Page 63 of Not Another Happily Ever After

“Well?” I ask, patiently waiting.

Merrek breaks out a booming laugh. “And here I was worried they wouldn’t find anything to talk about.”

Myrrdin cocks his head, blowing out a slow breath before pressing his lips into a thin long line. Meanwhile Frog’s eyes have never been bigger, nor the tops of his cheeks so red.

Odd…“Am I missing something here?”

“No.”

“Nope.” Frog and Myrrdin are quick to answer.

And Merrek…well, he’s lost in laughter. Which I now realize is the only sound ringing through the disenchanted forest, as the singing has finally stopped.

Buttons climbs his way to Frog’s shoulder and curls into a little ball just inside his hood.

“The dragon’s song?” I wonder aloud, a dangerous habit, I know. “There was this melody…Is it possible it came from Buttons?” I ask the question before it has time to fully-form.

“Their song hasn’t been heard in nearly twenty-five years, Princess,” Myrrdin offers, a sad smile tugging at his lips. “And the only one here to have been alive during that time was too young to remember?—”

“That wasn’t Buttons, Miss Sunday,” Frog cuts in, his gaze narrowed on the well before flicking to me. “They would have heard him too.”

The silence that follows is deafening, shattering any remaining hope I had that it wasn’t just my mind slipping. Because now I’m not the only one who knows that it is. And I can’t decide which is more tragic. The descent? Or the mess it will surely leave behind…

Chapter

24

I have fought at his side for many years.

Tonight was the first time I wished he’d stumble.

Red embers float up in clouds of smoke, stoked higher and higher with Wolfe’s fire stick. The group is far less chatty tonight than all the others. I suspect my hearing melodies that no one else could hear might have something to do with that.

I swallow my shame with a large piece of stale bread. Since Wolfe and Rhidland’s hunt was unsuccessful, and Merrek and Myrrdin’s foraging venture turned into a rescue mission, it’s all that’s left. That and the ale.

Scratch that.

The ale’s gone too.

I smile, watching Merrek put the lip of the opal colored bottle up to his eye. Searching for the very last drop.

“Oh would you stop, already!” Myrrdin groans, ripping the empty bottle from Merrek’s hand. “You’re embarrassing me in front of the princess.”

Merrek’s jaw goes slack, his hooded eyes widening as far as his buzz will allow.

“I’m the embarrassment? You have jars filled with bugs in your pack!” Merrek argues, staggering to his feet. “What are you going to do if someone tries to attack her? Throw a moon gnat at them?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You know damn well a moon gnat isn’t equipped for the likes of battle. That would be like…Well, that would be like sendingyou.”

“Why you lily-lifting?—”

“What’s a moon gnat?” I cut in, not only because I don’t want to see Merrek unwind that tightly spun arm of his, but because there is so much I do not understand about our world. “Is it that fuzzy blue bug you were handling the other night?”

Myrrdin’s furrowed brows lift with the corners of his mouth.

“Oh, that? That was no moon gnat. But it was an insect that could cause a great deal of concern for many people,” Myrrdin answers with infectious excitement. “Thatfuzzy blue bugwas none other than a Neon Nightpiercer.”

He’s looking at me like he’s waiting for recognition to register. When it doesn’t, he comes to sit beside me, pack in hand. He then pulls out a small glass jar with three holes in the top. Inside is a butterfly.