Then the fairies, in groups of twos and threes, began to return to the bonfire. However, the fairy who had first grabbed Allele shot him a sharp look before turning around.
Allele heaved a long, exhausted sigh and slowly walked off after his companions. After he had gone several steps, he turned and glanced back at Anne but then walked away without saying anything.
The silence returned, and the croaking of frogs began to ring out again.
“Why did you cover for him?” Challe asked.
“Why?” she repeated. “I don’t really know…”
If there was one reason she could offer, it was probably that Allele’s low voice as he sang had sounded so distraught.
Anne had no way of knowing what her mother had been thinking about when she quietly sang to herself during their travels. But in Allele’s song, which had sounded so similar, she had heard the sadness of missing someone.
“Allele said he’s looking for a woman with the same color hair as him. Do you think she’s his lover?”
“Could be. But let’s get some sleep, as uncomfortable as this may be.”
Since they were tied up and pressed close against each other, Anne’s head naturally came to rest on Challe’s shoulder. Closing her eyes, she felt relieved he was by her side, even though they were bound like this.
She must have drifted off to sleep just like that.
Though it was early summer, the forest was cold at night, especially so close to the water’s edge. Anne stirred against the chill, but then she was gently wrapped in something, and her body warmed up. Half dreaming already, she found a comfortable spot to snuggle into and fell fast asleep.
Anne didn’t know how much time had passed. The chill on her ears and cheeks woke her.
A light fog hung over the area, and she could tell that it was early morning. There were no insects crying or birds chirping yet.
The damp fog had chilled her face. But from the neck down, she was fairly warm, and the fabric draped over her had a pleasant texture. The material had a nice smell, too—the invigorating scent of early spring saplings. In her sleepy haze, Anne nuzzled her cheek into it, then awoke with a start.
Isn’t this smell…?!
Instantly, her mind cleared, and she grasped her situation.
She was nuzzling her cheek against Challe’s chest. Anne had crawled into his jacket and settled snugly against him. Her cheeks burned, as if her body temperature had suddenly shot up, but she couldn’t move because Challe had wrapped his arms tightly around her shoulders.
He’d lowered his head and seemed to be in a deep sleep. Like a flower drooping in repose, the tips of his eyelashes and hair glistened delicately in the foggy dew.
Th-this is… What should I do? I’d hate to wake him…
Though she was certain the two of them had both been tied up tightly the previous night, mysteriously, they were now free of their bonds and able to move as they pleased.
As Anne stared at Challe, her heart pounding, the fairy’s eyelashes fluttered, as if he had been shaken awake by her gaze. He opened his eyes and looked down at Anne’s face with a slightly absent expression.
“You’re up?” he asked.
“Yes…,” Anne replied.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Unexpectedly so… Very soundly.”
“That’s good.” Challe sounded drowsy, and he didn’t try to move.
Struggling to keep her face composed, Anne spoke again. “Um, Challe? Do you think it’s a little strange? That we’re like this? I mean—”
“Oh, right. Around dawn, Allele cut our ropes.”
“He did?! Why?”
“Who knows? But I knew that even with the ropes cut, you wouldn’t want to leave. That’s why I didn’t wake you.”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t. I plan to go back with everyone together. But…why?”
“You can ask him yourself later.”
“I guess so,” she replied.
Just then, Anne gasped.
That’s not the issue! We can’t stay like this!
She looked up at Challe’s face once more and was reminded of how close they were. Her anxiety began to spike.
“Um, Challe. This position is a little…”
“I just explained what happened.”
He frowned quizzically, and Anne continued.
“That’s not the issue. It’s how we’re sitting. This… How do I put it? I mean…the distance between us.”
At that point Challe blinked, as though he’d just realized what she meant. But he instantly composed himself, and a look of amusement came to his face.
“So what?”
“Huh? What do you mean?!”
“What do you want me to do? Should we stay like this? Should I let you sit in my lap? Or perhaps you’d like a kiss?”
“All wrong answers!”
Anne was annoyed the fairy was poking fun at her, and she shouted at him. From behind her back, she heard an incredulous, exasperated voice.
“Are you two stupid or something?”
Challe must have already noticed, because he didn’t seem particularly surprised. Anne, however, jumped and glanced over her shoulder, still clinging to Challe.
It was Allele. He was staring down at the two of them, eyes bulging. Quickly, he looked around, and after confirming that none of his comrades were awake yet, he crouched down and lowered his voice.
“I cut your ropes, so why didn’t you run away?!”
“Have you forgotten?” said Challe. “Anne was the one who found you. She’s not going to run away.”
Allele groaned. “We’re running, and some of them have said that if you try to follow us, we should kill you before we escape. To pay you back for last night, I tried to let you go, but… Why did you stay? Why are you telling us to come back? Please, just forget about us already and leave us be.”
He was practically pleading by the end. He seemed very earnest, and Anne figured Allele was sick of thinking it over and had blurted out his true feelings. Anne pulled away from Challe and faced Allele head-on.
“Thank you,” she said.
Allele blinked in surprise.
“But if I don’t go back with you all,” Anne continued, “then the Silver Sugar Viscount, who placed his trust in me, will take the blame. On top of that, the next fifteen fairies waiting at the fairy market will never get their chance. So I can’t go back unless I return with everyone. Allele, won’t you come with me?”
“No way. I have someone I must search for.”
“The woman you mentioned yesterday? Your lover?”
“I don’t know what to call her… We were born in the same place and only knew each other. We never encountered any other fairies. It was just the two of us, deep in the forest. We hardly wore any clothes, slept in caves, and ate fruit.” He twisted his mouth into an expression of self-derision.
“You were attacked by fairy hunters?”
“One day, we were out looking for food, and by chance, we approached a human village. We saw the people there wearing clothes, cooking their food, and singing songs, and Farrel—that’s the woman’s name—she and I both wanted to do what they did. We wanted clothes, so we stole them from the village. We wanted to copy their cooking, so we stole pots and flint. We wanted to learn their songs, so we lingered near the village on festival days. And that was how the villagers caught us. They called us thieves and sold us to fairy dealers. But we never knew that stealing was wrong.”
Anne imagined fairies living as they pleased deep in the forest and felt a pang in her chest. Humans had plucked off Allele’s wing and now he was running in fear from them.
All that, when the fairies were just seeking a life that suited them.
It was fairies, not humans, who had invented sugar candy. The fairies who created that sophisticated craft had also possessed a much richer body of songs, literature, and poetry than humans did; they had both the ability to cultivate those things and the intelligence and desire to seek them out. Five hundred years earlier, the fairies must have had a much more elaborate culture than humans had.
The tune Allele had been singing to himself must have been one of the human songs he’d learned with Farrel. But why was it that when he sang to himself, he sang a human song? Had the fairy’s songs vanished at some point?
As if reading the tragic questions on Anne’s mind, Challe quietly spoke up.
“The fairy culture that you and Farrel sought was destroyed. Our kind might still live, but our culture has died out. We don’t have the means to make even a single scrap of clothing on our own. Even our songs have been lost over the generations. The only things that remain are the techniques of the fairies who made sugar candy. It’s practically a miracle they still exist.”
“A miracle?” Allele mumbled.
Suddenly, Challe rose to one knee, ready to make a move. His whole body was tense with strain, and his wing trembled sharply, shining with a steely brilliance. Challe’s gaze was focused on the opposite bank of the small, foggy pond. He narrowed his eyes, as if looking between the trunks of the fog-shrouded trees toward the space beyond.
“Challe? What is it?”
Challe didn’t answer; he just glanced around at where the fairies were sleeping and quietly clicked his tongue. Then he nimbly opened his right hand. Twinkling beads of light began to gather in his palm, as if he was pulling droplets of sunshine out of the fog.
“Anne, Allele. Wake any fairies who are sleeping. Gather everyone around me.”
“What’s going on?!” Anne asked frantically.
“Fairy hunters,” he spat.
They heard footsteps moving through the underbrush all around them, and Anne and Allele looked at each other.
“Go, both of you!” said Challe.
The obsidian fairy stood up, brandishing his sword. At the same time, Anne and Allele ran off toward the others still sleeping around the embers of the bonfire.