I knew he wasn’t over her, shouted a little voice in the back of Cass’s head. I knew it, knew it, knew it!
But all the hindsight in the world couldn’t stop her heart from breaking. She knew now that she had fallen for her court-appointed elf—fallen hard. She would have given her promise to be with him exclusively—to be his completely—as soon as she was able to speak to Brandon and break up with him in person. And now it was all completely ruined.
She felt sick, her dress too tight, her head throbbing, her tongue sour with the few sips of alcohol she’d had. The music the band was playing seemed too loud and the lights from the elaborate chandeliers were too bright when all Cass wanted to do was crawl into a dark hole and hide her shame and pain.
“Watch out,” Valen hissed, poking her in the ribs with a surprisingly sharp elbow. “They’re coming back—they’re going to act like nothing happened.”
To her horror, Cass saw that he was right. Coming through the crowd was Jake, with Glorianna in lockstep right beside him. He said something to her that Cass couldn’t catch and she laughed in return, a high, tinkling sound like ringing crystal.
I have to get out of here! I can’t stand this—I can’t! she thought wildly, and began looking for an exit. But where could she go? She was stuck here, in the Realm of the Fae with no way to return to the human world. She had no choice but to face this situation head-on, no matter how painful it was going to be.
I can’t give him the satisfaction of running away, she told herself savagely. I have to finish this.
Standing tall, she squared her shoulders and waited until Jake saw her.
“Cassandra?” He came up to her, a worried frown on his face. “Where have you been?”
“No, Jake—I think the question is where have you been?” Cass snarled, glaring back at him. “And don’t bother to lie—I know because I watched you.”
“Watched me?” He looked puzzled. “Watched me what? What are you talking about?”
“Don’t pretend!” Cass’s eyes were stinging with hot, angry tears now but she did her best to keep them in check. “You make me sick! All your talk about how you wanted me ‘body and soul’ and then I see you with her.” She glared at Glorianna who gave her a smug smile in return.
“Who—Glorianna? I couldn’t help walking with her—she came up to me!” Jake looked more confused than ever and Cass wondered if he had always been such a good actor. The thought that he had been fooling her from the first crossed her mind and made her feel sick and disgusted with herself for being so stupid and naïve.
“I’m such an idiot.” She was crying now—she couldn’t help herself, couldn’t stop. “I actually thought you cared about me. But you were just killing time until you could get back to Glorianna.”
“She’s right, Glorianna,” Valen chimed in, stepping up to the fairy girl. “And don’t try to lie about it, we saw the two of you together!”
Glorianna’s eyes went wide.
“Oh, I never meant for you to see that, Valen! Oh, I’m so sorry!”
“It’s too late to say sorry.” Valen’s monochrome face was stony. “I thought you loved me but you threw everything we had away the minute you could get back to your damn elf.” And with that, he turned on his heel and marched away.
“Glorianna, what’s going on here?” Jake demanded, rounding on his ex. “What have you done?”
“I’m afraid it’s what both of us have done, Jacobin,” she whispered, shaking her head. “Oh dear, I know it would have come out eventually but—”
“What are you talking about?” Jake snapped. Not waiting for a reply, he turned to Cass. “Look, I don’t know what you think you heard or saw but—”
“Stop!” Cass put up a hand. “Not another word. I don’t want to hear any of your crappy lying explanations. I just want to get out of here and never see you again.”
But that was going to present a problem since Jake was the one who had brought her to the Realm of the Fae for the ball in the first place and Cass wasn’t certain where she would find someone else with strong enough magic to take her back home.
Wait a minute…strong magic?
Turning her head, she saw the man with black hair and eyes regarding her quietly, his arms crossed over his broad chest.
“You…” Cass marched up to him. “How strong is your magic, really?”
“Strong as you need, lass.” He gave her a lazy grin. “Why? You want me to turn that elf into a toad for you?”
For a moment, Cass was tempted, but then she shook her head.
“No, nothing like that—I just need to go home.” She looked him in his solid black eyes. “Could you do that for me? Could you get me back to my house in the human world?”
He nodded slowly.
“Well, certainly lass—if you give me an invitation into your home.”
“Fine—sure.” Cass nodded, a quick, jerky motion of her head. “Whatever—just take me home.”
“No, Cassandra!” Jake shook his head, reaching out to her. “No, please—it’s dangerous. Do you even know who this man is?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care,” Cass spat. “As long as he’s not you. I never want to see you again!”
And, hooking her arm through the arm of the man with black eyes, she looked up at him.
“Okay, I’m ready. Take me now!”
“No!” Jake made a lunge for her but she was already moving and suddenly the world was filled with pitch black smoke. Jake and Glorianna and the entire Summer’s End Ball melted away and there was a rushing sound in her ears as Cass was swept away.
Thirty-Seven
“Cass, thank goodness—there you are! I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”
As they appeared in the middle of her room and stepped out of the cloud of roiling black smoke, Cass saw her older sister, Phil standing just inside the doorway looking frantic.
“Well, I’m here now. What’s going on?”
But Phil was staring at her.
“Where did you get that gorgeous dress? And who is this?” she asked, pointing at the tall, dark handsome stranger who was standing beside Cass.
“I don’t know his name—he helped me get home from the Summer’s End Ball,” Cass explained shortly while the man made a sweeping bow in Phil’s direction.
“The Summer’s End Ball? But I thought Rory told me Counselor O’Shea was taking you to that?” Phil protested.
“He did take me but I came home with this guy.” Phil poked a thumb at the man beside her.
“But why? Oh, Cass—have you been crying?”
Phil came forward at once as though to put her arms around Cass but Cass wasn’t having it. She knew if she let herself go to mush in her sister’s arms and start bawling, she would never stop. And she couldn’t afford to do that right now—she had an art show to put on.
“It’s a long story,” she told Phil, lifting her chin. “I really can’t talk about it right now. Can we just get on with the show? Is everything all right? Has anyone arrived yet?”
“That’s the trouble—a lot of people have arrived!” Phil’s eyes widened.
“So I better get down there!” Cass dabbed under her eyes with her fingertips, hoping she looked better than she felt. “What do they think of the art?”
“Oh, they love it—but none of them are part of that art critic person—that Lady Blankenship’s—crowd at all,” Phil explained. “They’re all friends of Nana’s—or at least, friends of her date, Sir Percy. They all came over from Lake Como Resort.”
“What?” Cass asked blankly. “Why did Nana invite them? I thought she was cancelling her date.”
“Apparently this Sir Percy persuaded her to change her mind,” Phil said. “And to invite about a dozen of his friends over as well.”
“Okay, well…” Cass frowned, thinking hard. “Do we have enough snacks? Should somebody run out to Costco or Publix and grab another couple boxes of petit fours and mini quiches or something?”
“Cass
, I’m afraid that running out of snacks isn’t the problem,” Phil said. “You see, Lake Como Resort is—”
Suddenly there was a banging on the bedroom door and Rory stuck her head in.
“Cass, you’re back,” she gasped. “Have you seen Brandon? He came barging in, saying you wanted to talk to him and he wouldn’t leave. Then he went looking for you. I thought he was coming up here and I…Ohhhhh…”
Her eyes grew wide as she looked past Cass and Phil.
“You…” she whispered and took a tentative step into the room.
“Rory?” Cass frowned and followed her sister’s gaze. Rory was staring at the big man who had transported her from the Summer’s End Ball back to the house.
“Hello, darlin’ Rory,” he murmured, stepping forward and holding out both hands.
“Daegan!” Rory took his hands and looked up into his eyes, a rapturous expression on her face. “I thought you’d never come!”
“I’ve been wantin’ to come see you, lass, but someone put a warding charm around your house,” the man replied, entwining his long fingers with hers. “I couldn’t get to you until I was invited in. Which your sister here was kind enough to do.” He nodded at Cass who nodded back automatically. But inside she was beginning to get a bad feeling—a very bad feeling about all this.
“Daegan?” she asked, frowning.
“At your service.” The tall man made her a sweeping bow and for just a moment, Cass thought she saw a black mane waving in the wind.
Phil must have seen the same thing because she took a step back, her hand going to her mouth.
“The Phooka! Oh my God, Cass—you invited the Phooka right into our house!”
“Shit!” Cass muttered. So that was where she’d heard the odd, Gaelic-sounding name before. Now she remembered Rory saying, “His name is Daegan…he told me in my dreams.”
“You can’t be in here,” Phil was saying, as she pointed at Daegan. “You’re not allowed. You have to go right now, this min—”
Suddenly there was a yell and the sound of running feet right outside the door.
Cass dashed over and looked out into the hallway, only to see Brandon, being chased by all ten of his naked clones. All eleven of them clattered down the stairs before she could do anything.
“Oh, no!” she gasped. “Wait—stop!”
But her boyfriend was already halfway down the stairs, a look of sheer terror on his face, as the clones stumbled and bumbled after him like a lot of half-witted, nudist dopplegangers.
“Cookie—want cookie!” Cass heard them shouting. “Give cookie!”
“Oh, no!” she wailed again. “Quick, you guys—help me catch them and round them up before Lady Blankenship gets here!”
Phil ran out of the room with her and Cass gathered her heavy skirts as well as she could and hurried down the stairs. But she stopped dead as she came to the bottom of the steps, her eyes going wide.
Nana’s living room was set up like an art gallery with Cass’s art displayed everywhere and it was already crowded.
But it was crowded with naked people.
Not just naked clones, either—most of which were gathered around the bar area where an hors d’oeuvres station had been set up. No, these people were middle aged and older—grandmas and grandpas—definitely not the kind of people you wanted to see naked. Nevertheless, none of them had a stitch of clothes on as they perused the art and sipped wine from plastic glasses.
“What…what is going on here?” Cass gasped, turning to Phil. “Where are their clothes?”
“This is what I was trying to tell you,” Phil said. “Lake Como Resort is a senior nudist retreat. And it seems like all the people who came with, uh, Sir Percy, thought this was going to be a…” She cleared her throat. “A clothing optional event.”
“What?” Cass’s mind was reeling as she struggled to take this in. “What did you say?”
“I’m sorry, Ma’am,” Josh, Phil’s fiancée, was saying politely to an older woman with gray hair who was wearing nothing but the purse over her arm, “But I am not going to take off my pants. In fact, I think it would be better if you went and put yours back on.”
“Is this a clothing optional party or not?” the woman demanded querulously. “I will not be judged by a non-nudist at a venue that was advertised as nudist friendly!”
“Nobody said this was nudist friendly,” Cass exclaimed, rushing up to her. “Why did you even come here, anyway? This is supposed to be my art exhibit—not some weird naked party for seniors!”
“If it’s not a nudist friendly area, then what are they doing here?” The older woman pointed at the Brandon clones, who had finished with the hors d’oeuvres and were starting in on the wine. Some of them were drinking from plastic cups but one or two were chugging straight from the bottle.
“They…they’re…” Cass fumbled, not sure what to say about the wine-guzzling clones.
“Cass, what the fuck?” Brandon was suddenly beside her, keeping a wary eye on the clones as well. “What’s going on?” he demanded, frowning at her. “You said to come see you so I came and then I find all these weird things that look like me shoved in your spare room. Did you want me to see them? Is that why you called me over? Like, what’s the message here?”
“No!” Cass put a hand to her forehead. “No, Brandon, that’s not why I called you. I wanted to see you so I could break up with you,” she said bluntly.
“So you got a bunch of guys who looked like me to take off their clothes and chase me through your house?” Brandon shook his head. “That’s fucked up, Cass. I mean, this is the weirdest break-up I’ve ever been through. I feel like I’m high or something!”
“I’m sorry,” Cass began, launching into the speech she’d prepared. “I know this must feel strange and abrupt but I really think we’ve been growing apart for a long time, so—”
“Couldn’t you have just texted me if you wanted to break up?” Brandon interrupted her impatiently. “I mean, it’s not like we’re soul-mates or something—I wouldn’t have cared.”
“Wouldn’t have cared?” Cass rounded on him. “Why, you jerk! You—”
A sound like a small explosion and a shower of pink glitter raining down from overhead interrupted her.
“Oh, my dears!” trilled a high-pitched, familiar voice. “You’ll never guess what? I have found the problem! I know how to fix it now!”
“Breena?” Cass blinked glitter out of her eyes and looked up at the vibrant pink fairy, who was fluttering her wings in the middle of the living room ceiling. Most of the naked patrons looked up frowning in confusion although Cass knew that fairy magic was not supposed to be visible to human eyes.
“Hello, my little magically deprived goddaughter,” Breena trilled. “You’ll be happy to know that I spoke to my professor and I know exactly how to fix your problem with these, er…things.” She pointed her wand at the Brandon clones—half of whom were on the way to getting very drunk on Nana’s wine.
“That’s awesome, Breena, but there are non-magical people here right now,” Cass said, nodding at the naked and confused guests from the nudist resort.
But her new fairy godmother didn’t appear to hear the warning.
“The problem is, we never really got to the root of the spell,” she went on, swishing her wand through the air and sending showers of pink sparks floating around the room. “What I need to do is reverse my reversal. Then I can reverse all of it all over again times three, and that will get rid of any lingering, er…problems.” She frowned at the clones again.
“Reverse the reversal?” That sounded ominous to Cass but her new fairy godmother was already chanting.
“The art is alive
The art should live
By the power of my wand
Life I give!”
Cass looked hopefully at the drunk and disorderly Brandon clones but they just stood around the bar, continuing to guzzle wine. Nana wouldn’t have a drop left at the end of the evening if this kept up
.
Then she heard a gasp from her left and turned her head just in time to see two naked seniors with extremely saggy behinds take a stumbling step back from a sculpture she had made. It was a hooded figure in the style of Manfred Kielnhofer and it was holding a smaller figure—a baby—which was also swathed in a hood.
“Holy shit!” she heard Brandon mutter from beside her. “A freaking dementor! And it’s holding a dementor baby, too!”
Cass had called the piece, “Mother and Child” and it was meant to symbolize the way women and children were pushed to the bottom of the social ladder and left to starve in ignorance and poverty—ignored in many parts of the world.
But she had to admit, now that the statue was coming to life, it did kind of look like one of the hooded and cloaked dementors from the Harry Potter movies.
“Oh!” gasped the naked woman, taking a big step back as the statue reached out one skeletal hand towards her. “It’s moving, Harold! Is it supposed to be moving?”
“Damned if I know, Helen,” the man growled, taking a big step back himself. “Goddamned creepy either way.”
Another sculpture—a mixed-media piece made entirely out of junk and cast-off articles that Cass had found at the dump—also began to move. This one was meant to look a little like an ape made out of trash and Cass had named it “Regression” meaning that people were littering the Earth and regressing back down the evolutionary ladder as they did so.
Now the ape—which was about the size of a large chimpanzee—was hooting and hopping around, causing several naked patrons to point and stare.
“Look, Benny—it’s a robot monkey! And I thought it was just a statue!” Cass heard one woman say.
Along with the sculptures and mixed media work, the paintings were also coming to life. Cass heard a gasp as the blue cubist painting she’d done in the style of Picasso began to climb its frame, teetering its misshapen head in her direction as it staggered around the living room while people hastily scattered to make room for it.
Be Careful What You Wish For (The Swann Sisters Chronicles Book 2) Page 35