The Everafter Wish Page 8

  I think I love you, so please don’t die.

  Stars! Why hadn’t she said the same thing back to him? What if she never got the chance now? Dammit, she had to find the Godmother and beg, bargain, wish, whatever it took. She had to put a stop to this. But where, in the midst of all this chaos, would she find the woman?

  Her eyes landed on a familiar figure running up the stairs toward her. “Elle!” Xander shouted. “You need to get out of here!” He was about halfway up the staircase when a furry shape—a wolf—leaped from the base of the stairs and raked its claws down his back. Xander went down beneath the weight of the creature. He threw magic blindly behind him, but not before the wolf tore its teeth along his arm.

  “No!” Elle shrieked. She ran down the stairs, silver magic flashing away from her before her hands were even half raised. Her magic struck the wolf and sent it tumbling down the stairs. It shifted form, and by the time it reached the bottom step, it was Jax who stood to face Elle.

  “What the hell?” she roared, blood smearing her face and hands.

  “What are you doing?” Elle shouted, positioning herself between Jax and Xander. “Why are you here? I thought you—”

  “My pack is gone!” Jax yelled. “These people ruined my life. I will tear through every single one of the king’s men if I want to, and you will not get in the way of my revenge. They’ve had this coming for—”

  “That’s Dex’s best friend!” Elle shouted. “He’s not your enemy! He had absolutely nothing to do with your imprisonment!”

  “But … he …”

  “What have you done?” Turning her back to Jax, Elle dropped onto her knees beside Xander. Her hands hovered above him, but she had no idea how to help. “Xander,” she said in a shaky voice. “Xander, can you hear me?”

  His chest still rose and fell, which was a good sign. His eyelids fluttered, and his expression twisted in pain. “I … I think I’m okay.” He attempted to sit but couldn’t raise himself more than a few inches before falling back against the stairs. “Holy stars,” he whispered, his eyes growing wider. “Is that … is that a bite?”

  Elle followed his gaze to the gashes running down his arm. She couldn’t lie—the truth was plain for both of them to see—nor could she bear to force the truth past her lips. “You’ll be okay,” she said. “You’ll be fine.” She didn’t say what both of them already knew. That shifter magic was probably working its way through his system already, mingling with his Essence. That at some point, he would be forced to change form. That he would never be the same again.

  But he was alive. That was the important part.

  Something buzzed near Elle’s face, and she automatically lifted her hand to swat it away. But it grabbed hold of her finger, and before she could shake the tiny creature loose, she realized it was a pixie clinging to her hand. “Tash?”

  Tash let out a series of frenzied squeaks, and Elle was already shaking her head before the tiny woman was finished. “I can’t understand you. You have to slow down.” Tash tried again, pointing frantically upward. “I’m sorry … I still don’t …”

  Tash shoved Elle’s finger away and began darting through the air in random, jerky patterns. Gold dust fell away from her body, leaving streaks in the air, and before long, Elle realized the patterns weren’t random at all. Tash was spelling out letters.

  Elle rose to her feet, barely breathing as words slowly took form in the air in front of her.

  * * *

  Godmother

  North

  Tower

  Elle had no idea where Belmont Palace’s north tower was, but apparently Tash did. She zipped through the air while Elle ran as fast as she could to keep up. She raced along passages and up staircases, the folds of her blue skirt clutched in her hands, and her hair streaming behind her. When she finally reached a spiral staircase within a cylindrical structure, she was pretty confident she was ascending a tower.

  The room at the very top was empty save for a simple wooden staircase leading up to a trapdoor in the ceiling. Tash hovered near the top of the steps, pointing up. “Okay,” Elle gasped, bending over as her chest heaved and she struggled to catch her breath after all those stairs. “Through the trapdoor. I get it. I just need … a moment.”

  But people were fighting downstairs, and every moment was a moment too long, so she straightened and began climbing the rickety wooden steps. As her head neared the ceiling, she bent over, climbed another step or two, then reached up with both hands. She pressed against the trapdoor. It opened easily. She pushed further, climbed another step, and let the trapdoor fall open completely. A cool breeze drifted past her face as she climbed the last remaining stairs, stepped onto the top of the tower, and looked around.

  And there she was. The Godmother. Sitting on the stone bench that ran all the way around the inner edge of the tower. Tailored pantsuit; short, white, perfectly styled hair; flawless, wrinkle-free skin; and of course, the scepter clasped in her hand, its red gem glowing brightly. “Thank you, Tash,” the Godmother said, and the pixie fluttered away.

  Elle barely had time to register that Tash was somehow helping the Godmother, not her, before the sounds of fighting reached her ears. She stepped toward the edge of the tower and looked down. Far below, figures darted back and forth, and flashes of magic brightened the night. Elle looked at the Godmother and opened her mouth to begin pleading.

  The Godmother snapped her fingers. The noise stopped. Elle looked down again, and though her brain told her it wasn’t possible, her eyes told her that everyone down below was frozen in place. “What just happened?” she whispered.

  “Right now,” the Godmother said, “Belmont Palace exists within a bubble of magic. Outside, time marches on. Inside, everyone is frozen. Except for the two of us.”

  Elle stared at the woman, her pulse throbbing in her ears. “How the hell are you so powerful?”

  She smiled. “That’s a story for another day.”

  “How can you smile right now? You have the power to put an end to all this fighting—you can stop time, apparently—but instead you’re sitting up here watching people kill each other? And smiling while it happens?”

  “I was waiting for you, Elle. You should have got here sooner.”

  “Oh, so this is my fault?”

  “Let’s stop with all this animosity.” She changed her scepter from her left hand to her right and crossed one leg over the other. She patted the stone bench beside her. “Come and sit.”

  “No.”

  The Godmother arched an eyebrow.

  “Fine.” Elle had, after all, come up here with the intention of doing whatever the Godmother asked if she agreed to put a stop to the fighting. May as well start with sitting when the Godmother commanded her to do so. She lowered herself to the stone slab and folded her arms across her chest.

  The Godmother smiled once more. “I have a wedding present for you.” She held the scepter—the staff with which she controlled the enhanced vampire army—toward Elle.

  Elle eyed it with suspicion and made no move to take it. “I’m not getting married.”

  “An early wedding present then. We all know it’s going to happen. Hopefully sooner rather than later.”

  Still, Elle didn’t reach for the scepter. “What trick is this?”

  “No trick, I assure you.”

  “We asked you to destroy the scepter before. To free the vampires. You refused. Why should I believe you’ve suddenly had a change of heart?”

  “Oh, there’s been no change of heart. I never intended to keep the scepter.”

  “But … you’ve had it in your possession since the moment you killed Savoy.”

  “Yes.” The Godmother nodded. “Somebody needed to take care of it while you went off on your quest. And, well, it was backup in case you and Dex didn’t return from the Never Woods and the king came after me. I might have needed a vampire army then. But aside from that small potential hiccup, I always intended to give this scepter to the future young rulers
of this land, provided things worked out the way I hoped they would.” She paused, motioning again for Elle to take the scepter. “That means you and Dex, by the way, in case you hadn’t figured that out.”

  Finally, Elle reached forward and took the scepter. Its smooth, wooden surface was cool beneath her palm. “I can tell you now that Dex doesn’t want a vampire army.”

  “No, I didn’t think so. Which means he’ll destroy the gem and set those vampires free.” The Godmother smiled. “It’ll do wonders for fae-vampire relations. Which, again, is what I hoped for.”

  Elle frowned at the gem. “How is any of this part of what you hoped for? You asked me to kill Dex. Remember? Now you’re telling me you actually hoped he’d one day be king?”

  “Yes.”

  “So … you don’t actually want to defeat King Belaric? You don’t want the throne for yourself?”

  “Oh, goodness, no. I’ve never wanted to rule anything except the wish trade.”

  “But … no! None of that makes sense! You don’t make sense!”

  The Godmother leaned back against the tower’s edge and sighed. “Elle. Do you have any idea of the extent of the wish granting going on around you at all times? It’s happening everywhere in the world, every minute, but even more so in Vale City.”

  “Because of you and your empire.”

  “Yes. Though I’ll happily answer a summons from anywhere in the world, if someone calls for me. I have agents everywhere, in case I can’t make it. But what I’m trying to explain, Elle, is that wishes are connected. A single wish rarely affects only one person. A person’s wish may have a direct effect on another person who then, in response, wishes for something else. Or wishes for the opposite. Or someone wishes for something and it becomes the answer to someone else’s wish. Wishes end up wrapping around each other and becoming entwined. It gets complicated.”

  Elle laid the scepter across her lap. “What’s your point?”

  “King Belaric isn’t the only member of the royal family I’ve dealt with.”

  Elle narrowed her eyes. “Dex would never, and he said his mother tried to wish away the Darkness years ago, but the price—”

  “Will you let me speak?” the Godmother asked.

  Elle pressed her lips together.

  “Thank you. Now, the person I’m speaking of is Queen Amra, and you’re correct. She did summon me years ago for a wish that she ended up deciding not to go through with. She tried to wish away the Darkness from Dex, and I told her the price would be to take away the power I granted her husband. I always regretted granting that wish. King Belaric turned out to be far worse than I could have hoped, while both his sons turned out to be fairly decent.”

  “Why didn’t you just undo the wish then?” Elle demanded. “You have that kind of power.”

  The Godmother fixed a puzzled expression on Elle. “That’s not the way magical contracts work. And what kind of reputation would I have if I went back and altered wishes I’d already granted? Honestly, what kind of business do you think I’m running?”

  “A business where you make up all the rules?” Elle asked.

  For a moment, a genuine smile brightened the Godmother’s face as she looked at Elle with newfound appreciation. But she returned quickly to her neutral expression. “Anyway, the queen decided for some reason—most likely fear of her husband’s retribution—that she couldn’t pay the price I asked. As the years passed, however, she grew desperate once more. She knew that Dex would die. She knew he needed an heir, and she knew he was running out of time. So after her husband planned the Moonlight Masquerade Ball, she summoned me again. As I told you before, I don’t generally deal a second time with someone who refuses to pay a price, but … well … I break my own rules sometimes when I’m curious enough. And a queen’s wish is always bound to be an interesting one.”

  “So that must have been quite recent,” Elle said. “What did she wish for?”

  “She wished for me to find her son the perfect wife, and that the two of them would have a happily ever after, no matter how short it might be.”

  Elle’s heart thudded a little faster. “Did you agree to grant her this wish?”

  “I did. And she agreed to pay the price, the specifics of which are not relevant to this conversation. I told her I would find someone, but I couldn’t guarantee how long it would take. She said that wasn’t acceptable; she didn’t know how close her son might be to death. She said he appeared much healthier than his brother, but still, she didn’t want to take any chances.

  “She gave me the masquerade ball as a deadline. I told her that was too soon. A month after the ball, I said. And I made sure she understood that even if I found the perfect person, Dex would have to decide for himself if he wanted to marry her. I’m not interested in forcing something like that.”

  “I didn’t realize negotiating with you was an option.”

  “Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn’t.”

  “You make the rules,” Elle muttered.

  “Exactly. Anyway, I placed a few options in the prince’s path to test them out. They all failed.”

  “Failed? What did these people have to do in order to—”

  “It was different for all of them, and none of them knew they were being tested. Some of them didn’t even know it was a prince they were dealing with.”

  “So then—”

  “You were the only one, Elle.” The Godmother’s dark gaze warmed somewhat. “You were the only one who passed.”

  Elle’s mouth dropped open. “But—what? When did you test me?”

  “It was perfect.” The Godmother stared past her, a smile on her lips. “You summoned me. I took your hand and saw that you’d already met him. You’d spent time with him, and he liked you. But you still needed to prove yourself. So I gave you a test.” Her eyes refocused on Elle’s. “The price of your wish. That was the test.”

  “I—are you—are you kidding?” Fury ignited a fire instantly in Elle’s veins. “Are you freaking KIDDING? You asked me to kill him as a TEST? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Well, I needed to see if you were truly selfless. You said your freedom was about saving your stepsister as much as yourself, which seems selfless, but could I really believe you? I would have known for sure if you’d only been asking for your stepsister’s freedom, but you weren’t. So I had to test you.”

  “But what if I had killed him? That would have completely ruined your plan!”

  “Not really. It would have ruined the queen’s plan, but it wouldn’t have bothered me a great deal. In fact, it might have been more convenient to remove Dex from the picture, given how badly he wanted to kill me. If that had happened, then King Belaric and Queen Amra would have had no heir, and someone from one of the old Houses probably would have ended up wishing for the throne. Or multiple people, more likely. That would have been fun for me.” She paused for a moment, frowning. “Or perhaps the vampires would have been in power by now. Who knows? I’ve been around long enough to know that I can survive anything. I’ve learned to be … flexible. To turn any situation to my advantage. My point, Elle, is that there was no plan for you to ruin. You would either pass or fail your test, and the game board would change accordingly.”

  “The—the game board? Do you even hear yourself?”

  “I do.”

  “Did you know that I tried to trick you? That I wanted to give the prince a potion that would simulate death for long enough to get away from the palace and get my freedom from you? If I’d succeeded with that plan, then I would have failed your test.”

  “But you didn’t succeed with that plan. The point is that you discovered Dex was the prince and were unable to either kill or pretend to kill him, even if that meant sacrificing your freedom.” The Godmother tapped one finger against her chin as she frowned. “You tried to trick me?” she repeated, as if only fully grasping this part now. “Interesting. I’m impressed.”

  “And then you stabbed Dex when we were in that Eternal
Night,” Elle reminded her. “You were going to leave him for dead.”

  The Godmother rolled her eyes. “Oh, Elle. You really are quite slow. I needed somebody to wish for him to be healed. Completely healed. So I could remove the Darkness from him. Nobody else was going to do it, and apparently it didn’t occur to you that you could wish for it—or, more likely, you planned never to bargain with me again—so I had to force your hand.”

  “You’re … just … wow. Your level of manipulation is unbelievable.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And what if, after all of this, I never wanted to be with Dex?” Elle asked. “What if he’s not the perfect person for me? Or does it only matter than I’m the perfect person for him?”

  The Godmother gave Elle a knowing look. “This part of your argument is pointless, since you know full well he’s perfect for you, and you’ve been dreaming of white dresses and saying ‘I do’ and having all his babies.”

  Elle gaped, her cheeks burning. “I … I haven’t …”

  “But aside from all that, if you can’t see that I’ve been testing him as much as you this entire time, then you’re blind. Would he insist on accompanying us into an Eternal Night to make sure you were safe? Check. Would he insist on being one of your companions for the Starlight Quest? Check. Would he stand beside you to confront his father about the slavery of humans? Check. He passed with flying colors, wouldn’t you say?”

  “I … yes. He did.” Elle looked down at the scepter, then over the edge of the tower where the people below were still frozen in place. “So … what now?”

  “Well, that’s up to you, of course. But if it were me, I’d go downstairs, show everyone the scepter and tell them you got rid of me, free the enhanced vampires linked to the control charm in that gem—which is easy, by the way; doesn’t even take magic to smash that gem—and then tell everyone that it’s possible for humans to have magic. King Belaric won’t even lock you up for it, considering he’ll be more concerned about the last decade or so of memories he’s now missing.”

  Elle’s gaze jumped back to the Godmother. “How do you know I took his memories? You were already on your way here when I did that.”