Fantasyland: Midnight Soul Part 3

"Yep," he said, moving his thumb on the window. A white screen came up with a listing of text. "That's email. You can send mail to anyone too, if you have their address. And it gets to them in a couple of minutes. Of course I can't do that now, seeing as I'm way outside service. But if I wasn't, I could call 'em, mail 'em, text 'em."

I turned my gaze from his gadget to his face.

"Text them?"

"Type in a message," he said, my eyes dropped back to his contraption as his thumb moved over it. "Hit send, it goes to someone else's phone, bings, they get the message within minutes. Seconds even."

"That's extraordinary," I breathed, reaching out yet again but stopping before I touched the little box of magic.

"You can take it, Franka. It won't bite you."

Laughter laced his words and I again looked at his handsome face.

I didn't take his gadget.

I asked, "Is it magic?"

"We don't have magic in our world like you do."

I sat back in shock. "How bizarre."

"We do," he went on to clarify. "It just isn't out. As in, practiced openly."

He could not be serious.

"That's very dangerous," I stated primly (perhaps in order to hide I also did it uncomfortably).

"It probably f.u.c.kin' is," he muttered.

"You should do something about that," I informed him with authority. "It's my understanding you're in the city guard. You should speak to your constable. Perhaps he can speak to your...whatever t.i.tle your ruler bears. They can surely do something about that. And as you can imagine with your activities here, it's advisable."

He shook his head. "If the president went on record making folks come forward to register that they're witches and sorcerers...or whatever...he'd be removed from office in about twenty-four hours."

"That's ludicrous."

A small grin flirted at his lips as he shook his head again. "It's the truth."

"Odd," I murmured, looking back to his...phone.

He shook it side to side in a coaxing way. "Take it, babe. You can't hurt it. It can't hurt you. There's games on it if you want me to show you how they work."

I again caught his eyes. "Games?"

This time, he nodded. "Solitaire. Tetris. Trivia Crack. Think there might be Fruit Ninja on there still."

"Fruit...ninja?" I asked the question like I was trying out the words.

He simply chuckled at that, but he did it in a way I knew he was being gracious for he appeared to be fighting roaring with laughter.

I ignored this and told him, "I don't know these games."

He again smiled. "That would be me showin' you how they work."

I took in his smile.

I looked in his eyes.

There was amus.e.m.e.nt there (as there seemed to be since he entered the room, something I'd never encountered in my life, such good humor).

There was also intelligence, a great deal that could not be hidden even if, for some reason, he were to wish to try.

And there was kindness, so much, there was more than enough to exploit should one have that in mind.

But there was no guile.

Even Antoine had an agenda when it came to me. To anyone. That was how one lived in my world. Not just my universe, the world I lived in due to the status I carried.

Noctorno Hawthorne of the world of magical gadgets had none.

And staring in his eyes, I felt a sensation gathering behind mine I hadn't felt since I was a young child.

"You should not be kind to me," I whispered.

His expression changed.

It did not go wary.

It warmed with a gentleness that made it feel my insides were unravelling.

"Franka," he whispered back.

"You should not be kind to me," I repeated.

"Babe-"

"I've done terrible things."

He said nothing, just stared right into my eyes, unafraid, without judgement, holding my gaze steady.

"I love my frosted country," the whiskey (or the wine) made me whisper. "They don't think so. They don't know. I can't..." I shook my head, enough of my faculties still intact not to give him that. "I don't let that be known. I've traveled the Northlands extensively. But there's nothing like the air in Lunwyn. I prefer it in the many months it's covered in snow. I prefer the chill. I prefer the cold air carving through your innards, was.h.i.+ng them clean."

Something flickered in his gaze.

Curiosity.

"Franka-"

"I would do nothing...nothing...to betray my country." My voice dropped beyond a whisper to nearly nothing. "But for him."

"I get it."

I shook my head. "You don't." I lifted a hand weakly then dropped it in my lap. "They don't."

I was referring to Queen Aurora. Frey and his Finnie. King Lahn and his Circe. Prince Noctorno and his Cora. Apollo and his Madeleine. The green witch Valentine. Lavinia.

Everybody.

"They get it," he returned.

"No, they don't."

"They get it, sweetheart. You don't think if those men had the same choice as you, their women taken, tortured, living in the pits of h.e.l.l every day for weeks, f.u.c.king months...or those women had that choice with their men...they wouldn't make the same choice as you?"

"I shared this exact sentiment with them and they-"

He leaned deeply across the seat over the table that separated us, very close to me, and his voice was the lash of a whip when he interrupted me to state, "Lied."

He did not move away as he continued, and when he did his voice was no less strong.

"They f.u.c.kin' lied, Franka. I know those are good men who have done remarkable things for their countries. I also know they wouldn't hesitate to do anything in their power to keep their women safe and free from harm. So, since they weren't in your position, they can say whatever the f.u.c.k they wanna say. But today, when Cora and Circe and Maddie and Finnie were taken, if they weren't made safe as quickly as they were, if you think for one f.u.c.kin' second each one of those men wouldn't make a deal with the G.o.dd.a.m.ned devil to make that so, you...are...wrong."

He jerked a finger at his chest and didn't cease talking.

"I know, 'cause I'm a man like that. And if I had a woman I loved like those men love their women, I'd do it and I wouldn't f.u.c.kin' blink."

That sensation behind my eyes became stronger as I asked, "You would?"

"f.u.c.k yes," he stated inflexibly. "And I wouldn't even blink."

It had started, and for the first time in decades I could stop the flow of words coming out of my mouth.

"I'm a traitor," I admitted.

"You were and you aren't the first to make the decision you made for someone you loved. Worse has happened when people made that same decision. And what you did, in the end, no one got hurt. But today, even if that's the case, you made up for it. Those b.i.t.c.hes could have cut you down with a snap." He lifted his hand and made that noise with his fingers, the sound so loud I jumped. "You knew it. You still walked in there. I know vengeance, I get the need for that. I know that's what pushed you to make the decision you made. But there was more. Loyalty. To the country you think you betrayed, to your family, 'cause I know you and Frey are blood. I get with the way he looks at you, the others do, that there's no love lost and I don't give a f.u.c.k why. You changed the course of history, baby, and every citizen of this nation should be grateful."

"I walked into a room and cast a spell," I reminded him. "I hardly wielded swords, and it wasn't even my magic."

"And saved lives doin' that. A lot of them."

"You make me sound like a hero," I scoffed.

He edged slightly back, a cloud coming over his expression.

"There is no such thing as a hero. Just a person doing the right thing in more than the usual, extreme circ.u.mstances."

It was my turn to consider him curiously.

Once I'd taken long moments to do this, I asked quietly, "Why do I think that declaration is self-effacing?"

"I'd answer that, if I knew what the f.u.c.k 'self-effacing' meant."

I felt my lips curl slightly up at the edges.

"Modest," I explained.

"It isn't," he stated. "It just is what it is."

As he would say, bulls.h.i.+t.

I did not share this sentiment.

I also did not share my immense grat.i.tude at the relief his words made me feel.

I simply continued to look into his remarkable eyes.

"You're good at it," he said softly, tipping his head my way. "That game you got goin' on. Those walls you built that you hide behind. The distance you keep with every look, every word, every f.u.c.kin' breath." His gaze tipped down to the table then back to me. "When you aren't drinking whiskey, that is."

"Noctorno-"

"No one calls me Noctorno," he stated flatly and leaned toward me again. "It's Noc. Especially to friends, and Franka, I help save a universe with a woman then down a coupla bottles of wine and a whatever this is called..." he motioned with a flick of his wrist to the nearly depleted whiskey, "of hooch."

"A decanter," I shared.

"Whatever," he muttered then spoke up when he spoke on. "You're a friend. So call me Noc."

I pressed my lips together.

He let that go and continued.

"So now I'm a friend. I'm also the man who sees you for what you are, sugarlips. You don't fool me. And those other men," his eyes flicked to the door briefly, his indication of Frey, Lahn, the other Noctorno and Apollo, "if they didn't have the end of the world as they knew it breathing down their necks and took the time to see, you wouldn't fool them either."

I drew in a breath, burying his words, words I'd heard (of a sort) from another man, in fact, from the only other person I'd come across in my years on this earth who'd expended the energy to see.

However.

He'd called me sugarlips.

I felt my brows snap together and I couldn't control the sneer in my, "Sugarlips?"

It was then his gaze dropped to my mouth before it came back to my eyes and he whispered, "Baby, you got the prettiest mouth I've ever seen."

This flirtation after that very evening he'd succeeded in bedding a woman who had been repeatedly violated for over two decades.

The gall.

"Cease flirting with me," I clipped.

He blinked, again looking perplexed, before he stated, "I'm not. I'm just sayin' it like it is."