“What-” Ira began.
“I’ve seen this before,” she said, breathless. “In the Glass room-”
Unable to finish the sentence, Luci grabbed his hand and pulled him towards the top, somehow knowing in her bones this was the moment they’d come from. Sure enough, just a few feet more, and the promise of sunlight clung to cave walls.
Never letting go of him, Luci crested the last steps, following the blue magic. When they reached the top, clouds gathered all around them, obscuring the ground below. The top, though, well, at the center sat a familiar flower. Feathered and swaying in the wind.
“The Midnight Flower,” she whispered.
“About time, don’t you think?” a feminine voice said. “I’ve only been waiting two thousand years.”
Luci and Ira turned to see a beautiful woman with long red hair and a navy blue dress leaning against a cobblestone home with a smoking chimney that hadn’t been there before.
The woman rolled her eyes and turned to re-enter the home.
“Come on, Cinderella, you can bring your prince too.”
Chapter twenty-six
Elowen
There is no love quite like the love of a Fairy Godmother.
-Tales from Meridea, Volume III
Lucinda Blackthorn was not inclined to follow strange women into cottages, however Ira was quite disposed, as it were. He didn’t hesitate to throw a wide grin at her and step foot into the strange house. Deciding that there was nothing to be done for it, Luci followed suit.
Immediately, the smell of simmering cinnamon radiated from a small stove to the right of the room, as that truly was all itwas. One room with a small bed tucked to the left, a stove and kitchen supplies to the right, and a table with three chairs at the center. Herbs and dried leaves hung from the ceiling, and a large patchwork quilt of at least a dozen colors lay as a carpet over hardwood floors.
“Cinnamon,” Luci murmured.
The woman hummed a light tune while she stirred at the pan with cinnamon and cloves gently simmering.
“Oh, yes, that would be me. My, but you did need a lot of encouragement. I know the blue fairy, Imelda, if you will, mentioned that sometimes her heroes and heroines needed nudging, but I doubt she ever had one as stubborn as one Lucinda Blackthorn,” she said.
“The blue fairy?” Ira asked, taking a seat and waving for Luci to join him like the world wasn’t turning upside down.
The woman tapped the spoon twice onto the pan and set it down, turning to Ira with an exasperated sigh.
“Yes, of course, the blue fairy, who else would have taken their apprentice and saddled her with a couple thousand years of sitting around for a human who met a very specific criteria. Imelda was a wonderful teacher, but she did have a devious streak to her. May the light guard her wings,” she said.
For someone who claimed to have waited thousands of years, she could not have been more than her mid-thirties. Her hair was red as an apple and flowed down her back. Her eyes were a bright blue that bit into Luci as she studied her. Her body was curvy, and her blue dress hugged it with great effort. All in all, she was an incredibly beautiful but strange woman.
“I don’t understand,” Luci said, still stuck in the doorway.
The woman rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers.
Blue glittering magic gathered around Luci, but a mere blink later, she opened her eyes and found herself sitting at the tablenext to Ira, whose wide eyes met hers before his face broke out in a wide smile.
“Max is going to be very upset that he missed this,” Ira said.
“What is happening?” Luci leaned forward, whispering.
It felt like the world was spinning on its head, and she couldn’t hold still enough to gather her bearings. Like she was adrift in an unforgiving ocean.
“Imelda, why didn’t you warn me humans were this vexing?” the woman said to the sky.
She proceeded to saunter over to the table and take her seat, pointing to Ira.