“We’ll ask them. They can do little stuff, try to divert the pixies, keep them busy. But they’re just regular coyotes, Zara, and they get scared of magic.” He breaks up the hash a bit. “No, I was thinking about asking somebody else.”
“Who?”
He points the spoon at me. “You have to be calm about this, okay? When I tell you, you can’t get hysterical or anything.”
“Just tell me.”
“Issie and Devyn.”
I whirl around at him. “We can’t do that. First, they could get hurt. Second, what? You’re going to tell them you’re a werewolf? Oh, yeah. That’s going to go over well.”
“They already know, because . . .”
The fire crackles again. The wind shakes the house. He stands alert and ready, but nothing happens, including him finishing his sentence.
“They already know because . . . ,” I prompt, completely impatient.
He pulls in a big breath.
“Oh my God! Issie’s a bunny, isn’t she? Do they have those? Do they have werebunnies?”
“Big leap there, Zare.” Nick cracks up. He shakes with laughter.
I pout. “She’d be a good bunny.”
“True. But it’s not her. It’s Devyn.”
“Devyn? Devyn is cute and normal.”
He scrapes at the bottom of the hash pan. His voice comes out dead calm. “He’s an eagle.”
“Oh. Okay. I am not going to freak out about this, but let me say that I am surprised.”
“Because he’s in a wheelchair?”
“No! Because he’s a bird.”
agateophobia
fear of insanity
The wind rattles the house, makes the flames dance in the woodstove. I’m eating a bizarre combination of meat and diced potato with a guy who is actually hotter than the fire and what do I say?
I say, “We need to figure out how to keep the pixie from kissing me, from making me his queen.”
“I know,” Nick says.
“I don’t suppose just saying no would work.” I give a nervous laugh.
Nick starts scraping at the brown, crunchy hash that clings to the bottom of the pan. He mixes it into the softer hash parts, clumping it into a big brown, red, and white mess.
Still, it smells good, almost good enough to make me not think about pixies. Almost. Or that the only cool people in school are weres.
“Seriously, Zara,” he says, moving on to his egg scrambling.
“First off, I can’t believe pixies have kings and queens. That’s so old school. I don’t care if they are Shining Ones. It’s just lame. Are they some sort of totalitarian dictatorship based on a monarchial ideal of superiority, because those are some of the worst governments possible. I mean, the human rights violations in governments like that—”
He puts his free hand over my mouth just like Devyn did to Issie once. But I don’t do an Issie and giggle or lick his fingers. I just glare. Nick keeps scrambling the eggs with his free hand as if nothing is going on, nothing at all, as if this is a normal conversation for people to be having.
“Zara, these are pixies and when it comes to human rights violations, pixies don’t really care,” he explains. “One, they aren’t human. Two, torture is part of their M.O.”
I try to stomp on his foot, but he just pivots it away in some super quick werewolf maneuver and never stops scrambling the eggs, which are holding together now, almost finished. He doesn’t move his hand off my mouth and his eyes twinkle like he thinks I am so amusing.
I am not amusing.
“I’m going to move my hand now. Okay?”
“I am not queen material,” I sputter.
He wipes his hand on his shirt.
“What? Did I drool on you?”
“A little.”
“You’re a wolf. You should be used to drool.”
“That’s low.”
He takes the egg pan off the top of the woodstove and places it on the brick hearth that surrounds it.
I cross my arms over my chest. “I don’t care.”
We stay silent for a minute while he scrapes at the hash in the pan again. The windows seem like empty white blanks because of all the snow that keeps tumbling down. Some of the flakes splatter against the house like they are trying to escape the wintry reality.
“This isn’t their normal behavior, obviously. I mean, the pixies haven’t been killing everyone all this time. There’s a gap,” I say. Nick starts to interrupt but I hold up my hand to stop him. “I know we know that. I’m just thinking out loud, trying to process it. It’s got to all be connected to my dad’s letter.”
“And they’ve been without a queen for a quarter of a century. There’s got to be a rule about that.” He points the scraping spoon at me. “Zara, I know you’re a little freaked out by all this and that’s normal, but I think that—”
“Normal? What’s normal about any of this? You, possibly the best-looking guy in the universe, actually like me, but you’re a werewolf.” I can hear the hysteria in my voice but can’t stop it. “Two of my favorite people at this crazy school are a werewolf and a were-eagle. Did I get that right? Werewolf and were-eagle? And of course, my grandmother is a weretiger.”
He nods and lets me spew. I pace back and forth in the living room.
“And don’t let me forget, pixie man has trashed my living room, and pixies want me to be their queen. And to accomplish this, instead of being nice and asking or bringing me flowers or something, some guy whispers my name when I’m in the woods trying to make me lost and then barges into my house the moment my gram isn’t here.” I stop for a second. “Wait. Why did they wait until Betty wasn’t here?”
Nick spoons some hash onto a plate, then starts on the eggs. “I have no idea. They’re probably afraid of her. Weretigers are tough.”
He shrugs and starts scooping food onto his plate.
“Maybe they got tired of waiting,” he offers, sitting down on the floor in front of the fire. I sit with him. The heat laps against us and it feels so good.
“Maybe they realized that I wouldn’t let you get taken by them in the woods, so they decided a direct attack was best,” he says. “Wolves fight better outside. We aren’t house pets. Do you like your hash?”