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“I can’t believe you convinced him to send his precious nerds. Honestly, papa, I didn’t even know you were on talking terms.” Every talks with a smile—a real one from the depths of his heart—plastered on his face. A nerd passing by gives him a weird look.

“We’re mending our relationship, you know,” the speaker informs him, and Lily and all the other nosy bitches around them as well, since it’s so fucking loud. “It’s about time. Not like he can steal my wife back now that he has one of his own.”

Cue the flashbacks in Every’s mind, unseen and unnoticed by Lily, who stands there by his side unaware of the trauma resurfacing in his thick head. Flashbacks of their epic family drama, blown out of proportion so much by the media circus. His papa ended up paying the paparazzi a hundred thousand dollars just to get the whole shenanigans wiped out. Now, no trace of it is left, except perhaps in the memories of graduates from Darkindeep Ebonyngrey Wolfmane Ridge-Cliff College five years ago.

“Uh, that’s nice, I guess, papa.”

“Be nice to them, Every. Just because you failed bio-chemistry at Harvard doesn't mean you have the right to hate the ones who excel in the subject. You still remember the twins, Felicity and Fertility, don’t you? They’re here too. Send their parents some greetings for me: you know how they are my acquaintances.”

Then his daddy dearest ends the call, leaving him to deal with the two dozen smarties in the room.

“They’re named what?” Lily asks him right after.

See, even Lily the Weirdo thinks they’re weird.

And that’s saying quite a lot.

Every squats down on the floor to rest his legs, having stood for the whole morning waiting for the visitors, and turns his pretty head up to face her. “You bet, sugartits. And their younger sister—you wouldn’t believe it—Chastity. Like the belt. Honestly, their parents should be banned from further naming any future kids.”

Lily just shakes her head, scandalized for the millionth time of the day.

So Every decides to continue scandalizing her. “And that ain’t even the strangest one, hear me? I once knew a posh family from out of town, in the big city, associates of papa’s, and they all nicknamed their five kids like Faith the unfaithful, Joy the killjoy, Grace the disgrace, Ernest the dishonest, and Love the loveless. Yeah, no shit. Even their cousin is called Hope the hopeless. Fits them all perfectly, though.”

Now Lily’s eyebrows are officially raised high up to the earth-toned nougat ceiling.

“Oh, hey, my father sends you all his greetings,” he says to two women in lab coats who pass by, waving.

In turn, they give him two equally small waves.

Then Every turns to his girlfriend. “Yeah, that’s them.”



That afternoon, the great dining room Lily used to munch on funny brownies in is turned into an impossibly serious, impossibly elegant meeting room for the heads of different alliances.

At the head of the table, Lily sulks quietly with Queeny, her boyfriend’s best friend and her newfound friend, together on two chairs, set side by side. On either side, at the start of the two rows running opposite to each other, are Every and, for some reason she doesn’t know, Glycogen, the guard. They stare at maps drawn in a complicated, ancient language that Lily-girl doesn’t understand one bit. There are even graphics of naked mermaids on one of them, something Lily hopes is all but an error and doesn’t symbolize the real creatures.

Her not-so-simple life doesn’t need further complications than this.

“Alright, let us begin,” the regent, also the self-appointed herald of their alliance, starts.

She picks up a piece of paper handed to her by the bodyguard. “Friends and family, we are all here today to gang up against the mice. I thank you all for your— Hey, Gilly, how do you read this again? Man, your handwriting sure is harder to decipher than the Viking runes of your ancestors.”

Every, as we have come to expect him to do, rolls his eyes sarcastically.

The bodyguard looks up at her from under his hooded eyes. “It says contribution next, my lady. I can remember it well. And I also remember writing in an exceptionally beautiful handwriting.”

“The fuck does this mean?” She hisses.

“Just say it,” Lily hears the guard whisper back.

And so the lady continues, her sharp, opera singer voice ringing through the room. “I thank you all for your contribution, given freely by the kindness of your heart,” then adds from her own head, “and totally not at all from the favors we owe you.”

Then she continues reading the script. “We all know full well that an army of grey-furred rodents, led mainly by a villain named Fernando and his thousand generals, has invaded. They have set up camps of tents and watchmen around the perimeter of our beloved town of Fairyland, an independent state which by no means would tolerate invaders of any kind.

“His army consists not only of mice—which would be fairly easy to eliminate with simple traps, if not for the danger of them consuming our whole town of snacks—but also generals of life-sized humans with mouse heads who lord over them. These knights are rumored to have been created by Fernando himself self, through strange mechanisms and unknown genetic infusion technologies.

“Therefore, we are to eliminate these threats, and save not only our dear population, but also our ancient hometown,” she drones on. “I think that’s all, though.”