The Fairly Stillwart Chronicles by Butcher Scott

Author:Butcher, Scott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-11-27T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3: The Blight of Tory Blithe

This was all getting a bit too much for everyone to take in.

“But it went wrong, you said?” Moppet repeated the earlier statement.

Young Muckrake’s head came up to meet her question. “Yes.”

“What do you mean?” Bell asked.

“It didn’t work. Well…” he scowled, “not like Tory expected. She wasn’t turned into a brownie, or at least that’s what we’ve been told.”

“But if not a brownie, then what?” It was Bell’s turn to be exasperated.

“A fairy. We hear that she was transconfigurated into a fairy. A powerful one.”

“Oh,” Bell whispered, she was deep in thought. “That’s not right. That can’t happen.”

“But it did!” Muckrake stated excitedly. “Even though, it’s never been heard of before. Or at least, that’s what we believe. Tory Blithe is very scared. He’s been enslaving humans for decades; this time it didn’t work. Something new happened! It has him worried.”

“I have to understand this.” Bell’s tone was commanding. “It’s important. Silence everyone!”

Though she was retired, Bell had been the Queen of the Southern Fairies for over fifty years. In all that time she had never raised her voice. She had never needed to, but it also wasn’t likely she had ever been tried in this way before. A quirk of fate had made her a queen again, Queen of the Northern Fairies

, something she had never asked for, but regardless, it was part of her. She held herself in a state of absolute concentration, rubbing her forehead with her hand as she stood deep in thought.

“Phoebe has magic, human magic, that’s the difference,” Bell proclaimed.

Young Muckrake nodded his head. “That would be it.”

“He’s weakened himself, then, this Tory Blithe. To change a human with no magic is one thing, but to change a creature with the magic that Phoebe holds is another thing again. This is something that will help us. I’m not sure how yet, but I know it will.”

“What about Queen Appleblossom, Princess Stillwart, and the pixie knights?” Crispin asked.

As Bell turned to the young Muckrake, she held Crispin’s question in her eyes.

“We hear that he keeps the pixies separate from the fairies. They are all powerful. Well, maybe not so much the pixie knight, but the others, yes. He wants to marry the pixie princess. He wants revenge against Pridella, and he wants her lands. He plans to take over the realm of the Northern Pixies.”

“Stillwart!” Bell interrupted.

“If that’s her name.” Muckrake continued, “He keeps them separate and threatens to kill the fairies if your Stillwart doesn’t agree. There is nothing they can do against him. He has a vast pixie following—hundreds of pixies.”

“Two turns of a leaf,” Lucy said.

“What was that, Lucy?”

“Two turns of a leaf. Where are the fairies? If there are pixies, there should be fairies. You told me that one group could not live without the other.”

They all looked toward Muckrake. He eased back from their scrutiny. “They live with the rowans.”

Lucy shook her head. “The what?”

“In the rowan grove, beyond the outskirts of the city.

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