The blacksmith shook his head. “I know that look. That’s the look of love lost.” Pushing off the railing, he crossed to the steps, boards creaking under his girth. He lumbered off the porch and came around to me. “It’s been a hard day, my lady. No matter what it might feel like, Sir Bryce loves you.”
I would have snorted if I could have. Instead, I nodded and stared nobly into the blackness, looking at absolutely nothing. “Perhaps.”
“He does care for you,” the smith insisted. “He told me as much.”
A little flutter went through my heart. “He did?” I breathed. “What did he say?”
“When you were fighting the dragon, he said he realized how amazing you are.”
The fluttering inside me turned to ice. I’d hoped Bryceregretted the potion as much as I did. But after seeing me as a hero fighting a dragon, he’d come to his senses and realized he liked this new version of me more. Now he was yet another person who liked my outsides better than my insides.
I’d always suspected he’d like Chosen One Courtney far more than he’d ever cared for Normal Courtney. Normal Courtney was never enough. Normal Courtney was someone’s brief infatuation until curiosity was satisfied, and they learned she was nothing more than exactly what she looked like. Normal Courtney was the selfish bitch, the lazy deadbeat, the washed-up loser.
Tears burned in the back of my throat. It was all too much. Pushing past the blacksmith, I ran. I didn’t know where I was going, only that I needed space.
This world won its little game. I learned my lesson. I’d been put in my place and molded into something that the rest of the world could accept. I’d experienced “growth,” and yet I’d never felt smaller.
I’d changed for the better. I’d worked hard, and people had faith in me. I was well on my way to defeating Big Bads and completing my hero’s journey. I was perfect and lovable.
My old dream had come true.
Now, the dream was a nightmare.
CHAPTER 41INWHICHI GOTHROUGHMYEMOPHASE
BRYCE
I woke up in the middle of the night with an aching dread in my chest telling me something was wrong. The space beside me in bed was empty. The panicked feelings of a nine-year-old boy consumed my body. It was irrational, I knew. Courtney could’ve just stepped out for a second.
Still, I sprang out of bed. At the last minute, I grabbed the pebble she’d given me off the nightstand, clinging to it like I was trying to hold on to hope. A knot formed in my throat. Images flickered in my mind. Scraped knees and slugs on rough concrete. Slammed doors, angry screams.
I ran outside. Turned in a circle. Saw only emptiness.
She’d left.
I fell to my knees.
It was all very dramatic.
Since the day I’d started to care, our relationship had been on a timer. Happiness was the beginning of the end. Always was. Always would be. Not even a potion could keep her from leaving me. Not even magic could keep her loving me.
I tried to slow the frantic spinning of my thoughts. I was jumping to conclusions. Courtney wouldn’t have gone far.
Unless she went to save the world without me. That would mean only she could open the portal. That would mean she was planning to leave me here.
I’d already been left once by someone who I assumed would never leave. If I didn’t know my own mother well enough to see the warning signs, I couldn’t know Courtney well enough either.
“Are you all right, Sir Bryce?” a voice asked.
A strangled noise left my throat as I whirled around. The blacksmith stood there in the shadows like he’d been waiting for exactly this key moment to step in with critical information.
“I’m quite all right,” I said, even though I wasn’t.
“Nay. Your face speaks of love lost,” the blacksmith said. “Your lady friend left you?”
“What makes you think that?”
“I saw her leave you.”
