Shanley’s eyes darken, going from that gleaming copper to a dull mahogany shade. “He’s on a search for—” She shakes her head. “Ah, but never you mind. You’re a human, yes?”
I nod. Honestly, it’s not like I can deny it. “Is that okay?”
“Oh, yes, yes. We imps called all humans friends before the veil closed and we were swept out of the Iron. You’re safe with us, you are. The Shadow Realm is dangerous for one like you, but not with the imps! Come. Sit down. You must eat with us.”
“Oh. I don’t know—” I stop. Just because the imps are tiny and super friendly, I can’t forget that they’re still faerie creatures. Do I really want to offend the clan leader? “Um. Okay.”
Why not?
She leads me through the workshop, toward the back where there’s a table that looks like it belongs at a banquet. It’s long and narrow and it’s filled with tons of plates. I recognize some of the food—it’s mainly fruit and grains and seeds—though everything is mini-sized, perfect for the imps.
That reminds me...
“Um, I don’t want to be rude… and I appreciate the offer… but can I eat this stuff?”
Shanley cocks her head. “What’s that?”
“I mean, the cake made me small. If I eat something else…” My thoughts go right to Alice in Wonderland again. If I start to shoot back to my regular height, I’ll never fit. And, unlike in the cartoon, there are no windows for me to stick my arms and legs out of.
She titters out an amused laugh. I don’t know what’s so funny. I thought it was a pretty valid question.
“Everything for our guests is safe,” she says, “and you can be sure of that. Only the cakes make you teeny, just like it takes a growing potion to make you big, big, big again.”
“And I can have one of those, too, right?”
“It’s the contract for when we get our guests, you see. You eat the cake, you share our meal, you drink the potion. It’s a fair trade. Anything else, there’s a price to be paid.”
“Do you get guests a lot?”
“Oh, yes. Not as many as we used to before it was the Reign of the Damned, no, no, no, but when we had the old king, we had so many guests. Now that the Summer King’s returned, we want more, more, more.”
I think of the cakes out front and the green glass bottles of growing potion as one of the other imps pulls out a chair at the table for me. Taking a seat, I ask, “Hey, you wouldn’t have had a guy named Lewis Carroll drop in, would you?”
Who knows? Sure, Lewis Carroll is a pen name, but maybe that’s how he got it in the first place. He stumbled into Faerie, called it Wonderland in his stories, and learned that it wasn’t safe to use his real name.
Too bad that Shanley shakes her head. “Not that I remember. Is he a friend of yours?”
Considering he died about two hundred years before I was born, not quite. “No. Not really.”
“Shame, shame, shame. We imps like having friends.”
I can tell.
Once I’m sitting down, Shanley grabs two plates. She plops one in front of her setting, one in front of mine, then she takes the seat next to me.
Glancing down at my plate, I see that there’s something on it already. It’s… it’s meat. How odd. I mean, I guess I started to think that everyone in Faerie was vegetarian or something. Probably because Veron only served me faerie fruit, and in Siúcra, they stuck to the same thing. This is definitely meat, though.
Unfortunately, it’s not any kind I recognize.
Trying not to worry too much, I ask, “What’s this?”
Shanley grins. For the first time, I notice that the friendly imp’s teeth are super pointed. “My favorite. Squirrel.”
It takes everything I have to keep my expression neutral. Even as my stomach is turning, I try not to offend the imp before I can get my hands on some of the growing potion.
“It looks delicious,” I lie.
“Eat up, eat up.”