Persie Merlin and the Door to Nowhere by Bella Forrest Page 0,98

remember the song that I’d sung by the dumpsters, but the words wouldn’t come to me. It stayed stubbornly on the tip of my tongue, just out of reach.

Nathan sighed. “I don’t think they want to listen, and who could blame them?”

The only one who didn’t seem to be having a whale of a time was the she-pixie I’d first caught. She sat at the bottom of her orb with her back to the glass, her little shoulders hunched. Her wings lay drooped against her, her body language so sad I wanted to free her right then and there and beg forgiveness.

Then, I had a eureka moment. “What if we were to free them, and earn their trust that way?”

Nathan looked at me as if I’d lost my marbles. “Free them? What if they escape? I just watched one puff back into existence, which means they might try puffing off, if you get what I’m trying to say?”

“But ‘puffing off’ doesn’t mean much. It just turns them invisible, so they can try and make an escape on the sly. It doesn’t mean they can pass through walls.” My sixth monster sense seemed to be tingling again, giving me an idea of what they could and couldn’t do. “If we close the doors and get prepared with puzzle boxes, they can puff as much as they like—they won’t be able to get out. And if we want them to talk, we can’t keep them cooped up like this. They’ve made that blatantly obvious.”

I watched a duo of male pixies in the middle of a brawl, slapping and biting the heck out of each other. They broke apart a few seconds later, putting their arms around each other and laughing as though nothing had happened.

Nathan went quiet for a while. “Okay… let’s do it.”

“Really?”

“It’s the best idea we’ve got, even if it might get me fired.”

Straightening up, he ran to the far side of the Repository and closed the doors. On his way back, he grabbed an armload of puzzle boxes and dumped them on the ground in front of me before zipping off to his study. I had no idea what he needed from there, but all became clear when he ran back, beaming from ear to ear, with a cup, a carton of milk, and a basket of strawberries in his hands.

I laughed, despite my growing anxiety. “You remembered.”

“Milk and sweet fruit. If anything’s going to grab their attention, it’s this.” He set to work, pouring a cupful of milk and putting out the strawberries. I glanced from him to the pixies and back again, wondering if this was the worst plan I’d ever hatched. So much could go wrong. Then again, I didn’t like the sight of the pixies in those glass orbs. I knew it was Institute protocol, and Victoria would flip her lid if she found out they’d all escaped, but if the pixies listened… if they could just give us an indication of where the missing magicals might be, then it would be worth the head huntswoman’s rage. And if the pixies could exonerate themselves in her eyes while they were at it, even better.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Nathan approached the first orb full of pixies.

I shook my head. “No, but I still think it’s our best shot.”

“Okay, then, brace yourself.” He opened the puzzle box with the pixie inside first, then lifted the lid on the first orb, then the second, then the third, then the fourth. And, finally, the opened the last one, with the solitary she-pixie inside.

In a collective flurry, the pixies erupted from their prisons. They flew up and up with their gossamer wings until I worried they might disappear through the roof, only to hurtle back down the millisecond they spotted the cup of milk. A cascade of brightly colored monsters made an aerial assault on the dairy goodness, one of them diving right into the cup and splashing around in the milk. Four others spied the carton that Nathan had put down and snatched it for themselves. Cheering and chanting, they hauled the milk carton away and went to town, scooping up handfuls and guzzling down every drop.

The strawberry situation quickly turned into a bloodbath. Well, it looked like a bloodbath. Smushed fruit everywhere, smeared on their hungry little faces and all over their tiny frames. Two she-pixies ripped off the green tops and plopped them on their heads, using them as fetching hats. A moment