Chapter 26
“Icall to order this second unofficial official meeting about mental matters. Complete with coffee and coven. And calamity. And cookies. I hope.”
“I’m getting deja vu.” Lydia rolled her eyes at me. Again. But she took her seat, a little cautious. After all, her big secret was out in the open, and I’d gathered everyone in the Reading Room to talk. “Why are we here at such a godawful hour on a Thursday?”
I waited until everyone had settled to answer. “We’re here to talk about romance. And to update you on the latest developments with Cupid.”
I gestured toward Brianne, feeling only slightly guilty that I’d pulled her away from her husband so early in the morning. She giggled.
“He’ll wait for me,” she said with a wink, as if reading my mind.
“Wait, is Nate cured?” Lauren jumped up and down and clapped at Brianne’s salacious grin. She whipped her head around to me. “You fixed Cupid?”
“Nope.” I cast a sidelong glance at Lydia, noting that she was squirming in her seat, which confirmed my suspicion that she, too, thought she’d been affected by Cupid’s mayhem.
“But we made the smallest amount of progress yesterday, using Nate as our test subject. I’m more hopeful than I was last week. ”
More hopeful was an overstatement. I tried to keep myself, and in turn my coven, optimistic, but it was getting difficult.
I’d spent much of the evening, and way too late into the night, alternating between devouring more mythology and brooding over the end of my relationship with Ethan.
Well, my romantic relationship. The one that had never actually begun.
Despite the codex’s warning that I couldn’t alter Cupid’s magic, I wasn’t fully confident he would be able to undo all the damage he’d caused before Valentine’s Day. And the more I thought about it, the more concerned I was that the issues were even more far-reaching than I knew.
Practically everyone in town had attended Brianne’s birthday party. Surely there were people who’d been hit who either weren’t aware or weren’t telling anyone. And it’s not like I could send out the town crier to make an announcement.
Hear ye, hear ye! Let it be known that Cupid caused a city-wide cockblock. Actually, maybe not a cockblock. We aren’t sure. But if you’re feeling romantically wonky, please see Simone. Sorry for the inconvenience, folks.
They’d be hoarse within an hour.
“Simone? Where’d you go?” Lauren smirked at me. “Somewhere saucy?”
“No, actually.” Cecelia nudged a tall glass of ice water into my hands.
I thanked her and took the time to drink it down.
I wasn’t nervous about sharing what I knew, not with my coven.
But the lack of sleep was getting to me, leaving me in this constant state of surreality.
Like I was here and somewhere else at the same time. And, sadly, it wasn’t somewhere saucy.
“In our Monday session, Cupid admitted that he’d come to Brianne’s birthday party and randomly shot arrows. They were all calibrated differently.” I leveled my gaze at Lydia. “And we don’t know who was hit.”
“What do you mean calibrated?” Lydia was gnawing on her lip like it was a piece of cake. “I thought it was turning the supernatural off.”
“I thought so too,” I said. “I was wrong. Cupid showed me his arrows on Monday, and it turns out they have settings. Intensity, duration, and emotion.”
“You saw Cupid’s arrows?” Lyra’s eyes widened. “He actually showed you his arrows?”
“He did. I even held one.” I took in her awed expression. “Is that a big deal?”
“A god showed you their most prized possession. That’s an honor they don’t bestow upon mortals.” Lyra looked to Lydia, who nodded in confirmation. “It’s a recognition of your power.”
“Really?” A smile twitched my lips, nudging me to let it bloom. He’d mentioned I was strong, but I hadn’t realized what a big deal it was. “Brianne saw them, too.”
“No, I didn’t.” She’d been texting, with Nate given the blush of her cheeks, only half paying attention. “He moved around, and you and he were pointing at something, but I couldn’t see anything. Nate couldn’t either. He leaned over and asked if you were doing mimes.”
Lydia snorted.
“Well,” I managed. “That’s a development. Still, the codex says I cannot undo his power or cast a spell against what he did. It upsets the balance or something.”
“Blah blah blah, we’re all connected, yadda yadda.”
“Exactly,” I laughed at Lydia’s mockery. “So we don’t have a list of who was affected, and we can’t go around asking. I sent a message to Psyche letting her know that Cupid was actually taking steps to rectify the damage he’d done.”
I took a deep breath, longing for coffee instead of water. “I think she’s my best chance at getting all this nonsense resolved.”
“Cool.” Lydia had gotten coffee and took a sinful sip. That didn’t seem fair. “That could have been an email.”
“Hush, you.” Lauren flicked her hand at Lydia. “We don’t email coven affairs.”
“Even if the alternative is a six a.m. meeting?” Lydia leaned back, hugging her mug like a boyfriend and propping her feet up. “Is that all? Because I have time for a nap before work.”
“No, actually.” I sent a mental plea for caffeine to Cecelia, who responded by doubling the size of my water glass. “It’s that first thing I want to discuss. The romance part.”
“Oh, you mean like the kind of romance that leads to a violent battle in one of our most precious spaces?” It was rare for Lyra to be sarcastic, and even rarer for her to openly voice a complaint. Though it was aimed at me, indirectly, I was proud of her for speaking up.
“We’ll get there. But there’s a bigger, um, elephant in the room.” No matter how much time had passed or how powerful I was, Lydia still scared me. So I just sort of nudged my head in her direction until everyone was looking at her.
She set her coffee aside and leaned forward, forcing me to hold her gaze. “What about me?”
“Well, I know you said the fae couldn’t be affected by Cupid. But, um, I’m concerned that you were, you know …” I pointed at her rump, then mimed an arrow landing there.
“What makes you say that?” Her voice was a dare, but underneath her bravado, I sensed her anxiety. This had been bothering her for a while. We’d all picked up on it because of our stupid Threadbinding.
Ordinarily, I wouldn’t force her to talk about something she wasn’t ready to discuss. But I was running short on time, and her discomfort seemed to be growing by the day. And now that I’d met the source of her angst, it seemed time we brought it out into the open.
“Well.” Dammit, I was hedging like the old Simone. “I want to talk about Neil Diamond.”
Brianne looked up from her phone. “The singer?”
“No, silly.” Lauren, who was sitting back and enjoying all of our nonsense, shook her head. “The contractor.”
“Ohhhhhhhooohooo. Is that his name?” Brianne gave the word fifteen syllables, much to Lydia’s chagrin. “He’s cute.”
“He’s human,” Lydia and I said simultaneously.
Brianne blinked, taking in the unspoken communication passing between Lydia and me. “So?”
“So? So!” Lydia shot out of her chair, and the room expanded to give her room to pace. “There’s nothing special about him. Nothing at all.”
“Lydia.” Lyra reached for her sister, trying unsuccessfully not to look hurt when Lydia brushed her off.
“Let her rant,” I whispered to Lyra.
“He’s just a guy. He wears stupid pants and slurps when he sips his coffee and makes dumb jokes.
There’s absolutely nothing special about him.
” She stopped in front of me, pulling at her hair.
“Look, I’ve come a long way, okay? I get why we don’t use the word mundane anymore, and I’ve seen humans pull together and do extraordinary shit.
I. Get. It. I’ve come to respect the non-fae-born. Even you.”
“Gee, thanks.” She rolled her eyes, which had turned crimson, her hair flaming at the edges. My God, were we about to set the Reading Room on fire? Like it hadn’t been through enough.
“My point is I’m not anti-people. I’m all kinds of up with people. Yay, people.” She flung her hands in the air like a maniacal cheerleader, then stomped away from us to stand at the banister, placing her back to us.
We all sat in the silence, exchanging understanding nods and giving her the space to return when she felt ready. I didn’t know how long that would take, but Cecelia replaced my water with a very tall latte. That couldn’t be a good sign.
Through our threaded connection, we all knew when Lydia’s emotions were settling. The unease that had been emanating from her for months slowly receded. As it did, she returned to her chair, staring down at her hands. “Okay, let me have it.”
The rest of us looked at each other, quietly pointing around the room at who should go first. In the end, Lauren won. “We can’t choose who we love, hon.”
“Or who we don’t.” I hadn’t meant to say it aloud. Lauren smiled at me, more than a little understanding in her eyes.
“We can’t choose who we don’t love, either. I wanted to love Ethan. On paper, everything about us was perfect.” Lauren let her shoulders drop. “At the end of the day, that wasn’t enough. I needed something else, and so did he.” Her voice trailed a bit, her eyes thoughtful.
“Where’d you go, Lauren?” I smiled at her, hoping the trail was leading where I thought it was.
“Oh, it’s nothing.” She smoothed her ponytail, as if placing a shield up. Lyra harrumphed, and I laughed. Coven vibes. We couldn’t hide anything from each other any longer. “I was remembering twenty-two-year-old Lauren. Fresh out of college, newly divorced, and … excited for the world.”
“Good,” I said. “Hold onto her and plan your damn vacation already.” I still had qualms about Nina, but it didn’t feel like the time to bring them up.
“Hello? We were on me.” Lydia’s whine proved my point.
“Lydia.” I shuffled forward a bit, spilling coffee on my lap because I’m just that graceful. “Back to what I was saying earlier. About Cupid. How can you be sure—”
“I didn’t get hit with an arrow.” The defensiveness in her voice was sharper than a slap in the face. “This is real.”
Brianne set her phone aside. “How do you know, hon?”
“I just do, okay?” Lydia sniffled, eyes darting around the room. “You know what? I changed my mind. Let’s talk about the wolves.”
“We will,” I said softly. “Later. Tell us why you’re so sure this isn’t Cupid’s fault.”
Lydia said nothing. Finally, Lyra reached forward, tucking a finger gently under chin and lifting it. “Tell them.”
We’d come a long way, the coven and I. We trusted each other. We’d been grossly vulnerable with one another. We were connected in a way that many families longed for. Together, we’d built something strong and binding. It was a source of power, metaphorically speaking, for all of us.
But I couldn’t blame Lydia for wanting to keep some things to herself. Even in the face of safety, there was great bravery in laying your soul bare. Not because you might be judged or ridiculed, but because, in saying the quiet parts out loud, you have to face them yourself.
So when Lydia took a deep inhale and prepared to share a part of her heart with us, I sent my magic around the room, softening every edge I could find.
If she was about to shuck her precious pride, I wanted her surrounded by a thousand freaking feathers.
On a whim, I did just that, making them dance in the air and kiss her cheeks.
To further the point, I doubled the amount, until they tickled all of us into a fit of stress-relieving giggles. Soon, Cecelia joined in, and before I knew it we were almost swallowing feathers, there were so many.
“Okay, okay!” Lydia laughed despite herself, batting them away. I waved my hand and they disappeared. Lydia rolled her eyes at me again, but this time it was playful.
“I met Neil Diamond twenty-five years ago, when Lyra and I first met with Agatha.” Once it was said out loud, Lydia relaxed into her chair. “He’s the reason I said yes to the expansion. So it can’t be Cupid.”
“It’s always been Neil,” I said, my voice unsteady. My arms trembled, as if they wanted to bash my own head into a wall rather than acknowledge the thought creeping up. The one I shoved back down.
“Always. Lauren’s right.” Lydia looked me square in the eye. “You can’t choose who you love.”