Chapter 1 - THE FIRST WISH
Caesar did not growl.
That was the first thing that frightened me.
The dog weighed nearly one hundred and forty pounds and had once broken a man's wrist for stepping through the wrong gate after midnight. He tolerated the household staff because I ordered him to. He tolerated Isabella because I had spent months insisting she belonged in the house. He loved exactly three people in his life.
One of them was dead.
Caesar rose slowly from the rug beside the fireplace.
Sophie remained in the doorway, fairy wings crooked behind her shoulders, tinfoil star trembling slightly at the end of her wand.
I pushed back my chair.
“Do not move.”
She looked at me rather than the dog.
“I wasn’t.”
Caesar crossed the room.
One enormous paw.
Then another.
Sophie’s eyes widened.
I was already reaching for the pistol inside my desk when Caesar stopped in front of her.
He lowered his head.
Sophie lifted one small hand.
“Can I pet him?”
“No.”
She pet him.
My entire body went rigid.
Caesar closed his eyes.
Then he leaned his massive skull into her palm like an old house dog begging for affection.
I stared.
Sophie giggled.
“He likes fairies.”
“He does not like anyone.”
“He likes me.”
“That appears to be a problem with his judgment.”
She scratched behind one of his ears.
Something silver moved beneath the glitter around her wrist.
My attention sharpened.
“What is that?”
Sophie looked down.
A small medal hung from a red string tied around the handle of her wand.
Not silver.
White gold.
Oval.
Scratched along one edge.
My breath stopped.
I crossed the room so quickly Sophie stepped backward.
Caesar moved between us.
That stopped me more effectively than a gun.
“Sophie,” I said quietly. “Where did you get that?”
She looked from me to the medal.
“This?”
“Yes.”
“It was in the fairy box.”
“What fairy box?”
“The old one.”
Five-year-old logic.
I forced patience into my voice.
“Where?”
“Downstairs where the costumes sleep.”
The storage rooms.
Halloween decorations had been brought up from the east cellar that afternoon.
I extended my hand.
“May I see it?”
Sophie hesitated.
Then she untied the string and placed the medal in my palm.
The room disappeared.
Ten years vanished.
I was twenty-six again, standing beside Lake Como while Luca laughed at me for wearing a suit to a family picnic.
He had worn this medal since he was fifteen.
Saint Christopher on one side.
The Moretti crest engraved badly by hand on the other.
I had done the engraving myself after too much wine.
The M leaned sideways.
Luca said it looked drunk.
After the car bombing, they returned his watch.
His ring.
Part of a chain.
Not the medal.
I had asked.
Everyone told me the explosion must have thrown it into the lake.
Yet it had been downstairs in my house.
Inside a costume box.
For ten years.
Caesar pressed his body against Sophie’s legs.
He knew the scent.
Impossible after a decade.
Unless the medal had been stored with something else that carried Luca’s scent.
My hand closed around it.
Sophie watched me.
“Is it yours?”
“No.”
“Whose?”
I looked at the fire.
“My brother’s.”
“The one who died?”
I turned sharply.
“Who told you that?”
She shrugged.
“Everybody knows.”
In my house, nobody spoke Luca’s name around me.
Apparently servants had different rules when I was absent.
I should have been angry.
Instead, I heard Sophie’s first sentence again.
Because you look lonely.
I returned to my desk.
She followed Caesar into the room as if invited.
I did not stop her.
The dog settled beside my chair.
Sophie climbed onto the edge of the leather sofa.
Her wings caught beneath her.
She wiggled until they came free.
I stared at the medal.
“Your mother knows you are here?”
“No.”
“That is what I expected.”
“She thinks I’m with Rosa.”
“Who is Rosa?”
“The lady with the big glasses.”
One of the pastry assistants.
I pressed the intercom.
No answer.
I tried again.
Nothing.
That bothered me.
Two guards outside.
Silent intercom.
A child entering through a corridor she should not have reached.
I stood.
“Stay here.”
Sophie raised the wand.
“You didn’t make your wish.”
I looked at her.
“This is not the time.”
“Fairy rules.”
“There are no fairy rules.”
“There are.”
“Sophie.”
“Three wishes before midnight.”
The clock on the wall read 7:42.
I should have called security.
I should have sent her downstairs.
Instead, I heard myself ask, “And what happens if I do not use them?”
She considered.
“They expire.”
“Convenient.”
“Do you want the first one?”
I looked down at Luca’s medal.
The answer came before I could stop it.
“I want to know how this ended up in my cellar.”
Sophie frowned.
“That’s not a wish.”
“It sounded like one.”
“That’s a question.”
“Fine. I wish I knew.”
She nodded solemnly.
Then she tapped my hand with the wand.
The tinfoil star bent.
“Granted.”
I almost laughed.
Almost.
Then the bookcase behind her clicked.
Sophie turned.
I reached for my gun.
A narrow seam appeared between the shelves.
One section moved outward less than an inch.
Sophie smiled.
“See?”
I stared.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing.”
“You touched something.”
“No.”
Caesar stood.
His tail began moving.
My heart stopped again.
The bookcase concealed a passage.
I had lived in this house since childhood.
I knew every security room, escape tunnel, wine cellar, and servant stairway.
I did not know that passage existed.
Sophie slid off the sofa.
I caught her shoulder.
“No.”
“But that’s how I got here.”
I looked at her.
“You came through there?”
She nodded.
“From the fairy box.”
The guards had never failed.
She had bypassed them entirely.
I pushed the bookcase wider.
Cold air moved from darkness beyond.
A narrow stone corridor disappeared behind the wall.
Caesar stepped inside before I could stop him.
His claws clicked against old tile.
Sophie tried to follow.
I held her back.
“You stay.”
She folded her arms.
“I know the way.”
“I do not care.”
“You’ll get lost.”
“I do not get lost in my own house.”
Ten minutes later, I was lost in my own house.
The passage twisted behind walls built before my grandfather bought the property. Dust lay thick except for a narrow trail of small footprints.
Sophie walked beside me because after ninety seconds of arguing I decided keeping her where I could see her was safer than leaving her alone in my study.
Her wand scraped the stone.
Caesar led us.
The corridor descended.
At one turn, I saw carvings in the plaster.
L.M.
A line.
A.M.
Another line.
Two heights marked in pencil.
Luca and Alessandro.
Children.
I touched the taller mark.
Memory struck.
We had found a hidden hallway when we were boys.
Not this one.
Or I had forgotten.
No.
Luca found it.
He made me swear not to tell our father because it was “our kingdom.”
We entered through an old linen closet.
Later renovations closed the entrance.
I had not thought of it in twenty-five years.
Sophie watched my face.
“You remember.”
“Yes.”
“Wish worked.”
I ignored that.
The corridor ended at a wooden door.
Beyond it was an old storage room.
Halloween decorations covered shelves.
Masks.
Fake cobwebs.
Plastic pumpkins.
A costume trunk sat open.
Sophie pointed.
“Fairy box.”
Inside were old children’s costumes from my family.
A pirate coat.
A Roman helmet.
A black cape.
And a pair of faded angel wings.
Luca wore those wings when he was seven because our mother refused to let him dress as a demon.
He complained for weeks.
I knelt.
At the bottom of the trunk lay a red scarf.
Caesar pushed his nose into it and whined.
Luca’s.
The medal must have been wrapped inside.
But why was it here?
He had been wearing it the week he died.
I remembered.
Two nights before Lake Como, he stood in my study arguing about shipping contracts while the medal rested against his throat.
Someone returned it.
Someone put it in this trunk.
After the bombing.
Without telling me.
Sophie crouched beside me.
“Mister?”
“Yes.”
“You look sadder.”
“That is because your wish is badly designed.”
“No. Wishes show things.”
I looked at her.
“Who told you that?”
“My mommy.”
“Your mother believes in fairies?”
“No.”
The answer was so serious I almost smiled.
Then Caesar pawed at the scarf.
Something hard was inside the fabric.
I unfolded it.
A tiny brass key fell into my hand.
Not a modern key.
Old.
Stamped with a single number.
17.
My pulse changed.
Sophie leaned closer.
“What does it open?”
“I do not know.”
She beamed.
“Second wish.”
“No.”
“You could wish to know.”
“I am beginning to distrust your profession.”
She giggled.
Footsteps sounded in the hidden corridor.
Fast.
Someone approaching.
I moved instantly.
I pulled Sophie behind me and drew my weapon.
Caesar growled now.
Low.
Real.
The footsteps stopped beyond the door.
A woman’s voice called from the passage.
“Sophie?”
Maria Russo.
The cook.
Her mother.
Relief should have come first.
It did not.
Because another voice followed hers.
Smooth.
Familiar.
My fiancée.
“Alessandro?” Isabella called. “Are you in there?”
Sophie whispered, “That’s the mean princess.”
I looked down at her.
“What?”
She covered her mouth.
Too late.
The door opened.
Maria appeared first, white-faced with panic.
Isabella stood behind her in a black silk evening dress.
Her eyes went to Sophie.
Then Caesar.
Then the red scarf.
Then the medal in my hand.
For less than a second, Isabella Conti forgot how to control her face.
May you like
She looked terrified.
And suddenly I knew my first wish had been granted far more completely than I wanted.
