Crown of Glass

by Isabella August

  Jenna let out an incredulous giggle. “You’re so romantic, Gabe,” she said. “I can see why you’re such a hit with the ladies.”

  Gabe shot her a look of mock offense. “I’ll have you know, I’ve memorized dozens of terrible pick-up lines.” He leaned in to press his lips just beneath her ear. “And if you don’t start being nicer to me, I’ll use them.”

  Jenna’s heart fluttered in her chest. This is so good, she thought. This is how it should be.

  She kept her arms around his neck, stroking at his hair with a blissful sigh. “God, that’s nice,” she mumbled. “Keep doing that.”

  Gabe kissed gently beneath her ear again, and she shivered with happiness. He slowly straightened their clothing back to some modicum of decency, though his shirt buttons were still hopelessly torn, and her jeans still lay in an unceremonious heap on the ground. “Come on,” he mumbled. “I don’t want to fall asleep on top of the tallest building in New York.”

  “It’s not the tallest anymore,” Jenna informed him. A silly grin crept over her face. “Ooh, I just knew something you didn’t know. That felt good.”

  Gabe hauled her up over his shoulder, and she let out a surprised squeak. “See?” he said. “You’re still not being nice. You have only yourself to blame.” He headed back toward the door, and cleared his throat. “Hey, Jen. Did you know my shirt is made of boyfriend material?”

  Jenna groaned against his shoulder. “I can’t believe you were telling the truth,” she said. “Dozens, Gabe? Really?”

  He nudged them through the door to his old New York apartment, closing it behind them. A warm nostalgia settled into her chest. “Are you a tower?” he asked, deadpan. “Because Eiffel for you pretty hard.”

  Jenna reached up to cover her face with her hands. “Okay, I’m just embarrassed for you right now.”

  Gabe tossed her onto his bed. He followed after her with a triumphant grin, tangling her up in his arms. “That’s my secret,” he said. “I’m never embarrassed. I just let you be embarrassed for me all the time instead.”

  Jenna buried herself in his embrace, breathing in his scent. She brushed her lips against the bare skin of his chest. “God, I love you,” she mumbled.

  Gabe pressed his lips against her hair, holding her close. “I love you too, Jen,” he whispered. And she had no doubt whatsoever that he meant the words.

  Chapter 11

  Her father’s body on the floor, surrounded by broken glass. His eyes wide and staring.

  “I killed him,” Gabe said quietly. He glanced up toward her, and there was a fey silver light in his eyes. “You should be careful, Jen.”

  Jenna shot awake like a bolt.

  For just an instant, she found herself disoriented, pinned beneath some foreign weight. An arm tightened around her. Gabe’s voice whispered in the dark.

  “Jen?” he said. He still sounded sleepy, but there was a note of genuine concern in his voice. “Hey — shh, hey. I’m here. Nothing’s gonna get you.”

  A terrible confusion rose up within her mind.

  This is my Gabe, she thought, her heart pounding in her chest. Not… whatever that was. Perhaps the thought shouldn’t have relaxed her, but it did. She curled back into his arms, shivering in bed.

  He tugged her in close, stroking her hair. “I’ve got you,” he mumbled tiredly. “S’okay.”

  That old, broken faucet dripped. Moonlight poured in through his window, reassuring. The bed had that same hard, awful mattress she kept telling him to replace — a bunch of thin, scratchy pillows that she often referred to as guy pillows, and one defiantly over-soft pillow she’d bought him for his birthday that he’d worn to total pieces.

  The warmth of his naked skin soaked into hers. His body fit around her perfectly, just like it always did when he hugged her. Tangled up in his sheets, surrounded by the smell of soap and coffee, she closed her eyes and let her pulse slow down.

  A long time ago, she’d dreamed of waking up next to him like this, in this awful, uncomfortable bed. The idea of seeing him every day — going to bed right next to him every night — had tickled at her mind more than once.

  This is where I always wanted to be, she thought distantly. Even if everything here is just a weird reflection of the real thing.

  Including Gabe?

  Jenna clenched her jaw, shoving the thought away. This is him, she thought. I’m making progress. I’m not going to start believing he’s an illusion now.

  “Bad dream?” he mumbled in her ear.

  Jenna sighed, leaning back into him. “Yeah,” she muttered. “Bad dream.”

  “Mm. I’ve got a prescription for that.” Gabe kissed the back of her neck gently. A soft shiver went down her spine.

  “You can’t give out prescriptions,” she told him with a fake huff.

  His lips curved against her skin. “So turn me in,” he said. “I’ll go down for this one if I have to.” He kissed her neck again, just to prove the point.

  Jenna flushed, inordinately pleased in spite of herself. “If this is what your bedside manner is like, I get why you had so many patients after your phone number.”

  “Oof,” Gabe mumbled. “No way. I’d definitely have lost my license if I treated every patient this way.” His fingers curled around her naked hip, and she reached back to thread her hand through his.

  He was quiet for a long moment. “…anything you want to talk about?”

  Jenna winced. She tightened her hand on his. “No,” she said. “But I will anyway, I guess.” Slowly, she turned in his arms, tucking her chin against his shoulder. Somehow, it felt easier to talk about hard things in the dark, with his arms safely around her. “I know you’re not okay, Gabe. And I… I think I can help. I’ve been trying to get my head around it for a while now.”

  Gabe went very still against her. Jenna hesitated. She pressed her lips gently to his collarbone. “There’s a lot of good reasons to try and fix you,” she said softly. “But Gabe… I don’t care about any of them. I just want you to be okay. I hate what this has done to you.”

  Slowly — hesitantly — he lifted his fingers back to her hair. “I know something’s wrong,” he admitted in a whisper. A distant, worried tone seeped into his voice, and she pressed her lips together. “I’m scared to make it worse, Jen.”

  She closed her eyes. I don’t want to make it worse either, she thought, with sudden trepidation. But so far, I haven’t done that. I’ve put years of study into this, I’ve been preparing for exactly this for so long. Between Adrian’s advice and my magic… I have to believe I can help him at least a little bit more.

  “I would never intentionally hurt you,” she whispered to him. “I know what you mean by that now. I’ll never hurt you on purpose. I think I can help you. But I can’t say I’m not scared by the implications.”

  Gabe shivered against her. The Looking Glass pressed in for just a moment — the moonlight wavered, and the walls flickered. The dripping of the faucet became distant, unreal.

  Jenna slid her hands up to cup his face, bringing his eyes down to hers. There was an awful, haunted look there. “I love you, Gabe,” she murmured. “And I’m not going anywhere, I promise. If I have to stay and wait until you’re ready, I will.”

  He swallowed slowly. His body still shivered. “You have a life,” he told her. “You said—”

  “I’ve been studying psychology to help you,” Jenna told him. “I fooled myself about it, Gabe. I told myself I just wanted to understand things better. But every class I went to, every book I read, I was searching for clues to fix what happened to you. If I went back now, there would be no point.” She shifted up to kiss his lips delicately. “I won’t leave you alone. I’ll be here every day, every night. I’ll even eat the damn dumplings, if it’ll make you feel better.”

  The strange unreality subsided slowly. The walls solidified — the moonlight strengthened. The leaky faucet continued its endless, annoying drip.

  “But just so you know,” she added lightly. “I’
m selfish, and jealous, and clingy, and now you’re never going to get rid of me. I’m pretty sure that makes you some kind of masochist.”

  That drew a shaky smile from him. The tension in his body finally drained away, and he leaned in to brush his lips over hers again. “Just to say,” Gabe mumbled. “You really were jealous? I thought your fetch must have had a screw loose.”

  Jenna flushed, squirming against him with embarrassment. “You cannot possibly tell me you didn’t notice. I was awful.”

  Gabe turned his head to nibble lightly at her neck. “It’s okay,” he admitted. “I was awful too.” He closed his eyes, considering his words carefully. “I wanted to be around you. I made excuses to come check on you, even when you didn’t ask me. I was always just a phone call away from dropping everything when you needed me.” He sighed heavily. “No wonder Vanessa got sick of it after just a month.”

  Jenna blinked. “You told me she broke up with you because you had no life—”

  “I lied,” Gabe said pleasantly. He opened his eyes again, and there was a hint of self-deprecating humor in them now. “She said I clearly already had a girlfriend. I thought she was being unfair at the time. I told her she was jealous of a sick girl.” He winced at the memory. “I was horrible, Jen. It took me way too long to catch a clue, but it slowly began to dawn on me that she was right. I was always comparing other girls to you. It wasn’t fair of me.”

  A mortified laugh slipped its way free from her before she could catch it. “Oh… my god. You were awful too. That actually makes me feel better. I didn’t know you were capable of it.”

  Gabe raised a wry eyebrow at her. “Well,” he said dryly. “As long as it makes you feel better.” The smile didn’t leave his face, though. “I honestly don’t know what I’d do if you stopped clinging, Jen. I don’t want you any further away.” He hesitated, then squeezed her hand. “…but I don’t want to drag this out. You do still have a life, and you deserve to get back to it. If you really think you can help…” He swallowed. “I trust you.”

  Jenna breathed out slowly, her heart hammering in her chest. I trust me too, she reminded herself forcibly. I know what I’m doing. I’ll be careful.

  He wound her back up in his arms, holding on tightly. She held him back, breathing out her tension and absorbing the feel of him against her.

  This is where I belong, she thought, closing her eyes. One way or another, I just have to make this work.

  Jenna woke alone in Gabe’s bed, naked and tangled up in his sheets. A hard ache in her back made her groan — but the memory of how she’d earned the soreness the night before made her smile dimly.

  There was something deliciously transgressive about waking up like this in his bed, surrounded by the scent of him. Crossing that last line between them still felt a little bit like a dream. Heat rushed to Jenna’s face and pooled between her legs as she considered the possibility of hunting him down and demanding an encore performance.

  Sometime earlier, Gabe had woken up before her. Jenna had sleepy recollections of him running his fingers along her cheek, kissing her mouth with a gentle, awed affection. He still kept strange hours, drilled into him by years of bizarre hospital shifts — he’d probably be out walking off his nervous wakefulness, searching for something useful to do.

  Jenna pried herself reluctantly from bed, running her hands through her hair. She winced at the tangles she found there, and abruptly changed her plans from track down Gabe and screw him senseless to take a shower, then screw Gabe senseless.

  Gabe’s old apartment had a working shower — the only good thing about his place was the water pressure, which felt absolutely heavenly on Jenna’s aching back. Stealing some of his soap was just a natural bonus.

  Gabe had been kind enough to search out her clothing and fold it up on top of the dresser, but her clothes were beginning to feel just stale enough that she rummaged shamelessly through the dresser instead, searching out one of Gabe’s shirts to go on top of her jeans. It wasn’t the first time she’d stolen his clothing, and it was deeply unlikely to be the last. The button-down was already overlarge, but she left a button or two undone anyway, smiling wickedly as she imagined Gabe’s face.

  The door to his apartment defied her expectations though; as Jenna opened it, expecting to walk out onto the Empire State Building, she instead found herself standing in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, blinking at the overlarge windows that led back into the real New York City.

  Gabe was sitting on the floor of the museum, his back leaned against one of the pedestals. He’d paused halfway through a heavy, leather-bound book, which he’d draped across his knee. His pale green eyes fixed upon the large mirror across from him, where his own reflection stood just in front of a cracked glass throne. There was a distant look on Gabe’s face as he regarded the Lord of the Looking Glass.

  “…knock, knock,” he said finally.

  The Lord of the Looking Glass tilted his head curiously. “Knock, knock?” he repeated in Gabe’s voice.

  Gabe raised an eyebrow. “You’re supposed to say who’s there,” he informed the faerie lord.

  The Lord of the Looking Glass considered this seriously. “…who’s there?” he corrected himself, with impeccable faerie dignity.

  Gabe snorted, and shook his head. “This is my life now,” he muttered incredulously.

  The Lord of the Looking Glass seemed confused at that. “…is this my life now?” he tried. He still seemed to be searching for the purpose of the conversational exchange.

  “No, that’s…” Gabe pressed a hand to his face, covering his smile with his palm. “Never mind.”

  Jenna slipped out the door, a bit more self-conscious of the open buttons on her shirt now that she knew the faerie lord was present. She thought she’d been quiet, but both Gabe and his patron turned their heads toward her, and she wondered if the connection they both shared to the realm had alerted them to her approach.

  Gabe’s eyes widened the slightest fraction as he saw her, and she knew he’d seen something he liked. A teasing smile slipped back onto Jenna’s lips, in spite of their audience. Now that she knew her best friend was attracted to her, it was unlikely he’d be able to hide those little reactions from her ever again.

  Jenna headed over to settle herself next to him, wiggling her way underneath his arm. “Reading something interesting?” she asked.

  Gabe flushed adorably at the unexpected attention. He tightened his fingers on her shoulder, pulling her gently closer. “Not… not that interesting,” he admitted, with a slight cough. “Unfortunately.”

  Jenna glanced at the book across his knee. He tilted it up so that she could see the pages, and she blinked. The words on the pages were all reflected backward.

  “You can read that?” she asked.

  Gabe shrugged. “This place has a surprisingly extensive library,” he said. “But all the books look like this. I eventually got the hang of it.”

  Jenna squinted at the page in front of her, slowly wrapping her head around a few of the sentences. “This is… a book on magic?” She blinked again. “Holy cow. This must be, what… sixteenth century?”

  “I have no idea,” Gabe admitted. “I’ve just been studying everything that looks even vaguely relevant.”

  “Relevant to…” Jenna trailed off as his eyes flickered away from her. “Oh,” she finished softly.

  He never gave up looking for a way to fix me, she thought. Even though he already found the answer once.

  “Oh?” mimicked the Lord of the Looking Glass. He peered down at Jenna with Gabe’s eyes, quirking his head again.

  Jenna reached up to squeeze Gabe’s hand… and shifted slowly to her feet. “Hey bud,” she told the faerie lord. “You and me need to have a chat. Why don’t we take a walk?”

  Gabe glanced up at Jenna sharply. “Jen—” he started.

  “It’s none of your beeswax, Gabe,” she informed him, hiking up the sleeves of her borrowed shirt. “I’ll be back.”

  The
Lord of the Looking Glass considered her for a long moment. It was strange, seeing someone who looked so much like Gabe, and yet had none of his warmth or affection. The faerie lord still looked at her with a hint of haughty arrogance, but enough curiosity lingered in those silvery eyes that he turned to stride after her as she started for the front of the museum.

  Jenna was aware of Gabe’s eyes on her back as she left… but he held himself back from going after her. Perhaps some part of him knew that she was about to talk about things that he wasn’t ready to hear.

  The great silvery tree at the center of the entrance hall had shed more of its leaves, leaving behind bare, knotted branches. Those unearthly leaves crunched beneath her feet as she walked. Gabe’s image followed her in the mirror, his eyes all wrong.

  Jenna turned to face the image of the man she loved.

  “Faeries can’t lie,” she whispered. “I’m going to ask you this just once: did you kill my father, yes or no?”

  The faerie lord met her gaze, unblinking. “No,” her own voice whispered back.

  Jenna swallowed hard. “Did you create a fetch or send some faerie that killed my father? Did you do some magic that led to his death?”

  The Lord of the Looking Glass stayed utterly still. “No,” whispered Jenna’s voice. “No.”

  Tears gathered up in Jenna’s eyes.

  I don’t want to know. But I have to ask.

  “…did Gabe kill my father?” she asked in a very small voice.

  The Lord of the Looking Glass stayed oddly silent. Gabe’s eyes burned with quiet silver light.

  “Yes or no!” Jenna burst out. “It’s not a difficult question, god damnit!”

  “…it’s a difficult question,” the Lord of the Looking Glass said softly.

  Jenna pressed a hand to her forehead. I knew, somewhere deep down. I told myself I could forgive him. She drew in a shuddering breath. It’s not a yes. “You know what’s wrong with Gabe,” she said, her voice trembling on the words. “But you don’t know why. You don’t understand the human mind, you don’t get why it breaks. You definitely don’t know how to fix it. That’s why you need me, isn’t it?”