25. Ivy
“Hey loser,” Kit said over FaceTime. “You look like hell.”
It was the morning of our last performance, and I’d broken away from the group to give my sister a call. She had already arrived home for the summer and spent a good deal of time texting invites for the movie nights she wanted to have once I got settled in to my new place.
“Thanks. You look like you’re adopted,” I said, though really she’d always been the spitting image of our mother’s great-aunt Edna. She’d piled all her dark hair on top of her head and sat in her room at Mount Vernon still wearing the same tank top and boy shorts that she’d likely worn to bed last night.
She stuck her tongue out at me. “How’s the luck o’ the Irish treating you?”
Not good. Not good at all. If anything, I was pretty sure I’d been cursed.
“That great, huh?” She raised an eyebrow and scooped cereal into her mouth.
“What is it, like noon over there?” I said. “Are you eating cereal for lunch?”
“Don’t judge me,” she said. “Why do you look like you haven’t slept in ten years? Mother’s going to shit a brick if you show up at the press conference like that.”
“She can go to hell,” I murmured under my breath.
“Look,” Kit said with a sigh and raised her eyebrows, clearly preparing to drop an epic truth bomb. “I love you. But things are getting shifty around here. I think they’re planning to announce it as soon as you land.”
“I’m sure they are.” I sighed, rubbing at the space between my forehead.
“I’ve got nothing for you as far as intel, but I’m going to keep digging.” She shook her head. “Our family has been in political marriages for centuries, Ivy. Unless you up and run away, this is going to be tough to fight.”
I had considered that option, and to be fair, it wasn’t completely off my list of things to do. “Thanks, Kit. Can you do me one last favor?”
“Sure.”
“You’re good at like…tracking people or whatever, right?” Computers were a second language for Kit. She’d placed first at every hacking competition she’d ever been in, much to our mother’s chagrin. Evelyn would rather she be another political animal like me, but my sister preferred to walk on the nerdy wild side of life.
“You mean skip tracing?” Kit cleared her throat and looked around her to make sure she was alone. “Yeah, I’ve heard some things.”
“Do you think you could try to find someone for me?” I’d started planning this when I found out that Siobhan had disappeared, but I wasn’t sure I had to pull this trigger until Lex told me the ruins weren’t real. I had other priorities, but I couldn’t let this go. I needed to know what happened to me…to us.
“All right,” she said in her skeptical tone. “Promise me you’re okay. I’m getting a weird vibe.”
“I’m fine, Kit,” I reassured her, trying to put on my fake smile, the one I showed to the world. But Kit had known me her whole life, she probably could see through it. I pushed past the awkward silence. “I’ll email you everything I know.”
She talked about undergrad and this new guy she was sleeping with, and at the end of the call, she made me promise her again I was okay.
“I know Carter’s leaving soon,” she said. “And so is Miri.”
I sighed, forcing a smile and blinking back tears.
Shove it down, I told myself. Don’t let it show.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Lex and I are kind of getting along now.”
Kit snorted a laugh. “Yeah? And hell froze over when?”
“Har har,” I said.
“Call me when you land. Hate you.”
“Hate you more.”
I took a few minutes to type out an email to her, giving her Ashley’s and Siobhan’s names, and any other names I could remember before heading back inside to find my spouses.
* * *
The rest of the day passed quicker than any of the other days before it. The four of us spent it together, wandering the forest to look for ruins that didn’t exist and packing our things to return home. My memories were no clearer for having had a week to dwell on them, and now, the whole thing seemed so far away that I could barely remember what Siobhan looked like. After that wave hit us in the dorm rooms, we hadn’t had another spell. It had been five days now, and we hoped it was over for good.
When I told Carter and Miri about Siobhan and the ring, they agreed with Lex.
“Fairies aren’t real, darling,” Miri said, intertwining her fingers in mine. “I don’t know how we got the marks on our hands. Maybe someone is fucking with us. But I think we took something we shouldn’t have, and that’s the end of it.”
We were lying in bed after the last show, having spent the majority of the evening tangled in a sweaty, confusing ball under these sheets. Now we soaked in oxytocin and dread. Things would change tomorrow, and I’d been doing my best not to think about it.
My gaze landed on Carter.
“Is that what you think, too?” I asked him. “That this happened because we took something at the party?”
Carter lay on his side, his head balanced on his hand and his elbow propped up on the pillow.
“I don’t know.” His mouth fell open, and he shook his head. “Something unbelievable happened, that’s true. Ashley tried to convince us fairies were real, but then she turned out to be weird, too. Maybe it’s more likely they were both fucking with us. Siobhan and Ashley.”
“Why?” It didn’t make any sense. Why single us out? Was it just for a laugh at the expense of some rich American snobs?
“I don’t know.” Carter sighed and ran his hands back through his hair.
I agreed to let it go. I didn’t have any other explanation, and we’d run out of time. Even though it chafed, I would have to concede that something strange occurred, and I might never know the whole story.
I woke up the next morning wrapped in my lover’s arms. Carter’s warm body pressed up behind me, Miri’s hands were in mine, and Lex’s fingers brushed against my stomach as he breathed. I paused and let myself have this rare moment of purity. I let myself drift in the exquisite wonder of the four of us, all of us, together.
In six hours, we had to be on a plane to DC. This was over now.
“Hey,” Carter whispered, tugging me tighter against him. “Get dressed. Let’s go for a walk.”
I narrowed my eyes and looked over my shoulder.
“Okay.” I climbed out of bed and went to the bathroom, brushing my teeth and making myself presentable. By the time I got back, he was dressed, so I changed into jeans and sneakers before following him downstairs.
“Where are we going?” I asked with a laugh.
“Somewhere we can be alone.”
I trailed after him, a somber shiver going through me when he brought me back down to the creek and pulled me into his arms. I wrapped my hands around his waist, and he kissed me on the nose.
“I’m going to miss you most of all, you know,” he said.
I blinked back tears and tried to ignore that slice of agony in my chest. “It’s not forever, Carter. I swear. I’ll find a way out of this. I will.”
“I know you will.” He nodded and kissed me again. “You’re still my favorite girl.”
I buried my head in his shirt and let the tears come, hating how much I loved him and how much I didn’t want this to end.
“I didn’t know if I’d get a chance to be alone with you again, not after we get home. So I wanted to give you this.” He held out a little square box.
“What is this, Carter?” I narrowed my eyes at the black velvet.
“Representation.” He opened it, revealing a silver ring with a moonstone in the middle. My birthstone. “He gets to keep you, but I had you first.” He took it out of the box and put it on the ring finger of my right hand.
“Carter, you sap.” I pushed up on my toes so I could kiss him as deeply as I wanted. “I’ll always be yours.”
“I know, Weeds,” he said. “Don’t ever forget it.”
I thought maybe if I kept that ring on my finger and his voice in the back of my head, I might actually convince myself it would be possible. But reality always had a way of cold-cocking me square in the face, especially when I didn’t see it coming.
* * *
At the airport in Dublin, Carter and Miri went ahead to a restaurant to have a few drinks before we boarded the plane to leave. Lex and I stopped by a coffee shop to buy water and chips for the flight. He put his hand on the back of my neck, brushing his thumb over the skin next to my shoulder. He leaned in next to my ear to whisper, “You should get the Chex Mix so we can split it.”
There was nothing sexual about it, and in the end, I bought the salty snack precisely so we could share it on the flight home. He liked the pretzels, and I liked the Chex. But in the time it took for us to get from Dublin to Washington, DC, a picture of Lex Fairfax with his hand on the back of Ivy Washington’s neck blasted across the internet. My family’s branding manager, the one assigned to market this charade, used the opportunity to officially announce our relationship.
Since the four of us had been gone from the public eye for three weeks, people had forgotten Carter and I were rumored to be an item. Or that the Princess Miriam had quite a similar situationship with Alexei Fairfax. Now, the hunger for more pictures of us had taken the world by storm.
We were trending on social media. We had our own hashtag, #Fairington, and more than two hundred people had DMed me asking for a comment. We got off the plane and four bodyguards the size of tanks greeted us at the gate.
“Ms. Washington, Mr. Fairfax, this way please,” the largest one said, gesturing us to the left and away from Carter and Miri.
“Wait,” I said. “We’re supposed to go?—”
“I have strict instructions from your mother,” he said. “You need to come with us. Both of you.”
I pressed my thumb into the scabs on my palm, a quick reminder of where I’d been living for the last few weeks. I noticed Miri also had her own guard, probably hired by her grandparents, and poor Carter had to go with the rest of the class.
Everyone in the airport turned to look at us and to see what the fuss was about.
What were they looking at? Couldn’t they see I was human? Just like them?
My heart pounded in my head and tension tightened in my chest.
“There are photographers waiting outside for you,” the bodyguard said, but it sounded like he was hundreds of yards away. Couldn’t he see all the onlookers? He was causing a bigger scene just by being here. “Hundreds of them. We need to get you back to your apartment safely.”
Lex wrapped his hand around my palm, intertwining his fingers with mine, and suddenly, I’d become that kid again, starting fights with my counterpart to keep from going on stage and being seen. The one that dug my nails into his hand because his brother had died and my heart was broken and called a truce for one night so we could hold each other through that loss together.
Lex’s touch grounded me and reminded me of who I was. It always had. Standing there in the airport, I realized it always would.
I took a deep breath.
We’ll be okay, X.
His voice rang loud and clear, almost like I could hear it, almost like he’d spoken the words without his mouth moving. Weird. With my chin up and shoulders back, I went with them. They escorted us out a side exit and down to the tarmac, where a black Escalade waited. Lex and I climbed in the back seat, that sinking terrible weight settling in my gut as the door closed behind us.
I knew then before I even looked at him.
Whatever we found in Ireland had been left on that plane. Whatever fight we paused when we were arguing in the Audi, we now had to put on our gloves and square up. Just because our parents had announced it to the public didn’t mean we were out of options. Until now, I’d been so focused on what happened to us in Ireland, I hadn’t thought about our strategy against our parents.
As soon as the Escalade rounded the airport and pulled on to the main straightaway, press surrounded the windows. Cameras flashed. People shouted questions.
Ivy, Lex, how long has this been going on? Have you two been on a lovers’ getaway? What about the Princess Miriam?
The questions went on and on. I sank lower in my seat and put my hands over my face, but the cushion shifted next to me and Lex’s scent plumed in my nose.
“We’re in this together,” he said, bringing my knuckles to his mouth for a sweet kiss. “I’ve got your back.”