A Spindle Splintered (Fractured Fables #1)(30)
Charm gives me a sharp, sideways glance before squinting at the rising sun. “Nice to know you’re trying to save yourself. Finally.”
“Yeah, so maybe you can stop trying to save me. Finally.”
I don’t even have to look at her to feel the mulish set of her jaw. God, she’s stubborn. I feel like I should warn Prim before I go. Then I remember the exclamation points and wonder if I should warn Charm instead. “Look, just—don’t work for fucking Pfizer. Don’t stick around Roseville. Go do something, anything else. Whatever you want. And take Prim with you.”
“You are not the boss of me,” Charm answers reflexively, but I can see the dangerous softening of her jaw at the mention of Prim’s name. She swallows and adds, casually, “Hey, by the way: I love you.” Her hands are jammed in her jeans pockets now, her eyes are still on the sky. “You don’t have to say anything back—I know about your rules—I just thought you should know before you—”
I tip my head against her shoulder, right where Superman’s hair curls against his forehead. “I love you, too.” It’s surprisingly easy to say, like the final tug that unties a knot. “It was a stupid rule.”
“Hot, but stupid, like I’ve always said.” Charm’s voice is rough and gluey, full of tears again. “Will you come home? When you’re ready?”
“Cross my heart.”
“Okay.” Charm turns and kisses me once, hard, on the top of my head. “I hope you find your happily ever after, or whatever.”
“Already did,” I say, and it’s possible that my voice is a little gluey, too. “I’m just looking for a better once upon a time.”
We don’t say goodbye. We just stand for a while, my cheek still on her shoulder, watching the sun rise over Muskingum County. Eventually Charm sighs and walks back to her car. She turns and blows me a final, brassy kiss before she gets inside.
The tower still smells faintly of roses. I find them curling and drying in their buckets, their petals gathering in drifts against the walls. I watch Charm’s car through the scummed windows, feeling the gathering heat of summer, thinking about stories that are told too often and the ink that bleeds from one cosmic page to the next and the stubborn arc of the universe. Charm’s car vanishes around a bend in the road, sunlight flashing gold against the windshield, and then I’m a girl in a tower again.
But this time it’s not midnight. This time I’m not drunk on despair and cheap beer, hoping desperately for a way out of my own story. This time, when I press my finger to the end of a splintered spindle, I’m smiling.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
IF WRITERS RECEIVED fairy blessings on their christening days, they couldn’t hope for any better gifts than these: An agent like Kate McKean, who has never met a tree she can’t talk me out of.
An editor like Jonathan Strahan, who didn’t laugh when I said I wanted to Spider-Verse a fairy tale, and an editor like Carl Engle-Laird, who is weak for the memes of the mid-2010s.
A publishing team like this one, including the patience, time, and talents of Irene Gallo, Ruoxi Chen, Oliver Dougherty, Troix Jackson, Jim Kapp, Lauren Hougen, Michelle Li, Christine Foltzer, Jess Kiley, Greg Collins, Nathan Weaver, Katherine Minerva, Rebecca Naimon, Mordicai Knode, Lauren Anesta, Sarah Reidy, Amanda Melfi, and everyone from Tor Ad/Promo. Expert consultants like Ace Tilton Ratcliff, who made this story smarter, kinder, and more true, and early readers like Ziv Wities, H. G. Parry, Sam Hawke, Rowenna Miller, Leife Shellcross, Anna Stephens, Tasha Suri, and the other denizens of the bunker, who all had better things to do with their time but spent it correcting my Tolkien references instead.
Friends like Corrie and Taye and Camille, who would break the laws of physics for me any day of the week.
Parents and brothers like the ones I have, who gave me my wonderful once upon a time.
And a partner and kids like the ones I found, who gave me my perfect happily ever after.