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“I think the hospital is going to be a bit busy. I’ll give Isla a call.” He put the cup in front of Noah as if they were going to have a chat. It was easier to talk to David and his aunt than his own parents.

It wasn’t that they didn’t love him, but he’d never once met their expectations. He was never good enough or smart enough, and he didn’t have enough ambition or drive. He was sure they’d only agreed to the gap year, another gap year, because they wanted his cousins’ ambitions to rub off on him. Isla was studying medicine in London, and Rhet had joined the army.

Noah had tried that for one year, did the whole special military gap year program, hoping to appease his father and give him time to think about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. It had achieved neither.

But it had reinforced his need to be somewhere else. He’d never find out who he was around his parents. He’d been in Wales for a year and a half now.

He worked in the pub, paid rent and board to his aunt and uncle, and was doing a certificate in counseling. Even that wasn’t good enough for his parents.

So, as much as he wanted to call them and make sure they were okay, he also dreaded it. They’d use this as an excuse and tell him he needed to come home.

How did he tell them he was happier here without sounding like an ungrateful brat? He’d gone to the best private school and had everything he asked for…except parents who were there. They were too busy and successful to worry about him. And if they were really put out by his choices, they’d mention his twin.

Would things have been different if there’d been two of them? Would his mother have done fewer hours or hired a second nanny? Perhaps his brother had been the smart, ambitious one. The one who should have survived.

He was the disappointment.

He fiddled with his mobile phone, tempted to jump on social media to see what his friends in Sydney were saying. But they wouldn’t have any more answers than him, and he wasn’t sure they were still his friends. After all, he hadn’t seen them in a year and a half, and he had new friends.

For a couple more heartbeats, he deliberated who to call: his mother or his father. Neither of them had tried to call him. Perhaps they didn’t know it was global, and they thought he was safe.

If the fae castle had been a few meters over, he’d have been squashed beneath it. His lips curved at the thought. A witch squished by a castle. Not that he called himself a witch. He dabbled because that’s what his friends did. It was a bit of fun and an excuse to throw a party. Midsummer, midwinter, an equinox, and a handful of other smaller festivals. His parents disapproved and called it superstitious nonsense.

He called his mother because Aunt Meredith was her sister. The phone rang three times before she answered.

“Noah…you’ve seen the news.”

He’d lived the news. “It’s here too, Mum. We’re all okay.” He assumed his aunt was okay. She was a cop, so no doubt she was seeing the worst of it tonight. “Is Dad okay?”

“Yes…but the house is not.”

Of course she was worried about the house. “There’s a lot of damage here too, buildings, roads…”

“There are new buildings here…and monsters. People are saying we’ve been invaded by aliens.”

“Nan says it’s the fae folk.”

He almost heard his mother’s eye roll. “Of course she’d say that.”

Noah bit back his annoyance at his mother’s dismissal. “It makes as much sense as aliens.”

His mother made a noise that might have been begrudging agreement. “I’m glad you’re okay. We think you should come home.”

And there it was. Even though the world had been turned upside down, she didn’t want to let him slide free. “I don’t think now is a good time to travel.”

That trip to France he had planned next month was probably not going to happen.

“Noah…it was only meant to be a year, and then you’d come home and?—”

“Mum, I’m working and studying. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

“Don’t be obtuse. You need a career.”

“There are dragons flying overhead, and the pub is now half weird, shiny, fairy castle. I don’t give a fuck about a university degree and a career.” He wanted to wake up tomorrow and find out that this was a nightmare, but that wasn’t going to happen. The best he could hope for was that when he woke up tomorrow, somebody had answers and a plan, and they weren’t all going to be eaten by dragons.

As much as he loved reading fantasy books and playing fantasy games growing up, it had not prepared him for living in a world with other creatures. He was as bad as Nan at accepting that there were in fact other creatures. Was he going to bow and kneel at the feet of the invaders or join the rebels and fight them?

They were the only two options, right?