Songreaver by Andrew Hunter

brink of death.
    "Can you save them?" Garrett asked.
    Marla frowned. "I was hoping that a song
might cheer them up a little," she said, "but I'm afraid we may
have lost these as well."
    Garrett felt a tightness growing in his
throat. The thought that Lampwicke might be somewhere, huddled
inside her silver prison and slowly fading into darkness...
    He cleared his throat and said, " Be'laudre
fau'len ches nadre ka ."
    One of the fairies lifted its head slightly
from his tiny forearm.
    "What are you saying?" Marla asked.
    "It's the only fairy joke I know," Garrett
said, "Lampwicke taught it to me. The funny part is Gessnedra
va'zuule ."
    The little fairy stared up at him, his golden
eyes blinking twice. Then a tiny, sparkling laugh sounded from the
cage, and the fairy's body blushed with rosy flame.
    "What does it mean," she asked.
    Garrett shrugged his shoulder. "I don't
really get it," he said, "something about a dragonfly stealing your
hat."
    "Fairies don't wear hats," Marla said.
    "Maybe that's why it's funny," Garrett
said.
    The laughing fairy reached out, taking the
bars of the cage in his hands and pulled himself to his feet,
swaying slightly. His color flared and then blazed, a bright golden
hue. He tilted his head back and laughed, long and loud. The
fairies in nearby cages stirred, little pulses of color lighting up
the shadows of the shop.
    The fairy at last stopped laughing and bowed
his head. His diaphanous wings buzzed like a hornet's, and he
stretched his spindly limbs. He closed his eyes and took in a deep
breath, his color deepening to a rich, brassy sheen. At last, he
stepped away from the bars and opened his eyes again.
    The little fairy lifted his right hand to
Marla in what looked like an obscene gesture of defiance. He looked
at Garrett and gave him a vicious grin and a wink.
    "Well... I guess that's better," Garrett
said.
    "He certainly seems to have recovered," Marla
said with a frown.
    The angry fairy paced around his cage,
calling out to the others, shouting words of encouragement in Fae.
A few of them in cages nearby lifted their heads and listened.
Others simply curled into little balls with their tiny hands over
their pointed ears.
    "Thank you, Garrett," Marla said, "I think we
might save a few more because of you."
    Garrett smiled. "I wish I could do more."
    "What can I do for you?" she asked.
    "Oh," he said, "I was hoping that you might
have something to eat for Ghausse."
    Marla's hand went to her lips. "I'm sorry,"
she gasped, "I forgot you still had him."
    "Yeah... I mean, that's not a problem," he
said, "I really like him... I just don't have a lot of meat lying
around at the moment. Cenick keeps bringing stuff from the
market... but Ghausse eats a lot."
    "Don't worry," Marla said, "You can leave him
here, and I'll take him back to the embassy when I go home."
    Garrett's heart sank. "All right..."
    Marla smiled at him. "You can come visit him
whenever you want," she said, "I'm sure he'd like going for a ride
with you now and then."
    "Yeah," Garrett said, feeling a little
better, "I'd really like that."
    "In any case, I'm sure he will be glad to see
Hauskr and Reigha again," she said.
    "They made it back all right?" Garrett
asked.
    Marla nodded. "Any word from Warren and his
father yet?" she asked.
    Garrett shook his head. "I'm worried about
them, but Cenick says it will still be a while before they could be
expected to return."
    "And everything is all right between the
necromancers and the sisterhood?" she asked.
    "Oh, yeah," he said, fumbling with the toggle
clasp of his shoulder bag, "that's kinda why I'm here."
    She watched as he searched through the
contents of his bag and drew out a flattened roll of parchment.
    "Max and Serepheni got the church to buy back
all of our zombies for us," he said, handing her the parchment, "We
just have to track down the people that bought them and give them
these."
    Marla unrolled the letter, reading it. Her
eyebrows lifted. "This must be costing them a