Page 57 of Wickedly Ever After
“Even when they’re human?”
“They’re not human, no matter how much they look it. And most of them don’t look it very much. Alistair can pass because he’s only around seven feet tall, but he’s young. He’s not attained his full growth. His father is over ten feet tall, and his mother is taller—the females usually are. For him, at least, I must unravel where the magical threads got tangled and cut him out of it. I can’t help but think how much of this is my fault for not listening to him. He didn’t want to be the chosen dragon this year, and I blew him off. I thought he could separate his personal feelings from the theater of it, but I was wrong. Perhaps if I’d been more understanding, he wouldn’t have overreacted.”
Not in another ten centuries would she understand the man. What on earth was he trying to do? Earn her sympathy? Assert his own guilt? Or something entirely different—like getting her to play along and blame herself for the princess? She’d already done that in her own mind, thanks. She wouldn’t play games with Hector West. And yet—he seemed entirely honest when heleaned forward, clasping his bony hands over his equally bony knees.
Odd, she’d never thought of him as a man. In her mind’s eye, she’d always imagined him the consummate wicked witch, strolling around his castle in long black garb, stiff, stained, and forbidding. But in these worn, faded trousers with the odd patch in the left knee and a button-up plaid tunic dug off a goblin-resale rack, he appeared utterly ordinary, like someone’s stray husband forgotten on a park bench in autumn.
“We’ll find a way to sort it out,” she said quietly.
His fingers closed over her hand. “Thanks for the confidence.”
“It’s not confidence,” she said, staring at his hand. “You don’t want Happily-Ever-After broken any more than I do, and that’s a strong motivation to work things out. I think I’ll go upstairs to see how Hari is doing. And then we need to fix the sleeping arrangements. With a whole inn to stay in, I believe I’d like a room down the hall for myself and Hari. Now that they’ve taken the potion, it would be better to keep them apart. The love magic is still active after all.”
“I wish I could say that was a good idea,” Hector said. “But I recommend we all stay together. It’s only for one night, and while I can safely say I can keep the inn from burning down or being stormed by bandits, it’s harder to put safeguards on more than one room at a time. The bed isn’t full of rats—we had a piper through last year. And the bedbugs are easily repelled with a burning hex. Please. I insist. You and Hari take the bed.”
***
But Hari didn’t want to sleep in the bed. He lay curled up on the couch, back facing Ida, when she came in and gently asked himif he might be willing to eat dinner, provided she found anything edible in the kitchen.
“I don’t want to eat. I want to be left alone.”
“You’ll feel better if you eat something,” Ida said kindly.
He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling. “I thought the potion was supposed to make me feel better.”
“It will,” Ida said. “Your fever’s come down already.”
“Not that part of it. The other part. But I don’t feel better. I feel empty.”
“That’s why you should eat.”
“Not that kind of empty. I want something—I really want it—but I don’t know what it is.”
“Well, I’ll bring you some stew anyway,” Ida said. “Then you should get some rest. I’ll pull down the sheets and make sure Hector got rid of the bedbugs—”
“I’ll eat. But I’m not sleeping in the bed. I want to sleep here. Alone.”
She didn’t argue with him. Hector and Tinbit could share the bed. She’d drag in a mattress from one of the other rooms and sleep on the floor. Of all the foolishness. She often cooked this up into a spell for the happy couple after the Rescue—a room in an inn with one bed where the lovers must shed the last of their reservations about each other and give in to the magical experience of acting on their passion. But this was ridiculous.
Tinbit opened the door tentatively. “Your Goodness?”
Hari jerked around like he’d been stung.
Tinbit glanced at him, and a red blush bloomed in his pale cheeks. “Hector asked me to ask you if you want to eat in the dining room with him and Belinda or if you’d rather I bring dinner up here.”
“Here, I believe.” She watched Hari’s face closely. He looked hurt but not distraught. She could breathe easier now. It would be all right in the end.
“Very good,” Tinbit said. He glanced at Hari. “I’m glad you’re feeling better. You…you are feeling better?”
“Much better.” Hari flushed slightly. “Thank you for taking care of me.”
“My pleasure,” Tinbit said with a completely friendly, non-romantic smile. He backed out the door.
Hari sat up, twisting the blanket between his fingers. He grimaced. “Ida?”
“Yes?”
“He’s the empty place,” Hari said faintly.
