“I somehow doubt that,” I whispered back. “But I see your point.” I turned my attention back to Mom, who had watched this display of intimacy and partnership between us as if Theon had tried to eat my face and exposed an alien life form living beneath.
“I returned to The Hearthlands,” I gently explained to her. “I don’t know what Michelle will say, one day, when she does begin speaking… likely for a high sum, and in front of many, many cameras—” Theon touched my hand again and I glared at him. He was right, though. Our rivalry had been a petty, girlish thing, and it was time to put it away. We had a city to rebuild, and Michelle was here, desperately scrabbling for her own followers, because she knew just how little her own kingdom was worth. “We were in the midst of war… and I couldn’t delay.”
Mom smiled mirthlessly and refused to look at Theon again. “You sound like some kind of—I don’t know—old queen.”
I grinned. “A new queen, actually,” I informed her.
Now she looked at Theon. A glare. “What madness has he been filling your head with?”
“Mom!” I snapped. “Someday when it’s ready, we’ll take you—and Dad—to see our island. And yes, it is in another dimension. Yes, you can only get to it through this mystical portal. And maybe at first, you’ll think that we’re crazy, or that you’re crazy, or anything at all, as long as it means that what we’re showing you isn’t real. Until then, I guess you can think whatever you’d like, though it does sadden me that my madness is the first conclusion to which you jump.”
Theon was grinning at me.
“What?” I asked, somewhat snappish.
“I love how you never, ever end a sentence with a preposition,” he replied.
And suddenly the stress evaporated. It wasn’t being a queen that made me secure in this volatile exchange with my mother, and God, eventually my father. It wasn’t being an adult or being a woman or anything quite so abstract which made everything okay. It was Theon. Having Theon’s unwavering love made everything okay. No matter what.
I turned back to Mom, who still appeared disturbed by our closeness.
“It will probably not be this year,” I went on. “There’s just so much going on at the palace.”
Mom sighed and rolled her eyes, massaging one temple. “So this boy, who claims to be a prince on some other island, not on Earth…”
“A king now, actually,” Theon interjected. I glanced at him and shook my head.
That wasn’t going to help.
“His land was in the throes of war,” I went on. She would listen to me… maybe. All hope of her listening to him was lost. “That was why I disappeared… both times. The second time, I went back willingly. And now power has changed hands. The coronation was held yesterday. We’ve come here to pay our respects as a married couple—”
“You’re married?” Mom gasped, her eyes the size of quarters. “You got married?”
“Yes,” I said, as firmly as I could manage. I did realize she’d probably wanted to be at the ceremony.
“You’re nineteen!”
“The common age of a bride, in The Hearthlands,” Theon informed her proudly. “And how old is common here on Earth?”
“Twenty-two, twenty-five, somewhere around there,” I informed him, feeling a spot of blush on my cheeks as I stared into Mom’s eyes. “It’s a negligible difference. She’s just making a mountain out of a molehill.”
“But you just started college,” Mom whined. “You don’t know what you want yet. These are pivotal years—”
Just then, to make matters all the better, the back door blew open and closed, and familiar footsteps thudded.
Crap.
“Hey, babe, did you remember to—” Keys clattered onto the counter in the kitchen and then Dad’s shadow slashed across the living room floor. I twisted to face him in the doorway, unsure of exactly what would happen next. The color drained away from his face. The musculature of his expression broke and sagged away like melted sculpture. “Nell!”
“Did you just call Mom ‘babe’?” I gaped.
Dad strode forward and yanked me into his arms, embracing me so hard it seemed as if my spine was going to be pressed into a powder. “I can’t believe you’re home,” he said, his voice crackling into my hair, “and it doesn’t matter why you left… just as long as you stay.”
I extricated myself from his hug. “I can’t stay,” I told him as gently as I could. “I’ve… It’s a long story. You called Mom ‘babe’?”