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“Of course, she looks ridiculous, but that could be manipulated. Couldn’t it?”
“You live another six thousand years, Secret, and then you tell me what is and isn’t real love. Deal? Your friend isn’t under any enchantment. I’d be able to smell a love inducement from here. ”
“Oh. ”
“You seem disappointed. ”
“No. ” I wasn’t. And Kellen was obviously overjoyed. Yet part of me still felt let down by the whole thing. I’d wanted it to be showier. So far this plan of mine was going almost too easily, and it made me nervous. There was no way I’d come up with a plan clever enough to have no flaws. I wasn’t that smart.
“You will find as time passes the only thing you are surprised by is how so few things surprise you anymore,” Calliope said. It was one of those weird Oracle-isms she was inclined to toss at me. Something that didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the situation at hand, but in hindsight would prove to be the perfect thing she could have said at the time.
“Why do I feel like that line should be followed by you saying surprise?”
“You’ve obviously come here for me to send you and the girl through the gate, yes?”
“Yes. ”
“I’m afraid that isn’t possible. ” She smoothed down the front of her dress where some of the taffeta had bunched up, then after a beat, added, “Surprise. ”
And there it was. The kink in the plan. The other shoe dropping. The…the wrench in my gears, or whatever. The fuckup of the whole thing. “What? But we went through last time, and you had no issues. Just unlock the door and let me take her in. ”
“A human may only pass through as the…” She looked into the air, hands dancing at her sides while she tried to determine the best word to use. “Companion. The companion of a fairy. You and Kellen are human. I can’t let you pass. ”
“You’re a fairy. You be our guide. ”
Calliope rolled her eyes. “I do not pass through. I won’t set foot on the other side of the door. Not for you, not for anyone. This is my home, and I will not leave it for some fool’s errand you find yourself on. ”
“And before?”
“Before you weren’t human. That which is other may go through at their own risk. ”
“Can’t I accept the same risk now that—?”
“Rules are rules for a reason. You mustn’t ask me to break them because we are friends. ”
“Friends help friends,” I reminded her.
She clucked her tongue at me. “I don’t need a lesson in friendship from the girl who thought I might be a murderer. ”
Ouch.
“Cal. Calliope, please. I need to speak to Aubrey. ”
With a sigh so dramatic I thought she might need a fainting couch, she flicked her dress behind her and pivoted on her heel. “I will ask if he wants to speak to you, but I make no assurances. And know this. If he does approve of this scheme of yours, it won’t change anything. You’ve done such damage to the course of your future I don’t know if I can see your way out of it anymore. ”
“What does that mean?”
Calliope paused in the doorway. “It means once I saw a path that would lead you to remarkable happiness. Now I don’t know if that path will ever exist again. ”
As she exited the room, the wisdom of her comment on surprises became clear. Once it would have shocked me to hear my potential happily ever after had been flushed down the toilet. Now I was only surprised to learn I’d had one at all.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Aubrey Delacourte was cut from the same stubborn-ass cloth as his sister. He wouldn’t come out of the fairy-land, and she wouldn’t let us in. That left only one bizarre option for Aubrey and me to have our one-on-one.
As it turned out, Kellen hadn’t been wrong when she’d thought mirrors opened a passage to alternate realities. Calliope led me to a room and shut me inside alone. When the door closed behind me, dim lights rose, and I realized the entire circular suite was lined wall-to-wall with mirrors. The floor and ceiling were both mirrored as well, making me dizzy as I walked into the center of the room.
I was busy looking down at the reflection of myself at my feet—trying to keep my dress pulled down and my legs together—so I failed to notice when I wasn’t alone anymore. I looked up, and the fairy king was standing behind me.
