Chapter 2: One Small Wish

Together, Cass and I dismantled the gear—guitar, mic, amps, pedalboards, and endless wires, and packed them up into the trunk of her brother's car where it was parked out front.

Waiting there, like one of her court sentinels back in Faerie, was dear Toby: a bulky Midwestern American beefcake of a man, pale from years of night work and as yellow-haired as a cornfield. He was about twenty-four or twenty-five—and he was just about my best mortal friend in this fragile world. He and Cass were close, and he played the protective big brother to both of us. For instance, never letting us get on the train with all our gear, which we'd never be able to replace if it were stolen. He was the third and final member of our little crew: my rag tag roadies.

As always, he could see the tension written on my face.

"How'd we do?" he asked, aiming his question at Cass.

"Brilliant. One of the fans actually wanted the set list, you believe that?"

"Don't overdo it on the confidence," laughed Toby, clapping me on the shoulder. I felt my knees threaten to buckle. Toby really did forget his own strength some times.

I felt a pull at my wrist—a small hand, sweaty with the clammy summer heat. I paused, raising my head minutely. The hold wasn't aggressive. It had none of the possessive force I was so wary of on late-night London streets. This grip was pleading. Desperate.

Toby paused, turning quickly and sensing something was wrong.

Half numb with surprise and fascination, I saw the hand's owner: a girl who could be no older than fifteen or sixteen, with mousy brown hair cut unstylishly around a pale, petrified face. She looked utterly terrified. But her hand stayed fixed around my wrist. I felt the tremor of her muscles, saw the blank fiery fear in her eye.

Toby shot out a massive hand between me and the girl, his voice booming in his best bodyguard baritone. "Hey, miss, back up now. Go on."

"It's okay," I said automatically, my voice very small. I knew it was a very stupid, very unprofessional, very dangerous thing to do. I didn't know this girl. But Toby and Cass were right here. And this pale child was in such fear.

Gently, I maneuvered, prying her fingers from my wrist and instead placing it in my palm. There were a gaggle of smokers outside the pub, watching. I hated this. I wanted to melt into the ground. I had to be very careful not to ACTUALLY wish. Faerie wishes weren't playthings.

"What's wrong?" I whispered, under the bellow of the street noise. The girl heard me. I saw the desperation in her watery eyes shift to disbelief, to something like hope.

She stared at me in speechless shock for a heartbeat. Then her lips wobbled. "I—I don't…" She gulped. "I've just been really, really sad lately and…well, I love your music. It's beautiful. It's more than that, it's—it's magic. It's the only thing that makes sense. I don't know what to do. I can't go home, so I came to wait here, to see you and…I don't know. G*d, I'm so embarrassed. I'm so sorry…"

"Hey." I gripped her hand harder. I didn't know what to say, but I had to say something. "What's your name?"

"Birdie." A tremulous sound, half name and half shudder.

"Birdie," I said more firmly, and this time I eased my will, my magic, and my focus into the name—making it stronger, more real. Language was exceptionally powerful. Speech even more so. "It's going to be okay. Cass—ah, how much money did we actually make tonight?"

Cass's immaculate eyebrows rose toward her hairline. "About four hundred. But please tell me you're not…"

I was Seelie. I repay love with love. It's my nature. And the nature of my fragile heart.

"Cass," I said quickly, before I lost my nerve and my voice, "this is Birdie. Can you rent her a hotel room? She can't go home. And I think she better talk to the police too. Do you want to do that, Birdie?"

Birdie nodded quickly, and I felt her hand go iron-stiff in mine, as if to confirm this was all really real.

Toby, bless him, didn't say a word, though I knew from the tightness around his mouth that he thought my bleeding heart tendencies were making a huge mistake. Cass, though, was never one for subtlety.

"A HOTEL?" she couldn't keep the scorn out of her voice. "Seriously, Hester? We need this money, we—"

"I'm playing the next three nights in a row. We'll make it back." I looked at her meaningfully. "Give her some money for clothes and things too. Do you have a phone, Birdie?"

Birdie nodded again, and this time I saw how her eyes scrunched, lips tight, tears a millisecond away.

"Here's my number. Don't ah—don't sell it on the internet or anything, okay?"

The weakest of laughs. A tear dribbled free.

"Just let me know how you're doing, what you need."

My voice was finally failing me. I couldn't meet Birdie's streaming eyes, so I smiled at Toby instead.

"Can I hug you?" whispered Birdie in the smallest voice in the world.

"Of course, honey."

I thought I saw Toby wince as Birdie wrapped her skinny arms around me and held tight for three long heartbeats. Then she let go by hesitant degrees.

"It'll be alright," I whispered again, making it true. "Please be kind to yourself."

***

The police were, stunningly, pleasant to deal with. We spoke with them right there, on the sidewalk in the summer-warm evening. Birdie spoke in whispers to them, but they nodded attentively, speaking back to her in the same soft tones. In the end, Cass didn't book her a hotel room, just Venmo'd over the night's takings.

Birdie's lip trembled as Toby finally took me by the arm, pulling me back toward the open car door.

"I love you," whispered Birdie, a delicate sound that I almost didn't catch against the swell of noise at my back. "Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you…"

***

Toby's car smelled like weed, tobacco, and all the fast food meals he, Cass, and I had collectively eaten together while on the road between gigs. I sat in the back, stuffed in with the gear, my knees drawn up to my chest under the big yellow skirt. We still had to wait for Cass: she'd headed back into the pub to let the proprietor know why the police were outside his pub—and to assure him that we weren't being arrested and were in fact coming back the next night's gig.

Toby revved the engine, which made its customary struggling effort to start, and hit the AC. In the mirror, I saw his expression: a resigned look that was half exasperation and half exhaustion.

"You know, you're one of the most blessedly, incredibly gullible people I've ever met," he said wearily. "And I say that with all the love in the world. You have no idea if that girl was telling the truth. And you just gave her a bunch of money and your phone number."

I shrugged, sinking down further down into the car seat.

"We'll make the money back," I said gently. "And worst case, I'll have to change my number."

"Worst case is she spends that money on drugs, and we get canceled and then Cass strangles me for ever letting her talk to you."

I shrugged again. "But best case she has someplace safe to sleep and a chance to report whatever she needs to to the police."

Toby shook his head, as if he'd failed to explain something very basic to a very stubborn child. "Hester, I wish the world was more like you. But it's not. Just promise me you'll stick up for me with Cass if it all goes south, okay?"

"Promise," I said seriously.

Toby had no idea what I was. If I said I was a faerie and had lives many centuries outside of time, feasting and dancing in legendary courts to music that could break a mortal's heart just by hearing it, he'd probably look at me exactly the same way he looked at me after we got in the car. But that meant he also didn't know how serious a fae promise was. Words had power: to thank a person was to put yourself in their debt, and to make a promise was to bind yourself to that intention. Words had much more concrete power over us fae than over humans. A fae promise is unbreakable.

He massaged his temples. "Four hundred....Ah, sh*t. Hester, I love you, but sh*t."

And I closed my eyes and made a wish. A real wish.

I gathered my magic, drawing it together mentally like tilting your hand to direct the flow of water. Names, in the hands of a faerie, are powerful things, and even if Birdie wasn't the girl's legal name, it was the one she knew herself by. I could feel that clearly.

So I wished, with the weight of my magic behind it, for safety, peace, and happiness for Birdie. I willed those forces to her with gentle sincerity. And because I had been the one wishing, I knew for a fact those things would find their way to her.

Toby was right, of course. She could have been lying. I had no special way to tell if mortals told me the truth or not. But Birdie had also given me her adoration. And I was a Seelie. I always repay in kind.