Page 96 of Fairies Never Fall

“Hell no. I can be Midsummer Queen. That’s a thing, right?” I have to kiss him just then, hard and a little desperate. He clings to my shirt.

Plato makes a noise of despair. “Never mind the race! Why didn’t you tell anyone you couldn’t swim?”

“I wanted Ezra to win,” Lysander says stubbornly, getting to his feet. He lifts the flag in his fist, showing the boats and the festival-goers on the far shore. A cheer goes up across the lake. I get up and sweep him into another kiss, and he laughs into it this time, his wings fluttering against my arms like he’s happy even though he just fell into the lake.

I scan the shore when he isn’t looking, just in case. But whatever I saw — or imagined — isn’t there anymore.

Lysander huddles under the canopy of the motorboat that speeds us back to the far shore until we land and Antoinette and I drag the boat up the beach. He stumbles out and accepts the fresh towel I hand to him, using it to squeeze the water out of his hair. Antoinette points us firmly toward the medical tent.

I dig out a juice box for him. “Cold?”

“A bit.” He pulls the towel tighter around his shoulders and pokes the straw into the juice box, his worried expression melting when he tastes the sugar.

I don’t want to scare him, but I gotta know.

“What did you see on the island earlier?” I ask quietly. “Azeroths?”

He shakes his head. “It couldn’t have been. They can’t come out during the day.”

It seems to me the azeroths who attacked us did it in daylight — granted, it was sunset, but still. “Maybe we should tell Syril.”

He frowns. “I already feel silly. It’s fine, Ezra. It must have been my imagination. Let’s not raise a fuss.”

“Raise a fuss about the fact that you almost drowned?” Orion pipes up, ducking into the tent.

“I didn’t almost drown! I had a lifejacket on.” Lysander flushes.

“Syril’s smug as hell that the two of you won.” Orion gives me a crooked grin.

“What if we’d lost?” I roll my eyes. “I thought participation was the goal.”

“You’re also the only staff representative, so actually winning was the goal.” Orion pats me on the shoulder. “Good job.”

I get to my feet. “Where’s Fitzie?”

“I’m here,” Fitzie says, leaning into the tent. His eyes widen when he sees Lysander. “Jesus, Ez, get him some dry clothes.”

“I got it.” Orion flips the lid off a bin and digs through it. He holds up a pair of jeans and aLake Caldor Rowing Clubt-shirt, two sizes too big, with holes in the collar.

Lysander takes them like they’re made of asbestos. “My clothes will dry in the sun.”

“Wet clothesoff,” Antoinette chirps loudly from the entrance, startling us all. “Spirits only know what’s in that lake water. I won’t have the prince of wildlings taken down on mywatch by some kind of brain-eating amoeba. And make him eat something!”

She tosses an object wrapped in wax paper at me and I fumble to catch it. “Brain-eatingwhat?”

“Amoeba,” she says darkly, and sweeps out of the tent without another word.

“I don’t think that’s how that works,” Orion mutters.

I open the wax paper and the strong smell of something green and earthy attacks me. It looks like a bunch of seeds held together with a greyish paste, and it’s far from appetizing. My nose wrinkles instinctually. I hold it at arms’ length.

“What is this, and is it food?”

“Oh, one of Plato’s energy balls,” Orion says.

Lysander gives me a plaintive look. “I’d rather have a lemon bar.”

It’s a no-brainer to get my ass to the dessert tent.

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