I’m so confused. If that were true, he should have found me. I’m good but not hide-from-a-leprechaun-who-understands-technology good. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“I didn’t understand it until you came home and Godmother helped me put things together.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The night of the Yule Ball, my father poisoned me and locked me in that dungeon under the cabin.”
“What has that got to do with—”
“My father made a mistake. I recovered from the blue iron faster than he expected and escaped through the window well. Once free, I went directly to Godmother, hoping she’d protect me. When I told her what happened and how much I loved you, she said she’d give me what I wanted in exchange for my promise to work for her. I agreed.”
“You struck a bargain with Godmother? Over me?”
“I thought she’d make everything right. I ate what she gave me without another thought.”
“Seven?” I wasn’t sure where he was going with this story, but I didn’t like it.
“I saw you sitting at the bar in Dragonfly. You didn’t look like you, but I knew it was you. I could always tell. It’s the way you hold your shoulders. There were so many men around you that night. All I wanted to do was explain. But when I spoke to you, I couldn’t bring myself to—”
“When did you ever speak to me?”
“You didn’t know it was me that night because Godmother had changed my appearance.”
“What?” None of this makes sense. I want to say more but all breath has left my lungs.
“She also told me exactly where to find you. Once I spoke to you, I knew I couldn’t tell you who I really was. You were so angry with me. So I gave you what you asked for. I comforted you. And I planned to tell you. I planned to explain everything, but I didn’t even have school as an excuse to crawl out from under his thumb. My mother left, and my father, angered at the circumstances of my escape and hers, locked everything down to keep me from following her. He assigned a security contingent to me twenty-four seven. I was a prisoner in my own home for weeks. By the time I had any way to see you or get a message to you, you were already gone.”
A sob seeps out my tight throat. My heart is pounding.
“I didn’t know Arden existed until she called your parents and you returned to Dragonfly. Godmother fed her that brownie with the intention of visualizing what part of her heritage was dominant. Was she more human or more pixie? The magic revealed her origins. I couldn’t see it, you couldn’t see it, but Godmother did. And when she did, she instantly welcomed Arden into the fold.
“I didn’t understand why until the hospital. Oh, I suspected. Anyone would have suspected. The timing seemed to prove what my instincts were telling me, but I hadn’t thought it was possible, you understand. There’s no history of it. You need proof before you allow yourself to believe something like this, and Godmother was the only one who could give it to me.”
He scrubs his face with his hands and runs his fingers through his hair.
“And she waited. She held it over my head like she always does. Godmother waited until the hospital to confirm what I already knew. Deep inside I knew.”
“Seven?” my voice comes out as a raspy whisper.
“She warned me to stay away. Everything will be harder, especially now.” He paces the small space. “I think she knew I wouldn’t keep it from you, and once you knew, Arden would know. And there are expectations, Sophia. There are things I won’t be able to control. That’s why I tried to stay away, but thenyoucame tome, and I couldn’t turn you away. Not after everything. I won’t ever turn you away again.”
“Just say it! I need to hear the words.” I can’t breathe. It’s like I’ve been pulled under water, and I can’t get to the surface.
“Don’t you see? Everything makes sense when you put it together. I couldn’t find you all those years because another leprechaun was protecting you. Her luck made you invisible to me until recently when she changed her mind and wished for something else. A tiny leprechaun with ten fingers and ten toes.”
“Seven… Oh gods…”
He looks me in the eye, spine straight, jaw hard as steel, and says the thing that changes everything.
“I’m the man who left you Kiko, Sophia. Arden is mine.”
ChapterThirty-Four
Luck is a very thin wire between survival and disaster, and not many people can keep their balance on it.
—Hunter S. Thompson
Asteady throb begins between my temples, and for a long moment I can’t speak. All the words have become trapped in my throat. At first I want to deny it. I shake my head and try to think of some way it isn’t true. But that thought dissolves as fast as I think of Kiko and what I saw in that room. I don’t doubt his story. It all makes sense. The little things about Dark Stranger I was drawn to. The way the night unfolded. If I had been older back then, more experienced, I might have detected the signature of magic on his skin, but I was young. I didn’t want to see it that night, even if I could have. Now, looking back, it all fits. Oh gods, bargaining with Seven at his most vulnerable fits Godmother’s MO to a tee.
