“Yes!”I practically shouted at her, relieved to be understood and yet terrified that my suspicions were being confirmed.
Her faerie eyes closed, tinytinylines appearing at the outer corners, and she touched her temple with one slender, manicured fingertip as if in excruciating pain. “No, Lexi. We are not fae, nor dragon riders, nor angels, nor vampires with neither black daggers nor sparkles, nor Greek gods, nor werewolves, nor shadow daddies. We’re just rich.”
Clementine must have an interesting bookshelf.
I flapped one hand at Nico, who stood six-fouror more,who loomed over me just like everyone else did at this party. “Then why are you all sotall?”
She sighed. “The prevailing rumor is that our boarding school put something in the water, but it’s probably optimal nutrition and that our ancestors had their pick of tall genes to procreate with.”
“And you’re all sobeautiful.”
She swung her hair behind her shoulder again. “Naturally.”
“It’snotnatural.Allof you. Every single person, their face and their body, isperfect.”
“Oh, that. Yes. We’ve all had a little tuck-tuck and a little nip-nip. It’s perfectly normal.” She touched one eyebrow. “I’ve had a brow lift and my nose trimmed a little. A little lip filler but not too much. It migrates. Lipo around the waist. And of course, preemptive Botox to prevent wrinkles. That’s very important.”
Nicolai frowned. “You had work done, Clemmy?”
Clementine rolled her eyes. “It was the summer after I graduated from Le Rosey, and trustyounot to notice all that effort.” Back to me. “Nico is one of the fewnatural beauties around.” Back to him. “You haven’t hadanythingdone, have you?”
He shrugged. “I got a tattoo.”
Clementine rolled her eyes. “That hardly counts.”
The air rushed out of me like a hurricane. “Okay.Okay.Youswear?”
“We are not fae. We are not magic of any sort. Magic does not exist, as far as I’m aware. Ipromise.”
I bent over and braced my hands on my knees, breathing hard. “Okay.Okay.”
Maybe I should have been reading billionaire romances instead of spicy fantasy series. I was more prepared to cast a spell or wield a sword from my reading than to fit in with rich people and not make an utter, terriblefoolof myself by thinking they were fae.
Clementine plucked my champagne glass from my fingers and sniffed it, then crossed her heart with her other hand. “Have you been keeping an eye on your glass? There’s a lot of ecstasy at these parties. Are you seeing odd colors that sort of smear when you move your eyes?”
“No one roofied my drink.”
“And how many of these have you had?” she interrogated.
“I don’t know. Four? Plus some of those vodka tonics?” I estimated.
She tilted her head to the right, a move I was beginning to suspect meant pity. “Oh, honey. The bartender has a heavy hand with the Tito’s. How many vodka tonics?”
“Three? You just looked so sophisticated drinking them.”
“I drink them for the low grams of carbohydrates, and I’ve only had two all night.”
“It’s just a lot, okay? Just everything, it’s beena lot.Getting kidnapped by high fae seemed on-brand for today.”
“Wait, she wasserious?”Nicolai asked Clementine. “She thought we wereliterallyfantasy-movie creatures?”
LIT-trill-lee.He said it so British. I’d always wanted to hear somebody say it like that in real life.
Clementine told him, “Nico, darling, dealing with you is enough to make anyone question reality and their sanity.”
He smirked. “Bit of a relief, actually. That crack aboutfairieshad me worried.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I said, still bending over and breathing hard. The world felt unsteady. Maybe I should put my head between my knees. “I asked if you hadwings.”
