I spoke, and China took the chance to press her parted lips to mine. Selkies were seaweed and salt, sushi and haggis, cream and sugar. China's wide palms inched up my arms, away from my wrists until she held my elbows, and my hands were on her waist again. At first I wasn't going to respond, because Sanderson was there at my shoulder unconsciously sending irritated sparks into the energy field. But then I thought, Blitz him. No one was asking him to stay. I slid down the shed door until I was sitting on a pumpkin, lifting China into my lap with my chipped nails catching in the ribbons on the back of her dress, and for the first time in my life, I kissed with my eyes closed.

"That's what I like most about you," she said when our faces drew apart. "It's never dull when you're around."

"Ah. Of course. You have excellent taste. In more ways than one."

Sanderson made a subtle chirping noise with his wings. We both glanced at him, hovering there patiently to the side and with a titch of dread. "Sanderson?" China said cheerily as she lifted her own wings towards my face, "I think you should leave for a few minutes."

Sanderson looked to me. I waved him away with the cohuleen druith I had just taken off, and as he went, I brought that hat up between our faces and the rest of the party-goers and closed my eyes again.

We saw him next when we rejoined the party, our mouths decently electric with each other's foreign magic. He was talking with one of the neighbor drakes his age, but skimmed over to meet us when he saw me coming and took up his usual silent sentry post floating behind my shoulder.

"Come on, Sanderson," China teased about three songs later, releasing one of my wrists to take up his. "Unless you're Hawkins who has Wilcox, you have to twirl with a pretty damsel at least once today."

Hawkins raised his hand. "I would like it recorded that I did not kiss Wilcox, even when that old lady with the notebook and the purple wrap around her neck called us an adorable couple."

"Well, I look lovely anyway," Wilcox said, smoothing out his skirt.

"I'll be sure to note it."

"I don't really know how to dance with damsels," Sanderson mumbled as China pulled him closer.

"That's why we're practicing now, Sandy. Nuada knows we've gotta prepare you for your moulting ceremony when you're older; then you'll have to dance with Dame Sanderson and with unicorn blood dripping from your hair, not to mention the sore wings. Come on- you can do the Dragonfly, right? Everybody knows the Dragonfly."

I linked my hands behind my back and watched in amusement as China tried in vain to encourage Sanderson to open up. He may have a pleasant singing voice and excellent penmanship, but he had four hindwings when it came to dancing. Just when I was considering sparing him from China's sugar-coated criticisms and teaching him how to pull off the dance myself, a finger tapped my shoulder. I turned to find China's mother, her furry white coat wrapped around her waist.

"Might I have this next song, Fergus?"

"Of course," I said, taking her hand. She led me into the air, near where Ambrosine danced with some snowy-haired fairy he'd found (she flirting with him mercilessly and him letting her, soda or no soda). Gingerly, I positioned myself in an open enough place where even my large body and spinning wings had plenty of room to maneuver.

"I want to be sure you're committed to my daughter," my new mother-in-law said as our first song drew to an end. "You're a gyne, and, well…"

I twirled her beneath my arm, as precisely as though the movement had been read from an instruction manual (Probably because it had). "Dm. Mayfleet, your daughter may be a selkie, but it has never been my intention to keep her with me against her will. I have experience with that type of situation myself. If she wants the moon, I'll buy her the moon. She married rich, after all."

"And you?" she asked as she returned her salt-worn hand to my shoulder. "My daughter, I would hope, can offer you enough to please you in the same way."

"Sanderson, Hawkins, and Wilcox have a mother figure in their lives for the first time. That's enough for me. I don't need anything else."

When China's mother at last returned me to my wife, she fluttered her webbed fingers at us with a bemused smile. The final thing she said before reaching a hand out to Sanderson was, "Don't go breaking his core, love. Fairies only give their souls away once."

A/N: Text to Life - Turns out, the tax benefits offered by marriage aren't actually all that dramatic, or at least in my country. Well. Give it a few hundred years and we'll see if it pays off.