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‘It didn’t go wrong exactly…’ Harley looked deeply uncomfortable. ‘It turned out that Killian hadn’t paid for any of it. Not a penny.’
‘You mean his parents paid for it?’ I asked, frowning. ‘Well, does it matter?’
‘Nobody paid for it,’ she said. ‘That’s the problem. He took us there with magic. We had full use of this incredible suite and all the hotel facilities and helped ourselves to the most delicious food you’ve ever tasted, and on the last day we were there I discovered he’d swindled the lot out of the hotel owners by using magic for everything.’
‘Oh.’ Keely and I exchanged glances. ‘Not good.’
‘Not good at all, but when I tried to explain that to him he got quite flustered and annoyed. He said I’d known who he was when I married him, and if I’d wanted an obedient little drone sitting in an office all day I’d married the wrong man.’
‘Oh gosh,’ I said. ‘How awful.’
‘He has got a point, though,’ Keely said.
As our eyes widened she added hastily, ‘Well, what I mean is, when I got together with Lowen I had no idea he would one day be Wulfram Pendragon, and poor Romy here definitely didn’t know John Ford was really the infamous Blaise St Clair. But you, Harley, you knew exactly what you were getting into.
‘You were told repeatedly that Killian shouldn’t be with you because he was a Shining One, descended from the old gods, and that life with him would be very different to anything you’d ever known before. But you loved him enough to ignore all those warnings and marry him anyway. You can’t turn round now and say that you want him to change. It’s never going to happen, and if you try to force him to change he’ll end up very unhappy and resentful, and that will be the end of that.’
I gave Harley a nervous sideways glance, wondering if the argument was going to kick off again between them.
Fortunately, she gave a reluctant nod. ‘You’re right, of course. I just don’t know how to deal with it. And we never gave enough thought to what happens next, that’s the trouble. I mean, we were so focused on sneaking off to get married before anyone could stop us that we never gave a thought to our life beyond the wedding.’
‘What do you mean?’ Keely asked.
‘Well, even where we’re going to live. I assumed we’d be going back to Castle Lodge, but Killian had already decided we were going to stay on the island. I mean, I know he loves it here, but what about going forward? This is Mum’s home, and we can’t just freeload forever.’
‘Mum wouldn’t mind,’ I said. ‘I think she’d love it if we all moved here to be honest.’
‘That’s not the point, though,’ Harley said glumly. ‘Right now, I know all our energy must be focused on sorting out this mess with the fae and getting Wulfram in place. I get that, I really do. But after this is dealt with—and it will be dealt with at some point—what then? What’s our future?’
‘I could say the same,’ Keely said, sounding equally glum. ‘All I can think of right now is getting through whatever’s coming our way and making sure a war is averted. But after that… Jeez, I feel depressed now. What will Lowen and I do with ourselves?’
‘I haven’t even got the library any more,’ Harley said. ‘And I did love that job. I miss being there so much.’
‘Well, I don’t miss being a children’s entertainer,’ Keely said firmly. ‘But what will I do with myself? And Lowen’s never going back to being a solicitor, so what will he do? What do you do after saving the world? Take a job frying chips? Work on a building site? We haven’t even got a place to live, because we can’t stay at Castle Lodge once all this is done, and there’s no way I’m going back to the wilds of Northumberland. You are lucky, Romy. You’ve got your own little cottage and a thriving business of your own.’
I could hardly believe she’d just said that. ‘Lucky? Don’t you think I’d give anything I had to have John back for good? You two might be worried about money and careers and where you’re going to live, but you’ve got Lowen and Killian. Do you realise how fortunate you are?’
They both looked sheepish, then linked arms with me.
‘Sorry, Romy.’
‘You’re absolutely right.’
They each rested their head on my shoulders, and we all sighed.
‘Life is very complicated since we got those invitations from Meri, isn’t it?’ Keely said softly.
‘Very,’ I agreed.
‘But we’re going to be okay, aren’t we?’ Harley asked. ‘I mean, whatever happens, we’ll always have each other, won’t we?’
‘Of course,’ I said.
‘The three of us against the world,’ Keely said.
We all fell silent, and I wondered if, like me, they were remembering Lyrica’s chilling words that day in The Fool’s Journey pub, what seemed liked years ago.
“Three will become two.”
