Chapter 20
Chapter
Twenty
“Does everyone know what to do?”
“Yes, Chosen,” everyone chorused.
I pointed at Fionn. “You’re sure you and Cress can handle him?”
Cress snorted. “Please, Chosen. Amayda could take him with one hand tied behind his back. I’ll have time to pick out our new furniture from this catalog my beloved gave me.” She waved a brochure.
“Okay… and you, Bronwyn?”
She smiled. “It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve rescued a hostage.”
I looked at Donovan. “And you and Nate?—”
He nodded. “Alone, I could not. But with Nate it should be easy.”
“Right.” Cecil clapped his hooves. “My turn. Up you get. It’s time to get you dressed for the ball, Princess. Is there a theme?”
I got to my feet. “Yes, actually. The Garden of Eden. The temptation of Eve. Good vs Evil.”
Cecil chuckled. “That feels appropriate.”
“It’s probably one of Juliette’s kinks.” Bart shuddered dramatically.
“I suppose I better get moving, too. Shower and shave, and I’ll be right back.
” Bart looked increasingly worse for wear—jittery, haggard and exhausted—but I didn’t want to sideline him.
He had an invite to the ball, so he’d be my eyes and ears for as long as he could.
“I’ll see you in twenty minutes, Sue.” He gave me a kiss and left.
“I’ve got some phone calls to make,” I said, checking my watch.
Cecil shoved me down the hallway, heading into my bedroom. “Later.”
Violet, sensing urgency, turned the floorboards into a travelator, whipping both of us almost quarter of a mile towards my bedroom, away from the others.
Cecil shut my bedroom door behind us. “I have to talk to you.” Oh, God. His knees were shaking.
“Is this about the master-slave bond thing?”
He nodded. His lip wobbled.
I took a breath and exhaled heavily. “You haven’t told anyone.”
He shook his head.
“Oh, Cecil.” I already knew the reason why. I’d gone through the same thing myself. Twice, actually.
First, when I had been terrified of my own power, I squashed it down my whole life so I could pretend to be normal. And second, when I was reluctant to close anymore stones, because I didn’t want to be more powerful. “You’re scared.”
“Yes, you bitch. I told you not to do it!” Tears sprang to his eyes.
Oh, here we go. “Cecil…” I let out a huge sigh and went to my nightstand to get him some tissues. “Honey. Stop it.”
Cecil wailed. “I’m so fucking scared, Chosen!”
“I’m not,” I said, thrusting a wad of tissues into his hooves. “I’m happy. You didn’t die when I severed the bond.” My tone turned gentle. “You deserve to be free, Cecil.”
“But— But— But I don’t know what I am anymore!”
“You’re still you. You’re more you than you ever were before.” I tried to remember what he’d said about the risks of setting him free. “Well, I know you’re not a power-crazed nutjob, anyway.”
“I am a power-crazed nutjob! You don’t know what I’m capable of!”
“You stopped styling Bronwyn when Cress threatened you.”
He sniffed. “That’s because I’m not an idiot. My powers start and stop with styling. Cress is a trained killer; she could still gut me like a pig no matter what I look like. But you don’t understand.” His voice rose to a wail. “I don’t have any limits anymore!”
I cocked my head. “What does that mean?”
“Watch this.” A puff of golden sparks shot out of his horn, suddenly, there was more of him.
Much more.
I took a few steps back, eyes wide. My mouth dropped open.
A massive golden stallion, an enormous shining creature the size of a Mac truck, stood before me, glaring down at me with blood-red eyes.
He lifted a dinner plate-sized hoof and scraped it menacingly on the floor.
Then, he opened his mouth and let out a sinister rumble, baring a mouthful of glittering, razor-sharp teeth.
I crossed myself. “Dios Mio!”
“Don’t laugh, Chosen,” the nightmare above me whinnied.
“This is serious! I’m scared about what everyone will say.
Spoils of war have never been set free—never in fae history.
In fact, I don’t even think they know it’s possible.
This is going to scare the shit out of a lot of folks in the Upper World, girlfriend! ”
“Good,” I said firmly. “Keeping slaves is a bad thing, Cecil.”
He shook his massive head. “But?—”
“And it’s probably not possible,” I said.
“Not for anyone else. Our bond did have a slave-master connection—which, incidentally, looked like a kinky little studded whip to me—but it also connected through my heart. That might be why setting you free didn’t kill either of us, and there was no magical backlash.
Because we still have a bond. It is big and solid, because we’re friends and I love you. ”
He pursed his giant lips. “You’re not taking this seriously.”
“Of course I am.” I stood on my tiptoes, reached up, and patted his muzzle.
“I know you’re worried that people will be scared of you.
That’s their problem, not yours. And you’re worried that you’ll accidentally hurt someone with your new enhanced powers.
You won’t, because at your core, all you want to do is make people happy.
” I smiled up at him. “You’re just like me. ”
His lip wobbled. “I’ve been a slave almost my whole life. All I know is how to serve. And not just serve, like, in the fashion sense.”
“Then keep serving, you idiot. It’s what I do.” I grinned. “Being in service to others is the secret to happiness.”
“Huh.” He took a deep, quivering breath in. “You make a good point. I suppose it’s not the end of the world.” A golden puff erupted from his horns, and he shrunk down to normal size. “I can probably cancel my appointment with Bronwyn.”
“Keep it, just in case.” Out of nowhere, a thought hit me. “How much can you change?”
“A lot.” He cocked his head. “Why?”
“You don’t seem to change much from being a golden horse, that’s all.”
“Because you can’t top perfection, Chosen.”
“Well…” I waved my hand towards him. “Show me something else, then.
“Okay. Look.” A sparkle rained down on me, and suddenly, Cress was standing in front of me wearing a pink gingham sundress, her hair bunched up in lopsided pigtails.
My mouth dropped open. “Oh my God!”
“Ew.” Cecil looked down on himself and shuddered. “Oh, I can’t even. I don’t know why I did this, she’s not even here to see it.”
I unfocused my eyes, trying to see the little hint of glowing magic. “And it’s not a glamor?”
“Nope. It’s a total shape-change, not an illusion. I’ve styled myself to look like this.” With another puff of sparkles, he was back to his normal duocorn shape. “It’s magic, but it’s undetectable.”
“How long can you hold that for?”
He shrugged. “Indefinitely.”
“And you can do that to someone else?”
“Oh, no. That’s too hard. I can only do a shape change like this to myself.”
My brain was vomiting ideas so fast, my heart started to pound. I pointed at him. “You made Audrina’s pocket dimension room?”
“No, Eryk and Nate did. Nate’s the battle mage, so he’s best with that kind of magic. I just styled it.”
I leaned forward eagerly. “And you could style a pocket dimension to look like anything?”
“Uh huh.”
“Something really really big?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. As big as you wanted it to be.”
“Does it have to be anchored onto something?”
“Usually, yeah. But I can get Violet to donate a bone, so we can have a portable one. We’d just have to carry the bone with us. But we’d have to get Nate and Eryk to open it whenever you wanted to go in.”
I tapped on my chin. Another idea was beginning to hit me. A good plan. A great plan.
The plan to end all plans.
But if we were going to pull it off, I’d need to keep part of it from Donovan. He might kill me, but if it worked…
“Cecil, remember how you said that if I needed you, you could pop up in front of me? Like a genie? Can you still do that?”
“Hmm.” He tapped his chin with his hoof, mimicking my ‘thinking’ gesture.
“I did try when you were missing, but it didn’t work, because you weren’t calling me.
I think maybe I still have that spoil magic, though.
” He concentrated for a moment, furrowing his brow, then with a loud pop, he disappeared into thin air.
I gasped. “Come back!”
Instantly, he popped up, only three inches away from me. His horns were pointed right at my chest. “Christ on a bike, Chosen!”
I made a yeesh face.
He stumbled backwards. “Okay, now we know that works.”
“Wow. Oh, wow.” I let out a long, slow breath. “Cecil. I think I have an idea.”