3 Fairy Powers

Ruby couldn't concentrate on looking for ingredients. She was too nervous about what was going on outside.

When Ash finally came back, she was immediately on the alert. "Well?" she demanded.

"They're gone," he informed her. "See for yourself."

She finally dared to look out the window and saw the two of them flying back the way they came. Her heart rate finally slowed. She was safe. For now. That had been way, way too close!

"Thank you," Ruby said quietly. "I really owe you one."

"You won't if you fulfil your end of the bargain," Ash replied tiredly. "You weren't bluffing, were you?"

She was insulted. "Of course not! I can get started as soon as I get the materials I need for my poultice."

Reassured that she was safe for the moment, Ruby returned to her task of rifling through the cupboards. Everything was super dusty so the labels were hard to read but eventually she found mermaid tears—that was unexpected; they were pretty hard to come by—and cat's claw. All she needed was spider silk to bind it all together.

She looked up at him sheepishly. "You don't happen to have any spider silk on hand, do you?"

Ash shook his head. "No. But with how many spiders there are around here I'm sure I can scrounge some up for you. How much do you need?"

Ruby's eyes widened. She had never heard of anyone collecting spider silk by hand. There were web factories for that run by the witches! How old was this guy to do things the old fashioned way?

She was 156 years old but in human terms she was more like 18 or 19. Fae typically weren't considered adults until they were 150 because of how long they tended to live.

Flint was 317 and Lily was 248. Her cousin Flora was still practically a baby at 31.

"Enough to fill two spools. Are you sure you can—"

Ash cut her off. "I've got it. Stay put! Or…go wherever, I guess. There's only one habitable room in this entire place and it took me over a day to clean it. Just don't go outside the barrier."

Why would that matter? The only people she was concerned about were capable of getting into it anyway.

But she did have to wonder what he even had a barrier up for. To keep humans out? Or…someone else? There were certain charms you could buy from witches that repelled humans from an area. Blood magic was a lot less specific.

Ruby had questions but Ash was already gone. She sighed and flexed her injured wing with a wince. Yep. Definitely still hurt.

With nothing else to do, she decided to try and clean the kitchen. Being a wind fairy would be really helpful right now. They were expert dusters. There was one family she knew that started their own cleaning company using their powers when humans weren't around.

That was a perfectly normal thing to do. Fae with affinities for certain types of magic tended to gravitate towards fields where they could use it.

Her aunt and uncle owned a nursery and used their powers to help the trees, shrubs, and flowers grow. He had an affinity with soil. She had one with speeding up plant growth. Together they made an excellent team.

Ruby chuckled bitterly. An excellent team that decided it would be a great idea to get rid of her for money and power. She didn't know who offered to buy her but it must have been somebody important for them to go that far.

She had been living with them for the past sixty-four years and they were willing to throw her away just like that. So much for familial love. Flora was the only one who actually cared; she had begged them not to do it right before Ruby ran away. Poor kid.

If only her powers had been as normal as Flora's. She could speak to and manipulate trees. Perfectly average for an earth fairy. Not like Ruby's freakish curse.

Everyone who knew about it thought it was a blessing if you ignored the way it made her look but she had never seen it that way. It brought her nothing but misfortune. She didn't care if the power itself was useful when it had so many cons to it.

She would have to be very careful while she was here never to let her glamour slip. Sometimes glamours could fade if a fae was particularly emotional, sick, or injured. Thankfully she was pretty healthy and had learned to squash down her emotions years ago.

Her wing pain wasn't enough to make it falter. All she had to do was keep her guard up around this vampire until she fulfilled her end of the bargain and could get out of here.

As soon as she applied the poultice and got some sleep she would change her glamour up so she wouldn't be recognizable and head into town. She couldn't use Ash as a middle man because then he would know what her powers entailed. She would have to go out and get the money herself.

Ruby scrubbed and polished and killed a few rats, disgusting as it was, but felt like she hadn't so much as made a dent in this disaster in the two hours she had been working. Now she was exhausted with nothing to show for it. Great.

Ash finally came back as she slumped into a kitchen chair, being mindful of her wings. Vampire furniture wasn't made to account for them the same way fairy furniture was.

Fairy wings were all roughly the same size and shape once a fairy reached its full size so they found a mold and worked around it. She would definitely have to find a fairy craftsman once she got out of here and was in her own place so she could be comfortable again.

Fae finding other fae wasn't always the easiest thing to do though because of glamours. She might be in for a rough time since the fairies were all so spread out.

Using some witches to scry their locations for her might be her best bet. Those nosy busybodies could find out anything for the right price. And the one thing Ruby never had to worry about was money.