Love Croakies by Sam Cheever (the kiss of deception read online .txt) 📕

A small, stout figure stood in the opening, his back stooped and a gnarled walking stick in one knotted hand. The fairy leaned heavily on the stick. He eyed each of us in turn, his gaze dark and his features pinched. Aelfsvald’s gaze stopped on Sebille and the shaggy brows lifted. “Ah. Hello, mistress fairy.”

Sebille inclined her head. “It’s not often I meet a garden fairy who enjoys being of the larger world.”

I was pretty sure she was commenting on the fact that he’d left his fairy form to become human-sized-ish. He was about the size of your average little person.

He nodded. “I am a solitary fairy,” he explained a bit sourly. “It is less lonely this way.”

Sebille nodded. “I mostly just like to eat their food.”

He jerked, his wrinkled lips puckering as his round body seemed to convulse. A strange choking sound emerged from him.

I took a step closer, thinking he might need the Heimlich or something. “Are you okay?”

Lovelace chuckled. “He’s not used to laughing. He’s a bit rusty at it.” Lovelace leaned closer to the old fairy and yelled, “Isn’t that so, Aelfsvald?”

The fairy jerked and stopped the choking sounds to glare up at the much taller man. “You needn’t scream in my face, master.”

Lovelace winked at Lea-Nina, as if to say, the poor fool doesn’t even know he’s deaf. “Well, I’ll leave you to our guests. They would like to see the garden. I believe they have a particular interest in one of our special plants. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind playing at being a tour guide.”

Aelfsvald waved a hand as if shooing Lovelace away. “We’ll be fine, master. Go on with your business.”

“Lovely.” Lovelace smiled at Sampson and Lea. “Shall we go speak to Desiree?”

“Absolutely, brother.”

Grym looked at Sampson. “If you don’t need me…”

“We’ll be fine,” Sampson gave Grym a telling look. “But Nina may be bored with our business discussions…” he arched a brow. “Maybe you could stay nearby so she can join you in a few minutes? I’m sure she’d like to walk the gardens too.”

“Understood,” Grym said.

I understood too. Sampson wanted to present his “wife” as proof that he’d done as Desiree demanded, and then he wanted Grym to get her out of there with the rest of us.

“I’ll wait near the front door,” Grym said. He sent me a look, and I nodded. As soon as I got the sample, we were all going to book it back to the portal together.

We watched the four of them head for the castle. Lea turned once to find me watching her leave. I must not have been as good at hiding my worry as I’d hoped. She gave me a smile and a little wave. It was a reminder that I wasn’t to underestimate her. She was a witch, after all. One who was powerful enough to make herself look and sound like another woman. She could even make a pillow move like an unborn baby beneath a demigod’s hand.

Yeah. She’d be okay.

“Come along then,” the gardener said. “Which plant is it you wish to see?”

Sebille strode past him and into the garden, forcing him to follow. I closed the gate behind us and stood there a moment, looking around at the vibrant plumage of what would have been considered a lush garden anywhere in the universe. That it existed in so devastated a spot as Loveland was more than surprising.

A small island where life still thrives in the famed cupid city.

Desiree clearly put most of her magical energy into making the garden thrive.

“I don’t know where to start,” Sebille said in a falsely bright voice.

I forced a smile as I glanced around. “It’s beautiful.”

“Okay, first, tell us what Princess Desiree uses to keep her skin so soft and radiant,” Sebille said in a half-whisper as if sharing a guilty secret.

Choking sounds emerged from the diminutive form of the fairy gardener again. “Now, now, miss. You don’t expect me to give away the mistress’s secrets now, do ye?” Without warning, the old fairy lifted his walking stick, and magic flared from it in waves of green sparkles.

When the magic cleared, he was holding a deadly-looking sword in his small hands. He sliced the air where Sebille had been, but she’d popped into sprite form and was buzzing around him, trying to avoid the lethal blade in his hand.

“Go, Naida!” she screamed, and then she sent a wash of energy over the blade, turning it to a snake that coiled in on itself in the blink of an eye and struck at Aelfsvald. He quickly dropped the snake, and it transformed back to a sword before it hit the ground.

And then, somehow, it was back in his hand.

“Do ye think me so old and daft I’d fall for that, Princess Sebille?”

Oops! Apparently, he’d recognized her.

“Go!” Sebille screamed again. She dove sideways as the fairy’s blade transformed into a rapidly coiling knife, like a magical corkscrew, and drilled the air where she’d been.

I forced myself to leave her behind, trusting that she could take care of herself.

26

Get Your Fool Head Out of Your Backside

I was looking for a white flower about the size of my head, with enormous dark green leaves. From what Sebille and I had read before we left, Obsession’s leaves were covered in pale green hairs, prickly, like the hair on an elephant. The hairs stuck in the skin and caused painful blisters and potentially death.

Fun. No wonder Desiree kept an antidote around her neck.

I hurried through the labyrinthine garden, trying to peer over one row of plants to see the rest. But everything in the garden was huge. Water dripped in a constant refrain from the enormous leaves, and the flower heads were all oversized. The combined scent from the variety of blossoms was so heavy it actually started to make me sick after a while.

I’d turned several corners, run along several pathways, and been tripped up by a few vines snaking between raised flower beds by the