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Chapter 17: Windfall
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Prince from the Other Side Chapter 18; House Call
For two weeks, I thought I was safe from myself. There were those fancy lunches and fancy dinners, the open amusement and fascination by the record execs that I brought my roommate and her brother to those fancy meals, and even greater fascination when I turned down their proffered managers and told them in no uncertain terms that I was sticking with the excellent manager I already had. When I signed, it was with a label that didn't raise their eyebrows at that. Suddenly we were scheduling studio time, and Cass was in meetings and on the phone what seemed like 24/7 to set up a European and American tour. These wouldn't be stadium set-ups, but smaller venues: rock clubs and more boutique performance spaces, where the beer on tap was local and the sound guy was a local college kid. In a few months, I would be on the move. And there was plenty of buzz; I surrendered my social media to Cass as suggested by the label and watched my calendar fill up with interview dates and podcast appeara
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 19: An Understanding
I seriously considered just not going up there. It would have been so easy—or at least, far simpler and safer—to keep sitting here in my mess of a room, reviewing interview notes, pretending that I hadn't heard what Toby said. But now Sy's presence was a pressure on my thoughts; I couldn't read my notes without the flash of dark eyes catching at my imagination. I smiled involuntarily, biting my lip. I couldn't ignore this. Or at least, I wouldn't find any kind of peace of mind. Who was I kidding? Sy and I were bound together, somehow. Was that what love was, here in the mortal world? Something you clung to, rather than drifted away from in a long eternity? I had no idea. I'd never been in love in Faerie either. The trouble was…what if this was all just some strange fluke of magic? Seelie and Unseelie mingling on the mortal plane. Who knew what havoc that could cause? Was this the reason Seelie stayed away from Unseelie instinctively stayed away from each other? This…madness?I pic
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 20: The Good Stuff
Sy uncanceled his American tour, with a proviso: it was going to be OUR tour now. Side by side, he said as we lay in the sun-drenched haze of a suite in the nearest luxury hotel. I was coiled under deliciously smooth blankets, tucked against the firm heat of his ribs, reading over his shoulder as he typed out typical, curt, Sy-ish texts to his manager, his agent, his producer. He didn't ask; he stated. Tour is back on. Hester is headlining with me. Make it happen. As he typed, I focused on the pleasant thrill of the magic lingering on our skin: that golden feeling was like the slick of sweat, but if sweat felt how candy tasted. It's hard to put magic into human terms; that's part of the reason fae make such excellent poets and singers and storytellers. We have senses that reach to truths humans don't even know they're dreaming of.Sy put down his phone, screen down, on the sheets. His arm snuggled around me, fingers winding into my silvery hair. "It's done," he whispered beside my
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 21: Out of Dodge
Cass and Toby and I parked the fast-food-smelling little Honda in long-term parking at Heathrow and fumbled our bags into the terminal through the muggy summer evening. We didn't even make it to the self check-in kiosk: Sy's security guy, Dave, stood there in his solid, expressionless professional stance, waiting for us. "Mr. Dage is in the private lounge," said Dave, without introduction. "He's asked that you join him. I will take care of your tickets and check your luggage.""Oh, ah, thanks," Cass tried to put on her best manager-in-charge voice, but she looked even shorter and tinier in front of Dave's massive bulk. "But it's all carry on. We, ah, didn't want to shell out for checked luggage."Dave's steely expression gave no hint of scorn, but I read between the lines when he said, "There's nothing to trouble yourself about. Mr. Dage owns the plane. There is no charge."I blinked. A private plane. Of course he hadn't bothered to mention that. One more small prank—mischief was
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 22: New York, New York
Barely twenty-four hours later, we were standing on stage at Madison Square Garden. The view was a blur of brilliant stagelights, sliding and twisting around each other, their intense heat crisping my face like strong sunshine. I could sense the massive crowd invisible beyond those lights, the pressure of their cheers intensifying as the spotlight found me. For a moment I couldn't breathe. Then I felt the shift of air as Sy stepped up beside me. I felt myself relax. I suddenly felt balanced, as if some cosmic scale had come into alignment. It felt deeply absurd to be afraid of this moment, this dreamed-of goal suddenly materializing in real life. And it felt absurd to be afraid when I knew what we could do together.Sy looked at me, and the smile on his face was full of sweet secrets, remembered delights. The hotel countertop. The airplane shower. This morning in the sweet quiet of the early morning, tenderly waking each other up. When he was near, I felt like I could do anything. My
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 23: The Queen's Judgement
The first thing I registered was the light: sunlight that was more than sunlight, more tangible, more real, somehow, than sunlight in the mortal realm. I focused, trying to sense my fingers and toes, trying to feel the beat of my heart. I was whole and alive. My mortal form was intact. But I was in Faerie. There could be no mistaking that thrum of power on the air. The wind that was felt like a sensation in a dream rather than sensation against skin. Nothing in Faerie was physical: it was a world of illusion and magics while at the same time being more real and more immediate, than anything in the mortal plane. My mortal mind took a few long long heartbeats to settle into focus. It astonished me for a moment how adrift I was before the return of sight. Sight was the last sense to matter in Faerie—for all my life, I had lived through the brush of instinct and impression, not through the concrete visual data that my eyes communicated to my brain. But now I was mortal, perceiving throug
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 24: Rage Magic
Suddenly, I crashed back together, sucking in the second half of my interrupted breath in the stale air-conditioned chill of my dressing room. Awareness swam back slowly. I was lying on the scratchy carpet beside a much-worn couch, and it took me long moments to stagger back to my feet, using the arm of the sofa and the cosmetics table for purchase. I felt sick, twisted around and knotted up. That magic had been powerful, and it had not been at all gentle. There was rage at the bottom of it. I was definitely very lucky. And I was definitely in a whole lot of trouble.There was a pounding at the dressing room door that made me jump half out of my skin. As it was, I lost my balance, sinking back to my knees and folding my knuckles into the carpet to push down a wave of nausea. In the afterglow of Faerie, of the Court itself, the thrill of post-concert energy was next to nothing. How could I have thought I was powerful? How could I have thought I was strong? I could be torn apart at an
Prince from the Other Side Chapter 25: Careful Betrayals
He was tender with me that night, between the absurdly luxurious sheets of the absurdly luxurious hotel his people had booked for us. His hands, rough with their guitar calluses, stroked my breasts, my belly, my back, pulling me into him as he made love to me. His breath tasted sweet with magic and whiskey, his lips tender on my neck, in my hair, on my nipples, as if he were savoring me in every detail, every taste. As if I were so precious in his arms that he was suddenly terrified of shattering me to nothing. When we lay in bed afterward, in the early hours of the morning, our bodies sweetly spent and our magics humming beautifully in each soft, slow, aftermath kiss. I touched his face with my fingertips. I traced the shape of his lips, his cheeks, buried my fingertips in his dark, sweat-damp curls. "You said you would be safe from them," he whispered. "From the Court…""I am," I insisted, but my voice felt like a pretense of itself. "Hester," he said, so very gently, "Let's n
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