“They’re being too generous,” Emmett says. “I came at first only because I was recently released from prison and looking for a place to get completely obliterated.”
“The kids started screaming the moment he walked in,” says Nan.
“I looked like a skeleton after all those months in prison.”
“No,” Fennick corrects him. “They’d just never seen a human before.”
“So he sits down at the bar”—Nan leans toward me—“and he orders pint after pint, and it was only after three that he answered any of my questions. I thought he was pulling my leg at first, but I’ve since learned that Emmett doesn’t like to lie.”
I turn toward him, curious. “That’s new.” The Emmett I knew was quite a proficient liar.
He looks toward the ground and shrugs. “Lying has never gotten me anywhere I wanted to be.”
“I asked him how he’d come to be in the Otherworld. I hadn’t seen a human since Queen Mor locked the door between our worlds and King Bram took over. I wasn’t prepared for a love story.”
“A love story?” I ask.
Nan captures my hand in hers. “He told us all about you.”
Emmett’s eyes catch mine. There’s that spark of fire in those hazel irises I’d been missing. “She’s being dramatic.”
Nan swats him. “I am not! The way he described you, oh, my dear girl, I wish you’d been there to hear it.”
“What was it?” Fennick taps the side of his face.“Much too brave and smart to also deserve a face that beautiful.”
If I didn’t know Emmett better, I’d think he might be blushing. “Well, you said he didn’t lie.” I smile but it feels out of place on my face.
My stomach lets out an embarrassing grumble. Faeries aren’t really ones for breakfast, but Nan jabs her husband. “What are we doing? Get the poor children some food!”
Fennick disappears through the swinging door to the kitchen and reappears with four steaming meat pies.
“No pastries today?” Emmett says.
Fennick drops the pie in front of him. “You’ll like this more.”
While we eat, I hear more of Nan and Fennick’s life and how Emmett came to be a part of their orbit. After long days of ruling Bram’s faerie court, Emmett began a habit of coming here to have a moment of peace.
“I realized they were different,” he explains. “That not all faeries in the Otherworld were like Bram’s courtiers.”
“He saved us from those very courtiers,” Fennick says gravely.
“Saved is too generous a term,” Emmett replies.
Nan pats his hand. “You’re always too modest. You absolutely saved us.”
“We’re a small family establishment. We want to be a place for the community to gather, but the nobles up in that castle had taken to coming here after their revels, so drunk they couldn’t see straight, and destroying the place. One night it got so bad, they lit the roof on fire, right above where Veda and Orin sleep,” Fennick says.
“And you know what Emmett did?” Nan asks. “He used his power as regent to declare any members of Bram’s court were no longer allowed to visit the village on revel nights, and then he climbed up on our roof and fixed the thatch himself.”
Fennick laughs. “We kept telling him we could just fix it with magic, but there he was, with his shirtsleeves rolled up, repairing it himself.”
“Magic isn’t always good at repairs like that,” Emmett replies in a low voice. “I didn’t want the straw to dissolve into mist during the next rainstorm and leave Veda and Orin all wet. It was easy enough to fix it myself.”
“It wasn’t easy at all! Nan exclaims. “He was up there all day, sweating buckets.”
“But the courtiers have stayed away, and we love Emmett like another son,” Fennick adds.
“Most of the faeries I’ve met here are like them,” Emmett says. “Not like Bram and the rest of them at the castle.”
