that would be a lie,» Gloria whispered back.
«They wouldn’t be able to check anyway. Rhiannon and Madeel had long ago and forever descended into the underworld.»
Fior was out of sight, but a golden web had grown densely under the ceiling where his voice had come from.
Gloria didn’t like his advice. She would not hide. She walked belligerently past the swarming fairies. They paid her no attention. It was a shame. They’d killed the sentries, but they wouldn’t even yell at her. It was zero attention, a lot of contempt.
«Why are they rummaging around like thieves?» Gloria gritted her teeth. «It’s like a pack of black magpies, not fairies.»
«Did you expect them to dance around the castle like forest nymphs?»
Fior was hovering nearby, but he remained invisible. Probably didn’t want the fairies to see him. Can’t fairies even see the invisible? They’re all fairies.
«The Queen of the Fairies is flying here!» Fior whispered and then stopped talking for good.
Gloria did notice a black fairy in a crown. She came straight out of a large mirror as if it were a portal. She was so beautiful that Gloria gasped with envy, but she acted like a hooligan. The first thing she did was to break a floor vase by deliberately whipping it with her wing, and the second she dropped a splinter of black sparks on the tapestry, and it became moldy as if it were the surface of a swamp. Threads of black cobwebs grew from the black fairy’s fingernails, which she directed at the walls. The black web crawled across the castle like a net. The last living sentry became entangled in it and turned to rotting relics in just a fraction of a second. It was as if the web had sucked all the life out of him.
There was no one else to protect the castle from the invasion of the black fairies but a young squire who came running at the noise. Gloria had seen this young man before, but didn’t know his name.
«You are here again! How dare you come back? You brought us so much trouble!» The squire shouted at the fairy.
Did he think that the black fairy came with the intention of making war? And what was this raid if not a fairy attack?
The black-winged fairy began to release a web of nails that quickly coiled around the neck of the screaming young man. Breaking the silence meant he would suffocate from the black nub.
The squire wanted to strike the beauty with his sword, but the blade only slid across the fairy’s skin without wounding her, and immediately turned its point against the young man himself. He howled in pain as his own sword sliced through his shoulder.
«Get out of the castle! Do not disturb my lord!»
«I have a treaty with the Count, by the way.»
The fairy squinted unkindly, noticing that the sword had cut through the web she had woven, but quickly found a way out. She pulled out of her hair a dainty hairpin, which extended its tip into a blade and became a dagger before her eyes. The dagger the fairy aptly threw right into the squire’s throat. He fell down, bleeding.
«Well, there are no more obstacles,» the fairy sighed with relief. A black mist floated in the air from her black sigh. The dagger became a stiletto again and returned to the fairy’s outstretched hand. The squire’s corpse rotted instantly. «The last awake warrior was out of the game. There was no one else to defend the castle.»
The black fairy clapped her hands in triumph over the mold-covered corpse.
«You left me out!» Gloria stepped out of the shadows.
«Is it the girl with the sword?» The fairy’s graceful eyebrows arrogantly arched over squinting eyes. «Don’t hurt yourself, sweetheart. It’s hard and dangerous for a girl to wield a sword. Better learn some needlework.»
Now that’s an insult. Gloria lunged forward and struck the black fairy with her sword. The sword stabbed lightly into her wrist, preventing her from creating a new web. Black blood flowed from the wound.
The fairy gasped in amazement and froze, hovering in the air. The red carbuncle, which Gloria had at first mistaken for a crown pendant, shone in her forehead like a third eye. The entire flock of fairies scattered throughout the castle smelled the blood of their queen and became alarmed.
«You’ll be sorry!» The black fairy threatened Gloria with the finger of her healthy hand and hurriedly flew away from the sword as far as possible.
The sword absorbed the black fairy blood like it was a sponge. Gloria turned around and threatened the sword at the flying fairies, but it was no longer needed. Apparently, the queen was the strongest of them all. If she was hurt, the others didn’t dare to get in the way.
The fairies were gone in a split second. Some of them flew out the windows, others disappeared into the mirrors. Gloria was left alone amidst the black mummies of the sentries’ dried up bodies.
«You have made yourself a powerful enemy,» – whispered Fior’s voice.
«Just a fairy…»
«It was a fairy queen!»
«Suddenly I was just dreaming.»
Gloria examined the sword. There’s no blood on it. It doesn’t clot that fast. There should have been stains, not brown, but at least black. And there were none. But the ubiquitous Janet watched the fight from the corner and seemed to applaud.
«This isn’t a theater,» Gloria said angrily, and Janet nodded scholarly to her surprise.
«I know, it’s a wrestling match!»
«Go to bed and shut the windows.»
Gloria herself decided to take over the duties of the dead sentries and went around the castle with a watch. The knights were asleep, as if enchanted. The fairies must have spread a sleeping spell around the castle, which somehow didn’t affect everyone. So the fairies have their faults, too. Or they were waiting for someone to meet them. The crowned fairy said she had some business with the castle owner. Gloria thinks Angus is a monk and he’s messing around with fairies. The hermit count is full of surprises.
In Gloria’s bedroom all the windows were closed, but two winged figures were fighting by the bed. Fairies again! Gloria grasped her sword more comfortably, but these fairies were only figuring things out with each other. One of them was red, the other white. They fought, hovering a meter above the floor.
«This bed is not yours,» hissed the white fairy, clawing at the hair of the red fairy. «Why aren’t the roses on it half white?»
«It’s not Amaranta’s bed anymore,» the red fairy defended, scratching the white fairy’s elbows. «Someone else is here.»
Seeing Gloria, both fairies froze in flight.
«And who are you?» The red fairy opened her eyes in amazement under scarlet lashes.
«I live here now!» Gloria confessed and felt awkward, as if she had invaded someone else’s bedroom and not the other way around.
«You’re a guest? Are you a guest? Are you Angus’s second wife?» The scarlet fairy opened her eyes under her purple eyebrows.
«She is Fior’s girlfriend,» the white fairy explained.
Both fairies suddenly stopped fighting and straightened their dresses covered with fragrant petals. Strangely, they began to act like allies.
«This is no place for white roses,» whispered the white fairy.
«It’s no place for red roses either,» the red fairy frowned.
Gloria looked at them like a miracle.
«I hope you haven’t mistaken my bedroom for your own,» she said.
The fairies looked at each other.
«This is not love!» The white fairy said.
«And definitely this is not passion!» The