“Where am I?” I asked on a whisper.
“My pool.”
I shook my head. “But where?”
“The palace of the Spring Court?” He cocked his head at me, frowning. “Are you a spellworker? Did you manage to open a ring?”
I stared at him. Not even at his dick, which was right there practically at eye level, but at his pointed ears. He thought I could be magical. Zalman had said fairy ring.Fairieshad courts.
“I went through afairy ring?There’s no way!”
I pushed myself up and out of the pool, and he scrambled backward out of my way. He was so small I could’ve picked him up and swung him around like back when I was doing partner stunts as a cheerleader in college.
All of a sudden, he gave a squawk like a bird and spun around only to slip on the water I was making puddle all around us. I made to grab him, stop his fall, but his wings fluttered and kept him from hitting the ground. They also propelled him forward until his feet caught up, and then he was jogging over to a cluster of lounge chairs.
He was a real fairy!
“I’mso sorry,” he said as he snatched up a wad of blue and green cloth. “I swim in the nude because no one ever comes down here, so why not? You know? But I’m sorry I was in your face like that and— Oh, my gosh, how embarrassing…”
“I mean, it’s fine. Of all the things to freak out about at the moment, a little nakedness isn’t one of them.”
He barked a laugh like maybe he agreed with me as he held the cloth to his chest and swung two strips of it over his shoulders. Using his chin, he held the cloth up while he reached down to whip a longer part of the bottom half of the cloth around his waist. That part caught the strips, he did something to secure that long bit at his waist, and he’d basically made a dress that left his wings uncovered. And I’d thought watching Milo get into his kilt this morning had been a crazy amount of effort.
“Milo!” I hollered and looked around. But it was just me and the fairy. “Did someone else fall in earlier? He disappeared just before I stepped over the rocks. And Zalman? I swear he grabbed my arm.”
“No, no one else came through the ceiling.” He padded back to me. “Just you.”
I scrubbed the water from my hair and wiped down my face. “This is insane. Absolutely insane.”
“I don’t understand either, but I know some people we can talk to about it.” He gave me a patient little smile. “What’s your name?”
“Bridge Flint.”
“I’m Prince Hydris.”
“You’re a— Well, okay.” I gave him a bow. Sort of.
Hydris giggled. “Come on, Bridge. Let’s see what we can figure out.”
He started walking away, but I had to say something about the fact that I was soaked through to my underwear. “Uh, maybe I should dry off first.”
“Oh! Yes, of course.”
He held his hand out to me, and for a second I thought maybe I was supposed to go hold it, but then it felt like a vacuum was all around me. There was no noise, but a definite sucking sensation as the water on me just…got off me. It literally coalesced into a ball between us, getting bigger and bigger until I was actuallytotally dry from my hair to the toes of my hiking boots. He even managed to get the water from my underwear and socks.
“Holy shit.Yougrabbed me out of the water, didn’t you? You can manipulate water.”
Hydris gave the water ball a push and sent it splashing into the pool. He blushed and shrugged. “Yeah, I did. I’m sorry if I squeezed, though. I was startled and you were struggling so I wanted to be fast.”
“No, that was fine. You did great.” I touched a hand to my heart on top of my bone dry t-shirt. “Thank you. Really.”
His blush got brighter. “You’re welcome.”
I followed him up three stories on a wide yellow-stone staircase lit by brass lanterns placed just often enough to see where I was going. It felt like we were coming up out of a basement—a nice one that didn’t smell musty or anything, but it was still down deep and dimly lit. But then Hydris pushed open a wooden door and pale sunshine slanted in at us.
Stepping through the doorway, I realized it was a hidden passageway built into a massive painting that covered a whole wall. In the painting was the door we’d gone through.
“Well, that’s cool,” I said with a smile. But then I saw the hall. “Wow.”
