Richard’s eyebrows arched. “Really? I thought your kind died out years ago.”

“It’s fairy, not fey, and most of us have—at least, I’ve never been able to find anybody else like me, and Drake, how the hell did you know that? I never got around to telling you!”

“I guessed yesterday, and when you smacked Janet, I knew for sure.”

“Whoa, back up.” Janet put her palms out like a traffic cop. “You’re a fairy? Like Tinkerbell? With wings and shit?”

“Do you see any wings?” she snapped.

“Jeez, nobody told me fairies had such rotten tempers.”

“She’s just mad because I figured it out,” Drake said with annoying smugness. “She was saving it for a surprise.”

“You’re so insufferable!”

“Yes.”

“It runs in the family,” Janet added with a grin. “The men especially. So annoying.”

“Oh, yes,” Richard said. “Male werewolves are the annoying ones.”

“You shut up. Listen, I always heard fairies were these little delicate things. You hit me like a bulldozer.”

“Dense bones,” Drake said.

“Difficult to break,” Richard added. “I ran into one of your kind about seventy years ago, and he nearly killed me. He was quite old even then, dear, so don’t get your hopes up. I’m sure he’s dust by now.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t sound so disappointed. He was a nasty old man.”

“This explains your fixation with flying,” Drake said, thinking out loud.

“Dense bones and she can fly?” Janet snorted into her Caramel Mocha Frappucchino. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“You ever see an airplane take off?” Crescent asked. “You look at it and wonder how something that heavy can ever get off the earth…and then it goes…and you’re left on the ground.”

“Well, of course you can’t fly with all those accessories.” Whip-quick, Richard flicked his spoon at his whipped cream and a dollop appeared as if by magic on the end of Janet’s nose. “But you knew that.”

“What?”

“Dammit, Dick! Quit throwing whipped cream on me. You know I hate that.”

“What?” Crescent nearly yelled.

Richard looked startled. “All your piercings. You probably set off metal detectors in airports. And of course your kind can’t tolerate certain metals.”

Drake’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. Crescent knew exactly how he felt. How had she never thought of this before?

“What are you guys talking about? Drake, you look like you just crapped your pants.”

“I—um—I want to fly, but I can’t. But I never made the connection—”

“What are you guys talking about?”

“Fairies have a legendary fear of metal, especially iron,” Richard explained. “In Crescent’s case, I would guess that translates into being unable to get off the—what are you doing?”

Tearing out all her goddamned earrings and rings, that’s what she was doing. Between her ears, nose, and belly button, she had more than a dozen.