Agatha Harkness's Arc

Chapter 2 of 21

For one day, Agatha slept. The jar sat on her mantel, the pixie curled inside it, her dust sealed away. The wards stayed quiet. Then, on the second morning, a shadow crossed her window. Something landed on the roof of her manor, a house that let no one find it uninvited. Agatha set down her tea. The manor had opened its doors to a guest. That meant this guest could not be kept out. He walked in without knocking. A boy, or something wearing a boy's shape, with red hair and old green eyes. A cracked clock hung at his chest. He did not look at the fine furniture or the paintings Agatha had spent forty years placing. He looked at the jar. "That's mine," Peter said. Agatha smiled the way she smiled at everyone who wanted something. "She belongs to no one. She's a leak in my walls." "She's mine." He crossed the room. The pixie beat her wings against the glass and jingled fast and bright. "Give her back." "And if I don't?" Peter stopped. For a moment his flat voice went quiet and cold. "I take futures. I could take yours. You'd keep every memory. You just wouldn't care what came next." He tilted his head. "You'd sit here forever. No plans. No peace, either." Agatha had killed three courts with one lie. She was not afraid of a boy. But she had watched his eyes when he looked at the jar, and she saw the truth. He was not bluffing. And she was tired. She wanted quiet, not a war with a fae king in her own front room. She weighed it. The pixie's dust had cost her four nights of sleep. But the pixie's owner could cost her far more. Keeping the creature was not peace. It was only a shorter fuse. "Take her," Agatha said. She lifted the jar and set it in his hands. "I never wanted her. I wanted silence." Peter opened the lid. The pixie shot out and spun around his head, spilling light. He watched her, and something almost soft crossed his face. Then it was gone. "You trapped her four days," he said. "That's four days I looked for her." He turned his old eyes on Agatha. "I don't forget who costs me time." "I gave her back," Agatha said. "We're square." "No." He walked to the door, the pixie trailing sparks behind him. "You made me leave Neverland. You made me come here and knock." He looked around the manor once, slowly, memorizing it. "Now I know where you live. Fae remember debts. I'll be back to collect mine." Then he stepped onto the air and was gone. The manor closed its doors. The wards were silent. Agatha stood alone in her quiet house, exactly as she'd wanted. But a fae king now knew the way to her door, and he did not forgive.