Chapter Sixteen Trey
An Hour Later
Fitz’s Private Residence
Stuck in a Meeting That Had Probably Already Happened
No one said anything new, yet these were conversations I’d never had before. I cradled my head in one hand and rubbed my temples in small circles. “Does anyone else have a headache?”
The argument of marriage versus quest—which seemed redundant, didn’t we all prefer a quest?—fizzled out as the others looked at me. Wilde’s quiet, black gaze was the heaviest. He hadn’t said a word during the whole meeting to sway anyone one way or another.
“Are you alright, Trey?” Delilah asked, scooting her chair closer to me. It screeched along the floor and my head pulsed in response. “You usually love a good argument.”
“I don’t see the point of any of this, since we’ll never get anywhere anyway.”
The others exchanged concerned looks. “What do you mean?” Fitz asked.
“Don’t you feel like you’ve done this before? And where has it gotten us? Waking up at the beginning again and again, the book flipped back to the first chapter by some reader who refuses to reach the end.”
Delilah gasped and I looked at her sharply, wanting to pry the answers out of her. She quickly looked away, first at Wilde, then she stared purposefully at the picked over tea service.
“What is it?” I demanded.
“Nothing!” she squeaked.
“It’s something, you little rat—”
“How dare you compare me to a rodent—”
“—or you wouldn’t look so guilty.”
She’d turned around in her chair completely, presenting everyone in the room with her back. “I am not guilty. Just … concerned. About your head. Maybe the headache is making your brain all fuzzy and stupid.”
“It’s not the headache,” I snapped, shoving up from my chair. “It’s something magical and wrong, and you know what it is, don’t you?” I reached for her, intending to yank her around so she’d have to look me in the eye if she wanted to lie. I needed to find out what she knew—
“Why even bother considering marriage?” Angelica demanded.
She bit down delicately on a cookie, then carefully wiped a stray crumb from her lips.
“We’re all related in some way or another, and I will not marry my cousin.
” A deep shudder shook her body, and she quickly picked up her cup to drown her revulsion with tea.
I stared at her in shock. Hadn’t she said that already? An hour ago, at least. I shifted forward in my chair and—when did I sit down?
Delilah was supposed to say something next, but she was facing toward the door, her body tense like she was ready to bolt. After a few seconds, her shoulders eased. She glanced at Wilde and mouthed something I couldn’t decipher.
The silence stretched on for a beat too long when Delilah missed her line.
“You’re right,” Fitz said, which was wrong. “The family tree is muddled enough. A quest is our best way forward.”
Maximus glowered and twisted something in his fists. I caught a glimpse of metal but didn’t understand the shape of it.
I settled back in my chair, observing the scene carefully. Something had happened, but I couldn’t tell what. At least I’m not back in my bedroom. I tried to remember what I’d been doing before everything started to repeat, but the same fog obscured those moments.
“What kind of quest should we go on?” Delilah asked. It felt like she had stolen someone else’s line to make up for missing her own.
“We have to defeat a Great and Terrible evil.” I’d spoken out of habit, but as soon as I said the words, I realized I might have found the solution for our problems. What was more ‘great and terrible’ than messing with someone’s head?
Making them live the same things over and over again?
It wasn’t torture, yet, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be eventually.
After months, after years, after a lifetime of never seeing what came next.
“But the Desolated Lands don’t have any great and terrible evils,” Angelica said. “That is the point of the Kingdom Defense Spell and the reason we’re here!”
Are you sure? I relaxed back into my chair, thinking through the problem. How did you hunt prey that made you forget it existed?
“You’ll have to travel outside of the Desolated Lands.”
It’d been so long since he’d spoken, I’d almost forgotten the soft, measured sound of Wilde’s voice. I stared at him, trying to read his expression. He gazed placidly at a completely uninteresting point somewhere vaguely in the middle of the room.
The others quieted, retreating to their own minds to consider his words.
Fitz shifted nervously in his seat, like he wanted to protest but didn’t want anyone to know he was scared.
Maximus glared at Wilde, like he hated him for being the one to suggest something we all knew was inevitable.
Delilah nodded encouragingly at Wilde, waving for him to continue, but he stayed silent.
Angelica broke the silence. “Where should we go?”
With a question to answer, Fitz leapt from his seat and started gathering up the books scattered about the room.
“I’ve been doing a lot of research lately, collecting every pamphlet and book on quests I could find.
” He paused, brow furrowing as if he’d said something wrong.
After a moment, he shook his head and plowed on, “I bet we can find something useful in here. A monster to slay, an evil mage to defeat—”
“A curse to break,” Delilah and I said at the same time.
She whipped her head around to look at me, brown eyes wide. “How did you …”
Know what you were going to say? It’d been a coincidence this time, a line in neither of our scripts. The fact she’d also immediately thought of a curse solidified my suspicions.
Someone had cursed us, and I needed to find out who.