Chapter 31 Deception of the Sugarplum Fairy
Deception of the Sugarplum Fairy
Ahead of her, Big Betty slowed to a halt, though the blizzard of prismatic white dust didn’t abate in the least. It swirled and eddied like real snow falling from the sky would, and Cha experienced a jolt of dislocation, for a moment unsure of where she was.
“Get a grip,” she instructed herself. No wonder all the tales of humans visiting the fae realms carried a common thread of people becoming confused to the point of forgetting themselves entirely.
Because she’d never had (much) of a problem in Obsidian—except for that time she drank too much black stout in that little tavern and ended up dancing the soles off her boots—she’d underestimated the impact of Moonstone. Just as Azul had cautioned, the jerk.
She waited for Dy to exit Big Betty, knowing the sorceress would know where to step.
Dy held the door for Warg to lumber out, holding her free hand high in a thumbs up.
Well then. Cha climbed out, too, eyeing the shrouded footing uneasily.
But it felt solid enough. And the soles of her boots hadn’t fried into pixie dust oblivion, so things were looking reasonably optimistic.
Just to be sure, though, she holstered the magic wand along with her sword, one on each hip.
If Dy was bringing Warg, then the sorceress anticipated she might need magic.
Tucking her thumbs loosely in her belt loops, ready for a quick draw of either weapon, Cha swaggered up to stand beside Dy.
Warg gave her a happy howl and a slobbering kiss on her hand, oblivious to her disgusted glare.
“This is the Ice Lily Garden?” Cha demanded of no one in particular, gazing around at the somewhat industrial-looking flat area—as industrial-looking as the fae got, anyway—and seeing nothing resembling lilies or gardens, though she supposed the pervasive and scintillating white dust handled the “ice” part.
“According to my notes, yes,” Dy answered tersely.
“Now what?” Cha asked, staring into the swirling white as if she saw anything but that.
“Shh,” Dy answered very quietly. “Sugarplum is coming.”
Cha strained her eyes, still seeing nothing. Dy was tense, her golden hair curling tightly as if in a mist, though the air felt quite dry.
A silhouette formed in the foggy swirl, a darker shape of white on white, impossibly tall, at least twice Cha’s height.
Multiple alabaster white antlers forking in an impressive array of lethally sharp tines, glistening like diamonds, added to the impression of looming height.
A long, delicate muzzle dipped toward them, making a triangle topped by doe-like, liquid brown eyes, fringed with heavy lashes.
The rest of the Moonstone fae was draped in a voluminous robe of dappled ivory, blending into the background pixie dust. It occurred to Cha that this was its version of wearing a dark cloak in the shadows of a back alley for this clandestine transfer. She choked back an irreverent snicker.
“Have you lost your way, humans?” the Moonstone fae inquired in a fluting voice, so lovely Cha wanted to curl up at the creature’s feet and purr.
Another manifestation of the enchantment lure, like sirens in the ocean or a grass-gnome waggling a pretty bell.
The Departments of Fae Studies at the various academies theorized that fae and humans had actually co-evolved, with the fae races developing niche predatory skills entirely to prey on humans.
Otherwise these entrance-you-into-stupidity abilities wouldn’t work only on humans.
Cha didn’t quite get why—Dy was the brainy one—but she could see the point.
“We’re looking for the sugarplum factory,” Dy answered, giving the code phrase Otto had provided.
The creature didn’t exactly smile—its pointed face didn’t seem to be constructed for that—but it dipped its statuesque head in the facsimile of a nod. “You are very nearly late,” it said.
Its voice no longer held that musical note that fogged Cha’s brain and she scowled at the creature.
Not very polite to poke them with a metaphorical sword first before verifying their identity.
“Very nearly late isn’t ‘are late,’” Cha pointed out caustically.
The Moonstone fae didn’t acknowledge her with even so much as a flicker of one of the pointed ears crowning its triangular head.
“Bring the transport inside,” it told Dy. Lifting one, scarily long limb, it gestured with a multiply cloven hoof-hand—enough segments to seem vaguely like fingers and disturbingly unlike them—that looked like it was made of pearl.
Cha had an increasingly bad feeling about this. “Inside where?” she demanded.
Dy cast her a cautionary glance. “I can see where.”
“You can?” Sometimes Cha really hated having just enough magic to get herself into trouble and not enough to get herself out again. “I’ll follow you then.”
The Moonstone fae finally deigned to acknowledge her existence. “You will remain here, human. Or leave. We do not care, but you shall not enter.”
Oh, so Cha was “human,” but Dy got the princess treatment? Nope. “Where she goes, I go.”
“Incorrect. You will remain here, human. Or leave. We do not care, but you shall not enter.”
“Practiced those instructions, did you?” Cha muttered, and Dy frowned.
“It’s fine, Bandit,” she said. “They want us to get this cargo back as much as we do. There’s no purpose in getting me inside for any other reason.”
“Unless it’s to fatten you up and roast you in the oven,” Cha pointed out, glaring at the Moonstone fae, more than tempted to pull her sword. Or the magic wand. Bet a little Ruby infusion could fry your ice lily white ass.
Dy raised a golden brow at her, moonstone pixie dust sparkling in her curls, making her look more angelic than ever. “Now you are the one balking?” she hissed. “We made it all the way here, with you haranguing me the whole trip, and now you have cold feet?”
“It’s all this snow,” Cha retorted. She was shivering, though it wasn’t actually chilly.
“It’s pixie dust.”
“I know that.” It had been a stupid argument, start to finish. “Go on then. But keep your antennae uncurled. I’ll be waiting right here,” she declared in a louder voice, glaring at Sugarplum.
“I would never think otherwise,” Dy told her with a smile that said everything.
Yeah, despite the rough waters under the bridge, they’d never failed to have each other’s backs.
Like someone trying to shove a large water balloon through a narrow window, Dy wrestled a squirming Warg—trying to lick the pixie dust from her face—into the cab of Big Betty.
Sugarplum disappeared into the sparkling mist and Big Betty sailed forward with silent grace, gradually fading away like a schooner in a fairytale being enveloped by a mystical fog.
Cha shivered harder at the image, hoping this foreboding wasn’t a real omen, as she emphatically didn’t believe in such things. “You’ve just inhaled too much pixie dust,” she told herself. “Getting all paranoid and dreaming up crazy scenarios.”
To make herself feel better, she drew her sword, the hilt comfortingly solid in her hand. She’d like to pace off the nervous energy, but without really knowing where she was stepping, that wasn’t a great idea. She could stay where she was or sit in Katu, neither choice great for her nerves.
She also minded the clock, having nothing else to do.
The time ticking by did nothing to make her feel any better about the situation.
Getting the clandestine shipment from Sugarplum only marked the halfway point.
They still had to get the stuff back to Otto by the deadline or they’d be out the final payment.
The deposit would go a long way, but nothing like the payday they’d planned for.
Once again she kicked herself for forgetting to get that platinum coin from Azul.
Wherever he was, she hoped he had made it all right.
Unlikely the imps had gotten to him, but he’d seemed like he had some distance to travel and then there was that oddness with his people not showing up for him.
Knowing what little she did—that his family had pressured him into the marriage with Lenorae and that there’d been some hidden component, something so terrible that he’d run rather than deal with it—it was entirely possible that his family had prevented his staff, or whatever, from coming to his aid.
Which meant he was on his own out there. Not her problem, but she still worried about him.
And she worried about Dy and Big Betty, carried off by Sugarplum.
What if this whole escapade was some elaborate scheme?
There’d been something off from the beginning, with attention from places that shouldn’t have noticed them.
And Monat getting caught in the first place…
Was this how it had happened? Maybe the Moonstone fae were collecting human sorceresses for some nefarious purpose.
Something even worse than a fae barbeque party or whatever they did for fun.
Nearly half an hour had elapsed. If Dy didn’t reemerge, what then?
Staring at the opaque, swirling mist until her eyes prickled from the strain and her stomach lurched from the dizzying prismatic effect of the sparkling white dust that her brain continued to insist was snow, Cha considered her options.
Which were basically no options, but it sounded better in her head than being utterly fucked, and not in a good way.
1. Turn around and go home. (Not really an option, but listed first so she could cross it off.)
2. Keep waiting. (This was the default option, but not one that could last forever.)
3. Go do something else entirely. (Also not really an option, but included for thoroughness.)
4. Charge straight forward, heedless of the consequences.
Who was she kidding? The choice was obvious.
At twenty-seven minutes since Big Betty had vanished into the malicious Moonstone mist of doom, and a lifetime of imagining the worst, Cha had settled on the only option she could live with and still be herself.
Sliding into the driver’s seat of the idling Katu, she brandished both sword and magic wand, then signaled the jag to zoom straight into the mist after Dy.
Into what, who knew, but she imagined a fae version of a loading dock, perhaps with a shimmering Moonstone door lowered and barred against entry.
She’d never deliberately crashed Katu before, and wild doubt suddenly stabbed through her.
Was she crazy? Maybe this was how the fae eliminated humans with the idiotic bravery—or desperation—to invade their realms. The fae simply messed with the humans’ heads until they put themselves out of their own misery.
The poor sods staggering back into the human realms with mutations, additions, deletions, or simply not who they’d been when they went in, were the lucky ones.
All of this flashed through her mind in the time it took Katu to leap into the mist on slow white that was still faster than most fast blacks. Snowblind, and feeling more than a little crazed, Cha gave herself up to fate.
And braced for impact.