poor guy was still slurring.
“Yesterday was your birthday.” I managed to wrestle the wings off him without popping the straps. “When you wake up, go help yourself to my medicine cabinet.”
He muttered something indecipherable, his eyes already closing again.
I pulled a blanket over him. “Sleep tight, Cinnamon.”
No response. He was truly conked out.
I looped the pixie wings around my shoulders, picked up their sealskins and hung them up neatly so they wouldn’t complain about wrinkles later, and locked the door behind me on the way out.
The sky over Avilion was flat and pearly gray. Genuine pixies darted back and forth over the buildings in Mothwing Falls, already delivering early-morning messages.
I stopped at the bottom of the stairs to scratch behind the pointed ears of Carabosse’s friendly little cat sìth.
There was something about today that made me feel… wary. Like the universe had an unpleasant surprise in store and all my mental hackles were up.
The fairy-cat purred and twined around my legs, following me to the back of the little whitewashed building where my Fairy Ferry bike was locked up. It was my own bike, but my boss Numa had required me to have it repainted in glittery pink to match my wings and shirt.
Carabosse was already outside, taking out a bag of trash.
Being human, her face was lined with wrinkles, and her long, steel-gray hair was always tied back in a braid. She liked to wear dresses with lots of glittering patchwork and fringe.
“Rain today,” she announced. That was Carabosse’s typical greeting: an assessment of the weather instead of a hello.
“Good morning!” I unchained my bike and wheeled it around. “Hopefully it holds off.”
She picked up her cat sìth and gave the sky a dirty glare. “Don’t count on it.”
I shrugged. “Optimism over realism?”
Carabosse leveled that glare on me.
I jumped on my bike and waved, speeding away into the street.
Twenty seconds later, the sky opened up and a torrent of rain poured over me.
Just a perfect day. A hangover, a cracked phone, and now a spring downpour.
The lights of Web and Peaseblossom Bakery were already lit in the distance. I wiped the rain out of my eyes, and pedaled forward, rolling the bike onto the sidewalk.
Then I caught sight of a familiar figure through the rain and raised my hand to wave. Ioin’s bright green coat was like a beacon. He was waiting outside by a low stone wall.
Maybe he’d broken his phone, too.
A pretty sylph floated out of the bakery, clutching a white paper bag.
He turned to the side, his lips quirked in a little half-smile as he spoke. His arms reached out and wrapped around the sylph. Her gold hair floated around her head like a cloud despite the rain, reaching out to caress Ioin’s cheek.
My bike slowed to a halt as my heart dropped somewhere near my stomach.
Ioin leaned down and kissed the sylph. No, not just kissing. He was trying to plunder her esophagus with his tongue like a pirate raider.
I took a deep breath, then another, my stomach churning.
That was definitely Ioin. My boyfriend.
Who’d been kissing me the night before.
Who hadn’t texted me good night or good morning.
I felt like I was made of stone, watching everything like I was outside my own body.
The sylph floated into the air, giggling, and dragged him away by the hand. Ioin followed without a fight, tugging at the short hem of her dress.
Without thinking, I got off my bike and let it drop against the stone wall. Ioin was slowly obscured by the rain, then he rounded a corner.
Walking out of my life without so much as a goodbye. Had he purposely met the sylph here so I’d see them?
I walked into Web and Peaseblossom mechanically, mentally replaying the image of Ioin shoving his tongue in the sylph’s mouth over and over again. Even when I accidentally bumped into the guy in front of me, a tall Gentry Fae with a long caramel ponytail, I mouthed, “Sorry,” without really hearing it.
Had I been that terrible a girlfriend?
Ioin and I had both known it wasn’t very serious. Fae-human relationships rarely worked out permanently, and I only had six months left to decide if I wanted permanent residency in Avilion, or if I was returning to my home isle, Emain Ablach, where humans were entirely unwelcome.
He knew I wasn’t keen on going home. That maybe our relationship had a chance to become more than just a summer fling.
But… he could’ve said something. Not met another nymph at our morning meeting