Forever (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale 5)

“Cleaned.” Why did she feel unsure now of all she and her Fae friends had accomplished?

“Why?”

“It needed to be done and…” She paused in thought before answering. “And because it made me happy.”

He gave her the most disgusted look, and she had to cover her mouth to hide her smile. It really did make her happy. She had found a purpose, something to occupy her thoughts from worry.

“Like mother like daughter,” he said as he gazed around the kitchen, his face unreadable.

He said that as if it were an insult, not a compliment, and his careless words stabbed at her barely healed heart. She tried to not let him know how much those words hurt her.

“I guess,” she answered stiffly.

“You did this by yourself?”

“I had help from the lights.”

He turned to her in surprise. “Really? Interesting. Where are they now?”

“I’m not sure.” She glanced around the kitchen and couldn’t find a single one.

Teague gave her an odd stare and abruptly left. It took a few minutes before she could get her heart rate under control. She thought she was in trouble.

She made herself get back to cleaning and, after a few minutes, the Fae lights came out of hiding. They helped her tackle the hallway. They swept, mopped, and washed the high arched windows. Before she knew it, it was evening, and she was famished. When she returned to her room, warm food waited. She devoured it all and slept soundly, her door never closing.

The next morning when she went to the kitchen for soap and water, even more Fae lights greeted her.

“Are you here to help?”

They bobbed and blinked excitedly.

“Well, then we need to take down the remnants of the old tapestries, and we need to replace or repair the paintings. I hate to get rid of them, but they need to be fixed. Can you handle that?”

Before she had even finished, a third of the lights dashed out the open window. Another group—the ones she figured she worked with yesterday—worked together to carry large pots to the pump.

Mina went out to the main hall with a bucket and started gathering large pieces of the broken column. She didn’t know how they were actually going to clean up the pillar. She definitely wasn’t strong enough to move it.

The double door behind her banged wide open, and she smelled it before she dared turn to look. A large fur-covered beast stood peering over her shoulder.

Chapter 22

Mina swallowed a scream and scrambled backward, tripping over the rubble she was trying to clear. The white-haired beast stared at her, its gruesome teeth lifting into a half-smile, making her knees shake. He was huge—easily over twelve feet tall—with white and gray tufted fur covering his whole body. His nose was apelike, and his teeth were large and flat. Her first thought was Yeti.

His furred hand reached for her, and she rolled out of the way, scraping her stomach across the sharp pieces of marble and stone. When she stopped moving, she had time to notice it wasn’t attacking. It was actually hefting the large broken column onto its shoulders and turning to walk back out the doors. A few minutes later, he returned and picked up another piece of the colonnade and dragged it out.

“Careful,” Mina called out, utterly relieved. “We don’t want to scratch the floors.”

A long rumbling sound echoed from the thing. She wasn’t sure, but it could’ve been laughter. She worked side by side with the furred beast for a good part of the afternoon. He took down the broken tapestries and paintings and put them on the floor, and he cleared the rooms of the large debris, stone, and destroyed doors.

The Fae lights returned and worked on cleaning the scorch marks from the walls and clearing cobwebs.

The beast carefully opened up another door and entered the throne room. Mina followed at a distance. This room was the worst. Both of the Royal thrones were destroyed, burned to a crisp. The curtains were in a pile on the floor, and the portrait of the Fates had been blown up. All that was left was the frame.

They got to work cleaning up the throne room, and it felt weird. She wanted the palace to be put back together, but she didn’t know why. Maybe the Fae part of her soul wanted order restored. More Fae lights came in to help, and the yeti cleared out the destroyed chairs. Within a few hours, even the pillars were fixed.

“Well, now that it’s cleaned, what do we do? We can’t leave it empty.” Mina said to the Fae lights as she looked around the Great Hall.