A/N: coolcat12345, Be Rose, and LunaPadma, I'm so glad you're back for part 2! LunaPadma, this is up today just because you're excited, haha. And Be Rose, good news: Except for one or two scenes, this book is finished. I'm putting up chapters as I get them edited, so you can expect regular updates. :)
Our immediate neighborhood was all mansions and overgrown gardens clambering up and down a forested hillside. As we walked down the hill, the houses got closer together and apartment buildings started showing up, and just beyond that came the best Glimmering ice cream in Portland.
"There were a couple questions I didn't expect," Imogen said. She pulled a hot pink shop door open for me. The bell overhead jingled. "Like, there was one about what you should do if you're glamoured as a bird with a broken wing and a princess decides to put you out of your misery instead of bandage you up."
"Does that happen a lot?"
"Didn't used to," Imogen said. "But princesses are feistier than they used to be. I guessed that you should probably hop the hell out of there before she smashes you with a rock. And that was the right answer. I guess a bunch of people said you should drop the glamour and reveal yourself early, but that doesn't even make sense. Revealing yourself as a faerie if you're not either at a crossroads or at the end of the princess' Story is an idiot decision. Talk about wasting your best move."
She examined the brightly colored tubs of ice cream behind the glass counter as she spoke. This shop was tucked between a Chinese restaurant and a stationary store. Any Humdrum could see the door, but it would never cross their mind to walk through it. Imogen tapped on the glass with one long pink nail. "Kunlun peach, please," she said. "One scoop, waffle cone."
The rosy-cheeked elf behind the counter hopped onto a stool and practically dove into the cooler. She mounded the peach ice cream onto a cone.
"Can I get a sprinkling of fairy dust on top?" Imogen said. The woman dipped a spoon into a jar of sparkling purple powder and flicked the glitter onto the ice cream, sending stray bits everywhere.
"Chocolate chunk for me," I said. "Waffle cone. No fairy dust, please."
And that order just about summed up boring old me.
"I'm glad you have common sense around feisty princesses," I said. I'd have picked the same answer, but it would have only been a lucky guess. Unlike Imogen, I wasn't a Glimmering genius who'd just earned top marks on my Proctor Proficiency Exam.
I took the cone from the woman and thanked her. "How does it feel to be a licensed Proctor?" I said, turning back to Imogen.
"Licensed Junior Proctor," she said. "I need my degree to advance."
"Licensed Junior Proctor, then," I said, and she couldn't stop a goofy smile from spreading across her perfect face.
Being official meant she was free to glamour anyone she liked in order to determine their true character. And while normally, this idea would have made me nervous, Imogen was good at her job. Better than good. And that mattered, because it was important work. Not many Stories concluded without the moment of truth and nuggets of wisdom Proctors provided as they tested heroes' and heroines' moral character. But being a Proctor was hard, the kind of job that made my work at Wishes Fulfilled look like a vacation. Being a faerie godmother just required that I grant wishes, not make value judgments as to whether my clients deserved them.
Theoretically, anyway. My track record on actually doing my job without making judgment calls wasn't great, but then, I was an aspiring biologist, not a career godmother.
"Only a Junior for another few years," Imogen said. "Liv, you should come to Institut Glanz with me. Seriously. We could be roommates. It would be amazing." She handed the woman a couple small coins and waved goodbye.
A familiar guilt made my stomach twinge, but only for an instant. We'd had this conversation before, but I couldn't change my mind any more than I could suddenly up and accept Queen Amani's job.
"Glanz is the most prestigious faerie academy in the world, remember?" I said. "Which means I probably can't get in. Also, I can't go to Oregon State's biology program if I'm in the Swiss Alps."
"You wouldn't be going to some Humdrum biology program, dork," Imogen said. "You'd be, I don't know, doing something awesome."
"Biology is awesome," I said. "Glanz is good if you want to make faerie craft your life's work." That wasn't my plan. We'd both known that for a long time.
All my energy geared toward the future, waiting breathlessly for the moment I'd step onto my college campus and start a new life, studying biology or forestry or whatever plant-related thing ended up making my heart pound the hardest. For the first time, I wouldn't be Olivia Feye: godmother; or Olivia Feye: Reginald Feye's daughter; or Olivia Feye: secret eyes of the Faerie Queen. I would just be me.
And if I was honest, besides knowing that digging my hands into freshly tilled soil made me want to do a happy dance, I didn't even know what "me" meant. There were so many things I hadn't tried, and so many versions of myself I hadn't become. Life as the daughter of a Glimmering politician was simple: Be good, show up to events, and don't cause trouble. I'd done everything right, except for the time I'd almost ruined Elle's case. But my last year of high school was about to start, and after I survived that, the whole world would open up.
Imogen nudged the door open with her hip. "You should think about it," she said. "You remember the year I was in France? This is like that, but it's four years instead of one."
"I have thought about it," I said. "And I love you times a million, but I can't give up my life's ambition to be your roommate. Besides, you won't be gone for whole years. There's summer vacation, and Christmas, and it's not like you won't have a magic mirror at Glanz. We can mirror each other every day."
"Mirrors and phones aren't the same," she said. We stepped off the sidewalk to let a woman walking three pugs pass.
"Our friendship will survive Institut Glanz," I said.
She sighed. "And your career as a botanist or conservationist or ecologist or whatever-ist won't," she said. "I get it. But don't even try to tell me you couldn't get in. You're the youngest Wishes Fulfilled godmother in a century. Maybe ever."
"Lorinda said there was one girl back when Wishes Fulfilled started," I said. "But she was the owner's daughter, so I don't know if that counts."
Lorinda, my boss, knew everything there was to know about faerie godparenting. It was usually more than I wanted to hear. She was convinced I was a rising star set to take over the agency. I didn't have the heart to tell her I was only there for the gold.
"Anyway, what would I do there?" I said. "Practice love spells?"
"What are you going to do at your Humdrum college?" Imogen said. "Math homework and essays on plant structure? I was so bored I almost fell asleep in the middle of that sentence."
"Boring for you, maybe," I said. It sounded like exactly what I'd been looking for all my life. OSU wasn't quite far enough from home, but the in-state tuition meant my biggest dream—the chance to be a normal nobody for once in my life—was almost in my grasp. I wouldn't trade that for the best faerie godmothering education the world had to offer.
Imogen poked my shoulder. "You just want to stay here with Lucas," she said. She winked at me and turned to cross the street. The "STOP" orange hand was glaring at us, but she twirled her finger and it switched instantly to the white "WALK" figure. A car screeched to a halt to avoid running the red light that had suddenly appeared in front of it.
I jogged to catch up as she strode across the street. "I'm not about to stay in Oregon for Lucas if I'm not about to take off to the Alps for you." Especially since Lucas had a girlfriend, which Imogen never seemed to think was as big a deal as I did.
"You could get away from your parents," she said in a sing-song voice. She was basically holding out candy and trying to tempt me. It was the closest she'd come so far to winning me over, and even though I knew she was teasing, I didn't want to laugh.
Two college-aged guys with giant beards passed us. One of them looked longer at Imogen than was strictly necessary. She didn't even notice.
"No dice," I said. "If I go to Institut Glanz, I get to be away from my parents for most of the year. If I go to OSU, they'll disown me."
"If only you could be so lucky."
A vague voice in the back of my head said I should feel guilty for talking about my family that way. We never talked about Imogen's family that way. But then, Imogen's family hadn't earned our dismissal. Her sisters drove her up the wall, but at least they secretly liked each other, and her parents were freaking adorable. My parents hadn't spoken to each other in three weeks, and neither of them were even bothering to act like that was weird anymore.
Maybe that was how I'd managed to keep from telling Imogen about Queen Amani. I came from a whole family of people who never talked about anything. Was it any surprise I had followed so exactly in their footsteps?
The bus hissed and clanged to a stop right as we reached the little bus shelter. I crammed the last tiny funnel-shaped bite of my ice cream cone into my mouth and stepped on board.
For maybe the first time, stepping onto the bus to go to work felt like something I wanted to do. When I was poring through a case file, I didn't have to think about my secrets or my parents or my total inability to fall for someone available. All I had to do was solve one problem and then another and get my client to a happily ever after.
And today was better than most, because today I had a new case. And there was only one place in town where I could properly focus on a client folder and enjoy the best shortcake cappuccinos in town.