Red Hood's Revenge

falling out, and he’s yet to belch a single spark. Do you really want a diseased dragon?”
    Snow pointed to another merchant, a woman surrounded by piles of brightly colored silk. “What about—”
    “No.”
    Snow folded her arms. “Fine. But when we’re finished here, I want a dragon.”
    “Who’s going to clean up after it?” Talia asked.
    “Enough!” Roudette swept past them. “Your prattling is worse than any fairy torment.” She stopped a short distance beyond, looking at a collapsed building. The small garden behind was trampled and blackened as if scorched. A small group was digging through the rubble. Roudette sniffed the air. “Three people were crushed when the walls fell.”
    “The Hunt wanted us,” Danielle protested. “Why would they hurt these people?”
    “Don’t look for reasons,” said Roudette. “The Wild Hunt were once men, but they’re more fairy than not now, reborn of chaos and whimsy and destruction. Place two identical children before them, and they’ll leave one untouched while their dogs savage the other. This . . . is restrained, for the Hunt.”
    “What did they do to you?” Danielle asked, her voice gentle.
    Roudette turned away, hiding within the darkness of her hood. “My grandmother tried to fight them. She failed. They killed everyone they could find. In a single night, they reduced my town to rubble and ash.”
    “I’m sorry,” Danielle said. Wails of grief broke the stillness as they walked. Danielle could hear the pain in the distant cries, even if she couldn’t understand the words. Men and women alike wept together.
    “At least my grandmother tried to fight,” Roudette said disgustedly. “Talia’s people have surrendered their magic. Obeying Siqlah and trusting God to protect them. Even after last night, look how few bother to carry weapons.”
    Talia spun. “So they should have fought? The Hunt would have slaughtered them all, just as they did your people.”
    “Instead they surrender their souls to the fairies,” Roudette said.
    “That’s enough.” Danielle and Roudette stared at one another until Roudette snorted and turned away.
    Talia moved on without answering, leading them another block to a stone bridge that crossed a canal. On the far side of the bridge, the streets were paved with white stone. Sandstone statues with horned helms and inhumanly narrow features bordered the road. Fig and olive trees grew behind the statues, shielding the homes and buildings beyond. Small whirlwinds blew through the street.
    “Air dervishes,” Snow said. “Fairy sprites, sweeping the dust from the roads.”
    Roudette snarled at one of the dervishes. When it approached too close, she jumped forward and stomped on it, moving too quickly for the sprite to dodge. It burst in a small explosion of dirt and dust. “Ha!”
    Slowly the sprite re-formed, gathering the worst of the dirt back into itself. Roudette growled, and it raced away.
    Danielle might not speak the language, but she could read the disapproval in the faces that turned to watch. “You probably shouldn’t do that again.”
    The populace here seemed an equal mix of human and fairy. A wrinkled dwarf rode a white donkey through the street. A man whose body seemed made of black smoke drifted past, his feet leaving a faint trail of soot. A yellow-skinned woman walked by conversing with a hooded serpent draped around her neck. Everywhere the fairies traveled, humans moved aside to let them pass.
    “Maybe Arathea deserves to fall to the fairies,” Roudette said.
    Talia stiffened but didn’t break stride.
    Before Roudette could say anything further, Danielle caught her arm and pulled her to the side of the road. “Snow’s fairy mark prevents you from harming us. Which means there’s little you can do to defend yourself when Talia decides she’s had enough. So by all means, continue to insult her home and draw attention to us. See how much longer her patience lasts.”
    “Be grateful that mark protects you, Princess.” Roudette pulled away. “Show me one fairy who suffered so much as a bruise last night. This is—” Her voice broke. “This is what my home was like. Few of the ‘blessed race’ lived among us, but the blind respect and worship was the same. Time and again my mother warned me not to stray from the path as my grandmother had done. We followed the path of the fairy church, and it destroyed us. I’ve no sympathy for those who embrace fairy lies.”
    People were