Page 25 of Happily Ever Witch
“What are you? The spell police? Shut up and search.” Esmeralda snapped and reached up to touch the crown that was still situated in her curly hair. The longer it stayed stuck to her, the more concerned she became about what kind of magic was keeping it in place.
Why the hell hadn’t someone warned her not to steal it before she stole it?
She cast a fuming glance at the portrait of Alice hanging on the wall, blaming the former-blonde for not giving her a heads up about the damn thing. The artist had captured her un-log-ified state perfectly. Alice’s smug face was majoring in fake lashes, with a minor in concealer, and she didn’t look at all repentant about screwing up Esmeralda’s life.
Damn it, they had to find a way out of Wonderland.
The Rabbit hadn’t been lying. The Heart Castle was enchanted. Trevelyan and Esmeralda couldn’t get farther than the edge of the wide patios, without some mystical barrier stopping them cold. The dragon insisted he could knock down the spell, as soon as his powers returned. Esmeralda wasn’t so sure, but there wasn’t much of a choice except to believe him.
If and when they got past the invisible force field holding them prisoner, they had bigger problems, though. They didn’t know how to escape Wonderland. They needed a map. So far, their search for one had been fruitless, but neither of them was ready to stop ripping shit apart.
That was the way it went with Baddies: Chaos reigned until they got what they wanted.
“The power you used seems unusual for a level one witch.” Trevelyan went on, because he always wanted to talk about shit she didn’t want to talk about. “That’s the lowest score a magical being could earn and still be considered magical. And your spell was… big. Are you sure the tests were right about you?”
“I’m sure that my magic is twitchy.” She answered without answering. No way was she telling him she was a level six. She wasn’t telling him anything she didn’t have to. “I’m not sure how I blasted them all into hogs, if you want to know the truth.”
He didn’t seem entirely appeased by that response. “Define ‘twitchy?’”
“I get laughed out of the Caldron Society on a regular basis.” That about summed it up.
“Am I supposed to know what the Cauldron Society is?”
“It’s the international federation of accredited witches. They have wild parties, and plot world domination, and they’re all snobs who hate me.”
Trevelyan scoffed, as if the two-thousand year old institution of evil witchcraft was beneath his notice. “Do you think you’ll ever be able to restore our new subjects to their former states or will we be ruling over a farmyard forever?”
“No way am I staying in Slumberland forever.” Esmeralda dumped a useless stack of papers onto the heart-shaped rug. The entire interior of the palace seemed to be decorated in heart-shaped furnishings. And most of it was pink or red. “I’ll figure something out.
That was the official-unofficial slogan of her life.
Most people were probably awed by the soaring asymmetrical architecture of the palace. Maybe Esmeralda would be too, is she wasn’t a prisoner in its whimsical walls. The castle was interesting, in a strange and off-kilter way. According to some important looking papers she’d already trashed, it had been built by the fabled Wonderland Carpenter, who was a strange and off-kilter man.
The palace he designed was a bizarre mix of turrets, and balconies, and stairways that curved off at impossible angles. Nothing within its twisty walls made any sense. Tiny doors led to nothing. Hallways shrunk as you walked down them. Daisy chains of chandeliers randomly populated the ceilings, every which way. The pink and red furniture was all covered in pattern upon eye-popping pattern, style upon disparate style. It was probably one of the most unique castles in any kingdom. A real monument to creativity and art. Some people even claimed it had a sort of sentience.
Esmeralda got all that. …She just didn’t give a shit.
“You know, being stranded here indefinitelycouldbe fun.” Trevelyan lifted a shoulder. “We’re basically the only ones left in this section of Wonderland, since you’ve enchanted everyone else. Shipwreck survivors on a deserted shore. It will be up to us to repopulate the whole land.”
“I’d sooner procreate with one of the pigs.”
Her scumbag True Love looked amused by that. “Hogs, darling. They’re hogs.” It was impossible to insult the guy. He seemed delighted by her snarking.
Trevelyan had ditched the robe, somewhere along the line. Now he wore an obnoxious ankle-length trench coat with decorative flames embroidered along the bottom hem. She could only imagine that he’d magically created it for himself with his recuperating powers, since it fit his wide chest like a second skin. It was so frustrating that he looked amazing in it and even more frustrating that she’d noticed.
The True Love bond between them was a real pain in the ass. The biological imperative to be with the man was drowning out all logical thought. Telling her that she should drag Trevelyan off to ravish his body, and trust him with her secrets, and protect him against all his enemies, and curl up beside him to sleep at night. Assuring her that everything would be happily-ever-after now that she’d found him. Insisting that this man was theonlyman and she should ignore all the reasons why he was horrible.
And there were a lot of big, blinking reasons why this jackass was horrible.
Trevelyan was a black pit of self-involvement, evil schemes, and hatred. Esmeralda was a smart girl. She couldfigure out a way to free herself from the prison/castle, escape Dunderland, and go back to the Four Kingdoms, alone. Running was the best play.
But, she’d wanted her True Love forso long.
The dragon might be a disaster, but he was her only shot at having her dream. How could she just walk away, after a couple hours, when Trevelyan was… hers?
“If we ever did have kids, you’d probably eat them.” She muttered.
“Only the disappointingly Good ones.”
