Rest:

Fairies are immortal. Their bodies are constantly being maintained by the magic that they regularly course through themselves, meaning that as long as they can process magic, they will never need to eat or drink (they can but they don't need too) and they will never die.

What eventually happens is some of the older generations will choose to go into Rest.

Rest is pretty much just an eternal sleep in a specialized area where they subvert all their magic into a sphere outside of themselves 1 and only keep the bare minimum to keep themselves alive and to maintain the sphere and the ‘rest’ spell which makes sure they don’t wake up.

Elders choose to rest for different reasons. Some for fatigue and others out of obligation.

This is especially true in the case of royalty.

Tradition states that once the next generation of royalty is ready to rule the previous will step down completely to prevent different factions from rising within the fairy world. Some choose to go to the Human world or other worlds for a visit but will eventually settle into Rest.

Here is where it gets rather complicated.

The laws of the world dictate that there can only be 4 ‘royals’ at any given time and only 2 of them can be active.

Once the fifth generation is born the 1st essentially gives themselves over to magic and disintegrates into it. They become a part of the magical system that keeps the world going; this also happens to any fairy that is killed.

Before Belpheobe there was her mother Heloise and before Heloise was her mother Valencia and before Valencia there was Althea and before she was Jaiyana. While Valencia was acting Queen and had Heloise, Althea and Jaiyana was in rest.

In short:

Finley > Belpheobe > Heloise > Valencia > Althea > Jaiyana

When Heloise rose to the throne and had Belphoebe, Valencia went into rest which triggered Jaiyana to disintegrate and become a part of the magic system.

So Jaiyana is essentially dead.

On the day a member of the royal family disintegrates into the magical system it’s called the “Day of Return” and is a giant festival in the fairy world.

Since having such a massive amount of magic being released into the atmosphere would be overtaxing, a large portion of that magic IS usually semi-manually passed down to the next direct descendant.

There are only ever 2 elders in rest, one ruler and one child in the royal family and this is because the Power of royalty is too strong. 2

Having too many Royals would overtax the magic system.

The Royal will often leave a way for themselves to be contacted while they are within rest but the repercussions for both parties are so large that it is only ever employed for emergencies.