Lucky Charm (Reverse Fairytales Book 2)(23)

“There are no Magi left in the palace.”

“There is one. Daniel is a Mage.”

I’d heard a lot of crazy things over the course of the past six months, and I’d heard a lot more in the last ten minutes, but this was something I couldn’t comprehend.

“Daniel can’t be a Mage.”

“He can be, and he is. He’s been protecting you ever since things began to get bad at the palace. He wanted to tell you a number of times what he was, but we asked him not to break his cover.”

“You don’t even know Daniel!”

“Daniel is one of the Freedom of Magic. I wouldn’t call him a close friend, but I do know him.”

I thought back to my friend. He’d been spending a lot of his time at the palace, but he’d never actually lived there. Unlike the other bachelors, he had his own place in town. Could it be true? Not once, had I seen him use magic. He’d kept truths from me before though. I only found out he was gay when we were going to announce our wedding. I wondered if Cynder knew about that. I guessed not.

“No Magi were invited to the ball,” I said, feeling confused. “My mother said so in an interview.”

“Your mother believed so. Actually, there were quite a few, thanks to me and my magic wand. We hoped you would pick one or more of them out. It was a gamble, but with a little help and pushing, you picked him. The others left after the ball. A couple were injured in the explosion.”

I thought back to my reason for picking Daniel out of the hundred men at the ball. He was good-looking for a start, but that wasn’t it. He’d made me laugh. At the back of my mind, I knew there was another reason, but it took me a few moments to realize what it was.

“Jenny told me to pick him. Don’t tell me Jenny is a Mage too?”

I couldn’t bear the thought of someone else I trusted keeping secrets from me. First, there was my father, then Cynder, then Daniel. Was no one who I thought they were?

“Jenny isn’t a Mage, but a friend of hers is, not that Jenny knows that. This friend told Jenny that Daniel was her son and asked her to push for him a bit. Jenny thought she was doing her friend a favor, that’s all.”

I remembered now. I don’t know how I’d not noticed before, but Daniel never spoke about his mother. It was always his father.

“What about Leo and Luca?” Could my own fiancé be lying to me? It seemed everyone else was.

“No. I’ve never met either of them, but when we found out who you picked, we looked into them. Leo has helped a lot with Magi rights. You already know that. At one point we thought about telling him our secret but decided it was too risky. Luca is exactly who he says he is. An all-around good guy.”

Cynder said the last few words as though it was a bad thing. I suddenly felt very defensive.

“Luca has been good to me, and he’ll be good for the kingdom.”

“I’m sure he has,” answered Cynder with the same disdain as before.

“What is it? What do you have on him?” I suddenly worried that I’d find out something I didn’t want to know about Luca.

“I don’t have anything on him,” replied Cynder testily. He stood up and began to pace the cave floor. “It’s what he has that bothers me.”

“Oh,” I shouted, suddenly feeling annoyed. “and what is that?”

“He has you.”

Cynder pulled a hood over his head and stepped out into the storm. A second later and he was swallowed by the thick rain. I stood up and ran to the mouth of the cave. I could just see him heading off down the mountain trail.

Fine. If he was angry, so was I. My family had lied to me, my friends had lied to me, and Cynder had lied to me. Ok, so he’d not lied exactly, but he’d not told me the full truth either.

I stomped around the cave, feeling angry. Angry at my father, angry at the people who’d hurt Cynder, and angry with Cynder himself for keeping this from me for so long. Most of all I was angry at myself. I had no idea how to deal with the situation I had found myself in. I was a queen. I shouldn’t be stuck in a cave in the middle of nowhere. I should have been more firm and stayed in Thalia. I should have stayed with Luca.

It was an hour before Cynder came back and my anger had dissipated as I realized that there was no way I could have stayed with Luca without putting him danger too. Cynder might have saved me from a bullet, but in taking me away, he’d saved Luca and his family too.

“I’m sorry,” he said, handing me a bottle of water as he walked back into the cave. “I’m having difficulty handling my feelings.” He pointed his wand at the fire that had almost died out, and the flames roared back to life. “Before last year, I didn’t believe I could find love. I’ve lived a lonely existence, and when I helped found the Freedom of Magic group, I swore to myself that I’d be loyal to it. I had no time for girlfriends, and, truth be told, I didn’t care. I began work at your palace last year. I was one of the last Magi to enter the workforce there. Before that, we’d spent a good couple of years holding peaceful demonstrations, trying to get somewhere, but we never did. It was infuriating. The more time we spent organizing demonstrations, the worse it all seemed to get. The MDS have people in high places all over Silverwood, and no matter what we did, we could never win.”

“It was looking bad for us. I felt hopeless, but then I met you.”