Liam put his hands on his head, and I saw steam rising where the sweat glistened on him. “I don’t, I don’t remember. I woke up and it was hot, and everything was burning. Even the metal. That doesn’t even make sense.”
“I can help you, Mr. Stone, and I will. I believe the bracelet will control your episodes for the time being. First we will find you housing.”
“He can stay at my place,” I said.
It just slipped out, and Liam skewered me with a glance. Grimm got there second, but his death stare didn’t feel like much. “Marissa, your guest room is occupied. And of course, Mr. Stone, how would you feel about spending time with Marissa?”
Liam looked at me full-on, the first time he had done anything but glare at me since I first saw him, and it made me shiver and want to cry at the same time. “I’d rather be roasted on my own forge. I’d rather have my hand nailed to this table. Do you have any idea what you put me through? I had the best days of my life with you, and I felt like I could share with you, and you didn’t look through me, you looked at me. Then you take me to that restaurant—why couldn’t you do it in private?”
I was struck into silence. I knew this was coming, and yet every word hit me harder.
“You had to do it in public. Tell everyone how I made the mistakes. How I misread the signs, and you leave me there in a room full of people and they whisper.” He kept clenching and opening his fists, like he was barely in control.
“You know what the worst part was? It wasn’t the end. It was the beginning. That’s the thing I keep going over. I went down to the pier to be alone, and I look up and there you are, and the sun hits you, and I keep thinking you’re glowing.” Liam looked down at the table and hung his head.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
He snapped his head up, his jaw set, his mouth square. “Don’t you dare say that. I spent the better part of a week waking up and wishing you’d call me and do it all over again just so I could be with you. Now I’m having blackouts. I’m waking up miles from where I went to sleep and I think I’m setting fires.”
“Mr. Stone,” said Grimm, “I do not believe you are directly responsible for these fires, and as I’ve stated, I believe I can help with your problem. I’ll arrange appropriate housing.” Grimm’s eyes flashed to me. “And a treatment protocol.”
“Why?” said Liam, his voice suspicious.
“I feel for your predicament, Mr. Stone, and I know that Marissa would demand I help you anyway.”
He could have left that last part out. Without warning, Liam seized the stapler at the end of the desk and hurled it at the mirror, shattering it from top to bottom. “I don’t want your help if it has anything to do with her.”
I spun my chair to the door. “I’ll go. Stay and I’ll go. I won’t come back, I promise. I swear.”
I hit the lobby door so hard it broke, rushed into the hall, and cursed the elevator that never seemed to come.
Ari stood behind me, silently waiting. We rode down to the parking lot without speaking. When the door opened she finally asked. “Who was that?”
“My most recent professional mistake.”
“I’ve made a lot of mistakes. I don’t look at any of them the way you look at him. What did you do?” She followed along behind me to the car.
I put the car into gear and swung out of the lot. “Let me tell you exactly how we get a prince and a princess together.”
Twenty
ARI STARED AT me the whole way home as I explained. “And you do this all the time?”
“It works. At least it does when I get things right. I meet Mihail, break his heart, you show up at the right time and put it back together. You’re holding his heart already at that point. Love is easy. Love is cheap.”
Ari shook her head. “I don’t buy that. Love is something special that happens when the world aligns just right.”
I pulled into my building’s garage and turned off the car. “Well, in that case, I’ve spent the last six years aligning people. Except this time I screwed up. I saw Liam, and I thought for sure I saw the magic on him.”
Ari looked at me like I had a third eye. I knew a doctor in Kingdom who specialized in removing third eyes, but had never had the occasion to use him. She raised one eyebrow. “You saw the what?”
“Magic. Prince magic? Princess magic? I swear, you folks look like magical snow globes when the sun hits you right. I saw it on him. I thought I did. Grimm figures I was looking for a boyfriend.”
Ari spent a moment waving her hands wildly around her head and looking at them.
“Settle down. Any more shaking and you’ll have a seizure. You can’t see it?” Admittedly, Ari was hardly a first-string princess, but she had enough magic about her to look like a disco ball at times. That was the seal bearer in her at work.
She shook her head. “How many boyfriends have you had?”
“Counting Liam, one.”
“How many friends do you have?”
“Counting you, one.” I looked at her and was relieved to see a smile. That feeling down inside me, like autumn sun, was new and different. Then I remembered: This was what it felt like to be happy.
That evening, as we ate dinner, I thought about what Grimm had said. I wasn’t to talk to anyone about the fae. That meant he didn’t want me scaring anyone, and that meant Grimm didn’t know what was going on with them. The fae had killed the wolves and looked for something. Something the wolves thought we took.
“I was thinking,” I said, “maybe I can help you. I’m not sure I understand magic. Grimm says if I were any less magically inclined I’d start cancelling spells out, but I got an A plus on my English lit projects. Might as well have gotten my degree in deciphering strange languages.”
“You know as much as I do about using magic.” Ari ran her fingers over the spine of her book as if doing so would extract knowledge, or give her a spell to wash the dishes. It didn’t, so she put down the book and picked up a sponge.
When the dishes were done, we studied in earnest. It turned out I wasn’t terrible at magic. I just lacked any ability with it. Of course, if magic tomes were written in plain English, things would have been easier.
Salaium bound in round, for instance: Why not say “Pour a circle of salt around the princess like she’s a slug?” Not that I ever poured salt on slugs. Once Grimm showed me what slugs were actually here for, I loved those little slimy monopods. Every time I turned over a board and saw them crawling back and forth, part of me was happy knowing at least that day there wouldn’t be a demon apocalypse.
I admit I considered trying to shrivel up Ari until she went away. The problem was I had grown used to having someone to talk to. So I poured the table salt in a circle around her, and I only sprinkled a little on her hand. Just to see what would happen. Getting the circle set up, of course, led to the more difficult part.
Ari drew in her energy for the thousandth time. I felt it when she did, and I’ve got to say if this is what the witches in legends were like, I bet they could tear things apart. The dishes in the cupboard clinked and shook as if we were having an earthquake.
Ari brought her hands together and whispered to herself, “Now focus.”
A tiny light glowed, like a firefly, and that’s about when the first lightbulb exploded.
“More focus,” I said. I had a bag full of broken lightbulbs from the day’s practice already.
She bit her lip and the firefly became a match, glowing soft orange. Pictures flew off the wall, flying across the room to bounce off the circle’s edge. Ari cupped her hands like she was holding a baseball. “Now, take form.”