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CHAPTER TWO: IN SO MUCH TROUBLE
“Show me,” the boy urged, his entire body leaning forward with excitement.
“Show me the princess’s room first,” Pix insisted, temper making the dust that fell hot and black from her skin onto the floor leave scorch marks on the white marble.
The boy stepped back from the burning ash and narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Why?”
“Cause it’s a surprise,” Pix said, trying to tamp down her irritation. “Can’t give my gift if she’s not even there to receive it, can I?”
Fallon bit his lip and shifted his thin, reedy weight from foot to foot. Pix huffed, ready to turn him into a weed, when Fallon finally nodded his head. “Okay,” he whispered conspiratorially. “Follow me.”
Pix tried not to laugh as Fallon, playing soldier games, crouched down low behind a table full of food, shushing her as they passed a pair of twittering royals. Pix covered her mouth to muffle her mirth as a deadly serious look crossed the little princeling’s face as he looked first one way and then the other, scoping out the area, before waving her forward. Together they made a run for it, dashing through the ballroom and down a back corridor.
Once sheltered by the shadows, they both exploded into titillated giggles as they scurried through the servants’ halls, past busily shuffling servers with tall, brimming platters, up and up to the tallest tower in the castle.
They finally stopped, stooped over with heaving breaths, at a large, elaborately carved wooden door. Pix leaned back to take in the door that was more than three times as tall as her. She reached out a hand to touch the shined, almost glassy, amber-colored wood. She marveled at the entwining gold that curled in intricate knotted designs up the door, looking like gilded brambles protecting the precious bundle behind the door.
Pix’s eyes stung as the setting sun struck the gold, blinding her, as her gaze locked on the beautiful door. She could tell, just by looking at it, by feeling the heavy, sheltering weight of it, that the king and queen who commissioned that door cared for the princess.
It was well known that King Walter and his queen were practically barren and had waited long and prayed hard for this child. In fact, Pix knew that was what had sent the mob of townspeople to her mother’s door that fateful night. The good people of Morning Valley didn’t want the first noble daughter born in more than a generation to be the heiress to Shadow Peaks. They’d tried to eliminate the evil progeny by burning the castle but, for all the flames and smoke, they had killed the evil queen but left the child alive.
They would pay for that mistake. Pix would make sure of that.
“You can’t get in though,” the prince told her, touching the large, heavy lock holding the door safe and closed.
“You can’t maybe,” she told him smugly. “I can do whatever I want.”
Ignoring his disbelieving scoff, she retrieved her wand from her hair. She brought her hands up, biting her lip, and pointed her wand. She had to be quiet, she knew, since any loud noise would bring the guards she knew waited not far off.
Chanting softly, she flicked her wrist toward the door’s lock, trying to magic it open. But there were a lot of verses to remember in lock-picking spells. Most witches and wizards just stuck with conventional means of breaking and entering, deeming the supernatural methods clunky and complicated.
But her aunt, who never did anything the mortal way when she could use magic, didn’t know how to pick a lock by hand so there’d been no one else to teach Pix. No matter how much she wished there was.
* * *
After several red-faced, fruitless attempts, the fairy girl stomped her foot and stifled a screech at the still-locked door.
“Told you,” Fallon said cockily as he leaned against the door, staring at her smartly.
She turned and fried him with a searing glare, which probably should have been scary. Probably would have been, if she'd been a real fairy instead of a tiny, winged girl waving her her little wand wildly. She kept staring at him evilly. trying so hard to look intimidating, but the whole effort just made him snicker.
With anger and frustration making her cheeks burn hotly, she turned sharply toward the door. Jutting her jaw, she threw her hand out and thrust her wand at the solid steel lock. They both jumped as dark, sparkling ash shot out of the wand’s tip in a great swirling smog, streaming into and around the lock and melting it until it pooled liquid-hot on the floor. Spinning her wand high above her head, she spoke words Fallon didn't understand but surely sounded like she was summoning the wind to huff and puff the large door wide open. And, to his surprised, it did! Wind swept through the hallway and blew the door down, revealing the tall, stately crib the tiny princess had been laid to rest in.
“Told you,” she said a little breathlessly before stepping into the large chamber with a swish of her windswept hair.
Awed but trying not to show it, Fallon bent down and clucked his tongue. “You’re going to be in so much trouble,” he warned, crouching down to examine the steaming puddle of metal.
“You have no idea,” Pix murmured, her voice low with joyful menace.
Fallon looked up from the cooling metallic pool just in time to see a dark cloud shoot toward him, blinding him. He swung his arms, trying to clear the smoke, but there was too much of the thick, cloying stuff. It surrounded him, smothered him. Stinging his watering eyes, the smoke made them burn until he was forced to close them. He coughed violently as he choked on the torrent, feeling its sharp, prickly presence clog his throat and lungs. He could feel it gather like grains of sand on his skin, at first light enough to brush off. But as the black storm blew around him, Fallon felt himself be dragged down to the ground under its weight.
His last thought before the blackness brought him down was that the little pixie had tricked him. And, for that, the wily witch would pay.
I’ll make, he thought as he yawned, sure of it.
* * *
Pix watched the prince crumple to the floor before settling onto the floor with soft, snuffling snores. She sniffed in satisfaction before sticking her tongue out at the snoozing boy. Serves him right. Irritating royal.
Pix spelled the heavy door shut before making her way to the crib quickly. She had no time to waste.
She and her aunt had been preparing for this moment for months—since they’d first heard news that the queen was pregnant. They’d been scouring Shadow Peaks's libraries, holding counsel with its darkest denizens, and gathering all the necessary ingredients and incantations. For weeks, they’d been mixing potions and practicing spells. For days, they’d been running drills and simulations, timing everything down to the second, so the plan would come out right.
Of course, Aunt Mab was running late, but what else was new. According to the plan, they were both supposed to break into the princess’s room to steal three drops of blood from the baby brat. Now, in order to stay on schedule, Pix would have to rush the last ingredient to the great hall in time for her aunt’s theatrical interruption.
Stalking up to the crib, she raised herself up on her tiptoes, her fragile-looking wings fluttering fiercely to lift her weight a bit. Raising her chin, she looked over the edge at the insignificant, pink lump wrapped up tight in soft, cuddling covers. She sneered at the offensively sweet-smelling creature asleep in her bed.
Lifting her wand, Pix lengthened the tip to an impossibly sharp point.
Three drops of blood, that was all she needed.
Looking at the blanketed bundle, Pix wondered what to do. The fleshy thing in front of her looked yielding and weak, its tiny, bow-shaped lips pursed and puffing like a fish as it slept.
Pix paused, thinking of the squealing, squirming piglets her aunt had used to simulate the baby in all their practice runs. She thought of their huge, wiggling snouts and their kicking hooves. It hadn’t been hard to prick the pigs in the chest—no harder than butchering chops or roasts for dinner. She’d even felt an easy pride as the sharp point of her wand struck true through to the heart, drawing the necessary blood so quickly the pigs hardly felt the pain.
But still she could hear the echoes of their high-pitched fear in her ringing ears.
The prick wouldn’t kill the princess, not if Pix did it right. She knew this. She and her aunt didn’t want to kill the princess. Not really, anyway. That was never the point of the plot.
The princess’s death was simply the stick she and her aunt were going to dangle over the king, the queen, and all the people of Morning Valley for their actions against Pix’s mother. It was the noose that would hang heavy and chaffing around all their necks as they wondered when the rope would tighten and justice would be paid.
Pix didn’t want to kill the princess, didn’t want the weight of it to cling and drag on her. And she didn’t see her actions as doing so. No. She wasn’t the murderer. The people of Morning Valley were. They, when they’d stormed Pix’s home just as she’d drawn her first breath, had done this. They had called down Death that day, six full years before the pale baby cooing in front of Pix had even been brought into this world. Their actions had born a darkness, a pain and anger, inside of her that for six years had hungered and cried out for blood.
A life for a life.
It was only fair.
Pix knew this.
She had no reason to waver.
No need to falter.
But, as she stood with toes barely brushing the marble tile, her hand—that gripped the thin, magic stick at a vicious, plunging angle—shook and stayed tense in the air.
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