Yurith finished her account of the events of the previous night and the pixie boy gave her a woeful smile.

"I’ll tell Prince Gezel that you didn’t get the information."

"Wait," Yurith said.

The pixie stayed, the twigish fingers of his right hand fidgeting with irritation. He didn’t want to hear excuses, but sirens were persuasive creatures.

"I want compensation. Breaking the law for his sake must be worth something."

"And which law would you be talking about?" the pixie Evan asked her.

"Not entering the human realm. Neither fey nor human may cross over to the other's side," Yurith stated for him. "Why does he need to know what they are planning over there anyways? I would think he had enough schemes by now."

"What do you want Yurith?" the pixie simply asked.

He had no intention of keeping her company while she figured out how to ruin their lives with these worthless schemes of her own.

"The girl I lost. I want him to find her," Yurith said all too quickly.

"Lady Yurith. You can`t expect my master to waste his time like this. You are not up to his status and I believe it was you who was trying to show off with a human."

"I will tell the fey court that he is a spy," Yurith asserted.

Not that they had much of a court left. Most of the seelie servants had run off since the king became crazed, but the young prince Gezel would hate for his innocent older brother to know all the bad things he did.

"Your lady is a spy as well."

"This lady, has infinitely more resources!" she said standing.

She refused to be put down. Evan the pixie stopped to consider. The smell of ash wafted around the room, over the silk couch cushions, around the ladies garments, and past the hard glint of gold in her green eyes. Her red lips had a hard set, but her dark hair fell in tangles that suggested she had little time for herself. The older prince’s favourite singer was a mess, but she couldn't be taken for a fool.

"I will tell him", the pixie Evan announced, "And I will report back. So keep your door open."

Yurith stood watching as he waded back across the sandy floor scattered with sheets and shawls until he was finally out of the room.

"Daniel, she called out.

Her door was pulled open and a skinny Minotaur with curly brown hair and small forward pointed horns stepped in from the hall. 

"Yes, my lady."

"Contact the wizard Manson for me."

***

"Selene, are you awake!" Edith called out from behind the door. "You have to get up today. They said you were fine."

Selene lay face down on her pillow. She didn’t want to work as a punishment. She wanted to do something else. She felt that she deserved more, only she couldn’t think of what. All she knew was that it was her fault for getting drunk and losing her memories so now she was being punished. Tarin wasn’t going to teacher her magic until she became more responsible. 

"Fine," Selene mumbled to herself.

She ignored Edith and got up to dress. Half asleep, she struggled to get everything on straight. Edith called her name again.

"I'm awake, ok!" Selene announced.

"Hurry up or I’m coming in."

"Be quiet! I’m coming!" Selene yelled in annoyance.

Now that she knew what was going on she was just angry. The joke about giving her a new name was just cruel now. All this just because Tarin had been too busy to tell her about her memory loss a little sooner. Edith should have told her.

Selene was trying to fix her hair in the mirror on the closet door when Edith entered the room. Selene gave up and turned to meet her new friend. She was getting nowhere.

"Do you need a hairbrush?" Edith asked.

"I think I need a lot of things," Selene replied.

"I’m sure we can figure that out later. You can get Tarin to take you into town, but we need to get breakfast."

"Alright," Selene admitted. She remembered how Edith wanted to go into town and felt bad that she might get the chance to go while her friend had to stay here.

*

Seeing strangers at the breakfast table made her uneasy again. Edith took her usual spot beside Trisha and pulled Selene into an empty seat on her left.

"You can choose what you want. I’ll introduce you to the others as we meet them."

"Right," Selene said looking around carefully, but it was not the food that attracted her.

There were three guys in plate armour joking at one end of the long table and seeing their eyeless helmets, pointed teeth, and black empty mouths made her nervous. A fourth man in chain mail was looking intently at the table. She watched him as she tried to figure out what he was doing and as if sensing her gaze he finally looked up. 

When their eyes met, Selene found herself standing in the clearing of a forest full of white trees. The atmosphere was calming, but she felt someone watching her suspiciously. Then she felt the pain of someone pulling her hair and was back at the dinner table looking at Edith's worried face. Edith sighed and let go of Selene's hair, returning to her meal. Selene glanced around to see if the others noticed the event, but nobody seemed to be paying attention.

"Did I do something wrong?" Selene asked Edith, now picking at her food like everyone else.

"Past finders," Edith replied. "They see in the past. Don’t look into their eyes or you’ll get dragged in."

Edith said no more and Selene began to feel the weight of the things she had forgotten yet were expected to know. Well, Selene didn’t need to be told twice. The past didn’t seem very friendly.

To distract herself she examined more of the food and picked some familiar things to eat. Trisha sat beside Edith to her right, eating calmly while a tattoo-skinned girl to Selene's left continued to make jokes across the table to her friends.

"Where’s Ris?" Selene whispered to Edith.

She felt that saying the woman’s name would bring bad luck.

"She’s eating upstairs with the people of greater importance," Edith told her.

"Oh."

Her master Tarin must have been one of those people. Selene wished that she could have known him better. She wondered how many days of chores it would take to be considered responsible. How did a person learn magic anyways? Did they read it from a book or gather it around them? Was it inside or outside? What couldn’t you do with it?

The light touch on her right arm got Selene to turn her head. Edith ceased her lively chatting as Trisha leaned across the table space between them.

"Don’t take it too hard," the older woman said. "You will be just fine here."

"That’s what I said," Edith complained.

Trisha only smiled and pulled back her hand.

"You’ll have to excuse me," Trisha said.

A loud scrape signalled the leaving of the tattoo-skinned woman on Selene’s left. Trisha got up after her.

"Silly old woman," Edith said as others around the table started to leave.

"That woman does a lot of work," one of the guards said picking up his plate to bring out with him.

"Don’t teach the guest bad manners," another said on their way out the door.

Selene and Edith sat as everyone cleared out of the room. Then Edith stood and started piling up the dishes around her. Selene put down her fork and was going to say something, but Edith was already out of the room. Selene eyed the unfinished food on her plate.

"Come on we’re washing dishes," Edith said coming back. "Pick up some plates and I’ll show you the kitchen. We get it all to ourselves today so let’s not waste it."

Edith gathered things up quickly. Determined not to fall behind Selene picked up her plate and followed.

This room was larger than the others Selene had seen. To the left of the door was a brick fireplace with a metal shelf over it for cooking food or warming soup. Cubbyholes for baking bread were on either side. In the right corner was a bucket and water pump. At the back beside another door leading outside was a makeshift cutting table formed by placing a wooden board over two large barrels. The kitchen was well stocked with crates of food. Herbs hung from the ceiling and pots and pans hung on the walls. Dishes were piled up in the huge stone sink in the middle of the room.

"Start filling the sink with water from the pump. I’ll get the other dishes," Edith said.

Selene worked on filling the sink with water while Edith came and went, filling the sink with dishes and dumping uneaten food out the back door. Soon they were scrubbing dishes side by side.

"Um…Edith," Selene finally chanced to say.

"Yes."

"Do you always do chores?"

"It depends on the day."

"I mean chores. Do you always do cores?"

"Of course. It’s our job. We do the cleaning, the guards watch the place, the cooks make the food, and the guys upstairs plan things. You’ll get used to it. Hey, want to hear something interesting."

"Alright."

"When I was younger my mom told me that fairies took discarded ash to make fairy dust," Edith said.

"Really?" Selene said interested.

"Ya. So being the kid I was I swept the fire every single day until my mother had to tell me that she made it up or we would never get a fire going."

"Then what do fairies do?"

"Selene. Fairies aren’t real."

"They’re not?"

Though it had not been Edith's intention, Selene felt tricked.

"Oh, I forgot that you…well forgot. Sorry. Hey do you know about the fey courts then?"

"Edith," Selene said frustrated.

"Ok. Ok," Edith said charging on. "Listen then. There are a lot of different fey, but we have separated into one of two royal courts that suit us best. First the unseelie who don’t like being told what to do and who act based mostly on their moods. Then the seelie who spend a lot of time thinking about their actions and try to keep everything organized, but a few years ago they got into a little fight. Then a lot of important people left or went missing and it has been just the few of us," Edith said handing a bowl over for Selene to dry.

"Who left?"

"Awww you know," Edith said putting her hands back in the sink to rattle the dishes. "The unseelie got tired of dealing with the rule making seelie and went to live with the humans. Mean, magic deprived, animal hating humans, which seems a little silly. The wizards and the fey have been trying to decide what to do with the humans for years."

Selene had another question prepared in her mind, but was distracted by a splash of water in her face as Edith pulled up a pot.

"Come on, were almost done."

Selene took the offending pot.

"Ok, but uh…

"My point is," Edith continued. "That if you ever leave the house you should be careful."

"Is all of that really for a warning?"

"That’s what stories are for, warnings and entertainment. Am I right?"

"Well yes, but what about the wizards you mentioned. What do they do?"

"Oh. Read books I guess."

Really, Selene thought. What a simple and kind world it would be if everyone could sit reading books.