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Chapters (53)
  1. Front Cover
  2. Letter from the Author
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright
  5. Contents
  6. • One •
  7. • Two •
  8. • Three •
  9. • Four •
  10. • Five •
  11. • Six •
  12. • Seven •
  13. • Eight •
  14. • Nine •
  15. • Ten •
  16. • Eleven •
  17. • Twelve •
  18. • Thirteen •
  19. • Fourteen •
  20. • Fifteen •
  21. • Sixteen •
  22. • Seventeen •
  23. • Eighteen •
  24. • Nineteen •
  25. • Twenty •
  26. • Twenty-One •
  27. • Twenty-Two •
  28. • Twenty-Three •
  29. • Twenty-Four •
  30. • Twenty-Five •
  31. • Twenty-Six •
  32. • Twenty-Seven •
  33. • Twenty-Eight •
  34. • Twenty-Nine •
  35. • Thirty •
  36. • Thirty-One •
  37. • Thirty-Two •
  38. • Thirty-Three •
  39. • Thirty-Four •
  40. • Thirty-Five •
  41. • Thirty-Six •
  42. • Thirty-Seven •
  43. • Thirty-Eight •
  44. • ∞ •
  45. • Thirty-Nine •
  46. • Forty •
  47. Epilogue
  48. Acknowledgments
  49. Excerpt from Be Dazzled
  50. One
  51. Two
  52. About the Author
  53. Back Cover

“Shut up. Take my arm. No, the other way. Good. Okay, don’t rush, remember? We’re just strolling. Just strolling. Don’t talk. Ursula says you’re mute. Don’t mess this up, I swear to God if you do…”

She waved her empty glass at him menacingly. They descended into the garden, which was even more labyrinthine in the dark. Lanterns glowered, dying the lush hedges in rusty light so that the maze looked bathed in blood.

“I’m leaving you here. Don’t follow me. You’re not a main character; try not to change that.”

Kane needed her to listen. He grabbed at her gloved hand. Adeline mistook this as fear.

“Don’t worry. We know what we’re doing. I know what I’m doing. I’m the evil heartbreaker, Katherine Duval. That’s right. I’m that bitch, like I am in practically every one of these shit-ass reveries. Classic Bishop bad luck, my dad would say. It’s whatever. My point is I know what I’m doing. Now, stay put. We’ll grab you when it’s safe to unravel this.”

She vanished into the maze.

For the first time since entering the reverie, Kane was completely alone. He could run. He could go find Sophia. He could fight. Every option hung before him, holding him in place. He shook out his nerves. He clenched and unclenched his hands, eight times each.

What eventually drove Kane to action was not fear or even bravery. It was heartbreak.

The Others were wrong. This was not The Devil in the Lily. They should not be acting out the story of Helena and Johan. They should be revising it, because this was not the story of Helena and Katherine’s rivalry. It was the legend of their love.

Kane thought of the small house Maxine lived in, that he was sure Helena lived in, too. He thought of the second bedroom full of watercolor paintings doomed to fade under winter’s sun. Helena and Maxine were described as friends, but was that true? Or was “friend” just a lie the world told about two elderly women who chose to live together, away from everyone else, in their own world of wonder?

Kane thought of the house’s single bedroom. He thought of the gloomy, covert life so many queer people were forced to live as they found one another in a time and a world that could not adjust to them. He thought of secret meetings and secret names, and the secret sadness that grew like mold in the humidity of a life kept closed.