Chapter 9 In Which Sahir Demonstrates Startling Versatility #2
“I had food poisoning, I think,” I said. “But it wasn’t Milo,” I added, when he opened his mouth. “He gave me a sandwich today and I was fine.”
“If I were attempting to poison you, I would not do it every time I saw you,” Gaheris offered. “So we cannot know he did not poison you.”
What were he and Lene still doing here? I raised an eyebrow at Sahir, who shrugged. “Gaheris, Lene, and I have been at the Court for roughly thirty human years together,” he said. “We share much of our time.”
I levered myself onto my elbows and caught Lene’s eye.
“I need to get back to work,” I said, standing up.
Sahir stayed on the floor, Doctor Kitten in his lap. “Can I move the creature?” he asked, though he didn’t sound hopeful.
“No!” Lene and I both said.
I sat at my desk and turned my computer on to see fifty-seven unread emails. I stared out the window. “So vampires can live here? In Faerie?”
“Yes, many reside here,” Gaheris said. “They like it because we have no sun. But I do not have many vampire friends.” He sounded so sad it made my own heart ache.
“Which is very understandable,” Lene said. She did not sound sympathetic in the least.
Sahir, in his signature move, sighed. “If you had ever paid attention in a science class, Gaheris, you would know that vampires have a moisture content of fifteen percent. If you had a moisture content of fifteen percent, you would not like fire faeries either.”
I wanted to ask about faerie science class, but then I would never get my work done.
After a few minutes, their conversation became a pleasant hum in the background as I slogged through my emails, routing requests where they needed to go and answering questions when I could.
When we went to dinner, we sat in a group; it was better having them around me. We didn’t see Milo or the Princeling, and on the way back to my room, Lene told me she was only three doors down.
It was almost a nice evening. But when I looked at my phone, I had missed a call from my dad, three from my mom, four texts from Thea and Jordan, an Instagram message from a guy I dated a while ago, and a dinner invitation from my Games Games Games group.
I couldn’t stop myself from imagining the months and years ahead, as the messages slowed to a trickle and then stopped.
I scrunched my eyes shut against the other low, insistent thought thrumming underneath. When that didn’t stop it, I pressed the heels of my hands into my eyes. But the thought pounded through, rising up the way it did in the most vulnerable moments.
You aren’t helping anybody.
So I got ready for bed and then slipped under the soft duvet, well aware I had hours of work left to do and unable to make myself care.
That night, my dreams were full of unfamiliar Fae: a faerie who looked like a young man with wide white angel wings, staring down at me with desperation on his face; the snake-eyed cafeteria worker standing in a wooded clearing with a drawn dagger held aloft, her face contorted in a snarl; a faerie with a ridge of horns around his face like a triceratops.
I slept restlessly.
One week after I agreed to the Princeling’s bargain, I stood in the middle of the cafeteria, looking at the faces of the seven participants who’d shown up to Faerie’s very first human class.
I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or offended by the poor attendance: Two nights before, Lene had made me take a half hour away from work to trail the cicada faerie (his name was Schubert) around the Court while he screamed at irregular intervals.
We’d been part of a crowd of at least eighty people.
Sahir, Lene, Gaheris, and the Gray Knight made up four of the seven. The other three were Milo, an oddly familiar guy with white wings named Kellen, and Kellen’s unhappy horned friend Caraya.
Schubert had not reciprocated my proffered support. I vowed to never again listen to him shriek.
“Hi, everyone,” I said. “Thanks for coming.”
Since everyone sat at one table, I decided to join them. I pulled out a stool and sank down at the head of the table.
“I don’t have an agenda today. Does anyone have any questions?”
Milo raised his hand.
“Anyone else?”
Milo shot me a look of betrayal.
“Milo,” I sighed.
“Why did the chicken cross the road?” he asked, his gorgeous blue eyes twinkling. And then he doubled over in hysterical laughter.
“Thanks, Milo,” I said. “Moving on.”
The Gray Knight glanced sharply at me. “You are to answer all questions, lady,” she said. “To the querent’s satisfaction.”
“All questions from the faeries,” I said, exasperated and thinking about the presentation Jeff wanted me to edit later that night. “Milo’s a human.”
Milo’s face fell. He looked away from the table, at the buffet station where he stood every day and served the Court.
“Milo is of our Court,” the Gray Knight snapped.
I stared at my own chipped, unpainted nails, fighting a wash of guilt.
“The chicken crossed the road to get to the other side, Milo,” I said. “And that’s a good segue into jokes, so thank you for the suggestion.”
“We understand jokes,” Sahir said, his face in his work laptop.
Only nine years, eleven months, and three weeks, I reminded myself.
“Okay, sorry,” I said aloud. “Does anyone have other questions?”
Caraya tapped sharp black talons on the wooden tabletop. “What is a human’s mortal weakness?” she asked, in the tone of a teenager trying to scare a substitute teacher out of their county’s school system.
“What did the chicken want to do on the other side?” Gaheris asked, in the tone of a teenager puzzling out a stoichiometry problem.
“Was the chicken edible?” Lene asked, in the tone of a teenager who wanted dinner.
I locked eyes with the Gray Knight. Her eyes were so beautiful, silvery and reflective, dazzlingly bright. I could see the challenge in her set jaw, the quirk of one eyebrow. Could I answer all of these questions satisfactorily?
“In reverse order: probably, he was visiting a friend, and most things.”
“Most things is too vague,” Caraya said.
Neither Gaheris nor Lene had follow-ups.
“Well, you can stab a human with almost any sharp object in a wide range of places on their body. You can suffocate, drown, or poison them. You can starve or dehydrate a human. I’m not really sure what you’re asking, Caraya.”
She tossed her head, curls bouncing. A ringlet got stuck on one of the curving black horns protruding from either side of her head. I stared at it, mesmerized. “Perhaps a food that humans cannot eat, or a metal they cannot touch.”
I shook myself. “I have a nickel allergy,” I volunteered. “But it just gives me a rash.”
Sahir groaned.
“And I guess humans can’t eat sulfuric acid,” I said.
This at last mollified her. She nodded and snapped her mouth shut with finality.
“Is there a food faeries can’t eat?” I asked, wondering why she’d pushed the issue.
“Yes?” Caraya looked confused, brow furrowed. “It is why we had to—”
“Adjourned,” the Gray Knight intoned, standing with alacrity.
The six others shoved their chairs back from the table in one motion, silent. She watched as they filed from the room. Sahir lingered by the saloon doors.
So much for two hours. I didn’t think it’d been two minutes.
The Gray Knight looked at me. “Next time, come prepared,” she said, and stalked out.
Two days later, fresh off a fire drill at work where I’d created a frankly spectacular, flawlessly researched, and completely errorless pitch deck in under thirty-six hours, Sahir reminded me that my next human class was in approximately one hour.
I was in a sour mood, because no one had told me that the pitch was for a potential client who’d never forgiven Jeff for hooking up with his daughter at a Christmas party two decades back.
Why the man had even agreed to the meeting, I couldn’t say.
But I felt sure that if I ever had to sit on another video call watching two adult men shout until spittle flew into their camera lenses, I would become fully insane.
The sentence “My daughter’s flower of youth was plucked in its prime by a man who only wanted to add it to his wilting bouquet” was uttered.
The sentence “I didn’t pluck anyone’s flower that night, you pompous shitbag” was also uttered.
When I figured out that they were arguing over the virtue of a married forty-five-year-old woman with three children, a dog, and a summer house in the Hamptons, I came off mute. “Hey,” I interrupted, so gently that neither of them stopped speaking.
“Hey,” I tried again, and they both quieted. “Do you want me to start the presentation?” I asked.
“Just a minute, Miri,” Jeff said, flapping a hand at the screen. “And you, Ronald, have no leg to stand on here!”
Berating the potential client was an interesting new sales strategy. It proved ineffective.
By the end of the hour-long call, in which my perfect pitch deck stayed on its perfect title page, I pitied the daughter more for her father than for her brief carnal entanglement with Jeff. And that was truly saying something.
So when Sahir reminded me about my next human class, I snapped at him.
“Just move it,” I said. “I don’t have any time.
” I was still sitting in my desk chair, which I’d turned to face him where he sat on my bed.
He had his hands on his knees, his posture as upright as ever.
Lene and Doctor Kitten, who’d napped through most of that meeting, lay on the bed behind him.
He only stared at me, soulful brown eyes wide and guileless. Like a cow’s, I thought uncharitably.
“Fine,” I muttered, well aware that Sahir couldn’t move my human class. “I don’t know what to talk about, but I’ll wing it.” I stood from my seat and snatched my hairbrush from my desk. Doctor Kitten stood up and padded over to Sahir. He butted his head against Sahir’s hand.
“What is ‘wing it’?” Sahir asked, looking intrigued, as I yanked snarls of brown hair through the bristles. Doctor Kitten butted his hand again. He still didn’t pet the cat. “You do not have wings.”