Chapter 94

I stay frozen in my spot. The dream version of Ansel sweeps back a flyaway strand of hair from Zara’s face. My stomach knots itself into a pretzel when she leans in to kiss him. His arms are around her. Her hand is in his hair.

My Ansel is as awkward as I’ve ever seen him. He’s looking down, and seems to be holding his breath.

Dream Ansel puts on the brakes, pulling back.

“What’s wrong,” Zara asks. “Did I… do something?”

“No.” He looks frustrated and runs his hands through his hair. “Not at all.” He clears his throat. “I think we need to stay focused,” he says, standing, “On the task at hand.”

“That was the extent of it, mostly,” Ansel says next to me, wearing a guilty expression. “This was as close as it got to a rebound.”

“I don’t have room to talk,” I say, thinking ashamedly about kissing Ethan. “And, we were broken up.”

I blush. “We are broken up.”

He frowns. “Yes.”

“Ansel?”

He waits for me to ask, raising his eyebrows slightly.

“What made you stop… with her?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” His face clouds over. He yanks open the door.

I follow him out into the hall. It takes a second to process it. The walls are lined with rows of sparkling, magical books, flying on and off of the shelves. We’ve stepped into the setting of a fairytale.

“No,” I say, ducking down. A book whizzes by, nearly colliding with my head.

“Damn it, Karin,” Ansel says. He dodges War and Peace in a close encounter with his face. It seems to further his aggravation. His brow is furrowed and his jaw is tense. “Don’t make me spell it out.”

I stare at him. “I-“

He pushes me up against the shelf and kisses me angrily, pressing his lips hard against mine, his hands gripping my hips. He’s more than spelling it out. My body is lit with electricity.

This is your brain on drugs.

I break away, my heart racing. I tilt my head down, his face still centimeters from mine. “But you’re Rhett Butler,” I whisper.

“What are you on about?” His voice is breathy and exasperated. A whoosh catches his attention. In a split second, he turns and nearly pulverizes a book that’s hurtling toward us.

Just then, Henry walks by, heading toward his office further down the hall.

“Look at him,” Ansel says. “Skulking around this place. How did I not see it?” He retracts from me. “He might as well be twirling a mustache.”

I grab hold of Ansel’s tie and pull him back. His scowl melts into a cranky sort of grin, revealing one of his dimples. He kisses me again, sending me off into a brief nirvana, before he yanks away.

“Hang on,” he says. “Why aren’t we flickering away yet? Like last time.”

“I don’t feel tired yet. Maybe because this is a team effort. You can do mind control or whatever, so you have your own mental juice.”

“Maybe,” Ansel says. “Though, that drains the hell out of me. It’s more of a party trick than anything because it takes a crazy amount of energy. It makes more sense for Jeff and I to control in other ways.”

“Intimidation and brute force?”

Ansel’s forehead wrinkles and the corner of his mouth turns down.

“Sorry, I was trying to tease.”

“It’s not that.” Ansel shuffles uneasily. “I was thinking about when I used mind control on you…” His face is pained. “I’m ashamed of the way I treated you when I first brought you here. I handled everything the wrong way,” he sighs and rubs his hand against his forehead. “I’m sorry I’ve been so callous.”

I wrap my arms tight around my chest. It’s the words I’ve wanted to hear… but I don’t know what to do with them.

I look past Ansel’s shoulder, watching some of the books flap like birds as they zip through the air.

Ansel looks lost in thought. “I’m not the man I thought I’d become,” he says. His expression twists in revulsion. “My father,” he says. “That’s who I became.”

I think back to King David’s face, etched in frown lines, with beady eyes that sparkle when he smells your fear.

“No,” I say. “That isn’t you at all.”

He doesn’t believe me. I feel the storm clouds inside of him.

“Karin?”

“What?” A book jettisons out of the sky and crashes at my feet.

T. S. Eliot. Prufrock and other Observations.

“I fucked things up with your father,” Ansel says. “And… I don’t have the money to free him.”

I nearly drop the book of poetry in my hand. I stare at him, dumbfounded. “That’s -“

“Impossible?” Ansel’s eyes gaze across the hall, taking in all the obvious signs of wealth visible in this fairytale hallway. There’s the gilded wainscoting, the ornate stairs to lavish bedrooms, and an open door leading out to a terrace.

The flying books seem to grow dangerously chaotic. Without waiting for Ansel, I retreat to the door, flinching and ducking, holding my arms up like a shield. He follows after me, swearing and swatting at them like large mosquitoes.

Outside, we both give a sigh of relief. No books. The night air is pleasantly warm. On the terrace is a fountain I’ve never seen before. It glistens in the starlight. As we come closer, I recognize, at the center of it, Luna, the Roman goddess, carved in smooth, black marble.

Then, the light bulb finally switches on.

“You’d be good at poker, Ansel. It’s your father, isn’t it?”

Ansel nods, rubbing at a paper cut on his thumb. “Every detail is accounted for - documented, meticulously. I can fudge a little, if I’m careful. To get your clothing was a fudge, for instance.”

His face is stony. “I don’t want for anything - but he hoards every bit of money there is and doles it out in ways so that I hardly touch it.”

Ansel won’t look at me.

I peer into the fountain. Glowing fish are swimming inside, lit up like the neon of a Route 66 motel sign. The spray of the water cascading from the fountain is cool against my face.

“This was all based on a lie,” I say.

“No.” He sits down on the edge of the fountain. “I’d already worked out how much I could ‘cook the books,’ each month to make sure I had a portion of it. I also knew having an heir guaranteed me - at least at that time - the throne. And, my father’s good favor.”

I keep my eyes fixed to the fish in the fountain basin. “I see.” My cheeks are hot. “I just feel sort of misled.”

“You were,” Ansel says, closing his eyes. “But… it gets worse.”

I scowl. “How can it get worse?”

He sighs. “I went to talk to Queen Mia from the Full Moon pack.” Ansel’s shoulders are hunched over. He looks weary. “I offended her,” he says, “And it likely put a target on your father’s back. I didn’t openly reveal who he was, but it would be easy to find out since you and I became so publicly linked.”

“They found out.” I feel a painful jolt at the memory. “He got moved to maximum security.”

Ansel winces. The neon fish continue their swirling laps around Luna and I think about Dad.

Something catches Ansel’s eye and leans down to pick it up. When he opens his hand, I see two gold coins on his palm. He studies them for a moment.

“I had a plan in the works to fix things,” he says, fidgeting with the coins. “But then everything spiraled. I could walk in now, with double the money, and still not be able to get him out.” He tightens his hand into a ball around the coins. “I’m sorry,” he says, his voice strained.

I listen for a while to the bubbling, flowing water. Ansel reaches over to place one of the coins in my hand.

Silently, I make a wish for my father. Together, we watch it sink and settle on the bottom.

“Your turn,” I say, quietly.

“Okay.” He smiles and scrunches his eyes with all the intensity of a child trying to focus hard on his wish.

I’m caught off-guard by how it softens my heart. In the spray of the water, his blond hair is curling at the ends. He opens his eyes and drops his coin in with a ‘plunk.’

“It’s not your fault,” I say, “What happened to Dad. And maybe Cherry’s mother -” My voice cracks.

My mom.

Ansel takes my hand, jumpstarting the butterflies in my stomach.

“Maybe she’ll get him out, after all,” I say, pressing on. “That seems karmic, doesn’t it?”

She certainly owes it to Dad.

“It’s in exchange for me letting Cherry off the hook.” His expression darkens. “Is that karmic? Because I think Cherry deserves whatever hell she catches now.”

“If it helps my dad, I don’t care.”

Ansel takes a breath. He leans into me and nods slowly. “Okay, then. That’s what I’ll do.”

“What did you wish for?” I close my eyes for a second, focusing on the feeling of my hand in his.

“I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be,” he says, in a voice that seems far away.

Eliot’s poem whispers through the fabric of the dream.

“Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two.”

“Ansel, you’re whoever you want to be. Prince - pianist…”

“Right now,” he says. “Just your lover.”

He holds out his free hand, waiting for me to channel my energy again. My heart thuds in my chest. He snaps his fingers.