“Would that be the child’s parents?”
“Yes!”
She folded her arms and grinned. “Good for them.”
He whipped around and stared at her. “What did you say?”
“Good. For. Them.” Then she looked out, watching the creatures dash around. The fairies seemed to be throwing fireworks everywhere, which exploded in colorful displays. And the others…. Well, they were forming a huge slingshot and were about to shoot something that looked like hard balls of cheese at the topmost spire on Bitterroot’s castle. “Oh my,” she breathed. “They’re going to take down your castle.”
“Not just my castle!” he exclaimed. “I need a human baby!”
“Well, what you got was….” She blinked. “What are they again?”
“Sprites!” he bellowed. “Pixies, imps! You have dozens of names for them.” He rounded on her. “And they belong on Earth, not in Fairyland.”
“Huh,” she said as she leaned back against Beau’s cage, laughter in her tone. “Well, I guess that sucks for you.”
She ought to take this more seriously, because each pixie was now the size of a bus and was happily destroying everything in sight. The fireworks were getting larger by the second, and every boom shook the foundations.
“Are we safe in here?” she asked.
Bitterroot nodded, his expression grim. “I told you before that I reinforced the nursery. The entire realm can fall to ashes and we would still be safe in here.”
Well, that was reassuring. “And the others in your realm?”
“The minions will dissolve and reform, as will everything else.”
That was true. She had seen it happen more than once. He snapped his fingers and everything disintegrated in a fall of sparkly lights, only to reform as something else. Don’t like the castle? How about a high-rise tower? Not into penthouse living? How about a beach house complete with an ocean and dolphins? Everything was constructed from Bitterroot’s will.
Everything but her and—apparently—the pixies. And that made her happy enough to grin.
“Guess we’re stuck in here for a while,” she quipped as she pulled out a chair and sat down to watch the show. The cheese-like pixies released the slingshot and… wham! Dead shot right at the nearest spire. The tower crumpled to the ground as if it had been hit by a boulder.
She chuckled. “Are you going to remake it for them?”
“Why? They will just destroy it again.”
That was likely. Especially since they were now aiming at the next tower, this one a little farther away.
“Hangnails and hobgoblins!” he suddenly spat.
“What?”
“I cannot take revenge on them.” Then he closed his eyes in the first show of weakness from him she’d ever seen. “And I cannot bargain for another child.”
“Good. You shouldn’t be trading for babies like they’re cans of beans.”
He opened his eyes and stared at her. “You do not understand. Ineeda human child. It is the only way to save this place. To save all of it.” His wave included everything.
She didn’t care so much about the castle or its rapidly falling spires. But she did care about the nursery and the dragons. And, of course, herself.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Of course you don’t. You have not tried to learn about me or the problems I face while you play with my pets.”
“That’s not true!” she said. But it was true. She’d come here so angry with him for forcing her into this situation that she’d turned her back on him the second she’d arrived. She’d focused on learning her job—how to take care of the baby dragons—and had steadfastly refused his invitations to dinner, for walks, for anything except what was absolutely required of her as a mother of dragons.
Except now she wondered just how much she had missed. What didn’t she understand?
