Wolves at the Door - Lidiya Foxglove Page 0,73

I worked hard on it. We both did.”

“Well, I want to see what they think of my cottage and my kitchen,” Billie said, jumping up.

I started to feel a little better as the faeries admired the front rooms of the house. They liked the colors of the walls, the fireplaces, the solid wood furniture, old handworked lacy things and flower arrangements Billie used to furnish the house with a simple, old world charm. They even liked the naked lady stair ornament, giving it approving nods.

But then we came to the yellow kitchen. It was a pretty, sunshine-y room, but Billie had been unable to resist throwing the country touches around, the chicken plates, ruffled lace curtains, and some Depression-era storage containers and spice jars. I didn’t think it meshed well, but I let her do it. She’d already been through a lot.

For once, I was unhappy to be right.

“Oh, dear gods, this is the kitchen?” the faery woman said. “It’s very bright. I don’t like these curtains at all. And this is a human oven?”

“Although bright, I think it must be cold in winter without a fireplace or bread oven,” said the fairy man whose hair was almost a bluish-gray color.

“It’s really pretty warm here all year,” I said.

“Isn’t it nice to have a brightly colored kitchen?” Billie said, tugging on her hair nervously. “I’d probably eat my breakfast right here at this island.”

“Eat breakfast here with the servants and the kitchen odors?” said Silver Staff.

“You won’t need servants,” Jake said. “How much time does it take just to maintain an old stove? Here, you can just do this.” He turned on a burner.

“Our human wife will do this, I suppose,” said Blue-Gray.

“Harris…jeez, I think this would be going a lot better if we didn’t have the most Fancypants faeries,” I whispered as Jake and Jasper started taking them upstairs. “I know there are basic faeries who would love living here.”

“There isn’t that much I can do about it!” Harris said. “You know how these things are! Queen Morgana probably has reasons to reward this crew with the guardianship of a parallel.”

“Then why are they acting like they don’t want to live here?”

He paused. “Well, maybe she’s actually punishing some people she doesn’t want in court by giving them the guardianship of a parallel…I mean, that’s definitely what I would do. They can’t say no to the ‘honor’ but she never has to hang out with them ever again.”

“Ohhh.” I nodded. That made a lot of sense. “Great…”

“There are surely some low fey who would love to live here,” Harris added. “But they won’t have the gold to buy it. But you just want the money, right?”

“I guess.” I sighed. “It’s all about the money. I know.”

“I’m sure one of them will want it just to be the guardian of a parallel,” he said.

Well, he was wrong. The faeries would have liked the house better if we never touched it, I think. The more we had changed a room, the less they liked it. That bedroom I stripped of all the gaudy fabric wallpaper and bed coverings? The lady faery immediately declared that room “too plain” but said she could just put up painted paneling or tapestries and bring in her bed with the ostrich feathers.

But they hated that bathroom especially. So dark! So plain! “So…utilitarian,” sniffed Red Hair.

When they walked the grounds, they spotted the original toilet now being used as a planter and went nuts when they learned that we had taken it from the bathroom.

Fuck me.

They actually liked the artist’s cottage, though. Oh, of course.

“Well, that was shit,” Graham said, as soon as Harris left with them all, grimacing at me as he told me he’d call me back with an update.

“Yeah…”

“I can’t believe they just complained about all this hard work.”

“It’s actually pretty typical,” Jasper said. “Potential buyers always complain. It’s when you get one with a glow in their eyes that you know you’ve found the right owner.”

“It’s true,” I said. “Even the guy who bought the last house had that glow in his eyes, even if his wife didn’t.”

“They might buy it anyway, but they won’t be happy here,” Jake said. “I hate to say it, but I think you should get a Realtor on it.”

“Nooo!” Billie and I both slumped across the table at once. “That will take more time,” I said.

“And we won’t get as good of a price!” Billie said.

“How can we buy the next house if we can’t get gold