A Fey for Valentines Day

The Countdown Begins

The dancers spin around me, their gowns and coattails brushing past in whispers of silk. No one stops this time. No one speaks to me. They just flow and twirl, laughing behind their masks, as if someone didn't just threaten to kill them all.

I force myself to breathe. To calm down. In through the nose, out through the mouth, the way my therapist taught me as a teenager. Focus, Sophia, focus. 

Three hours. That's what she had said. Three hours to find true love or everyone in this room dies. Including me...

It's absurd.

Impossible even.

This can't be real.

The sort of stakes found in a movie, or a wild fairytale book, not in the life of a thirty-year-old artist who can't even keep a relationship going for more than two months at a time. True love doesn't just... happen. Let alone in three hours.

I glance at the clock on the wall, correction, two hours and fifty-eight minutes.

This is a task that should take months — years even — a slow melding of two lives. I look around at the masked dancers, each glance feeling accusatory now, as if they all know their very lives are dependent on me.

I start walking, needing the movement. Moving around the edge of the dance floor, the dancers who are stationed along the side, waiting for their next turn on the floor part for me without acknowledgment. Their masked faces turning briefly in my direction before turning away to watch once more. I catch glimpses of features behind the masks — a sharp jaw, painted lips, eyes that glow with slits, or inhuman colors where irises should be.

This isn't real. This can't be real.

But in my heart, I know it is, even as my head reels from the impossibilities of my situation.

Finding a place on the wall, I leaned against the windowed wall. There was no landscape visible beyond though, just darkness. Pure, absolute darkness that seems to press against the glass like an ominous beast waiting to devour us all.

A servant in a simple black tuxedo carrying a silver tray of champagne flutes, half full of a star-touched liquid I don't recognize wanders by. I reached out and grabbed his arm, careful not to upset the tray balanced on his other hand.

"Excuse me, could you point me toward the exit, please? I need to go home."

He pauses, face smooth as a child, his eyes blank, face emotionless. "There is no exit, miss. Not until the game is complete."

Then he glides away before I can press further, disappearing into the crowd as if absorbed by it.

No exit. Of course, there's no exit.

I move further along the wall, searching for a door, a hallway, anything that might lead somewhere other than here. All I find are alcoves filled with velvet settees where couples are having private moments together. Wrapped in each other's arms, some of the women perched on their partners lap, whispering sweet nothing to each other. I find a refreshment table laden with food — all of it having the same faint glow as the liquid in the champagne flutes. Continuing my search, I wander past the string quartet playing in the corner, except the musicians have too many fingers and their instruments have too many strings. The music they produce sounds like a melding of three songs playing simultaneously in perfect, unwavering harmony.

I don't find an exit.

I don't even find anything that makes sense.

The clock on the wall continues ticking, but I can't bare to look at it. I've already wasted time searching for what doesn't exist.

I approach a woman standing alone near one of the velvet alcoves. Her gown is a deep green that moves like moss on water, and her mask is shaped like ivy leaves — delicate and beautiful.

"Excuse me," I say. "Can you tell me-"

She turns, and I see that behind the mask, her eyes are completely black. Not dark brown, black, like polished obsidian.

"You must be the new one," she says. Her voice cold and dead. "The mortal."

"I-I, yes... I was wondering, could you tell me how this all works? Is there-"

"This is no trick." She smiles, and her teeth are just slightly too sharp. "There's no way out, no loophole. The spell is simple: find true love, or we will all die. It's really an honor to be chosen, you know? You should feel lucky."

Lucky?! I can't help but gape at her. But I keep it together enough to continue my line of inquiry, "Does this...spell often happen?"

"Oh several times a year, on the holidays, of course."

"So, how many is that?"

Her black eyes blink at me with slight confusion. "More than I can count. This masquerade has run for centuries. Millennia, perhaps. Time moves differently here. She brings new guests, new participants from various realms; the fairy godmother's magic has no limitations. And the game is always the same." She tilts her head, studying me, looking me up and down. "You're pretty enough, I suppose. And desperate — I can smell it radiating off of you. That might work in your favor, actually. Desperation can look like desire, if you play it right."

"I'm not desp-"

"No, no, of course not." She laughs, not unkindly. "Why else would the fountain have called to you?" She leans closer, her voice dropping an octave. "Why else would you have touched the water?"

I don't have an answer. My next objection dies in my throat, because she's right — she's exactly right — and I hate her for seeing it so clearly.

"How am I supposed to find true love in a room full of strangers?" I manage. "I don't even know where to start."

The woman in green goes still. A flicker of fear crossing her face, a warning, maybe.

"There will be two who seek you out," she says quietly. "The two princes. There are always two princes. They pursue the mortal — it's all part of her game. Light and Shadow. Sun and Storm." Her black eyes hold mine. "You'll know them when you see them."

"She didn't mention-"

"Why would she? She likes to watch her game pieces stumble through the dark." The woman starts to turn away, then pauses. "A word of advice. Don't trust anyone. We all have our own games to play, our own prices to pay, our own rules set by her. And whatever you do—" her voice drops to barely a whisper, "-don't ignore your instincts."

She melts away into the crowd.

Two princes. Sun and storm. Light and shadow.