The two—henchwomen? Sidekicks?—ran, but I couldn’t have described exactly where they went. The woman smiled as if pleased. I hesitated to ask any other questions.
“Shall we look at the stars?” She settled onto the grass, lying prone, looking up. The sky had darkened to a royal blue, but I couldn’t see any stars past the glow of the surrounding city.
We hesitated, but she pointed to the ground insistently, and how could we refuse?
We must have looked ridiculous, the three of us looking on, awkward and uncertain, with this odd woman lying in the grass, her clothing splayed around her.
“Is this really going to work?” Ben leaned toward me to whisper.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Cormac?”
“Hard to say. Anything can happen.”
I took out my phone; still no calls. I had to resist calling Nick and Caleb yet again; it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes since the last time I called. They wouldn’t have found anything new.
“Look, there! The evening star!” The fairy queen pointed off at a forty-five-degree angle.
I wouldn’t have thought any stars would be visible in the middle of the city, but she’d found one, a single point of light, twinkling. Like a comforting hand on my shoulder.
“Actually, I think it’s an airplane,” Ben whispered.
“Oh, fie.” She pouted.
I lasted about five seconds before I started tapping my feet. I cleared my throat a little. “Do you have any idea how long—”
“Everyone’s looking,” she said. “It’s hard in the city, with all its iron. We cope—it’s better than the alternative, after all. But these things take time. You know, it isn’t that we’re particularly good at granting wishes, or finding things or, well, anything. Playing tricks, maybe. But we pay attention. We find the loose thread that everyone else misses and tug. It makes us look so very clever.”
We three humans clumped together and waited.
“Amelia’s loving this,” Cormac said.
“At least someone is,” I muttered.
The sound of laughter filtered from … somewhere … and the two giggling women tumbled onto the grass next to their mistress. Again, I couldn’t have said where they came from, just that they arrived.
The queen sat up and put her hands on her hips. “Well? Where is he?”
One of them scrunched up her face, almost tearful. “It’s full of iron, we can’t get any closer!”
“Fie,” the queen said. “But you found him? Show me where,” the queen said. The three of them huddled together, faces bent. I couldn’t hear a thing. When she looked up again, she seemed determined. The two junior fairies beamed with pride.
“You couldn’t get him,” I said.
She held her chin, eyes crinkled with thought. “There has to be a way, I can’t just leave a wish hanging like this.”
“Um … can you tell me where they found him?” I said. “That’ll be good enough.”
Someone jogged on the path, and I froze, wondering how I was going to explain all this, but he never turned his head.
“You’re saying I just have to tell you where he is, not fetch him.”
“That’s right.” Hurry, hurry …
She said, “It’s down the river at least five hops, then you have to wiggle up a bit, to one of the places where there isn’t a single tree left—”
Cormac pulled a map from his jacket pocket, unfolding as he went. “You think you could point to it?”
Her gaze darted over it and she pursed her lips. “Hmm. How novel.” After a moment, she pointed. “There.”