Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,100

to sniff my knees. I’d never felt less comfortable in my life than I did as a gang of pixies took a whiff of me. The pixies “oohed” again when the male pixie beat his chest, smiling proudly.

“I’m not sure why they’re sniffing us, though.” Nathan chuckled, looking remarkably chipper about this entire thing.

I smiled, my heart softening like a marshmallow. “They recognize our smell. They’re showing the others that they know us, and we’re not going to hurt them.” I pointed to his tweed jacket. “This is the jacket I wrapped her up in, back in your room, and I’m still wearing the clothes that the ‘poofing’ pixie met me in. That’s why they’re sniffing.”

The she-pixie muttered something and made a retching sound. Her wrangling colleague nodded and performed his Victoria impression again, before gesturing at us and shaking his head. The other nineteen pixies eyed us with new intrigue, chirruping excitedly amongst themselves. A few of the she-pixies batted their eyelashes at Nathan, pretending to smooth down imaginary lapels the way he’d just done.

“I think we just made some new friends,” Nathan whispered nervously.

I giggled, laughter bubbling up the back of my throat. “You’re right. I think we did.”

At the sound of my joy, the pixies burst into cackles, nudging each other and hopping gleefully from foot to foot. A few of them even scooped the strawberry goop off their faces and offered it to Nathan and me. After we politely declined, they gobbled it up themselves, clearly relieved we hadn’t accepted. But it felt like a good start to a good relationship.

Now that I had their attention, I stood a chance of getting their help. And that brought me one step closer to finding a way to rescue Genie and the other missing magicals. As terrible ideas went, this might’ve been my best one yet.

Twenty-Four

Persie

With the she-pixie and her male counterpart cracking the whip, I addressed the now-attentive creatures. “Do you know where the missing magicals have gone?”

Chattering whispers did the rounds, each pixie turning to the next, and the next, until they had formed some kind of collaborative answer for me. But the she-pixie seemed to have taken on the role of spokesperson. She stepped forward and cleared her throat, then began chirruping a mile a minute in high-pitched pixie-speak.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” I put up my palms to stop her. “I’m sure what you’re saying is super helpful, but I don’t understand. Can you make it… simpler?”

The she-pixie rolled her eyes and gave a sarcastic nod.

My heart leapt. “You know where they were taken?” I paused, realizing I might have jumped the gun. “Or are you saying you can make it simpler?”

She tilted her head from side to side, which muddied my understanding even more.

My temper flared, but I had to keep the wheels greased. “Let me ask in a different way. Do you know anything about the missing magicals? Or anything about a magic door?”

I struggled to suppress the snap in my tone. My friend was waiting for me out there, and I needed to get to her ASAP. I didn’t have time to decipher pixie hijinks, but I also couldn’t do this without them.

The pixie tapped a slim finger against her chin, then jabbed it in the air as if she’d had a lightbulb moment. She ran into open space and began what could only be described as a mind-boggling interpretive dance—definitely one for the contemporary crowd. Smoothing down her mossy mass of hair, she sauntered a few paces forward and then lifted her head in melodramatic awe. Her black eyes widened until they took up most of her small face, and then she dropped her jaw comedically and released an excited “aaaah.” She switched to a zombie shuffle, her arms trawling sluggishly through the air as if she were trying to catch something. Mimed to perfection, she opened up an imaginary door and stepped inside.

I might not have understood the rest, but I understood that.

“There is a magic door?” Nathan’s jaw dropped just as comically as the she-pixie’s had.

The pixie took a bow and drank in the rapturous applause of her fellows, clasping her hands together and shaking them from side to side. I added a few lackluster claps, so as not to seem rude. Useful though the charade had been, we really didn’t have time for more amateur dramatics.

“Can you take us to it?” I failed to disguise the pleading in my voice.

The she-pixie gestured around and shot me a look that