FAIRY

DEBT

Gail Carriger

Wait, what am I reading?

A short comedic fairy tale in which Miss Carriger gets up to her usual tea-saturated prose and food-driven biting wit.

Cups is a fairy with a problem. She can’t grow wings because she is under a death promise to a local king. So she takes service at the castle as the Least Jester hoping to earn her wings, learning a great deal about cupcakes, tea daemons, and Earth dragons along the way.

CONTENTS

Fairy Debt – the story

About Fairy Debt

Author’s Note

Other Books by Gail Carriger

About the Author

Copyright

FAIRY DEBT

“I won’t do it, I tell you!” I was mad, and I had a right to be.

Aunt Twill sighed dramatically and swished about where she sat in the lake shallows. Aunt Twill did most things dramatically. She was the naiad of the Woodle River, and it was a bit of a dramatic river, full of small but excitable waterfalls.

“Unfortunately, it’s your debt to pay.”

I crossed my arms and glared at her.

She explained as though to a child, “Your mother was rescued from certain death by a human king. That’s a great debt of honor for a fairy to endure.”

“Yes, but these things are easily taken care of,” I insisted. “All Mamma had to do was show up at the christening of the King’s firstborn and grant it something humans care about.” I tried to come up with examples. “You know – beauty, boxing, bee-keeping. That sort of thing.”

My aunt fluttered her webbed fingers about her face in exasperation. “Yes, but your mother missed the christening and, most inconveniently, died.”

I sighed. I was only a nestling when she died, so I didn’t remember. They say it had to do with a golden barbell and a frog with a steroid addiction, but it was all kept very hush-hush.

Aunt Twill reached down and gathered a few water lilies about her. “So the princess has no fairy godmother and you can’t grow wings.” She began braiding the lilies into a chain with her magic. “An honor debt warps wings. Especially in the young.”

I fluttered my two stubby wings angrily in reply. They weren’t any use to me, but I liked to flap them for effect.

“Debts carry forward to the next generation.” My aunt draped the water lilies about her neck. “You owe the princess.”

“But I’ve no working magic without working wings. Nothing to pay her with.”

“You have your Child Wishes.”

I snorted. A fairy’s Child Wishes had power over only one thing, usually to do with human domestic life. Evolutionarily speaking, this ensured that mankind would always find value in sheltering fairy offspring. My cousin, Effernshimerlon, could manufacture safety pins as needed. My Wishes improved baked goods. For a fairy potluck, I once made banana puff cupcakes so delicious they caused a visiting earth dragon to cry. Earth dragons are fond of cupcakes. They have notorious (and very large pointy) sweet-tooths.

“What could I do with my Wishes?” I asked Aunt Twill. “Ensure that the castle’s bread rises perfectly for the next one hundred years?”

I was being facetious, but my aunt took me seriously. She bobbed about in the lake and the lily chain fell from her neck.

“No, I don’t think that’s enough. Not unless the castle’s bread is cursed.”

I raised my eyebrows at her. “What do you suggest, then? I can’t be fairy godmother to the princess, she’s my age, that’d be ridiculous.” I felt as though everywhere I looked, there was a troll with a club pointed at me, and no troll-pacifying porridge in sight. Was there no way to pay off Mother’s debt? “What do I do?”

Aunt Twill shut her damp old eyes. I could practically hear her thoughts sliding about in her head, like water over pebbles. Very slow water over very large pebbles.

“You’ll have to pay it back the hard way.”

“Oh, and what’s that?”

“Old-fashioned servitude.”

* * *

I packed up and trekked west, away from the Woodle River, toward the small principality of Smickled-on-Twee. There lived a king who’d once rescued my mother from certain death.

What else was I to do? I wanted wings. What good is a fairy without wings?

I’m tall for a fairy (all that naiad blood) but really very short for a human. I come up to the knees of the average adult male. With stunted wings tucked under a tunic, I looked like a hunchback. There’s only one role at a royal court for a short hunchback – jester.

I knew it would all end in tears the moment I saw the hat.

“Do I have to wear it?” I asked the Most Jester in shock, staring at the ghastly thing.

He jiggled his own at me. A four-pronged confection of red, blue, and green plaid tipped with silver bells. “Required uniform, I’m afraid.” Clearly he’d gone into the profession out of physical necessity as well. He was extremely tall and decidedly skinny with a great beaked nose and a very deep voice.

His hat was elegant compared to the one presented to me. Mine had only three prongs and was worn so that one always fell directly in front of the eyes. One of the prongs was yellow with pink spots, and the other two were purple with white stripes. Mankind may have made uglier hats but I doubt it. Don’t even get me started on the subject of the bells. The darn thing was covered in them.

I put it on, and the accompanying striped brocade and velvet pumpkin pants, vest, and yoke collar (which, next to the hat, seemed quite somber), and slouched after the Most Jester toward the throne room.

“Your Majesty.” The Most Jester bowed low to the king. Too low, for he toppled forward, stumbled, and sprawled flat on the floor. The assembled courtiers laughed appreciatively. “May I introduce our new Least Jester?” He waved a spade-like hand in my direction from his prone position.

I had fairy grace at my disposal even if I didn’t have working wings. So I did a flip and two somersaults to end in a bow at the king’s feet.

The king nodded at me happily, and the princess clapped. Not every court was lucky enough to have a tumbling jester.

“Why,” said the princess, looking at me closely, “you can’t be much older than me.”

I looked up at the human who held my fate in her hands. She didn’t seem all that bad – a little chubby for a princess and rather graceless. Hadn’t she been given any fairy gifts at all? I know my mother fell down on the job, as it were, but this poor thing was practically ordinary! She seemed to know it, too. She slid off her throne in the most humble manner and bent down in order to properly introduce herself to me.

“Princess Anastasia Clementina Lanagoob. How do you do?”

I came out of my bow. Standing upright, my head ended just below her ribs. I reached up and shook her pudgy hand with my tiny one. “Bella Fugglecups.” I couldn’t give her my fairy name, of course, too recognizable. Aunt Twill had invented this one as an alternative. It was silly, but so was my hat.

“I shall call you Cups,” announced the princess.

“Only if I can call you Goob,” I retorted.

The king seemed appalled by this impertinence, but the princess was clearly delighted. The statement made her laugh. Which is, after all, a jester’s job.

“Done,” she said, letting go of my hand. “Will you teach me how to tumble?”

I looked dubiously at her full white skirts covered in gold beads and silver embroidery.

“Now? If you insist, but I hope your under-things are as attractive as your outer ones.”

The princess laughed again. The rest of the court gasped in shock. The Most Jester made a frantic sawing motion across his neck. I had no idea what he was on about.

“Anastasia Clementina, I forbid such an undertaking!” The king rose from his throne and glowered down at the two of us. He was a large sort of human, full of hair, and prone to some kind of disease that made his face go all red and splotchy. It was doing so now.

“Please, Daddy.” The princess turned big muddy brown eyes on her father. Cow eyes. “I’ll change my outfit.”

The king sighed.

What I didn’t know then was that the princess rarely took an interest in, or asked for, anything. When she did, her requests carried more power. It’s a good approach to life, generally gets one what one wants. (So long as one doesn’t want too often.) I would come to appreciate this character trait over the course of my association with Princess Goob, for all too often we fairies are on the receiving end of demanding humans. Take Cinderella for example – with her gown, and her coach, and her glass slippers, and on and on. I mean, really! But I digress.

“Very well.” The king ceded defeat. He looked at me. “You don’t mind?”

I tilted my head way back. “It is my honor to serve, Your Majesty.” What else could I have said?

I did a back bend, kicked my heels up, and walked away from the two royals on my hands until I’d rejoined the Most Jester. Then I flipped to standing.

The princess clapped delightedly.

I bowed to them both.

“Tomorrow at noon, Cups,” she ordered.

“Noon, Princess Goob,” I agreed, and followed the Most Jester out of the audience chamber.

* * *

“Do you think it’s enough of a service?” I asked Aunt Twill that evening through a small cup of tea.

Her image wiggled in the brown liquid. Normally, tea-talking is a delicate spell requiring both parties use bone china, Earl Grey, and silver stirring spoons. But Aunt Twill had a contract with the tea daemons that allowed her conversational access (between the afternoon hours of half-past three and five o’clock, of course) to any cup in the kingdom. It’s a naiad gossip thing.

My aunt extracted a small gudgeon fish from her hair and ruminated. “I doubt teaching a princess acrobatics constitutes proper repayment of an honor debt. Though it is a nice thing to do. Why would she want to learn, do you think? It certainly isn’t normal princess-y behavior.”

I shrugged. “She isn’t a normal princess. More like a normal dairymaid. Poor thing.”

Aunt Twill nodded. “Plain ones happen sometimes. I’ll do a little research and get back to you on the tumbling. Until then, I’d proceed as though this were not the answer.”

I sighed. “Very well, Aunt Twill.”

“Oh, and niece, that’s a hideous hat.”

I stuck my tongue out at her and lifted up the demitasse cup. Her face wavered in the brown liquid as I drank down the tea.

Fairies invented tea. Did you know that? It was one of our best collective spells, until the daemons stole it, and humans got in on the idea. Still, it explains my Child Wishes – baked goods go very well with tea.

* * *

There wasn’t much for the jester contingent to do during the daytime at court. Most of our entertaining work was done at night, or at feasts, or at festivals. The rest of the time, we were left pretty much to our own devices.

I spent the first few weeks poking about looking for spells or curses I could break – princes disguised as dung beetles or the odd evil loom weight. Nothing. Not a single enchanted sausage. Smickled-on-Twee had to be the most boring principality in the entire province of fairy-kind. The princess was painfully average. The queen had died a perfectly respectable death (by plague). The only thing out of the ordinary the king had done, in his long and uninteresting career as ruler, was rescue my mother. And he didn’t seem to remember doing that.

Princess Goob and I became fast friends. She was hopeless at tumbling – far, far too clumsy. But I soon realized the lessons were only an excuse. What she really wanted was the company of someone her own age, and to get out of the castle once in a while. In keeping with these two desires, I announced that we really must practice on a mossy lawn every afternoon, and so took her through the castle gates and over the drawbridge to a sheep pasture near the moat. There I pretended to show her handstands, cartwheels, and flips. She pretended to try and learn them. Mostly, we lounged about and chatted.

“I always wanted to be a shepherdess,” she confided in me one afternoon. “I think I’d be better suited to that kind of life.”

I looked at her from my supine pose on the grass. She wore a very plain dress, borrowed from one of her maids, and long brown bloomers underneath, which were supposed to be for riding. She’d tucked the skirt of the dress up on each side and tied a kerchief about her hair. She looked very like a shepherdess.

“I think the role would suit you.”

“That’s what I like about you, Cups. No silly pandering or hedging. Everyone else secretly agrees when I say such things, but they all pretend to be shocked. Or worse, tell me what a perfect princess I am.”

She flipped onto her stomach and began picking at the grass. “I never had a fairy godmother. You heard by now, I suppose? Shocking thing. Dad spent a good deal of time trying to find and rescue fairies in his youth, hoping to gather honor debt, but it didn’t work. So I got nothing.”

“You’re probably better off that way. I always felt that princesses with all those boosts in looks and manners had no idea how real people felt. How can anyone be a good ruler if they have no understanding of those they rule?”

The princess looked at me and nodded. “You’re absolutely right, and I want you to arrange it for me.”

I sat up, wondering what I’d gotten myself into – small fairy, big mouth.

“What?” I asked, nervous.

“This understanding. Since I can’t learn acrobatics during our afternoons together, I should learn something useful. What better thing is there to learn than the lives of my people?”

I squinted at her. She might look nothing like a princess, but she certainly spoke like one. If she kept her mouth shut, we should do all right. It was a bit like the enchanted leading the enchanted, though. The only person less likely to know about the common lives of humans than a princess was a fairy. But an order was an order.

So our afternoon tumbling sessions turned into afternoon field trips. First we visited the shepherdesses (because Princess Goob really was interested), and then the dairymaids. Then we called on the stable hands and the goose-girls, the portrait painters and the gatekeepers. I learned a lot on these journeys. I found the lower class humans far more interesting than the nobility.

Eventually, we ended up in the castle kitchens.

My Child Wishes made us quite the popular visitors there. The princess liked it, too. Even without my help, she seemed to have a natural talent for cooking. She invented a roasted peacock dish stuffed with dates and sage, slathered in a thick gravy with wild mushrooms and cubed ham that caused the king to give the entire kitchen staff a raise.

Of course, the staff all knew she was the princess, but they pretended not to, and that seemed to work well for everyone.

Me, on the other hand, they called their Lucky Least, as whenever I was around pastries and breads seemed to turn out moister, chewier, fluffier, and more delicious than when I was away.

“Why is that, Cups?” the princess asked me, dusting flour-covered hands on pure silk petticoats.

“I like baking, so I’m good at it.”

“But you don’t actually touch anything. You’re too short to reach.”

I shrugged, a movement made very odd by my hump of hidden wings. “I keep an eye on things. Make sure they don’t mess up.”

Princess Goob looked at me skeptically, but she left it at that. She’d learned if she questioned me closely, I got all philosophical, so it was better to stop before things got epistemologically out of hand.

* * *

I’d been there nearly a year, and was no closer to repaying my debt, when the peace of Smickled-on-Twee was finally disturbed by something terrible.

It was festival day and everyone was sitting down for high tea. We jesters were gallivanting about jestering, when an earth dragon waddled into the main banquet hall.

He was a smallish, fat sort of dragon, only about four horses long and probably that many wide, with muddy bronze scales, six sad little horns, lots of sharp teeth, and a sour expression.

Still, he was an earth dragon and, as such, terrifying to humans. Earth dragons take food seriously, you see. They collect interesting recipes and bags of fizzy lemon sweets to stash deep in the recesses of their muddy caves. They also consider humans crunchy little treats of meaty goodness. Other dragons don’t care a jot for such things. Air dragons eat birds and collect kites as a general rule, while water dragons eat algae and collect fishing tackle. Fire dragons are the ones who hoard gold. No one is quite sure what they eat, though they have a nasty reputation. Difficult to get close enough to find out.

As a fairy, I don’t mind earth dragons all that much, but then I’m a fairy. Magic in the blood makes us far too spicy for consumption.

This particular dragon headed straight for the high table. There he squatted across from the royals and gave Princess Goob a very toothy grin. Princesses tend to be succulent – well fed and soft-skinned. It was earth dragons that started the whole kidnapping of princesses policy. They like to steal them away and keep them around for late-night attacks of the munchies.

The king knew this and panicked. His face went redder than I’d ever seen it, and he began to sputter like an over-filled teakettle.

I snuck under the table to sit at the princess’s feet. I could touch the dragon’s baby toe from there. It was about the size of my head.

I touched the princess’s toe instead. She twitched slightly. I touched it again. She lifted the edge of the tablecloth up and looked down at me.

“Tell your father,” I said, “that the only way to get out of being eaten by an earth dragon is to serve it a high tea far better than the one you would be.”

The princess nodded and her head vanished.

A moment later I heard the king bang hard on the table and call for service.

This dragon was unlikely to be particularly impressed with the king’s tea. Smickled-on-Twee was a small principality and not precisely prosperous. The honey-glazed whole pig with thyme and raisins was not as big as it would have been in the Bugdoon-near-Schmoo. Nor were the mounds of tiny new potatoes drizzled in melted butter and sprinkled with mint quite as delicate or as minty as they would have been in Schmoo itself. But the bread was certainly up to par – I’d been lounging about, wasting Child Wishes on it all morning. There were huge crispy brown loaves shaped like tortoises and filled with sweetmeats; small round honey-soaked buns rolled in cinnamon; and long skinny cheese-encrusted baguettes. The dragon ate sixteen loaves in all, and I had to sneak away to the kitchen to make sure the second batch came out as good as the first.

The dragon consumed three of the princess’s famous peacock dishes, eight racks of lamb smeared with roasted garlic and rosemary, two platters of pork sausage with hot mustard, and several spit-roasted pheasants. Between each course the dragon picked up his teacup and gazed deeply into the murky depths. The fifth time that he did this, the princess stopped me when I came from a bread check and asked me about it.

“He’s doing what?” I said.

“Talking dragoonish into his teacup.”

I looked at the dragon. At that moment, he was stuffing his face with a trencher of bacon-and-tomato stuffed quail. I was suspicious. So far as I knew, only naiads and daemons used the teacup network. What was this dragon up to?

I examined the huge beast. There was something oddly familiar about his markings. Had we met before? I crinkled my forehead in thought. Then I remembered. Once, long ago, an earth dragon had turned up at a fairy potluck. Could this possibly be the same one? I squinted at him – six horns, sour expression . . . yes, it must be. And if this dragon was talking into his teacup, I bet I knew who he was talking to.

I snuck a cup of tea off of the high table myself and retreated into a corner of the room.

“Aunt Twill,” I hissed into the cup.

The surface of the tea shivered slightly and Aunt Twill’s wrinkled face appeared in the dark brown liquid, looking harried.

“Aunt Twill, what are you up to?”

“Add a little milk will you, dearie? You know the spell is easier in milky tea.”

I ignored her and said firmly, “Aunt Twill!”

My aunt had the good grace to look slightly guilty. “He’s been asking about your banana puff cupcakes for ages. So I thought, why not send him along?”

I was shocked. “Aunt Twill!”

Aunt Twill straightened her spine. “Now, don’t go taking that tone with me, nestling. This is quite the opportunity. The princess is at risk, the castle in danger, and you and your Child’s Wishes can save the day.”

Just then, behind me, the dragon sent up a great roar and tipped over the high table. There was a cacophony of sound as plates, platters, knives, and teacups slid to the floor.

“Gotta go,” I said, drinking the tea unceremoniously.

I turned and rushed toward the chaos.

The dragon was yelling in dragoonish – a sort of rolling, fuzzy language. I don’t speak it well myself, but I gathered he wasn’t entirely pleased with the meal.

I ran up to Princess Goob. “Stay out of his reach as much as possible and keep feeding him bread. It’s very filling.” She looked at me with wide eyes and I could tell she really wanted to ask how I knew so much about dragons. But instead she just nodded.

I turned to run back to the kitchens.

“Where are you going?” asked the princess in a panic.

“I have to make banana puff cupcakes! Your life may depend upon it.”

Strange as that statement was, Princess Goob merely nodded again. That’s what I liked about that girl, no silly interfering when there’s work to be done.

Once in the kitchen I marched straight up to the Most Cook.

“I need to make banana puff cupcakes.”

The cook looked at me in a harried kind of way. He had about a hundred desserts all going at once. “At the moment,” he said, “the needs of the Least Jester don’t particularly concern me.”

I stared up at him. “The princess’s life depends upon it.”

The thing I’ve learned about humans is, if you make a bizarre enough statement, they simply don’t know what to do. In this case, it was easier for the Most Cook not to argue with me. He pointed at a small oven and a bit of counter space in one corner, and I went off to find myself a stepladder so I could use both.

With the help of Ernest, one of the Least Cooks, who was very tall and liked assisting me, I managed to gather all the ingredients and get to work. There were only six small bananas, almost completely black and very sad, so I used every last Child’s Wish I had on that one batch of cupcakes. I decided to let the earth dragon eat up as much of the other desserts as possible first so that he had very little room left. That way, my cupcakes would come as a kind of crowning glory to the whole high tea experience.

All too soon, evening rolled around, which signified the end of high tea. All the cooks were looking exhausted, there was very little food left in the storage cellars, and servants began to slink down to hide in the kitchen away from the dragon.

I removed my banana puff cupcakes from the oven, popped them out of the pan, sprinkled them with cinnamon and sugar, and arranged them on a platter. I used every last Child Wish I had to make sure they were as perfect as they could possibly be.

Then I whisked them up onto one shoulder and carried them into the banquet hall. A hush had descended upon the room in my absence. Everyone was looking at the dragon, who was polishing off the last of the raspberry parfait and muttering into his teacup between bites.

“Where are they?” I heard him grumble into his tea.

I inched up beside him and slid the cupcake platter onto the table in front of him.

The dragon sniffed and looked up.

He poked a claw into one of the puffy yellow cakes and delicately popped the confection into his mouth. He chewed for a moment, swallowed thoughtfully. Then he closed his eyes and sighed.

“Just as I remember,” he muttered to the teacup in dragoonish. The teacup chirruped back at him in the dulcet tones of my Aunt Twill. I couldn’t hear exactly what she said, but the dragon nodded vigorously and replied, “You have a deal.”

He poked a cupcake onto each of his front claws, leaving one behind on the platter for Mr Manners. Then he turned away from the table and slithered awkwardly out the front entrance, on his elbows to keep the cupcakes from dragging on the floor.

He turned at the door to look back.

“I await my Wishes, little fairy,” he said, looking directly at me.

I realized what Aunt Twill had done.

When a fairy reaches adulthood and trades in child’s magic for the real thing, she has a choice as to who gets to keep her Wishes. (How else do you think human wizards got magic in the first place?) Obviously, Aunt Twill had promised my Wishes to this earth dragon.

He left, moving awkwardly across the cobbled stone bailey, behind the barbican, and over the moat. Soon he was out of sight.

The courtiers heaved a collective sigh, and then everyone, including the king and the princess, stared at me.

I wasn’t paying attention because something very strange was happening to my wings. I took off the jester’s hat in order to concentrate. Then I found I had to take off my vest as my wings were starting to push against it. It was a good thing I always wore fairy garb underneath.

Sure enough, in a very short space of time, there I stood in front of the whole court – with fully grown wings!

I looked at the king. He was staring at me in wonder.

“You saved my mother once,” I said, “but she died without repayment. So I’ve been serving your daughter in secret in her stead.” I flapped my wings experimentally and they lifted me easily into the air. I was a little wobbly, but I could stay up and that was the important part. It was nice to look down on people for a change. “My cupcakes have saved your daughter from certain death, so my debt to you is fulfilled.”

I looked down at the princess fondly. “Goodbye, Princess Goob.”

She grinned up at me. “Goodbye, Cups.”

“But wait,” said the king. “Don’t you have to stay? Be her fairy godmother, make her beautiful and graceful and stuff like that?”

I shook my head. “I could choose to stay if I thought she needed my help. But I think she’ll do perfectly fine without me.” I thought about all the gatekeepers’ daughters Goob and I had met, and the millers’ sons we’d laughed with, and the servants who’d helped us in the kitchen, and the goose-girls who’d gossiped with us. “I think there are others who need fairy godmothers far more than princesses,” I said. And with one more wave to Princess Goob, I flew out of the castle and away into the forest.

I sent the earth dragon my Child’s Wishes by butterfly post the very next day. I also sent him the recipe for banana puff cupcakes. I understand he grew even fatter.

I kept in touch with Princess Goob. Right up through the time when she became Queen Goob. She’d married by then. A nice young writer-fellow I found for her, named Adolphus Grimm. They had two children, both boys. I became a kind of adopted aunt, since I had far too many fairy godmother gigs by then to take on them as well. I did tell them about my exploits though, usually over Sunday tea. Fairy-tales, the boys called them. I had no idea they would write them all down. But that’s another story.

The End

Author’s Note

Thank you so much for picking up Fairy Debt. If you enjoyed this story, please consider leaving a review. I’m grateful for the time you take to do so.

I have a silly gossipy newsletter called the Monthly Chirrup, I promise: no spam no fowl. (Well, maybe a little fowl.)

If you’d like to know when my next book releases, that newsletter is best. If you are not inclined to chirrup, I’ve a fun website. Find me on Twitter or join the fan group discussion on Facebook. Thank you!

Want More Gail Carriger?

Marine Biology – LGBT shifter comedy romance

short story (with geeky werewolves and hot mermen)

My Sister’s Song – a high fantasy historical

short story (warrior woman takes on a Roman legion alone)

Stories in her tea-saturated steampunk universe:

The Delightfully Deadly Series: stand-alone romance novellas

(proper, stealthy, lady assassins)

The Finishing School Series: 4 young adult novels beginning with Etiquette & Espionage (spies, girl power, and flying food)

The Parasol Protectorate Series: 5 novels beginning with Soulless

(adventure, romance, silly hats)

The Custard Protocol Series: spin-off, begins with Prudence

(world travel, romance, stolen tea)

The Curious Case of the Werewolf that Wasn’t: a short story

set in Steampunk Regency Egypt (featuring one sexy and rather unpleasant Italian)

About the Writerbeast

New York Times bestselling author Gail Carriger writes to cope with being raised in obscurity by an expatriate Brit and an incurable curmudgeon. She escaped small town life and inadvertently acquired several degrees in higher learning, a fondness for cephalopods, and a chronic tea habit. She then traveled the historic cities of Europe, subsisting entirely on biscuits secreted in her handbag. She resides in the Colonies, surrounded by fantastic shoes, where she insists on tea imported from London.

www.gailcarriger.com

GAIL CARRIGER, LLC

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, used in a fictitious manner, or in the public domain. Any resemblance to actual events or actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 by Gail Carriger, LLC

Original copyright © 2007 by Tofa Borregaard

This story first appeared in the Sword & Sorceress 22 anthology edited by Elisabeth Waters, published by Marion Zimmer Bradley Literary Works Trust.

Cover Photo © Jen Yates

Model: Madeline Masquerade, in costume by Firefly Path

Cover © 2016 by Gail Carriger LLC., assembled by Starla Huchton

Digital Formatting by Seaside Publications

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, including the right to reproduce this book, or any portion thereof, in any form.

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you are reading this book and it was not purchased for your use, then please purchase your own copy.

In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the uploading, torrenting, or electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting publisher@gailcarriger.com.

The author strives to ensure her self-published works are available as widely as possible and at a price commensurate with her ability to earn a living. Thank you for respecting her hard work.

Version 3.0

ISBN 978-1-944751-00-5

Table of Contents

FAIRY

Contents

FAIRY DEBT

Author’s Note

Want More Gail Carriger?

About the Writerbeast

GAIL CARRIGER, LLC