Missy frowned. “How do you know Jeff Farsigh?”
“When Farsigh retired, Mark Caten sent me to recruit him to be one of Mark’s personal guards. Yeah, that went as well as you could imagine. He went into full kamikaze hunter mode and almost staked me before freaking out and just plain shoving me out the door.”
Raven frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t understand, sir. He…shoved you out the door?”
Ambrose looked away from Raven and stared at something in the distance. “Okay. Maybe shoved isn’t the right word.”
“What would be the correct word, sir?”
Ambrose scowled at him. “Does that really matter?”
“I suppose not.”
“So, you know where he lives?” asked Missy.
“Yes.”
“Well! That’s convenient. You should come with us and show us the way and—-”
“Uhhh. What?”
“Come with us. It’ll be fun.”
“Fun? I don’t think so.”
Robin came out onto the porch. “Hey. We all gonna stand around waitin’ for sunrise? Let’s move. Oh. Hi, Ambrose. ’bout time you got your fancy little self over here. You comin’ with or what?”
Ambrose seemed to think it over. “Barbara already went home. I’m done with my work for tonight. I don’t have anything else actively planned.” He shrugged. “Might as well.”
“Groovy.”
***
Ambrose offered to drive, but Barbara must have warned Raven about his questionable driving skills.
Raven politely declined and sat in the driver’s seat. Missy, of course, claimed shotgun, which left Ambrose and Robin in the middle seat.
Robin stared outside, not really looking at anything.
Seven days.
In seven days, I’ll see him.
My fey.
My Isellta.
And I’ll know what’s real and what ain’t.
“Ambrose. You’re like 10,000 years old or somethin’.”
“No. I am not that old.”
“Besides point. Point is: You’re older than me so you’ve experienced more life stuff and junk than me.” He turned to face him. “Right?”
“Yes.”
“Good. See, I…” He sighed. “Isellta, that stupid fey, he’s the first…I’m gonna be honest. I ain’t never been in love before. Ain’t never had my heart broke. So, this stuff is new land to me. What do I do if, after all this trouble, Isellta don’t love me? What if this has all been just a big joke to him? What do I do?”
Ambrose smiled slightly. “I’m probably the wrong person to ask for such advice. However, I will say that Isellta didn’t seem like the heartbreaker sort to me. From what I recall, he’d be more likely to suffer from a broken heart rather than inflict it on anyone else.”
Robin quietly thought that over. “He seems that way to me too. That stupid soft…But what if?” He looked back at Ambrose. “What if he don’t love me? What if he goes insultin’ me to my face again—-”
Ambrose smirked and shook his head.
Robin scowled. “What? What’s that face about?”
“I’m sorry. I just can’t imagine him insulting you on such a personal level. I remember how he looked at you when you burst into our private room at The Red Envelope. His face honestly lit up. He loves you, Robin. And I firmly believe that it would take a lot more than a slap across the face to make him hate you. The fey that insulted you may have looked like him, but trust me. It wasn’t him.”
“You weren’t even there. It was his voice. It was his face. It was his long, skinny body.”
“But it wasn’t him.”
Robin settled back in his seat.
“The Isellta that you and I know would never hurt you like that.”
“But he’s fey.”
“He’s Isellta, Robin. You can trust him.”
Robin shot a look at him. “Would you?”
“I do.”
Robin turned away from him and watched the scenery pass by in the dark.
ambroseandelsie 