They dive-bombed the things en masse, darting in and away so quickly not a single fairy was splashed. Despite their success, Alex could see the danger wasn't over. Once the bubbles were broken, the dark smoke remained, coiling together in an angry mass.
An oily claw of vapor reached out for the nearest jewel-colored Tinkerbell, missing her by inches.
"Sing!" ordered the soprano fairy, the queen to judge by her twinkling crown. "Black magic cannot withstand the sound of fairy joy."
At once the fairies burst into song, and it was as if the most beautiful boys and girls choir the universe had ever known were singing the most beautiful music ever composed. Alex began to weep at the sound of it. If the voice he'd heard behind the falls had been acid, this was pure love, the kind of love that didn't know how to be disappointed, the kind that loved for the simple pleasure of being loving, the kind that asked nothing except to be allowed to love more. He found himself wishing his mother were there to hear it. She'd understand why his soul was flying. She'd understand why this felt like home.
He opened his mouth, and a note came out, not a song, just a note that opened his whole body—his throat, his heart, the channels of energy that ran down his legs—as if he'd rooted in the earth and drawn up its power. The tingle of it streaming through him was almost painful.
A screech of outrage cut through the sparkle-clouded air, too harsh to have come from Zoe's fairies.
This isn't over, warned the voice behind the falls. You won't get away with betraying your liege—again!
Happily, the voice appeared to be mistaken. As the fairies' song continued, the smoke shrank to the size of a pea and then disappeared, which caused a concerted shout of triumph to burst out from Zoe's rescuers. The noise sounded like The Chipmunks winning the Superbowl.
Alex was still reeling from all he'd seen when the fairy with the purple wings and the yellow crown left the celebration to fly up to him.
She hovered no more than a foot away, twinkling like some acid-induced Disney hallucination, studying him with an intensity that left him tongue-tied. His face felt odd where his tears were drying, but he didn't bother to wipe them off, not when his measure was being taken by something that might be able to turn him into Mickey Mouse.
"You sang with us," the fairy finally said in a musing tone. "That was considerate. You may have my name if you like."
"I would be honored," he said a little breathlessly.
Apparently, this was the correct response. She nodded regally. "I am Queen Rajel. You may call on me if you need help."
"I think maybe Zoe does."
Zoe was looking dazed. Queen Rajel flew up and down and around her body like a dragonfly physician—studying her aura, Alex supposed. Zoe didn't move except to rub her eyes.
"She will recover," the queen pronounced once she was finished. "She didn't soak up enough of the doubt spell for it to last. If she hadn't had a weak spot, it wouldn't have affected her this much." She darted back to Alex's face and peered at him sternly. "You must tell her what the evil one said to you. Our Zoe needs to be warned."
"I will," Alex said, "but who was—"
He was talking to empty air. Every fairy in the glade had vanished simultaneously.
Boy, Alex thought, unable to form a single thought more rational than that.
Zoe tried to remember what had happened after she and Alex made love, but her mind was fuzzy, as if she'd been woken too abruptly from a troubling dream. She remembered seeing the bubbles, and Alex shaking her, and a terrible ache like an unsuspected wound opening in her chest. Hurt had issued from it dark as oil smoke to blot out the sky.
She was a stupid, stupid woman. Couldn't even fall in love with a man who wouldn't break her heart.
"Zoe." Alex squeezed her wrist. They sat in his Audi outside her gallery. Corky was cuddled against her br**sts, his cold pink nose tickling her throat. His purr was a low vibration under her stroking fingers, much more comforting than her thoughts. Alex turned off the car's engine.
She didn't remember him driving here. She'd been lost in that awful dream where the whole world seemed horrible. She rubbed one hand uncomfortably down her thigh, like she had something stuck to her energy that needed peeling off.
"You should take a shower," Alex said. "Use that sea salt scrub you used to like."
It was exactly what she'd have thought of if she'd been in her right mind. The crystals in the sea salt cleansed more than the body.
"I will," she said, and began to open the door.
"Wait," said Alex, stopping her. When she settled back in the leather seat, his expression turned sheepish. "Your, um, fairies told me to make sure you knew what I'd heard."
The idea that her fairies had been speaking to him was almost as strange as the tale he told. Zoe felt her eyes getting wider, but at least her amazement was serving to clear her mind.
"You're certain the name the voice called was Magnus?"
"I'm certain, and there can't be that many Magnuses hereabouts. She also called him her son."
Zoe pinched her lip. "I don't know if Magnus's mother is alive or dead."
"You think this might be a ghost?"
"I don't know. I didn't think a poltergeist could fill a room with rocks. Maybe I've been underestimating what the local spirits can do."
"Please don't start calling yourself stupid again."
He looked so worried she had to be amused. "I won't. Though I do wish I'd seen Queen Rajel and her troops attack. That must have been a sight with all their little swords."
"It was." He rubbed his chin on the back of his hand. "I feel like I ought to be apologizing. I mean, I always believed you were talking to something when you talked to fairies. I just didn't know they were really… fairies,"
Zoe smiled at his consternation. "I should go. Take that shower." She hesitated. "Will you and Bryan be okay at the inn?"
Alex's face flushed a shade darker. "Bryan is looking for a new hotel. I told him I'd meet him at the Longhorn Grill after I saw you."
"He's liable to guess what happened between us, you know."
"I know."
"He's also liable not to like it, in case you hadn't figured out how serious he is about you."
Alex gripped the wheel and stared straight ahead. "I know that, too." The skin across his knuckles whitened. "I'm sorry, Zoe. I always seem to get what ought to be simple tangled up."
Zoe sighed quietly. If she'd doubted Alex was hung up on Bryan, too, she couldn't now.