“No, you won’t.”
“You know what they say—love laughs at locksmiths.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll find out.”
He stepped back. I scooped up Koshka and reached for my umbrella. Once I had it in hand, I flicked the button to close it, whispered the words I used to escape stories—“Our revels now are ended”—and then, with a swirl of magic, we were home.
Chapter Six
Mission accomplished. With a spell or two, I restored the text ofEmpty Gravesto the original, removing any trace of damage wrought by X or by me overstaying my welcome. Pops was thrilled, of course. Dr. Fanshawe even smiled once. Commendations all around. But the victory was a hollow one. For a week after leaving Duke’s world behind, all I could think about was him. I moped so much even Pops asked why I was down.
“You were right,” I told him. “You should never meet your heroes.”
“That bad?” he asked.
“That good.”
Daydreams and night dreams and fantasies filled my hours. I’d wake up already pining for Duke. My days were spent longing for him, and then I’d fall asleep every night wishing and hoping and praying to see him again, until whoever the universe left in charge of hearts—my guess is St. Valentine—approved my request.
It only took eight days for the universe to grow tired of my nagging. “Anything to shut her up,” St. Valentine likely muttered as he brought the rubber stamp down.
At least I’m guessing that’s what happened, because how else can you explain that, eight mornings after I told Duke goodbye forever, I woke up from one of those dreams—the kind that leaves scorch marks on your pillow and smoke coming out of your ears and causes you tomake very awkward eye contact with yourself in the bathroom mirror while fixing your hair—to find Duke sitting on the end of my bed with Koshka half-asleep on his lap and my mother’s copy ofThe Secret of the Old Clockpropped open with one hand.
Gasping, I sat up. “Duke?”
He smiled the smile of a man who’d never been told no in his life, even by the laws of the universe.
“Morning, darling. Ripping yarn, this book,” he said. I’d been reading it the night before, something I only did these days when I was particularly lonely.
My brain took a long time to catch up with this new reality. Finally, I said the least interesting thing I could have said.
“You’re here.”
He closed the book, put Koshka down, and crawled across the bed to me. “I told you I’d see you soon. Can’t fathom how I wound up here, but you shan’t hear me complaining.”
Against my better judgment, I let him take me into his arms.
“Did you miss me, darling?” he asked.
“Obviously,” I said, nodding toward the tower of Duke books on my nightstand.
The books—of course. How could I have been so thoughtless? Once when I was a little girl, I’d accidentally dragged characters out of their story. Grandma had nearly passed out the night she’d come to my bedroom to tuck me in and read to me, only to find twenty-five very well-behaved babies in my room. I’d pulled an entire rabbit family out ofThe Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoesby DuBose Heyward and Marjorie Flack and was having a tea party with them.
But I had never, ever pulled a character from their books by dreaming about them, longing for them. First time for everything, though.
“I missed you too,” he said. “Obviously.”
He bent to kiss me, and I stopped him with a hand on his chest.
“The rules,” I told him, in a panic. A very pleasant panic but still, a definite panic. “Rule Seven: Fictional characters belong in story worlds. Real people belong in the real world. You have to go back in your books. Right now.”
“Now?” He raised an eyebrow. “Or after?”
“After what?”
“You tell me,” he said.
