“I’ll go,” I say. Anything to stop the crying and the net of anxiety that has dropped over my head. “I’ll go to school in Montana. I’ll do it.”

I hear him blowing his nose away from the phone and I wonder if he’s standing in a hallway surrounded by colleagues watching him blubber.

“Amelia, hon, I only want you to be happy.”

“I understand,” I say again. “I’m sorry.”

“I only want you to be happy,” he repeats. “There’s no reason to throw everything away, okay? Not everything has to change all at once, Amelia. We’re going to help you. It’s going to be okay, Amelia. It’s all going to be okay.”

When the line cuts off, I want to scream. I want to take every journal from Nolan’s secret office and drop them into the lake to watch the pages darken and disintegrate. I want to watch the lost princess lose herself in the forest, and again in the water, until all that’s left of her is a disembodied strand of long, pale hair. I want to watch Orman crumple and drown beneath the waves of expectations and adulthood and right and wrong that eat away at my life, my choices. I want to take my library back from the clutches of Nolan Endsley’s wildfire, along with his searing kiss, and douse it in lake water until he’s too scared to ever approach me again.

I want to go back to a time when he was no more than a picture on the back flap of one of my favorite books.

I want to have never met him.

It’s N. E. Endsley’s fault, and every author that came before and will come after him, for making me believe that I have a choice, that magic could be real.

But Nolan’s right. Magic isn’t real. The books lie.

I’m tired of pretending they don’t.

chapter seventeen

Nolan isn’t waiting for me when I come out of his secret heart, so I walk downstairs to tell Valerie I’m leaving for the airport.

She doesn’t stop bustling around the register when I tell her. The cash drawer keeps popping out, no matter how hard she shoves it. I count at least three sighs of exasperation before she gives up, slipping the glasses on the end of her nose to the top of her head.

“So soon? You’re welcome to stay as long as you wish,” she says casually. “Should you find the company too engaging or the store too pleasant, I’m sure I could find some work hours lying around, if you need some petty cash to convince you to extend your visit.”