by Emma Savant
“Maybe he’s meeting with the Faerie Queen,” Briana said.
“That’d make our lives easier,” Sadie said, but not like she thought it might happen.
Clarence might be a prince. He might even be invited to events at the Waterfall Palace on occasion. But even most princes in our world weren’t up-there enough to have private interactions with the Faerie Queen or her heir. Maybe his dad could get us an audience.
The thought of bothering the Faerie Queen with my problems was so stupid I almost went cross-eyed.
Even so, this wasn’t a time to be picky.
“Think he could get any info on August to her?” I said.
Sadie shrugged, but not like she was optimistic at the thought. I sighed and tossed the phone onto her sleek white couch. In the background, soft classical music played, impressionist piano with tinkling high melodies and lilting arpeggios.
Briana emerged from Sadie’s elegant white-and-chrome kitchen, carrying a massive tray of tiny sandwiches, cheese cubes, and stuffed mushrooms.
“Do I want to know what my kitchen looks like?” Sadie said.
“Your kitchen is beautiful,” Briana said. “A total disaster, but underneath, it’s still lovely.”
Sadie’s apartment wasn’t as upscale as it looked. Beneath the glamours, the sleek white couch was a stained hand-me-down her first serious girlfriend had left behind when she’d moved out. The gleaming chrome kitchen cabinets were the kind of cheap, rickety wood that landlords installed when they didn’t really care about the place, and her pristine white carpet was a hideous dark teal straight from the late nineties. She’d spent every evening and weekend for two months painting and glamouring the place to her specifications, and now it was impossible to tell what it really looked like.
Sadie was the kind of person who wasn’t about to let a receptionist’s salary stop her from living in style.
“Whatever,” Sadie said. “Scoot those mushrooms my way.”
Briana nudged the tray down the coffee table. Sadie popped one in her mouth, took a moment to savor it, and then leaned back into the sofa.
“Okay,” she said, all business. “Let’s do this. Dior, you’ve got to get away from your creep of a manager.”
“Agreed,” I said.
“I’m looking into a safe house,” she said. “It’s one my boss uses for his clients. He sends people there when he thinks there’s a chance they’ll get cursed or jinxed before their case can go to trial.”
It sounded like such an extreme measure—and yet, like it might not be enough.
“Good enough to keep me from August?”
“They’ve got amazing protective spells up, and the entrance moves every twenty-four hours. The whole place is glamoured beyond belief and the team who runs it have their auras cleaned daily, so no worries about August getting his greasy little claws on them. Anyway, he won’t have any idea you’re there, and if he does somehow figure out it out, it’ll take him a while to actually find the place. We can have you moved by then.”
Briana, sitting next to me, pulled a few spools of thin deep purple ribbon out of her purse. She clipped off lengths and used her wand to make them float. They looked as though they’d been attached to the air in front of her with invisible tape; when she tugged on the bottom ends, the tops stayed exactly where she’d put them.
“You guys keep talking,” she said. “I’m going to start working on these.”
“More charms?” I said.
“For all of us,” Sadie said.
“We can’t keep you safe if he gets to us,” Briana said. “We’re doing full aura cleaning every other day, too, the three of us. That’s an order.”
She began braiding the strands, keeping each ribbon firm so they formed into an even, smooth plait.
I looked from Briana to Sadie and back again. My eyes prickled.
“Guys, you really don’t have to do all of this,” I said.
“Shut up,” Briana said.
She leaned over and bumped my shoulder with hers, fingers still swiftly weaving the ribbons together.
“This isn’t safe,” I said. Sadie opened her mouth, but I stopped her with a firm hand on her knee. “I know you know that,” I said. “But I need to be sure you understand it. August is dangerous. It’s not just the way he influences people. He’s—I mean, you’re all I have left. He has my dad. He’s got me living in his building. All my money comes through him and the jobs he books. I only get jobs because he arranges them. Half the people I know right now are people I met through him, and the people I found on my own—I can’t be sure he won’t get to you, too.”
I was on top of the world, professionally.
From the outside looking in, I was Dior Miller, rising star and Glimmering celebrity. I’d made a decision a long time ago to not look at tabloids or news articles about myself, but I knew they were out there already: critiques on my fashion choices, speculation as to my relationships, theories about what had motivated each of my songs, JinxNet blogs analyzing my face for glamours.
On the inside, I was terrified, and I was four people away from being totally alone.
Someone knocked at the door, and I jumped. So did Briana. Sadie just glared toward the door with her eyes narrowed.
“Good chance to test my new security spell,” she said.
I frowned at her. There was a long pause outside the door, and then the handle turned and Serena came in, eyebrow raised.
“What the hell was that?” she said, shifting her black handbag from one arm to the other.
“What happened?” Serena said. “You’re my first test case.”
“A rainbow shot out of your door and straight through me, and then this materialized in my hand,” Serena said, holding out a small white card. “I thought I was in some particularly violent children’s programming.”
Sadie took it, examined it, and handed it to me. I turned the card over in my hand, but it was white on both sides, with no pictures or text. I held it up and shifted it in the light, but still saw nothing.
“She’s clean,” Sadie explained. “If she had even a hint of August’s magic clinging to her, that’d turn gold.”
She took the card back and tossed it into the air, where it dissolved into mist and dissipated away.
“But I’m your first test,” Serena said. “How do you know it works?”
“I don’t yet,” Sadie said, and added to me, “We might need to have your dad come over here.”
“Your dad?” Serena said, sharply.
I nodded. She pursed her red lips, then straightened her shoulders.
“I’m glad you could make it,” I said. “Any news on moving the case to the Court?”
“Of course not,” Serena said. “August Rumpel is a goddamn eel. Don’t stress, though. Taking him down has been one of my pet projects for a long time. We’ll make progress eventually.”
Briana waved her wand over the ribbons she’d been braiding. The plait fell from the air where it had been suspended.
“Ankle,” she ordered.
I propped my foot on her lap and she wound the ribbon around my ankle, then used her wand to charm the ends together until the braid was one smooth, continuous loop. She gave the wand a final flourish and the braid dissolved, glamoured to look as though it wasn’t there.
“One down,” she said, and set my foot gently back on the floor.
Serena had watched the procedure quietly, and nodded her satisfaction when it was done.
“You’re smart to be discreet,” she said.
“We assumed we’d have to be,” Sadie said.
Briana cut off three new ribbons, fixed them in the air, and began braiding again.
“How are you feeling, Dior?” Serena said.
I took a moment to check in with myself. I had feelings, dozens of them churning inside me, and it was hard to unwrap them from one another and put names to them. The biggest one was constant, though, and heavy, a rope amid the threads.
“Terrified,”
I said.
Sadie put her arms around me and pulled me close in a hug that pinned my arms to my sides. It was awkward and encouraging.
“Are you okay, though?”
I leaned my head against Sadie. “Yeah,” I said. “I’m okay. I will be okay.”
“Okay enough to get back into the game?” Serena said.
“No game,” Sadie said sharply, letting me go. “Dior is done with August’s games. She’s done her part, and now we’ve got a plan to make sure she never has to play them again.”
“But what if we could deal with him?” Serena said. She leaned forward, and her dark eyes flashed. “I mean really deal with him, so that he can’t hurt anyone again.”
“That sounds unsafe to me,” Sadie said.
“Oh, it’s not safe,” Serena said. She turned to me. “That’s what I’m asking. Are you okay enough to be unsafe?”
My stomach churned. The soft classical music in the background was out of sync with my own heavy heartbeat.
“You’re going to have to explain,” I said. “I won’t know the answer until I know what you have in mind.”
“No,” Sadie said. “No, Dior doesn’t need to deal with this anymore. We’re not here to pursue a vendetta against August, we’re here to figure out how to get Dior away from him.”
I put a firm hand on her knee. “I appreciate that,” I said. “But I can’t live in a safe house forever. I don’t want to hide for the rest of my life.”
I was a performer. I needed to live in the light.
“The problem with August is that he’s slippery,” Serena said. “He finds ways to bend the rules just far enough that no one can prosecute him, and he’s good at convincing people not to go against him. You, though—I think you can do it. I think you can hold onto yourself long enough to collect evidence and take it to the Faerie Court.”
“Why Dior?” Sadie said. “Because she’s desperate enough to put herself in danger?”
“Because she has good friends,” Serena shot back. “Friends who are going to be there for her.”
“Lots of people have good friends,” Sadie said.
“Not that many people in this industry have friends who’d rather see someone like Dior safe and happy than get their own shot at fame,” Serena said. “August doesn’t even need to use his magic on most of them. Usually, just the chance of some of that stardust rubbing off is enough to make most people stupid.”
“We don’t care if Dior’s famous,” Briana said, still braiding. “We just care that she doesn’t sing at us when we’re trying to sleep.”
“Oh my god, that was like ten years ago,” I said.
It had been a slumber party. We’d been in our teens, and I’d been a little into musical theater at the time.
“That’s what I mean,” Serena said. “You all know what August is capable of. Dior, you’re not willing to put up with his unique brand of evil even though it makes your path to stardom easier. That brings the grand total of people who will put themselves on the line to stop August to one.”
“Two,” I said. “I have you.”
“He won’t let me get close enough to try,” she said. “But he still believes in you. He believes in your talent and he believes you’re under his thumb.” She wrapped her long white fingers around her knee and took a deep breath. “Let me tell you what I have in mind, and then you can decide what you want to do,” she said. “Just remember: August thinks he can do anything he wants to with you. You’re a product to him—a product that’s not going to fight back. He thinks he has you. He thinks you’re weak. And that makes you strong.”
Chapter 23
Clarence kissed my neck. Delicious tingles sparkled their way across my skin, and my spine jolted with electricity.
It felt like a spell, but there was no magic. There was just the warmth of his lips.
“I missed you,” I said, for the fifteenth time.
“I missed you,” he murmured. “I don’t like being away from you.”
He rolled over onto his back, and I snuggled into that perfect spot in his shoulder that seemed designed to be my pillow. Above us, leaves danced like translucent green butterflies amid glittering flashes of sunlight.
The Garden of Glims was an unreal place, a giant maze of trees and exotic magical plants hidden inside tall brick walls. The garden was disguised on the outside to look like just another ordinary city block. On the inside, it was one of the most dazzling places I’d ever seen.
“I didn’t even know this was here,” I said.
“They try to keep it quiet,” Clarence said.
“And you seriously rented it for the whole day?”
“Reserved it,” he said. “I get to do that sort of thing as a foreign dignitary. Had meetings all morning, and now, all afternoon with you.”
He kissed me, long and deeply. I felt my entire body relax under his touch as the stress of the last few weeks melted away.
“It’s a good thing, too,” he said. “I needed to get you away from all those cameras.”
I groaned. “If we’d been having a picnic at the park, we would not be doing this,” I said, letting my fingers play at the open collar of his shirt. “We’d be spending all our time keeping protective spells up and dodging whatever new hexes the paparazzi came up with today.”
“It would be awful,” he agreed. “Particularly as I have no intention of sharing you.” His fingers traced the line of my body, down my arm and over the curve of my hip. “You’re all mine today.”
“Can I just be all yours forever?” I said.
I meant it as a joke, although the thought of turning my life over to him and having August and everything else be his problem was appealing. I had a feeling he could handle my problems better than I could, what with the prince thing. He didn’t laugh, though, or even smile.
He rolled up onto his elbow and looked seriously down at me. “Can you?” he said. “Not forever, I mean. That’s a bit too much pressure. Maybe we’ll get there. But would you be all mine?”
“Like your girlfriend?” I said. I tried to sound casual, but the kaleidoscope in my stomach was performing aerial acrobatics.
“Yeah, like my girlfriend,” he said.
“I thought I already was.”
“You hadn’t said yet,” he said. “I don’t want to make assumptions. Not with you.” He kissed me softly. “There’s been too much of that in your life of late,” he said. “I like you, and I want you to be with me, but if you’re going to be with me, I want to be sure it’s your choice, and that you get a chance to really make it.”
I sat up with my legs crossed and looked down at him. “What would that involve?” I said. “With your role and everything.”
“Attending diplomatic functions sometimes, if you want to,” he said. “You don’t have to come, but it can be nice to have a date. I would say dealing with the press and paparazzi, but you already have more of that than I do. We should get you a good tabula rasa spell,” he added.
I shook my head. “Nope,” I said. “I want the publicity. Not all the time—like, not right now. But it’s all free advertising. Not to be a narcissist, but I like the attention.”
“Very pragmatic of you,” he said. “Um, what else? Understanding that sometimes I get called away and will be busy for a few days at a time. Putting up with my love for terrible Humdrum superhero movies.”
“You can’t blame that on being a prince,” I said. “That’s all you.”
“I take my work too seriously sometimes,” he said. “That’s also all me.”
“I like that,” I said. “I like you. Yes, I want to be your girlfriend.”
He leaned up on his elbows and kissed me. “That settles that, then,” he said.
We settled back on the blanket and stared up through the tree branches above us. The garden was filled with blissful, quiet music, made up of silence broken by the rustling of leaves and the melodic chirping of the birds that darted from tree to tree.
“Serena has an
idea,” I said, when the quiet had me feeling so peaceful I could almost fall asleep. I felt like I could talk about it now, here, with Clarence breathing deeply beside me.
“Yeah?” he murmured.
“She wants to trap August,” I said. “Catch him in the act. Proving he’s influencing me will be hard—I have everything to gain from cooperating with him, and I signed a contract giving him a lot of control over my career and persona. She thinks that we’ll have more of a case if we can prove he’s influencing my audience in a way I find unethical, though, and then we can work backwards from there and prove that he’s been trying to manipulate me against my will, too.”
“That sounds like a lot of work to prove something that should be obvious,” Clarence said, a sharp edge to his voice. “If you say he’s making you uncomfortable, that should be enough.”
I found his hand and squeezed it.
“As for your audience, aren’t there laws against using magic in advertising?” he said. “Wouldn’t that fall under those?”
“It’s harder to argue that with music,” I said. “It’s all so emotionally based. Short of getting warrants to conduct aura sweeps on random members of my audience, there’s no way to prove it’s magic and not just feelings.”
“I feel like Humdrums would have it easier in this situation.”
“Humdrums couldn’t have gotten into this situation to begin with,” I said.
He was silent, thinking. I let the tranquility of the garden settle back into me, then went on.
“It’s going to take a while before we can act,” I said. “My friends were going to help me hide from August, but that won’t work now if we want to collect evidence against him. It probably wouldn’t have worked anyway. If I ever wanted to come out of hiding he could probably charge me with breach of contract.”
Our plan was the light at the end of a very long, very dark tunnel. The thought of walking all the way through it filled me with exhaustion. I held tight to Clarence’s hand.
