CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Fallon

There was a spring in my step when I got back to Burrator. I could finally banish the ugly green-eyed monster for good, due to Edmund’s explanation of his closeness to Autumn. The party preparations were going well. And Autumn was happy. Not even her vision could take away from her growing strength.

I knocked on Alfie’s door, expecting him to tell me to go the hell back to Athenea, so was pleasantly surprised when both he and Lisbeth called for me to come in. I found them both in his reception room, Lisbeth wrapped in a blanket on the sofa with her feet poking out onto Alfie’s lap. He was painting her toenails.

He briefly looked up to appraise the grin I had plastered on my face. “Autumn? Just let me do this little toe and then you can start babbling.”

Lisbeth shook her head with a smile, paused the movie playing on the massive plasma TV, and offered me a slab of chocolate, which they were surrounded by. I hovered, watching the domestic scene with interest and envy. Seeing Alfie participate in pampering was nothing new, because he had a steady hand—his minor had been in art—but seeing him do it so willingly and lovingly just reaffirmed in my mind how much he cared for her. It was strange as well to see Lisbeth looking so feminine, with her hair loose and framing an easy smile. It was a simple kind of pretty. An approachable, rosy-cheeked kind of pretty. Nothing like Autumn’s regal, otherworldly, out-of-your-league beauty that scared most people away.

Alfie finished and left for the bathroom with the polish remover for his hands, and Lisbeth cleared space for me to sit down.

“Lovesick,” she stated with a knowing smile as I flopped down and buried my head in my hands.

That was all she needed to do to open the sluice gates on a rant. “I’m so into her, and I don’t even think she notices,” I began, talking much faster than the optimum for coherence. “It’s so strong, she’s all I think about, and not all of those thoughts are polite,” I admitted through clenched teeth and I could see Lisbeth was forcing herself to calmly nod, when all she probably wanted to do was laugh like Alfie from the other room.

“And they called it puppy love . . .” he sang in a booming baritone between heaving guffaws, coming out to tidy the coffee table.

I glared at him, and if I hadn’t been such a nice cousin I would have pointed out that he had been exactly the same the first time he met Lisbeth. Instead, I continued to pour my heart out. “And yet I have no idea how to act on it. What to say to her, what to do, how to even try not to be clumsy around her . . .”

“Not possible,” Alfie replied, dropping down in the seat to the left and stretching his arms out to rest on the top of the feather-filled, perfect-for-slouching sofa cushions. “You are inherently clumsy. It’s incurable.”

Lisbeth crushed several pieces of chocolate wrapper into a ball and threw them at Alfie. “You should be yourself, Fal. And if that includes being clumsy, then be clumsy. She can only love you for you.”

“Yes, but being me means being a prince! And you must have noticed how averse she is to everything House of Athenea.” My head dropped into my hands again. “She must be the only girl in this dimension who feels like that, and I fall for her.”

Lisbeth brought a hand up to rest on my shoulder and rubbed my back in slow circles. It was comforting, and even though I wished it was somebody else’s hand, it helped me rewind to how I had felt entering the room.

“At least you know she isn’t friends with you just because you’re royal.” She sighed. “Ithink you should tell her how you feel.”

I raised my head in horror and Alfie immediately caught my eye, shaking his head discreetly as Lisbeth plowed on.

“It will put an end to this limbo. There is a risk she won’t feel the same way,” she admitted, yet the knowing smile was back. “But I don’t think that’s likely. Even if she doesn’t now, once she knows she might develop feelings. It happened to me after Alfie declared his undying love over the summer.”

She leaned over the arm of the sofa so she faced Alfie, and then half turned back, frowning. “Uh-oh. I know that look. Private prince time.” She tapped her toenails and, satisfied, got up to kiss my cousin. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“The bed is going to be cold tonight,” Alfie sung in halfhearted baritone, watching her close the door with the blanket and chocolate tucked under her arm.

I thought I should apologize and opened my mouth to do so, but he got up and retrieved two bottles of beer from his mini-fridge. Casting a quick spell that sent the metal caps flying, he resumed his place on the other sofa.

“You’re turning into an alcoholic.” I laughed, but neither of us missed the uneasiness in the way I abruptly cut off. I took the other beer and gripped the neck tightly. Everybody copes differently.

“What Lisbeth said about being yourself was great, but you shouldn’t reveal how you feel unless you’re absolutely sure Autumn will return the sentiment. There is too much at stake for you to screw up—”

“I know.”

“We need her. We’re f**ked if she isn’t on our side.”

He slammed the bottle down on the glass table and the sound chased my intake of breath. His eyes were a milky white.

“I’m scared, Al,” I blurted before I could censor my words. Feeling a fool, I added, “Not just of telling Autumn. Of everything.”

He sighed, picking the bottle back up and coming to sit down next to me. He rested his arms on his knees and stared blankly at our reflections in the glass. We could be brothers. Even our thoroughly white, worried eyes matched.

“We knew what we were getting ourselves into when we came here.” He sighed.

“I had no choice. Father made me.”

“Fal, if nothing progresses with Autumn by Christmas, I’m going to move into the townhouse in London. With Lisbeth.”

I took a few sips of the beer. It was horrible.

“This hellhole is sucking the life right out of me, and it’s unfair to make her travel down from Hertfordshire every week.”

I took a few more sips.

“I’m not as strong as you. I won’t be fate’s pawn. I’m sick of this chess game. Of the waiting. And I won’t drag Lisbeth into it, either.”

I finished the bottle off in two gulps. “I’m only this strong because I have to be by her side. I don’t have a choice.”

“That’s the spirit,” he chuckled, getting me another beer.

“Al, she had a vision of Kaspar Varn and Violet Lee having sex.”

He had his back to me, and made no reply other than a very quiet grunt, which might have just been a response to a cap hitting him in the forehead.

He lay down on his original sofa of choice, head propped up on the arm and his legs flailing over the edge. He raised his fresh bottle. “To English girls!”

I snatched the other bottle from where he had placed it on the table. “To English girls!”