Having heard so much from the others about the beauty of the island outside the central walls, JC was rather looking forward to this walk.

With Riley and the others gone, including Nora who was personally sorting out a glitch in the supply chain, and none expected back for over a day, they’d been left to try to figure out what they could most usefully do.

JC had decided that it would be a good idea for her to meet the other house fae and talk to them about what they needed, instead of making guesses. Des had offered to go with her, as a guide and for safety, and because she liked going there; of course JC had accepted.

Kayla had the binder of research notes now hidden in her cottage, inside the steel box that held personal belongings. She and JC had identified a section that listed every faeling that had been brought here, but it was a tangled mess: many, many entries had “Dead” at the end, and it was impossible to tell how many others might have died without Isabel’s knowledge. Very few had names attached, only six or eight words at most to describe what type of fae and how they looked, which wasn’t going to help much—but then, a lot of faelings might not even remember their own names.

They all fervently hoped that the number of births on the island was firmly zero.

Kayla had, with JC’s help, found an empty spiral notebook in the library and a couple of pens. She had decided that she should come with them and talk to Callie about listing as many faelings as possible to try to get an updated list. That meant Zach immediately declared that he was coming too. It had not been a question or a request.

That seemed reasonable, since it left Alison, Erica, Theo, and Suzi to help and protect Niko and the half-dozen completed cottages.

JC had a trio of plastic storage containers in a reusable shopping bag she’d found in the laundry room closet, the handle swinging from one hand. Otherwise, they’d brought nothing except Kayla’s newly-claimed notebook, but that felt more normal than having anything to bring.

“What’s down there?” Kayla asked, as they skirted the edge of a hollow with several smallish trees in it.

“Feral chickens,” Zach said. “Can get aggressive.”

“Goo’ eggs though,” Des said. “Big.”

“So there are pigeons and feral chickens and those little bantam ones near the house?” Kayla said. “The kinda-cute ones Paz keeps feeding?”

“Fish,” Des said. “Har’ to catch. No’ sure species. Nommy.”

“Hm. Maybe we can come up with better gear for fishing, since I’m guessing anything in use is improvised. I’ll think about that.”

“Throw Theo into a lake with fish,” Zach said. “Probably can’t catch them bare-handed but could tell you what’s in it.”

“Not a bad idea. Do the trees actually change off to the right?”

“Lots of tiny habitats edging into each other. Relatively tiny. Still the size of ten, twenty, more basketball courts, depending.”

“Cool.” Kayla wandered off to the right to explore; Zach stayed near her.

Since Des tended to meander, her attention caught by anything and everything, JC found herself intermittently alone. That was fine. She knew her friends were close by. Des and Zach would keep them going the right direction.

“No’ far,” Des said. “Gonna go ahea’.”

“All right,” Kayla said. “Don’t get so distracted by ear-scritches that you forget to tell them we’re on our way.”

Des grinned at her. “Maybe.” She loped off into the trees, out of sight surprisingly quickly for a big black cat wearing vivid yellow.

The remaining trio passed along the edge of a broad open area that had only a handful of wide-spreading trees scattered across it, the rest unfamiliar calf-deep vegetation that JC didn’t recognize.

At least a dozen chickens, unexpectedly large ones finely barred with black and white, were pecking at the plants energetically; JC saw one seize an earthworm and drag it relentlessly out of the ground, only to have several neighbours converge and set up a mad clucking chorus as they competed for it. One lunged at a honeybee buzzing in to land on a plant, and snapped it up quite successfully.

What the chickens didn’t see was the trio of figures creeping up on them, spread in a broad arc.

One was a curvy four-armed woman with long tangled black hair and cornflower-blue skin, in an uneven short skirt and complicated-looking but minimal halter that both resembled tiger skin.

One was a woman whose mottled dark grey skin was partly covered in scales of graphite and moss-green and pewter, her build more lean and athletic, and she wore no clothing to hide it.

The third woman had fur of greyish-gold and soft tan, longer in some areas than others, and a fluffy squirrel-like tail currently extended flat behind her, matching her rounded squirrelly ears and large glossy-black eyes and a hint of possible whiskers. She didn’t seem to be wearing clothing, but might have a bag or something similar.

All three were focused intently on the chickens.

“Friend or foe?” Kayla asked softly.

“Good question,” Zach said. He closed the short distance between them, making sure Kayla was bracketed between him and JC. “Don’t know.”

“Hunting?”

“Looks like.” JC watched Zach turn a slow, complete circle—well, slow for Zach in early-summer weather. “Fuck. Back the way we came. Now.”

JC couldn’t recall whether they’d told Kayla that Zach had an extra heat sense, but she didn’t waste time questioning what had elicited that response. “Yep.” She spun in place and started back along their path. JC kept pace with her, trying to keep her attention on their surroundings and not on watching Zach.

*What, Zach?* Alison said. *Oh hell. Des! Zach says they’ve got trouble! At least seven, at least some are familiar and probably hostile, and one is an intense cold spot!* A brief pause. *Des says she’s getting help, she’s almost at the house fae. Did we even check whether Kay can use that cuff?*

*No, I don’t think we did,* JC said. *And that was a really stupid oversight. I really hope Des is fast. I’m not much use as a fighter. I can stay between Kayla and danger, or I can try to keep that ice fae busy, but I can’t do much more and I can only do one of those.*

*We know, Jace. Do your best. Your best skill is talking. Maybe you can buy some time.*

*I’m not exactly Theo but I can give it a shot.*

*Speaking of whom, Theo says she and Kay did a quick casual test and control is apparently not intuitive so assume the worst.*

One or more of the chickens noticed them, and the flock set up a godawful racket of clucking and fluttering as they fled across the open land.

The three hunting faelings all got to their feet.

“Clueless much?” the scaled one snarled. “You clumsy fuckheads just cost us our dinner.”

“Sorry,” Zach said shortly. “Accident. Leaving.”

“Hang on,” the squirrel said with sudden interest. She wore only a necklace that appeared to be several kinds of nuts, including acorns, on a wisp-silk string, and her clawed fingers played with it; she had a mid-sized crescent-shaped soft bag with a wide cross-body strap, also made of silk. Her tail now arched behind her and twitched in irregular small jerks to either side. “You’re wandering around with an actual human?” She didn’t sound aggressive, only curious.

Zach made a hissing sort of growl, a warning.

The other two took a closer look in JC’s direction—and Kayla’s.

“That’s a human all right,” the four-armed blue woman said, and threw a scornful look at Zach. “Seriously? Consorting with humans?” She paused, and tilted her head to one side. “Does Isabel know about her?”

“Isabel’s gone,” Zach said flatly.

JC heard motion, beyond the normal background of the breeze rustling leaves and the humming of bees. She turned in place, trying to track the source.

Worryingly, she saw faelings coming out of lurking places behind trees and rocks, where presumably they’d been the rest of a trap for the chickens.

“What the hell are you talking about? That bitch owns us, her and her wizard buddies.”

“Too much of Isabel’s drugs?” said the scaled one. “You can’t remember current reality? Or did you just disconnect so badly that now you’re hallucinating?”

“Remember perfectly,” Zach said. “Told you there was hope. We had a plan. It worked. Now there’s a future.”

“And you think we’re going to just take your word for that?”

“Callie can confirm,” JC said.

Zach nodded. “Callie saw Isabel and all locked up. Now they’re waiting for trial.”

“Yeah, someone better talk to Callie,” the four-armed woman said sceptically.

Kayla glanced at JC, shrugged, and stepped past her, towards the three faelings. JC sighed to herself, but figured her odds of getting Kayla to stay out of it were virtually nonexistent. Instead, she stayed protectively close, a step behind and to Kayla’s right—and did her best to keep an eye on the rest, not sure Kayla had even noticed them yet.

“Hi,” Kayla said, her tone calm and friendly. “I came looking for my friends who got kidnapped. These are two of them. I got lucky enough that a responsible medium with contacts and a low-level local wizard who also knew my friends were available to help. And my friends are brilliant.” She shifted the notebook to her other hand and held up her wrist so the gold bracelet was visible. “I just wanted my friends back, but I really hate psychopaths and I’m going to do what I can to minimize the damage. Isabel and Phrixos and all can’t hurt you any more, and I have absolutely zero reason why I’d want to do so.”

“Holy fucking hell.” The four-armed woman strode closer, and snatched for Kayla’s arm.

JC seized the faeling’s wrist first, and Zach hissed a warning.

The squirrel squeaked and fell back a couple of steps, tail moving in more rapid and emphatic spasms and her ears flattening halfway, playing more frantically with the necklace of nuts. Any cord less strong than wisp silk probably could not have survived it.

“Oh, chill. That wasn’t an attack,” the four-armed woman said impatiently. “If I wanted to attack, you wouldn’t have any doubts about it. I just wanted to look.”

“Then say that,” Zach snarled. “Know I’m protective of friends. Even more of human ones. Even more when you have them.” He tossed his head towards the faelings who had been drifting up behind them.

“Yeah, fine, sorry, so sue me for being surprised. Leggo.”

“Jace,” Kayla said. “Let go, eh?” She glanced at Zach, but didn’t look behind her; instead, she held out her gold-adorned wrist, though not at full extent, her elbow still at her side.

Pointedly, the four-armed woman laced both sets of hands together behind her back and only then leaned forward. “Well, that looks like Isabel’s toy, anyway.”

“Callie can verify it,” Kayla said. “So can a few others but I’m not sure they’re friends of yours.”

Zach snorted. “Sure, ask the wisp queen. After bullying them.”

“I haven’t,” the squirrel-woman said, pulling her tail around into reach. “I’m friends with them. Seriously? Isabel’s gone?”

The four-armed woman made a snorting noise similar to Zach’s as she straightened and stepped back. “So now we belong to a new bunch of humans. You think she got here without serious wizard help? He’ll just take over. Even if she’s stupid enough to have the kind of ridiculous idealism the dragon there does, that won’t stop a wizard. Or another freakin’ medium.”

Kayla sighed. “Do you have a name? Or at least something your friends, acquaintances, and enemies call you?”

“I’m Rusty,” the squirrel offered, fingers combing through the fur of her enormously-floofy tail.

“Hi, Rusty. It’s nice to meet you. I’m Kayla. Cool necklace.”

Abandoning her tail for the moment in favour of her string of nuts, the squirrel smiled, though her black eyes kept moving, dancing briefly to any motion in range no matter how small. Never to Kayla’s eyes, though, JC noted. That reminded her of something she should probably know, but she couldn’t place it. “Hi, Kayla. It’s nice to meet you too. I could make you one. If you made Isabel go away, I’d like to do something back.”

“Thank you, but not right now,” Kayla said gently. “I’d probably lose it and that would be a shame. I got what I wanted: I have my friends back.”

“Okay.” Rusty went back to grooming her tail in swift repeated strokes, but JC was sure she was still paying close attention. To the conversation, and to everything else, given the constant motion of eyes and ears.

The four-armed woman regarded Kayla measuringly. “Does it matter what my name is?”

Kayla shifted gears, from talking to Rusty to talking to the unfriendly four-armed woman, with a fluidity JC had to admire. “It does to me. I have this weird thing about knowing who I’m talking to. I suppose I could just refer to you, to all and sundry and in my own head, as ‘the woman with killer curves, four arms, blue skin, and attitude like a wet cat,’ but it would be shorter with a name.”

Silence for a couple of heartbeats.

“I don’t think I want to tell you that.”

“Okay, fair enough. Like I said, I’m Kayla. My dragon friend is Zach, and the house fae is JC. I’d like to propose a temporary truce, in which we all have JC’s delicious cookies, and then you can come with us to the house-fae collective and ask Callie for her evaluation after she spent a few hours at the house. And if you’re nervous, I would be too after the crap I know Isabel pulled, you pick any type of cookie you want and I’ll eat one first, or JC or Zach will.”

Having her hands full made JC distinctly nervous right now, but she figured that was her cue, and hey, maybe cookie diplomacy would work, or at least buy time. She took the top cookie box out of the bag, leaving the handles around her arm, and opened the box, slipping the lid underneath. Peanut butter cookies, she observed. On a hunch, she held it roughly in the squirrel-woman’s direction. Immediately, she saw the squirrel’s nose begin to twitch.

“Cookies?” Rusty said, letting go of her tail, and licked her lips. “Peanut butter cookies? For real?”

JC took out one cookie, extended her hand with the cookie on her palm, and let her joints lock.

“Trap,” muttered the scaled woman.

“Basic,” JC said. “Best I could do with current ingredients. Friends are arranging for more supplies and a better kitchen. There’s nothing bad in them. Just peanut butter, sugar, and eggs. Nothing else.” The squirrel kept edging closer, tail twitching spasmodically, wary but her gaze never left the offered cookie.

“Don’t do it,” the scaled one warned the squirrel. “You’ll regret it.”

“It’s only one cookie, Ren,” Rusty said. “There can’t be enough bad stuff in one cookie to be too terrible. And she said it’s safe.”

The scaled woman, presumably Ren, heaved a long-suffering sigh. “At least make one of them eat one first.”

Kayla took the cookie off JC’s hand and tossed it to Zach, who deliberately ate it in three bites instead of popping the whole thing in his mouth at once. The dragon’s attention was far more on what was behind Kayla and JC than on the trio in front. That made sense: the squirrel didn’t seem at all aggressive, and the four-armed one was the one Zach had a truce of sorts with, leaving only one. Behind them, on the other hand, by Zach’s earlier count there must be four in total, one of them the ice fae.

“All gone,” Zach said.

JC held out the box and let her joints lock again, allowing the squirrel to choose her own.

Rusty inched just close enough to snatch one cookie, then retreated a few hasty steps. She cupped the cookie in both hands and nibbled at one edge.

Slowly, she smiled, her eyes closing. Even the flicking of her tail slowed down. “Ohhhhh, that tastes so good...”

Well, she was a squirrel. Des reacted like that to tuna.

“You’ll be sorry tomorrow you did that,” scaled Ren said, her tone oddly conversational.

“No, I don’t think I will. It would have to be really really bad for me to be sorry about this.”

“You sure?” Kayla asked. “Callie likes them. Maybe you’ll feel better if you see her eat one. But hey, I’m not going to push you into anything. Just, y’know, if you’re hunting feral chickens because you’re hungry, it would at least be a snack, and help make up for us accidentally interrupting.” She finally glanced over her shoulder. “There are lots. Peanut butter cookies, and sugar cookies with either vanilla or chocolate icing. You can have a couple more if you want, Rusty, you could take them with you and eat them whenever you want.”

“Probably poisoned,” the four-armed woman muttered, but JC thought she was weakening.

Rusty smiled happily and came back, fearless now, to take two more cookies that she stashed into her bag carefully. “Thank you,” she told JC politely.

“You’re welcome,” JC said.

“Can I have cookies for my other friends? There’s two of them.”

“Sure. Help yourself. Would they like peanut butter? Or sugar cookies?” She already knew that Kayla wouldn’t just be okay with JC briefly getting distracted from safety issues to make sure Rusty had cookies for her friends, she’d consider good relations and a possible morale boost to be the higher priority. JC didn’t agree, but she could open boxes for Rusty while staying at least mostly alert.

Kayla sighed. “Why on earth would I poison cookies, and why would my faeling friends go along with that? Look, I’ve been on this island for less than a full day. I only got the news about fae and all existing a couple of hours before that, while freaking out over my missing friends. I did not have any plans that involved anything that has happened in that time. I didn’t come here planning to steal this thing from Isabel. I would be more than happy to be rid of it, because having that kind of power without consent makes me very seriously uncomfortable. I’m keeping it until a friend can find a solution to the cuffs you’re wearing, because if I have it, it can’t be used to hurt my friends or anyone else.”

“Not sure I believe that’s Isabel’s little toy,” the scaled woman said. “She’d probably have to be dead before you could get it off her.”

“Well, unconscious, badly hurt, and possibly dying, yeah,” Kayla said. “I can’t say I feel much remorse about that.”

“Prove it. If that’s what you say it is, just lock someone’s wrists together or something.”

“Ah... that’s a problem. I haven’t had it for long, and so far I’ve only been able to give it one command, to let my friends go. My siren friend asked me if I could do anything with it, and obviously that will take some practice. Which I don’t have much interest in getting, since I don’t want to use it and I’m hoping it will all be irrelevant very soon.”

“Uh-huh. That makes it a bit harder to believe.”

“Rude,” chided a male voice from behind them. “Could be real. Would be a lot of work to try to fool a bunch of faelings who are all as good as dead anyway.” That voice would probably have been strikingly unusual anywhere except here, a tenor with a faintly furry texture to it that slid down an octave on any syllables with heavy emphasis. JC looked over her shoulder, and saw a fairly tall male, lower body all chocolate fur with goldenrod markings, upper body an intricate pattern of mustard and cream scales, all crowned with short curled horns and split hooves. He took a step closer. “And she wants to make things better for us, you heard her.”

Not a word of it was sincere. Zach stepped pointedly between that one and Kayla, with a warning hiss.

“You might wanna dial down the sarcasm,” the four-armed woman said casually, strolling over in JC’s direction. “Last time you fought that dragon there, you got your sexy little goat ass handed to you. House fae are tricky bitches, and the cat or the green fae or the unicorn could be nearby. If you pick a fight, don’t expect me to back you up.” She eyed the box of peanut butter cookies, the sugar cookies currently back in the bag. “Nuts-for-brains there does have a point about one cookie being unlikely to do any harm, and I’m hungry.”

JC offered the box of cookies, wondering what the criteria were for being a tricky bitch. Warily, the four-armed woman took one and sniffed it.

“They’re really good, Nisha,” Rusty said, apparently unfazed by the ‘nuts-for-brains’ remark.

“Did you not hear me say I didn’t feel like telling them my name?”

“Oh. Oops. I’m sorry.”

“Whatever. Eh, what the hell.” She shrugged and took a bite.

“Mmm, maybe,” said one of the others. “Would be a snack, at least.” Her skin was the colour of sand, and the ripples in shade made soft-edged stripes that would probably hide her quite effectively in a sufficiently dry environment. Clearly female, she had smallish breasts and moderate curve to her hips, and JC figured she was actually quite attractive, the lines of her face fine and her large light-coloured eyes lined heavily with dark brown. Her hair was a little disconcerting, since it was rather Medusa-like—but it was the tails of snakes of several colourful varieties, not the heads, the longest probably extending to her waist if they’d lay still that long. Lying down to sleep looked like it might be uncomfortable. Wrapped into a simple dress was a fringed length of cloth in soft waves of tans and greys.

The Medusa-ish faeling came closer, attention on the box of cookies, which JC extended in her direction. Since her body language didn’t look aggressive and her intentions involved taking Kayla up on the invitation to have cookies, Zach let her by, still watching the other three—the scaled satyr, a black-haired woman in a white robe, a tall thin and very male troll with rocky grey skin and a spinal ridge. JC tried to keep part of her attention on the trio on the other side, four-armed and squirrel and scaled.

The Medusa-like one, while reaching for a cookie, turned her head to look at Kayla. JC saw Kayla tense, a faint crease appearing between her brows, though she stayed where she was and the relaxed smile didn’t change.