Life After Death

Blaise/Juliet/Llaraine: easier before

{Blaise}

"I don't know why we have to do décor," Adele grumbled. She opened the door on our right, looked inside the dusty hall, and then closed once again. If I could have remembered the where the Grand Ballroom was, we would have just gone there and looked around. "Mikaela's better at decorations anyway."

"They just want you out of the way for the guest list," I assured her. The door to my left had to be wrenched open, but when I did, the old door yielded the room I wanted.

"I could have done the menu," she argued, walking in behind me.

I activated the light spell and then looked around. The ceiling was formal and vaulted; the tile dusty, but glimmering even under the polish. I took a cleaning spell from my pocket and skittered it across the floor. In a moment, all the dust and the grime evaporated.

"This is nice," Adele admitted. "That doesn't mean I want to decorate it though."

"You have illusion magic," I said. "We can try all sorts of things before we get Mikaela to make it."

Adele waved her hand at the room. A sort of punk human glowing theme was reflected into the hall, complete with what I thought was a disco ball. This was something that Maewyn would wholeheartedly disapprove on.

"We should have never let you visit Juliet at college," I said, shaking my head.

Adele shrugged and the room shimmered into a more tastefully decorated ballroom, with black and white drapes at every window and a long table filled with cookies and cakes and punch. The disco ball stayed.

"That wasn't so hard," I said. "It looks elegant."

"Juliet and Mikaela are trying to get me married off at this, aren't they?" Adele said abruptly. She turned and glowered at me, which left me little to say. The ploy, in my opinion, was obvious, but necessary.

"Do you want to marry Quinn?" I asked, instead of replying.

"I don't want to get married!" she shouted to the room. The words echoed off the back wall.

I wondered who would be easier to persuade: Maewyn or Adele.

"Look," I said, pulling up an illusion chair. Adele sat in the one beside me. "Maewyn wants you to be secure enough that you're not going to need your Council and faeries around you all the time. She wants Otherworld to depend on you better than it could depend on her."

"Basically, they want to insure an heir," Adele spat out the word like poison. I didn't blame her. If Maewyn had been even slightly less bull-headed, I would have had to marry her and they would have expected the same thing. Fortunately for Amy and me, that didn't happen.

"That doesn't mean you can't find love," I said, blushing a little. Why was I the one having this conversation? "It could happen."

"In two weeks?" Adele questioned skeptically. She leaned back on the chair and I watched it bend, just like a real chair. She had done good work.

"Quinn found Mikaela in two weeks," I replied. "It can happen."

"That's only because Quinn was desperate to get away from marrying me," she shot back.

"Does that make their relationship false?" I inquired.

Adele ducked her head, embarrassed color in her cheeks.

I continued: "Mikaela does genuinely love Quinn, and she'll do whatever necessary to keep Maewyn from trying to marry him away." I too leaned back in my chair and looked around the room.