Free creepy hollow 05 - a faerie's revenge by rachel morgan Page B

straighter. Gemma and Rick walk over to us, and Gemma introduces him. She looks a little dazed, as though she’s just been handed all the riches of the Seelie Court and can’t quite believe it. Perry, on the other hand, can’t stop frowning. He greets Rick, then shoves both his hands into his pockets and remains silent. I realize it might be up to me to get the conversation going, but then Rick asks Gemma if she’d like to dance, and the two of them disappear into the crowd.
    Beside me, Perry appears to deflate. I lean closer to him. “Still want to tell me it’s not obvious?”
    He stares at his feet. “I suppose it is obvious. I only considered it recently, though, the night we came to that party here. I realized afterwards that of course I like her. Of course I don’t just want to be her friend. But it’s too late.” He jerks his head over his shoulder and adds, “How can I compete with that?”
    “You don’t have to compete. Just be yourself and tell her how you really feel, and maybe it’ll turn out she feels the same way.”
    He shrugs half-heartedly and lets out a loud sigh. He pushes his shoulders back and straightens. “Well, after rejection like that, all I have left are my dance moves. May I have this dance, Lady Calla?” He holds a hand out to me as I start laughing at him once more.
    “Yes, I’d—” From the corner of my eye, I see Ryn, dressed for a regular day of work at the Guild, pushing past people and waving to me. “Um, in a minute. Looks like my brother needs me.”
    “Ah, more rejection,” Perry says in anguished tones, pressing a hand dramatically against his chest. “My poor heart can barely stand it.”
    “Your poor heart will be fine.” I pat his arm, give him a brief hug, and then meet Ryn near the doorway. “Hey, you’re not dressed up at all,” I say. “Is everything okay?”
    “Yes, but I won’t be staying long. I just needed to speak to you and a few other people before leaving.”
    “Leaving? Where are you going?”
    Ryn groans. “Vi had this fabulous idea. You know how she wants to keep working right up until the last second, and there are all these things going on at the Institute that she doesn’t want to miss out on just because she’s pregnant?”
    “Yes. It seems to be the cause of every disagreement you guys have these days.”
    “Right. So she suddenly came up with this plan to go to Kaleidos.”
    “Kaleidos?” I absently play with the ribbons at the end of my braid. “The floating island Tilly’s from?”
    “Yes. Time passes differently there, so Vi’s hoping she can get through most of her pregnancy on the island. She’s hoping that months there will only be weeks here and that she won’t miss out on too much of the real world.”
    My hands fall to my sides. “That’s a terrible idea. The time difference is always changing, right? So what if it works out the other way around? Weeks there turn out to be months here? Then she’ll be missing even more than she would otherwise.”
    Ryn crosses his arms. “That’s exactly what I said.”
    “But she doesn’t agree with you?”
    “She admits it’s not the best idea she’s ever had, but she still wants to see if it might work. We’re going just for this weekend as an experiment.”
    “But what if it’s not just this weekend? What if you’re there for a weekend, but you miss out on weeks here?”
    “I’ll be keeping a close eye on the time difference. Kaleidos has this system set up with people just inside the shimmer and people just outside it. They communicate every fifteen minutes or so to keep track of the time difference. That way they can see when it’s changing one way or the other, or speeding up or slowing down. And the Guild knows we’re going, of course. One has to get permission to travel on and off the island.”
    “Oh.” I frown. “The stories Tilly tells about her childhood make it seem as though rules like that never existed.”
    “Yes, well, Tilly and her