“Talia? Talia!”
I try to catch her as she begins to fall. Is she sick? Freaking out from the heat? Unable to stand the sight of a giant, sexual-looking water lily?
“Talia?” I nudge her, at first gently, then harder as I realize her body’s limp.
Is she dead? Did her heart just realize it was three hundred years old and stop beating? No! She can’t be dead. No!
“Talia? Say something!” My whole body is quivering, but I have to stay calm. I have to help her because she is the only one who can help me.
Now other people are crowding around, asking if she’s okay, saying they’ll call 911, shoving and pushing, grabbing and poking, until I can’t breathe.
Breathe!
I feel my heart crashing around in my chest, almost as though it isn’t tethered down.
“Anyone know CPR?” a woman says.
I shove the gathered spectators away and kneel beside Talia. What I mean to do is CPR, like I learned in my junior lifesaving course, but somehow, when I kneel beside her, when I hold her in my arms, my mouth near her mouth, the events of the past week—Talia in the castle, in the dungeon, on the airplane, at the party, at dinner, even Talia gazing at that water lily—all swim before me like a river, a waterfall, and as on that day in the castle, I grab her. I press my lips against hers.
I kiss her.
I kiss her long and hard and like both our lives depend on it, which maybe they do.
“Don’t go, Talia,” I murmur.
Go? Don’t I mean die?
I kiss her again, harder. But this time, I say, “Please, Talia, I love you.”
She stirs.
I pull away, stare at her. She stares back, eyes widening.
“Jack?”
“Are you all right?”
Her white hand flutters to her even whiter forehead, and she says, “I was flying.”
“Flying?” I’m aware of people around, a woman with a concerned face, a man who offers a water bottle, which I take, but I focus on Talia. “Where were you flying?”
“Not where.” She winces at the water I splash on her face. “Not where but when. I was flying back in time, flying in the airplane back over the ocean, to Europe, then to Euphrasia, to the tower room where I lay those three hundred years. I actually saw the three hundred years, Jack. Euphrasia was invisible to the world, but it was there. I was there. I saw the seasons change through the window. And then I saw my birthday eve, and every birthday before that, every Christmas and state occasion. And finally, I was a little girl, playing in the Euphrasian hills with Lady Brooke, and there was a cottage. Jack—a stone peasant cottage with a holly bush beside it, a cottage I always saw but never paid much attention to.” She stops to breathe, shaking. “And in the eaves of that cottage was a window, and in that window was a face, the face of the witch Malvolia. She was calling me, saying I had to come back and do it all over again. I was back. She took me to her cottage on the highest hill in Euphrasia, where I used to picnic with Lady Brooke. I was there.”
“No. You were here.”
“I was there. I could hear you saying, ‘Talia, Talia, say something,’ but I could not answer, for I was not here. I have to do it all over again.”
“Why? This makes no sense.”
“Because the spell was to be broken by the kiss of true love—I knew that. That is why it is all wrong. You do not love me, and that is why Malvolia pulls me back to her.”
“Because I don’t love you?”
Talia nods.
“But I do love you. Didn’t you hear me say that, too?”
And as I say it, I realize it is true. I love Talia, not just because she’s hot (even though she is), and not just because she’s kind and thoughtful and smart, but because she makes me be all those things when I’m around her. “I’m a better person when I’m with you. I don’t want to stop being that person. I don’t want you to go.”
“Really?”
“Will that be enough for her, for Malvolia, to make you stop having these creepy dreams?” I don’t really believe Malvolia is appearing to Talia, but I know that Talia believes it, and I want to make it better for her. “Does it matter that I love you?”
I see her think about it, really think like she’s doing a crossword puzzle or a sudoku, not just trying to think of an answer to a guy who said he loves her. I tell myself it’s because she fainted, because she’s freaking out or sick.
“Talia?” I try to meet her eyes, which have glazed over. Is she going to faint again?
But she shakes herself awake. “Yes?”
“Do you love me back?” Because maybe that’s the problem. Probably. Probably she thinks I’m a jerk compared to the princes she could’ve had.
She looks off into the distance over my shoulder.
She smiles. “Yes, Jack, I love you.”
I feel myself grin, even though loving Talia was something I never thought I wanted. Now, though, it seems so perfect. Talia talks to me. Talia knows me. She doesn’t think I’m a stupid party boy. She even likes my kid sister.
“I love you, too, Talia.”
She laughs. “I know.”