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sorry!” The girl paused to cough, and then pushed back the covers, reaching for Erris again. He went rigid as she made a second attempt to embrace him. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. “Father gets the papers from the city in the summer, so I know all about it, and I hoped you would come.”
    Just as Erris gingerly reached out to return her embrace, she jerked away, her whole body wracked with coughs. Her face flushed with exertion.
    Celestina patted her back. She regained some control, breathing in a strange way, and sank back on the pillows.
    Erris looked around the room. “Well, it’s obvious what the trouble is. There should be plants here. And flowers. Fairies grow sick without exposure to nature. She should be outside. That will help her heal.”
    “Mr. Valdana knows she needs plants and trees around her,” Celestina said. “But how can we take her outside when it’s cold half the year? And what plants could live in her room?”
    “When the snow comes, we’ll cut boughs from the evergreens,” Erris said. “That’s what we did back home. And what is she eating? Bread and milk, you say?”
    “Yes. Good food. Sausages. Fish stew. We don’t have much fresh meat, but we have eggs sometimes.”
    “Meat should be sparing,” Erris said. “She needs food from the forest. And no bread and milk.”
    “What will she eat, then?” Celestina said, a hint of skepticism creeping in. “What on earth is wrong with meat and bread?”
    “Well, we have rules about meat, where I’m from,” Erris said. “It has to be hunted in a certain manner that is respectful to the forest and the animal. When I was sick, my mother fed me fresh fruits and vegetables.” He sighed. “Knowing Mel, I suppose it’s no surprise she didn’t think to tell him how to raise a fairy baby in case something happened to her. Planning never was her strong suit.”
    He suddenly reached for the girl, scooping her up as if she were a little child and gathering up her blankets around her. She wrapped her arms around his neck and settled her head against his chest, where I knew she would hear his clockwork innards ticking.
    Celestina glanced at me and followed Erris out. Violet seemed to trust him instantly. She must’ve been deeply comforted by thefamiliarity in his face. Indeed, the two of them looked very much alike.
    Maybe it would make Erris happy to nurse her back to health. Yet, even if Ordorio knew some way to restore Erris to a real body, where did that leave me? Would Erris be interested in me when his old life returned? If he was to be a fairy king, I was no fairy, and no queen. Just a dancing girl from halfway around the world, with nothing and no one to call my own.
    No. I could not pity myself. We had too much to do first.

Chapter 4
    Celestina spread a blanket across the lawn, and Erris laid Violet down upon it. It seemed a very strange introduction to a new house, to have barely exchanged names and proceed to spreading oneself upon the grass, but perhaps fairies did much of their entertaining out-of-doors. Celestina pulled Violet’s blankets closer around her body, nodded with satisfaction, and walked away.
    “I’m so happy,” Violet said breathlessly. “My uncle! You can tell me all about my mother. Father doesn’t like to speak of her. She was awfully pretty. I’ll be prettier when I’m well.” She rattled all this off, oblivious to the increasingly pained look on Erris’s face until he waved a hand at her.
    “Oh ... I’ve said something wrong, haven’t I?” She glanced at me.
    “We’ve had a long journey,” I said. Even without the thin cheeks and sallow skin, her features reminded me of a little woodland animal’s, like a sparrow’s or a vole’s—cute, perhaps, but not a great beauty.
    “Violet, how long have you been sick?” Erris asked.
    “Oh, always. Sometimes I feel better in the summer, and then I get sick again.”
    “Hmm,” Erris said. “You must be outside more in the