by Emma Holly
He had to kiss her for that, brushing it soft and gentle across her lips.
Alex cleared his throat as he approached. "I think we're ready," he said. He was holding little Oscar's hand. Both changelings looked steady—wired but not frightened. Magnus experienced a flash of respect for Zoe's old boyfriend. When Alex made a decision, he didn't second guess himself.
"I have one more charm for you." Magnus said, reaching into his breast pocket. "This watch is spelled to keep human time. Don't wind it and don't lose it. It will track how long you've been gone."
Alex accepted the timepiece, flicking it open and checking it against the modern watch he wore.
"They match," he said, which Zoe took as her cue to kneel and hug Oscar.
"Don't go falling in love with any girl fairies," she said. "Corky and the rest of us want to see you again."
Oscar squeezed her neck and giggled. When Zoe rose, Alex didn't pull her to him but only touched the side of her face.
"That advice goes for you, too," she tried to whisper.
"No worries," he said with a slanted smile. "Those fairies have a few hard acts to follow."
Bryan was waiting a stone's throw away, closer to the rocks that led to the falls. Magnus watched Zoe watch the men embrace and slap each other's backs.
"He'd better come back," she said, one hand pressed to her throat. "That man loves the heck out of him."
Something in her voice said she was saying goodbye to him in a deeper way. Though she'd already told Magnus she loved him, her willingness to release Alex caused his eyes to sting. Alex was a good man. He could have won her again. Magnus wrapped his arm around Zoe's shoulder and squeezed just a little bit.
Oscar's goodbyes were shorter. From a distance, he looked at his mother, clearly not waiting for her to hug him. Her arms wrapped her upper body as if she feared she would fly apart: eagerness and fear and guilt practically screaming from her expression.
Then Alex and Oscar were ready to go.
"Hold tight to my belt," Alex told the boy. "I'll lead the way across the stones."
The time Magnus had spent practicing magic in the human realm seemed to have paid off. The stay-put spells were effective. Alex and Oscar climbed like papa and baby mountain goats up the boulders toward the ledge.
Perhaps the portal knew they were approaching. Dusk was falling, but the curtain of water began to glitter so brightly that it was hard to look at without shading their eyes.
"Ooh," Zoe said, her breath catching. "Those are the lights I saw above the falls when Oscar was born."
Magnus could just see them, faint spheres of illumination in every color of the rainbow. "They're spirit guardians for changelings. Probably cousins to your angels."
Zoe's hold tightened on his waist in acknowledgment. They couldn't hear Alex or Oscar over the sound of the falls, but they saw Alex's lips move. He stood at the edge of the roaring curtain, at the mouth of the cave beyond. Oscar reached up with both hands and let Alex lift him in. They both ducked as the water struck their heads. The glitter of the falls flared blindingly, like a sun exploding in the wooded glade. Too solid-seeming to be mere light, the wave struck them silently.
When it passed, Magnus's ears rang for a few seconds.
"Hey," he heard Bryan say over the hum. "Someone is coming out of the falls."
They all leaned forward to see. Two someones were coming, two tall, athletic young men who clambered down the rocks like they'd been doing it all their lives. They were garbed in flowing cambric shirts and chamois leather trousers—classic hunting clothes in Fairy.
Seeing them, Mrs. Pruitt covered her mouth.
"Where's my son?" she demanded, her voice rising. "You promised I'd see my son!"
The taller of the two young men leaped lightly from the final boulder onto the grass, dripping water and laughing. His shoulder-length, wavy hair was a beautiful honey-brown, his eyes the same sky-blue as Mrs. Pruitt's.
Stopping a step away from her, he put his hands on his waist and grinned. "Madame," he said, "I am your son."
"Oh, dear," Zoe murmured as Mrs. Pruitt gasped. "I see what you meant about him not being what she expects."
Before Zoe could go to Oscar's mother to offer support, the glen seemed to explode with fairies—tiny ones.
In the gathering darkness, their colorful glows made it look like a party was starting. The two young men exclaimed with awe, as if they'd never seen such a marvelous sight. Where they'd all come from Zoe didn't know, but she supposed Rajel's crew couldn't have been the only little fey who'd escaped Fairy.
"Rajel is the queen of queens," Magnus said, seeing her confusion. "All the human flocks owe her allegiance."
"Really?" Zoe wondered what she'd done to rate such an important mini-godmother. She spotted a few more crowns among the crowd, but Rajel's did appear to be the sparkliest. "It looks like she's called out the fairy National Guard."
"Yes," Magnus said, a hint of musing in his tone.
As he rubbed his jaw, a trio Zoe recognized flew up to them. Samuel wasted no time revealing what was up.
"We want to go back to Fairy!" he declared, hovering side by side with Florabel.
"Go?" Zoe's question broke in the middle as Magnus pulled her closer to his side.
Samuel's little chest puffed up, but it was Queen Rajel who addressed her next. She flew a bit above and behind the lovebirds, her face beaming with a joy Zoe hadn't seen on it since Alex blew into town.
"Yes," said the queen of queens. "If a five-year-old child and an ignorant fairy changeling are willing to dare the Evil One's wrath, my people can do no less."
But… what about me? Zoe thought.
"We want to see if what he says is true," Rajel continued, jerking her head toward Magnus. "Much time has passed since the last of us fled Fairy. We want to know if there are other big ones like him, who wouldn't make slaves of us, who believe their only right is to rule themselves."
"You heard that?" Zoe said, remembering Magnus's speech to Alex at the sweat lodge.
Samuel zipped a dizzying circle around her head. "We hear everything that concerns our human."
Zoe swallowed the lump in her throat. She'd always liked being called "their" human. "You don't need my permission to go," she said huskily. "But you have my blessing if you want it."
Florabel flew to Zoe's ear. "The queen would like a confidence spell," she whispered so loudly that Zoe winced. "The opposite of what that one's mother tried to put on you. He knows her magic. He can guarantee we stay brave."
This request gave Zoe an even higher estimation of Magnus's abilities. Her fairies were nothing if not magically gifted. Not knowing what to say, she turned to him helplessly.
He was smiling with red-rimmed eyes.
"Queen Rajel," he said, his formal tone causing the fairy's beaming to falter as she flew to him.
"Prince," she responded, curtseying in the air. "Since you obviously heard that, my people and I humbly request your aid."
"You would have it if you needed it, little queen, but you require my help no more than you did Zoe's permission. You are free will fairies. You reclaimed that title the moment you decided to escape to the human realm."
"But your magic has grown strong here," Rajel said, "among the slow and heavy Earth ethers."
"So has yours," Magnus assured her. "Didn't you fight off my mother when she threatened Zoe the other day?"
Queen Rajel's face twisted. "That was quick," she said. "Too quick to give us time to be afraid. And the ignorant changeling sang with us—which means honor obliges us to protect him now."
Magnus put out his hand, allowing the queen to flutter warily to his palm. "You are brave, Rajel, the bravest queen the little fey have ever known. Being a tiny bit afraid won't change that. All that my good wishes can give, you have, but I cannot steal your victory from you. I know your courage is up to this challenge. You can do what you wish without any help from me."
He seemed a prince as he said this, quietly s
ure of himself and her. For the first time, Zoe could believe he'd lived for centuries. Rajel also seemed impressed—if a tad suspicious. She stared at him, weighing his words. Then she squared her shoulders and put up her chin.
"Very well," she said, lifting off his hand. "We shall follow the path we've chosen on our own steam." She turned in the air to the horde of fairies who flew behind her, her next words ringing. "We go, my beloved subjects, with our honor bright and our hearts strong!"
"For honor!" Florabel echoed.
"For fun!" Samuel chimed in.
"Before the portal closes!" Rajel urged.
They zoomed away en masse, sparkling like multicolored confetti in the darkening air. The instant they disappeared through the water, Zoe had to hide her face in Magnus's chest.
Thankfully, he understood.
"Don't worry," he soothed, rubbing her back to comfort her. "Those little buggers might not realize it yet, but they wield more power than the rest of my kind combined. I predict they're not going to have any trouble once they're home."
Zoe nodded but couldn't loosen her grip on him. The fairies had been with her since she was a baby. They'd been her most constant and sometimes her only friends. It didn't seem fair that they were leaving only minutes after she'd said goodbye to Alex.
"You'll be all right," Magnus promised. "Neither your power nor your happiness came from them. Okay, maybe your good hair days did, but you'll find a way to compensate."
Zoe couldn't laugh at his joke. "I'm going to be sad for a while," she warned him. "I can't help it."
"I understand," he said, and even as his eyes crinkled in amusement, one tear slipped from them for her sake.
Zoe didn't miss her fairies any less at seeing that, but the bands of longing that had tightened around her chest loosened just a little to know she was loved by him.
* * *
Chapter Twenty
"I know you don't remember," Mrs. Pruitt's grown son was telling her, "but we all agreed to this."
Mrs. Pruitt had collapsed back against a tall red boulder that was probably going to ruin her sweater set. She was clutching Zoe's hand hard enough that Zoe's fingers were going numb. The other Oscar knelt before her and spoke gently. He was a pleasant, late twenty-ish young man—though his adroitness at avoiding being sucked into Mrs. Pruitt's hysterics suggested more years than that. His smiling calm reminded Zoe of Magnus, and she wondered if Fairy might be nicer place than its queen's habits suggested.
If it was, that had to be good news for Alex and Oscar.
"I wouldn't have done that," Mrs. Pruitt said, swiping at her nose with the tissue Zoe had given her. "I never would have agreed to give up my son."
"You did it to save my life," the other Oscar said, "and in return, you promised to love the boy you have as if he were your own. My fairy foster mother showed me the dream where we all decided. You said you wanted to experience unconditional love from the inside out. You said your mother had never loved you like that, and you wanted to be different."
Mrs. Pruitt's gasp of recognition was a sound Zoe had heard before. Her clients did the same thing each time her ghosts found the right detail to convince their loved ones that they were real.
"Mother always said my sister was the smart one," Mrs. Pruitt exclaimed. "She said it was lucky I married because I'd never make it on my own the way Conine did."
"You see," said the other Oscar, laying his hands gently on her knees.
"But you left me!" Mrs. Pruitt teared up again. "You went to live with some other woman, and she watched you grow up!"
"I went because I knew your Oscar would love you even better than I could. He's a wise old soul, Mother, and this is the first Earth life he chose. He promised to see your true heart, no matter how you acted. From what I was able to see through my foster mother's scrying glass, he kept his word—though all he remembers from his lives in Fairy is a bit of his old magic."
Mrs. Pruitt covered her face in shame. "You saw me? You saw how I treated him?"
"I've learned some magic myself," the other Oscar said, "and I can see your true heart, too. I know you wanted to love him. You simply got caught up in worrying about other people, about what they'd think because he was different."
Mrs. Pruitt quieted at his words, finally letting go of Zoe's hand. Her fingers lifted to almost touch her real son's honey-gold hair. "You're a good boy. Your… other mother raised you right."
"You still have your chance," her son pointed out. "You could still watch your Oscar grow into a man. He trusted you to be his mother for a reason, just as I trusted the fairies."
Mrs. Pruitt pressed her fingers to her trembling mouth. "Do you think he could forgive me?"
"I'm sure he can," the other Oscar said. "And it will be easier for you now, knowing you weren't crazy, knowing why you took him in."
"Will I ever see you again?"
"When your Oscar gets older, he and I will be able to go back and forth as we like. It's our right as changelings."
Mrs. Pruitt rolled her lips together and nodded. "I'd like that. And I do want him back. I'll be braver this time, now that I know."
The grown-up Oscar grinned so blindingly with approval that Mrs. Pruitt had to smile. "Good. Because I really want to come back and have a chance to drive a human car!"
"You're just like your father," Mrs. Pruitt laughed. "He spends every spare minute tinkering in the garage." Her laughter faded as she took the other Oscar's face in her hands. "You've given me a gift by coming here today. I don't know how to thank you."
"We have a little longer," said her son. "I can't sense the others coming back just yet."
Judging it was safe to leave Mrs. Pruitt and her son alone, Zoe moved quietly away. To her surprise, the other Alex was talking with Magnus beneath a tree, looking casual and at ease.
Magnus's aunt raised this Alex, Zoe reminded herself. They have no reason not to be friendly.
Both men turned as she approached. She was wearing the jeans and sneakers she'd changed into before they left. Despite the absence of her short red dress, there was a flicker of male admiration in the other Alex's eyes, one that said his taste in women wasn't that different from his counterpart's.
"Milady," he said when she was close enough for him to bow over her hand. "The prince informs me that you are acquainted with my opposite."
"I am," she said, tempted to grin at his courtly manners—and at Magnus being called a prince.
"I wonder if you'd allow me to walk apart with you."
Magnus shrugged his eyebrows when she looked at him. Apparently, he considered the other Alex a harmless companion. Or maybe he was counting on him being too polite to hit on the "prince's" girl.
"I'd be happy to walk with you," she said, "and, please, call me Zoe."
They walked away from the others down a path into the trees. Moonlight filtered through the leaves to guide their way.
"You want to know about your twin," she guessed.
"Yes. It's strange to feel him so much a part of my life and yet to know we'll never meet. I share his dreams sometimes." The other Alex's shoulders lifted and fell. Though she knew it probably wasn't the case, he seemed younger than the Alex she knew, more comfortable with himself but less tried. "Perhaps he's shared my dreams as well without knowing it. I've sensed he's troubled, that this world hasn't treated him as kindly as it might."
"Maybe not, but he's made a place in it I think he likes."
"He's a good man?"
"Very." She said it without hesitation, and meant it more than she expected.
"He treats my birth mother well?"
"He adores her. They adore each other."
His head turned in surprise. "You know her?"
"Yes. She would adore you, too. She's a special woman. She stayed in touch with me even after Alex and I broke up."
"You are in love with Prince Magnus now."
Zoe heard an amusing hint of Alex's knee-jerk rivalry in his voice, or maybe it was protectiveness t
oward his counterpart.
"I am," she said, "though it's strange to hear you call him by that title."
"The prince is well respected in Fairy. He is older than I, of course, and ran with a different circle, but I met him on occasion, at hunts and other events. My mother and he get on. He is fair, I think, and never cheats at games."
The grudging praise amused her—though she wasn't convinced Magnus had treated Bryan with complete fairness. She shifted her gaze toward the bubbling brook that the falls ran into. This was an argument she'd agreed to drop. She didn't think it would benefit Bryan to know that he'd been spelled to sleep with her, or that Magnus had been a party to the encounter. Her own reaction was a mix of outrage and arousal. To think of Magnus participating in that night, feeling everything Bryan did…
"I'm a bit surprised by his restraint," the other Alex observed, calling her back from her distraction. "He hasn't charmed you. Your aura shows no signs of tampering."
She realized then that it had never occurred to her to wonder if Magnus had tampered magically with her. That omission frightened her for a moment before it fell away. It seemed she could trust her instincts—no bad thing to have confirmed.
"You can see auras?" she said aloud. "Despite being human?"
The other Alex grinned, and the expression was so like the Alex she knew that her heart squeezed tight. "You're human, aren't you? And you see them."
"Yes, but—I suppose your parents raised you to believe in magic."
"And trained me to use it." He hesitated, as if he wasn't sure he should say what he was going to. "Your Alex won't come back the same, milady. Fairy changes everyone."
The hour that had passed since Alex and Oscar disappeared into the falls felt like an eternity to Bryan. Magnus had explained that time would move differently in Fairy. Bryan tried not to turn each imagined minute into a nightmare, but when little Oscar's not-so-little twin lifted his head and said, "They're coming," his already anxious heart just about thumped through his ribs.
Alex's double seemed to be connected to the same psychic news wire. He emerged from the trees where he'd gone with Zoe at a run, not even seeing Bryan as he leaped, gazelle-like, up the boulders to the falls.
