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“Our magical games last night probably didn’t help that. Or did help, I suppose. That may be what allowed me to resist.” That thought sparked a realization. “I don’t think everyone here is a prisoner, though. Some of the people we’ve been interacting with must be the guards, so to speak. I overheard Josh and Florence talking about something to do with a scenario—they must have been talking about the romantic comedy thing. It sounded like they were part of a setup and were conspiring against me. I was trying to get away from them when Josh caught me. He must have hit me with a stronger spell.”
“That was why you turned against me.”
I cringed. “Sorry about that, but I suddenly remembered you as the boss who was coming on to me and my feelings for him got a lot more intense.”
“He must have been trying to keep us apart. Us finding each other again probably wasn’t part of their plan.”
“Florence seemed to be in on it, too, from the way she talked to Josh, but she kept trying to push me away from Josh and toward you. She told him it was because I was supposed to resist her, but I think she was giving me clues all along. In fact, when we had a movie night, she picked that same movie Nita and I watched and pointed out the pattern.” I groaned. “I should have seen it then.”
“You were under a spell. I’m not sure you were capable of seeing it.”
“I’m so glad all that wasn’t real, though. I can’t imagine a universe where I’d have dated someone like Josh.” I couldn’t fight back a shudder. “When they gave me fake memories of dating him, they left out the pertinent details, like why.”
“I think the spell was supposed to keep you happy enough not to ask pesky questions like that.”
“The next question is, how do we get out of here and get back home? Do you know how to get out of the eleven lands?”
He ran his hands through his hair, rumpling it rather adorably. “I don’t know a lot about this. It’s not the sort of thing they talk about with outsiders. I’ve just read a few mentions, and it comes up often in folklore. We may be in a constrained area within their realm. There’s a lot we’ll have to figure out to have any idea how to get out or if we even can.”
“What about all the other people who are stuck here? Should we try to break the spell on them?” I grimaced. “I hope I don’t have to kiss them. I’ve already kissed my share of frogs.”
He gave me a wry smile. “I don’t think that would do any good—and I’m not just speaking out of jealousy. What we’ll need to do is come up with some way to generate enough cognitive dissonance to jolt them out of the spell. Reminding them of something from the real world should work because it will create too much contrast between what they’re experiencing and what they know to be real. From there, it should snowball. We can wake up the people we know enough about, and then they can find and work on the people they know.”
“And then prison break?”
“Then I hope some of them remember more than we do about what was in that warehouse. I suspect that will be key to knowing why we’re here and maybe even how to get out.”
“So I guess the first order of business is to wake up as many people as possible and see what they know about what the elves are up to,” I said. “In the meantime, we’ll have to be careful. We don’t want to clue the bad guys in on the fact that we know, or they might hit us with another whammy.”
“Right, we’ll have to try to act like nothing has changed.”
I made a sour face. “That doesn’t mean I have to go back to Josh, does it?”
“No, you made that decision while still under the spell. Maybe they’ll relax if they think we can get together without it breaking the spell. We’ll just have to act like we’re the bookstore owner and the employee who’ve fallen in love and who have no idea that they’re wizards trapped in a magical construct.”
“I’m not sure how we should act, then—or if they’ll know. The movies usually end soon after that kiss, after I’ve dashed across town to find you and tell you I love you. If anything happens beyond this point, it flashes forward to the wedding, and I don’t think that’s a logical next step. I mean, I just had another guy proposing to me an hour ago.”
“That would be rushing things,” he deadpanned. “But maybe we should quit worrying too much about being movie characters and just act like normal people. We should be okay as long as we don’t do anything that doesn’t fit this reality.”
“Do you think the elves are spying on us remotely, even when we’re in private, or only when we’re in public?”
“If they can spy remotely, we can expect to be put in more secure custody at any moment because they’ll know we broke the spell. I think they’d have already done something about us discovering magic if they’d been watching us all this time.”
“Good point.”
He checked his watch. “It’s almost closing time. If I’m being normal, I’ll make a pass through the store and close out all the registers. Then we should probably do something appropriately date-like. Want to go out for a drink?”
“I could really use a drink.”
“Drink it is, then, after we close. You’re welcome to hide out in here until then.”
I shook my head, stood, and stepped back into my shoes. “Nope. I’m not letting you out of my sight. I’m too afraid that the next time I see you, you’ll be a mild-mannered bookstore owner again.”
I was nervous about leaving the store after we closed because I wasn’t sure what we’d find outside, now that the spell was broken. Was whatever magic that made this place look like New York tied to the magic that gave us our false identities? It looked the same when we stepped outside, but then as I scanned the area while waiting for Owen to lock up, I noticed something very different. There were elves all around us—elves who actually looked like elves, pointy ears and all. They all wore gray outfits that looked like something in a science fiction movie from the era when they apparently thought bland jumpsuits were the clothing of the future. Some of the elves in gray stood near us on the sidewalk. Others were across the street. Nobody who passed by them seemed to notice them. And they were definitely watching us.
I put my arm around Owen’s waist and leaned my head against his shoulder while he was still facing the store and whispered, “We’re being watched, and I don’t think we’re supposed to be able to see them. Josh must have alerted the powers that be that I was resisting the spell.”
He put his keys in his pocket, put his arm around me and murmured, “All we have to do is look like we’ve just discovered we’re in love with each other.”
