Page 41 of Love at Full Tilt

The space around us is cavernous and dark, except for a few sconces on the wall painted to look like torches, complete with swaying flames. The dungeon walls are stone, and I drag the fingers of my free hand along their bumpy surface as we turn down a hallway that leads us deeper into the castle.

“The clues today have been so much harder,” I say. Maybe not for me, but in general. Not one of them has been something widely known.

“It’s going to get worse from here.”

“Oh?” I arch an eyebrow.

“I have it on good authority that one of the clues tomorrow is timed.”

“Carter told you?”

Mason snorts. “We have to access Alistair’s workshop during the creature parade. That’s all I know.”

“That happens at eleven in the morning.”

“And the doors close about ten minutes after the creatures emerge.”

That means we’ll need to be there and ready when the parade starts. It’ll be the first time since the welcome party that all the contestants will be in the same place at the same time.

“I’ll wear my running shoes,” I mutter.

We loop in descending circles, the tunnel narrowing as we go.

Around the fourth one the tunnel branches in two.

To the right is a set of stairs that lead up to the queue for the castle walk-through, according to F 3 .

Going left should lead us to the rose. Except it’s blocked by yellow construction tape.

“Shit.”

“What?”

“We need to go that way.” I gesture at the tape.

Mason steps closer and squints into the dark. “I don’t know why they’d be doing work down here without closing the whole attraction.” He pulls out his phone and sends a text.

A second later, a notification dings.

“Carter says he hasn’t heard about any construction overhere.”

My eyes narrow. “Can you get this kind of tape anywhere?”

Mason shrugs. “Sure.”

“Erica.” I widen my eyes at him. “Yesterday we ran into her at Elorra’s lab, and she tried to convince me, Issy, and Tess that the last clue wasn’t there.”

“And she’s one of the only people that’s done for today,” hesays.

“Yep. Apparently she’s not above conniving and cheating.” I yank down the tape and step into the hall.

“She’s a regular Sora Shadowblood.”

I snort. “Look at you speaking Fableland with the best of us.”

Those watercolor eyes squint as he smiles. “I blame you.”

“Then just wait for this.” I take his hand again and lead him down the hallway. At the far end, just where the forums said it would be, so low we both have to crouch to see it properly, is a rose etched elaborately into a block of pure gold that has been set into one of the stones.

“Do you know what this is?” I ask quietly. Reverently.

Mason shakes his head.

We both scan the QR code mounted beside it, then put our phones away as soon as we hear the trumpet that confirms we’ve moved on.

Neither of us checks the leaderboard or what our bonus reward is for the day.

Neither of us acknowledges that we’ve officially made it to the last day of the scavenger hunt.

That we’re three clues away from the money to make one of our dreams come true.

It’s like we both know that this moment—this place—is special.

I settle down beside the stone and pat the space next to me. As soon as he’s close enough, Mason circles my waist with his arms and pulls me back against his chest.

“This is Ava’s rose,” I say.

“Who’s Ava?” His lips brush the shell of my ear.

“The love of Casterman’s life.”

“I thought he never got married.”

“He didn’t, because Ava lived in France,” I say softly.

“She never moved here? He never moved there?” The rumble of his voice reverberates from his chest down my spine.

“No.”

“But they stayed together?”

I let my head fall back against his chest. “They did.”

None of the sounds of the park reach us here, so only our soft breathing breaks the silence.

I’ve always loved this story about Casterman. This idea that he was able to create amazing love stories because he’d had his own, that his and Ava’s love was so strong they’d been able to sustain it across a vast distance. That even though they were both long dead, it survived in their roses.

But as I sit here with Mason, folded in the warmth of his arms and the comfort of his presence, knowing that I only get another day of this, the rose’s story suddenly means so much more.

“He wanted a way to be with Ava all the time, and she grew roses, so he ‘grew’ one for her here, in her favorite part of the park. There’s supposed to be a matching gold block built into the wall that surrounded her garden, wherever that was.

The story goes that every day, the two of them would touch their roses at the same time so they were always joined, even when they weren’t. ”

“Wow,” Mason mumbles. His cheek nestles against my hair.

I wish I could chisel the rose from the wall and hold it in my hands. I wish I could take it with me when I leave, that I could give one to Mason too. This is the Fableland magic I want. The promise of a connection that can’t be broken. A tether that won’t snap no matter how hard you pull on it.

“I can’t imagine how tough it is to be apart that much, but I’m willing to try,” I say. “If you are.” These were the things we needed to say yesterday. We can’t keep dancing around this. “I want to give us a chance, no matter what happens tomorrow.”

“Lia.”

I turn to face him. “I was thinking about this last night. If we make it to the end, what would happen if we both scanned the last code at once? Maybe we could tie? Or both win?”

“There’s no way to scan a code at exactly the same time. One will register before the other.”

“Okay, but we could try.” My voice sharpens. I wasn’t expecting him to shut me down like this.

Mason’s mouth yanks tight. “At best we’d probably split the prize.”

“That’s still something.”

His whole body stiffens, his muscles and tendons like dominoes in reverse, straightening one by one until he’s rigid. A statue. “Barely enough to cover two years at a state school. Not nearly enough to get you settled and secure in a whole new state, away from your family.”

Every word he speaks feels like an arrow skewering my hope. “Well, what if you win and I don’t, what then? Or”—this is the option I’ve barely been able to let myself consider—“what if neither of us wins?”

“What?” That one syllable is more gravel than voice.

I shift to my knees so I can peer into his face. “What is this? What’s going on between us? What happens when I leave?”

All this time, I’ve been assuming that we would figure this out. That we’d be like Casterman and Ava. We’d find a way to make this work. But from the look on Mason’s face, it seems he doesn’t feel the same.

He looks so genuinely confused that my stomach plummets. I feel like I’m falling, too.

I scoot away from him fast, my back slamming hard into the opposite wall. “You haven’t thought about this at all, have you?” My fingers curl into fists. “Tomorrow’s the last day of the contest. Then I leave. That’s it.”

My words hit him like a boulder. I see him jerk. See his shoulders roll forward. “I thought we were hanging out. Enjoying each other’s company. Working together to win this contest.”

“Then why did you ask about my parents? Why did you take me to your house? Let me meet your dogs? Introduce me to Nora?” My left hand crashes into the wall behind me as I fling my arms out.

My knuckles drag across rough stone and I feel the skin break, but I barely register the pain through the other emotions clouding my head.

None of this makes any sense. Yesterday, it felt like we’d taken a step forward, connected in a way that meant something. Now he’s staring at me like I imagined the whole thing.

“I like seeing you happy.”

“Do I look happy now?” I clamp my eyes shut against tears I refuse to shed. I have to cough to clear a sob from my throat. All the time I wasted, thinking this was something. All the lies to my parents, the time with Tess and Issy I gave up, the contest I could have won on my own.

Fableland isn’t magic.

Neither is Mason.

It’s all painted grass. I should have listened to him the first time he tried to tell me.

“I got caught up,” he says, leaning back against the wall. “In this”—he waves his hand between us—“in the magic you see everywhere.”

“But?”

“But I don’t have any answers.” When he looks at me, his eyes are glassy. “I’ve barely slept since the day we met, trying to find some way this works. But it doesn’t exist unless you win and move here.”

“There are a lot of good schools in Boston. Maybe you could get a scholarship if neither of us wins?” The words slice my tongue.

Like I’m throwing knives and holding them by the sharp end.

It’s such a selfish thing to say. There’s no way for me to uproot my life for him, so here I am, hoping he might do it for me.

His face hardens as creases appear in his brow. I know his answer before he says it. He can’t choose me. He never could.

I hear his words as if through a howling blizzard.

“I never had the grades for scholarships. It would take me three times as long to save up the money for out-of-state tuition, even at the cheapest school in Massachusetts.” He doesn’t look at me as he says it.

“I don’t want to have to wait that long. I can’t wait that long.”

My stomach curdles, like I’ve eaten something rotten. It’s not fair, but he’s right. And even at my most selfish, I won’t demand he make a different choice.

“I don’t want to make you impossible promises, Lia.”

If only I could spill his laughs from my pockets.

Throw his moments back in his face. Peel his kisses from my lips.

But they’re a part of me now. I feel the way they’ve changed me, rewritten my DNA, restructured me on a molecular level.

Now that I’ve met Mason, I will never be the same.

I’d need a sharp knife to carve him out.

But I don’t have a knife. Or an answer. Or anything at all.

Only two days’ worth of seconds that can’t fix any of this.

I push myself to my feet with shaking arms. “I should go.”

He stands, too. “Not like this.” I try to ignore the way his voice cracks, but it’s like a chisel, breaking me open, creating new fissures that will never close.

I face the wall for a minute. Count my breaths. I get to fifty before I find the steadiness to turn around. “I think we should say goodbye.” I can’t believe how calm I sound.

“Until tomorrow?” He says it like a small child hoping whoever told him Santa doesn’t exist was kidding.

“Just goodbye.”

“But the contest—”

“Good luck.” My words are clipped, pointed. I hope they hurt. “May the best one of us win.”