Dy looked doubtful.“It’ll be daylight soon.”
“Go fast,” Cha advised.“Light up those leys, sorceress.”
“That’ll burn ambrosia,” Dy warned, “and remember that Betty is low.”
“I know a station right past the Moonstone border.We can make it.”She hoped.But, really, what other choice did they have?
Dy jerked her chin in a nod.“Let’s do it.”
They quickly booted the remaining putto workers from Big Betty, having to peel a couple off the crates they’d grabbed, while the stubby-winged imps glared at them balefully.Once done, Dy closed Betty’s gate and bumped fists with Cha.“We can do this.”
“You betcha we can, Goldilocks,” Cha replied, moving a broken crate from the path to the door leading outside, and trying not to inhale more dust than she had to.
“I’ll lead the way,” she said, hurrying around to the cab.“Try to keep up.”
“Cute,” Cha called after her.“Just get your adorable ass moving.”She hustled, moving crates and puttoes as Dy reversed Big Betty out of there.
A bit of movement caught her eye.One of the Sugarplums twitched, its colorless eyes tracking them, pointy muzzle moving in soundless shouting that would soon be real shouting.Cha hurried even more, saying nothing to Dy, lest her partner hesitate in her escape.They could still make it.Her still-sore shoulder twinged as she wrested the final crate at an awkward angle, but she got it cleared.
“Go go go!”she yelled to Dy, who goosed Big Betty, reversing out of the docking bay in a whoosh of Moonstone dust.
Once she confirmed they were clear, Cha dashed for Katu.At that moment—probably as Dy’s rapid departure attenuated the spell—the Sugarplums and puttoes all unfroze.
They all dashed straight for Cha.
She was still several lengths from Katu, with considerable obstacles in the way, but this wasn’t her first fae rodeo.Cha drew her sword and lashed the wand at the nearest onrushing Sugarplum.The pink sparks shot weakly, then sputtered out with a whine.Just fantastic.
“Once, twice, thr—” She broke off with a grunt as a putto body-slammed her groin at the perfect angle to be breathtakingly painful.Hopefully it wasn’t a pussy-sparkle-killing blow.That would just be the sour cherry on the shit sundae of her life.The thing sunk pointy teeth into her thigh, adding insult to the pussy injury as the bite didn’t hurt nearly as much.All qualms about murder lost to the moment, she stabbed it with the sword.The putto weighed no more than a marshmallow, so she used the sword like a slingshot to fling it into the face of the closest Sugarplum.
“Thrice, I banish thee!”She finished the invocation and whipped the wand around.That didn’t work at all.Not even a feeble squirt of pink glitter.Seriously worried her wand had gone impotent, she tried one more time from the beginning.“Once, twice—”
Her breath choked out as unnaturally strong, ivory arms encircled her from behind, pinning her arms to her sides and squeezing all the air from her lungs, cracking a few ribs in the process.The Sugarplum—possibly her personal Sugarplum—lifted her off her feet like she was a bit of thistledown.
“Fuck me,” Cha muttered, which didn’t work either, and passed out.
~33~
Fae Jail
Cha blearily swamup from dreams of trying to eat sugary marshmallows and choking on them instead, opening her eyes to what could only be a fae jail cell.She’d always kind of figured this day would come.In fact, at one point in her admittedly troubled adolescence, her mother had predicted this very thing.No one would be surprised to hear she’d come to this.The Bandit meeting her comeuppance at last.
Still, she’d expected to find herself pacing an Obsidian-black jail cell, not one that looked like the inside of an egg.With the curved walls descending evenly to a shallow bowl at the bottom, there would be zero despondent pacing.She wasn’t even sure she could lever herself up from being a puddle on the polished opalescent bowl of a floor.Also, it leeched some of the drama of her situation that the thing looked like it could be spun of sugar candy instead of bleak as dying coals.
Come to think of it, being despondent worked pretty well lying in a puddle, which seemed to be all her body wanted to do at the moment.Her ribs ached with a dull throb, regular acute stabs of agony grabbing every time she took a breath.The rest of her didn’t feel much better.Had the Sugarplums held a dance party on her unconscious body?Sure felt like it.
Nevertheless, she ignored the seductive lure of lying in a dramatically wilted heap of her own failure and pushed to a sitting position, then to her feet, allowing herself to groan and wheeze all she liked, just so long as she got the job done.Sure, she had to brace one hand on the curved wall to keep herself vaguely vertical, especially with the curved floor unbalancing her, but it was a start.
The cell looked little different from a standing position, basically a sphere of semi-translucent white with subtle rainbow shimmers.No windows or apparent door.The lack of facilities to relieve herself concerned her greatly.Possibly the fae didn’t realize that human bodies had those needs.
Or they planned to just let her die in here.Cheerful thought.
What had they done with Katu?In general the fae valued the carriage beasts, so hopefully the Moonstone monsters would care for him.He’d be missing her, though, and wondering why she’d abandoned him.The thought made her want to weep and she wasn’t the weeping kind.
More optimistically, she hoped Dy had gotten away clean.Maybe she and Phin were even now fencing the stolen cargo of Obsidian black dust, along with whatever valuable object Otto had been sending to Moonstone, and planning their retirement.The thought made her happy enough to momentarily forget how much her current situation sucked.If she had to sacrifice herself to a lonely death in a fae jail, then that was the best possible reason to do it.
The glow didn’t last long, and neither did her stamina.Besides, with pacing impossible and standing downright painful, the questionable virtue of being upright quickly faded.At least the curved wall allowed her to slide down in a glide that was, if not gentle, at least slightly less excruciating than a full drop.Experimenting, she found the ideal position, an angle that accommodated her long legs while not compressing her aching ribs too much.
Despite her bone-deep exhaustion, she couldn’t sleep.She was in too much pain and had too much anxiety about her situation.But there was also nothing to do but think and worry.All of her bad choices and multitudes of regrets paraded through her mind, jeering at her, taunting her former and now shattered bravado.
