With every activity we crossed off the list, I thought of my own mother. Of Severn’s certainty that she knew more about the fae realm than she had told me. If it was true, it would explain so much about her erratic behavior and secrets—after all, I was starting to act the same way, living a double life. Which was all too apparent the next time Zara texted.
Hello? Willow? You alive? Do I need to report a missing person?
I read my friend’s text and sighed, wishing I could tell her why my life had to be so secretive now, but at least I had the “NDA” excuse to hide behind. I texted her back:
I miss you! Have you made out with Catalina Aaronsonyet?
She texted immediately back:
A lot more than make out!!!
I burst out laughing. That was Zara, living the high life with socialites and celebrities. She added:
Drinks soon?
And I wrote back:
Definitely. I’m off Friday night.
After we finished making plans to go out, I started packing a lunch for Henry and May, since the next item on the checklist was picnicking in the park. While I prepped our food, I could hear May in the great room whispering to Henry and snickering, and he kept shushing her. They side-eyed me and started giggling again. Finally, I slapped down the jelly knife and grilled them.
“Whatare you two conspiring about over there?”
“Nothing!” Henry insisted though he was grinning mischievously. “We’re just excited. We’ve never gone on a picnic before.”
“Heathens,” I teased. “What would you do without me?”
On the elevator ride down to the lobby, May clutched my hand tightly. I carried the picnic basket in the other, and when the doors opened, two things surprised me. First, the lobby was back to normal. All signs of the damage from the attack had been fixed.
Second, Severn was waiting for us.
He was dressed in human clothes—actual human clothes, not glamoured fae clothes—and I did a double take to see him looking so smoldering in a button-down shirt and trousers with his silver hair pulled back into a bun.
He looked at the basket in my hand and frowned. He snapped, “What are you doing?”
“Taking the children for a picnic,” I said defensively. I couldn’t fathom why he could possibly get angry about it. It was exactly the sort of thing he was paying me to do.
“No,I’mtaking the children for a picnic.” He motioned to a werewolf behind him holding a picnic basket that looked much fancier than mine, like something a queen would have packed in the seventeenth century. He added, “May told me you weren’t feeling well. She began to cry at the prospect of missing out on a picnic, so I offered to take them instead.”
Squeezing May’s hand tightly, I looked down at her accusingly. She gave me a sheepish shrug, feigning innocence. Severn might have been a beast to everyone else, but he was a total puppy dog when it came to May. I could only imagine how he’d immediately bend to her will whenever she turned on the waterworks.
“Sothisis what you two were conspiring about upstairs?” I accused them.
When they both turned red, Severn frowned. “What? I don’t follow. Are you sick or not, Willow?”
“I’m not,” I declared. “I think these two troublemakers wantbothof us to take them on a picnic and tricked us into it.”
I shouldn’t have been surprised that they’d try something like this. Both of them had begged me for weeks to invite Severn back over for more s’mores, but I had always found an excuse not to. Partly because I couldn’t imagine he had time for such trivialities, and partly because of the way that whenever he was close, I tended to get more and more flustered. Those smoldering eyes and that jaw that could cut granite wereverydistracting.
Severn gave the children a hard look but then sighed. “Well, I’ve taken the time out of my schedule, and I don’t want any more of May’s tears, so let’s go. My car is waiting outside.”
May grinned in delight and tugged me toward the turnstile while Henry chattered on to Severn all about the latest video game he’d mastered. We piled into Severn’s black car, and the werewolf driver drove us to Central Park, miraculously avoiding traffic in a way I suspected involved a spell or two.
As soon as the children had climbed out and charged into the park, chasing one another through the grass, Severn turned on me and asked, “Did you know about this?”
“Their scheme?” I shook my head. “No, but it doesn’t surprise me. Forsomereason, they adore you.”
Severn and I unfolded the blanket I’d brought, and I began setting out my prepared lunch: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips, apple slices. Severn regarded my fare with disdain.
