Fairy Lies Read Free Page A

voice.
    The other fairy gnawed on a lock of her long pink hair the same shade as her flower-petal dress. Spitting thehair out of her mouth, she said, “We know how much you care about the princess. She was wrong to send you away.”
    “What are you talking about?” Jak turned his head toward the alarm clock on his bedside table. It was 3:41 a.m. He groaned. “Is this your idea of a joke?” he asked. “I’m not discussing my life with you in the middle of the night or any other time. If you think I’m—”
    “Quiet, goblin! We came to tell you something important!” snapped the pink-haired fairy.
    The other fairy wrung her hands in distress. “Let me tell him, Pansy!”
    “It was my idea, Algae,” Pansy hissed, “so I should be the one to—”
    “Would one of you just tell me!” Jak snapped.
    “The princess, Tamisin, has been kidnapped!” blurted Algae.
    “What do you mean?” Jak’s first thought was that this was a fairy prank.
    “Abducted, run off with, taken away, stolen—” Algae began.
    “I got that part!” said Jak. Wide awake now, he saw the worried looks on their faces. Jak had met plenty of fairies, and none of them were this good at acting. They had to be telling the truth. He ran his fingers through his hair as he tried to gather his thoughts. “One at a time, tell me exactly what happened. You go first,” he told Algae.
    “Once upon a time—” Algae began.
    “Don’t start that far back!” cried Pansy. “We were withthe other fairies who were keeping an eye on the princess,” she told Jak. “Ever since the princess came back to this world, some of us have been watching to make sure she’s all right. And she was, until tonight.”
    Algae nodded. “We try to stay out of sight, but we can’t help going closer when she dances under a full moon. Tamisin gets annoyed when she sees us, so we leave as soon as we can.”
    “We don’t go far,” said Pansy. “So we saw when he came.”
    “When who came?” Jak demanded.
    “Mountain Ash. He’s a colonel in Oberon’s army,” Pansy replied. “He showed up right after the princess danced. They were talking, and then all of a sudden he touched her and she shrank.”
    “We couldn’t stop him!” Algae cried. “Before we knew what he was up to, he had stuffed the princess into a bag, then shrunk himself, and . . .”
    “And a whole bunch of Oberon’s fairies showed up! They were all little like Mountain Ash, and they flew every which way so we couldn’t tell who was who. Coral Bell and Jasmine and Ivy and Forget-Me-Not went to tell Titania, but Algae and I thought you should know, too.”
    “We saw how you and the princess used to look at each other,” said Algae. “It was so romantic! We all thought she was wrong for breaking up with you.”
    “We didn’t exactly break up,” said Jak.
    “Close enough!” Pansy told him. “So when the other fairies went to see Titania, Algae and I thought we shouldcome see you. We wanted to know if you still feel the same way about the princess, because if you do, we think you should go help her.”
    Jak climbed out of bed and was shoving things into his backpack when he turned to them long enough to say, “Of course I still feel the same. I’ll get her back, don’t worry. I’m glad you came to tell me, but I don’t understand why you did. Tamisin’s mother is queen of the fairies. She has power and abilities beyond anything I can do. Not to mention a lot more resources at her disposal.”
    “That’s just it,” said Pansy. “When Titania hears that Mountain Ash took Tamisin, she’ll know that Oberon was behind it. Titania will be so angry! She’ll send her army to get her daughter back, and there’ll be a big fight. People always get hurt when fairies fight. But if someone the fairy king doesn’t know were to slip into his forest—”
    “And sneak the princess out . . . ,” said Algae.
    “And take her to Titania . . .”
    “So she doesn’t send her army into