And unlike the other judges, I didn’t limit myself to one bite, and neither did the fairies. It seemed like their appetite for power and money were second only to their appetite for sweets. No wonder they were so good at making them if they liked them so much.
All in all, it took nearly an hour for us to taste all the creations, and yet I wasn’t tired at all. We finished the last bite from the most opulent entry-the crystal fondue fountain that wasn’t fondue at all, but rather an incredible fruit syrup that shifted from a berry, to a citrus, to a more herbaceous blend depending on which baked good it fell onto. How that was possible most certainly had to be magic, but hey, I wasn’t complaining about the experience.
“It looks like it’s time to judge,” one of the fairies said, clearing his throat slightly. No doubt from all the sugar that was coating it. “And as per the contract, only one of us needs to win in order for you to lose.”
His eyes landed on me for that last part, and I knew he wanted me to cry, to beg, but I just sent him a serene smile. “I remember the terms,” I said simply. I could be wrong, but I’d gotten the feeling that one of the reasons the fairies acted like they did was because they loved the drama. From the phone-contract to rolling up in a convoy like the Secret Service, all their actions were flashy and meant to intimidate the shifters.
Maybe that’s why they were so heavy-handed. They couldn’t do it to humans because it was too dangerous for a crowd to witness anything, but shifters? Who were they gonna tell?
“So it’s a death wish, then?” the cellphone woman asked.
I gave her the same placid smile. “I don’t follow?”
“You’re standing there so calmly amongst the beauty we’ve created, and you’ve clearly lost! You are going to lose your name, all of your history and that of your family, but you look as if you couldn’t be fucked!”
Oh, I’d gotten a swear out of them? It seemed that I really had gotten under their skin.
“You think I’m going to lose?” I asked.
“Of course you’re going to lose! You brought cupcakes-simple, stupid cupcakes
-to a bake-off against fairies.”
I took a deep breath, thinking it was funny that my calm was pissing off the woman when my heart was pounding so hard I wanted to throw up. But I reminded myself I needed to stay cool and take as much time as I could.
“If I have lost, I have already lost-there’s nothing in this moment I could say to change that,” I said slowly, carefully. “But I need to remind you, we haven’t made our final judgment yet, so until then, I have just as much a chance to win as any of you. We all promised to be unbiased, yes?”
“You-” she cut herself off with a sharp cough, and it was hard for me not to smirk. Oh yeah. I definitely had gotten under their skin. Good. “Fine! If no one has any objections, we should give our final judgments.”
“Agreed.”
There was a chorus of concurring answers in the fairy group, interspersed with throat clearing or a couple of them drinking from flasks they pulled out of appearing and disappearing pockets, until finally all were staring at me.
“All right then,” I murmured, the weight of everything threatening to crush down on me. But I thought of Cas, and his sense of purpose. I thought of Gammy McCallister and the necklace of hers I was wearing right now. I thought of Abuelita
Ramirez and the protection pouch.
And I thought of my mother. Her gentle smile. The way she would always tell me how proud of me she was. Her laugh. Her smile.
Everything.
Despite everything, I knew deep in my heart that no matter what the fairies did, I would never lose that.
“Let’s start the final judgment,” I said with a finality that felt like a shockwave.
It seemed that it was time for me to lose.c3K2
Felicia
Quality Ingredients
“How do we want to do this?” I asked. “Pieces of paper? Show of hands?”
“Paper,” Slicked-back said, but at the same time two others answered as well.
“Show of hands.”
“Stones in front of our favorite.”
I blinked at them, smiling slightly. There was that discord I wanted. Fairies were so into contracts and the rules that I’d guessed the finer details would trip them up, so it was satisfying to know I was right.
“Shall we vote on the best way then?” I asked as innocently as I could, but not innocently enough, because Slicked-back practically snarled at me.
Well, he started to snarl. He coughed twice, then finished his snarl, but close enough.
“You mock us!”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“All these delays and distractions! You are prolonging the-” he cut himself off with another few coughs, and I swore it was actually making him blush. “You-you!”
His growing tirade cut off instantly when a groan sounded from the ground beside us. Almost like they were one entity, all the fairies’ heads jerked in the direction of the noise. It was just a child, his eyelids fluttering slightly.
“He’s waking up!”
“Put him back to sleep, Obererion!”
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