Fairy Godmothers, Inc

THIRTEEN



Falling Apart


It wasn’t until Kate looked down and saw grass beneath her feet that she realized she’d run out the wrong door.

Breathing hard, she stared blankly at the manicured gardens that served as the palace’s backyard, desperately trying to make her brain work enough to figure out what she was going to do next. Or if there was anything that could be done at all.

Behind her, she heard the sound of running footsteps; Rellie was panting. “Did you mean to come out here?” The question was genuinely curious, and Kate remembered she’d left the girl standing behind one of the doors when she’d stepped into the ballroom. Rellie had no idea what was going on when she saw Kate bolt past again, and it could only be blind luck that the girl had even thought to follow her. “Because I know I’m not an expert on the whole fancy dress ball thing, but I really don’t see where this fits in.”

Kate squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the sudden and absolutely unhelpful urge to burst into tears. How could she have been so stupid as to believe this could work? Sure, the paperwork had said there was a Prince Rupert, but the paperwork had been wrong before and she’d known that. And Jon—her chest hurt at the thought of him—maybe he’d lied to her because he thought it was the kindest way to get out of having some random girl thrown at him. She didn’t know what he’d planned to do when they got to the ball and there was no Rupert for Rellie to dance with, but knowing Jon, he would already have some plan worked out if she hadn’t just ruined it by walking in before he was ready.

But the part about pretending to be interested in her . . . There was no need for that, no need at all.

“Kate?” Sounding definitely worried now, Rellie reached out to tentatively touch Kate’s shoulder. “What happened? Are you okay?”

Opening her eyes, Kate forcefully shoved everything else aside until she was fairly certain she could trust her voice. “It turns out that Jon is the prince you’re supposed to be marrying.” Sure, she sounded like someone had been jumping up and down on her throat, but as long as the tears didn’t show up she’d take what she could get. “He was announced as the heir to the throne just as I stepped into the ballroom.”

There was a long moment of silence before Rellie’s hesitant voice said, “But . . . both of you said that the name of the prince I was supposed to be marrying was Rupert. I even danced with his jacket.”

“I don’t know what happened with Rupert. I don’t even know if there was a Rupert.” Kate turned around, guilt slicing through her at the rapidly deepening confusion on the girl’s face. Just because Kate had been an idiot to trust in the magic she sold, she had no right to drag Rellie into the middle of all this. “I’m sorry, at least part of this is my fault. I lied about Jon being my assistant, and there’s a chance that Jon lied about a couple of different things.”

Rellie’s brow furrowed, as if she knew she must be missing something before it would all start to make sense. “But why? I mean, I get the bit about the assistant—I knew right away that was pretty fishy. But why make up all that stuff about Rupert? And if he was lying, why did he keep coming back? I mean, I’m not very good at lying, but even I know that you’re not supposed to hang around afterward.”

Kate folded her arms across her chest, a protective gesture that did absolutely nothing to ease the raw ache inside her. The slow burn of anger rising within her only made it worse, lashing her with the memory of each time she hadn’t listened to her brain telling her this was never going to work. “He probably had a reason,” she said, not wanting to imagine what it might have been. It wouldn’t make it any easier to know. “You’ll have to ask him the next time you see him.”

Rellie stared at Kate, dismay slowly replacing the confusion. “You’re not going to be with me? You’re my Fairy Godmother! You have to stay with me until we’ve figured out what to do about all of this!” She blinked as a thought hit her, and her expression cleared for just a moment. “Wait—since there’s no Rupert, can’t we just sort of cancel this whole thing? I’ll keep the dress, you go back and tell your boss that it all fell through, and later we can come back here together and yell at your sweetie for causing all this trouble.”

Kate, however, was no longer listening. “My boss,” she whispered in horror, eyes tearing at the possibilities that had begun to tumble in her head at Rellie’s words. Bubbles wouldn’t care what had happened, why it had happened, or even what the name of the groom was. If Kate went to her with the news that the entire job had collapsed, she’d just send in another Fairy Godmother to dose everyone with so much True Love they wouldn’t come out of it for at least a year. If she never reported back in, Bubbles would’ve done the same thing.

Jon would end up marrying Rellie anyway, no matter how either of them felt about it now.

She was jolted back into the moment when Rellie shook her shoulders. “Stop looking so freaked out!” the girl insisted, starting to sound more than a little panicked. “You’re the one who’s supposed to know what’s going on!”

A thousand different and equally dreadful emotions swamped her all at once. There was absolutely no way any of them was going to be able to get out of this. “You liked Jon, didn’t you?” she heard herself say, the words sounding distant in her head. It didn’t mean she didn’t hate herself for them. “And I know you’d enjoy being a princess.”

Rellie’s panic gave way to an even deeper confusion than before. “Kate,” she said slowly, hands still on the Fairy Godmother’s shoulders. “You’re really starting to scare me. I think you should sit down for a while and take a couple of deep breaths or something, because you’re making me be the sensible one right now, and I really, really, really don’t like it.”

Kate blinked, saved from having to respond by the sight of a figure emerging from the palace’s backdoor. The figure paused, then headed in their direction. Kate cursed herself for not taking five extra minutes to find a spot that wasn’t immediately visible to absolutely everyone wandering by. Like guards, for example, or people willing to call for them without listening to explanations. One of a thousand mistakes she’d made since first tripping over Jon. “We need to get out of here,” she said quickly, grabbing Rellie’s arm and heading toward the ornamental maze. A few minutes in a quiet corner was all she’d need to set up a doorway, and which would at least mean prison wouldn’t be added to the carriage wreck that had become their lives. “Fairy Godmothers might be okay in the ballroom, but out here without proper authorization, we can be considered trespassers just like everyone else—”

“Kate!”

It took a second for her to recognize Jon’s voice shouting her name, and she nearly tripped as her brain missed her body’s instant decision to stop moving. Kate whirled around, staring wide-eyed at the figure running toward them. Beside her, relief crossed Rellie’s face as she pulled her arm out of Kate’s slack grip. “This is perfect,” she whispered to Kate. “Now you can yell at him right away, and he can tell you he’s sorry that much faster.”

Kate couldn’t respond, thoughts scattered by the realization that there was no way Jon could have been out there this fast unless he’d run after her the moment she’d fled. But she hadn’t thought he’d even seen her show up, let alone disappear. And he couldn’t just run off when there was an entire ballroom of people staring at him, especially if he were the crown prince.

He was close enough now she could see his expression; the desperation on his face was enough to make her heart stumble. Her anger, however, was quick to lash out, grateful to have another and equally deserving target. “Your Highness,” she said icily, throwing her internal walls back up as fast as she could. “Taking a quick break from your party?”

Jon stopped a few feet away from her, wincing as if she’d just jabbed him with something. “Come on, Kate, don’t look at me like that. Please.” His hand lifted briefly, as if he was going to reach out to her, but something in her face made his hand flinch back into place. “I know I was an idiot for not telling you right away, but I swear I was going to fix that tonight at dinner.”

She folded her arms across her chest again, fighting off a fresh stab of pain at the reminder of the evening she’d been so looking forward to. “You don’t have to pretend we were still going to dinner anymore,” she shot back, once again cursing herself for her stupidity and Jon for working so hard to encourage it. “I’m pretty sure I would have figured it out after Rellie made her entrance at the ball and there was no Rupert waiting for her.”

Jon’s eyes blazed with a rush of anger that was almost surprising. “I swear to you I’ll find him,” he said darkly. “I’ll have to kill him first, but Rellie can have him when I’m done. It may take me a couple of days to drag him back here, but luckily Rupert’s an even bigger idiot than I am . . .” He trailed off when he noticed Kate staring at him in confusion, then took a deep breath and started again. “I’ll have more of the details after I’ve talked to a few people, but I only found out that he’d disappeared about five minutes before you did. I haven’t really had time to question anybody.”

Kate just stared at him, half of her wondering if he was just trying to talk his way out of everything. It was the other half, though, that she needed to be careful of. “So, you’re saying that Rupert just . . . ran off before the ball.” There was an accusatory edge to her voice, a self-defense that she clung to with both hands. “For no particular reason.”

Picking up on everything Kate wasn’t saying, Jon’s eyes narrowed. “He decided to go find enlightenment. Stupid, yes, but that’s Rupert for you.” He watched her, a little wary. “Why do you look like you’re waiting for me to sell you something?”

Kate opened her mouth, more than ready to start shouting at him, but Rellie had already started answering the question. “She said you were lying about Rupert because you didn’t want to be the guy who had to marry me,” the girl announced, claiming both Kate and Jon’s attention. Rellie glared at Jon, hands fisted on her hips and chin lifted in defiance. “It made her really freak out, which means I’m kind of mad at you right now even though I didn’t want to marry you either.”

Jon’s eyes widened, then his brows snapped back down into a glare as he turned to Kate. “You think I was making the whole—”

But Rellie wasn’t quite finished. She turned to Kate, looking just as frustrated with she had at Jon. “But now I’m kind of mad at her, too, because she was just supposed to yell at you and be okay again.” She switched her gaze back to Jon, but lifted a hand to jab a finger back in Kate’s direction. “But all she’s doing is standing here being all frosty, you haven’t even said you’re sorry once, and if you two keep this up we’re going to be out here all night!”

Kate had seen the hurt that briefly flared in Jon’s eyes before sliding into anger, of all things. She was more than happy to do all the yelling Rellie wanted to hear, but the last thing they needed right now was an audience. “Yelling isn’t going to fix any of this, but feel free to go back inside the ballroom,” she snapped, meeting the girl glare for glare. “I won’t be able to give you the entrance we talked about, but Jon should be in to dance with you in just a minute.” She shifted her gaze over to Jon, packing as much ice into her voice as it would hold. “I have no idea what it was you were planning, but the least you can do is let her have tonight.”

“What I was planning?” His voice sounded strained, like he was barely keeping himself from shouting, his hands curled into fists. “One thing I didn’t tell you—one—and you’re suddenly certain I’m a compulsive liar. A bad compulsive liar, which right now might almost be even more insulting.”

She gritted her teeth. “Maybe things just got away from you.”

“They did! That doesn’t mean I made any of it up!” When her only response was silence, his expression hardened. “Believe me, if I’d just been trying to get rid of a pest of a potential bride and her Fairy Godmother, there are plenty of easier ways to go about it.”

The words stabbed, as they were meant to, deflating her anger into a knot of grief and heartache that made her lose her stability all over again. “I know. Maybe you were just trying to be gentle.” Kate put all her energy into keeping her voice even, resisting the urge to look anywhere but at his slowly widening eyes. She could maybe figure out a way to keep them from getting hit with True Love, but not if she let herself keep pretending she was going to get anything out of it for herself. “If you have any complaints, there’s a Fairy Godmothers, Inc. customer service desk.”

“Kate.” The word had more than a little desperation in it. “I’m begging you not to do this to me. I was sorry I said it as soon as I closed my mouth.” Whatever had kept Jon from touching her previously was no longer enough, because he reached out and grabbed her arm before she could think to take a step back. “I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours, but I swear the only thing I lied to you about was my job title.” His eyes radiated the clearest sincerity she’d ever seen. “Everything else was just my idiot brother and really bad cosmic timing, both of which I will fix the second I figure out how.”

Kate squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, not quite able to look into those eyes of his anymore. She wanted so much to be mad at him again, since it was worlds easier than having to deal with Jon being sweet. “I shouldn’t have accused you of making up your brother.” She took a deep, shaky breath, opening her eyes to focus on a point somewhere around Jon’s left ear. “I was thrown by the announcement in the ballroom, and I . . . I overreacted.”

The tension in his muscles eased slightly, but he still didn’t let go of her arm. “Given the circumstances, that is completely understandable,” he said gently, taking a step closer. “Next time, though, I’d consider it a favor if you’d just shout at me like Rellie suggested. It would be much easier to take.”

Next time . . . Kate heard Rellie’s sigh of relief, the small sound only managing to make things worse. “Like I told Rellie, yelling isn’t going to fix any of this.” Her voice sounded empty and tired even to her own ears, and she could feel Jon’s grip on her arm tighten ever so slightly as she spoke. She had to get him to stop, or there was no way she was going to be able to think enough to protect them. “What might help, though, is for you to go back inside and reassure your subjects that you haven’t just been kidnapped or run off to join your brother.”

She felt fingertips come to rest on the side of her jaw, let her head be turned enough she looked directly into Jon’s steady, worried eyes.

“And if I do, you won’t be here when I come out,” he said. It wasn’t a question, but the way his jaw tensed suggested he took her silence as its own answer. “Give me another option, Kate.” His voice was rough as he slid his hand up to cup her cheek. “Tell me what I need to do to make sure you don’t slip away while I fix all this.”

Kate refused to let herself lean into his touch, determined to cling to whatever shreds of control she had left. “You can’t fix this, Jon,” she said quietly, giving up on any chance of putting her walls back up for the moment. All she could do was keep the tears that thickened her throat from getting anywhere near her eyes, and focus on getting through this so she could keep both of them from drawing Bubbles’ attention. “It’s not your fault, but too much has gone wrong too fast. The most either of us is going to be able to do is damage control.”

“Enough damage control,” Jon said softly. “You’ve usually ended up solving the problem.”

“Not this time.” She inhaled another shaky breath, closing her eyes when his other hand reached up to cup her cheek. “Don’t do that,” she breathed, finally making herself pull away from him. “It just makes everything harder than it already is.”

“You’re trying to leave me.” Hurt crept back into his voice.

It was a final rip to her heart, deep enough she realized she had no other choice but to get it over with. Quick and clean, because if she kept trying to do this slowly it would kill her. “If I stay, another Fairy Godmother will just sneak in and dose you with the company love potion.” When she felt him freeze, she opened her eyes and tried not to think about what she saw in his. If he knew what was coming, he’d stop trying to make her believe again and start working on the real problem. “It’ll convince you that you’re so madly in love with Rellie you won’t even remember what I look like.”

Jon only stared at her, horrified, and she suddenly knew exactly what he’d meant when he said yelling was so much easier to take. Rellie, as always, was much more direct, and gave Kate a half-hearted kick in the leg. “Even I know you don’t tell guys stuff like that, Kate,” she said morosely. “You guys are supposed to be making up, not making everything worse!”

Kate opened her mouth, but whatever he was about to say vanished forever when she caught the first faint edges of a glow forming behind her. She hadn’t even managed to turn around completely before she heard the all-too-familiar sound of tinkling bells and caught the first wisps of purple smoke. She tensed, some ridiculous instinct making her stand between Jon and the doorway as she wished hopelessly that it wasn’t Bubbles who was about to arrive.

But it was Ned who stepped through the gate. He held out a wand attachment no one ever used, starting to talk before his feet even touched the grass. “I saw that you forgot this back at the office, and I thought maybe—”

He caught sight of Kate and Jon’s faces, processing the fact that Rellie was sitting on the lawn beside them rather than dancing at the ball like she was supposed to. He opened his mouth, then closed it, completely at a loss as to what to say.

“You might as well sit down,” Rellie said kindly, gesturing to a spot on the grass beside her. “It looks like we’re going to be here for a while.”