Page 94 of The Mage and His Stolen Prince
“Don’t say that!” She smacked my shoulder, which throbbed with real pain, but the book had listed tactile hallucinations as a side-effect.
“Does the book say anything about how long this is supposed to last?”
Angelica searched around her, feeling the ground and then under Maximus. Then her head slowly rose to look at the book, lying where Maximus had been, next to one of the stray flowers.
I sighed and pushed myself to my feet. “I’ll get it.”
“Wait.” Her hand latched onto my wrist. “Tell me something that will prove this isn’t a hallucination.”
“Angelica, there is literally nothing I can tell you that your own brain couldn’t come up with.”
“Try!”
“Fine, have you ever tasted cum before?”
She recoiled from me, snatching her hand back. “What is the matter with you!”
“Yes or no.”
“No,” she seethed through clench teeth.
“Then you wouldn’t know that it’s kind of salty, kind of bitter, and coats the inside of your mouth.” I stuck a finger in my mouth and popped my cheek out.
“You’re disgusting.”
“And your brain would never supply you with that kind of information.”
She blinked at me, then sighed in relief as her shoulders relaxed. “You’re right, I’m not hallucinating.”
“Your turn.”
She tensed again as she narrowed her eyes. “Last time we did this, we never saw this field of flowers.”
It was my turn to blink in confusion. “What?”
“The trees were frightening but they never did anything like this.”
“No offense, but this soundsexactlylike something my own brain would come up with.”
“I found out Wilde was the Lord of Grimnight’s apprentice when a man named Cyril Bowers told me through the mirror.”
“Wait,what?” That bit of information somehow hadn’t come back to me yet. So maybe Iwashallucinating, because Angelica never showed any signs of remembering the time-loop.
“We were supposed to get married, you know, in one of the timelines,” she continued, completely ignoring me. “I was so afraid that I would have to see it through that I couldn’t stop shaking, so I held onto you to stop my hands from trembling during the announcement.”
“Angelica, none of this is proving—”
“And Isobbedwhen I woke up at home, so relieved to have another chance to start over.”
I rubbed my hand down my face. “Angelica, your dreamy, emotional confession sounds more like a hallucination than anything else.”
“Then how about this?”
I looked up in time to receive the splash of water full in the face.
“Isthata hallucination, you jackass!”
Water dripped down my face and soaked the cloth tied around it, sticking it to my mouth. “Well … I’m pretty sure even my brain couldn’t picture you swearing.”
