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“What about Changelings?” I asked, thinking of the girl we had just met and how her sparks were different from everyone else’s.
“You mean the babies the fairies leave in the place of human babies they snatch?” Liath asked.
I nodded.
“Can they get back to the Fae Realm?” I had never heard of such a thing happening in the Seelie Court, but maybe I had just been sheltered.
“Oh yes.” Liath nodded. “But it doesn’t happen very often,” he added. “They mostly go through their lives thinking they’re human. And of course, the older they get, the less magic lives in their blood. Eating human food and drinking human drink makes them more and more human every day. The same way eating fairy food and drink changes the human children which are stolen away.”
I did know a few fairies who had been human by birth—but they were male. And male fairies, while still good looking, weren’t nearly as lithe and ethereal as the female fairies.
We walked up to the counter and I saw the girl who had spoken to us return as well. I watched her as Liath ordered us both some of the human beverages which he wanted me to try. She ordered a drink too, and started speaking to a human male who had just come up to her. They seemed to be meeting for the first time but I didn’t think the girl liked him very much. She simply nodded at most of what he said and then turned her attention to another male on her other side.
It was then that I saw the first male—a grungy looking human with a scruffy half-beard and shifty eyes—reach into his pocket and slip something into the girl’s drink.
Alarms went off inside my head. Why had he done that? What was he planning to do? What substance had he put into the friendly human girl’s drink—was it some kind of poison?
I wanted to ask Liath about it, but he was busy talking to the bartender behind the counter. So I continued watching the scene playing out in front of me.
The human girl with the special sparks kept talking to the male on her other side and as she did, she absently reached for her drink and raised it to her lips.
I felt a surge of fear—I couldn’t let her drink poison! I opened my mouth to shout for her to stop, but she had already taken a gulp of the liquid in the cup. Oh no! I bit my lip, watching to see if she would die. Poor girl!
She didn’t die, to my relief, but after a moment more, she put a hand to her head and took a staggering step to one side.
“Hey—whoa!” I heard the man beside her say. He took her arm solicitously and I thought with relief that he was going to help her.
That was when I saw the first man—the one with the shifty eyes who had dropped the strange substance into her drink in the first place—nod at the man who was holding the girl’s arm. Understanding raced through me—the two of them were in on this scheme together! To my horror, they each took one of the girl’s arms and started dragging her away from the wooden counter.
“Wait…wai…” she said, her words beginning to slur. “I don’…don’ know where ‘m goin…Wha’s happenin’?”
“Don’t you worry, baby,” one of the men said, smirking at the other as they dragged her away. “We’re going to have a lot of fun together—you’ll see.”
It was clear to me that whatever poison or potion they had slipped into her drink, it was meant to incapacitate her and distort her sense of reason. And it was equally clear that the two men were intending on taking her virtue though she had not offered it to them.
I couldn’t stand by just watching any longer. Leaving the counter abruptly, I ran over to them.
“Stop!” I shouted, grabbing the girl’s arm to try and pull her away. “Leave her alone!”
The men gave me irritated looks.
“Hey, what’s your problem?” the shifty-eyed one demanded. “We’re just taking our friend here, home.”
“Yeah, she’s had a few too many drinks,” the other man said, shrugging.
“No she hasn’t—she only had one drink. But you put something in it—some sleeping potion!” I exclaimed.
People in the tavern were beginning to look at us and I saw the two men exchange uneasy glances.
“Uh, I don’t know what you mean, lady,” the first one said.
“Yes, you do!” I insisted. “I saw what you did—you drugged her drink!”
“Fuck off, lady!” the second man growled. Taking a firmer grip on the human girl’s arm, he started dragging her more forcefully towards the door.
“Yeah—this is none of your business.” The other man gave me a one-armed shoved that sent me sprawling—or it would have, anyway, if someone hadn’t caught me.
