“Times have changed,” I say. There’s blood on my lip. I must have been biting it. I wipe it away. It’s the same color as the fire alarm and I breathe in, relieved. Every time I see my blood, I’m so glad it isn’t blue.
He grabs my entire hand in his, swallowing it up.
“Astley, you are not acting like yourself.” I start to pull my hand away but he holds it in his fingers. For a moment we just stand there. For a moment neither of us moves. I try to will him to calm down, to feel kind. Then his eyes soften and his hold on my hand lessens and I know that I could pull away now, but I don’t. I force my anger into myself a little, force my voice into a kinder mode and then explain.
“I didn’t ‘out’ the pixies. They’ve outed themselves with what they did to that bus of Sumner kids. They’ve outed themselves by taking the Beardsley boy and killing him, by kidnapping Jay. I didn’t do that. My father did. Frank did. Your mother did. Not me. I have to keep these people safe. I have to, Astley. It isn’t just about stopping the apocalypse. It’s about empowering people to stand up for themselves, to fight, to know what is killing their friends. How can we not do this? How can you even be angry about this?”
“I cannot.” Astley draws in a breath. His teeth appear at the corner of his mouth for a second and he looks so terribly young all of a sudden, young and vulnerable. His free hand reaches up and rubs behind his ear. That’s when I notice his eyes.
“Your eyes are green.” I’m trying to figure it out. “Your eyes change color. When I first saw you they were like this, but then—”
“They have been blue and silver. Yes.”
“Why?”
“It has to do with you, my reactions to you, my energy.”
I wait for him to explain more. He doesn’t. The shouts of people in the gym echo into the hallway.
“They sound so innocent,” he finally says. “They don’t fully understand how feral we can be, how hungry.”
“I know.”
He lets go of my hand and reaches up to stroke my cheek before I can react. Then he pivots hard, paces away, looks inside the gym. I don’t move, just watch the expressions twist across his face, the feelings flow off of him in colors. Resignation is blue. A deep yellow is the color of his pain. Despair is a dark, dark brown that almost looks black.
“You are just preparing them to be slaughtered.” He turns and strides toward me, suddenly all powerful again. Nick had used the same word—slaughtered. His shoulders seem to have grown six inches wider and his face is rigid. “I apologize for saying that. You would not be my queen if you did not care for your people, and I have to recognize that humans are still your people just as much as pixies are your people.”
I don’t say anything. He lifts his hand up to touch my face again, but I step backward just enough for him to notice.
“You must learn to trust me. Tell me before you act on things with such colossal implications, please.”
He is gone, striding out the glass front doors, leaving a trail of gold glitter behind him. I squat down and touch it with my finger. It sparkles and sticks to my skin. I wipe at the specks as I stand back up, but it clings to my finger. I rush out a text to Becca and Amelie and tell them to find him and protect him. He shouldn’t be out gallivanting when he just almost died. He looks like he could pass out any second.
Issie flings open the door from the gym. Nick and Cassidy are a half step behind her. All their faces are frantic, tense.
“That didn’t look right,” Nick says. “He was bothering you. Wasn’t he?”
Issie hiccups. I look over her head at Nick and Cassidy and right behind them is everyone else. They are staring. Jay Dahlberg is at the front. His mouth is tight but open and he asks, “That was one, wasn’t it?”
I nod. “Yeah, but he’s not bad. Let me explain.”
They wait.
“Not all pixies are bad,” I start. “The ones who can’t control their needs are bad. They start to torture people, feed on their energy. I’m not sure what kind of energy. I think it’s their life force or—”
“Soul,” Nick interrupts. “They feed on people’s souls, torment them, seem to get more energy and pleasure the more frightened and in pain the person is. Usually it is young men. But once things get truly out of hand, it can be anyone. That’s what’s happening now.”
People sort of murmur. Some just look scared. Some look angry.
I take over again. “But not all pixies are like this. A lot of it depends on their king. They are somehow tied to the emotional stability of their king. The kings rely on queens to keep them in balance. They are all linked somehow. It’s not telepathy, but more like they are one multifaceted entity.”
Now people are looking blank. Worried that I lost them, I bluster on. “Anyway, the one you just saw, Astley, is not from here and he is a good king. He and his people are trying to help us get the bad pixies under control.”
“And you know he’s good how?” Jay asks.
“He just is,” I say. “He’s been trying really hard to help.”
“And he’s stable?” Austin asks, stepping closer.
“Super-stable,” Issie answers. She smiles and bobs her head. “Really, really stable.”
“So who is his queen?” I’m not sure who asked this. I didn’t see. I open my mouth to answer.
Nick answers for me. “Zara is. Zara is a pixie now. And she is his queen.”
There are more questions and lots of reassurances as what should have been a good training time becomes Pixie 101 and Zara interrogation. Cassidy and Is back me up and field a lot of the questions. Nick refers people to the handbook, and eventually they all head back inside the gym. I think about what both Nick and Astley have said, how I am just preparing them to be slaughtered, but I have to believe that it’s better to know. Right? It has to be.
Standing at the door, holding it with one arm, Nick turns around and waves for me to come in and join them, to get ready for the war.
I do.
After a long day trying to train our friends and acquaintances, we’ve been trying to figure out why Astley’s mom attempted to poison him, other than the obvious: she wants him dead.
“I want to understand the why,” I keep saying.
Nick, Cassidy, Issie, and I are in the gym cleaning up. Pretty much everyone else has left. There are water bottles rolling around and paper scraps everywhere.