“I suspect he could havekilledme,” Shepard says, “but he couldn’t Turn me—that’s where the curse interfered.”
“Because if you were immortal,” I say, “your soul wouldn’t show up for the wedding.”
He sighs. “That’s my assumption.”
I bring my legs up onto the couch to cross them, then push my skirt down in the middle. (Baz is always on me to be more ladylike in skirts.) “Has that come into play before?”
“Once,” Shepard says. “I tried to go home with a fairy, but I couldn’t get through the mist.”
“Why were you going home with a fairy?”
He looks back at his knees, clearing his throat.
“With afairy?” I say. If I sound scandalized, it’s because I am.
He peeks up at me, smiling. “Why not with a fairy?”
“I can’t even believe you found a proper fairy—but, Shepard, they’re evil!”
He smiles at his lap. “She didn’t seem evil.”
“Morgana below, is this part of your whole . . .thing?”
He lifts his chin up and looks at me like I’m the one being strange. “Is what part of my whole thing? Going home with girls?”
“Going home withcreatures.Are you some sort of collector?”
“No!” He’s laughing at me. “No. Not, like, intentionally.”
I fall back against the arm of the sofa, covering my eyes. “I can’t.”
I can still hear him laughing. “You’re lucky the curse saved you from disappearing into the fairy realm,” I say.
“Didn’t feel lucky at the time.”
I shake my head hard,reallynot wanting to imagine what else Shepard has followed home over the years. Then I haul myself back up, smoothing my skirt, and trying to sort out the relevant implications . . . “So you’re not allowed to be with anyone else? Romantically? We should write that down.”
“Oh no,” he says. “That’s not the problem. The curse doesn’t keep me from hooking up. I don’t think the demon cares what I do before I die.”
I can feel my cheeks burning. “Then why couldn’t you pass through the fairy fog?”
“I think it’s because time passes differently with the fairies . . .”
“Oh, sure,” I say, getting it, “it’s another sort of immortality!”
“Or altered mortality,” he agrees.
“Huh.” I stand up and find my chalk. I make a note of it on the wall:C.V. can’t be made immortal.And—“Engagement” doesn’t interfere with sexual congress.
“Not how I’d put it,” Shepard says.
I tap the chalk against my chin.
“What happens in the stories?” he asks.
I turn back to him. “Hmm?”
He looks sheepish again. “To the beautiful maidens?”
