Vadde’s head pounded. Her throat felt tight. She was in motion, but not gently. When she sat up to find glass before her, she needed a moment to orientate herself.

Two dark eyes watched her from beyond it, filled with hate.

Matax. He slammed on the thick transparent surface, screaming something she couldn’t make out.

Vadde’s world expanded then shrunk and she realized that he wasn’t inside a jar…she was.

Dread weighed her head down enough for her to look up to see a face she was all too familiar with.

She hung from Aggu’s belt. The woman struggled with tightening a thick cloth around a now fully grown Wyrn who had trouble keeping upright.

“Mother, I don’t feel well.”

“You’ll be fine,” she assured him. “Just keep still and do not move this. Once we get home, I can reenforce the spell. Another shield will take time.”

Wyrn flopped over and she slipped her arms under his and dragged him toward the wagon. It took everything in her to shove him up into it then hurry around to the front.

Matax followed Aggu’s every move.

“If you’re finished with—”

Aggu waved a hand at him. “Away with you. You’re lucky to be freed.”

With a flick of her wrists, the wagon bypassed the sleeping troll and set off. Vadde fought to keep upright.

Matax came back again, eyeing her from outside the jar. Vadde decided to sit down. Even from here, she could hear Wyrn’s cries.

“I feel ill.”

Aggu looked back at him then urged the beast on. They were in a steady trot in no time and the end of the forest neared.

“Where are you taking her?” Matax asked. “I’m not yet done.”

But Wyrn’s mother ignored him and carried on. The donkey raced into the open field, but the wagon slammed into something, nearly tipping them.

Aggu had to stand in order to force the cart back down.

What Vadde beheld when Aggu stood was unreal. The donkey still pulled but an unseen force kept the wagon from moving past a certain point.

Aggu puzzled over it, but Matax laughed. “You’re trying to leave this place with its ruler? Since when?”

Vadde wondered about his meaning until Aggu held the jar up to examine her. Finally, she unhooked the jar and threw it down. Vadde took a terrible tumble, but the cap was still affixed once it rolled to a stop. That wasn’t the only thing unchanged. The wagon didn’t advance.

Next, Aggu stepped off. She took little comfort in knowing she wasn’t the problem. In fact, she stepped past the wagon and walked to the donkey then back again. She could leave.

In her next attempt, she picked up the jar and held it out. It met a barrier as well.

“No,” she moaned but Vadde was sure it wasn’t for the same reason.

After securing the jar to her belt once more, Aggu climbed into the wagon and examined her son, specifically, his bandaged back.

“Wyrn?”

He could barely respond. “I’m ill.”

“Have you made a promise of some kind? Or taken an oath?”

Wyrn pushed her back and tried to curl up, but she held his face.

“Wake up. What’s happened to you? What have you done to anchor yourself here? Has she tricked you?”

He made an awful sound as he gripped his gut. “It hurts.”

Realization came to Aggu who stumbled back and nearly fell out of the wagon.

“No. You…ate—you ate something? You know never to eat anything when magic’s involved!”

Face pressed to the wagon floor, Wyrn twisted and cried out.

His mother watched him at a loss. Finally, she jumped down and turned the donkey around. It faced the opposite direction when she manned the reins and yelled out a command.

Vadde bounced from the heavy justling.

Wyrn wasn’t the only one feeling strange; Vadde banged against the glass. Her vision blurred and she lost time.

When she awoken once more, they were before the black tower, Aggu using every bit of power she had to pull her son from the wagon.

One purple nymph popped into existence and then his green counterpart.

“You have a nerve coming back here,” the purple one began.

“I’m giving you back your damn goddess,” she insisted. “So help me.”

“That wasn’t the deal,” the green one answered. “Returning the princess in exchange for your giant family. That’s three people. There was nothing said about a fourth.”

Aggu yanked the jar off her belt and held it out. “Here. Give me back my husband and son, and the damn succubus!”

The purple nymph took the string of the jar and the green one clapped.

Bonn was the first to appear in the archway. He steadied himself from an unseen freefall. His wife appeared next, and finally his father.

The purple nymph was pleased. “It was lovely doing business with you, traitor. Do be so kind as to leave quickly.”

With two hands, he dragged the jar higher into the sky.

“Oi,” Wyrn’s father called, “wait.” But the nymph continued to ascend so he raced to his wife. “That was the princess?”

“Never mind the princess,” Aggu begged. “If she doesn’t become The Living Goddess, Wyrn can never leave this forest!”

The rest of their argument faded as the nymph climbed higher, Vadde still in the jar. She landed on something soft—a pair of hands.

Orm peered down at her, grinning. “Finally.”

“May we observe?” the purple nymph asked.

“I suppose I should charge for that,” the prince joked.

The green nymph answered, “We have riches. We can pay.”

A ruckus came from the stairway and Wyrn’s father, his son in his arms, rushed in. “We need help!”

Aggu wasn’t far behind. “I can do it. It’s best if I do this alone. Please!”

Wyrn came to rest at their feet. “Please. Take whatever compensation you want,” Wyrn’s father insisted, “but save my son.”

The green nymph peered down at the sweaty face as Wyrn writhed. “He has too many competing spells. Just simply remove them. Anyway, we are busy.”

Bonn was the next to arrive with his wife. “The Living Goddess can help him.”

“The Living Goddess will have to wait,” the purple nymph insisted, “we are busy—”

A knife caught him clean through the chest and a collective gasp sounded.

The shocked nymph regarded Aggu in doubt and betrayal before he plummeted to the floor.

Aggu had another dagger at the ready. “You’re next, bitch, if you don’t give me what I want.”

The green nymph clutched her hands before her and bobbed in the air. She was listening.

Orm looked down at the dead nymph then regarded Aggu in doubt. But he took one step toward her, and Bonn drew a sword.

“Back off my mother,” he said, though he didn’t appear confident in his actions.

Wyrn’s father, still on the ground holding his son, did nothing to mask his terror as he asked his wife, “What are you doing? You’re defiling the sacred temple.”

“The sacred temple is putrid,” Aggu answered. “And it’s as putrid as the fairies who ran it and the murderous water nymphs who charge as they please.” The green nymph swallowed hard and Aggu warned, “Try it. Try to disappear from this spot and see if I don’t hunt down your entire family and stomp on them for fun.”

“No—” The green nymph’s voice was shaky, so she tried again. “No need for that. What is it you want?”

“I want that damn human put into that pool. What else do you think!”

“If…even if you make a goddess now,” the nymph insisted, “you don’t have a payment method to solidify so many spells onto one person.”

“Oh?” Aggu thrust a finger out at Orm, “This moron’s father had no problem helping his cousin steal a newborn to sacrifice to you twisted bastards and I have absolutely no problem returning the favor with his blood.”

“What?” Orm asked. “I have no quarrel with you.”

Aggu scoffed. “You think it was coincidence I chose you for this, dear boy? Hardly. The human queen came to cure her barren womb, your father came to cure his dying son. I will not only smile at your demise, I’ll relish it.”

“Wait, what is happening?” Wyrn’s father asked. “Aggu?”

His wife kept her back to him, face set in a grimace.

Even from here, Vadde could see the woman’s rage spilling over.

“Aggu,” Wyrn’s father said softer. “What are you trying to do? Where is The Living Goddess?”

“Dead.” Aggu’s breathing grew heavy. “And I’m trying to save our son if you’d only let me!”

Wyrn’s father looked past her back to Vadde in the jar then back again. “Are you trying to turn this girl into The Living Goddess? This is madness. She’s our son’s wife—”

“She is payment! And payment created from my pain. This is what I’m owed!” With every passing second, she began to glow red. “I’ve toiled here in this temple. Hundreds of years before I met you and I did as I was told. Hundreds! And I went where instructed, did all that was asked of me. And what did I get? What did they all want? An excuse to kill the giants!” A cloud of smoke formed around her, seeping out of her mouth with each word uttered. “I’d already paired with another fairy. I’d already chosen. And what did the king do with my loyalty? He bound my wings and abandoned me in the woods for a giant to find. I was forbidden to return for one year, knowing what would happen, hoping a giant would abuse me and he could attack.”

The ground shook and Orm was slow as he put the jar down. Even taking off the top did not appease her; there was no calming Aggu’s fury.

“But what did the giants ever do to me? Nothing. One year passed and I came back and begged to come home and the king, that bastard, said I wasn’t trying hard enough so he sent me back. And at two years, he had me beaten. I had to hide in the woods for days to heal before I could face anyone.”

Vadde didn’t know what went into the transformation of a fairy, but she now bore witness to it shedding its mortal form. Now she understood what—who she’d seen six years ago. It was Aggu…playing a role.

Deep black smoke rolled from Aggu’s mouth and swirled around her. Her dress fell away, tearing a gasp from Bonn but no one else.

Like Jeze, her skin was red, though yellow areas here and there looked more like scars than decorative.

Her wings were larger, however, and they spread the smoke in their fluttering. She began to shrink.

Vadde understood Aggu’s pain but could offer nothing.

The green nymph made the mistake of interjecting. “You were a fairy queen’s maid and the Fairy King’s bedfellow. He had every right to put you where he wanted—”

The knife simply appeared in her chest. It did not even fly forward.

Aggu cocked her head and the blade twisted before the nymph fell to the floor.

Lifeless and hollow eyes perpetually wide, the green nymph landed close to the jar. Vadde looked away.

Aggu touched down with a thud, shaking the jar which she gave a kick. It shattered.

Something grabbed Vadde by the hair then the throat when she looked up.

Aggu hoisted her, staring into her eyes as she seethed, “The fairy king made the mistake of eating an apple from his favorite tree which I poisoned. The fairy queen accidentally walked into my knife, several times. But you? How in the hell will you meet your untimely end?”

Vadde lost all feeling but not for the pain she was in, but from something else. “Poisoned? You poisoned a tree? A fruit tree?” She tried to point to Wyrn but the grip on her throat tightened. “You don’t understand, he ate from an apple tree.”

The woman’s surprise vanished in minutes. “That poison is long gone. Eating fruit powers us up and that power is eroding the spells. That is fine, you will simply become the goddess and reverse it.” She gestured back at Orm who was still quivering on the sharp end of Bonn’s sword. Aggu told Vadde, “I would have gladly allowed this human prince to show you what my king had no trouble subjecting me to for years when he sent me to be used by a giant, knowing the pain it would bring but I suppose that was my punishment for all my lies to my husband. Because I married a man whose love would hurt me because his love was the only thing keeping me from killing myself. It’s a very twisted life when that’s all you know. You aren’t a real fairy, so you won’t understand the true emptiness that it brings. Otherwise, you’d not blame me for fighting so hard for it. Get. In. That. Pool.”

Vadde had to go willingly. She feared enough for Wyrn to do just that but before she could agree, someone stepped past her and entered the water without prompting.

Aggu’s grip loosened as she shouted, “No!”