Free Hidden Heart by Amy Patrick Page A

eyes?”
                  “I know. I’ve only seen him in concert, never up close except for videos. He is way hotter than I realized. I can’t believe we’re here!”
                  I was in fangirl Hell.
    Not since my tween One Direction and Belieber phase had I experienced anything close to this. But the girls crowding my room were all my age or older, and they were acting completely over-the-top delirious about Nox. 
    When had he managed to glamour all of them? He’d said he hadn’t even met them yet. Or maybe they were like this without glamour—scary thought.
                  “You’re so lucky you got to have dinner with him. How did you pull that off?” a short baby-faced girl asked me.
                  “Oh… I don’t know. Right place, right time, I guess.”
                  “Well, what did he say? What’s he like? Did he sing for you?” a Latina girl with glasses asked.
                  He had sung for me in the past, and if I could help it, I’d never hear him sing again—I was far too susceptible to his musical glamour. Lad had told me how different family lines of Elves had different kinds of glamour in varying strengths. Though Nox didn’t seem to be able to glamour me through words alone, when he sang—well let’s just say I should probably be more sympathetic about girls like these losing their minds along with all notions of free will.
                  “We talked—about Los Angeles, his upcoming tour, stuff like that, no big deal,” I explained.
                  More squealing. “But he talked to you—like individually. How can you stay so calm? I’d die if he even looked directly at me.”
                  There were nods and laughter all around as the others agreed. Part of me wanted to be disgusted with them, but the other part could commiserate. Maybe if I weren’t a quarter Elven, I’d be just like them. That bit of Elven blood had made me immune to Nox’s Sway. And Lad’s. I had fallen for him the old fashioned way, much good it did me now.
    When it came to Nox, I guessed I’d have to pretend to be more overwhelmed. “I’m really jet-lagged,” I said, making an excuse for my previous lack of hysteria over my exclusive dinner with our pod-master. “When I get some sleep and wake up tomorrow, I probably won’t even be able to believe it happened.” I ended with a big smile I hoped conveyed my “excitement” at being here.
                  Speaking of sleep, the pod quarters were sort of like the college dorms I’d visited at Ole Miss and Mississippi State when I’d gone for tour weekends. I was in a suite with three other girls. We each had a single bed and shared a common bathroom, though this one was definitely nicer than the dorms’ bathrooms had been.
    My suitemates Gigi and Kim were about my age—soon-to-be high school seniors, the fourth girl, Bonnie, was in college. They were all cute and friendly, but none of them seemed to have any other ambition in life than to serve Nox and meet his fellow celebrities. Maybe they had before they’d succumbed to the glamour and forgotten everything else existed.
    After we’d all introduced ourselves and chatted a bit, we took turns taking showers and getting ready for bed. It was three hours later back home in Mississippi, and I really was jet-lagged, but I didn’t sleep for a long time. Instead, I lay awake thinking about Emmy.
    Was she lying in bed right now in a room like this one behind those ivy-covered walls at Vallon Foster’s estate? Was she homesick, or was she as happy as these girls all seemed to be? And what would happen to her between now and the time I was able to get to her, whenever that was?
    This fan pod thing was worse than I’d expected. Judging from the behavior of my roomies, they would be willing to do anything and everything Nox wanted them to.
    Like me, Emmy was a