Ruby went on about plants for way, way too long but Ash never called her out on it. He asked insightful questions about her garden plan and kept the conversation flowing. By the time Wendy, Breeze, and the rest of their team came outside she realized she had been going on about plants for hours. She hadn"t realized she even knew that much about plants since it wasn"t her specialty. She supposed that was what she got for living with a bunch of fairies with plant-based powers her whole life.
Her parents used to own the same nursery Flint and Lily were now in charge of. Ruby grew up among the plants and did her best to act like she was an ordinary earth fairy.
When her powers manifested, her father very seriously told her that she could never reveal her true power to others because they would take advantage of her. Her natural affinity with all things related to the earth as an earth fairy would have to compensate for her lack of plant powers working in the nursery.
Her parents died several decades later but she always took that directive to heart. Flora had discovered her powers entirely by accident and she thought it would be okay because they were close and she knew her cousin loved her.
As it turned out, her father had been right. Ruby couldn"t even trust her own family not to get greedy.
She did her best to pretend she was an average earth fairy but genuinely fell in love with plants along the way. There was so much diversity among them!
Earth fairies were generally considered the jacks-of-all-trades among fairies because their powers varied so widely due to the nature of their element. Water fairies held second place because water was needed to sustain life.
Fire fairies had the least diverse powers. They could pretty much only heat things up without visible flames, produce fire, or manipulate it into different shapes and sizes.
Ruby didn"t know any personally but had heard they tended to go into the culinary field because they always managed to get the perfect cooking temperature or join circus acts manipulating their fire. Apparently there was a small clan of them living in Las Vegas that partic.i.p.ated in a lot of their cirque shows.
Once she got out of here it might be kind of cool to visit there. Maybe she could introduce herself to her distant kin.
There were a lot of other opportunities for making money there too. She could p.a.w.n jewels for cash and use cash to get more cash in the casinos. Maybe she could even buy a casino and watch the money come in for decades.
Ruby had heard there were elves that h.o.a.rded wealth for generations by opening long-standing businesses like that. Since they lived such long lives the money didn"t do anything but stack up over the years. Elves were very practical creatures.
She snapped herself out of her thoughts. Wendy was talking to her; she needed to focus.
"We were only able to get a few rooms done today. With a castle this size I estimate it will take us about four days to finish up if we work dawn to dusk. Are you able to pay for all of that? Ballparking it, the cost will be a minimum of $6,000 including labor and cleaning supplies," Wendy said matter-of-factly.
Ruby smiled. Her earrings today cost less than that! "Not a problem at all. Thank you for your hard work. Either I or my companion will let you in at dawn tomorrow."
The group of fairies left chatting among themselves and Ash turned to her questioningly. "Companion?"
She shrugged. "What did you want me to call you? It"s the first word I could think of. It"s not like we"re friends."
"Fair enough. You can drop the glamour now by the way. It"s strange seeing you as an elf."
Ruby laughed and did as he said, returning to her original human glamour. "Happy?"
His eyes narrowed. "You look human again."
"I always look human," she said evasively. She didn"t want to get into her reasoning behind always having a glamour on. She was regarded as enough of a freak already. It was better to look like a human than a mutant fairy.
Ash put on a show of being dramatically wounded, his long raven hair swishing as he posed. "And here I thought you were actually starting to trust me! No matter. It"s starting to get dark. We can head into town for our errand soon."
He headed back inside and Ruby followed him rather confused by his teasing. Vampire humor really was weird.
As she went, she surveyed the rooms that had been taken care of today. The kitchen was sparkling clean and there wasn"t a rat in sight. She had known the Breezes were good but this was far beyond her expectations. It looked like a completely different room!
They also managed to clean one of the bathrooms, two empty rooms with ripped up canvases hanging on the walls, and what appeared to be some sort of drawing room.
Ruby was impressed. They managed to do all of that with three wind fairies and two water fairies!
She knew the Gales fairly well because they were one of the only other fairy families in this area. Elements were genetic. If two different elemental fairies gave birth to a child, it would have one of their attributes.
Wendy"s parents had been wind and water fairies; she got wind and her sister got water. She and her two children joined Wendy and her husband in this area after she broke up with her boyfriend of fifty-seven years.
Fae marriages were somewhat rare because people didn"t want to be tied down for eternity. Her parents and aunt and uncle had been married but about half of the fae she knew didn"t bother making that kind of commitment.
Marriage in fae society was a bit different than it was for humans. They didn"t have to go to a government office and fill out paperwork. They cast a spell that const.i.tuted a binding magical contract that they swore to spend the rest of their long lives with the other person.
Out of all the races, werewolves were the most likely to get married because they had a special bond with their mates. The least likely were either elves or witches because they couldn"t be bothered with long-term emotional attachments.
Ruby saw the sun go down through one of the broken windows and briefly wondered if it was possible for her to use her power to create gla.s.s. It was made of superheated sand, which originally came from rock.
Maybe she wouldn"t have to hire a human to fix the windows after all. But she wouldn"t be able to test this theory until the sun came back up and Ash went to sleep.