Fairytale Leak Case File #8

Associated story: ALPHA WOLF AND GLASS SLIPPERS

In the FAIRYTALE LEAKS bundle

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TRANSCRIPT BEGINS

ROSALIND: Cashmere. Cashmere. Pick up. I can see the little green dot. The green dot means you're there.

ROSALIND: I know you can see me. I am waving. I have been waving for four minutes.

CASHMERE: Madam. It is a Tuesday. It is 1:14 in the afternoon. I am, at this precise moment, in possession of a portion of wild-caught salmon that took me three weeks and one minor act of diplomacy to acquire. I had, perhaps, four bites remaining.

ROSALIND: Wonderful. Bring it. This won't take long.

CASHMERE: It is already taking long.

ROSALIND: I received an invoice.

CASHMERE: Congratulations. That is how commerce works.

ROSALIND: Don't be smart. It came through the archive vents at dawn. It's enormous. It's got a wax seal shaped like a clock. And at the bottom it says — Cashmere, what does "interest accrued" mean?

CASHMERE: …

ROSALIND: Cashmere?

CASHMERE: Read me the top line. The one above the number.

ROSALIND: It says — "Re: the Borrowed Hour. Account in arrears. Three hundred years." Then there's the number, which I'm not going to say out loud because saying it makes my wings hurt. Is it bad? It feels bad. I'm a fairy, Cashmere, I deal in wishes and frogs and the occasional pumpkin. I don't know what an arrear is. Is it an animal?

CASHMERE: It is not an animal.

ROSALIND: Then what —

CASHMERE: The Borrowed Hour. You said the Borrowed Hour.

ROSALIND: I'll compensate you. Salmon. A whole one. Two. I'll have Nugget courier it. Just — explain the word.

CASHMERE: Madam, my fur is standing up. All of it. I look like a bottlebrush. You will not see this on camera and you will never speak of it.

ROSALIND: …It's the clock thing, isn't it.

CASHMERE: It is the clock thing. The clock Cinderella relied on to dance at that ball — to stay hidden long enough to be discovered properly, later, by her prince. Remember? The clock I told you to protect. And you did not take my advice. You bet everything on the shoe. The shoe was important, granted. But so was the clock — because without it, Cinderella is still standing in front of the entire royal court well past midnight, in her servant rags. Assuming she even had the rags, if the witch was feeling kind. Which I doubt. Dark witches are never kind. That's rather the whole job.

ROSALIND: But we fixed it. The incident never happened. Ball intact. Cinderella out the door in time. Yes — we borrowed the hour. And I paid the debt. With a swan. Nobody said anything about interest.

CASHMERE: Rosalind, it was in the fine print. There is always fine print. And — let us be honest — one fairy hour is not cheap. A single swan does not cover the principal, let alone the interest. There was always going to be a catch.

ROSALIND: You should have told me.

CASHMERE: I did. I objected to the method from the start, and I warned you about the fine print. But you were late for the Biennial Convocation of Godmothers, Wand Inspection, and Light Refreshments, and you said — your words — that interest was "a tomorrow problem."

ROSALIND: …That does sound like me.

ROSALIND: All right. Can't fix the past. What about now? It says — "Settlement due. Collection method: in kind." Cashmere, what does in kind —

CASHMERE: It means the debt does not want money. It wants the same thing we took. We borrowed an hour of hidden time — an hour of a true form staying safely concealed. That is the exact currency it intends to collect.

ROSALIND: …Oh.

CASHMERE: "Oh."

ROSALIND: Oh no.

CASHMERE: There it is.

ROSALIND: Somewhere out there is a person — right now, today — whose entire life depends on staying hidden. And the bill is going to come due on them. Their disguise just became collateral. The hour we stole from the future is about to be repossessed from the one soul who can least afford to be seen.

CASHMERE: Rosalind. You will have to peek at the mate list. Find out who's up next.

ROSALIND: I can't do that. And if we're caught —

CASHMERE: I am several realms away. And you still owe me salmon.

ROSALIND: Cashmere. We have to do something.

CASHMERE: We have to do paperwork, which is worse. But yes.

ROSALIND: Then deploy your best. Have them peek at the list, identify the affected couple, and send a field agent in to fix it.

CASHMERE: My best is currently me, and I am eating salmon.

ROSALIND: Cashmere.

CASHMERE: …I have someone. New roster. Eager. Seven pounds. Wears a bow tie he commissioned himself. Has — and I quote his own intake form — "eighteen tactical plans and a haiku."

ROSALIND: …A haiku for what?

CASHMERE: I did not ask. I will never ask. Rosalind, I want it on the record that I have reservations.

ROSALIND: Noted. Deploy him.

CASHMERE: He calls himself a Security Consultant and Tactical Advisor.

ROSALIND: Deploy the meerkat, Cashmere.

CASHMERE: [a sigh eight centuries in the making] He prefers "mongoose." He is wrong, but he prefers it. Deploying now.

TRANSCRIPT ENDS.

The hour came due. The agent is on the ground. Somewhere, right now, a woman with a borrowed disguise is about to step onto a stage she should have run from — and a billionaire who can never let his own wolf out is about to watch her secret detonate in a room full of strangers.

What the meerkat did next is in the book.

→ Alpha Wolf and Glass Slippers