Fairy Lies by E. D. Baker Read Free Book Online Page B

ground. Vines grew up the trunks,wrapping themselves around the branches and weighing down the smaller ones. Instead of smelling like masses of flowers, this forest smelled of damp earth and old tree trunks crumbling into decay on the forest floor. It was wild. It was messy. It was exactly the way a forest should be.
    “We’ll drop Lily’s flowers off with Narlayna first,” Dasras explained, “then go see Malcolm about your shoes. Don’t be afraid when you see Narlayna. She’s an ogress, but she won’t hurt you.”
    “I’ve met ogresses before,” said Tamisin. “There are some at Titania’s court.”
    “Hunh” was all Dasras said, but from the look he gave her, Tamisin had the feeling that he didn’t want to hear about the fairy queen or her court.
    Although the paths weren’t lined with smooth pebbles or soft moss as on the other side, enough people had passed through the forest that they had trodden well-defined paths into the forest floor. Tamisin followed Dasras down one such path through a grove of pine trees to a cave set in the side of a hill.
    Two large pine trees guarded the path to Narlayna’s cave, and they had to go around them to see into the entrance itself. The tall trees cast wide shadows, but just beyond the cool shade the front of the cave was bathed in sunlight, making a cozy spot for the ogress to do her work. They found Narlayna sitting on a stump, her hands flying as she plucked cherry blossoms from a basket to assemble a delicate skirt that looked like flowers floating on a breeze.
    Narlayna rubbed her nose with the back of her fingers before raising her head, revealing red eyes and puffy lids. Tamisin thought that she wasn’t the least bit frightening. The ogress had brown shoulder-length hair that was blond at the ends, and dark brown eyes that might have looked friendly if she hadn’t been so obviously upset. She did have one eyebrow that extended over both eyes, and a few long hairs sprouting from a mole on her cheek, but they weren’t anything a good pair of tweezers couldn’t fix. If the ogress hadn’t been one and a half times the size of a human woman, she might have looked like someone Tamisin could have run across at the mall.
    “Lily wants you to make these into a cap for her. She says you’re to drop everything and have it ready by tonight,” said Dasras, tossing the flowers onto the ogress’s lap.
    Narlayna’s gaze grew hard and cold. “She says that, does she?” she snarled. “Well, you tell her that I’ll get to it in my own sweet time! I have two dozen orders before hers, and everyone says theirs is important.”
    Dasras looked horrified. “I’m not telling her that!”
    The ogress sighed. “ ’Course you aren’t. Though it’s about time someone did. I’ll get to the cap when I can. Just tell her . . . Never mind. No need to tell her anything. She’ll get it when she gets it, that’s all.”
    Dasras stomped away, his back rigid with anger, but Tamisin lingered behind. She felt as if she should apologize for Dasras’s rude behavior, and for the unthinking demands of the fairy, and for the way they both seemed to treat the ogress. But she didn’t know how to begin, so whenNarlayna looked up and snapped, “What do you want?” Tamisin said, “I just wanted to say that you do lovely work,” and ran off.
    Dasras was waiting for her on the path, looking as if he had something to say, but before Tamisin reached him, a tiny fairy flew down to whisper something in his ear and darted away again.
    “I have to go,” Dasras told her, his eyes alight with excitement. “Oberon wants me to attend him. He often has me run errands for him or listen when he has a problem to work out. He knows that I can be discreet, unlike most of the fairies here. You’ll have to see Malcolm on your own now. Just follow that path and you’ll find him.”
    Tamisin looked where Dasras had pointed and saw the beginning of a faint trail. She had just started toward the path