“I wonder which of those are sleeping and shitting rooms,” said Angelo.
While Sarah and Giovanna chuckled Lily looked at Angelo with panic in her eyes. “Don’t make such stupid jokes!” she said. “I don’t know who else knows English here besides me.”
“Alright, I’ll stop,” said Angelo and whispered “Ms. Paranoiac.”
“I heard that,” said Lily.
“Better listen to my sister,” said Ursu. “She knows the reality of this pce the best.”
“Okay, that actually may be good,” said Angelo.
“Thank you for noticing,” said Lily.
After a long walk they reached a giant mahogany door with a golden letter carved into it. It resembled something between U and an O, but only Lily knew how it was actually pronounced.
“Alright, we’re here,” said Lily. “I’ll come in first and you’ll follow me.”
“Got it!” said Angelo.
Lily opened the door and stepped inside. “Wait until I open,” she said to the guests.
The doors closed and some unintelligible words could be heard from behind them. Very quickly they stopped and Lily opened the door again.
“Come inside,” said Lily.
Angelo, Sarah, Ursu and Giovanna entered the room and saw a fairy sitting behind the desk on the other side of the room. Tall and fat, grinning with teeth yellowed from smoke. They correctly assumed that he was Kanimfelli Hi?ā Omiāk.
“Amni?i, min jat?ujā!” said Omiāk. “Pin katta amiln?”
All the four humans stood before the fairy leader without uttering a word. Even Ursu, who remembered this or that of Moonwingian nguage, since her fear of new people kicked in.
“Lili inme?i kes?a katat akajan?” Omiāk continued. “Ikat! Akkali?e om kājsanima.”
Again, the friends couldn’t understand a single word, safe for Ursu. Luckily Lily knew just how to save them from the horrors of listening to Omiāk speaking the only nguage he cared about.
“Kanimfelliu, kyukya mekāttam?a mennin iln,” Lily said.
Omiāk stopped talking and scratched his temple out of surprise. “Pin? Lili mekāttam?i Falsalāmāk?” he said to his guests and added with a cracking voice “No Moonwingian? Only English?”
“Yes, please,” said Angelo.
Omiāk said some fairy curse words. He grabbed a random piece of paper from his desk and rolled it into a ball in his fist. He threw it aside and looked at Lily.
“Tikensu!” Omiāk shouted. Immediately after he cleared his throat, calmed down and asked Lily to transte. “Tikensu, ksatan?i, men ?i?e.”
“Ka, kanimfelliu,” said Lily and turned to the guests. “I’ll transte.”
The humans expressed their gratitude by nodding their heads. They felt it would be inappropriate to speak for some reason. Maybe they were simply too afraid.
<
“Now I get you!” said Angelo. “Yeah, I have to admit I was getting really curious as for why you brought me here.”
<> said Omiāk. <>
“Well, you know,” said Angelo. “I told him to give me priority treatment. Like a mascot of his.”
<
“Is it important to ponder about that?” asked Angelo trying to take the conversation back on track.
<
“I’d say it’s about time,” said Angelo.
Omiāk walked to a painting on the wall. It was a painting of a burning city and himself standing on the ruins of some monument of a historical figure. The painter tried their best to depict the statue as a decaying corpse and it did look disgusting.
Kanimfelli took the painting down and revealed a hidden safe. Inside there was a file of documents branded with a red stamp likely noting their confidentiality. Omiāk brought the file to the table and flipped through pages before finding a photo of a strange construction. It looked like a science fiction bster mounted on an unmanned train. Omiāk grinned and chuckled at the photo.
<
“Interesting name for an interesting device,” said Angelo.
<
No guest liked what they were hearing. Lily paid no mind for some reason.
“Let me guess,” said Angelo. “Something’s wrong with it?”
<
Angelo understood what Omiāk wanted him to do. “Do you have any idea who might have stolen it?” he said.
<
“And who is that?” asked Angelo.
<
“So you would like me to get this weapon back?” asked Angelo.
<
The humans in the room were scared of the prospect of getting involved in a fairy mafia war. Especially Angelo felt conflicted about the assignment, but said the only thing he could. “Give me a map and I’ll think what to do.”
Sarah and Ursu looked at Angelo with shock. Meanwhile Omiāk smiled.
<
When Angelo and his friends left the mansion Sarah and Ursu were still not understanding how Angelo could agree to Omiāk’s commission. Angelo was studying the map diligently and thinking on an action pn.
“Do you really want to do it?” asked Ursu.
“I think he doesn’t,” said Giovanna. “He just had to say he wants to so that Omiāk won’t get angry.”
“Yeah, sometimes you just have to say a convenient lie,” said Angelo with his eyes still on the map. “You get used to it.”
That made Ursu and Sarah calm down. Indeed Angelo wasn’t someone who would perform a job like that if he had other options. And just as they all went out of the mansion they heard Lily saying “Hey, can I ask you to do something for me?”
Angelo looked above his map and said “Yeah, what is it?”
“Could you actually get the weapon back?” asked Lily.
That surprised everybody. They would not expect something like that from Lily of all people. Especially not Ursu. From Lily’s letters Ursu saw her sister as a straight A pacifist. So there was a great dissonance in what she heard just then.
“Why would you like him to do that?” Ursu said.
Lily looked around the street and just as she made sure nobody was listening to them she said “I’ll tell you in my house. That’s not something to discuss on the street.”