“But now I can help for real. Now that I’ve become a pixie-”
He shudders when I say the word, but I keep talking. “I’m much stronger; I can do so much more now. I couldn’t even get here, couldn’t come bring you back, if I stayed human. I could only come if I was fae.” And a queen, but I don’t say that.
He whirls around. “Then you should have stayed there. You should have stayed human.”
“Without you?” My stomach twists. I press my hand into it. My voice is a plea. “I had to find you. We need you. Issie and Devyn and-everyone. We need you. It’s gone crazy. There are two other kings around; my dad’s dead. The town is in total chaos. There are FBI agents there. More than twenty people are gone.”
“So you need me to fight.” He snorts. “That’s why they want me here too. Because I’m supposedly such a great warrior.”
“You are.”
“If I was, I wouldn’t have died, would I? If I was, I wouldn’t be here and you wouldn’t have turned pixie to save me. I’d be back in Bedford protecting you from them, and now-ah-now you are one of them.” He cringes and backs up against the wall, his arms wrapping around his trunk. “Oh God, Zara… I can’t believe you did this. You aren’t even human anymore. You aren’t you.”
“I am me. I am still me.” I step toward him. My voice is a quiet want. “I did it for you.”
He shakes his head and closes his eyes.
I give up. I rush over to him and take his forearms in my hands and try to pull them down so I can reach in and hug him, press my head against his chest like I always used to when I was human. He cringes again.
“I. Am. Still. Zara,” I insist. I wrap my arms around him, press as close to him as I can. “Please, please, believe me.”
He tightens up, but he doesn’t push me away. Every fear I’ve ever had is nothing-nothing-compared to this. This horror of him not loving me, of not hugging me back when I hug him, of not wanting me near him.
“It doesn’t matter,” I whisper.
After a second he goes, “What?”
I don’t answer.
“What doesn’t matter, Zara?” he asks.
“That you don’t love me. That you hate me now. What matters is that you can come back home. You hating me is just-it’s just- I can be okay with that as long as you are there.” I gasp out the words and let go of him, rush-turning away, but he grabs me by the arms and pulls me back to him.
His deep brown eyes stare into mine. His lips move. “I love you.”
“What?”
I don’t think I got it.
“I still love you, Amnesty,” he says. He swallows hard. “I love you so much. It just-it just kills me that you changed to save me. I don’t know…”
For a moment I cannot speak. Wiping my cheeks dry, I try to push the feelings of hurt out of me, try to be the leader I’m supposed to be, and say, “I’m taking you home with me.”
A woman’s voice comes from the doorway. “Like Loki you are.”
Nick stiffens and I turn around, even though I recognize the voice. Thruth, the Valkyrie.
“Oh, not you,” I mumble.
Thruth storms into the room. “Yes, me.”
“Don’t try to intimidate her,” Nick scolds the Valkyrie.
“I don’t have to try. Even as a queen she’s puny and weak,” the Valkyrie spits out.
I stomp toward her and point. I’ve so had it with her. “That is so not nice.”
“You don’t even talk like a queen.” She glares at me.
Nick raises an eyebrow at me. “You’re a queen ?”
I walk to the edge of the bed, stand just a few inches away from her. Power rolls off her. “Okay, please refrain from your insidious comments, which are obviously geared to inflict harm upon my psyche. I do not appreciate it.”
Nick cracks up. “Well, you are the same Zara.”
I turn to smile at him and reach out my hand. He takes it. His fingers in mine are easily the best, most amazing-feeling fingers ever.
“I’m taking him home,” I announce. “I have come for him and we’re leaving.”
“You cannot,” she blusters. “You can’t just leave. Nick must go through a ceremony. His memory must be purged of his stay here. There are certain rules, ways. You can’t just expect those to be ignored because of your trivial wishes, your ludicrous love.”
Nick loses his smile completely, and for a second I think he’s going to let go of my hand. Instead, he pulls me to his side and growls. “Valkyrie. You have no right.”
“Don’t tell me what rights I do and do not have, wolf.” She straightens up even more, looks like she’s ready to fight.
“Fine,” I cut in.
She taps her long blue fingernails against the bedpost. She looks at Nick. “Do you choose to leave the sacred halls of Valhalla, to renounce your rightful place as a warrior of Odin, and return with her?”
He hesitates. He closes his eyes for a moment and he actually hesitates before his voice comes out gruff and slow. “Yes, I do.”
The words seem to hang in the air, powerful. Thruth bristles even more.
“I shall be back for you again, wolf.” She fast-turns out of the room and flutters away, all purpose and fury.
“I really can’t believe she’s on the good side,” I say.
Nick groans a little as he moves.
I study him. “Are you still hurt?”
“Not really.” He’s panting, though, and there are little stress lines around his eyes.
“You are such a bad liar. Sit down.” I motion toward the bed.
He resists, but I push his chest gently and he falls back on the sheets. There’s a faint shimmer of sweat on his forehead. He’s paler than he should be too. I didn’t even notice that before. I rest my hand on his forehead. He smiles.
“I can’t stand that you’re a pixie,” he murmurs.
“I know.” I close my eyes for just a second. “Most of the time I can’t stand it either.”
“Most of the time?” His voice cracks and I’m not sure if it’s because he’s upset or because he’s still healing. I don’t want to push him too far right now, overload his brain.
I lightly trace his too-big eyebrows and say, “I want you to rest.”
“Just for a minute,” he agrees. His voice is hoarse and sleep deep.
I keep my hand on his forehead, hoping it will calm him down, make him feel safe. “Mmm-hmm…”
In about thirty seconds he falls asleep. I can’t resist the urge. I crawl into bed next to him and drape my arm across his chest. There is something so good about this moment. I can hear his breaths. He’s alive and he’s Nick and he obviously has some issues about me being pixie but he can get over it. I know it.
Still, a tiny bit of fear gnaws away at my stomach. Worry nestles inside my bones.
Because Mrs. Nix is dead and Betty is all feral and Nick is about to lose his memory and I am a pixie and there is war everywhere and danger everywhere and even though we are together and that is so good-good-good, nothing really is the same, and it won’t ever be the same again.
And part of me feels like I’ve betrayed Astley.
I watch Nick sleep for hours, it seems, just thinking, memorizing his face, and eventually I fall asleep too.
They will take all of Nick’s memories of being here. It is part of the conditions to getting him home, and while I’m not too cool about that, I guess it’s worth it. I get to remember because:
1. I’m a queen and therefore the rules are different for me (this is totally unfair).
2. I was not brought here by a Valkyrie.
3. I did not die.
4. Blah. Blah. Blah.
We follow the bridge back. We ride the horse because Nick isn’t fully recovered. The slope is extreme and powdery dust molecules lift into the air as the horse moves slowly and carefully down the yellow part of the rainbow. With each step, Nick grows wearier. He battles to keep his eyes open. Eventually, I have to hold him up so he doesn’t fall off the horse. The weight of him is massive. As we ride I watch him sleep. I press my hand against his face, count his breaths. I trace the line of his ear with my fingertip. Every single inch of him is so precious to me. I want to shackle myself to him, bind our hands together, make it so that he can never be taken from us again. And I think of the other people I love who are gone, like Mrs. Nix and my stepdad, or who are vulnerable, like Issie and Astley, Devyn and Cassidy, my mom. I wish there was some magic way that we could always be together. Losing them would be as horrible as losing Nick.