“She put our family’s grief in a blender and hit puree, Iris. Sam’s pain, my pain, her pain… Then she gave it to the world dressed in elves and foolishness. For that, I will never forgive her.”
He sighed and touched his forehead, tapping a spot. “Although I wouldn’t have seen her again before she died if it weren’t for you, that’s true enough. She showed up on my doorstep, demanding to meet you. To this day, I don’t know why I said yes. Do you remember?”
“She took me to the park.” I squinted into my thoughts, into my tenuous grasp on the memory. “She told me the sky wasn’t blue.”
“What’d she say? Cobalt?”
“Azure.”
“You might’ve only had one afternoon, but you got the real Mae Ellen Thorne experience.” He looked at me, and I’d never realized how much sadness had carved his features and left him frozen in his pain. “I’m not going to talk to you about her, Iris. I’m sorry. But there is someone who will. Your grandmother’s husband. I’ve never met him, but I can put you in touch.” I burst into tears and hugged him all at once. He patted my back rigidly. “Why are you crying?”
“Because I thought you wouldn’t tell me about him. I thought you’d be a real asshole.”
He let out a surprised laugh, which made me hug him harder. “You already know him?”
“Sort of.” I sat up, pushing back tears. When I spoke again, my voice was flooded with feelings. “Dad, I know your sister died and you lost your mom to all this fantasy stuff, but remember that I know what it’s like not to have a mom around too.” My dad winced. “And I can’t be Ryder’s single parent anymore.”
He slid his elbows to his knees, pressing his face into his hands. “Iris…”
“I’m going to college next year to study music. It’s going to be you and Ryder.”
“Oh? And what will you be studying to become?” he challenged, but I was ready.
“I want to be a music supervisor.”
He frowned. “You mean work for Hollywood?”
“I’ve been researching. I need to study music, business, fine arts, and multimedia platforms, but if I work hard and get my foot in the door, I could make a decent career out of it.”
“Sounds tricky.”
“Maybe, but I’m up for the challenge.” I turned to face him. “When I leave, Ryder is going to need more from you. You can’t get lost in your pages like she did.” He took the lecture with a slight nod, and I actually felt less like a parent, more like his daughter. Was that seriously all it took to shift some of the load? Honesty and persistence?
Wow, Cate.
“Ryder’s doing well here,” I continued. “He wants to be a chef.”
“No,” my dad said fast. “I don’t want—”
“This isn’t about what you want. This is Ryder’s life, and we are going to trust him. He deserves that much. He’s smart and has been through more than both of us.” I swear the shadow of Felix Moss crossed my dad’s features. “And I know you think we’re never going to forgive you for what happened, but that’s not true. We’ll forgive you if you let us live our lives. It’s your job to help support us with our choices, not make them for us.”
My dad leaned back, appraised me. “And what is it you’d like to choose, Iris?”
I didn’t hesitate.
“Remember my purpose money?”
SLÁINTE
Ryder, my dad, and I were the first to arrive at John Benny’s for the wrap dinner. We waited for more than a half hour for the others to arrive, and I started to worry that something had gone wrong with the last shot.
Ryder told Dad about his cooking lessons, and my dad—without faking enthusiasm—agreed to set them up if Ryder was serious. My wild, elf-loving little brother swore he’d given it a lot of thought and even offered explanations as to how his high-energy personality would help him stay on his feet in a kitchen environment. I’m not sure if Mr. Donato told him about that, but I made a mental note to thank that man.
I was about to text Eamon to make sure he was okay, when Julian busted in, followed by the entire cast and crew. They filled the small, charming pub in a hurry, causing the handful of regulars to grumble and move out of the way.
Eamon walked by with Shoshanna’s arm slung over his shoulder and winked.
I hooked a finger at him, and he glanced at my dad warily before stepping forward.
“Dad, this is my boyfriend, Eamon O’Brien. Eamon, this is my dad, Mr. Thorne. Or do you want to be called Michael?”
My dad appraised Eamon. “I’m not sure. This is new ground. Michael will do, I suppose.” They shook hands and I breathed out with such a gust that Ryder giggled. First boyfriend meets Dad? Check. I honestly hoped it’d be the first and last, but that’s probably so romantic it’s ridiculous.
When everyone had filed in and found chairs, I spotted Julian and his fiancée, Elora, at the bar. Elora had flown in with Julian, surprising all of us. She was built like a ballerina, with flawless brown skin. Only a week ago, I would have taken one look at her and put a bag over my own head, but I wasn’t doing that anymore. What’s more, they were nearly spooning while they ordered drinks, so I guessed they were ready to come out to the world.
Julian gave me a side hug. “I leave for a week and you hop in bed with a handsome elf named Charles?”
My cheeks burned with happiness—something I didn’t know could happen. “We just cuddle,” I muttered. He raised a gorgeously sculpted Julian eyebrow at me. “What? It’s Grade A, First Class, Cosmic Love cuddling.”
Eamon appeared, hanging on to me the way Julian held Elora. “What’s this about?”
“I was bragging about how good our cuddling sessions are.”
“Top notch,” he said, his cheeks pinking.
“We should double date,” Julian said. “Right? When we’re all back in Cali?”
“I’ll check my schedule.” I wiggled my phone at him. “I’ve got your number.”
“Hey, are you playing it cool with me? I’m a movie star, Iris Thorne.”
Elora laughed, and I held on to Eamon even tighter, not wanting to point out to Julian that we couldn’t double because I didn’t know when Eamon would even be in the States.
After this night, our love story was up in the air.
“Hold on a sec,” I said. “I need to make an important introduction.” I stepped away from the bar and ran straight into Roxy.
She grabbed my arm. “Iris, I want to chat with you about something.”
“Sure.” I couldn’t stop myself from looking at Shoshanna at the other end of the bar, watching us completely indiscreetly. “What’s up?”
“You made a not-so-veiled comment about Shoshanna being interested in me.”
“I did?” I feigned.
Roxy gave me an exasperated look that was adorable. “Were you playing matchmaker or do you think she might actually be into me?”
“Massively,” I said. “Sings about you when she’s drinking.” I patted her shoulder and let gravity take over from there.
I grabbed my dad from a conversation with Mr. Donato, bringing him over to where Cate sat at a table with Henrik, both of whom looked exhausted and yet pleased. She sat up when she saw my father’s gloomy mug, and I smiled, hoping she knew I wasn’t bringing a storm cloud to her parade. I motioned for my dad to sit.
Then I sat.
“I’m going to reintroduce you two,” I said. “All other interactions have been stricken from the record. We’re starting anew.” I sat up a little taller, trying not to smile at how amused Henrik looked. My dad and Cate were both still on edge. “Dad, this is Cate Collins. The director of seventeen feature-length motion pictures, my role model, and a major fan of your mother’s fictional world. Cate, this is my dad, Michael Edward Thorne. Author of fifteen crime mysteries and my other role model.”
He eyed me
for sarcasm, and when he didn’t find it, he shook Cate’s hand wearily.
“Now, Dad, tell Cate the good news.”
“You’re investing!” Henrik nearly shouted, making Cate and my dad jump.
“Yes,” I said, holding my dad’s eye and daring him to disagree. “We are.”
Cate leaned forward, staring at my dad in a way that made him tilt back. “I will not accept your money with no strings attached, and I will not accept your money with strings attached that I dislike. Is that understood?”
Mobster Cate Collins. God, I loved her.
“It’s not my money,” my dad said. “It’s Iris’s.”
Cate looked at me as tears lined her cool-blue eyes. “Iris.”
“It’s an investment. I can’t think of a better way to use my grandmother’s financial legacy.” For a long moment, Cate and I stared at each other, and I hoped she knew I wanted to be part of her continent. Her struggles were my struggles, but that also meant we shared victories, right? “We’re in this together.”
She gave a fierce, certain nod that I would practice in the mirror when I got home.
“Thorne producers!” Henrik crowed, making us all laugh. I glanced at his empty glass. Had the grumpy AD finally let loose? “Cate, we’re going to get more investors with their name attached. Guys, I swear I just felt our IMDb rating jump a thousand percent!”
Although the train was slow to start, Cate and my dad started talking to one another like fellow intelligent, hardworking humans. They were, after all, rather similar. Headstrong, passionate—artists to a fault. I faded into the background, following Henrik to the bar where Julian, Elora, Shoshanna, Roxy, and Eamon were hanging out. Eamon looped an arm around my waist and kissed one shoulder.
“Eamon, you’re Catholic, right?”
“Of course.”
“And how does one become Catholic?”
He squinted at me for a long moment before his face dawned. “Iris Thorne, you’re not losing your religion for me. Are you, girl?”
“Nope. Don’t have a religion to lose.”
“I love you too,” he murmured into my neck. I pressed my chest to his, sealing our mouths in a kiss that swiftly turned into my hands in his hair and his hands twisted into my shirt at my lower back.
“Iris!” my dad roared from the corner, and we broke apart laughing.
Our friends were laughing as well, and I shrugged. “Worth it.”
Eamon winked, his cheeks all red.
Julian looked mournfully into his empty pint glass. “I just got back in this country and its already time to leave. We have to do something wild before we go. Make the news.”
“We’ll be filming for a few more weeks back in LA,” Shoshanna said. “It’s not over.”
“It is for Eamon,” Roxy pointed out. “His scenes are done.”
I pulled his arms a little tighter. “Should we skinny dip in the harbor?”
“Hell no. There’s a famous dolphin in that water. Fungie,” Eamon said. He shuddered. “Imagine running into him out there with all your bits out.”
“The Lord of the Rings cast got tattoos together,” Henrik supplied. Everyone stared at him. “What? They did.”
“Nerds and their tattoos,” I snarked.
“I’d do it,” Shoshanna said. Roxy agreed as well. And Eamon and Julian. “But what would we get? It’s too bad J. K. Rowling claimed the lightning bolt. That would have been cool.”
“Rowling drew quite a bit from Tolkien too,” Henrik said.
“No more Tolkien, Henrik,” Shoshanna said. “We’re Thornians. You’re one of us, whether you like it or not.”
“I ambar na-changed.” Henrik lifted a shot glass to his lips. “That’s Sindarin, one of the elf languages Tolkien created.”
Shoshanna stole his shot and drank it. “What’s the elvish translation for, ‘Thorne elves are better than Tolkien elves’?”
“Come to the dark side, Henrik,” Roxy said, smiling at Shoshanna. “We’ve got girls.”
“And some color,” Shoshanna said, high-fiving Julian.
“Look,” Henrik launched into a well-prepared speech, “we all have problematic favorites—”
“How about this for a tattoo?” I asked, pulling Eamon’s copy of Elementia out of his backpack. Everyone leaned in to look at the stylized elemental compass with a lightning bolt splitting it.
“Perfect,” Shoshanna said. “And edgy. I’ll put it on the other side of Kate.”
My grin faltered. “You guys should do it, but I can’t. I’m not eighteen until next December, and I just convinced my dad to give away my trust fund, so no way he’ll let me ink myself.”
Julian smiled. “Like hell would we do it without you, Iris.”
Eamon swung me around to face him. “You did what?”
“Tell you later,” I said. “For now, we can say I saved the day. Maybe.”
Cate whistled loud enough to grab everyone’s attention. She stood up on a chair, and I flashed back to seeing her like that on Inishmore. I waited for her speech, wondering what wisdom she would impart. She raised her glass high and seemed to make eye contact with everyone in the room before she spoke. Her gaze fell on me at the last.
“Sláinte.”
JOIN THE CAST AND CREW OF ELEMENTIA AT COMIC-CON AND WIN A CHANCE TO SEE THE SNEAK PREVIEW OF THE FILM WITH THE CAST!
SURPRISE! YOU GET AN EPILOGUE
Stories end in a rush.
One minute, Will and Lyra are in love on their bench. The next, they’re in separate worlds. One minute, the Pevensie kids are kings and queens. The next, they’re back through the wardrobe. One minute, the One Ring is lava-dissolving in Gollum’s hand, the next…well, that example doesn’t work. The Return of the King has like seven ending scenes, but for good reason.
When a story is that vast, it takes time to bring all the pieces back together.
Either way, I blinked in the pub on Dingle with my friends, and suddenly it was a year later—and I was signing autographs at the Elementia booth at the San Diego Comic-Con, a.k.a. Nerd Mecca.
I’d just spoken to my fourth Nolan cosplayer—which was pretty cruel considering Eamon wasn’t even on this continent until tomorrow. I checked the countdown on my watch. Twenty-three hours and twenty-two minutes until his plane landed.
The current fan standing before me was dressed in a remarkable Wonder Woman costume. “Are they giving Julian Young a tattoo up there?” she asked, peering behind me.
“Yep,” I said, scribbling my signature on an Elementia soundtrack CD for her. “All day you can come by and see us getting inked. Help us spread the word?”
Her mouth drooped as she watched a shirtless Julian lie back on a chair, getting a hip tattoo. What a show-off. He totally chose that spot so he could sit on the stage of our booth with his six-pack out—which was actually brilliant. He might even win the current pool about which one of us could run the most outrageous marketing ploy. We’d had to get creative over the past year, but it was working. For one thing, the boycott had vanished. The entire website disappeared one night as though it had never happened.
“Are you getting a tattoo as well?” Wonder Woman asked. I flashed my forearm where a white bandage covered my new ink.
“It must be nonstop fun to make movies,” she said.
“You’ve got the nonstop part right. The fun is…surprising.” I handed her CD back. “Make sure you get in line for the movie early. They’re only letting in the first five hundred people.”
“Thanks!” Wonder Woman moved down the line toward Shoshanna and then Cate. I took the twenty-second break between fans to stretch. We’d been at this for over an hour—and tonight we’d all be watching Elementia on a stage in front of the most hardcore Thornians.
I hope it goes well.
Shoshanna leaned over and talked behind her hand. Sh
e hated the publicity part of this job more than me. “I told Roxy she couldn’t come because then I’d be even more nervous, but now I don’t know what I was thinking. She should be here. Especially for the viewing tonight.”
“She should be here,” I agreed. “And look at you being cool about your girlfriend, as if it didn’t take you six months to ask her out.” Getting those two girls together had been like pushing a boulder uphill—Shoshanna being the boulder—although it had been fun.
“Yes, you’re wise, my long-distance-relationship guru,” she said. “Speaking of taking your time, what are you going to do with Eamon when you see him tomorrow?”
“None of your business.” I tweaked her nose, but my thoughts raced with ideas. Naked ideas. A whole trilogy of them.
Shoshanna looked back at Julian and then over the crowds on the main floor. “Iris, what if the preview is crap? What if they don’t like it and it has to be recut?”
“It won’t be crap. It’s perfect.”
“Wait.” She spun me around. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”
“Thorne family privilege.” I grinned. “We’re producers.”
“But I’m the star! I should get to see it first.”
“Guess I know things you don’t.” I was enjoying this too much because: Shoshanna.
“Wouldn’t you like to know what I know…” she said teasingly, patting down the bandage on her shoulder where she’d gotten her Elementia tattoo.
“What do you know?” I asked fast.
She didn’t have time to answer because the people in line pushed forward. I took a worn copy of the Elementia trilogy from the next person, without breaking eye contact with Shoshanna. I hoped whatever she was scheming had something to do with Eamon. I missed him in a way that made me feel starved.
I flipped to the title page to sign. This whole autographing thing had gotten old hat rather fast, but I was trying not to be too jaded about it. Pun intended.
Now a Major Motion Picture Page 25