One

Narcissus woke up in a cold sweat, gasping for breath. He stared blankly at an unfamiliar room, daylight cascading through the bank of floor-to-ceiling windows, dust motes dancing in the sunbeams. He blinked a couple of times. Where was he?

“You’re awake,” Oberon said, then licked his finger and turned the page of the magazine he was reading. The sunlight caught in his dark hair and created a glow on his pale skin.Narcissus’s breathing evened out. He turned to his godfather, confusion crinkling his forehead. Oberon didn’t lift his gaze, but he did lift his brows.

Slowly, Narcissus peered around the room again. Crown molding. Lots of it. And the door was so far away. There was a fireplace on the far wall. He pressed his lips together, then lowered his gaze. He was bare to the waist, but where he expected a wound, there was none.

Well. That was weird. He could have sworn he’d just been shot. He could almost hear the echo of the gun.

Maybe he’d dreamed it?

He let his gaze flick back to his godfather. Oberon hummed and turned another page. He leafed through the whole magazine, sitting up as he did so. Then he snapped it shut and looked at him. “You’ll say thank you,” he instructed.

Narcissus furrowed his brow, ready to complain. The door slammed open and in strode his godmother, Titania, followed by—

He sucked in a sharp breath when his gaze fell on a man he hadn’t seen in years. Melanthios. Narcissus could have sworn his heart tripped faster.

Melanthios—Ant—caught his gaze and seemed, for half a second, to smirk. Then he looked away. Narcissus swallowed tightly.

Titania slammed her hands on the footboard of the four-poster bed he was lying in, making the whole thing jump. “You little twit,” she hissed. “Who gave you permission to die?!”

“Huh?” He stared at her for a second, then looked to where he’d expected a bullet wound, ripping right through him.

Titania snorted. “Don’t ‘huh’ me, brat. You’re not allowed to kick the bucket!” She tossed her hands in the air.

Narcissus squinted at her. “I … died?”

“Yeah!” she cried. “Off-schedule too! Stars, you really took a risk pissing her off, having a party, no security—what the fuck were you thinking?”

Oberon laid a hand on her arm, but it was Ant who spoke next. “Titania, please. He would have died whether Lila was there or not.”

Narcissus’s eyes widened. Lila? His psycho stalker ex? He looked frantically at his godparents.

Ant caught his gaze again. “Alcohol poisoning. Or maybe an overdose would have gotten you.”

Narcissus had never been embarrassed about his drug use before, but shame crept into his cheeks. “Oh,” he said quietly. He didn’t know why, but he didn’t want Ant to know he used. It seemed … bad.

Ant sighed. “There was no way around it, really. One way or another, you were doomed. But Lila got you with that bullet first.”

Narcissus clapped a hand to his chest. “I thought …,” he murmured. Then he looked at the other three again. “Why am I not dead?” He wasn’t, was he? He didn’t feel dead. That didn’t make much sense though. Did dead people feel things? Did you know if you died?

Titania huffed, crossing her arms. “Because you’re also damned lucky,” she muttered. “Ant’s people were right there, and good thing too, because little miss stalker lost her goddamn mind.”

Narcissus frowned. Who were “Ant’s people” and what were they doing anywhere near him anyway?

Titania had mentioned a party. The bullet, people screaming, Lila’s cold, angry gaze …

He let his eyes roam the room again. Where …

Ant leaned forward and patted his hand. “We managed to revive you,” he said.

“Oh.” Narcissus blinked. “Are you a doctor?” He didn’t remember much about Ant, if he was honest. Only that the man was maybe the most beautiful person Narcissus had ever laid eyes on (excepting, of course, himself); he’d been haunted for years by memories of long, dark hair, pale skin, and eyes dark as a moonless night.

Maybe that was why he didn’t remember much. He’d been too wrapped up in noticing how beautiful Ant was.

A sardonic smirk crossed Ant’s perfect lips. “Something like that,” he murmured, pulling away, and Narcissus flushed as he realized Ant had still had his fingers on him.

Oberon sighed. “At any rate, it confirmed what we needed to know.”

Narcissus forced his gaze away from Ant. What had him almost dying confirmed? God, why was everyone being so damn cryptic? Why did his head hurt so much?

He winced, wishing someone would just explain to him. Questions crowded into his mind, vying for attention, each more demanding than the last. What had happened, what was going on, what day was it? “Where … am I?” he asked finally, fixing his gaze on Titania.

She huffed, a strand of her curly red hair fluttering in front of her ebony face. “Sicily.”

Narcissus frowned. Was there a neighborhood called Sicily in New York? He didn’t think so … He was pretty sure he’d been in the city too. Before he woke up … wherever he was now. “You mean, like … Little Italy, or … ?”

“I mean Sicily!” Titania barked, and Ant laughed. “The island in the Tyrrhean Sea!”

Narcissus blinked. “You mean the Mediterranean?”

“No!” Titania pulled away, waving a hand at him. “I forgot how exhausting you are. Somebody get him a map.”

“I can just look it up on my phone—wait, where is my phone?”

The others exchanged looks. “We thought it would be best if you didn’t have access to it for a little while,” Oberon said finally.

Narcissus glared at them. “Why?”

Ant cleared his throat. “Lila’s dead too,” he said softly, tucking a strand of glossy, midnight hair behind his ear.

It took Narcissus a moment to register that. “Oh.” His eyes went wide. “Oh.”

“Not to mention all the drugs the cops found at your little birthday party.” Titania reached over and patted his cheek. “You’re in a mountain of trouble.”

“So—what? I … almost died, and the cops wanna charge me and shit, so you just whisked me off to some island in the middle of nowhere?”

“It’s not in the middle of nowhere,” Ant grumbled.

“That’s about the gist of it,” Oberon said over him. He sounded almost apologetic. “We wanted to wait until this blew over a little bit.”

Narcissus didn’t understand how you made drug charges and maybe murder or homicide or something “blow over.” But he didn’t really want to go to jail or … or whatever the cops would do to him.

He looked at his godparents again. He didn’t know them super well or anything—mostly saw them at birthdays and holidays and that one shitty Roman holiday his mom had forced him to take when he was thirteen—but he didn’t really have any reason not to trust them. He knew they had money. Maybe they could make everything go away.

He ran his hand absently over his chest, frowning when there was no lingering sign of a wound. No raised edges, no scar, nothing.

“It’s been two weeks,” Titania explained. “As far as the press knows, you’re in rehab. So that means no partying, no drugs, no alcohol, and none of your friends need to know where you are.”

“But what about—”

“Your mother’s dealing with your agent. Trust me, doll face, no one wants you plastered all over their magazines right now, except the tabloids. They love the smell of blood and scandal.”

Narcissus felt a bit like he was sinking as the enormity of the situation set in. It would be a miracle if he had even a shred of a life to go back to if and when this all “blew over.”

“Any other dumb questions?” Titania sounded like she was bored with him now.

He shook his head. There was too much to ask; he didn’t know where to begin.

“Good,” she said. “Sibyl will be along shortly to see you. Be nice to her—you’d be dead if it wasn’t for her.”

With that, the three left him alone in the sunlit room, trapped with nothing but his own thoughts.