“Um, no. Not gonna happen. You crazy bunch of Shamalotians have fooled me once. That won’t happen again. I nearly ended up flatter than a pancake the last time I gave in to temptation. I’ll just wait right here, thanks.”
The fairy looked confused, her ethereal face strained. “But your friends are waiting. They’re just over there. See?” She looked over her shoulder and pointed with a sweet smile.
Yep. They sure were. With an exception: This particular manifestation of Nina lacked one thing—the bluebirds who’d been her constant companions since they’d started. They weren’t on Carl’s back either.
Toni sauntered close to the fairy and snatched her up by her wings, holding her with thumb and forefinger. “Liar. If you guys are going to conjure up hallucinations, at least pay attention to the details and get it right. So, who are you and what does your boss want from me?” Toni demanded, giving the fairy a light shake.
The fairy pouted up at her, her wee features distorting. “I’m just trying to help you, Toni,” she said as though she were hurt, her voice rising.
Toni made a face at the fairy. “Enough with the bullshit stories? Who are you and what do you want?”
Just as she asked the question, her fingers exploded apart, the fairy escaping her grasp and flitting off to the distance, where she morphed, shedding her small body in favor of a much larger mirror image, growing, rippling back and forth in the wind that had now turned bitterly cold.
With the swift prowess of a ninja, the fairy made a fist, creating a ball of fire she made dance in her palm. Then she lobbed it forward, the screaming orange-and-blue flame coming straight for Toni.
In that moment, Toni’s body responded in much the way it had when the dragon had appeared. Her feet began to tingle, growing warmer by the second, and her hands arced upward, effectively catching the flame and hurling it back at the fairy with a harsh grunt.
And again, for the briefest moment, her mind said, shut the front door! You just caught a fireball, dude.
But her body wasn’t satisfied with just catching the fireball, her body wanted to catch this menace and make her talk—make her admit she’d been sent by this effed-up queen.
And then she remembered something. Something important.
She could breathe fire.
Hah!
Closing her eyes, Toni inhaled deeply, summoning up the visual of the night before when she’d started the campfire, and then she recalled Nina’s words—just breathe.
That familiar acrid taste in her throat returned, rising up in a wave of bile just before she blew a hot stream of fire in the direction of the fairy, swishing her head left to right to spray her foe.
The fairy screeched her outrage, rising high in the air like an enormous half human, half butterfly, her wings pounding out a throbbing beat. Pushing her legs together, she made an arrow of her body and shot forward at Toni, the wind whistling like a missile launching as she raced forward.
Toni! She’s headed right for your damn head. Duck, you idiot!
But her body was all like, Fuck that. Why not just jump up and catch a bitch midair like you’ve suddenly been drafted in the NBA?
Her legs didn’t falter; her feet no longer ached with that dull throb. Instead, they felt as if someone had injected them with adrenaline as she fell to her haunches and pushed off, leaping upward and looping her arm around the torpedoing fairy’s neck.
“Gotcha!” she roared, launching her to the ground, throwing her with such strength, the fairy’s body left an imprint on the meadow’s floor.
Landing solidly on her feet, Toni wasted no time in jumping on top of her and pinning her to the cold earth, straddling her hips.
Victorious, she grabbed hold of the fairy’s feathery bodice and yanked her upward. “Who the fuck are you and what do you want?” she roared in her perfectly proportioned face.
“Toni!” A voice from far, far away, laced in frantic tones, yelled, “Let go of her, for shit’s sake!”
Nina? What was Nina doing in the meadow? No. It was another trick. It wasn’t really Nina.
Hands slipped under her armpits and began dragging her from the fairy, but Toni fought the notion she might not get the answers she needed. So she struggled, but the arms were stronger, pulling her, tugging her, and all the while yelling, “Toni! Wake up!”
“Milady! Come back!” Jon bellowed, his strong hand cupping her cheek.
Come back? From?
Cold water from out of nowhere splashed her in the face. Toni sputtered and coughed, fighting to open her eyes as she swiped at them with her fingers.
“Toni, honey? Wake up! It’s me, Wanda. Look at me!”
Her eyes flew open to find herself back in the Garden of Wings with everyone staring down at her, worry marring their expressions.
“What happened?”
“One minute ye were here with us, the next ye disappeared into thin air, lass,” Dannan said, his blue face concerned. “We followed the sound of the crash yer body made when ye landed on the ground. Where did ye go?”