YOU CAN'T CHANGE ME

I stood straighter and looked her in the eyes, a luminous brown like life itself, containing all the other colors at the same time. "I'll try to open this gate for you, on a few conditions."

She smiled. "We faeries do love a good condition."

I rolled my eyes. Didn't I know it. "First, I will not kill myself to open the gate. If I can't do it, I can't do it, and I'm not going to drain any more innocent paranormals to get more energy. What I've already got is all you're getting. Second, you absolutely must take all the faeries-every last one, including the Dark Queen and all her minions-with you. I don't want any of you staying behind where you can keep messing around with my world. Third, we have to save all those humans the Dark Queen has kidnapped and figure out a way for them to be able to go back to their lives. None of them are going through with you. And fourth, you break this bleeping curse the Dark Queen put on my boyfriend."

"The first three I accept; no innocent paranormals will be harmed, I will ensure that every faerie forever leaves these realms, and no humans will be taken with us. But I am afraid I do not understand the fourth."

I narrowed my eyes, trying not to be lulled into the calm that radiated from her stupid, moonlight voice. "Your evil sister took my boyfriend, Lend, Cresseda's son. I got him back, but she cursed him or something because whenever we're in the same room he immediately falls asleep."

She blinked slowly. "My sister did that?"

"Yeah, and I can't figure out how to break it. We had an Unseelie faerie come, but she said she couldn't."

"I cannot fathom it. My sister's arrogance would not allow her to even consider the possibility you could get the boy away from her once she had him. She has always underestimated mortals. Why she would see the need to glamour him is beyond me. What do you think?"

She turned to Reth, who avoided her eyes, staring determinedly into the sparkling pink distance. "You are the queen. Why are you asking me?"

"Because I value your opinion."

"Excuse me," I said, since obviously she wasn't used to Reth's sneaky circular way of talking. "You do realize he didn't answer your question, right?"

Reth glared at me, then looked back at the Light Queen. "I could not say what I think."

The Light Queen narrowed her eyes. "Could not say, or will not say?"

"Slim difference between the two."

"My golden son, the mortal realms have changed you. Would you deceive even me?"

I snorted. "You don't know Reth very well if you think he's ever straightforward about anything."

His full lips twitched toward a smile. "Will not say."

"I command you to."

The smile bloomed, full and sly. "Ah, but not even you know my name now."

Her huge cat-shaped eyes went round with shock. "Have you no loyalty?"

"I do. I am loyal to myself and I am loyal to what Evelyn should become. Everything I do is to those ends, to securing the eternity we should have together. You can trust that I will do whatever it takes to help her make that gate and transport us home. But how I get there is up to me entirely, and I am done following any sort of command from you. None of the direction you have given me from the beginning has accomplished anything or moved us forward to where we are now. Evelyn should be full, should be as we are by now. Your excessive caution and then refusal to allow me to act have held everything back, forced me to stay on Earth while you remain here, disconnected and free from the taint of the mortal realm. I do as I see fit. Fortunately for you, my desires coincide with your own."

I'd never been quite sure what the term "gobsmacked" meant, but I was pretty sure that was the only way to describe the look on the Light Queen's face.

"Now, if that's everything, I will be taking Evelyn back so those of us who are actually involved can finish the preparations."

I expected her to strike him down with some crazy finger lightning like these all-powerful beings always seem to have in movies, but to my surprise her face shifted into a gentle smile. "You surprise me. How remarkable to see so much change in one of my own."

Reth frowned sharply like she'd said something incredibly offensive. "Evelyn, time to go." He held out his hand, but I took a step back and folded my arms.

"She might be okay with your remarkable change, but you didn't answer her questions and I didn't get what I came for. I'm not doing anything-anything-until one of you figures out how to fix Lend."

The Light Queen gave Reth an amused smile. "Time to do as you see fit?"

He stalked over and tried to grab my hand, but I snatched it out of the way. He stood straight in front of me, golden eyes burning. "We can't very well do anything for him from here, now, can we?"

"Wait, you can fix it? You could have fixed it all along?" My voice was getting higher and louder, echoing off the pink rock formations with a gentle tinkling bell sound. "What is-"

He grabbed my hand and the landscape shimmered around us, and with a stomach-twisting blur we were back in what I recognized as his room from when he brought me here before. It felt like an eternity ago, back when I was still with IPCA and he was trying to slowly fill me with more soul on his own. I closed my eyes and steadied myself against the lush red velvet chaise longue. Although I kind of wanted to puke all over his room, because really, it'd serve him right.

"Okay." I opened my eyes, pleased to see that the room had stopped tipping to one side. Reth was reclining on the couch, arms folded petulantly across his chest, his face flushed. I'd never seen it that way. "What is your problem? You could have fixed Lend all along?"

"No, I couldn't have."

"Yes, you could have! What would have changed between now and when we first rescued him?"

"You've come to your senses, that's what. Although stubbornness may be a quality some admire, I find your overabundance of it quite distasteful. You take an enormous amount of leading to reach the correct conclusions."

"You know what I love? I love being manipulated! It makes me so happy and so willing to do whatever I'm being manipulated into!"

His mouth curved into a puzzled frown.

"It's called sarcasm, you stupid faerie nitwit." I picked up the nearest object, a froofy pillow with gold thread in intricate swirling patterns, and chucked it at his head. He stared at me, aghast, and I was pleased to see I'd managed to muss his perfect golden hair. "And I'm sick of being manipulated! Jack screwed with my life to try and make me do things, too, and remember what happened? I didn't do it! So don't think that you're making me do anything. You're not. I only do what I decide to."

Reth stood, fury radiating off him as he walked around the couch to stand right in front of me. "Yes, you decide what to do, you silly little girl. It is your decision, it always has been. All I did was give you the information you didn't trust others to merely tell you. You always have to see things for yourself, so I made sure you saw what needed to be seen."

"Yeah, your detours in the Dark Court, brilliant. Fine. Whatever. But why haven't you fixed Lend yet?"

"Because when you are happy, you don't do anything! If you are content, the rest of the world and those who need you fall away into the background. And I for one knew that things needed to move. When you can't have what you want, you become focused. I know you well."

"You don't know anything about me!"

"I know more about you than you understand about yourself! You'll see when you're made whole. That's what this is all about. You cannot see how things will be when you're changed, when you're whole."

"I don't want to change!"

His slender hands curled into fists. "You don't want to change? Do you have any idea what I've been through for you? Why do you think I keep coming back to that horrid, dirty, decaying world of yours? Because you changed me! It makes me sick to think of how I have shifted away from what I should be!"

I leaned back, terrified of the pure fury in his face.

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes and releasing all the tension from his facial muscles, returning them back to the mask of perfection. "But this is irrelevant. When I get back to where I am supposed to be, my connection to eternity will be restored and flawless. I will be restored. And you will be connected, too, and we have forever to-"

"Whoa, whoa, stop right there, psycho. I'm not coming with you."

He got that infuriating smile, that one that all faeries have that says they know more than you ever will and you can't even begin to function on the same plane as them but isn't it cute that you think you have any right to consider yourself a rational creature. It was a condescending head pat in smile form.

"Evelyn," he said, his golden voice trying to pull me in closer. "I love you. You'll understand. You'll want to come with me."

"No." I shook my head, trying to keep my voice even. "You don't love me, Reth. You love this idea you have of what I should be. What I am now bugs the crap out of you." He frowned, but I pressed on. "No, it's true. You don't like anything about me the way I am right now."

"But that does not matter, because you aren't what you should be. It is not your fault and merely temporary."

"No. I am what I should be. I'm what I want to be. And I could never be with someone or love someone who didn't love me and accept me for who I am now. Lend does that. He knows me, and he loves me how I am now, and he'll keep loving me no matter how I might change. It's not conditional on my becoming anything else." It took me a while to figure it out, and I nearly lost him because of it, but I knew that now. And I knew that what I had with Lend was worth more than anything else I had in the world. Or could possibly have in another one.

"But you changed me. I changed because of you. I could feel you, worming your way into my heart and soul, shifting things. You've no idea how aggravating it is to have to adapt to new feelings and thoughts. But of course you have no idea, changeable and temporary as you are. You cannot understand what you could be, what you should be. Your mind cannot even begin to wrap around it. When you understand, you will know, and you will choose to be with me. It won't even be a choice. It is what will be because it must be. It will be who you are."

I put my hand against his chest where I could see the quivering, still dimming brightness of his soul, rested it there. Something was different about his heart, too. It used to beat so slow, so very, very slow, but now it was racing, a rabbit heart, faster even than mine. I used my hand to push myself back a step. "You're wrong."

"I am never wrong."

"See, there you go, wrong again. Now, are you going to take me home and fix my boyfriend, or am I going to have to suck out your soul?"

He reached up and wrapped his hand around mine. "I know from experience you refuse to let in my soul. But, yes, I will fulfill the fourth condition to bind you in this contract."

He opened a door and we walked into the Paths. His steps were tentative. I thought going to the Faerie Realms would help him, but it seemed like he was getting worse. The darkness seemed more oppressive than usual, so I tried to think of other things. Things I had to look forward to. Lend. Sleeping Lend. Reth fixing sleeping Lend, because...why could Reth do it? Oh, of course.

"You are going to be in so much trouble when Cresseda finds out you were the one behind the curse. It was you, wasn't it? When you leaned down and touched his head after we got back-I can't believe I didn't put it together. You did the same thing to the werewolf in the Center."

Reth had the nerve to laugh, the silver bell sound disappearing into the void around us. "Fortunately for me you have never excelled at observation."

"Yeah? Observe this." I snaked my foot out in front of his and caught it around his ankle. He stumbled and nearly fell, and I cackled with laughter. Sure, it was immature, but when trying to get revenge on faeries you couldn't kill, the little things made all the difference.

"I do not understand you," Reth said, his voice edged with annoyance as he straightened.

"Yup. Exactly. And you never will. And if you don't fix my boyfriend the second we get to his house, I'm having Cresseda freeze you to the ground and then I'm coming after you with an iron pipe. I'll bet anything you understand that."

"Really, Evelyn."

"No, really, Reth. But why'd you do it? I never could have gotten him back without you, and then you go and curse him." I kept trying to be angry with him for doing this to us, but the fact remained that without Reth's help Lend would still be in the clutches of the Dark Queen. I could hold the last couple days of stress and agony against him, but knowing that there was a fix-a ridiculously easy fix-made me feel so light I wanted to laugh.

"In spite of what you may think, I am not cruel. I knew that his death would destroy you. And you would be absolutely useless while he was still missing. So I helped you get him, and then I made sure you would be motivated to continue realizing the things you need to do."

We walked in silence for a while until he formed the door and we stepped back out into the Virginia winter sunrise, halfway between the pond and the house.

"Are you quite sure you want me to stop the glamour? It has been rather peaceful without him around," Reth said, wistfully.

"Oh, I'm sure." We walked toward the house. I knew I should yell at him more, but in just a few minutes I'd have Lend to myself, awake, and I half skipped toward the house. I glanced sideways at Reth, whose quick, shallow breaths were fogging out in front of him. "You probably thought that curse was the cleverest thing ever, didn't you?"

His lips turned down as he tried not to smile. "It was one of my better moments." I saw lights ahead of us past the trees, and for a moment I thought I was seeing souls in a whole new freaky way until I realized they were, in fact, red and blue and flashing. Police lights. Lots and lots of police lights.