Free Fairy Bad Day by Amanda Ashby Page A

I know. It’s a steal.”
    “Seriously, we’re fine,” Curtis said in a low voice as he did that thing with his eyes.
    “It’s just it seems such a shame to miss out on this wonderful offer. You could stock up for the holidays,” the woman persisted, obviously indifferent to Curtis’s low voice and his dark, velvety eyes. Which was a pity because, while Emma didn’t approve of his using his charm when it came to stealing dragon-slayer designations, there was no denying it would’ve come in handy right about now.
    “We’re really just browsing,” Emma repeated in a firm voice, and the woman started to deflate a bit.
    “Well, if you’re sure,” she said, looking away, “then I guess I’ll just let you get back to your . . . hey, did one of you drop a nail file?”
    “Oh.” Emma tried to stand in front of it, while wishing that the captured fairy wasn’t quite so invisible. “That’s mine. I’m just letting it . . . er, dry out. It fell in my coffee before and it got all wet, which of course meant that I couldn’t use it and . . . well, I’ve got a nail emergency, and—”
    The woman bent down and pulled it out of Rupert’s wing, much to the delight of the fairy, who paused only long enough to poke his tongue out and straighten his T-shirt before immediately flying up to the ceiling to join his friends. “You can’t just go around leaving nail files in the carpet like that. Someone could get hurt. And what are all these Skittles doing here? Do I need to ask you to leave?”
    But before Emma could even open her mouth, she looked up to the ceiling and let out a long groan as she realized the fairies were gone.

CHAPTER EIGHT

    I don’t believe it,” Emma said a few minutes later as they leaned over the railing of the top level of the mall and looked down. “We had them right there. All we needed was two more minutes and we could’ve found out exactly what this darkhel thing is.”
    “I’m sorry, Jones. Are you okay?” Curtis asked in a surprisingly soft voice, and Emma found the tension that had been building up between her shoulder blades start to ease.
    “Yeah.” She let out a sigh and turned to him. “Except for the fact that I can apparently see invisible fairies that are the size of dragons and that no one has ever heard of before. And here I was thinking my life couldn’t get any weirder.”
    “Maybe you just haven’t heard of this one before?” Curtis said in a hopeful voice, but Emma shook her head.
    “When Kessler stuck me with the fairies, I made sure I read every single book I could find on them—not that there were many—and trust me, there was nothing remotely like a darkhel. Or even a fairy that stands over a foot high, for that matter.” She rubbed her sore eye as her frustration started to mount again. “It doesn’t make sense.”
    “I know,” Curtis agreed, before pushing his ugly glasses up onto his wild curls and frowning. “First they talked about darkhels, and then they said all that mumbo jumbo about the Pure One. I mean, what was that about?”
    Emma was immediately diverted as she studied his face in surprise. “You’re kidding, right? You haven’t heard of the Pure One?”
    “Um, no.” Curtis looked at her blankly. “What is it?”
    “According to the legend, Sir Francis was so upset that a demon had killed his only brother that he decided to shut the Gate of Linaria once and for all to stop any more elementals from getting out. Because the gate disappears and reappears all the time, it took him ages to track it down, and then when he did he used some hocus-pocus spell to seal it. Apparently, part of the spell included five drops of blood from a nameless male child. The blood was meant to represent purity and innocence. Personally, I think it’s a little gross. But the point is that ever since he sealed the gate, the elementals have been looking for the descendant of the nameless child so they can use its blood to reverse the spell, reopen the