“What?”
I set the cup down. “Like your life is a sham?”
He laughed, but it wasn’t entirely nice. “I see. You think where you came from is the real place. This here...we’re not real people. We’ll disappear as soon as you go back to-to North America.” Draw’s usual collection faltered.
I flushed at my own theories being thrown back at me. But wasn’t that what Sorrel told me? This was fiction. I was here to grow in some way, help the books. When I got back home, it’d be words on a page once more.
Draw ran his fingers through his hair. “Did you hear from your Fairy Bookmother today?”
I shook my head, relieved to have something more concrete to discuss—though no less fantastical. “I can only call upon Sorrel twice more. When I woke up in the forest, I thought someone was playing a trick on me, but when I called for Sorrel, she appeared, floating in air like a spirit.” I shook my head. “You might not believe it, but I’m pretty savvy—”
“Oh, don’t put words into my mouth, Lady Dottie.”
“I can’t figure out how she could have done it if she wasn’t really magic. Plus, I’mhere. The world I live in doesn’t have castles or battles. I wear khaki pants to work where I stare at numbers on a computer, and then go back to my parents’ house and read books.” I was oversharing, so I cut to the point. “The most alarming part is it doesn’t seem like Sorrel can decide when to send me back. It’s just supposed to happen when I’ve...fixed the story and completed my purpose.” I left out that I thought my purpose might come to fruition upon waking in Ironclaw’s bed.
“But why you? Why did she sendyou?”
I stared at the ash of the fireplace, willing an answer to come to mind—one that was socially acceptable, the kind of answer I’d give to Sara and Gemma at work. But no, that’s where I went wrong in the first place, wasn’t it?
“Well.” I let out a giggle that ended in a snort, then covered my nose and rushed ahead before I could talk myself out of it. “I’m the series’s biggest fan. Or maybe I’m just the one who Sorrel thought needed this the most. I’m sure other people have read the books as often as I have, watched the TV show as obsessively.” I saw the question on his face before he could ask it. “TV—it’s like pictures in a story. But all the other readers probably have lives—jobs they care about, their own home,friends. I don’t have any of that. I do all the things I’m supposed to just so I can get home and readLandsome Roads. All my thoughts were here. The characters—the people—were vivid to me in a way my own coworkers weren’t.”
“And life in your own world is very different than this?” I saw a flicker of interest in his olive eyes.
I settled back into the chair, a bit breathless. “Imagine your world, but a thousand years in the future. The roads are paved, not with cobblestone, but with perfectly flat concrete. Instead of wagons and carriages, there’s cars. They have wheels, but you don’t need a horse, and they can go ten times faster.” I faltered. What else could I talk about that Draw would understand? I haltingly told him about water towers and grocery stores, then moved on to cell phones and computers. I ran through a thousand years of history, and at the end of it all, he had one thing to say.
“Huh.”
A blessed night breeze finally emerged through the windows.
Now should be his turn to stare at the ashes, thinking through the terrible position I was in, trapped in the paltry world of late capitalism.
Except he didn’t.
“I have to admit, I’m a bit jealous. What a wonderous world you live in. What could you possibly like about Landsome so much?” His dark brows were knit together, and he was looking at me with a haughty expression, as if totally appalled but trying to be polite.
“Seriously, Draw? Look at everything here. The adventures. The fight for good.” I didn’t say it, but the thirst-trap men. Draw would do well enough on a book cover of his own.
“The fight for good? You mean Queen Elthra’s holy campaign to keep the queendom together? My dear, everything is steeped in layers of ego, divulging values, and families across the continent that think they’re better than everyone else. Besides, surely you have your own adventures with your cars and your compactors?”
“Computers,” I corrected him. “And, no, not really.” I tried not to sound so sad. “I think eventually, the computers are going to take my job and then I’ll have to do some other made-up work. My life is pretty quiet. I don’t...I don’t have a lot of friends.”
“Who has friends? In Landsome, we only have varying degrees of enemies.”
I smiled. “I thought you were my friend.”
Draw looked amused. “Am I?”
“Well, sure. You’re the person who’s made sure I was fed and had clean water to drink. And now, after tonight, you know my darkest secrets. So, it seems you’re my friend, but...” A playful tone entered my voice. “I’m not sure I’myourfriend.”
He didn’t laugh like I thought he would, but he smiled, the first one to really touch his eyes. “Why not?”
“I haven’t been able to help you the way you’ve helped me. I just confessed my entire life, but I don’t know any of your secrets.”
He leaned forward, intrigued. “Am I not in the books? I like to think of myself as a big enough player at court.”
This was actually becoming quite fun. “Oh, you’re definitely in the books—the man who uncovers every plot, the solicitor Ironclaw can call upon to produce just the right legal document to trap a lord in his own web or a treaty to end the battle.”
“So, I’m featured quite often?”
