A Birth day

"Well, I can't speak for the girls, but I don't think it jarred Marcus or me," Angus said. "There's almost always something cooking here, Jack. After all, with the Fae included, we're cooking for twelve adults and ten or twelve Fae. And when the Fae eggs finally finish their transitions and come out of their cocoons, we'll have fifty more beyond that. That's a lot of mouths to feed, and since the Fae are vegetarians, we're doing a lot of vegetable and fruit prep these days."

"Jack so you know," Marcus said, "we do believe this was caused by Priscilla, and she seems to still be working for Suzanne. So, I'm sure we're not going to refuse any additional people making rounds on the night shift. I'm going to be laying other protection grids and talking to Robert and asking about some sort of special grids that will go deeper. Now that they've thought about it, I don't want to go down to the basement to make a security check and find some tunnel coming up through the cellar floor."

"And I don't want them getting any of the kids," Angus said, "if I never sleep again."

"Good thought," Marcus added. "i don't know that I've seen many animals with dark arts tendencies, but some of them could be trained or wearing dark devices, I suppose."

"Kate rather believes that animals can be influenced towards doing dark behaviors if they've been trained much by their owners," Angus said.

"Well, she's right, I think," Marcus replied. Angus went over to the counter, looking at Ruby's cake.

"Not rescuable," Angus said. "I could make some more ice cream for supper tonight, I suppose. Or we could bake a pie. We could make a cookie crust with some digestives and then maybe add some sort of cream filling--like a chocolate sillk or something."

"Fae have an unquenchable sweet tooth," Marcus told Jack.

"Come to think of it, I have a recipe that was my gran's for a lemon filling, sort of like lemon curd, but it uses Italian citrons==the large Italian lemons that everyone here likes so well. We could make one of those and add maybe a whipped cream or a merengue top--without a risk of sinking."

"I hope good weather gets here soon," Marcus said. "I'm getting hungry for American style barbeque'd chicken, and that's only good if its grilled outside on a charcoal grill."

"Marcus, as long as it isn't raining, I can grill outside," Angus said. "That isn't a problem. We could do that, or I have a couple other ideas for supper tonight."

"It can--but that presumes you live long enough after encountering one of those dark creatures to analyze whatever artifact they might be wearing. Ever run into a trained, dark arts cobra? Let me tell you. Cobras are not fun anyway, but that's just generally the creature protecting itself. Get a trained or enchanted dark one, and that's a whole new barrel of fun."

"Where did you run into one of those?" Angus asked.

"Africa," Marcus said.

"Did you live?" Angus teased.

"Smartass," Marcus laughed. When Ruby came back with his gran's cookbook, Angus nodded.

"Yep. That's the book," Angus said. "Oh, and she has a couple secrets she didn't put in her cookbook. I think she left it out deliberately. When you get to the vanilla in the ingredients, add double that amount in almond extract. She doesn't have the almond extract in her recipe, but I can promise you it's in her version. It adds some sort of silky smooth flavoring. And you'll notice you end up having too many eggs that she has you whip up. That's because she's taking one egg white, separating it out, and whipping it to a stiff peak and putting it in her lemon filling. It helps to give an actual silky texture to the filling too."

"She was sneaky," Marcus laughed.

"She had recipes that some of the uppity women in her area wanted from her. So she gave them to them--just usually with the tricky bit left out of whatever recipe it was. Then, when they asked her why it didn't taste like hers, she would just shrug and say she didn't know. She did not like some of those snobby women, and it was a way of holding her own."

"I'd have definitely liked her," Marcus said.

"Minos?" Angus called. "What's wrong, Mate?" The little fairy flew over to Angus and started to chatter rapidly at him pointing outside. "I'm coming. Go. I'll follow." He got up, with Marcus following, and went outside to one of the stumps that the Fae had been working on to try to hollow it out for a home. Angus could see panicky Fae outside it.

Minos fluttered up to the top, near a hole where the Fae had been tunneling out a chimney for the main fireplaces, and he pointed down inside it.

"Oh! Someone's fallen inside, haven't they?" Angus asked. Minos seemed relieved that Angus understood. He also understood the problem. One of the Fae had fallen and was hurt, and Fae magic wasn't strong enough to rescue him. Angus thought quickly.

"Let's make a litter for him and haul him out," Marcus said.

"Or something close to it," Angus said. "Minos, can you get to him?" Minos nodded. He remembered some of the hair nets he had in the pantry for cooking, and it gave him an idea. He accio'd one and a shoe lace. He looked at Minos. "Can he fold up his wings?" Angus asked. Minos nodded. "I'm going to weave this shoelace through the top this net, and I'll lower it down to him. Can you lot put the net under him and around him? If you can do that, I can haul him up. What do you think?" Minos nodded vigorously, and Angus took a moment to lengthen the shoelace magically and then weave it like a drawstring through the net, leaving slack on both ends of the shoelace.

Minos motioned for Angus to give the net to him. Angus did, and Minos flew with it down into the hole in the stump.

"When you have him secured, tug on the lace, and I'll pull him up. Make sure he doesn't get stuck on the way up, won't you?" Angus said. They waited for what felt to Angus like an eternity, and then he felt Minos tug on the lace. Angus slowly and patiently drew the net up.

When the net got to the surface, Angus could see the tiny Fae was badly hurt. He seemed to be fading right in Angus's hand. He thought about the tea, but this Fae hadn't been poisoned. He had been injured. This seemed different.

"I don't know if Robert or Jess have ever worked on a fairy before, but we have to try something. And I've seen Robert do some extraordinary things by healing with touch. Maybe that would help him," Angus said. "I guess I'll take him over and see if I can find one of them at the main house and see if they're willing to give it a try." Minos nodded and plopped himself on Angus's shoulder, making it clear he was going with Angus. "Mate, there are two bowtruckles over there. You sure?" Minos nodded. He was willing to risk it. "I'll try to keep you both protected." Minos nodded.

"Thanks," Marcus said. Angus took the little fairy over to the main house and went inside. When they went inside, the bowtruckles took a wild dive at Minos, and Minos dove right into Angus's shirt pocket. Angus put his hand over the pocket to shield Minos.

"Fudge, no," Angus told him firmly. "Minos is a friend, and I'm not going to let you eat my friend, just like I don't let Archangel eat you." Fudge chattered unhappily at Angus, and Angus waved him away. "I said no. Back to your tree."

"What's going on?" Michael asked, coming into the kitchen.

"Is Robert here? I have an injured fairy. he was hurt in a construction accident."

"'Fraid not. He got a late start at St. Mungos because of the death at the cottage. I think Jess is here someplace, though. Not sure where, but she's someplace."

"Well, I presume being someplace is better than being no place," Angus teased, knowing it was not possible for Jess to actually be nowhere.

"You're hanging around this one entirely too much," Michael gestured to Marcus. Marcus and Angus laughed and headed to try to find Jess.