“So, how was your first day as a Fairy Companion?” Lily looked up from her plate of sliced fruit into the face of a redheaded Sky Fairy who looked much too excited to be greeting someone who had just banished herself that morning. Lily leaned back on her chair. “Oh, you know, it was fine, until she asked how to fly. How does a fairy answer that?!” Someone laughed behind her. Lily jumped; she hadn’t realized anyone was back there. She turned to see a Water Fairy wearing a dark red tunic. “Yeah, Flower Fairies tend to be pretty clueless for the first couple of days,” he remarked. “ ‘How do I fly?’ That’s like asking How do I breathe?’ There’s no how, you just do it.” The other fairies in the small dining room nodded their assent. “Well, luckily she got the hang of it after a few minutes,” Lily continued. “I suggested we walk around the Gardens – mostly so I could take a look around – and in time she was flying without even realizing it. I have to say, when she discovered she was off the ground, the look on her face was priceless!” She smiled at the memory and looked back at her plate. Before today, she’d never seen sliced apples or pears; she had always eaten them whole straight off the tree. Lily wondered how long ago these had been picked. They were turning slightly brown. Lily taste-tested a pear. Still good, although it could’ve been fresher. Lily ate another one. She was hungry; In addition to her long flight earlier that day, these fairies didn’t start their evening meal until after sunset. Lily would probably retire to her room soon. “Hey, did you hear what happened at the Nobility meeting yesterday?" Lily overheard someone say. “No, not yet. Why?” “Well, apparently, Lady Turquoise tried to convince them of something – I’m not sure what – and Lady Serena made, like, a huge deal about it, and all the nobles got riled up, so then Turquoise just flew off angrily. And that’s, like, never happened before, so now everybody’s heard about it.” “Wait, but don’t the Rock Fairies and the Light Fairies agree on pretty much… well, everything?” “Yep. Lady Serena’s never contradicted anything Lady Turquoise has ever said, I don’t think. And it’s been the same for generations. The Rock and Light Fairies have always agreed on the same things for centuries; I don’t know why it’d be different now.” “That’s really weird. I wonder what changed.” “Yeah, and sometime last night, every single Light Fairy disappeared.” Every fairy in the room gasped. How? Why? Lily wondered in disbelief. Where did they go? It had to be connected to the Nobility meeting, but no one could cause an entire color to vanish in one night. “Hey, how do we know this is true?” a girl challenged. “It sounds totally made-up and exaggerated, if you ask me.” “Haven’t you noticed Nora and Aiden aren’t here today?” someone else reminded her. “They were here for dinner yesterday, but not for breakfast. Are you suggesting they flew back home in the middle of the night?” “Well, maybe not, but still, that’s only two Light Fairies!” A Portal Fairy stood up in a corner. She’d been silent so far, and Lily had hardly noticed she was there. “I went back to the Meadows this morning – just for a few minutes, of course, not long enough to get caught – and my family said there were only Portal Fairies. No rainbow wings anywhere.” “Hey, if Emily decided to talk for once, we’d better listen,” The redheaded Sky Fairy announced. “She’s probably got more accurate information than anyone else here.” Emily nodded shyly, then ducked back down. Lily swallowed her last apple slice, then ran to the bedroom she’d been given. The room was meant to be small, but after a lifetime of living in a tree, it was the best place Lily had ever been in. Ivy covered the walls, curving around a window with a view of the Fairy Palace in the distance. A rectangular lump of leaves and grass served as a bed, and a wooden chair sat in the corner. Lily sat on the bed and contemplated all the strange events that day. She remembered back to being woken up by her hummingbird, talking to her dad like it was just a normal day, Vine’s delight in revealing the surprise, Lily’s excitement causing a terrible mistake to happen. She recalled the endless flying through the Banished Lands, looking for something, anything. And when she found Leaf, she discovered a new opportunity for a manageable life. But now a tenth of the fairy population was gone, missing somewhere. Lily wanted to help. Her friend Tina had taken her and Rose all over Milrale, and Lily was familiar with everywhere the Portal Fairies had access to. She could find the Light Fairies, bring them back safely, and she’d be welcomed into the Nature Fairy Forest with open arms… Ah, but who was she kidding? Lily was banished, she had a dumb Flower Fairy to look after, and she wasn’t even thirteen yet. For now, she would focus on being the best Fairy Companion ever. Tomorrow.
She lay down and stared at the green ceiling. In a minute, she was falling asleep, thinking, /two days until the Fairy Palace./ The next day, Lily was supposed to be teaching two-named Isabelle Cooper the geography of Milrale, but she just couldn’t stay focused. “The Dragonfly River runs from the ocean to the Water Fairy Lake, and continues across the continent…” The Light Fairies are missing, and no one knows where they could’ve disappeared to. “The Peaks are home to the Mountain Fairies…” Could they have been kidnapped? If so, who took them? “The eastern meadows are where the Portal and Light Fairies live…” Except now just the Portal Fairies, because the Light Fairies are gone as if they’d never existed! “Wait, what?!” Isabelle’s eyes widened. Oh no. What did I say? Lily tried to brush it off. “I said… the Portal and Light Fairies live together in the eastern meadows?” Isabelle shook her head. “No, you said the Light Fairies are missing. Where did they go?” “Well, if I knew, then they wouldn’t be missing, would they?” Isabelle sighed. “What I meant was, what do we know about what happened to them? Could somebody be, like, really mad at them for some reason, and want them gone?” “Okay, first, there is no we. You are just a Flower Fairy, and you don’t know anything about anyone. Second, in answer to your question, Lady Serena — she’s in charge of the Light Fairies — disagreed with the Rock Fairies for the first time in centuries. Then suddenly the Light Fairies are gone. That’s all I know.” Based on what Lily knew about Two-names, she was pretty sure she could guess what Isabelle would say next. “Well then, we have to help them somehow!” Isabelle decided without missing a beat. Although Lily was thinking the same thing, she was still irritated by Isabelle’s use of the word we. Lily grabbed Isabelle's shoulders and steered her back to the flower stem. “Again, you are not a part of this! Leave the problems to the fairies who actually know what they’re doing! All you stupid Flower Fairies have no business in matters you know absolutely nothing about! You just sit in flowery paradise learning extremely basic things that the rest of us mastered as little kids!” “You mastered this as a little kid, huh?” Isabelle folded her arms. “Well, guess what? I have been in ‘flowery paradise’ for less than a day. Personally, I think I’m doing pretty good for just barely learning that fairies are real, and there’s a whole other dimension, and I am now one of those fairies. Have you ever discovered something that shocking?” Well, there was that one time when – Stay focused! Lily ordered herself. “Whether or not that has happened to me is not the point. To help with something as big as this requires knowledge you simply do not have. Can you even tell me one thing about the Light Fairies other than ‘they exist’? Just one thing?” She smiled when Isabelle opened her mouth, then closed it. “Yeah. You know nothing.” “That’s not fair,” Isabelle argued, “especially since I thought it was your job to be teaching me about this stuff? Isn’t that why you’re here?” Lily pointed up in the air as if an idea had come to her. “Hey, I know! How about I tell you about some cool fairy stuff like you wanted, and tonight I run away and figure out how to help? Without you?” “Would you really do that?” Isabelle smirked like she knew something Lily didn’t. “I totally would.” “But don’t you have something important going on tomorrow? Something involving, say, the Fairy Palace?” Lily narrowed her eyes. “How do you know that?” “You mentioned it yesterday. Like, a million times. Kinda hard to forget.” “Yes, because it’s so awesome and super cool and I get to see my mom and sister and it’s royalty, and…” She trailed off when she noticed Isabelle pretending to yawn. “What? It is!” “Here’s another thing,” Isabelle added, “Do you even know how to help a bunch of missing, possibly kidnapped fairies? I’m assuming that’s not the kind of job given to twelve-year-olds.” “I’m thirteen next moon,” Lily defended. “Still.” Lily found she had nothing to say to that. How did she expect to be useful, when everything she had just accused Two-names of applied to herself as well? She really didn’t know what she would do, or how to help. Now that she thought about it, having a girl her age in the team which was no doubt being formed that minute… would probably just slow them down. A lot. Even if her Portal Fairy friend Tina had taken her to many places around the continent, so she had a few theories of where the Light Fairies had disappeared to. Lily had to admit, as much as she hated it, that in this situation, the best way to help might be to just stay out of the way. No. She would do something. Even if she had to take Isabelle along.
