Chapter 14
14
Over the coming day, I do not rest on the helpful hint from my favorite fae. While I’m eager to pursue whatever event Kethryn announces, there’s no guarantee I’ll find the clue Val insinuated was involved. Even if I do, I need one more.
Hence my efforts on the second full day of the Experience. My scroll counts as one clue, and if I could solve it, I’d find one more. But instead of puzzling over the riddle and wasting time, I decide to look for other clues spread out in the Experience.
I participate in every class and event I can. Fortunately for me, my new strategy is very enjoyable. I go to the Demoniaca card game class, where I duel with Laurel, and where we each get to keep one richly designed card as a souvenir. It’s incredibly fun despite confusing me worse than my uncooperative printer.
Brit doesn’t join us, and Laurel fills me in. Brit had her first child eight months ago, and the Experience is her first extended absence from her daughter, who is in the care of Brit’s mom, Stephanie. In Laurel’s estimation, Stephanie is very well-intentioned, but hardly less needy than the infant.
I’m impressed. Proud, even, of Brit gifting herself self-care and the opportunity to reconnect with her passions. I have no doubt leaving home for the week wasn’t easy—although I would guess puff pancakes and magic makeovers compare favorably to spit-up and sleepless nights.
She rejoins us for lunch, which I follow up with jam making. I do momentarily lose track of the scavenger hunt in favor of making as many jams as possible to take home with me, intending to have fogberry on every foreseeable piece of toast.
The high point is the Elytheum folklore seminar, during which Amelia giddily explained features new worldbuilding legends Winters herself scribed. It’s literally exclusive content in seminar form.
The event is held in a real Hollisboro seminar room, one of the old ones dating from the college’s 1800s founding, with high windows letting the sunlight warm the rows of seats. Listening fascinated in the lecture, I seriously consider reviving my grad school dreams…for about fifteen minutes, until I reality-check myself. Most classes aren’t about my favorite subject in the entire world anyway.
While I find no clues, I do have my nicest day of the Experience yet. Not coincidentally, it is free of Scott. The only events I avoid are the ones I notice him attending—and horseback riding, of which I steer clear despite lots of attendee interest. Horses frighten me, and I’m content to let someone else find that clue.
I enjoy dinner with my new friends. I hang out until late in Laurel and Brit’s room, where I help them edit their “Elytheum Experience Day One” video for social media, and we join Brit for a moment on her FaceTime home. I return to the roommate-less peace of my own suite, where I relax under the covers in surprisingly uncomplicated joy.
I find myself wondering if enchanted queens or noble fae, when they’re not out defending the realm, ever wish for nights working on videos with their friends, or whatever the equivalent is. I would guess they do.
Only the next morning do I start to feel stressed. I’ve made no progress since my West College escapade, while Laurel and Brit have found one clue each. My lead is disappearing.
My friends notice my dispiritedness. “Cheer up, Jen,” Brit encourages me over our puff pancakes in the dining hall. She, I’ve found, is the chattier and older of the pair. Laurel, quieter and easier going, is only twenty-four. “You’ll figure your clue out. I’m happy to look at it, if you want?”
She watches me with eager, innocent eyes.
I pour more fogberry syrup on my pancakes. “And what’s to stop you from figuring it out and claiming the next clue for yourself?” I inquire, matching her forced nonchalance.
She grins slyly. “I mean, it’s a date with Val so…”
I can’t help laughing with them. “All’s fair in love and fandom,” I finish. Of course, no one can be trusted with this prize on the line. Shouldn’t every story of courtly intrigue have subterfuge and suspicion? It’s very in-plot, really.
I just have to keep remembering how my favorite heroines would do it. Diligence. Determination. Endurance. No alliances? No problem. I’ll just go to every event today.
Okay, not horse ones. How can consecutive days feature the horses?
While I’m strategizing, Kethryn stands from her throne.
My mind instantly quiets. I’ve learned the Queen may have something planned…
Yes. I only have to follow exactly whatever Kethryn says.
“We have a slight change in the day’s entertainments,” the Queen announces.
Promising.
“Someone very close to me is celebrating his birthday today and being very difficult about it. As usual,” she says. Perfect. Val does a very commendable job of appearing touched under his usual scowl. “I have offered him the finest delicacies and drinks,” Kethryn continues, “and cloaks, and weapons—”
“And I have already assured you I have everything I want,” Val interrupts her. They lock eyes. The look they exchange is heated.
“You deserve more,” Kethryn returns, her voice low.
Ugh . The sexual tension is delicious. Only a couple like Vethryn can find the fire in discussing birthday plans. For my birthday, Jordan promised me somewhere nice for dinner, then took us to his favorite pasta spot. There were no drawn-out, fraught looks. Not one. I would have contented myself with some nice cheesecake, even.
“My contentment cannot be surpassed,” Val insists.
“If you’re not going to cooperate,” Kethryn responds, softly stern, “I shall settle for granting you what you’ve never dared to wish.”
A combination gasp- aww rises from the crowd. I am part of it. It’s just, Kethryn’s invoked one of the couple’s very final conversations in The Risen Court , the end of the series.
You’re everything I’ve ever wished , Kethryn sighs, her confession in the quiet of morning after their climactic victory.
I have my work set out for me, then , Val replies. All I am left is granting every wish you’ve never dared.
Watching the fantastical couple, my heart swells in my chest. Where would I be without fictional love? If I didn’t have reminders like Elytheum to find comfort in, I would probably never want to date again. Which I do, I know I do. Even amid the embarrassment of my recent, unfortunately public, breakup, I want to find my own noble, swoony love interest.
Just like the characters in front of me. It’s fantasy that helps us face the uncertainties and pains of reality. Anyone who says fiction is just something to hide in doesn’t understand how much hope and strength it can inspire. It isn’t just practice in imagination. It’s a reminder of what I deserve to imagine.
“And besides,” Kethryn adds with vigor, “ I wish to celebrate the day of your birth, and I am the Queen, so we shall!”
Everyone glimpses Val grin as Kethryn faces us again.
“We will have a competition,” she declares. “A race over difficult obstacles, sure to greatly amuse attendees and test the strength and perseverance of the competitors.”
Val purses his lips, looking charmingly intrigued. “I admit, this would please me,” he replies.
Well, it would not please me .
I have gone stiff in my seat. What Kethryn has announced is unambiguously the celebratory clue opportunity Val hinted at the other night. It’s just… really not the proposal I wanted to hear. I’m confident no amount of fantasy-inspired reinvention can change the fact athleticism is not my strong suit. In fact, “athleticism” in my case often consists only of hurrying in the halls at work when I’m late for meetings. I’ve never wanted to work out with friends, knowing I would feel self-conscious.
Val poses the obvious question. “Will there be a prize?”
Kethryn pretends to consider. “Interesting…I suppose it would heighten the stakes…” Her eyes land on her paramour. She smiles.
The room hangs in suspense. Well, except for me. I know where the conversation is going. It’s as unpleasant a feeling as when I inadvertently open to the wrong page and catch a spoiler.
Kethryn plays coy. She shrugs one nonchalant shoulder. “It’s your day, Val,” she remarks. “If it’s a prize you propose, a prize we shall offer. Whoever wins our obstacle race shall receive the court’s favor.”
My gaze snags on the fae lord himself. Silently, I will him to dramatically change his inclinations, declaring no, he needs no obstacle course. In the quiet of his heart, he wishes nothing except to pass the day reading with his closest companions. Especially Jennifer.
Instead, his lips upturn in the shadowy semblance of a smile. They quirk , his author might describe. Okay, not might. She definitely would.
Val winks directly at me.
He’s unquestionably reminding me of our conversation. It’s good , I tell myself. I’m now the only person here who knows a clue waits at the competition’s finish line—although others will probably guess.
“Eat. Relish the company of your friends,” Kethryn encourages us. Her eyes glimmer with the perfect combination of her character’s conspiratorial charm and intimidating cunning. “For when the sun rises directly overhead, you shall call them your competitors.”
Noon . I have until noon to prepare myself for my first fae-inspired obstacle course.
Prepare myself emotionally , I mean. Not physically. Physically, I’m a goner.
I think of the ways my favorite writers deal with characters like me, who nearly didn’t graduate high school for lack of PE credits. Could I please get one of those time-collapsing training paragraphs? A Time passed, days drew into weeks, Jennifer’s powers grew kind of thing.
“If you wish to join the fray,” Kethryn instructs the room, “please write your name on the scroll in the entryway by the end of breakfast.” She returns to sit next to Val, whose hand she clasps with shy sweetness.
“We’re doing this, right?” Brit prompts.
“Um,” I say.
Laurel, I’m reassured to find, mirrors my nervousness. “I’m not sure I’ll be very good at obstacles involving upper body strength,” she admits.
“You can do it,” her friend encourages her. “It’s like when mothers do impossible things like lift cars to save their babies. We can do a ropes course to win a night with Val!”
I have to smile. While her logic is iffy, her earnest support is endearing.
When Laurel looks heartened, I decide I feel the same. Fandom has pushed me to limits I didn’t know I could reach. In English classes, I fought to compress hundreds of pages of Dickens and Dostoyevsky into finals week. Now I crush volumes of Winters like it’s easy. Release events and cliffhanger chapters have powered me past exhaustion into early-morning hours. I’ve even discovered I know how to flirt.
Minutes passed. Jennifer’s powers grew.
“I’m in,” I say confidently, shooting Laurel a smile.
“Yeah,” she replies. “Fuck it, right?”
“In love and fandom,” Brit repeats.
We stand from our plates of unfinished pancakes. Like conquering heroines, we march for the sign-up scroll.