Page 72 of Beltane

No answer, but the churning in my gut said I wasn’t alone. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, goose bumps racing down my arms and the backs of my legs. I remembered the prophecy about her, the one Ashley told us about at Samhain.

“She would use this gift to bring peace to the realms and reunite the humans and fairies.”

Was this what they meant? Would she reunite us now after everything had gone to hell?

“Poppy?” I tried again, walking out into the dining room and kitchen. Still nothing. I froze, training my ears in the dark, and I could have sworn I heard a quiet inhale before another loud zap echoed into the night.

Then she was gone.

28

Ivy

“As you can see, everything’s been roped off for the royal wedding tomorrow,” said the talking head on the television. “And this is no normal royal wedding. There will be no grand parade and no horse-drawn carriages.”

“That’s right, Sidney,” said the co-anchor. “Princess Miriam has always enjoyed her privacy, and after the allegations about her and Representative Washington, she intends to keep her marriage to the prince of Monaco closely guarded.”

A sharp slice cut right through my chest, making my eyes burn. Sure, they’d been hurting since I’d woken up on my pile of books this morning, but hearing that Miri planned to marry that guy agonized me more than anything else ever could.

I should have tried to call her. I should have done anything except hide away in my apartment like I did. But every nerve in my body had been flayed open, and the exposure left me a crumpled mess on the ground. I had barely been able to tolerate her absence the first time. How she’d left again only made me seethe with injustice.

This was not the way it was supposed to work out.

Siobhan had promised that if we made it through the battle unharmed, she would ensure we got home safely. Where was the truth in that? She had lied. They all lied.

“Ivy?” Kit’s voice came from behind me, and I quickly turned the television off before smiling at her. She walked to stand next to me and sighed, wrapping an arm over my shoulder. “You need to stop torturing yourself.”

We had been invited to a family brunch this morning, which was just a fancy way of saying we’d have to run the Washington-Fairfax gauntlet and make nice faces until our cheeks hurt. Kellan and Anna wanted an update on their son, understandably, and I had run out of things to tell them. Yes, I was still in contact with him, and yes, he was still alive somewhere in the world, but no, he wouldn’t take their calls. All fabrications, of course, but what else was I supposed to say?

“She shouldn’t be marrying him,” I told Kit. “She should be here with me…with us.”

Kit stared at me with those ice-blue eyes, now even more alarming after everything that had happened. Neither she nor Jon would talk about their time under the king’s madness, but she had admitted it felt longer than it had been.

“I’m not poly, and I don’t understand a lot of what happened to us, but even I can admit, you four belong together.” Kit pursed her lips. “Want me to hack her phone? Find her location?”

“No.” I clenched my eyes shut and swallowed the burn. “No more. Let it be.”

Carter had convinced me to stop searching for Lex, but even my promise to do that had been an exaggeration. I still kept a running log of things to research in a hidden notepad on my phone, and when I had the time, I went through all of Lex’s old notes from the first time we’d been trying to break into Faerie. I was so sure that if I kept at it, eventually I would find something…anything…that would lead me to him.

He wouldn’t have wanted that. He’d told me to live my life, to marry and have kids and forget about him, to not let Evelyn control me anymore. But that wasn’t who I was. The least I could do was argue with him from the human realm and convince him he was wrong one more time.

Maybe I even lamented the way things had ended with Poppy. I’d loved her, too, once upon a time. The thought of never seeing either of them again pierced my soul and left me half the person I once was.

Kit grabbed my hand and led me back to the patio, where our families sat around the breakfast table. Jon, Abigail, Kellan, and Anna sat on one side, my father and mother at the ends, with me, Kit, and Henry on the other. Literally, the entire family…except for Lex.

His empty seat screamed with his absence, reminding me how I’d left him in Faerie, how I hadn’t done enough to fight for him. I could have brought Carter today. He’d offered to come, but I wouldn’t subject him to this lunacy. Lex and I had no choice; we were born into it. But I had sworn to protect Carter from the fallout.

“Now that you’re back,” Mother said, her icy gaze zeroing in on me, “we must work to improve your brand.”

I didn’t answer, just let her carry on with her rambling, as if any of it mattered. My brand, the Washington legacy, a Congress so full of bureaucracy, nothing would ever get done. My Green initiative had failed, and now my reputation was so far in the gutter, I would be lucky to get anything through in the upcoming session.

I looked again at Lex’s empty seat next to me, wondering how long they would let me get away with saying he was still in Fuji before they sent Uncle Dmitri to track me down and remind me how they handled people who lost their Romanov princes.

“Ivy, you must renew your attempts at the Green Deal,” Kellan said. “I have a few priorities I’d like you to add this time around.”

I nearly groaned at the reminder to keep fighting the good fight. Hidden away in our apartment, I could forget the rest of the world existed. I could forget that I’d been elected to office, that I lived the life of America’s Sweetheart. Lex and I were a power couple, our names synonymous with US royalty. I couldn’t just start walking around with Carter Scott, acting like the last four years of engagement to Lex hadn’t happened.

“Why not?”said the tiny voice in the back of my mind that had started to sound depressingly like my long-lost archnemesis.“You’re stronger than her. You live your own life.”

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