“No,” I said. “I haven’t lived through evolution and human adaptation, the development of countless magic creatures and civilizations, as well as escaping a faerie trap top die.”

“Ten-thousand-year faerie trap,” Wass said. “They trapped the real Flora Rose for ten thousand years.”

“Okay,” I said and instead of expanding on what amounted to a lack of comeback or thought, I leapt forward, striking in crane moving to tiger at Wass who brought her sword down to block mine.

This time, when sword met Wass, there was resistance. Not a lot of resistance, but enough that Wass was able to deflect my blade. I struck a second and third time, each attack being met by more resistance. The tendrils of water and steam that had been snaking out from Wass almost completely gone, leaving only her watery hair to float about.

She took a step toward me and attacked, her attack was not as well practiced as mine or smooth, it came with a force I wasn’t expecting. Again, I am not the most well-versed on water elementals, but I was beginning to think that Wass was overextending herself and was about ready to be taken down a notch or two.

I let her press her attack once and then twice, a third time, and then I pressed my own attack, kitten into lightning, and she stepped away looking as though she, in turn, hadn’t expected the power behind the attacks I was making. Take not Flora Rose that, I though and was glad I didn’t actually say those words out loud. While sounding great in my head, I was pretty certain Faelix would’ve made fun of me and Wass might’ve snickered.

To press my point further, I started an attack on Wass and switched to a quick cut at the tendril of water connecting her to the puddle before dropping my stance and stepping away from puddle and Wass.

There was a flash of light, of steam, and a spray of water that didn’t make it to me as I brought up my own magical shield to block the explosion and then Wass started to spin, changing into a vortex and being sucked back into the puddle. As the last of her disappeared into the surface, I willed a magical column around the puddle and extending as far into the ground and up until the ceiling as I thought was appropriate and sat back down on the bit of stalagmite and took some well-deserved clean breathes of air before looking up at the now reformed and trapped Wass.

“You bested me,” Wass said.

“Of course I did,” I said. “After all, I am Flora Rose.”

Wass made a noise that I thought was meant to be wicked and ugly and came across more as a sore loser and trapped demon.

Turning to look at Faelix, I said, “Why did you bring me here?”

“What makes you think it was me?”

“I’m neither an idiot nor am I unobservant,” I said. “Getting to the river was easy. She could’ve done that,” I motioned at Wass, “and she has no ability to leave this little grotto of hers.”

Wass sneered at me.

“I’m absolutely certain this cave in the karst either wasn’t here when I passed by with Ethan, the monster, before or it was hidden by whatever magic was keeping me from seeing the forest creatures. In any case, and regardless of the reason, you brought me here. Was Barrowind involved? Your mother?”

Faelix looked at me with a very surprised look on his face.

“Why would you suggest … you don’t know my mother,” he said.

“Queen Maeve, of course I do. We’ve interacted in the past,” I said. “Or was that something, from the libraries and books, the faerie records and discussions that you missed in the hundreds or thousands of years you’ve been of age?”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Faelix was definitely surprised at my deducing who his mother was, though I’ll admit the deduction wasn’t hard. I really have never met a male faerie and I really didn’t know nor understand faerie culture when it came to their male offspring. But I did know that male faeries were rare. As in impossibly rare. They were protected. Once they came of age, they were the sires of the next generations of faerie offspring. And someone like Faelix wasn’t common stock, because, and here I was guessing, the thing that made a queen a queen was her ability to provide the entire civilization with offspring.

What made Faelix the most special, though, wasn’t his mother and it wasn’t how smart he was or that he could somehow get into my personal dimensional space, but because of the future royal faerie that would someday, a long time from now, lead the faerie people, Felix would be the sire. Not a king and not a royal concubine, he would literally sire countless faeries.

He was, to put it another way, valuable property.

Which also meant that if Faelix had gotten free of his guards and servants and followers and hangers on, it meant that someone more important than him had approved of or diligently chosen to ignore protocols when he’d decided to escape.

Which meant, everything related to Faelix and his ending up in my satchel was a clever set up to the next steps in my adventures and possibly even my very existence.

“Let me go,” Wass practically screamed. “This is my domain.”

“We’ll get to you soon enough, honey,” I said, not looking at Wass or the ugliness her contorted face had turned into. “Right now, I need other answers.”

“How’d you figure it out?” Faelix asked. He looked a bit pleased, a bit desperate, a lot scared.

I shrugged. “I just did. Now. Why am I here?”

“Queen Maeve needed to be able to use a Standingwater and allowed this one to wake up,” Faelix said.

“That’s a bit too easy,” I said. “Your answer, that is.”

“So? Easy or not, it doesn’t make it untrue.”

I nodded. “But it also doesn’t make the answer complete.”

This time he shrugged and got a smile on his face. He looked at me and then ducked back into my personal dimensional space and came out again. I his arms was a scroll that was at least twice as long as him and, from how thick the layers were, very, very long.

“Her royal highness, the Queen Maeve, upon learning my secret, would like her most powerful and chaotic Flora Rose, mistress of mischief, to take this scroll and agree to the terms and conditions outlined therein,” Faelix said.

“How did you get that into my dimensional space without my knowing it was there?” I asked, angry and surprised.

Faelix moved his shoulders in a way that suggested he didn’t really know but did know and then maybe couldn’t explain it but could explain it. I was getting confused just by looking at him and he’d started to look at Wass and so I turned and looked at Wass too.

Wass had changed. She was still identifiable as Wass, but I suspected the change had more to do with her purpose, transmitting and receiving, over her being stuck in a column of magical energy she couldn’t break free of. I doubted, as an aside, that my trapping her made any difference on whether or not she believed I was Flora Rose, but then I didn’t need her to believe me. Not anymore. I just needed to figure out why I was in Wass’s grotto.

“Connected to Feir,” Wass said. “Prepare for communication.”

I turned to look at Faelix, who as still holding the scroll, and then back at Wass who seemed to be in some kind of repeating holding pattern and then back to Faelix.

“I’ve got no idea what’s going on,” he said.

“Is whatever’s happening the reason we’re here?” I asked .

“I don’t know,” he said.

“Communication begins,” Wass said and then, in a different voice, “Hello? Yes, well, no ones used these things in generations. I’m hoping to speak with Queen Maeve or one of her representatives.”

“Hello,” I said. “Who’s speaking?”

“Do you represent the Queen?” the voice asked.

I looked at Faelix and mouthed, “Do we?”

He shook his head and motioned that he had no idea what was going on and wide eyed I looked back at him and then I looked at Wass and said, “Yes. Yes I do.”

“My name is Trommel and I represent the Kenchin,” Trommel said.

“I wasn’t aware of the Kenchin having any relationship with Queen Maeve,” I said.

“Then you are not who you claim to be,” Trommel said.

“How would you know that. I represent Queen Maeve,” as far as you know, “and I have her scroll right here and I’ve defeated in battle all the foes and enemies I’ve come up against,” sort of, “and clearly I’m here so who else is supposed to represent Queen Maeve?” I finished.

There was some talking on the other side of the connection, which was a little weird as Wass was speaking and reacting as though she was directly connected to someone else.

“We politely request confirmation of your identity,” Trommel said.