Page 36 of Solstice

“It’s okay if you are. I won’t tell Mother.”

“No,” she said. “I’m, uh—I’m not really his type.”

“What do you mean?”

“He likes men.” She laughed. “At least, privately. Despite the bimbos he has on his arm publicly. Which is why he’s perfect for me.” Again, I was confused, until she continued. “Because I like women.”

Oh…Perhaps we had more in common than I thought. “You know I’m bisexual, right?”

She hung her jaw open, her eyebrows going halfway up her head. “I did not.”

I laughed. “It’s okay to be gay, Abigail.”

“Mother will not approve.”

And that…well…I didn’t have a good answer for that because she was right. Despite Mother’s liberal political agenda, she had been strictly conservative with her own children. If she ever found out about Miri and me, or the four of us, I’d be lucky if she didn’t disinherit me.

“I’m not dating anyone. People are mostly disappointing.” Abigail flipped another page in the book. “They either steal from me or want to steal from me, and I’ve gotten tired of being stabbed in the back.”

Good God.It was like looking in a mirror. I thought of eighteen-year-old me, standing in a dorm room at TWU with Carter, telling him the same thing.

Abigail said it at the same time the words echoed through my mind. “What I do now will reflect on my future self.” Ifexitus acta probatwere the Washington motto, that might be the Evelyn Washington addendum. I smiled, recalling Carter putting his Chicago Bears hat on my head and telling me,“People are mostly good, Weeds.”

“Who told you that?”I had asked him.

“My mother.”It turned out Renee Scott had been right.

“One day, you’ll be old and wish you’d done whatever made you happy.” I smiled, remembering how young we’d both been.

She narrowed her eyes. “Are you happy, Ivy?”

I opened my mouth and looked down at the binder in front of me, containing the bill I’d written with Miri, the one she was flying in next week to help me finalize before I presented it to Congress.

Am I happy?Sometimes. When I was in a cabin in the woods with the people I loved most in the world. When I wasn’t at the whim of a media that scrutinized my every move, a mother that had had my life planned since childbirth, and the threat of a supernatural force that this realm hadn’t seen in a millennium.

Lex strolled into my office before I could answer, looking from me to my sister and back again.

“You’re here late.” He rubbed a hand over Abigail’s head the way he’d always done, and she shoved him away. “Your mother know you’re still working?”

“She’s the one that told me to stay.” Abigail gave him a perfect grin. Unlike Kit, Abigail adored Lex. He’d always been a brother to her, protective and teasing like Jon, annoying and affectionate like our youngest brother, Henry. Lex came to me and leaned down to plant a kiss firmly on my lips.

Abigail groaned and flipped the book closed. “Get a room.”

“You’re in my house, kid.” Lex straightened and shifted his gaze to me. “You put up with this all day?”

“She’s not so bad.” I laughed. “Reminds me of someone I used to know.”

“Ugh, me too.” Lex looked at Abigail. “Not in a good way. That’s not a compliment.”

“If it’s my sister you’re referring to, I’ll take it.” Abigail shot him a teasing grin.

I laughed, and Lex shook his head, running a finger down the side of my face.“There’s been an update on Smythe. We should move soon.”Lex gave me a visual of what he’d been able to find based on Kit’s initial search. He worked at Portland College in Maine, but nothing about his behavior would suggest he’d gotten nervous about the king or the queen.“If the king is out, he doesn’t know, or he’s acting like it doesn’t matter.”

Lex had thought he’d seen the queen at the cabin, and Miri had felt her presence. While Carter and I had slept through the whole thing, I believed them. We needed to know what Smythe knew. The reason we hadn’t acted yet had to do with not knowing his motivations. Did he want back into Faerie? Did he miss his old companions? Maybe he’d be pissed Miri had built a wall of thistles around the place. If no one could get out, certainly no one could get in. Maybe he didn’t know they’d fallen. Or perhaps he didn’t want us to know about it.

Going to him could expose us and announce we’d brought home more than memories both times we’d gone to Ireland. Smythe knew what Lex could do, but that wasn’t enough to make him come asking questions. And if he found out about the rest of us, we didn’t know what danger that could bring.

“I agree. It’s time for a visit.”

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