A Risky Proposition Read Online Free PDF

I was a small child.  A haunting, unearthly music accompanied the vision, but sound and sight faded away before I could coax them into solidity.
    I had no problem conjuring my very real recollection of trying to explain the faeries to my disbelieving older cousins.  I had been teased mercilessly.  In embarrassment and desperation to fit in, I had quickly abandoned my attempts to convince them.  And in a way, I guess I had abandoned the faeries as well.  But deep down, a piece of me had preserved the knowledge that they were real. 
    And some instinctive part of me knew that this being’s name was Lorien, and that she was my faerie guardian.
    “It took you long enough,” she said with a grin.
    “Hmm?” I mumbled dazedly, still staring at her in wonder as bright little spots of color began to dance across my field of vision.
    “Sydney?  Hellooo!”  She waved both hands in front of me, but my body felt too relaxed to bother with a response, so I just smiled.
    “Snap out of it!” she demanded, multihued sparks flying from her fingers as she darted toward me and snapped them in my face.
    “Ow!” I exclaimed, my hand coming up to cover my nose against a sudden onslaught of prickling explosions.  It felt like I’d snorted Poprocks and soda.
    “Ooh, sorry about that Sydney,” she breathed contritely.  “Let me see.”
    I cautiously lowered my hand and went a little cross-eyed as she zoomed in closer to my nose and sprinkled a fine, silvery dust over the skin.  I let out a violent sneeze, reaching up too late to cover my mouth.  I searched for Lorien with a rueful expression, but she had darted out of the way before the blast hit her, and stood watching me again from the pillow.
    “Faerie magic,” she explained apologetically.  “Sometimes it makes humans a little loopy.  I wanted to snap you out of it before it made you too spacey to talk.  Is your nose okay?”
    “Yeah, it’s fine,” I sniffed, rubbing my fingertips over the tip.  “It didn’t really hurt, just gave me a shock.  What was that anyway?”
    “Fire dust.”  She shrugged in chagrin.
    I stopped rubbing my nose and sat up straighter against the headboard, pulling the comforter against my nakedness.  “I can’t believe you’re real!”
    “Hmph,” she rolled her eyes at me.  “You almost believed more times than I can count.  I can’t believe all it took was that hunk of a half-faerie, Agent Sparrow, telling you faeries were real to push you over the edge.”
    I blinked at her and then laughed in disbelief.  “Do you mean to tell me that all I had to do to be able to see you was to believe in you?”
    “That’s the way it generally works,” she said dryly.  “Even your popular fairy tales will tell you that much.”
    “Unreal.”  I chuckled, shaking my head in amazement. 
    She floated closer and looked me in the eye, sounding offended when she spoke.  “You talk to me every day, Sydney.  You’ve heard me when I was trying to lead you away from danger—remember last month when you took the long way to the office, even though you were in a hurry, and you just missed that horrible accident on the interstate?  You even guessed my name—although I suppose it could have remained in your mind from childhood.”
    “I knew I remembered faeries from when I was little!” I cried triumphantly.
    “Big whoop,” Lorien muttered.  “Children are natural believers.  But no matter what I did, you couldn’t bring your adult self to believe I was real until you heard it from that half-sidhe.”  She shook her translucent wings out in an indignant gesture.
    “Actually, I think it was watching the djinn get sucked into the lamp that did it for me,” I pointed out wryly.  “If I hadn’t seen that, I don’t think Sparrow telling me faeries were real would have had nearly the same impact.”
    Lorien snorted.  “Well, at least I’ll win my bet with Eleanor.”
    “Who?”  I shot her a confused look.
    “Never you