“It was the least I could do after forgetting your payment,” he says. “Amanda will arrive after her blood spa, by the way. Shouldn’t be long now.”
“Great. You know you still owe me money, right?”
“Ah,” says Dave, taking excessive interest in the carpet. Like so many things, I’ll have to let that rest for now. Returning the room’s attention to the matter at hand, I pull my computer from my duffel bag and set Mandy’s folder on the floor.
Painstakingly, I transfer information onto a stack of sticky notes. Over the course of fifteen minutes, during which Gustavo and Jurgis shower the room with tarot cards and prod Dave, I lay out the wedding schedule—and our plan.
“Gather, minions!” I point to six sticky notes at the top of the diagram, labeledVENDORS. “Here are our forces. Based off what I’veseen, all our vendors will arrive enchanted and lacking on the problem-solving front. Now, in addition to our vendors, we have a small army of overalls-clad fairy servants ready at our command.” I place another sticky note down. It readsMINIONS. “The castle’s minions are in charge of catering, serving whatever fairies drink for alcohol, handling the wedding cake and dessert table, and assisting in guest transportation.”
“I look forward to seeing who arrives in a zucchini,” Mandy says.
“If we run out of time and you miss it, I’m sorry. When all of this is over, I promise to introduce you to the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile.”
“Wow,” she says, confused but impressed.
“The minions and the vendors will be responsible for performing our sabotage,” I say. “I’m going to give them ruinous plans. Now, look here.” I gesture at the purple square at the heart of my floor diagram. It readsHANRY. “The rest of us—Dave, Bulan, Mandy, and I—are on groom-finding duty.”
I bring the group’s attention to a purple square labeledCROWS.
“If a crow gets your attention, follow them. Since some of you don’t have cell phones, they’ll be in charge of sharing information between us. Think of them as flying walkie-talkies.”
“Caw,” say the crows in either affirmation or mutiny. Hopefully not the latter.
“And lastly, glow sticks. Everyone will snap these onto their wrists in the morning. They’re visual reminders to stay on schedule. Each stick has a four-hour light-life. This way, we’ll know when it’s eight, noon, and four.”
“Aha. Because the wedding’s at four,” says Mandy.
“Exactly. Plus, if we need to enter the Royal Wing, they’ll be invaluable light sources… and if Mab and Tits try to trick us by playing games with time, they’ll help us keep our footing. Any more questions?” I rub my hands together. “No? Okay, on to the most important plan yet: our secret escape plan.”
The word “secret” results in a chorus of impressedoohs.
“Very good! Most murderers get caught because they fail to stick the landing,” says Bulan knowingly. He rolls across theHANRYstickynote and spends the next few minutes listening thoughtfully with the square attached to his forehead.
“What happens,” he asks when I’m done, “if all else fails and we can’t wrench Hanry away until the wedding itself?”
“We won’t let it come to that,” I say. “I trust you guys.”
Mandy raises the water pitcher high. “Hear, hear. To us, and to the worst wedding ever!”
We all cheer, “Hear, hear!” and pass the pitcher around like we’re preparing for some sort of baptism. As long as it’s a trial by water and not fire, that’s fine by me. I’d like for Hanry to make it out of this with as few burn scars as possible.
Mandy wakes me with a half-eaten piece of caramel sticking to the edge of her eager crescent smile. “The hairstylist and makeup artist are here!” she cries past her candy.
“For us?” I ask, hope swelling. Only then, reality breaks through, shattering my momentarily positive vibe. Here is the truth about my life: I’ve never had a hairstylist, ever. I am not in my Midtown apartment, or in Salem. Nope. I am in a fairy castle. And of all days and all mornings, it’s the morning of the no-longer-supersecret Rochester wedding.
The wedding where Hanry is getting married. To someone else. Against his will. Unless I save him.
Now that I’m awake, Mandy casts me aside like an empty bag of chips. She skips over the bed, crossing the room with more zip than you’d get on a pogo stick. The scent of high-end patchouli replaces the scent of burnt sugar.
I’m glad to see that she’s bounced back after being so beaten down last night. Between her Rochester-induced woes and my callous plans to bulldoze the wedding that was her pet project for a month, I actually expected a bit more rage.
It would be more than justified.
Maybe she’s just rechanneled it into hyperactivity. She opens the door to our room so emphatically, she bangs it against the hallway’s stony wall and only barely misses a trio of waiting figures.
“You have guests,” says our door-fairy, introducing two disheveled, vinyl-bag-laden humans.
“HELLO!” shouts Mandy. The people shuffle into the room and drop their bags conveniently atop our sticky-note diagram. The blond guy wears a crop-top tank, athletic shorts with thermal leggings, and ribbed crew socks. The woman is in pj’s. An intricate weave peeks from beneath a silk scarf. Unlike Gustavo and Jurgis, these two—Matthew and Shaki, respectively—are famous, in a not-dangerously-high-profile kind of way. Celebrity stylists and MUAs rarely get accosted in the street. But they’re obviously professionals: in spite of being enchanted and whisked here from the midst of their morning routines, they both seem to have dutifully grabbed their equipment while being fairynapped.
