But Hanry could be gagged. He could be unconscious! One of these doors could lead to a dungeon. Fueled by a morally dubious hope that Hanry is facing as much, if not more, tragedy than I’ve imagined for him, I poke my head into one room, then another. I dip into a closet. I lift a carpet, checking for oubliette entrances. At last, I find a room filled with desserts, aperitifs, and—and five extra-buff, weight-lifting-competition-winner-type male fairies holding hands in a circle around Hanry.
I shouldn’t be surprised. Really.
And yet I am.
And so is he.
“Sabby?” Hanry exclaims.
The fairies divert from hand-holding to building an invisible wall with their hands. Like… mimes, miming a wall. Behind this hastily constructed barrier that should not be able to hold back a small rabbit, much less a prince, Hanry wears a gold-trimmed suit of ivory linen. He’s got a very impressive sash. And manacles. Who could forget the golden manacles?
“This is… kinky,” I say.
Hanry looks ashamed. “I can explain.”
That’d be great. Also: Would it?
When I left Salem, I was getting to the point where I could recognize Hanry from behind. With his size, it wasn’t exactly challenging. But looking at him now, head-on, he’s both familiar and unfamiliar. Mostly the same. This Hanry looks better groomed, I’ll confess. His hands aren’t dirty. I think he’s been moisturizing. Mostly, the difference revolves around his chin: his stubble has made admirable progress toward a beard. It almost hides his mouth. I try not to gaze too long at that mouth, remembering the feel of it on mine. My hands twitch to touch him.
But the only kind of touching they should do is whatever’s necessary to lead him away from here. I swallow, finding my mouth unexpectedly dry. We broke up before I left for New York; he doesn’t have any idea what I’ve been doing all these weeks. He doesn’t know how horrible it was, how lonely.
How different the last twelve hours have been. How—how wonderful.
Minus the whole part where I found out Hanry was marrying a gorgeous fairy princess.
“My diversion won’t keep your mom busy long,” I say, biting down my weaker impulses. Namely, the ones that make me want to scramble to Hanry’s side, begging him to declare his love and tell me he wouldneverconsider marrying May. “We’ve got five minutes, tops.”
“Sabby, I know you have questions,” says Hanry. “I owe you answers.”
Ah, fuck it. If I can’t get declarations of undying love, I’ll take answers.
“You know what?” I say. “You’re right.”
I settle onto an upholstered settee in front of Hanry and his animate cage. I do my best to ignore the vigorously miming muscle and focus only on my ex-boyfriend’s mortified blue eyes.
“Where do you want to start?”
27BEHOLD, THE WUSS OF FAIRYLAND
YOU’VE PROBABLY FIGURED OUT WHOmy parents are,” Hanry says to begin.
“Adopted parents,” I say, waving him on. We’re on a time crunch, after all.
“Yeah, well. The technical term is probably ‘abductive parents.’ I told you I was adopted, but the truth is, it was a sort of… quasi-legal process. I remember being in the human world as a kid, living in the middle of nowhere. I was bored a lot. Until I met my dad. Tits. I’d snuck out of the house to play outside, and I found Dad blowing up a car with a forked stick he’d pulled from a maple tree. So I was like, this guy is awesome. I wanted him to show me how he did it. I offered him my own stick, which apparently had a pretty nifty mushroom growing on it. Dad took it as a sign.”
“I can’t tell from your tone if this encounter was good or bad.”
“Good,” says Hanry, eyebrows rising emphatically. “My human dad wanted me to learn to code.”
“Horrible,” I say. But only because Hanry seems to be expecting it.
“Right? You’ve seen me with computers,” Hanry says. “Anyway, Dad swore I’d see more interesting things if I went with him. Since he wasn’t offering candy or anything, I figured it couldn’t get me in too much trouble. And… sure enough, it didn’t. I never missed my old life. When it was time to have my—you know—when I met you, I was exploring the world beyond Fairy. It’s a tradition for changelings like me.”
“Right. And when the Amish do it, they tell people. ‘Hi, I’m Amish. I don’t know what a dishwasher is, aren’t I adorable? Would you like a fresh rutabaga from my garden?’?”
I don’t actually know if this is how Amish people behave. Under their circumstances, it seems reasonable, unlike whatever the hell it was Hanry thought he was pulling. He must realize this too, because the color in his cheeks flares.
“I didn’t want you to think differently of me.”
