I nod, still finding it difficult to speak. “What if … it doesn’t work?”
He’s quiet for a while before saying, “Then we’ll find another way. You’re both faeries. You’ll both live for many years to come. We’ve got time to find a solution. Look at the tear in the veil. After it happened, no one had any idea how to fix it. No one knew if it would ever be possible. And now, almost twenty years later, someone found a way to do it.”
A hiccup of a sob escapes me, and my next words are stilted as I do my best not to give in to the tears. “I don’t want to—wait twenty years. I’ve waited—so long already.”
Carefully, as if he’s worried I might shove him away, Dash puts one arm around me. “I know.”
We stand like that and watch the spell, and I plead with everything in me for this to work.
After what feels like only a few minutes, Zed stands. “Is that it?” I ask. He made it out to be such a complicated spell that I expected it to take far longer.
“No, that was the first step. I’ve put her to sleep and initiated the spell. But I need certain ingredients in order to finish it. A few items that are key to the changeling spell, and that Crisanta believed would be necessary in reversing it.”
My heart sinks. “You need other ingredients? Why didn’t you say anything about that before?”
“Because I knew how that would have sounded. ‘Hey, I can heal your mother, but first I need to go home and get some stuff.’ You wouldn’t have believed me for a second, but I’m telling the truth, Em. I swear I am.”
“I know.” I let out a resigned sigh. “I commanded you to answer my questions with the truth. And I commanded you to do everything in your power to heal Mom.”
He frowns. “You did?”
“Yes. You were lost in a nightmare at the time. You probably didn’t hear me.”
He sucks in a deep breath. “Okay. That’s a little scary.”
“Why? Are you planning to hide something from me?”
He answers without pause: “Only things that have nothing to do with you.”
I nod. “Seems fair.”
He steps closer. “You know I want her to be healed just as badly as you do.”
“Yes, I do. But … Zed, what exactly are you hoping to get out of this?” May as well find out what his end goal is. If he’s imagining patching things up with his former girlfriend, he’ll have to make a new plan.
“I want to finally have peace about all the things I did years ago,” he says, not looking away from me. “I hope that Dani will forgive me for driving her mad. I hope you’ll forgive me for stealing you from your family. I know I can’t expect to get a happily ever after out of this, but hopefully I’ll be at peace when I leave the two of you. I’ll know that I’ve done everything I can to fix my mistakes.”
I’m glad he doesn’t expect to stay with us, to become part of our lives. I suppose Mom could eventually choose that for herself, if she wants, but I hope she doesn’t. It’s probably selfish on my part, but it messes with the perfect picture I’ve been working toward all my life.
“Okay,” I say to him. “Go and get the things you need. We’ll be waiting here.”
He nods. “Thank you. And don’t touch her. You might disturb the spell.”
Thirty-Six
“You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to,” I say to Dash as we sit against the wall beside Mom. “I know you’ve got your own life to get back to, and you’ve helped so much already.” I almost laugh at my own words. Helped so much? Now there’s an understatement.
“Are you kidding? I’m not leaving.”
I don’t want to admit how relieved I am to hear that, so all I say is, “Thank you.”
“I’d never pass up the opportunity to defend a damsel in distress,” he continues, “and who knows what other dangers might show up before this spell is over?”
I manage to smile, grateful for his attempts to lighten the heavy atmosphere. “Thanks for the reminder that I’m still essentially useless when it comes to normal magic.”
“Hey, you know I was just joking, right? You’ve never been a damsel in distress. Not back in Stanmeade, not in the fae realm, and not here. I have no doubt you’d put up an excellent fight if someone unpleasant showed up.”
“Well, I do have a dagger now. I could probably inflict some damage with it.”
“Exactly. And also …” He pulls his knees up and rests his arms across them. “I figured you probably wouldn’t want to sit here alone waiting for Zed to get back.”
“Yeah. Not really. Although I do have Bandit.” I watch Bandit, who crept out of my pocket as a lizard about a minute ago, exploring the room in cat form. He sniffs at the candles Dash dropped on the floor earlier, then kneads a section of the rug. When he notices me watching him, he shifts into dragon form—still no bigger than a large dog—and stretches his wings out. He stops, points his face toward the ceiling, and coughs out a tiny flame. “Well done, Bandit!” I open my arms to him, and he shrinks rapidly back into a cat, crosses the rug, and climbs into my lap.
“You guys are so cute,” Dash says as he pulls the backpack closer. “Thank goodness I stopped you from selling him.”
“Hey.” I cover Bandit’s ears with my hands. “You know I didn’t mean that. I was just being …”
“Contrary?”
“Well, yes.” I stroke one hand along Bandit’s back.
“Blueberries?” Dash holds a handful out toward me.
“Thanks.” I lean my head back against the wall as I chew. Bandit turns around in my lap at least three times before curling up and closing his eyes. I look across at the window. A dark shape floats slowly by, reminding me that I still need to tell the ink-shades never to attack another faerie. Once the changeling reversal spell is done, I’ll drink some more elixir and go outside to command them. “You know, I thought I’d have some power left over after commanding Ada and Zed,” I say, “but I spent almost all of it telling Ada not to use her glass magic.”
“I guess her Griffin Ability is powerful. Makes sense that it would take a lot of your power to stop her power.” He looks at me then, his brow creasing. “What did you say to her, exactly? Your glass magic has no power in this world?”
“Uh … I think so.”
“What about the other worlds? I assume her magic will still work out there.”
“Crap. I suppose it will. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking clearly. But once this spell is complete, she’ll be back to her weakened form inside Mom. She won’t be able to do much with her magic.”
“Yes.” Dash nods. “You’re right. This is all going to work out fine.”
And though I keep cautioning myself not to be too hopeful, I find that I actually believe him. I’m so close to getting Mom back now that there isn’t much room left for anything to go wrong.
I allow myself to relax against the wall. It’s impossible to know what time of day or night it is by looking outside, but it feels to me like it must be evening by now at the Unseelie Court. I didn’t sleep much last night, and I spent half the morning running away from people, so it’s not surprising my eyelids feel so heavy.
“You never got to finish asking about your parents,” Dash says, rousing me before my head can droop forward. “He said they were a guardian couple, but he didn’t mention anything about which Guild they were at.”
“No, he didn’t,” I murmur, blinking and watching Mom again.
“Do you want to know more about them? Once Zed gives us their names, I can look them up. Find out if they’re still working at a Guild, or if … if something else happened to them.”
I absent-mindedly run my finger across the soft fur of Bandit’s head. “I don’t know. Maybe. At the moment, all I can really think about is Mom. But once life gets back to normal—whatever normal ends up being—I think I’ll probably be curious. I’ll probably want to know more about them.”
“Yeah. Well, let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll see what I can find out. Just imagin
e,” he adds with a grin, “if your parents are alive, how overjoyed they’ll be when they find out their daughter is actually … ” He trails off, a frown slowly replacing his smile as he stares at the floor. Then he looks at me, his eyes searching my face for something. “I wonder if … no. That can’t be what she was talking about.”
“What? Who?”
“I overheard … but it was probably something else.”
“Overheard what?”
He pulls his head back a little as he examines my face intently. Then he shakes his head. “I can’t tell. Your face is too familiar to me now.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Nothing. Sorry. Just thinking out loud.”
“If you’re going to be cryptic and refuse to explain yourself, then perhaps you should keep your thoughts to yourself.”
“You’re right.” He looks away, the shadow of a frown still present on his brow. “I’m sorry.”
I nudge his arm with my elbow. “I’m right? Really? That probably isn’t something you often say to people,” I tease.
He pulls his trademark grin back into place. “I was saving it for you. Since you’re so special and all that.”
I roll my eyes and shake my head. “Can I please stop being special? It’s seriously overrated. I just want to be an average faerie who knows how to use average magic.”
“Sorry, Em, but I don’t see ‘average’ anywhere in your future.”
“Great,” I say with a sigh. “Well if something else exists between ‘average’ and ‘special,’ I’d like to aim for that then.”
Dash laughs and reaches for the giant water bottle. He hefts it up and offers it to me. I drink a few gulps, then pass it back. “It’s probably a weird thing to say, but this—” he gestures vaguely between us with one hand “—feels comfortable. Like, way more comfortable than it would have been a few weeks ago. It’s just strange how quickly things can change, I guess.”
“Comfortable. Yeah.” I nod. “I mean, we’re in a world between worlds where shadows rise from the edges of everything while watching my mom, who is actually two people, change back into someone I’ve never actually met. But … yeah. If this had happened a few weeks ago, we’d definitely be sitting on opposite sides of the room.”
“Yep. Mortal enemies and all that,” he says in a deadly serious tone, before allowing himself a laugh. He drinks from the bottle, then lowers it.
“Sorry. I was really mean to you over the years.”
He shrugs. “It’s not like I ever gave you a reason to think I was anything other than a jerk.”
“True. But at least I know better now.”
“Aah, you think I’m better than a jerk?” He presses one hand over his chest. “Emmy, that’s so sweet of you. Fills my heart with warmth.”
“Shut up.”
“Still not a fan of ‘Emmy,’ huh?”
I look out the window again. “I guess it’s not so bad. It’s just … it always felt too familiar when you said it to me. Like a nickname that a close friend or family member might give me. But you weren’t close to me, and I didn’t want you to be.”
“Did your mom call you Emmy?”
“Sometimes. Mostly Em, but sometimes Emmy.”
He nods slowly, then smiles again. “Well, we can be close friends now, right? Then I can call you Emmy without you wanting to … what did you say before? Hurt me?”
I turn my head to face him, a strange flush heating my skin as part of the conversation we had in the prison comes to mind. He said it was worth it to wind up locked in a prison because he got to meet me. I wonder if he meant that, or if it was simply the drug potion talking. “Is that what you want to be?” I ask quietly. “A close friend?”
“Um …” He shifts and mirrors my position, the side of his head leaning against the wall as he watches me. “Why do I feel like this might be a trick question?”
“I don’t know. It isn’t.” I don’t have time for trick questions. Perhaps I would if I were an ordinary girl back in the human world with nothing more to worry about than school and friends and a boy staring at me the way Dash is staring at me now. I could ask trick questions and play hard to get, and then rehash every single second of the exchange with Val late at night, trying to figure out what he meant and what I meant.
But my world isn’t like that. It never really was.
“Hmm, let’s see,” Dash says. “Do I want to be your close friend?”
“Yes or no,” I say simply, though part of me is beginning to think it isn’t that simple at all.
“How about yes and no?”
I narrow my eyes. “Didn’t I already tell you how I feel about you being cryptic?”
He nods slowly. “Yeah. You did. Somehow, I’m finding it difficult not to be.”
Without warning, a bright green spark skitters across the floor, transforming into green flames that race from one side of the room to the other. I pull my knees up in fright. Bandit lets out a yowl as he winds up half-squished between my legs and chest. “What the hell is that?”
“Uh … I think that was me.”
“You think?” I jump to my feet as Bandit leaps away from me. The green flames die down and vanish. “What if it wasn’t? What if someone else is here?”
Dash remains seated. “It was me. I’m sorry. Just … some escaping magic. Which is really weird. I thought I’d outgrown that.”
After a final look around, I sit again, tiredness already seeping back into my bones. “Outgrown what?”
He examines my face for a while before answering. “I’ll explain when you’re older.”
I muster enough energy to punch his arm half-heartedly. “Idiot.”
He laughs. “Fine. You really want to know?”
Bone-weary exhaustion creeps closer. I lean against the wall again. “Mm hmm.”
“Well …” He looks down as his hand nudges against mine. After a moment’s hesitation in which my heart begins to pump faster and suddenly I don’t feel sleepy at all, I let him lace his fingers between mine.
And then, in a blinding flash of light, Zed reappears. I snatch my hand away from Dash’s and sit upright. “Did you get everything you need? Did anyone see you? Is everything—”
“Yes, no, and yes, everything is fine. If that’s what you were going to ask.” I nod as he crouches down beside Mom. He looks around at me. “Can I continue?”
“Of course.”
Part of me wants Dash to finish what he was about to say before Zed returned, but I think I already know, and it isn’t something either of us would be comfortable talking about with Zed in the room. Besides, the reversal spell is far more important, so I should be paying attention to that instead.
I watch Zed working on his spell for as long as I can, but after the third time my head droops forward and jerks up again, Dash tells me to stop being silly and just lie down and sleep. “I’ll watch Zed,” he says. “Make sure nothing goes wrong. I’ll wake you when it’s over.”
“Aren’t you tired too?” I mumble. “You didn’t sleep at all … in that prison.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’ve been a faerie a lot longer than you have. I can survive on barely any sleep.”
“That’s … not …” I slide down and rest my head on the floor. “I’ve been a faerie … all my life. Just like you.”
“You know what I mean. And here, lie on this.” He pushes the backpack toward me, and it feels like the greatest effort in the world to raise my head. “Besides, I’m a guardian,” he continues. “I’m used to stressful situations. You’re not. Stress and terror are exhausting when they’re new to you.”
“I’m not … a damsel,” I manage to mumble, and I think he replies but I’m already drifting away.
Thirty-Seven
It feels as though only minutes have passed when Dash squeezes my hand and says words my brain is too muddled and sleepy to understand. “Mm?” I manage to peel my eyelids apart and squint up at him. “What?”
“T
he spell is complete.”
“So quick?” I push myself up and rub my eyes.
“It’s been about an hour.”
“Oh.” I blink again and crawl toward Mom.
“Yeah, a regular changeling spell doesn’t take as long,” Zed says, “but I wanted to make sure I correctly undid every single alteration I made to Dani all those years ago.”
I reach Mom’s side—and a gasp escapes me when I see her face. “She—she doesn’t look normal. What’s happened to her face?”
“Her appearance has begun to change,” Zed says.
I breathe out slowly. “Right. Of course.” In the back of my mind, I knew this would happen. She needed to be returned to her original form, and her original form obviously didn’t look anything like Macy Clarke. But it’s still hard to imagine looking at a stranger and thinking of her as the mother I’ve always known.
She isn’t the mother you’ve always known, though, I remind myself. She was hiding so much from you.
“Don’t worry, you’ll get used to her appearance over time,” Zed assures me. “She’s still the same person inside.”
“Well, the same two people inside.” Which is still completely freaky to imagine. “How long do you think it will be before she wakes up?”
“I’m not sure. There’s a lot of magic working through her system right now. It could be an hour. Maybe more, maybe less.”
“Should we leave this world now? In case it isn’t safe here much longer. If Roarke is still tied up out there, the king will be searching for him. Eventually, he or some of his guards will show up here.”
“I agree we should leave as soon as possible,” Zed says, “but I’m not sure we should move Dani until the spell is complete. It should be fine, but I’m not certain.”
“Okay, then we wait.” I look back at Mom, and already her face has changed some more. Even her hair looks lighter than it was a few moments ago. And is that … pale pink? I lean forward with my hands on my knees and examine the strands of hair lying across her forehead. “Pink?” I ask Zed.
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