A/N: And we're back, gang! Act 3 begins now. Since last chapter was so long and we had that hiatus in between, here's a recap of our pixies: Fergus Whimsifinado (Head Pixie, our narrator), Ennet Sanderson (Raised in Kalysta's burrow, likes music), Cecil Hawkins (Raised by elves, sucks his thumb, very social), Alapin Wilcox (Left in a box at Ambrosine's, fagigglyne addict), Markell Longwood (Raised in China's house, gyne freckles), Mitchell Caudwell (Nervous wreck, hates rustling paper), James Bayard (Born just after H.P. and China divorced, the money-loving family goofball), Luke Madigan (Raised in Eros Nest, sweet nature, likes birds), Oliver Graham (Left behind in Eros Nest), Walter Keefe (In-vitro baby, short temper), Hunter Springs (Born immediately after Keefe since he had a surrogate dad, wheezes a lot), and the late Cherry (H.P. and Kalysta's in-vitro son, had no Refract counterpart and couldn't survive without her, H.P. never accepted him as his own and doesn't even count him as a pixie).

It's okay if you can't remember all their names- the first four kids are the most important. From here on out, most of the pixies are interchangeable, so don't expect everyone to get their fair share of screentime. Rest assured that they're around. Unless they aren't. Now, on with the show.

(Posted August 29, 2017)

ACT 3 - VITALITY

Needles and Dread

Autumn of the Red Petals

Venus kept her promise. We were compensated. She handed us each a short stack of lagelyn to pay for the tram transfers required to get wherever in the cloudlands we wanted to go, along with a sleeveless gray and white Pixie Holotype shirt for me, a specialized pixie variation of the Eros Nest's famous Paratype shirts for my brood, and equally appropriate dress for everyone else as souvenirs. Figured she wouldn't let us leave in our borrowed clothes. But Anti-Sanderson had shown no interest in his yellow and white one (electing instead to wear his jacket unbuttoned and keep his bare green chest exposed). And of course Dame Sanderson had scoffed at the whole notion too, regardless of how cute the purple fabric would have looked with her hair. But my counterparts were both wearing theirs- Anti-Fergus under his cape, and the Dame Head over her ragged pink robes without batting an eye.

We three holotypes stood around the Nest's station like scrawny wallflowers in a nightclub, avoiding one another's gazes as though the faint glow of our eyes would cause blindness in the others. This was it, then. We'd received our generous compensation for our centuries in the Eros Nest. Venus had released us officially and without any more hesitation. Not even so much as a punishment for the way I'd stabbed her son's yoo-doo doll in the throat with that inrita arrow. She had already chosen to wash her hands of us, and evidently our desperate escape plan had not altered that decision in the least. She was the goddess of commitment.

Well. If she had no other prominent virtues, at least she held no damages, expenses, nor ill will against us even after all we'd done. Perhaps that was the true reward for our five hundred years of captivity- the forgiveness of one of the most powerful figureheads in the known universe. Reluctantly, I acknowledged and accepted it.

Anti-Fergus and I stood on the floor with hands thrust deep in our pockets. Dame Head held one of her two smallest daughters, out of her exoskeleton but still showing sharp pyramid edges here and there, against her waist. We were all thinking similar thoughts, I'm sure. But none of us wanted to say the words. A sample of our respective broods babbled together where they sat on the cold tile. The beady-eyed ticketmaster studied us from behind her desk, feathers rustling on her back.

Beyond the station windows, the tram cables stretching through the clouds were empty and quiet. Multiple cars waited patiently for us on the loading deck, but no one was coming in towards the Eros Nest this early in the afternoon (It figured, too, that Venus would send us on our way when mealtime was coming on and avoiding preparing our traveling party any food). And now that the jailbreak crisis was over, patrons of the menagerie who had slipped out to gawk at us had wandered back inside. There on the edge of the Eros Nest's puffy private cloud, though watched over by our ticketmaster friend, we had a slice of the world to ourselves.

"Well," I said at last. I placed my palm on Madigan's head, scraping his bangs to the side with my thumb. Poor creature; five hundred years in the Eros Nest hadn't exactly put him in a habit of being well groomed. "Anti-Fergus. Sister Unseelie. It's been real, you two. Not real enjoyable or anything. But real. It isn't everyone who gets to know even one of their counterparts so intimately, let alone both of them. Against all odds, we and our friendship survived the ordeal. I like you. You're good people. Let's do this again someday when we're dead and ascended into our united Daoine form."

The Dame Head held out her crumpled handful of yellow bills as she crouched and let her daughter slide from her hip to the floor. "Let's. Lunch is on me. I can't take a tram into the High Kingdom anyway."

"Ah'll bring chips," Anti-Fergus supplied. "And if yew give me a couple days' warning, Ah'll land us a whole peryton to eat."

I extended my wings to indicate the twelve children scattered around the station, whether leaning against dirty window panes or perched on hard chairs that made it obvious why the younger ones had settled on the floor. "Excellent. That ought to be enough to feed us all until dinner."

"Bet you're all so glad it's easier ta feed fifteen than eighteen, I s'pect," Anti-Sanderson snarled without turning around to face us. He'd taken to cold metal like a squirrel to water, and dragged his seat over to the corner of the tram station as far from Anti-Fergus as possible. Its back leaned against the wall on two feet, and he sat on it the wrong way with his thin knees spread to either side. His brown wings hung limply down his back.

Dame Sanderson stared at the dirty curls of his yellow hair with her lip curled sharply up. "I do not approve of Dm. Venus's harsh methods, Brother. Yet that doesn't change the fact that the Grahams have made a noble sacrifice, humbly offering themselves as available for study by any authority at any time, for the benefit of the entire universe. You are being an entitled, whiny brat about this."

"Oh smoke, here we go," Anti-Fergus muttered, pushing his orange goggles with their long-cracked violet lenses down over his eyes.

"Entitled?" Anti-Sanderson shrieked, flicking up his ears. It was enough to make Dame Sanderson step back. He twisted around to sneer at her. "I'm sorry, Sissy. I din't realize I was expected to just accept the fact that my baby brothe's been forced into the prisone' lifestyle and taught that livin' that way is normal. No, I din't realize I was s'posed to accept this with grace and maturity at all. Suddenly freedom is a privilege? What happened to the world while I was stuffed in solitary confinement?"

She ruffled her feathers. Before she could speak again, I raised my hand to fend off her words. "Anti-Sanderson, Venus didn't have to let us go. There were plenty of greedy aliens who would have loved to haul us like trained rats back to their home planets, whether live or encased in preservative jelly. Split us up. Send some with one race and some off to another. Some people might have even yanked out laser guns and flat-out killed each other in bids over who could bring a holotype home to present to their queens or their beaux- I heard many an argument when we were on display for Venus's fancy friends, and I never forgot."

"I wasn't-"

"Endless poking and prodding. Do you want that? Harsh lights glaring in our eyes while we lay strapped to medical tables. Sterile environments that aren't tailored to our natural habitats. Scientists there to dissect us, even? Freedom is a dear privilege to some people in this room, Anti-Sanderson. Rare creatures like us more than most. I had hoped you of all people would know better than to take it for granted."

At the word 'dissect', Anti-Sanderson flinched. I'd hoped he would. He flicked his eyes to his scuffed-up gray shoes, dropped the front two legs of his chair back to the floor, and said no more on the subject. I faced my counterparts again with a grunt.

"What are your plans, then? The trams run only in Fairy World. Anti-Fergus, I've visited your place and I know you have far across Anti-Fairy World to go after you get dumped at the Divide gate. And Sister, you have so many planes of existence to scale. You won't make it in a single night."

His shoulders slumped. "Ah don't know what else Ah kin do. Ah can't jist stay in Fairy World forever. I've got mah other pups back home. They need me."

"Uncle Seelie," Dame Sanderson sneered, "I do wish you would have kept a level head and not upset Dm. Venus so with your wild ragamuffining. She likely would have poofed us straight to our homes if you had, and I could finally have a proper scrub and wash this Deep Kingdom filth off my feathers for good."

I studied her brown wings and the short, upward spikes in the back of her purple hair, unperturbed. "The phrase that alludes you, dear niece, is 'Thank you, Head Pixie, for not submitting to something you are morally opposed against- in this case surrendering Graham and his counterparts, my sister included, to the Nest for the remainder of their days like a coward.'"

Her eyes glittered between crimson and scarlet, their glow gently brightening. Sanderson and Anti-Sanderson exchanged Uh-oh glances behind her back. She adjusted the empty frames of her horned glasses, talons clicking. "Your chosen reaction was violent and distasteful, Uncle. I understand why you are not a Refract."

"I thought it was funny." Dame Head rifled through her stack of bills again with a grimace. "I just wish you would have let me know you were doing it, Brother. I'm no lover of the Eroses, and I'd have liked to get in on the fun. Tearing down society is my private passion as much as building one up from the ground is yours."

"Mother!" Dame Sanderson turned and looked around in search of a small pixie refract whose ears she could cover. Since they were all on the opposite sides of the station, she reached over and squeezed her palms against Sanderson's instead.

"But I'm not joking, Brothers. Rarely do I joke. Dm. Venus sent us away on empty stomachs, even our babies, and handed me money for trams that won't come near my home. My choices are to either zig-zag back and forth across the cloudlands, paying the toll for myself and all my chicks each time I wish to climb a Bridge, until I get from Plane 7 where we are now all the way up to Plane 19 where I live. Or, I can wander around Fairy World and enjoy myself until Adelinda and Jorgen get wind of it and deposit me and my daughters up there on their own lyn. So, may we all go out to lunch together out of pure, unmasked spite? Oh, please?"

I checked my own supply of lagelyn. "Lunch? Should we? Dear dust, just imagine it. Floating through the doors into a polished restaurant decorated in black and white checkers. With potted plants spilling over bases bigger than we are. With polite waiters and waitresses flitting about. Calling you 'sir', and giving you whatever you ask without caring whether it conforms to your approved diet. I lost thirty petals by the end of our imprisonment, Sister. All that's left of this stomach is pure genetics. Imagine eating," I finished with a groan, "at a table. With chairs. And coffee. Oh dust, I'd kiss an anti-fairy for a coffee right now. That settles it. Let's go."

"Nah," Anti-Fergus said incredulously. "Do they jist let Anti-Fairies stroll in anywhere like that? 'Specially green anti-pixies like us guys?"

"Escort Clause." I licked my thumb and glanced up as I ran through my funds one more time. "As long as you're clearly traveling Fairy World in the company of at least two Fairies, you're protected unless you physically strike someone. Or you raise your wand when you're not standing on a certified teleport pad. The clause allows easy travel to those zodiac temples your people are always going off about; you're Spring of the Green Bat, right? If anyone asks, tell them you're a Breath. You're doing whatever Breath zodiacs do. We'll pull the Escort Clause and say we're grabbing a meal in passing."

"Anti-Firebox v. Ivywish," he retorted. "Anyone kin refuse service to mah folk if they think we's suspicious."

Dame Head chuckled. "And miss the golden opportunity to milk fifteen of us for our cash?"

He hesitated, fingering the clasp of his hideous yellow and red cape. "Erm. Sometimes, at restaurants, Fairies spill salt on purpose jist to get us in trouble. They know we've gotta answer the call. It's hard, it's so hard…" He pulled Anti-Madigan against his waist, claws tracing through the thick tangles of his bright hair. "Ah kin't take my sons to one of them crowded places like that."

I snapped my fingers. "Abernathy v. Needlebark. That's a new case which says they can't. I heard the cherubs talking about it once."

Anti-Fergus frowned. "It sounds like yew jist made that up."

"No," I said, rapidly flipping through my memories as I tried to pin down where I'd heard the second name. Wilcox had mentioned it, or Ambrosine, or Emery, on one of their visits to see me. Visits which had been frequent in the beginning of our imprisonment, and starkly trickled down soon enough. It had been… ten years since any of them had come by? Hawkins, once- on his own. He'd been our most frequent visitor. At least two centuries had passed since I'd last seen Longwood. I wondered if his freckles were darker now.

Anti-Madigan tugged on the hem of Anti-Fergus's cape and coughed. "Yo Pops, I'm hungry. When we goin' home?"

"I'm bored of standing," Dame Keefe agreed. Her eyes welled with wetness. "Will Dm. Venus finish looking at Little Sister soon? We're s'posed to play Tag. I'm It."

"And I was supposed to braid her hair," Dame Madigan added. "It's starting to get long."

I watched the Dame Head slide her hand beneath the breast of her Pixie Refract Holotype shirt. She gripped the front of her pale robes, rubbing her talons against a pinch of cloth that had worn nearly to its bare threads and begun to show a flash of tan chest feathers beneath. Then I turned to Anti-Fergus. "Venus took back those Anti-Fairy wands you stole. That dramatically lowers the risk of you getting in trouble. If you keep your hands to yourself out there in Fairy World, there shouldn't be a problem. We'll call Escort Clause. Useful loophole. Of course, it admittedly has led to several hostage situations and instances of child trafficking-"

"Ah don't wanna talk about anythin' like that," Anti-Fergus interrupted. He blew out a long stream of air and adjusted his goggles. "Yeah, fine. Ah'll go. Let's git lunch. But I don't like havin' to put figurin' this all out off 'til later."

"You'll get used to it. It does wonders for your mental state. Three tramcars to Faeheim," I told the lone cherub behind the ticket desk. "It is normally four to a car, isn't it? Forgive me- it's hard to remember. I assume we can squeeze in two babies each in place of one adult."

And so we split. Dame Head and I insisted Anti-Fergus take the first car. We pretended the reason was because it had been painted green, and green was sort of his thing, but in reality, we didn't want to give him the chance to back down. Anti-Sanderson hesitated at the car's sliding door, reaching behind him to feel the low tip of his twitching wing.

"Eh… Are you sure we can't… fly instead? Tram's cost. Flying's free."

"Do you like dying?" I drawled. We had skimmed out to the loading deck. A thin breeze washed across our faces. I pointed past the deck's shining banister towards the edge of the cloud, where it dropped away into emptiness. "The Eros Nest resides on private property. It's a long ways to the mainland cluster. I, for one, long ago learned that pixies don't truly fly. We don't have enough magic in us to manage that and breathe at the same time. We hover. If we floated out above that kind of drop, we'd plunge instantly down to Plane 2. And believe me, from Plane 5, that kind of fall could kill. I got lucky last time."

Anti-Sanderson shifted his feet. "Is there a bigge' car we could ride instead? I don't… like this one. It's kinda small."

"Ennet," Anti-Fergus said softly. He lifted his arm in a coaxing gesture. Without waiting another second, Anti-Sanderson hurled himself across the car and into his father's lap (sending the car swaying and at least one of his brothers falling from his seat), and buried his head in Anti-Fergus's cape. I watched curiously as the car stabilized. The attendant slid the door shut and locked it with a double tap of her wand. It rushed away down its cable, taking the trembling Anti-Sanderson with it. I imagine it was a miserable ride, both for himself and the other passengers who had to console him. Foolish fear. Emotions are certainly ridiculous.

I offered Dame Head the next car, because damsels first, of course, but she turned me down. Privately, I think Dame Sanderson alone was the reason why. Though she wouldn't state it verbally, it seemed to me that Dame Head had conquered her old phobia of sitting down in the presence of drakes; practicality and comfort had in five hundred years of imprisonment worn her down the way five hundred thousand years of freedom never had.

But Dame Sanderson was as devout when it came to rules as my Sanderson, and she wouldn't have allowed any of her kin to disgrace themselves in such a manner. They would have stood in the car while within range of the Eros Nest, where we could see them settling in. And standing could have easily knocked them all to the floor as they swung out into the open. So, I shrugged and scooped Keefe in one arm and the ever-wheezing Springs in the other. No harm done. We'd take the tram first.

We did, me carefully placing my back against the window as I normally did and keeping myself entertained with two nymphs balanced on my stomach. Descending rather than climbing two Planes of Existence, and moving directly from the Eros Nest to Faeheim, our journey didn't take long. Perhaps an hour. Not even long enough for travel food. I welcomed the peace regardless. The taste of freedom glimmered in my mouth. The promised day had come at last. Two of my present company had never set foot outside before, and Madigan had been too young to remember much. He kept high on his knees, tapping the window glass every time he saw birds and begging Sanderson to identify them. Still exhausted from my scramble through the Nest, and not fully convinced I hadn't been hit on my way out by an arrow tipped in a mixture to make me drowsy, I myself fell asleep.

High as we were, we didn't die, which was pleasant. The jolt of the tram settling into the Faeheim unloading dock stirred me awake. I sat up, now holding only the napping Keefe to my chest- Springs, it seemed, had wriggled away to join Madigan at the window. We disembarked, and the empty car was pushed around the corner to the loading dock so it could be boarded again by passengers eager to ride the green line. I let Springs hold my thumb as I carried Keefe into the station. Of course, I had cycled through the routine a thousand times before. Faeheim had its large post office and its inviting sweet shops. Many times, I'd grabbed trams up and back on my way to turn my magic over to Santa Claus at the Big Wand for Krisday. But it was amusing nonetheless to watch a look of wonder pass over Madigan's face like the shadow of the moon.

"It's super big."

"Is it?" I studied the insides of the bustling station, trying to view the place through my young pixies' eyes. Gaggles of Fairies grouped at every colored flag that marked a loading dock. The green lines, where we hovered, were by far the most popular choice. Where else did they lead besides the Eros Nest? Landmarks, mostly. Some of the Anti-Fairy zodiac temples. Large companies. Tourist attractions. Across huge spans between clouds. The Divide.

I moved my eyes away from the bright flags. Instead of staring across the sea of wands, wings, floating crowns, decorative jungle plants, scrying stations, antler wall decorations, interactive maps, safety screenings, language pamphlets, spinning turnstiles, half-quality food courts, and tourist booths, I looked up. The ceiling was a dome entirely glass, and stars glinted cheerily down from their place in the inky purple sky.

When I brought my head down again to look about for the anti-pixies, I noticed something else about our surroundings. Not far to our left, an old fairy with wispy gray hair and a droopy mustache sat on a wooden bench. He wasn't doing anything except staring at me in a queer fashion. Bright blue eyes. Rounded face. Smartly dressed all in black, apart from a clumsy purple tie dangling against his vest. A sort of staff rested in his lap. A shillelagh starpiece, I guessed; his ears ended in points, and the fading streaks of red in his hair combined with his stubby wings all but confirmed close leprechaun heritage. He held a dark green hat in his hand, but rose with a flutter when he saw me, and slid it between his head and his crown. "Fergusius," he called. My name was partly lost in the rumblings of the crowd.

Sanderson noticed the strange drake too, and looked at me to gauge my reaction. I didn't have one yet. The stranger took my silence as an invitation to approach. He certainly was an old-timer. There were more wrinkles up and down his cheeks than there weren't. He looked easily over a million years old in the face, but hardly frail in the body yet. Those hands were soft from working a lifetime in easy indoor businesses. Not roughened like Ambrosine's, or worn by saltwater like China's, or checkered with calluses like Venus's were.

No, I thought. His hands weren't even rough and gently scarred from scraping regularly across the bark of a wand (or more recently, the trees in our Nest enclosure) like mine. Those were Kalysta's sort of hands. The gentle hands of a writer and a lover. I recognized him slowly as he skimmed closer, but when I finally did, I heard my mind fighting to hold back a groan.

"Granddad Praxis," I said cautiously. My grip tightened around Keefe. Springs ducked behind my legs, peering between them at the old fairy, and I didn't discourage him. I tugged at my holotype shirt. Casual souvenir it may be, it was also an exclusively unique one that indirectly declared me off-limits under Aphrodite Protocol to anyone who may wish to murder me otherwise. I cleared my throat. "I wasn't expecting to meet you. Again. Ever."

He reached for my left hand with his, smiling the whole time. "Hello, hello, Fergusius. Lovely little family. Did you have a pleasant ride back down to reality?"

"It went as well as it could have. Why are you here?" I looked pointedly at his hand, which I hadn't yet taken. "To stab me first and feel unrepentant later purely because I'm a gyne?"

Praxis chuckled. He actually chuckled to my face, like he didn't remember how once upon a time he'd snatched me from Ambrosine's dorm and dropped me down a well. "No, no," he assured me. He even rolled up the sleeves of his fancy coat to reveal his bony arms were bare. Muscles had been replaced with loose flab. Brown spots that weren't freckles coated his arms in patches. "I come to you as a loving philanthropist ecstatic to have his only grandson released from the Eros Nest. A wonder, isn't it? Now, now, don't look so skeptical. Just listen. Head Pixie, I wish to donate every click and el in my bank account straight to you, and I simply won't take 'No' for an answer."

I couldn't even blink. His words hardly registered in my brain. "Wait a second. You… what?"

Nodding encouragingly, Praxis reached into his vest and pulled out a check with a lot of zeroes at the end. The ink on the paper was already dry. He waved it tantalizingly above Madigan's head. "Please, I insist. You need it far more than I do."

"Thank you?" I managed, letting him open my hand and press the check against my palm.

"You're very welcome, Fergusius. Please spend it on your pixies. In fact, do you have a place around here that you can stay? You ought to come home with me to Plane 6. You always should have grown up on Plane 6, you know. It's charming land. I'll cook you up that alphabet soup Ambrosine always loved when he lived under my roof. Your kids would get a kick out of alphabet soup. Yes, alphabet soup and animal crackers. Or we could send for pizza. Did you know they deliver now? What are you hungry for?"

I took a slight step backward, Springs still clinging to my legs. "Are we being scryed? Have you been blackmailed? Who is making you do this?"

As I watched, a nervous twitch started up in the corner of his eye. Praxis's fingers pattered in a row against his staff. "Fergus, I am offended. I come to welcome you home, offering you nothing but the deepest kindness, and you reject me? Can't a grandfather, and a great-grandfather now, be generous?"

My eyes went from him to the check and back again in less than a second. I put the muddled Keefe on the floor, held the check out in front of me, and ripped it in half. I ripped it in half again. Shreds of chesberry parchment rained down on my pixies, who scrambled for the falling scraps and bunched them in their fists. "One act of kindness doesn't fix things between us, Praxis. I don't want your charity. Turns out, I can say 'No'."

Praxis's face darkened. "So I see. Then I'll make another offer. Fergusius, Head Pixie, dearest only grandson, I'd like to buy Wish Fixers off you. You don't want it, and fresh out of the Nest with so many kids to look after, you need the money badly."

"You're certainly direct," I said, watching Springs slip a bit of paper into his mouth. I pried it out with my fingertip. "By any chance, did my bartering skills come from my mother's side of the family?"

His nostrils flared. The fingers around his staff turned white. His stubby wings buzzed a little louder. "Your dam is not part of this family. She was a brownie and she left your father almost the moment she met him, and certainly the moment she met you." Apparently realizing his error in insulting relatives when he didn't know my opinions of them for sure, Praxis softened his tone again. He fingered his mustache. "Head Pixie, you know that, don't you? The Whimsifinado line runs thicker in your blood than her influence ever has. You and I, we share that special connection. We are Whimsifinados. Members of a proud race who, thanks to a long line of sons, still carry our name from the days of the Aos Sí, when Ezekiel Whimsifinado was among the first to Split into three distinct counterparts and embrace the changing ways of the universe. And as Whimsifinados, you can surely trust I've turned a new leaf since the, er, unfortunate circumstances surrounding our first meeting, can't you? We're family. I understand that now."

"Not my family." Centuries of practice kept me from wincing as he needled me about our ancestors and honor. "Okay. So, first of all. Yeah. Whimsifinado, Eros, or Ivorie, it makes no difference. I have no interest in ever forgiving or trusting you again. Secondly." I lifted one brow. "Solara a brownie? That's curious. Because Ambrosine always told me she was a full-blooded fairy. Anti-Fergus told me she was a full-blooded fairy. It's doubtful the two conspired behind my back, and I don't see what either one of them has to gain by telling me a lie."

"Your pride, I assume."

Ignoring my wiggling pixies, I met his gaze. "Praxis, you cut Ambrosine and I from your life the minute you heard that I'd shed my exoskeleton and come out freckle-faced. Don't place yourself above Solara. I was thirty-one when he returned from serving in the stupid war and took me back from my foster parents. I grew up alongside him from then on, and I think I know him better than you. After all, you had five children to look after. I had Ambrosine as my only companion. I know him. My father is the passionate type, with a singing voice that could charm the feathers off a refract. He enjoys his kisses and his damsels. With his pick of ladies, he would not stoop to sleeping with a brownie, their mouths brimming with inrita poison. No. I don't trust you. I trust Ambrosine. My dad is not a brownie-kisser."

Praxis squared his shoulders. The buzzing in his wings picked up even louder. Sanderson had started to fidget with his knuckles behind me. "Good dust, Fergus, are you blind? The orange tinge in your wings alone should be enough to confirm it. The only color closer is an elf's, but the square shape clearly indicates-"

"I was born with a fairy's crown, Praxis," I deadpanned.

He stared at me, his mouth twisted in a sneer and his nose crinkled. But, he let the subject of my mother's race go. He dropped a few inches, wings still sweeping. "Hmph. It's a pity. Ambrosine could have done so much better than the flaky little bookworm snatter he landed. It was her hair, all dark blue and long and with those white speckles mixed in like stars; it's always hair with that drake. And you see where that led him. I wouldn't have let him marry that starry-eyed wench had he promised me every future lyn he ever earned. It's because of her poor genes you turned out the way you did, mutated like this."

I watched him, eyes heavy-lidded, as I tried to think up an appropriately snarky response without making it look like the wheels were whirring in my brain. My mutation was one of biological origins. Anti-Fergus and the Dame Head were evidence enough of that with their strange colors.

"I hold no ill will against Solara," I said finally. "Yes, she abandoned my father before I shed my exoskeleton because she didn't want to bother raising me. No, I don't love her. I have no interest in scouring the universe until I turn her up. Whether here or on Plane 23, if I never meet her face to face, I won't mind it in the least. But no matter who or what she was, I will defend her before I defend you." My fingers tightened around the remains of the check, now soggy from the sweat and oil in my palms. "Solara walked out of my life without raising a finger to harm me. What you've done, Praxis, remains unforgivable. You tried to have me drowned for no reason but my gyne freckles. I was just a baby. You're not even a gyne yourself. Don't pretend you know what it's like to raise one. Don't pretend you don't know what it's like to fight the urges that come with the freckle package. And you could dump on me every lyn you've ever made. You could wheedle the deed to Tír Ildáthach out of the Fairy Elder and offer me Fairy World itself. But I will never put Wish Fixers into your hands again. I will never give you anything that's rightfully mine. And I will never take a single coin out of your fingers."

Praxis recoiled. "Why so stubborn?"

"I know why you're here, Granddad. If I can call you that without throwing up. Unironically." Increasingly concerned now that my wrists might tremble and give my unsteady fury away, I rested one hand on Sanderson's head and pushed my fingers through his dark hair. I didn't break eye contact. "Because you know that once Venus's reports go through, and once I have my coronation, I will become a celebrity overnight. One worthy of my very own Celebrity Families trading card, I should think."

He said nothing, but pawed at his gray mustache. "Does that bother you?" I pressed, toying with one of Sanderson's cowlicks. "Does it, husband of Nettle Gumswood, one of the finest players the Dragonflies ever had, whose early retirement due to the loss of her sight caused such an uproar among fans that it ensured her place in the Hall of Fame would never be deposed? That your wayward adolescent son's out-of-wedlock gyne actually amounted to something? Someone important? That in all the files which discuss my childhood until the end of time… all the school research projects Spellementary children may someday do on the origin of the pixies… you'll be recorded forever as the father who wasn't there? While Ambrosine becomes the hero who fought for his nymph when no one else would? Ha ha, ha ha. To think that despite all your efforts, it will be you, Praxis, who is remembered as the real blot upon the Whimsifinado family tree."

Praxis regarded me coolly. "Head Pixie. It was wrong of me to believe you were a mere animal guided through life by murderous instincts. My son's life was in danger. You know what gynes do. He threatened to abandon his education to raise you instead. My two earlier children went astray. My two younger ones had selected fields other than psychology, because they saw Ambrosine as my rightful heir and weren't expecting him to fail me. You were the greatest disappointment of my life, but I should not have acted as I did. I'm… sorry."

"I've seen less passion in the eyes of Venus Eros over the operating table."

For the first time, a note of worry crept over Praxis's face. He clutched his shillelagh with both hands, bobbing up and down more quickly than usual. "I don't understand. This is money. I'm literally giving you free money, no strings attached. Why won't you take my money? Ambrosine wouldn't take it either, and he spent easy hundreds of thousands on that heap of cloudstone and mortar in the middle of nowhere. He might have even hit a million; I wouldn't be in the least surprised. Oh gods, Fergus, I'll do anything. Do you want the Whimsifinado fortune? It's down to its dregs - I donated so much to the Fairy Council so we could raise the Barrier after the war of the Sunset Divide in your youth - but name it and consider whatever's left of it yours. Do you want some collectible of Nettle's that could fetch you a high price among fans, like her shoulder pads or her gloves? You can have your pick of what's lying around my home. Just let me contribute something. I can't stand to go down in history this way!"

"My life was my history, and when public knowledge wasn't part of the equation, you were completely fine going down in it like the abuser you are," I said, quite plainly. His mouth was still hanging open when I snapped my fingers towards my brood and walked across the station to join the anti-pixies by the decorative plants.

Anti-Sanderson punched the air when he saw us and slid further down the bench to make room. Anti-Fergus had his head low, quietly explaining to his two youngest that they couldn't hit each other and wrestle in public. "Hey," I said, pausing beside him. He pulled Anti-Keefe onto his lap and looked up at me.

"Hey. Fairy-Praxis?"

"Won't bother us, I think. Starpiece magic is disabled within the station walls. I can't imagine he'll stick around long after I rejected him. He studied psychology too. He should know I won't throw myself into his arms after an entire life of being absent. After he tried to murder me. Any sign of our feathered friends?"

He shifted. "Should be jist a minute. We know they're next. They's jist kinda slow. Must've had trouble gettin' settled. You know how picky them bird folk are."

"Did Great-Granddad Praxis really try to kill you as a baby, H.P.?" Sanderson asked, pinching his eyebrows together.

"Yes. He knocked Ambrosine aside and swept me from his bedroom. Then he tried to drown me."

Sanderson thought about that and nodded quietly. I wondered what ideas were running through his head, but he kept his mouth shut as he thought, like he usually did.

We waited for a few more minutes until another green tramcar flew down the cable and swung to a halt outside. The pixie refracts climbed out, among a great deal of confused murmurs among the onlookers. Her holotype shirt stirred them to whisper about pixies and scratch their heads. Dame Head slipped through the turnstile and hurried towards us, holding a sleeping Dame Springs. Dame Sanderson followed with Dame Keefe and a high head. Dame Madigan, tripping over her dirty robes, scampered after them.

"So, who's up for snacks?" I asked as they joined us. People noticing the anti-fairies against the yellow-green of the giant plants didn't hide their stares. I raised my eyebrows at a few who were rude enough not to drop their gazes when I caught them looking.

"I'm always up for snacks, but we'll need to find a place where my daughters may eat without sitting."

"Shouldn't be difficult. Your people come to Faeheim more often than anywhere else in the Deep Kingdom. Right? This is where the baptism shrine is. There will be accommodations. We'll ask around."

"And somewhere yew ain't gonna want ta kill us," Anti-Fergus agreed.

"We'll avoid Ambrosine's, Wish Fixers, and that plot of land I own in the woodland clearing on Plane 3, then. Those are the only places pixie pheromones should be layered thickly enough to trigger the Finella reflex. Isn't that right, Sanderson?"

He snapped his eyes off Anti-Sanderson and glanced guiltily over his shoulder at me. "Yes, sir."

"Anti-Fergus, come on." I spread my upturned hands. "We've lived in the same enclosure for five centuries now, and never once did I embrace the instinct to kill you. I'd rather save my energy for gynes. You can trust me long enough so we can enjoy a parting meal together."

Uncertainly, Anti-Fergus glanced at the Dame Head. "Now that we ain't stuck in the clear boxes, yew ain't gonna, uh…"

It took a moment, but the tan feathers darkened to warm cocoa brown on her cheeks. "Oh. Oh. No, you don't have to worry about me and my people's alleged reflexes, Brother Unseelie. As always, I remain in control of myself."

I placed my hand on her shoulder. "Her Rhoswen syndrome applies only to me. Rest assured, I'll be there to intervene if she makes any attempt to cheat on me with you."

Dame Head covered her face with both hands. "Oh my vapor, don't say that in public. People will think you're serious."

"Only as serious as you were that day in your fields when you ran towards me and flung yourself into my arms."

"Stop it. My daughters are listening." She cracked her talons so one red eye shone between them. "That wasn't a kiss. You're the smoof on school tour who snuck a bite of honeywheat bread in your mouth and realized too late that you're deathly allergic, apparently. I was giving you SHAMPAX."

"Poorly."

"No, I did a great job. You lived, didn't you? And with that, let's go get lunch."

"Well, now Ah'm gonna throw up," Anti-Fergus muttered, but he followed.

As we all shuffled around the plants and headed towards the main door, a cry went up from the other side of the station. I glanced towards the space between the red and orange flags to find Emery jumping up and down, waving both arms above her head. She hadn't changed a bit, still wearing her favorite hooded purple sweatshirt (or one just like it, anyway) and keeping her black hair cut short around her ears. Her long wings, with their faint lines of brown running down the costas, bounced along with her. That certainly made it difficult to tell if they'd been notched since last I saw her. Ambrosine leaned on his star-capped staff nearby, in a new cherry-colored vest and smiling thinly. The other five of my pixies sat on the hard benches around them. They were each dressed neatly, though not coordinated with one another. The bright colors would give me a headache before long.

"Emery?" Sanderson said incredulously. "What's she so excited about?"

"Hm." I paused and thought about it for a moment. "Praxis implied that I still own Wish Fixers. That means Ambrosine never turned around and gave it to her. So the only possibility is, are her wings notched?"

"I can't really tell from here, sir."

"Huh. Then I'm at a loss." My curiosity piqued, I trailed over. My pixies followed cautiously, though Anti-Fergus and the Dame Head both hung back with theirs. As soon as I came near enough, Emery grabbed both my hands and squeezed.

"Fergus, congrats! You're out of the Nest for good! We heard it from Venus this morning and came straightaway to meet you here. I'm so glad to see you."

"Okay, I'll bite. Why?"

"Ah," she said, shrugging the question off. "Maybe I missed you. Nice shirt, by the way. I bought a Fairy Paratype one when I visited you once. Pastel rainbow mix; it's really nice. Have to show you sometime. You totally got cheated with just gray and white. Now, hurry up! We're all taking you out to lunch."

I looked between her and Ambrosine. "Oh," I said.

Emery pulled back, releasing my hands. "Why do you say 'Oh'?"

"I may have already made plans to go out. And now I'm not sure what to do. You know I'm bad with schedule conflicts." I made a swirly motion with my finger to indicate my old habit of flitting back and forth between two decisions until I procrastinated so long that I found out the hard way who would be more upset if I bailed. Canceling plans wasn't in my nature any more than making them was in Anti-Fergus's.

"Plans?" she repeated. "You just took the stride of pride out of babymaking jail. You haven't even left the tram station. Who the smoof did you make plans with?"

"My counterparts and their young companions, for one."

Emery leaned around my shoulder. Even without looking physically behind me, I could sense Dame Head cautiously lift a hand to wave. Anti-Sanderson's greeting was more enthusiastic. Her face went totally blank for about three seconds. Then the smile snapped back into place. "Sure, all right then. We'll all go out to lunch together. I can swing this. Fergus, I need you to come with so we can catch up. There's this fantastic Hy-Brasilian place at my work- among others."

"You work?"

She shot me a nasty glare. "Duh. You fired me from Wish Fixers."

"That does sound like something I would do. All right. We'll go for lunch. At your work, apparently. But first…" I stepped around her and crouched beside the bench, where my five pixies all sat straight-backed and silent. Except for Bayard, who wriggled in anticipation beneath my gaze. I turned my attention first on Hawkins. "I'm coming home. Officially. How have you been?"

"I missed my real family."

"'Family' is an elf word," I said, placing a hand behind his head and leaning him towards me. As I planted a few licks across his face, he smiled.

"I missed my boss."

"Better. Were you on your best behavior for Ambrosine?"

"I hope so. We've been working hard. We finished-"

"Hawkins," Ambrosine warned. He raised a finger to his lips. "Don't spoil the surprise."

Hawkins nodded in a sheepish way. I let him go, then turned to Longwood. He struggled to meet my gaze, rubbing his cheeks in an uncertain way, like he wasn't sure he ought to be pleased about my return. I tapped his knee until he looked up. He answered my questions while I licked his face as Hawkins had, but every word came out like he forced it.

I went down the row that way, ensuring that I gave my attention to each one of them individually. When I had at last finished with the enthusiastic Bayard, I placed my hands to my knees and stood up again. "You remember Sanderson and Madigan. That's Keefe, and that's Springs."

Ambrosine watched me for a moment. When I finally turned my head, he mouthed, "Graham?"

"Venus thought it would be best if… the Grahams remained with her in the Nest."

He nodded and didn't push me more.

Emery wrung her hands as introductions were made. Oddly enough, she took a liking to Anti-Fergus, describing him as "straightforward and polite". Unlike me, I guess. Still, the moment we were done, she clapped her hands twice. "And we're off now. Hurry, let's hurry. Lunch is waiting."

"What's the rush?" I asked as she literally started to push me towards the station door.

"I'm starving, that's what. Oh my dust, how can you have muscles now but still be this fat?"

We stepped onto the metal platform outside the tram station and paused for a moment to stare across Faeheim. From up here in the city's center, just down the road from the Fairy Elder's castle, the whole place was visible- down to busy pink streets and swinging shop doors. Tall buildings with sloped roofs spread all the way to the edge of Faeheim's cloud, the city's growth capped by sheer lack of space.

At the edges of the cloud, a thin ribbon of light arced out from each of three cardinal directions- blue in the general direction of the High North Region, pink to the Far East, and green to the Lower West. They touched down on other clouds in the distance, where the silhouette of other buildings peeked above the horizon. At Faeheim's southern corner, the famous Fairy World sign glittered in its place beside the Rainbow Bridge, which arced below the cloudline. Down to Earth and out of sight. My pixies clustered in front of me to look and I let them, staying back with Keefe in my arms.

"I ain't never seen Fairy World from up here before," Anti-Fergus said, leaning against the rail. "It's real purty, with the mist jist turnin' all rainbows like this." So saying, he stretched out his hand and made the attempt to grasp the shimmering water vapor drifting through the air. "Heh heh. Almost makes you wanna jump straight from here down into the stuff. Don't it?"

I thought for .3 seconds. "Absolutely not. Let's get down to solid cloud before someone does something stupid."

As we descended the rickety metal stairs and touched down on the cloudstone streets, Longwood reached up and tugged at my sleeve. "Mr. Fergus-"

"I answer to 'H.P.' now, please."

"Er, H.P., I want to show you this thing I learned. Well, I taught it to myself, but I'm really proud of it, and I think you'll be impressed."

"Oh?" I tasted yellow seeping into the energy field as he perked up. Pausing, I turned back to look at him. "All right. Mark it, Mister Markell."

He stepped away to an empty space on the sidewalk and turned around. "Okay, Caudwell. You're the best summoner. Give me a thing."

Caudwell raised his wand. Light glimmered on the star cap, and a small goose appeared on the sidewalk. It turned its neck left, then right. "Oh, now that's cute," I said, slipping my hands in my pockets. I'd always had a soft spot for geese, ambling along with a row of obedient babies tagging after them. They're vicious critters, too. A flap of their wings could easily snap your arm. Yes, I'd always been rather fond of geese.

Longwood circled the confused goose three times. His expression stayed firm like he were plotting the perfect time to say "Boo" to it. Then, quick as a bolt of lightning, he kicked out his foot and threw the bird off balance. The goose squawked horribly, but Longwood lunged for it anyway. They rolled across the sidewalk, wrestling and snapping. The longer I watched, the more my wings began to fidget. At one point, I even found my knuckles pressed over my mouth. A single line tasted like it was fritzing above my head. Longwood's tumbling drew to a close, and he slammed the goose against the sidewalk. Hard. It lay there without moving.

Wilcox and Hawkins clapped their hands like selkies while Bayard punched the air. "Yes! Longwood, that was so jazzed! How did you learn to do that?"

"I don't know," he said shyly. "It just came to me, I guess." Still pinning the limp goose down, the 2,016-year-old glanced up at me. "Did you see that, sir? I snapped its neck, all by myself. Look. It's dead. Sir, look at it."

I swallowed, trying to focus on his eyes and not his freckles. "That's very interesting, Longwood. Really."

"I'm going to try again," he said, hopping up. "Wilcox, give me a rabbit."

"What? No!" Wilcox drew away, hugging his wand. "Rabbits are our friends."

Placing my hand between Longwood's shoulder blades, I eased him away from the bloodied goose. "Okay, let's get someone to poof that away. Why don't we try a more relaxing activity as we walk? Like tallying up how many of each Fairy subspecies we see, or filing out mental reports about the street signs?"

Emery led us through the winding streets of Faeheim, darting and then pausing to dance in place as we skimmed after her. We made an odd sight, I'm sure, such a large traveling party of such assorted colors. But the crowds grew thinner. Eventually, she pulled up in front of a long, low building with a pale blue flag dangling above its single glass door. A white star lay in the center of the flag, crossed with four ginger slashes slicing upwards from left to right. A twiggy broom that smelled faintly of cinnamon leaned against the porch. The Welcome mat. The clipped lawn. The huge, decorative metal insects on the porch with rainbow scales lining their backs. All these things drove home the idea that you, dear visitor, had stumbled across a private home, despite the building's large size. Some formerly-rich widow's place, you might think. Or, you'd tell yourself the place you were gazing at had once been a museum, but had now become an orphanage. Nothing that concerned you. Nothing interesting here at all.

But oh, how wrong you were. This building was situated just slightly off-center from the city's heart. Too far away from tourist attractions like the Pink Castle, the Bridge, the shrine, the Big Wand, and the tram station to attract unwanted attention. No cheerful shops lined this street. Only scraggly purple plants and glowing weeds across the way, what I think was a picnic table of rotting wood and rusty nails, a long-abandoned church belonging to some alien religion no one remembered, and the Keepers dispatch station on the corner. There wasn't even a sign announcing the business's name- just the flag design that only Fairykind would recognize. Hopefully. With such a purposeful display of shabbiness, not to mention the Keepers station up the street, no tourist to the cloudlands would linger here long. I adjusted my glasses with two fingers.

"Okay. So, you work at Amity Headquarters?"

"Amity Boudacian Safety and Protective Recall division- for now." Emery said that last part in a mysteriously cheerful way. "I'm responsible for keeping track of available godparents and contacting them when the high-ups find new godkids to assign them to. And, I help oversee the Academy students who godparent abroad in Boudacia for a semester. For now." With that, Emery pushed the glass door open with her hand. Evidently, she wasn't bothered by the fact that in doing so, she left large smudges behind. I hesitated as the others filed in, then scrubbed them away with my sleeve before I followed.

Inside, the walls were polished wood. Shining, brown wood. We moved down this front entryway to a front desk tucked too far back for nosy spies to see even through the glass door. Emery vouched for our identities, even those of my counterparts. The secretary flipped a lever that temporarily diverted the energy field from the room. Any magically-formed items on and around our persons disappeared so she could confirm we wore no disguises. An interesting idea. Then the field returned, and we were waved through the left-hand archway.

This hallway was long, straight, and dimly lit. Pictures of famous godkids and godparents lined either wall. I paused by a few of the more interesting portraits to read the names on their plaques, but apart from the Lane twins Cody and Summer, Beatrice Banks, and Robert Woods (who had all asphyxiated after spending a day and a night in the thin atmosphere of Fairy World and whose deaths had led to the infamous Tenderfir v. Redbrush case requiring godkids visit the cloudlands in only short spurts), I didn't particularly recognize any of them. Vaguely, I thought I recalled spotting crinkled packets of godparent trading cards in the coin shops of my youth. I'd always been more of a Celebrity Families and Saucerbee Players kid myself.

The hall widened into a grand food court. Much more grand than what had passed as food courts back at the tram station. A stained glass skylight projected the blue, white, and gold Amity logo across the center of the floor. I glanced around, squeezing tighter to Keefe, and began to understand why Amity Central Headquarters had been designed long and low the way it had.

Arched doorways lined the room like the cells in a piece of honeycomb. Halls branched off in every chaotic direction. The system functioned thus: Is there space here? If yes, build a hall. Heavy doors slammed at the edge of my hearing. Bells jingled like those above shop doors. Always there was constant chatter. Fairies of just about every subspecies zipped back and forth, both across the floor and in the air. Hardly ten seconds passed without a poof or a shout or multiple shouts. Licenses flashed in the faces of patrolling guards, explanations were given, paperwork rustled (leading Caudwell to flinch against Ambrosine's side), and everyone kept moving. Only at the tables which ringed the skylight star - which had to be lit by some artificial light source to create colors that bright in a land where small stars ruled the skies - did time slow down. But even then, the workers at the food courts were alive with activity. Flipping meat and bread, chopping carrots, pouring oil.

"I want to own a food court," I decided.

"I don't know if you can own a whole food court," Emery chided, but with a smile, she waved her hand to encompass the hustle and bustle of the area. "So? Grab something you like and I'll find us a table. A…" She glanced again at Anti-Fergus and the Dame Head, and sucked at her cheeks. "… few tables."

"Are you sure we're allowed to be here?"

"Don't worry. I can bring visitors in at lunchtime. They like it, as long as they're getting paid. Just keep everyone under control."

"I'll… try."

"Ah don't like this," Anti-Fergus muttered before we parted. "Too many people. Too many eyes."

"Sorry. But it's a long way home for you."

Emery made more effort in a matter of minutes than I'd witnessed her make for most anything else in her life. While we all split and took care of our needs (Ambrosine, thankfully, covering much of the cost for feeding my pixies), she cleared off a space for us against a low black divider wall coated with the gold-leaf names of every godparent currently in the roster across every Amity division. I assume. She scooted three tables together, and offered the decorative wall as a table for our Refracted companions. Dame Head seemed a hint uncomfortable with the glances she attracted, but Dame Sanderson thanked Emery graciously and engaged her in a spiel about the difficulty of being a Refract faithful to her customs and how this solution would be perfectly acceptable. Anti-Sanderson rolled his eyes and dug his fangs into a steaming roast duck.

"Hungry," Ambrosine noted in amusement when I plopped down in my seat, my cardboard tray stacked with unbuttered pancakes.

"The cherubs often let me eat what I wanted," I said as I picked up Springs and placed him on my knee, "but sometimes they restricted my choices. Beware- I'm all muscle now and not so much fat." No six-pack, but a bit less of a belly there. "Daily exercise requirements and no sugar all through my pregnancies. Or coffee." I lifted my paper cup to my lips.

"Is it good?" Wilcox asked, watching me.

I tilted my hand left and right. "Mediocre. They didn't have falak beans. Or cinnamon. Shame. I don't like butter, but I do like cinnamon."

I cut my pixies' sandwiches one by one with my plastic knife as Emery fetched her own lunch. By the time she came back with a steaming slice of ham, I was just about to start eating myself. The pancakes were dry and flaky, and their tops peeled each time I lifted my fork. I liked them.

I'd only been eating for about three minutes before, over the chatter of the patrons around us, I picked up the rustle of approaching owlfly-like wings. "Well, what a surprise to see you here," Emery cried, in a voice that even Sanderson would have been able to recognize as indicating this was not much of a surprise to her at all. Standing, she touched her hand to the back of my chair and gestured towards the newcomer. "Head Pixie, my boss. Dm. Iris, my brother. He's the one I told you about who spent three hundred thousand years on Earth with the angels. And he knows how to examine contracts and file paperwork better than anyone I've ever met."

I looked up, still chewing. "Dm. Iris" was built like a tower: thin, but sturdy and well-muscled in her arms. Tall, though still no match for my height. She wore a white vest with golden buttons down the front, and powdered blue sleeves beneath it. Her alux crown, with its shiny metal and pink velvet, reflected the violet sheen of her long pegasustail. Uncertain dabs of make-up turned her cheeks rosy and her eyelids dark. Even though (or perhaps because), she'd been the one to approach us, she kept a wary grip on her elbow. Her long wings chirred. By the nature of her alux blood, when I wasn't looking at her directly, she shimmered invisibly away. Emery's eyes darted between us.

"Say something," she urged from the corner of her mouth.

"I'm eating pancakes. Mister James Bayard, put down that salt shaker. You'll attract anti-fairies. Er… Upset the anti-pixies."

Bayard sat down again. His elbow bumped Wilcox's milk carton, and Madigan made a grab past him to catch it since Wilcox himself was looking the other way. The carton hit the floor with a resounding thump and splash. A few Amity workers turned to stare and mutter. Emery dropped her forehead into her palm. After I'd swallowed my last sip of coffee, I dabbed my napkin across my mouth and stood. When I did so, Iris floated backwards so she could better gaze up at me rather than down.

"Forgive my rude sister for introducing me while my mouth was full," I said, and extended my hand. "Fergus Whimsifinado. Head Pixie."

Too late did I realize I put out my right instead of my left. But Iris didn't hesitate. She took it firmly with her own right hand, warm effervescence mixing and tingling against our palms. Her shake was very nice. "Iris Needlebark. I work here at Amity. Although, I guess that's obvious since you're here and I'm wearing our colors, isn't it? Um. Never mind. If I may ask, did you really spend three hundred thousand years on Earth?"

Needlebark. So that was where I knew the name. Emery must have let it slip during one of her visits to the Eros Nest. Anti-Fergus snapped to attention. I kept my face straight, even when I felt his gaze searing into the side of my neck. Gingerly, I took the salt shaker and slid it over to my tray. "Oh, about fifty thousand more than that."

Her eyes glittered as she replaced her hand on her elbow. "Well, if that's true, I think you can help me. You see, I-"

"Iris wants to start an Amity branch for the Angels," Emery interjected, beaming as she leaned forward. Ah. So that was what 'For now' had been about.

"Really?" My interest renewed, I turned to Iris again. She released her lip and blinked three times. "By all means, keep me posted. I've long wondered whether they're really capable of forming the complex thoughts required to voice a wish."

"Ah. It's more that they are making leaps and bounds in their communication skills among one another." Iris plucked at the bottom of her vest. "But yes, I believe that soon enough, with enough effort on our part, we could teach them Snobbish, Elru, and all sorts of our languages. I think the Unwinged Angels are intelligent, they can learn, and in a few more decades, they can be added to our program here at Amity."

"Is it difficult to work with them when they drink from a different energy field and sometimes disappear from our senses? I see you're an alux, so I suppose you have at least some experience in that area."

She nodded. "Angels only become invisible to us if we aren't expecting to see them. As for me, well… I approach Earth expecting to find them anywhere and everywhere. So they're never invisible in my eyes. Of course, if you had brought one here with you today, I wouldn't be able to see it unless I physically touched it and realized it was there. You um, didn't bring one? No? Part of my work will be explaining this phenomena to anyone involved in the program, and urging Fairies everywhere to follow my lead of anticipating their presence in locations they are known to frequent. Angels won't seem quite so scary to the public once they understand how they work."

"Well, isn't that nice. How may I help you?"

Iris smoothed a wrinkle in her pants and looked up at me again. "I have some paperwork that needs filling out so I can make my appeal to the Fairy Council. Then, if they approve me, I will need assistance when it comes to organizing the system, just to ensure I don't make any foolish mistakes. I've never started a division of Amity before. I've never found anyone who has or remembers exactly how. No one has any records of past experiences lying around. I'm hoping you and I will figure it out together. If you really have spent so many years in Angel company, your thoughts ought to be invaluable. Would you be interested in assisting me in this project?"

What, help her add an entirely new division to the largest known business operation in the entire cosmos? A business operation that had to strictly remain secret from the vast majority of races in the universe, no less? While certainly my area of interest, that wasn't precisely my area of expertise. I must have paused too long for her liking, because she added, "I can pay you, of course. Your sister showed me the rates you used to charge for your services centuries ago. If those have changed at all, we can discuss them."

My eyes trailed down to my pixies, who sat stuffing their faces while Ambrosine looked on. On the other side of the divider wall, Dame Head picked at her food. Anti-Fergus watched me, owl-eyed, from the neighboring table.

I did need money. And paperwork was my specialty. And while I didn't like Angels, perhaps I just hadn't approached them with the right attitude. So I accepted Iris's offer. She smiled shyly.

"Oh, good. Thank you so much. With you at my side, the whole process should move along much easier." Her fingers danced along her elbow. "When is a good time for you to meet so we might go over it together in more detail?"

My thoughts flashed back to the Eros Nest. Dust, had I only walked out of there this same morning? Hardly two and a half hours ago? I made a flat line motion with my hand. "I am literally available whenever works best for you."

"Excellent. Shall we say next Wednesday at 10:00 Rainbow, in my office here at Amity Central Headquarters?"

"It's a date. I'll mark my calendar."

Iris scribbled the serial number of her scrying bowl on a business card that already listed her office number, and gave it to me. Then we shook hands again. She skimmed away down one of the many halls. "I'm ecstatic you agreed to help out with her papers," Emery said brightly when I sat back down.

I pushed the flaky remains of my pancakes around my plate with my fork. "By Lugh's spear, I hope I still remember how."

"You'll do fine. All you have to do is request the Fairy Council add a new program here that works just like all the others. Even you can't mess that up."

Our conversation turned to my counterparts and their respective offspring. Ambrosine listened silently to our concerns about them being stranded too far from home when drowsiness kicked in, and in the end, he sided with the Dame Head. "Enjoy Faeheim," he suggested. "You've been imprisoned for five hundred years, and you deserve to have some fun again. When you're ready to go home, speak with the acolytes at the baptism shrine. They're your people, so they're certain to help you. It's their job to organize travel between here and the High Kingdom."

"I suppose we should get the rest of you baptized," I said, watching Caudwell sip his water. "Or the two oldest who haven't been, anyway. Springs and Keefe are too young to retain the teachings or answer questions. Graham…"

"Dm. Venus has all three counterparts and will see to it when they're older," Dame Head said unconvincingly. Anti-Sanderson flipped the top of his jacket over his head and hunkered down in his chair.

Dame Sanderson brought her napkin to her mouth. "Mother, as practical as it may be to fulfill our baptism duties while we are already here, we really ought to return to the High Kingdom as soon as possible. This world is unclean and Step-Father is expecting us back at the mill in plenty of time for harvest. We can't simply wander around down here like… like… birds."

"Oh." Dame Head drummed her talons. "That's true. Dear Husband is waiting for us."

"We'd have to schedule an appointment anyway," I realized. "They like you to come fasting."

"Sister," Sanderson said, lowering his fork, "have you ever tasted sea salt caramels before?"

Dame Sanderson frowned at him. "What are caramels?"

In answer, the Dame Head groaned in a loving way. "Oh, caramels. The reason I'm a religious damsel. The first attempt of the gods at creating paradise."

"Yes," I said. "Before you leave us, Sister, I must take you to that shop where I buy your Krisday presents."

"It's here?"

"Right here in Faeheim."

She looked as though she'd been slapped in the cheek. Then she grabbed her purple hair, twisting it between her talons. "It was here the whole time, and we Refracts have been coming and going from the shrine without turning it into a raging tourist attraction?"

"I don't understand," Dame Sanderson said impatiently. "What are these caramels?"

Dame Head spun around, partly crouching behind the wall, and grabbed her by the shoulders roughly enough that she knocked Dame Sanderson's glasses askew. "Listen to me very closely, Daughter. I need you not to sass our gracious hosts, and be on your absolute best behavior for as long as we remain in the Deep Kingdom. Uncle Seelie has just offered to escort us to paradise on Plane 5. Do not ruin this for me, or I shall send you to harvest the fields single-handedly for a decade."

Dame Sanderson squeaked and fell silent.

Anti-Fergus had remained quiet throughout this whole exchange. As the conversation lapsed, he returned his interlocked fingers to his table and leaned forward. "Lunch has been a real swell treat. Thank yew fer having us. But Ah'm afraid mah sons and I have got to go."

No one begged him to reconsider. No one reminded him of the distance between Faeheim and the Divide gate, and the Divide gate and his home. No one suggested they stay the night. Yes, words could have been heard over his rowdy brood as they messed with their trays and laughed and growled at one another, spilled water and shot straw wrappers in each other's faces. But no one said anything. I looked down at my empty plate, then raised my head again.

"Anti-Fergus, before you head back to Anti-Fairy World, I want to take you and your anti-pixies shopping."

He shifted his gaze to me, scrunching his bushy blond brows. "Shopping?"

"Specifically, clothes shopping." Automatically, I rubbed warmth up and down my bare, freckled arms. "There are good places here in Faeheim where all the clothes are sewn from habetrot-approved wool, guaranteed. Don't deny that you and your anti-pixies could use some clean laundry. So let's shop for clothes, and any other house necessities you're in need of. I'm sure that between the lagelyn Venus gave me and the funds I'd gathered before we were abducted, I can afford to lend you a hand. We'll say it's my way of apologizing for… my uncouth behavior in the Nest when I found myself expecting that last time."

Anti-Fergus stared at me. I refused to drop my gaze. We stared, and stared. Finally he said, "Ah don't want your charity."

"You don't want it, but you need it. The nice thing is, your anti-pixies already wear bright colors. You can easily shop for clothes in Fairy World. They'll like it- It'll be spiffy. Where did you get their old clothes anyway? A flea market?"

"I made 'em myself with scraps of fabric Anti-Robin snuck out a' the Castle," he mumbled. His fork scraped his cardboard plate.

"Scraps. Yes, I see. It shows. Let's get them something they like."

Dame Head clasped her hands. "And while we're here, if I can afford it, I'd love to get all the fabric I need to start working on those pointy hats. I'll need smaller needles too. Can I afford everything? I'm not sure how much your Deep Kingdom money is worth."

"I think we could manage that." I smiled. "So we'll get new clothes for everyone, and then we'll go to the chocolate and caramel shop."

"And after that, what?" Ambrosine asked, watching my face carefully.

"Then…" I hunched a bit into my shoulders like a juvenile, clinging to the edge of the table. "My friends… come to our house for a sleepover?"

He raised his eyebrows, then tapped the table in front of my tray and napkins. "Okay. We'll leave Emery here to finish up her work, and then we'll all go shopping. I don't believe they sell Refract robes or anything down here, so I'll take the damsels to the sewing store and we can look at thread and fabric instead. We'll meet for caramels when you're done. And then, Fergus, we have a surprise to give you. I think you'll like it. Oh, yes. I think you'll like it an awful lot."

A/N: Text to Text - I would like to mention two things here. First, I've published the first chapter of my Anti-Cosmo backstory 'fic, Frayed Knots. It runs parallel to Origin, and the two converge halfway through Act 3. Thus, Origin's updates will be slow until Anti-Cosmo's timeline catches up (though, there will be an update next week because I cut this chapter in half). You don't need to read Knots to continue enjoying Origin, but you can if you want. Plus, you'll get to see bonus scenes that Origin just skims over. I'll note it in the chapter headings when the stories overlap. Lucky you.

Secondly, both 'fics will update on Tuesdays. Not every Tuesday, because we want quality over quantity, but from now on you can always expect my FFN updates to be on Tuesday mornings and Tuesday mornings alone. Prepare yourselves accordingly, and enjoy.