Completely Smitten (35 page)

“Posh,” Clotho said. “We’ve done well enough.”

“I don’t know,” Lachesis said. “Atropos has a point. After all, there’s the whole Eros problem—”

“And then the way we treated Aethelstan when he really was doing the right thing—”

“Not to mention all those lost years Emma endured—”

“Oh, dear.” Lachesis closed her eyes. “Maybe you do become complacent when you’ve had a job too long.”

“Hello!” Darius said. “Can we get back to me?”

“Why, darling?” Clotho said. “What problems do you have? You’re our only success story this year.”

“I’m not a success story,” Darius said.

“Of course you are, my dear,” Lachesis said. “Didn’t you come to us because the girl is obsessed with you?”

“Yes,” Darius said. “But it’s wrong. She has a soul mate. Being under a magical spell is bad for her—”

“She’s not under a spell,” Atropos said.

“What?” Darius asked.

“Think, darling,” Clotho said. “What did we tell you about Eros?”

“Irredeemable,” Lachesis said.

“Criminal,” Atropos said.

“Inferior arrows,” Clotho said.

“He shot her with an inferior arrow?” Darius asked, feeling panic build.

“No, silly,” Lachesis said softly. “He didn’t shoot her at all.”

“He was supposed to,” Atropos said. “Again, a mistake on our part. We really should have trusted you.”

“But we haven’t spoken to you in so long,” Clotho said. “We thought the arrogance remained.”

“And arrogance is so unattractive in a man,” Lachesis said.

“Especially unfounded arrogance,” Atropos said. “You were such a youngling in those days.”

“Green,” Clotho said.

“Untested,” Lachesis said.

“Full of yourself,” Atropos added.

“Wait.” Dar’s head was spinning. Something on the bowler was stabbing him in an uncomfortable place. He rose slightly, removed the hat from beneath him, and tossed it on the floor. “He didn’t shoot her?”

“No,” Clotho said. “He missed.”

“But he told me he shot her.”

“He also told you that he had forgiven you,” Lachesis said.

“He was going to implicate you in the faerie affair,” Atropos said.

“In fact, he tried,” Clotho said.

“But we know all, see all,” Lachesis said.

“Except you rent movies so that you can understand the real world,” Darius said.

“All right,” Atropos said, glaring at him. “Know some, see most.”

“You can still be a royal pain, Darius,” Clotho said.

“I don’t understand,” Darius said. “If he missed her, what about her soul mate?”

All three Fates stared at him.

“Apparently he’s still somewhat clueless,” Lachesis said.

“Well,” Atropos said, “not everything can be corrected in three thousand years.”

Darius was watching them, that dizzy feeling returning.

Clotho smiled at him. “Darling,
you
are her soul mate.”

“What?” Darius asked.

“She’s told you she loves you, right?” Lachesis paused and stared at him.

“Yes.” Darius still didn’t believe it.

“Wonderful,” Atropos said. “Someone has shown an interest.”

“Not just any someone,” Clotho said. “The right someone.”

“And it happened without magic or potions or spells.”

“With Darius actively trying not to let anything happen,” Atropos said.

“We were the ones who tried to force the hand,” Clotho said.

“After all,” Lachesis said, “three thousand years is a long time. We did want your sentence to end, but we couldn’t change it entirely. Not without a bit of help.”

“Fat lot of good that plan did us.”

They were all silent for a moment. Darius was breathing shallowly. Ariel was attracted to him? To both hims? To the tall, slender, runner, handsome him and the short, stocky, obnoxious him? She could actually fall in love with him?

She had a soul mate and it was him? How had he missed that?

“We do have one other thing to tell you before we declare your sentence fulfilled.” Clotho stood. She ran a hand along her side, changing her clothing into the black robes of a judge.

Lachesis stood and did the same. So did Atropos. Suddenly they were in a courtroom. Darius stood before the bench as the three women looked down on him.

“We will tell you this,” Lachesis said, “but you are not to tell your lady love this until after you are married.”

“Or you don’t have to tell her at all if you choose not to,” Atropos said.

“But you cannot tell her before she agrees to spend her life with you,” Clotho said.

“Not because she doesn’t love you,” Lachesis said. “She does.”

“But you have to be able to trust the emotion,” Atropos said. “Years from now, you don’t want to have that voice of doubt, wondering if she decided to be with you for the perks.”

“Perks?” Darius asked.

“We have spoken to the Powers That Be,” Clotho said, and they all genuflected for the fourth time.

“We did it about two centuries ago when we thought you were getting close to completing the sentence,” Lachesis said.

“We really had hopes for you in London during the Season, until we realized the Marriage Mart was all about power and money,” Atropos said.

“There were a few love matches,” Clotho said.

“But not as many as in the books,” Lachesis said. “If you read those novels they publish these days, you’d think that everyone was wealthy, titled, and in desperate need of a special license.”

“And it really wasn’t that way,” Atropos said.

“I know,” Darius said. “I was there.”

They paused, as if they had forgotten what they were doing.

“Oh, yes,” Clotho said, sounding surprised. “You were.”

“Anyway,” Lachesis said, “we spoke to the Powers That Be—”

Darius waited through the fifth genuflection.

“—and they gave us permission that we have only received twice before.”

“He doesn’t need that much information,” Atropos said.

“Well, he needs to know how special this is,” Clotho said.

“
And
,” Lachesis said over her companions, “we received permission to extend your Ariel’s lifespan to match yours, should she desire to spend the rest of her life with you.”

“They let you do that?” Darius asked.

“Yes,” Atropos said. “Didn’t we just say so?”

“But I thought that wasn’t allowed.”

“It takes a special request,” Clotho said.

“Which we made before this century of debacles.”

“Really,” Atropos said, “it was just a decade or two of debacles. It only felt like a century.”

“Still,” Clotho said, “we checked. The dispensation remains.”

“For Ariel,” Darius said. “Who wasn’t born yet.”

“For your soul mate.” Lachesis peered at him. “She is so well suited to you. She sees the magical edges. The familiar she found you came none too soon.”

“Do you watch everything?” Darius asked.

“Goodness, no,” Atropos said. “Only the good parts.”

Clotho punched her on the arm. Atropos glared at her. Lachesis leaned over and separated them.

“We will share our lifespans,” Darius said. It wasn’t a question. He was only beginning to understand.

“You will share everything,” Clotho said.

“Remember,” Lachesis said, “you are our success story.”

“Congratulations,” Atropos said.

“You are free to go,” Clotho said.

And together all three Fates clapped their hands. A bright light filled Darius’s eyes, and then he found himself back in his own kitchen. The smell of spaghetti sauce threatened to overwhelm him. The noodles had congealed in the sink, and Munin was nowhere to be seen.

Darius leaned forward, putting his hands on the table. He felt dizzy and out of sorts. The world seemed like it had tilted somehow.

Ariel was his soul mate, and he had sent her away.

“Who the hell are you?” asked a voice from behind him.

He jumped, then turned around.

Blackstone stood there, arms crossed, looking more ferocious than Darius had ever seen him.

Darius let out a breath. “Jeez, Aethelstan, am I glad to see you.”

“Really?” Blackstone’s voice was cold. “Have we met?”

“Yes, of course we have.” Darius felt a shiver run through him. In exchange for ending his sentence, had the Fates taken away the last three millennia? Was he going to have to rebuild everything?

“I don’t remember it,” Blackstone said.

They ended his sentence. The chill Darius felt grew. He looked down at himself. No wonder the world had felt as if it tilted. It had. It had grown smaller.

His custom-designed house no longer fit him. He was too tall, too thin, too young.

“Hey!” he shouted to the Fates, hoping they could hear him. “You can’t do this! It’s too soon!”

But no one answered him. Blackstone was still staring at him. “You want to explain that little comment?”

Darius swallowed. Lovely. He hadn’t expected this twist. “Aethelstan, it’s me. Andvari.”

“Sure it is,” Blackstone said. “And I’m really Chauncey Blodgett, brought back from the dead.”

“Who?” Darius asked.

“The greatest chef in Europe in the mid-Fourteenth—oh, never mind,” Blackstone said. “What have you done with him?”

“Chauncey Blodgett?”

“No. Andvari.”

“Nothing,” Darius said. “I
am
him.”

Blackstone took a step forward, face dark, eyes narrowed. He looked very menacing—or he would have looked very menacing if he could have towered over Dar. But he didn’t. Darius looked him directly in the eye.

“Andvari,” Blackstone said with great precision, “has been my best friend for a thousand years. If he looked like you, don’t you think I’d know that?”

“It would be logical.” Darius was amazed at how calm he sounded.

Blackstone raised his eyebrows, his mocking look. Darius had always found these movements threatening, but they weren’t, not really. Not when he could look at Blackstone directly, maybe even a little down on him.

Blackstone wasn’t as large a man as Darius thought he was.

“So why are you lying to me?” Blackstone asked.

Darius sighed. This was going to be hard. No wonder the Fates were in trouble. Hadn’t they thought about the effect his change would have on his world?

Of course they hadn’t. They were only thinking in terms of crime and punishment. When they thought in other terms, they seemed to get themselves in trouble.

“Sit down, Aethelstan,” Darius said.

“I’ll stand, thank you.”

“No, really,” Darius said. “I’ll make some more pasta, and we can sit down and discuss this like real people over a meal.”

“I’m not hungry.” Blackstone actually sounded petulant. “I want to know what you’ve done with Andvari.”

“Nothing,” Darius said again. “I
am
Andvari.”

Blackstone’s lower lip jutted out slightly. “All right. In Fourteen-ninety-one, who convinced Isabella that Columbus’s hare-brained schemes weren’t so crazy?”

“You did.” Dar’s stomach was rumbling. He was going to eat, even if Blackstone wasn’t. “I guarded the door while you met with her, and I even managed to convince Ferdinand that she was in the garden by making a ghost-spell for the space of that afternoon. Every time he looked out, he saw her down there, but when he went down, she was gone. He was really annoyed. We almost blew it that time. If he’d caught you with her, you might have been arrested.”

“As if that were a problem,” Blackstone said.

“The Chief Inquisitor was one of us.”

“Andvari used to say that.” Blackstone had his arms crossed. “Obviously he’s told you this story.”

“Obviously,” Darius said sarcastically, “since I couldn’t have lived through it and remembered it.”

He put more water on the stove, then cursed. He didn’t want to wait to eat. Instead he conjured up a plate of pasta and then ladled sauce onto it.

“Andvari never wastes his magic,” Blackstone said.

“Andvari has had a rough day,” Darius said, “and it’s about to get rougher. You sure you don’t want some?”

Blackstone shook his head as Munin walked into the room. The puppy’s tail started to wag when he saw Darius. By the time Munin had crossed the room, it looked as if his tail were a propeller forcing him forward.

“Hey, boy,” Darius said, crouching toward him. Munin licked his face, then shoved his snout toward the plateful of food. Darius moved the food away.

Blackstone watched it all carefully. Familiars didn’t get that familiar with other magical types. They were friendly, but not that friendly.

“So he’s your puppy,” Blackstone said. “Now this is all making sense.”

“It’s not like you to make things up,” Darius said. “Nothing is making sense to you. You need my explanation.”

Blackstone continued to stare at him. Darius sighed and set the plate on the table. Munin stretched himself to his full length, doing a dance on his short, stubby hind legs as he tried to reach the table. He wasn’t even close.

“Please sit, Aethelstan,” Darius said.

Blackstone still didn’t move.

Darius sat down, reached for his fork, and then pushed his plate away. “I can go through story after story after story. Let’s try Nineteen-twelve, when Emma’s coffin fell overboard as they were trying to load it onto the
Titanic
. You had to do a spell in front of huge crowds to prevent water from seeping inside, and then you had to make them forget we even existed, so we couldn’t take the ship after all, which you always regretted, saying you could have repaired that iceberg damage.”

“Everyone knows that story,” Blackstone said.

“Except the Emma part,” Darius said. “Or how about Ten-sixty-six? William is conquering, and I said we’d be better off in China. You’d never even heard of China, so I popped us to Beijing, which wasn’t Beijing at the time, and into a restaurant—which you’d never even heard of before, because the Chinese were the people who invented restaurants—and you had rice for the very first time. I did that because I knew that the way to convince you of anything was to have you eat first and think later, which I’ve been trying to have you do ever since I popped back here—”

“Back from where?” Blackstone asked. His arms were still crossed, but he snuck a glance at the stove.