and silk, a fitting style for a woman of her height. She sailed into my living room all smiles and it didn’t take much for me to guess why she felt elated.
“Watch out, I think he bites,” I said, needing no further explanation.
“Nothing I can’t manage,” Lily said confidently.
I opened a delicious bottle of white Bordeaux I’d picked up at a wine store nearby and poured us each a glass, hoping to talk to Lily about something that had been on my mind.
“What is it?” she asked, noticing I’d grown quiet.
“We spend so much time talking about the Council and William, but we never really talk about you.”
“Me? You did ask about me the night I met Elsa,” she said.
“I didn’t really ask,” I said. “I made some flip remarks.”
Lily smiled. “Don’t be too hard on yourself. You were given quite a shock that night.”
“Yes,” I said, nodding in agreement. “At that moment, all I could think was that everything I thought I knew was false. That maybe you’d never been my friend, not in the way I’d imagined.”
“And now?”
“I guess I’m just curious about your life. Are you my age or older? Do you like being a fairy? Are you happy?”
Lily grabbed my hand and held it. “Things get confusing when you live in the world of Others,” she said. “Let me put your mind at ease.”
“No, don’t you see? That is what I want to do. I want to put your mind at ease. Let me make you happy. Let me do you a favor, or find you a book that you would like to read.”
Lily’s eyes grew wide. “Are you worried that I’m unhappy?”
“I’m worried I don’t really know anything about your feelings. I have been too preoccupied with my own saga to ask, and you never seem to offer up a single complaint or regret that would distract me from my own woes.”
“Fairies don’t complain,” she said. “We do not live our lives in a state of expectation. We don’t experience disappointment, at least not the way humans do. But since you asked, let me try to answer your questions.”
“I am aging at roughly the same pace as you,” she continued. “If I’m lucky, I will live to be about one hundred and fifty years old, which means I will start to show signs of aging a little later that most human females. In my heart, I feel like I am living the same life as you, that of a thirty-something woman. Fairies can have babies, just like humans. We carry them for about ten months, give or take.”
“As for happiness, that’s more difficult to answer. Fairies are born to a purpose: service to others. We don’t wonder what to do when we grow up. We don’t rebel against our parents and ask for a different occupation. It’s just not in our DNA. We were born to help move the world forward. Some fairies help the salmon move upstream, others remind bears when to hibernate. Others are police officers or librarians. We are a part of the fabric of nature, a critical piece of the framework of humanity.”
“Fairies remind bears to hibernate,” I repeated, inexplicably fixated on that detail.
“They are very absent-minded creatures,” she said.
“Are there fairies on the Council?” I asked.
“There might have been a few over the years, but it’s probably a rare occurrence. We help people regardless. Our work comes with no political purpose or ideology attached.”
“Is our friendship out of duty or …” I wanted to say love, but I was too nervous to give what I felt a name.
“Maybe it’s out of character for a fairy to be friends with a human, but what we have is real,” Lily said. “You’re not a project, you’re my friend. My best friend.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Feeling confident, I decided to broach my engagement.
“I’m hoping to leave for Paris in a few days,” I said casually. “My mother is having a show and invited me to come and visit. I’m bringing William to meet her.”
Lily smiled wistfully. “I would love to come to Paris in the winter; it’s so romantic,” she said. “Maybe I should take some vacation days and join you.”
“I wish you would,” I said. “It will make it easier for you to be my maid of honor at my wedding.”
“Oh, my,” Lily said. “Married. Olivia, that is a big commitment.”
It wasn’t the kind of ringing endorsement you normally get from your best friend hearing