Fairyville (Fairyville #1)(71)
Author: Emma Holly

"You see," said the other Oscar, laying his hands gently on her knees.

"But you left me!" Mrs. Pruitt teared up again. "You went to live with some other woman, and she watched you grow up!"

"I went because I knew your Oscar would love you even better than I could. He’s a wise old soul, Mother, and this is the first Earth life he chose. He promised to see your true heart, no matter how you acted. From what I was able to see through my foster mother’s scrying glass, he kept his word—though all he remembers from his lives in Fairy is a bit of his old magic."

Mrs. Pruitt covered her face in shame. "You saw me? You saw how I treated him?"

"I’ve learned some magic myself," the other Oscar said, "and I can see your true heart, too. I know you wanted to love him. You simply got caught up in worrying about other people, about what they’d think because he was different."

Mrs. Pruitt quieted at his words, finally letting go of Zoe’s hand. Her fingers lifted to almost touch her real son’s honey-gold hair. "You’re a good boy. Your… other mother raised you right."

"You still have your chance," her son pointed out. "You could still watch your Oscar grow into a man. He trusted you to be his mother for a reason, just as I trusted the fairies."

Mrs. Pruitt pressed her fingers to her trembling mouth. "Do you think he could forgive me?"

"I’m sure he can," the other Oscar said. "And it will be easier for you now, knowing you weren’t crazy, knowing why you took him in."

"Will I ever see you again?"

"When your Oscar gets older, he and I will be able to go back and forth as we like. It’s our right as changelings."

Mrs. Pruitt rolled her lips together and nodded. "I’d like that. And I do want him back. I’ll be braver this time, now that I know."

The grown-up Oscar grinned so blindingly with approval that Mrs. Pruitt had to smile. "Good. Because I really want to come back and have a chance to drive a human car!"

"You’re just like your father," Mrs. Pruitt laughed. "He spends every spare minute tinkering in the garage." Her laughter faded as she took the other Oscar’s face in her hands. "You’ve given me a gift by coming here today. I don’t know how to thank you."

"We have a little longer," said her son. "I can’t sense the others coming back just yet."

Judging it was safe to leave Mrs. Pruitt and her son alone, Zoe moved quietly away. To her surprise, the other Alex was talking with Magnus beneath a tree, looking casual and at ease.

Magnus’s aunt raised this Alex, Zoe reminded herself. They have no reason not to be friendly.

Both men turned as she approached. She was wearing the jeans and sneakers she’d changed into before they left. Despite the absence of her short red dress, there was a flicker of male admiration in the other Alex’s eyes, one that said his taste in women wasn’t that different from his counterpart’s.

"Milady," he said when she was close enough for him to bow over her hand. "The prince informs me that you are acquainted with my opposite."

"I am," she said, tempted to grin at his courtly manners—and at Magnus being called a prince.

"I wonder if you’d allow me to walk apart with you."

Magnus shrugged his eyebrows when she looked at him. Apparently, he considered the other Alex a harmless companion. Or maybe he was counting on him being too polite to hit on the "prince’s" girl.

"I’d be happy to walk with you," she said, "and, please, call me Zoe."

They walked away from the others down a path into the trees. Moonlight filtered through the leaves to guide their way.

"You want to know about your twin," she guessed.

"Yes. It’s strange to feel him so much a part of my life and yet to know we’ll never meet. I share his dreams sometimes." The other Alex’s shoulders lifted and fell. Though she knew it probably wasn’t the case, he seemed younger than the Alex she knew, more comfortable with himself but less tried. "Perhaps he’s shared my dreams as well without knowing it. I’ve sensed he’s troubled, that this world hasn’t treated him as kindly as it might."

"Maybe not, but he’s made a place in it I think he likes."

"He’s a good man?"

"Very." She said it without hesitation, and meant it more than she expected.

"He treats my birth mother well?"

"He adores her. They adore each other."

His head turned in surprise. "You know her?"

"Yes. She would adore you, too. She’s a special woman. She stayed in touch with me even after Alex and I broke up."

"You are in love with Prince Magnus now."

Zoe heard an amusing hint of Alex’s knee-jerk rivalry in his voice, or maybe it was protectiveness toward his counterpart.

"I am," she said, "though it’s strange to hear you call him by that title."

"The prince is well respected in Fairy. He is older than I, of course, and ran with a different circle, but I met him on occasion, at hunts and other events. My mother and he get on. He is fair, I think, and never cheats at games."

The grudging praise amused her—though she wasn’t convinced Magnus had treated Bryan with complete fairness. She shifted her gaze toward the bubbling brook that the falls ran into. This was an argument she’d agreed to drop. She didn’t think it would benefit Bryan to know that he’d been spelled to sleep with her, or that Magnus had been a party to the encounter. Her own reaction was a mix of outrage and arousal. To think of Magnus participating in that night, feeling everything Bryan did…

"I’m a bit surprised by his restraint," the other Alex observed, calling her back from her distraction. "He hasn’t charmed you. Your aura shows no signs of tampering."

She realized then that it had never occurred to her to wonder if Magnus had tampered magically with her. That omission frightened her for a moment before it fell away. It seemed she could trust her instincts—no bad thing to have confirmed.

"You can see auras?" she said aloud. "Despite being human?"

The other Alex grinned, and the expression was so like the Alex she knew that her heart squeezed tight. "You’re human, aren’t you? And you see them."

"Yes, but—I suppose your parents raised you to believe in magic."

"And trained me to use it." He hesitated, as if he wasn’t sure he should say what he was going to. "Your Alex won’t come back the same, milady. Fairy changes everyone."

The hour that had passed since Alex and Oscar disappeared into the falls felt like an eternity to Bryan. Magnus had explained that time would move differently in Fairy. Bryan tried not to turn each imagined minute into a nightmare, but when little Oscar’s not-so-little twin lifted his head and said, "They’re coming," his already anxious heart just about thumped through his ribs.