Broken Dove (Fantasyland #4)(7)

“Well, thanks for not taking me to another dimension,” I muttered and sucked back another healthy sip of wine.

She leaned slightly forward, again catching my eyes and her smooth voice was deadly serious when she stated, “Ilsa, this is not a jest. This is not a hallucination. This is not a dream. This is real. All you will experience in the coming days and weeks will seem very strange to you and you must prepare for it, accept it and adapt to it. Quickly. That said, you are here now, you’re safe, and you’re not going back. But with what is to come, it’s important that you adjust swiftly to your new circumstances.”

That didn’t sound great. None of it did, to be honest. But that really didn’t.

“With what’s to come?” I inquired when she didn’t explain.

She threw out her hand not holding her wineglass. “That’s not for now. What you must understand for now is that you’re safe here, you must learn to trust in that, and,” she leaned deeper toward me, “the man who just left this room is not the Pol you know. He’s Apollo Ulfr of the House of Ulfr of the ice country of the north—Lunwyn.”

“Pol is also Apollo Ulfr of the, um…House of Ulfr, I guess, but from the rain city of Portland,” I joked, perhaps getting a little hysterical (and who would blame me?).

“Again, this is not amusing.” Her voice held a vein of impatience. “This is real. And you must understand these two men are not the same man,” she stressed.

“I got that,” I mumbled and took another sip of wine.

“Chérie,”—more leaning and her eyes got kind of scary— “they…are not…the same man.”

She was freaking me out and to freak out while freaking out didn’t feel all that great.

So the only thing I could do was whisper, “Okeydokey.”

She studied me a moment before she sat back. “It will be difficult, with what you’ve endured at the hand of the other Apollo, to remember that. But don’t forget it.”

“You’ve made your point,” I assured her.

“I haven’t,” she disagreed. “You see, in each world the same people reside, yet they aren’t the same.”

“You’ve already told me that,” I reminded her, wondering how she could forget considering we were still talking about it.

“No, beautiful Ilsa, you’re too dazed by all that’s occurred to put it together. If there are two Apollos, then there are two Ilsas.”

Uh-oh.

More not good.

She wasn’t done.

“Alas, the Ilsa of this world is no longer of this world. She has passed.”

Oh my God.

The other me was dead?

That sucked!

Valentine still wasn’t done and she had a whopper of a grand finale.

“And she was the wife of the Apollo of this world.”

Oh boy.

“Holy crap,” I whispered.

“Indeed,” she replied.

“I don’t get it,” I told her. “What does that mean?”

It hit me that I knew what it meant; my eyes flew to the shadows where I heard the door open and close when Apollo left then I looked back to her.

“Shit, does he think she’s me? Or I’m her? Or…”—I threw out a hand— “whatever?”

“He does not. He’s aware of the twins. He knows you are not her. But that didn’t stop him from acquiring my services to find you and bring you to him. I am far from inexpensive, chérie, and I warned him of your plight in our world and that you might not receive him very well. But he was very determined. ”

None of this was good. It was weird. Bizarre. Unbelievable. Fantastical.

And it wasn’t getting any better.

“I’m not certain that’s good,” I shared my understatement.

“I agree. I don’t know how the other Ilsa died. I don’t know when she died. I do know it has been some time. And I also know that in that time, his grief has not faded. Not at all.”

That tenderness I saw in his eyes.

And the pain.

Yep. This wasn’t getting any better.

“I’m not her,” I whispered.

“I am aware of that,” she replied, not in a whisper.

We held each other’s eyes. When I couldn’t take it anymore, I sucked back another healthy sip of wine, straightened my shoulders against the headboard and again looked at her.

“So, I’m in a parallel universe, safe from Pol, which is good normally but now it’s better because he’s going to be seriously pissed he no longer has a hand, as anyone would be but Pol will take that to his usual extremes. And extremes of his extremes, my guess, would be catastrophic. And I’m with another Pol, who’s not Pol but Apollo, and he brought me here to replace his dead wife.”

She shook her head again.

“Do not mistake that man for a man who would allow grief to dull his intellect,” she warned. “He was driven to have you here but he is also very aware that you are not the woman he loved and lost. I do not know his intentions in having you here. I know only that he is a man of character. A man of honor. A very brave man. And last, one who feels deeply. Deeper than most. I would even go so far as to say deep to extremes, even if he rarely shows it.”