“What the fuck?” I step in front of Clementine, braced for a fight.
But apparently, we’re not the targets. Instead, the guards seize Henri and his two friends—none of whom look exactly surprised. Then again, they probably saw it coming.
“Hey!” Clementine shouts, pushing past me. “Let them go!”
“Now that I have a matched set?” my mother asks, brows raised. “I don’t think so, dear.”
A wave of her hand has the guards dragging the oracles toward the portal. “So nice of you to find Henri for me, Giuseppi and Fernando. And kudos on your little storm—I did so enjoy the waves. Now, if you will excuse me. This sand really is wreaking havoc on my pedicure.”
I lunge for her, but she disappears into the portal before I can even get close.
“No need for violence, dear man!” Henri says to the guard dragging him along. “I just want to say goodbye to my daughter first.”
When the fae pays him absolutely no mind, I grab him by the arm—and get several fists to my face and body for my trouble from the other fae guards.
In the confusion, Henri reaches out as if to grab Clementine. But the guard jerks him away at the last second, and his hand bumps Simon instead.
“I’ll be fine!” he calls as they shove him into the portal. “But remember! The future is just a flip of the coooooooooin.”
His voice echoes as he disappears.
I race toward the portal—we all do—but the last fae guards beat us to it, and just like that, it closes.
“What the fuck just happened?” Izzy asks, looking as bewildered as I feel.
“Nothing good,” Clementine answers.
“You want me to build a portal?” Remy asks. “We can follow them.”
“We don’t even know where they went,” Izzy tells him. “Just because they have the Fae Guard with them doesn’t mean they returned to the Fae Court. And if they did, they’ll definitely be waiting for us when we get there.”
“She’s right,” Clementine says grimly. “We need to figure out what’s going on before we do anything else.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you can start with me,” Simon says, and he sounds stranger than I’ve ever heard him.
Mozart must think so, too, because she whirls around. “What’s wrong?”
“I think I have a problem,” he answers. “Everything suddenly looks really weird. And I’m pretty sure it’s because Clementine’s dad left me a gift.”
“What kind of—” Clementine breaks off in horror as he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a large gold coin and holds it up for us to read.
One side says Loves Me, the other side says Not.
“What do you think that means?” he asks.
I’m not sure what the words imply, but I do know what the coin means. “That we are totally fucked.”