Dex’s frown deepened. He couldn’t remember ever promising to find someone to marry. “Mom, the party isn’t necessary. I have found someone.” He didn’t specify whether he’d found someone to marry. He had no idea if his relationship with Elle would lead to that. All he knew at this point was that he didn’t want to spend time with any other girl.
“You have?” his mother asked. For a moment, something that might have been hope brightened her gaze.
“Yes. You may have seen her leaving Dad’s study a few minutes ago.”
“That human girl the guards were dragging away?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, for goodness sake, Chevalier.” His mother sighed. “Please be serious.”
“I am being serious.”
“You can’t marry a human. Your father will never allow it. When we invited all the High Races to the Moonlight Masquerade Ball, it was simply to make a show of being inclusive. You know that. You need to find someone fae, and you need to do it fast. You’re running out of—”
“Time? I’m not.” Dex gripped his mother’s arms and gave her a reassuring smile. He knew the truth would find its way back to his father if he spoke it out loud now, but he couldn’t keep it from his mother. It had broken her heart to lose her first son, and Dex knew it was breaking her heart all over again knowing she would lose her second son as well. “Mom, the Darkness is gone.”
Queen Amra blinked, then shook her head. “What?”
“It’s gone. Elle—the human girl you so quickly dismissed—wished for it.”
The queen was still shaking her head. “Not possible. The price would have been—”
“The price was specific to Elle, and she paid it. Mom, I stopped taking Cress’s potion days ago, before I disappeared, and—”
“What? You were still taking that dragon shifter’s potion? Chevalier, we spoke about this.”
“We did, and I decided to ignore you. The potion helped to keep the symptoms away, so I figured it was better to take it than not to take it. But you’re missing my point, Mom. I haven’t taken it in at least five days, and I’ve had no symptoms whatsoever. The Godmother healed me.”
His mother stared at him, a frown pulling her eyebrows low. “I don’t believe it,” she said softly. “The Godmother is too cruel for that. I thought I may have been wrong about her, but I’m not.”
“She is cruel. You’re definitely right about that. But Elle wished for her to take the Darkness away, and she did.”
“A human’s wish saved you?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
His mother exhaled slowly, her gaze drifting away from Dex’s. “Yes.” Then she turned and began walking away.
“Mom!” he called after her. She looked back, countless emotions warring in her eyes. “Would it make any difference if I told you Elle has magic?” Dex asked.
Moments passed. Silence settled between Dex and his mother. Eventually, she spoke. “You believe the Darkness is gone, and that a human girl possesses magic?”
“Yes.”
Unshed tears glistened in her eyes. “What has the Godmother done to you?”
“Nothing! I mean, nothing bad,” Dex corrected. “Well, she did throw a blade at me, but she healed me of that as part of the—”
“Stop,” the queen said. She set her jaw and pushed her shoulders back. “I need to go. I have a meeting to arrange.”
Dex watched her walk away. Then, with a final sigh, he turned in the opposite direction. His father was cruel and his mother was blind, and there was nothing he could do about either of them. But he could find Elle and free her. So that was what he would do.
Elle stared into the confused eyes of the woman on the other side of the prison cell bars. “Liana,” she repeated. “It is you.”
“Who are you?” Liana asked. “How do you know me?”
Elle inched closer, wanting to take hold of the bars so she could pull herself right up against them. But Liana’s warning was still clear in her mind. “You and my mom were good friends,” she said. “And you were Dex’s nanny. You found out the truth about humans and magic, and you told my mom. The wrong people ended up finding out, and the vampire, Nazario Savoy, tracked you down and learned everything from you.”
Liana’s eyebrows pulled lower. “Elle?”
“Yes.” She gave Liana a small smile. “I guess I probably look a little different from the last time you saw me. It’s been … I don’t know, thirteen or fourteen years?”
Liana let her eyes drift shut. “It feels far longer. It feels as though I’ve spent many lifetimes down here in the darkness. Sometimes I wonder how I haven’t yet gone mad.”
“But how did you end up here? When the Godmother told me the story, she said you were killed.”
Liana opened her eyes and narrowed them. “Either she lied, or she doesn’t know that I survived both the vampires and King Belaric.”
“What happened?”
“I made a wish. Not through the Godmother,” she added quickly. “It was a third-tier wish for protection against non-accidental death.”
“Oh, so you can only die of natural causes? Or an accident of some sort?”
“Yes. Which, if you think about it, you shouldn’t have to wish for. But evil exists, and sometimes people want to kill you. So I guess someone decided that wish should be possible.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Elle murmured, wondering why King Belaric hadn’t used that wish instead of bargaining with the Godmother. But perhaps it wouldn’t have worked for exactly what he wanted. Dex had said his father wished that no one would ever be able to take the throne from him. And someone could take it without actually killing him—if they defeated him and overpowered his armies—so protection against non-accidental death wouldn’t have helped. The most likely situation was that he’d done both: the third-tier protection wish and the wish he’d made through the Godmother.
“So Nazario Savoy couldn’t kill me,” Liana continued. “I managed to escape him, only to land up in King Belaric’s hands. He tried to kill me too, to keep me from spreading the truth I’d discovered. When he realized he couldn’t, he locked me up here. And here I’ve been ever since.”
“So … you haven’t been moved at all? You haven’t seen the outside world in all those years?”
Liana shook her head. “You don’t know what I’d give to see the sun again.” The longing in her gaze shifted to concern. “But tell me about you, Elle. What did you do to end up down here?”
“I …” Elle moved back a little so she could safely raise her hands without touching the bars. Despite her circumstances, a thrill stirred inside her yet again at the reminder of the power she now possessed. “I did it,” she said as silver dust-like particles began to rise from her hands. “The quest. I have magic. The king tried to kill me because of it, but apparently I’ve somehow ended up with the Godmother’s protection. So instead, I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life hidden away down here.” She lifted her gaze and found Liana staring wide-eyed at the silver magic glowing in the air around her hands.
“Incredible,” Liana whispered. “It’s beautiful. Your parents must be so proud of you. I assume they completed the quest years ago?”
The glittering magic dissipated as a dull ache settled in Elle’s chest. She lowered her hands to her sides. It seemed strange that Liana didn’t know, but of course she wouldn’t. When she’d been caught and thrown into this prison, Elle’s mother and father were still alive. “My parents …” she said slowly. Even after all this time, it was still difficult to say the words out loud. “They’re both dead.”
Liana stared, her lips parted but no sound passing them. Slowly, she lowered herself to the floor of her cell. She pressed a fist against her lips, and Elle wondered if she might be crying, but when she lowered her hand and looked up, her gaze burned with anger. “Did the king kill them?”
Elle shook her head. She sat and crossed her legs. “I don’t think the king was ever aware they knew his secret.”
“Good. I tried to be as vague as possible when I was interrogated with a truth spell. I managed to keep the most important identifying details about your mother to myself, but still, I wasn’t sure.”
“Well, maybe the king did know, but if so, he never managed to find us. My mom died because she got sick.” Elle looked down at her hands twisting together in her lap. “She was so weak and in so much pain, and after she was gone, my dad always tried to explain to me that it was better for her that way. That she was no longer hurting. She was at peace. But I didn’t understand or agree. I was only six. I just wanted my mom back.”
“Only six,” Liana said. “So it wasn’t long after I was captured. And what about your father? What happened to him?”
Elle drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. “It was just the two of us for a long time. Dad worked hard, and his business did well, and we lived in a nice house. You don’t always know or understand the details of a situation when you’re a child, but it seemed to me he was pretty well respected for a human.”
Liana nodded. “I can see that. He had the kind of personality that drew people in. And his business was already starting to do well when I knew him.”
“Then he met this woman when I was twelve,” Elle continued. “Salvia.” She ground her stepmother’s name out between her teeth before taking a deep breath and forging on. “I guess she wasn’t too bad in the beginning. She was nice to me, and I could tell she cared for my dad. She had a lot of her own wealth—her first husband had passed away and left her everything—but she liked the fact that Dad was a successful entrepreneur in his field. And I think she also liked …” Elle pursed her lips, trying to figure out how to put this part into words. “You know when something’s new and kind of not that cool yet, but you can see it starting to become cool and you want to be one of the trendsetters?”
Liana nodded. “I know what you mean.”
“I think that’s kind of how Salvia felt about marrying a human. She had to ignore plenty of snide comments from some of her fae friends, but because of the increasing hype around the different High Races accepting one another and seeing each other as equals, there were more and more people who admired her and my dad for being together. They were wealthy and successful and different, and people liked that.”
“I assume something went wrong?” Liana asked.
“Yes. Very wrong. My dad’s business partner cheated him out of pretty much everything. I never knew the details, but I know he stole a whole lot from the business, ran away, and left my dad with a huge amount of debt. I don’t know why, but Salvia blamed Dad. She said he took way too many irresponsible risks with no thought for his family. That he gambled his own money and Salvia’s inheritance and then lost it all. I remember hearing her yelling at him about how he’d betrayed her and never loved her and only ever wanted to use her for her money. I thought they were going to end up divorced. They probably would have if …”
“If what?” Liana asked quietly.
“A vampire came to our house one night. It was in that transition period after we’d lost everything but before we were forced to leave Salvia’s beautiful home in the Arabesque Hills. I don’t know what the vampire wanted, but now I wonder if he may have been looking for me.” She lifted her eyes to Liana’s and sighed. “That’s another whole story. My mom and the Godmother and a wish and me ending up with a weird ability to remove people’s memories. That’s how I made Nazario Savoy forget everything he learned from you. And then I accidentally took all his memories and ended up killing him.”
“Wait, what? What?”
“Yeah. That’s why vampires haven’t tried to go against King Belaric until now. They didn’t actually know about taking magic from humans. That’s a recent discovery for them. Which I guess you don’t know about, seeing as how you’ve been stuck down here.”
Liana slowly shook her head. “No,” she said faintly. “I thought maybe they had tried and failed years ago, after stealing the knowledge from me.”
“Anyway, back to the vampire who showed up at our house one night. There was a fight, and he bit my dad, and then … I don’t know what happened to the vampire. Maybe he ran away, or maybe Dad killed him and I just never saw or knew about that part. It was all a horrible traumatic blur. And then … then Dad started turning.” Elle looked away, blinking to keep her tears back. She swallowed and cleared her throat. “He didn’t allow the transformation to complete itself. He—he killed himself before that could happen.”
“Oh, Elle,” Liana whispered. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s—I didn’t actually see it. See him. Like that, I mean. Some of Salvia’s friends were at the house by then, and they kept us—my two stepsisters and me—from seeing anything.” Elle exhaled an unsteady breath. “Afterwards, we moved into a little townhouse. The only asset Salvia still owned. I thought she was going to throw me out—she hated me so much by then—but she wanted to use my memory-wiping ability. So she put the slave charm on me instead.”
“She what?” Liana shouted, startling Elle as she smacked her palm down on the cold stone floor. “She enslaved you?”
Something about Liana’s burst of anger cleared the remnants of sadness from Elle’s mind. A shaky laugh escaped her lips. “I’m free now, don’t worry. That’s another long story, but I’m free. Well, I guess I’m technically not free, since I’m currently locked in a prison cell, but at least I’m not a slave. And hopefully Dex will get me out. And he can get you out too!” she added. “I’m sure he would have tried already if he knew you were down here.”
Liana gave her a curious smile. “So you’re still friends with Dex? How did that happen? If I wasn’t around to help him sneak out of the palace, and your mom wasn’t around to bring you to meet him …”
“Oh, no, we only recently met up,” Elle said. “Completely by accident. We had no idea until a few days ago that we actually knew each other when we were children. I walked into him outside a club a few weeks ago. Literally walked into him. And after that … I don’t know. It was like fate threw us together again, and then we ended up teaming up against vampires, and somehow I think I’ve maybe … sort of …” She lifted her shoulders and whispered, “Fallen in love?”
Liana’s lips stretched into a grin. Then she started laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Hey, would you shut up over there?” someone yelled. “Talking, shouting and now laughing? I’m trying to sleep!”
Elle clapped a hand over her mouth, then lowered it as she whispered, “There’s someone else down here?”
“On the other side of my cell,” Liana whispered. “A grouchy shifter woman, plus another faerie woman on the other side of the shifter’s cell. Anyway, I was laughing because … well, it’s just that your mom and I used to joke about that very thing. You and Dex. You two were so sweet, playing together as children. I know he would have preferred to play with someone his own age, but he never complained about the fact that you were so young. I think the whole escape-the-palace part was so thrilling that he was happy to do pretty much anything once we got out. Your mom was such a romantic. She saw how patient and caring Dex was, and she used to say that maybe the two of you would grow up and fall in love one day. I guess I was a romantic too, since I kind of hoped her words might come true, even though I thought it was probably unlikely a fae prince and a human girl would end up together.”
“Yeah, that part hasn’t changed,” Elle said grimly. “I mean, Dex doesn’t care that I’m human, but it seems his father hates humans more with every passing day. The fact that we can acquire magic and should technically have the same rights as all other magic-blooded High Races means nothing to him.”
“I’m sorry. I had hoped that might have changed after all these years. But I’m relieved to hear Dex doesn’t share his father’s views. I always hoped he would turn out a better man than King Belaric.”
Elle smiled, feeling heat rise to her face. “He is. He definitely is. You
probably had more of an influence on him than you realize. Not just his feelings about the other High Races, but the fact that he turned out just as daring as you. He started investigating the vampire group that was abducting humans because the police were getting nowhere. And he still sneaks away from the palace without permission whenever he can—even though it seems silly that he has to do the sneaking part now that he’s an adult.”
Liana groaned. “All that sneaking around I helped him do years ago was so foolish. I always knew that. But he begged and begged until I couldn’t help but say yes. Not that I hold him responsible, of course. I was the adult. I should have said no.”
“Well, Dex is glad you didn’t say no.” Elle paused as a yawn so wide it felt like it might crack her jaw overcame her. “So there’s no point,” she continued when she could finally speak again, “in regretting what you did.”
“You look like you could probably do with some sleep,” Liana said, pushing herself up from the floor. “We can talk in the morning.”
Elle nodded. Sometime within the last few minutes, bone-weary exhaustion had settled itself over her. Adrenaline had kept her going until now, but it seemed she’d finally been sapped of all her energy. “I don’t know how long it’s been since I last had a full night of sleep,” she mumbled as she climbed to her feet. “It was before the quest. That’s all I remember. Since then, time has become …” She shook her head. “I don’t know. Confusing.” She frowned at Liana. “Wait, how do you know it’s night?”
“Meals,” Liana said. “The last one we had was dinner, which must mean it’s night time.”
“Oh, right.” Elle turned slowly to face the skinny bed standing against the back wall of her cell. “Well, good night, I guess.”
“Elle, wait,” Liana said, and Elle turned back to her. “Do you really think Dex will come for you? Would he go against his father like that?”
“Yes,” Elle said without hesitation. “I know he will.”
The Everafter Wish Page 3