Up for Heir - Stella Starling Page 0,91

and tried again. “Just… just work.”

It didn’t, and Edvin sighed, the fight going out of him.

But… maybe if he hadn’t told it he hated it earlier? That actually hadn’t been very nice.

He petted the stubbornly dark screen. “I’m sorry,” he told it, feeling a little loopy from lack of sleep and lack of food and lack of hope and… and probably from dehydration now, too, given all those tears he’d shed. “You really have been very good to me,” he said to the phone with a watery giggle, intent on apologizing. “I mean, not so much today, but the other night was…”

Edvin blushed. Okay, no. He was constitutionally incapable of finishing that sentence out loud. Even if there wasn’t anyone around to hear at the moment, he wasn’t about to start talking about that FaceTime call with Leo regardless of how much he appreciated his phone’s participation in making that particular happy ending possible.

“Don’t tell anyone, okay?” he asked his phone, then immediately rolled his eyes. “I’m officially losing it.”

It was one thing to talk to himself, but he certainly didn’t need to start talking to inanimate objects. And maybe it was some kind of compensating endorphin rush brought on by all those hours of unrelenting panic and despair that had turned him so silly, but still, Edvin had standards.

He tucked the phone away in his pocket and turned his attention to the useless keycard. “How about you?” he asked, throwing those standards right out the window because honestly, if he was going to teeter on the border between laughing and crying, maybe it wasn’t so bad to get a little silly for a moment. “Have you decided to come back to life for me?”

He kissed it for luck, then swiped it through the lock again.

Nothing.

Also… ew. He just realized that Hans normally carried that keycard in his pocket. He scrubbed at his lips, fresh tears welling up.

“Fudging… fudging dammit,” he said as his throat constricted, hopelessness rushing back in to drown out his brief moment of silliness. Maybe that was for the best, though, since silliness hadn’t gotten him very far anyway. This wasn’t some fairy tale where a kiss turned the frog into a prince or woke Sleeping Beauty or magically made a demagnetized keycard work again, and Edvin hadn’t honestly expected it to, but… but still…

He waved the keycard at the lock.

“Abracadabra?”

Nothing.

“Alakazam!”

More nothing.

“Open s-s-sesame?” Edvin tried, his throat tightening up again and his tongue tangling and the door, of course, remaining stubbornly closed. The red “locked” light didn’t even flicker on the electronic lockbox, because of course not. Magic didn’t actually exist, no matter how magical Edvin’s life had felt ever since meeting Leo. No fairy godmother was going to suddenly poof into existence and turn Edvin’s less-than-fresh jeans and t-shirt into a ball gown or whisk him away in a magical pumpkin carriage just so he could make it to the ball in time.

Which was… fine.

Edvin tried and failed to swallow away the lump in his throat. Okay, it wasn’t fine, not really, but since he wasn’t necessarily the ball gown type anyway, he supposed the lack of a magical solution to his dilemma was probably for the best.

“Oh, who am I kidding?” he whispered with a watery laugh, tracing the Royal Library logo on the keycard. He would totally show up in a ball gown if it meant getting to Leo. He looked up hopefully. “Any fairy godmothers available?”

None appeared, but it had been worth a try.

“I’m not picky,” he said for the record, slumping back against the door with a sigh. “I’ll take a fairy godfather or nonbinary fairy godparent, too.”

He peeked up over the rim of his glasses, looking around just in case.

Once again, magic failed to happen.

“No really,” Edvin threw out there, starting to feel a little loopy again because… because he was tired and hungry and hopeless and miserable, but silly still felt better than going back to crying. “If you’re out there, Fairy Godwhomever, feel free to chime in anytime. My prince is waiting, and I hear that all it takes is a little Bibbidi Bobbidi B—eep!”

Edvin’s arms flailed in a desperate attempt to keep his balance as the door suddenly swung open behind him, almost landing him on his butt.

“Holy f-f-freaking h-h-heart attacks,” he gasped, his heart in his throat and his glasses knocked askew. And then, once he’d steadied himself and straightened his glasses and realized that sometimes, despite all the odds, wishes really did come true, he