Weakened, hungered, and tired, his friends were on their last shift. Ferry felt his heart breaking at their sight. His Guardians had their hands tied with something that looked like wire threads, therefore their powers weakened, so they couldn't shape-shift anymore. Matilda and Danny were shivering in the arms of Matilda's mother. Poor Baldie was covered with something that looked like a fishnet. But the fishnet was made of a thin iron wire that kept Baldie from turning into a raven and fly.

His friends stood in front of the crowd as if freaks at the circus. The crowd shivered with excitement waiting for the show to begin. They didn't have to wait too long. Fae Queen stepped closer and she gestured to her guards to stay put. At her signal, the crowd grew calm as by magic.

"Come out, come out, Moonlight Boy," she said and her words echoed in the silence. "You don't want your friends living the rest of their lives in the darkness, do you? We live long, long lives around here".

Ferry stood still, unable to take his eyes away from his friends. He almost forgot to breathe. What was to do? Could he trust Fae Queen? He knew that, for some reason, she wanted him. But would she let his friends go?

"Don't show yourself, Ferry!" he heard Baldie shouting. "We'll be all right..." he added.

But Ferry knew they wouldn't be all right. So he stepped closer to the pulsing orb. He slowly took off the blue feather and the shelter of his invisibility crumbled. When he came out of it, he could feel thousands of eyes staring at him. He removed the cloak's hood and, in the moonlight, the stars on his forehead shone brighter than ever. Everyone around took a few steps back. His friends throbbed and Oona covered her mouth with her palm to stop a cry.

"Run, Ferry! " Baldie shouted. The power of iron was overwhelming and his voice was trembling. "You still have the time. Put the blue feather back on and run!"

But Ferry didn't move. The Queen came to him as if floating, surrounded by the bright aura which was now having a faint shade of gray. She stopped in front of him, studying the signs on his forehead. She then reached his white hand to touch them.

"Stay away from him," he could hear Baldie and saw him trying to reach him. But the guards of the Palace stopped him before he could take a step forward.

Fae Queen remained just as calm.

"Well, well... Such an honor to have a guest from the far-off Kingdom of Akna among us... What do you think about Tenalach so far, Prince Garret?"

The Good People in the crowd flustered, each one trying to take a better look at their special guest.

"My name is Andrew Donovan," said Ferry and the crowd turned silent. "But everyone calls me Ferry," he continued. "My mum named me after my great grandfather, Ferdinand."

Fae Queen laughed. "Is that what your human mother taught you to say?" she asked. "You know she's not your real mother, don't you?"

Ferry knew that all too well. Still, it was hard to hear it from someone else.

"Don't listen to her, Ferry," said Baldie. "She's just trying to trouble you. Just take the blue feather and run!"

But Ferry shook his head no. "I can't do that..." he said in a low voice. "You're my friends."

Fae Queen applauded. "Oh, loyalty... Such a precious thing among humans... But would your friends do the same for you?"

She got closer to Matilda who glared at her. The Queen caressed the top of her head, continuing, "For instance, your human friend hates fairies. She thinks they are guilty of taking her mother away from her. Do you really believe you two will be like before ever again? And how about this boy here?" she said, turning to Danny. "He's not even your friend. He's always laughed at you. Calling you names... Do you think he's not going to tell about you when you'll get home? Or what about your fairy friends? Always watching without you knowing... Pretending to be animals... Could you tell you were ever alone? Or maybe unseen eyes have always been watching you from the shadows..."

"What do you want from me?" Ferry had the courage to ask.

Fae Queen put her hands together, grinning. "Well, it's not much... Give us the Moon's Tear and we'll let you and your friends go. We know you have it. It will be safer with us, now that you brought it from the world of humans. It belongs here."

But Baldie wouldn't give up, "Don't listen to her, Ferry! You don't know what's happening in this place. If you give them the stone, we're all going to end in the Blind Alley."

"Shush, Raven!" the Queen hissed.

"Run, Ferry!"

Ferry took a step back. The Queen raised her hand and the guards headed towards him. They looked determined and dangerous. But his friends had a plan.

"Mattie, quick! Throw the iron filling!" he could hear Shadow shouting.

In a blink of an eye, Matilda placed the wooden box with the iron filling in her sling and she shot at the guards. She hit one of them right in the head and the iron dust spread all over. Frightened, the Wandering Fays retreated, squeezing up against each other and trying desperately to dust the iron powder off their pristine skin. Fae Queen rushed to them and she stood in front of them as a wall against the storm. The wind spread the iron dust even further and a lot of the Good People rushed to get out of there. Even Ferry felt the twinges of iron on his skin and a feeling of fainting with them. The crowd fussed.

"What's going on, Baldie?" Ferry shouted. "Why don't they step back?"

That moment, they could all hear Baldie's voice as clear as crystal, "That's because they're humans."

For a moment, time stood still.

"Liar!" a voice from the crowd broke the silence.

But Baldie was not intimidated, "They're all people," he repeated and the echo scattered in the air. "The Guards, the people in the Blind Alley, the leaders of all The Nine Kingdoms of Tenalach. Fae Queen's most trustful people. They are all people. More than half of the Good People in Tenalach are humans or half-fays."

Baldie removed the iron net and stepped in front of the crowd. The Queen watched him with interest without trying to stop him. His hands were also tied with iron threads. And he seemed to be at his last shifts. It would have been impossible for him to fly.

"How do you know they are humans?" a tiny voice from the crowd asked. Other voices joined it, "Yes, how do you know they are humans?"

Fae Queen returned to her throne and she waited, a smirk in the corner of her mouth. She was now watching everything as if a spectator at some twisted show.

"Why do you think the Palace is a fortress?" Baldie continued. "That there are charms put on some rooms that even fairies can't break? That those rooms are crowded with human objects..."

The fairies fussed again. But the smirk on the Queen's face remained.

"You have no proof of that," said a dwarf, his beard touching the ground.

Baldie looked into his eyes. "Look at the threads some of you have tied to your feet!"

"Oh, those are humans and they aren't even that many..." the bearded fellow answered.

"But how many of you have you dreamed about people and places you've never met or seen before? What if those people and places really existed?"

Ferry gave it a thought. All of a sudden, everything made sense. He looked at the faces of the people in the crowd. They were now observing each other, wondering, and asking questions. He saw Poppy somewhere close to the orb, not taking her eyes away from Oona. But Oona pretended to look at the wreath of yellow flowers in her lap, avoiding everyone's look.

"Can you make proof of your sayings?" several voices asked Baldie. His friend shook his head. He had no proof.

Ferry took a step forward.

"I can prove it," he said and all the eyes turned on him. "Caireann, come here," he said to Poppy, taking the doll out of his backpack.

The little fairy watched him, her eyes wide with curiosity. Then she slowly headed towards him, her eyes glued to the doll. She slowly took it, as if afraid to touch something fragile and precious. Ferry encouraged her with a smile.

Ferry looked at Fae Queen's face. Black clouds gathered in her eyes and the grin disappeared from her face.

"My doll," whispered Poppy, caressing its hair and kissing it. "I named her Rosie. My mummy bought it for me. It was summer and it was very hot. And after, we sat on a bench and ate ice cream. Thank you," she said in a low voice.

"You're welcome, Caireann," said Ferry smiling.

But the little girl shook her head. "That's not my name. My name is Poppy," she said loud and clear. That's when Oona raised her gaze and Ferry could see tears in her eyes.

The crowd was quiet, barely breathing. After Poppy went away, rocking her doll and singing to it, the voices started again, ever louder. This time, they were asking questions and wondering. What if the strangers were right?

When the uproar began to grow, Fae Queen stood up and came in front of the crowd. The warmth Ferry felt coming from her was gone. Her aura lost some of its brightness, too.

"Silence!" she asked and all everyone could hear was the wind blowing among the leaves. Her voice was soft still, just like the wind, always blowing in Tenalach. "Do you like stories?" she asked. "I'm going to tell you a story..."

Doruh, the warrior, who's been in her vicinity the whole time, came closer. "Your Majesty, do you think that's wise?" he asked.

The Queen nodded. A shade of sadness glittered in her eyes. "It's time, my loyal warrior," she said, smiling. She then sat on the grass in front of everyone. They all took a few steps back, in fear of what they might find out.

"Have a seat," the Queen said, "it's going to be a long story."

Every single creature in the crowd sat down, happy to hear a good story. Every Midsummer's Eve, the Wandering Fays were the ones to tell stories. They were jolly, cheerful stories about forgotten times, or horror stories that spooked the audience and made everyone's heart skip a beat. Yet, never, not even once, had the Queen ever told a story. Not even the older fairies couldn't remember having such an honour.

"A long, long time ago," the Queen started, "too long for any of you to remember, the Sun Fairies were reigning over the most beautiful land that ever existed. It was adorned with endless forests, mountains with brash tops, beyond somebody's reach, and wide fields becoming one with the horizon. It was said that, if you had dared climbing those mountains, you could have met the Land of the Dragons, you could have seen them flying, covering the skies with their wide wings.

"And in that land, there lived in peace the most curious, warmest creatures. They've learned their place and fate into that world. They were fairies who brought rain, abundance, and welfare. They were peaceful creatures, with warm hearts, yet frisky and prankish. Their Queen was a worthy successor of the Great Fairies who's been ruling with wisdom and kindness for over a thousand summers. She could chase away bad weather with one puff. She took her energy from the trees, the Sun, and the Moon. Her name was Saraid. Clear sky and bright sun, that was the meaning of her name. She was fair and kind, therefore much loved by her people.

The fairies lived in harmony with other fairies, with nature and... people," she said with a bitter smile.

Some murmurs of astonishment came from the crowd.

"Yes, it's fair for you to wonder," Fae Queen continued. "Back then, we used to show ourselves to people much more often. And people believed in us. They asked for our help in times of drought or when their cattle were lost. And they thanked us with the sweetest, most precious gifts. They have created holidays in honour of us and often, we were invited by their leaders to join those holidays. But then people changed," she said, and shadows darkened her beautiful face again. "They were not ruled by kindness anymore. They had new leaders. Stronger. Overwhelming. That made their hearts cold and darkened their minds. Greed and thirst for power were the new leaders. People wanted to possess, not to feel anymore. And when those new feelings possessed their hearts, people began to hate everything was beautiful and pure. They started to hate us and then hate each other.

"So we broke away from the humans. We've shown ourselves to humans less and less and only to the ones who had a good heart and an open mind. But those people were few... And, in time, we have become legends and stories to put children to bed. And even those who could see us pretended they didn't, in fears the others, the many of them, would think they were lunatics, and lock them away, or banish them. Even the children stopped seeing us. They were growing up too fast and they began to know the ugly, greedy world they were living in too soon.

"And though the people couldn't see us anymore, they didn't stop. They began to destroy everything was kind and beautiful around them. To build houses as big as their ambitions and as cold as their hearts, to show their mightiness, and their power; to build big citadels where they live their small, miserable lives. And for that, they needed to make room for their world. So they mutilated ours. That's when the Great Banishment began," she said and a tear sparkled in her eye. "That's when they started to kill our forests."

The crowd almost forgot how to breathe. No one flinched. Ferry listened to the story just like everyone else. He let himself carried away on its wings and for a second, he forgot where he was.

The Queen's voice brought him back. She stood up and so did everyone else.

"That's when our world began to perish. For our world mirrors the world of humans. And each tree, each flower, each blade of grass dying in their world dies in ours, too. Hundreds of summers shall pass before their seeds strike roots again. But the death of our forests brought the death of other creatures. Birds, bugs, beasts and... fairies.

"The people, bearers of their deadly tools, didn't stop. And they encrusted their tools with blood. White blood. Fairy blood," said the Queen with a sigh. "Many fairies perished trying to stop the wrath that came upon us. We were fairies of peace and war was strange to us. Saraid, our Queen, turned weaker by the day. She couldn't protect us anymore. Without the trees, she didn't have the strength to. And so, all the fairies who survived took refuge in the mountains.

"But our world was dying still. The Queen was too old and her powers were fading. We were too few to rebuild our world. Soon, our Queen retired and put another descendant of the Great Fairies to rule. A younger, more powerful one. And the last of her kind. And so, the Great Banishment ceased.

"Yet, what was there to do to stop our world from perishing? So we found our salvation in the ones that brought our destruction. That's when we began to bring humans into our world."

"Kidnap them, you mean," said Baldie.

Fae Queen turned to him like a vulture on its prey. "Kidnap them? No. Giving them a better life and rebuild our world at the same time. The Blind Alley is not a place of redemption. It's the place where they could meditate on their past lives and on the possibility of another one. Getting a new life, other than the sad, miserable one they had, it's a precious gift."

"More precious than freedom?" Baldie replied. "People have always fought for freedom. They've died for it. Do you think keeping them in the darkness will erase the memory of freedom? Never. It will always be there. In a corner of their mind." He took a long breath. "Why can't you let us leave? We're fairies from the west. We keep our word and we shall never come back in Tenalach uninvited. And our human companions shall forget they've been here. I'll take care of that personally. We don't belong here."

The Queen returned to her seat on the throne as if nothing happened. "No one has left these lands once set foot here," she said as impenetrable as a stone. "No one has left these lands and remained sane." Then she snapped her fingers and the guards wrested Ferry's backpack and started to search for the Moon's Tear inside.

"Leave that!" she said. "What are we looking for is not in that sack. You'd better give it to us willingly," she said to Ferry.

He took a few steps back. He removed the Moon's Tear from his hair and held it in his hand. The stone felt like struggling in his hand, a beating heart; as if wanting to come to the moonlight. And Ferry thought that whatever happened, he would not let go of the stone. The Moon's Tear had to stay into his possession. He didn't know why or how, but he had to keep it at all costs.

He looked at his friends. He could read on their faces they had a plan. A plan cooked up in his absence. He looked at each one them, trying to read their minds. But he only read fear and concern. Only Izzy winked.

And without waiting any further, he broke into a leap right between Ferry and the guards. But he still had his hands tied. Before he could take the Moon's Tear from Ferry, he fell. He tried to stand up, but something stopped him. And Ferry saw a thick thread of fairy wool tied to his foot, stopping him from standing up. The thread stretched all the way to the orb of light. Ferry could see the Queen standing with her hand up. Her aura was bright again. And everyone could tell she was the one to tie Izzy with that thread.

"Izzy, catch!" Matilda shouted. And the charming scissors flew into the air in Izzy's direction. But Izzy was too weak because of the wool thread on his foot. He threw himself towards the flying scissors but couldn't reach them. And the scissors fell right at... Oona's feet. The red-haired nymph picked them up slowly which to Ferry seemed like forever.

"Oona, bring me the scissors!" Alwyn ordered, with a grin on her face.

But Oona didn't listen. With a slow pace as if sleepwalking, she headed towards Izzy.

"Oona, what are you doing?" Alwyn's voice thundered. "Bring me those scissors this very instant or else..."

But Oona kept on walking. She stopped near Izzy who was lying on the ground. Then she leaned over him and cut the thread with the magical scissors.

"What have you done?" Alwyn's shouted between grinned teeth. "Traitor! It was you the whole time," she said flying at her throat. "You helped them!"

And Oona was thrown to the ground by an unseen force coming from Alwyn. She crawled away from her sister whose eyes were spitting venom.

Ferry wanted to go to her, but Nook, one of the guards, stopped him. If only he could fly!

"Fight back, Oona!" Ferry shouted at her. But Oona was looking at Alwyn with terror, crawling away from her, without being able to stand. "You can do it," Ferry shouted again. But she wasn't listening. "Why don't you fight back?"

It was too late. Alwyn reached her. Her eyes darkened and her hair stood up. She lifted her arm, ready to strike. Oona closed her eyes, a tear falling on her cheek. She was waiting for the deathly strike.

"Alwyn, stop!" Ferry could hear Mamma Leena's firm voice.

The strike didn't come, but Alwyn was still standing leaned over Oona with her hand in the air. Her head turned to Mamma Leena unnaturally, as if spinning. Even her voice has changed revealing that dark side of the fairies Ferry has been hearing about all along.

"Why would I do that?" said Alwyn with a throaty voice that was nothing like the sweet voice everyone's heard during the Moon Dance. "She's nothing but a traitor. A human lover," she spat the words. "She deserves to die."

But Mamma Leena was untroubled.

"Because you wouldn't want to kill your own daughter."

One chapter away from the big climax of The Moonlight Boy. Thank you for being part of this! What do you think about this story so far?