Or she was going to, as Nina said, kick his ass to the curb and return to her land of Jersey without ever looking back.
* * * *
Toni began to make her way through the crowd, her eye of the tiger on the king’s throne, still empty. The crush of people entering the ballroom thickened, swirls of colorful dresses and men in formal jackets crowded her path as they all waited to see the king’s entrance.
Wanda clung to her hand. “Slow down,” she warned, just before Toni heard the soft sound of a piccolo.
She cocked her head and listened again, closing her eyes and inhaling the musical magic.
She knew it was a piccolo because in eighth-grade music, she’d been assigned one and she’d sucked monstrous balls at it. However, whoever was playing it would have garnered an A from crabby old Mr. Bartowski.
Her hand was somehow separated from Wanda’s as she crowd swelled, swallowing her up and Toni followed the sound, unable to stop herself.
Maybe it was Jon? Harps were usually the instrument of choice for her True Love Top Forty, but she couldn’t take a chance it wasn’t him somewhere in this vast room. Maybe one’s true-love tune changed when they were in someplace as grand as a castle?
So she followed the sweet strains out of the ballroom, down a long hall, powerless, mesmerized by the sound, her heart pounding in the hopes she’d find Jon and they’d fix this misunderstanding.
She was convinced that was what it had to be. But wait. Maybe he didn’t hear music or see halos glowing over her head. Maybe he was her true love and she wasn’t his?
Yet, suddenly, it didn’t matter. The beautiful tune lulled her, pulled her toward it until she was in a room with a man standing in the shadows cast by long curtains hanging from the floor to ceiling windows, the silhouette of his piccolo evident in the dim lighting.
“Jon?” she asked, knowing it was ridiculous. This wasn’t Jon. He was too portly, his jaw too slack.
He spun fully around, letting the piccolo in his hand fall to his side. He puffed out his chest and smiled at her, drawing her to him without saying a word.
Her feet began to tingle, making her question who this man actually was, but his smile was so serene, his face warm and inviting, that she couldn’t help but move closer.
He bowed regally, his silver-white hair gleaming, his sweet blue eyes twinkling when he raised his head. “Welcome, milady. I am Sir Kenneth in the Key of G. And you are?”
She did a clumsy curtsy, reaching for the back of a chair to steady herself as she wobbled. She really needed to work on her curtsy. “Toni Vitali,” she murmured, hearing the words escape her lips, but they sounded foggy and muted.
“’Tis a pleasure. I hope you’ll enjoy my happy tune,” he said before placing the piccolo to his mouth and playing another melody.
As he played, he wound his way out of the room, his feet light, his white stockings almost a beckoning beacon.
Toni couldn’t look away. The tingle in her own feet roared, yet it only felt like a distant nudge, one she successfully ignored as she followed Sir Kenneth, needing him to continue playing—to continue feeding her this amazing gift as it floated around her.
Her eyes glazed over as his back became blurry, tilting and swerving along another long hallway. Yet, she continued in his wake, compelled to reach him, but he only seemed to get farther away.
No! He couldn’t get away. This music gave her life. She needed it!
The music began to whirl around her, as though it had become a wave and she was driftwood lost at sea, bobbing, weaving. The melody took her to a place she was almost sure she didn’t want to go, but couldn’t seem to stop herself from propelling forward toward.
And then the melodic, mournful tune stopped completely, and so did her feet.
When the haze cleared and her eyes focused, she had one thought as she scanned the room.
The fucking Pied Piper. Goddamn it! She might not have her fairytales entirely straight, but she knew this one. He’d led her like some lost lamb straight to the lion’s den.
A maniacal cackle grew until it bounced off the room’s walls, and then a husky, sultry voice said, “I’ve got you now, my pretty. I’ve been waiting for you!”
* * * *
“Wanda!” Jon managed to grab her arm as he pushed his way through the throng of incoming guests, keeping his face tucked into the hood of his cloak.
She whirled around, her bell-shaped dress swaying, her wings fluttering. “Jon! Oh, thank God. Where have you been and why are your clothes dirty and torn?”
“’Tis a long story—one I shall share with you all as soon as I can. Where’s Toni?” he asked, his eyes scanning the vast room frantically for his beloved.
Wanda gripped his arm, her eyes filled with a worry he didn’t like. “I’ve lost her! She was going to try to see the king before our appointment to ask after you, but I lost her in the crowd. I don’t know where she is and I’m panicked!”
Marty flanked him as she rushed up and gave him a hurried hug. “Where the hell have you been, Prince Charming? You had us all worried, not to mention Toni’s beside herself. Speaking of, where is our fair maiden? It’s almost time to greet the king.”
Nina knocked him with a weak fist between the shoulder blades. “Dude! Why you gotta create so much drama? Jesus. Is it that hard for all of us to get this shit together? Lemme be clear—we need to stick the fuck together, Flawless!”
Jon gave them a quick bow. “My deepest apologies, maidens. We were thwarted by the king’s guards, and I promise to tell you all about it, but for now, we must find Toni.”
But horns began to blare a familiar blast of announcement, sounding out the king and queen’s arrival.
As the crowd parted, hushing in reverence, King Dick and Queen Jane appeared at the top of the long staircase and, arm and arm, they made their way down.
Wanda gripped his arm, leaving him no choice but to stay right where he was as the royal couple proceeded down the stairs and moved toward the throne.
He let his eyes fall to the floor, waiting until the couple passed before he tried to move silently away from the crowd. But Marty clung to his other arm, her grip literally like steel. If her powers were weakened here in the realm, then he was but a mewling kitten compared to them.
“Stay put, buddy. I’m not getting my head chopped off because you committed some royal faux pas. Plus, hello. A real live king and queen!”
He would laugh if things weren’t so dire—because on cue, Prince Iver Daring appeared at the top of the stairs, ready to make his descent to his chair beside the king and queen.
As he did, moving slowly down the procession aisle, his coat gleaming under the light of the torches, his hair pulled back from his face in an ebony ponytail, it wasn’t until he was just a hair past them when all three women gasped.
And that was when Nina grabbed him by his shirtfront, lifting him high in the air, her face a mask of anger as she yelped, “Who the fuck are you, Jon Doe?”
Chapter 15
Long fingernails scraped beneath her chin, their tips digging into Toni’s flesh as she tried not to wince. She lifted her chin, looking up and asked, “Queen Angria, I presume?”
The queen stepped backward a few feet and tossed her crowned, inky-black head on her shoulders, laughing again, that same bone-rattling masterpiece of a cackle she’d screeched just before she’d waved her spidery fingers in the air and glued Toni to the chair she was now unable to move from.
The queen’s razor-thin black eyebrow rose haughtily, the high collar of her silk gown just grazing her pointed chin. “My name precedes me, eh?” she asked, her voice husky, her words precise.
She swept back across the room, the tail of her black and deep-purple dress following in her wake, to stand before Toni, searing her with her gaze.
Toni lifted her chin, her eyes narrowing as she tried to peek over the enormous skirt of her dress. Yet, she wasn’t afraid. Why wasn’t she afraid?
“Well, your henchmen do,
anyway. You sure don’t kid around when you want something, do you? Dragons and Starbucks and truth fairies and smelly guys with glowing eyes. Heh. That rhymes. Anyway, it was a lot. Just so you know, you have the market cornered on creepy employees. Anyway, let’s cut to the chase. What do you want from me? I never got to the part where I had a conversation with any of your bad guys so we could discuss your terms. It was all rawr, and hiss, and poof, you’re now the Truth Fairy.”
“Your head, of course,” she drawled long and low, as she ran a fingertip over the surface of a shined-to-perfection tabletop next to the chair Toni was pinned to, dragging her hand as though she were deep in thought.
“Because?”
“Because I was told just this day by a spy here in the castle that you, my interfering guttersnipe, are the face of the prince’s one true love!”
Toni squinted in confusion, blowing the material of her bell-shaped skirt out of her face as it rose again. So this wasn’t about the shoes? And hold the damn phone. The prince didn’t even know her, and she sure as hell didn’t know him. This was ridiculous. Again, more piss-poor miscommunication.
“You Shamalotians need phones so this won’t keep happening.”
“A what?”
Toni rolled her eyes in otherworld frustration. “It’s this thing you talk into. You dial it, it rings, someone picks it up on the other end and you communicate without all this back-and-forth nonsense. I think everything would go much more smoothly if you could just give each other a call. For instance, you could have just called me and told me what all this was about.”
“’Twould not matter if I called you on this phone or sent a message by horny toad. The answer would still be the same. You are the prince’s true love!” she screamed in outrage.
“Horny toads carry messages? Is that like Shamalot’s version of carrier pigeons?”
“Shut up with your endless prattle before I behead you here and now and watch your blood spill at my feet!”
“Whoa, Nellie. Easy there. Now, just say that one more time. Because I think I missed the impact of the statement. I’m the prince’s what?” she asked, still absorbing this new information.
“The prince’s one true love, moron!” she bellowed with agitation, gripping the sides of her lush gown in white-knuckled fists. “The Great and Wonderful Roz saw your face in her mirror, and that soft-in-the-middle King Dick took her advice. I have it on good word it was you the prince will spend the rest of his days with. The king sent my Resplendant away as though we’d never bartered at their births to merge our lands via marriage!”
The Great and Wonderful Roz? Priceless. Really. This predicament was priceless. And she’d laugh, because one of the only things on her body she could move was her lips anyway, but she had a sneaking suspicion she was going to die if she went too far.
Instead, she attempted to sympathize with the queen. “And who’s the Great and Wonderful Roz? Is she the authority on true love? Did she perfect the art of matchmaking and I missed it?”
“She’s the king’s advisor, his oracle, and whatever that crony says, he does. Without thought!”
Toni popped her lips. “Ahh. Got it. I understand your frustration. So does the prince love your daughter Splendid?”
The queen’s eyes lit up, almost rolling to the back of her head. “Resplendant! And it doesn’t matter who the prince loves, you simpleton! It only matters that on the advice of some doddering, centuries-old woman, the king has canceled our contract because he wants his son to be,” she made air quotes, “happy,” she said on an eye roll as she began to pace the length of the room in quick, fiery steps.
“Okay, so here’s a thought, and it’s one I’ve considered often when it comes to you villains in a fairytale. Why not just communicate? I mean, say you invite King Dick over for a cocktail. Something holiday-like. Egg nog, a candy cane martini, maybe. Then you sit, you chat, maybe you make some weenies in a blanket, because food really is the universal language, right? Then you do something totally crazy, like say, ‘Hey, KD, you made a deal with me. I don’t like that you broke your promise. It makes my feelings all hurty.’ Then he responds by saying, ‘I’m sorry, Angria. I wasn’t being very sensitive to your feelings, was I?’ There’ll be a lot of ye’s and ’tis’s and whatever, but you get the general picture, right? Why does everything have to be all-out war? It’s Christmas, for the love of Cheetos. Peace. Love. Harmony.”
The queen raced across the floor toward her, her heels clacking against the hard marble in her mad dash. She bashed down Toni’s skirt with a fist, effectively crushing her crinoline.
“Are you mad? He humiliated my daughter! He refuses to budge. That mealy-mouthed mule sent me a message via my liege, and told me my beautiful Resplendant is not the proper wife for Price Iver, and he won’t have any son of his unhappy for eternity. He will not move an inch! Thus, you must be beheaded before his very eyes!”
“Is the prince’s name really Iver?” Toni asked on a giggle-snort. “Who wants to marry a guy named Iver, anyway? Do you really want to look across your Thanksgiving table, which I’m sure is fabulous, and call your son-in-law Iver?”
“Shut up!” she screeched in Toni’s face, shaking the crystal chandelier in the center of the ceiling. “You will pay for this! Everyone will pay. All of Shamalot will see its bitter end when I’m done!”
Toni refused to cower, but wow, this woman was scary with all her white teeth, shiny red lips, and glittering angry eyes. “But wait! What if I told you I love someone else? What if I told you I don’t even know who Prince Iver is? What if I told you I don’t even come from this time, and I can leave and go back home and then you can force the king to allow your daughter to marry the prince?”
That stopped her dead in her tracks. “What?”
Toni licked her lips while she tried to move, but she was cemented to the damn chair. “It’s true! I’ll hit the road, sayonara, later gator. The king can’t make Prince Whatever marry me if I’m outtie, right? We just remove the problem and poof, instant marriage and land and whatever else it is you want.”
The queen straightened; her spine so stiff Toni thought it might crack. “What maiden in her right senses wouldn’t want the riches of the king?”
Now Toni rolled her eyes hard with a grating sigh. “This maiden, lady. I’m good with TV dinners and a drippy showerhead forever if it means I get to live. I’ve been beaten down, spit at, yelled at, punched, dumped in the ocean, knocked out, wore these damn uncomfortable shoes for miles and miles in more snow than I think Siberia’s ever seen. I’m happy to hit the road if it means—”
She snatched up Toni’s right foot, effectively silencing her. Swirling a finger along her calf, Angria eyeballed the sparkly purple shoe, still as perfect as when she’d first been forced to wear them.
Her eyes went from wonder to a narrowed pair of slits in her head. “These shoes? Where did you get them?”
Toni fought to keep her face impassive. She really didn’t know about the shoes? Who was she kidding? They didn’t even really know anything concrete about the shoes either, other than they’d guessed the shoes allowed her to absorb her foes powers.
But they didn’t know that for sure. Still, she felt a little smug the queen was blissfully unaware, and she needed to keep it that way for just a little longer.
“I said, where did you get the shoes?” Angria demanded.
“Um, Brenda, the Good Witch of the South. She y’alled ’em right onto my feet.”
“And what do they do?” she drawled, her interest clearly aroused as she squeezed Toni’s foot.
Now Toni smiled, her grin wide and accommodating as she pointed her toe to show off the shoe. She just might stand a chance at getting out of here and warning the king he was about to see his kingdom crumble because he’d made a stupid decision.
“Wanna see?” she asked, all sweetness and light.
The queen lifted her sharp chin and dropped Toni’s foot, sucking in her cheeks. “Show me.”
&nbs
p; Hell yeah. “You bet,” she said affably.
Toni cleared her throat and rolled her head on her neck to work out the kinks. Opening her mouth wide, she inhaled and exhaled with slow precision—before the burn of a stream of fire rose upward and exploded from her throat in billowing fashion.
She aimed the flames directly at the queen, spraying her thoroughly. Queen Angria fell to the floor with a howl, her black and purple dress splaying out behind her.
“I’ll kill youuuuuu!” she bellowed, shaking the entire room as she threw her hands over her face to shield herself.
As if she hadn’t heard that before.
But lucky for Toni, as Angria fought the flames, she also released the spell gluing her to the chair, giving her a chance to make her escape.
Lunging from the chair, she bolted toward the door, hoping against hope she could find her way back to the ballroom to warn the king that Angria was here and on the warpath.
* * * *
The entire ballroom stopped all motion as Nina lifted Jon high in the air and demanded an answer, her arm trembling. “I said, who. The. Fuck. Are. You?”
Marty and Wanda grabbed at Nina’s arms. “Put him down, Nina!” they yelled in unison.
But Nina wasn’t letting go, and his warrior’s heart, despite the dire circumstance, smiled. First, it meant she still had a bit of her strength. Second, she was fiercely loyal, unafraid to protect her own, and Toni had become one of hers by circumstance. If Toni chose to return to her homeland, she would be well cared for.
Gripping her wrists, Jon looked down at her from the shelter of his hooded jacket, keeping his voice calm, his eyes steady. “Please put me down, Pale One, so you do not tax yourself, and I shall explain.”
Nina gave him a good hard shake before she let go of him, dropping him on the floor in a heap as she said with a sneer, “You damn well better, you piece o’ royal shit. Why do you look exactly—and I don’t just mean a little, I mean exactly—like the damn guy in the fancy pants and stupid knee-highs?”
Accidentally Ever After (Accidentally Paranormal Novel Book 11) Page 20