Nine
Ruith watched Sarah slip into what he hoped was a peaceful, dreamless sleep, then straightened and turned to face the other occupants of the chamber. Soilléir was standing near his hearth, watching him gravely. Rùnach, the one who had been masquerading as Soilléir’s servant, was standing next to Soilléir, his cowl pushed back from his ruined face, his expression equally grave. Ruith wondered if his brother would have revealed himself if Sarah hadn’t done it for him, or if he would have remained in the shadows.
The thought of that was, he had to admit, absolutely devastating.
He walked over to his brother, put his arms around him, and fought the urge to break down and bawl like a bairn. Rùnach returned the embrace, slapped him a time or two on the back with hands Ruith had already seen were not up to that task, then pulled back and kissed Ruith on both cheeks.
“Ruith,” he said, sounding enormously pleased.
Ruith dragged his sleeve across his eyes. “I can’t believe you said nothing.”
“I’m discreet,” Rùnach said, shooting Soilléir a look. He turned back to Ruith. “I thought you were dead, you wee fool,” he said, in his voice that sounded quite a bit like branches scraping against a sheet of glass. “Léir, of course, has said nothing to me during these long years to dissuade me from such an assumption.”
“Predictable,” Ruith said darkly. “And nay, I’m not dead, but ’twas a very near thing. And at the moment I think I’m very near to falling upon my arse from shock. Perhaps we could sit until I’m recovered.”
Rùnach stepped back. “I’ll fetch chairs—”
“Of course you won’t,” Ruith said. “I’ll see to it.” He started to walk away, then looked at Soilléir. He had to take a careful breath before he trusted himself to speak instead of doing his host bodily harm. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Soilléir said quietly.
“I don’t suppose you have anything else to say to me, do you? Siblings to reveal, censure to offer, reminders of my inability to face anything but supper and come away the victor?”
Soilléir smiled faintly. “I believe my work is done with all three. I’ll go pace through the halls and stir up mischief. You and your brother have things to discuss, I imagine.”
“You could have told me about him,” Ruith said in a low voice.
“Rùnach is not my servant,” Soilléir said with a shrug. “I do not reveal secrets that aren’t mine.”
“It would be so much easier to dislike you if you would just be wrong. Once.”
Soilléir clucked his tongue. “Unkind.”
“But poetically just. I would like to see it, perhaps when you’re undone by a woman, or trying to win a woman, or finding yourself turned about by a woman.”
“I’ll watch you a bit longer and see how the solving of that tangle is managed,” Soilléir said before he clapped Ruith on the shoulder and walked away. “You might consider taking her for a walk later, Ruithneadh. She’ll no doubt want to be free of the university for a bit.”
Ruith wasn’t about to ask him how he knew that, or exactly what he had done to make her see what she’d walked into, or what that meant for her now. He would ask before the day was out, but he supposed even Sarah wouldn’t begrudge him a moment or two with a sibling he’d thought was dead.
He drew chairs up to the fire, then sat and looked at the brother he hadn’t seen in a score of years.
“What happened to you?” he asked, when he thought he could speak without weeping.
“After?”
Ruith nodded.
Rùnach shrugged. “Mother covered me with her power as she died, so the well didn’t kill me, but it rendered me senseless. By the time I regained my wits and managed to get my hands free of the stone, the bodies, save Mother’s, were gone.” He paused for a rather long moment. “I had no power—Father took it, of course—and no strength. I crawled away and hoped I could find a place to hide.”
Ruith understood completely. What he couldn’t bear to think on, however, was his brother having lost his power. Rùnach had been a master mage, endlessly searching for spells, continually testing them, improving upon them, making them more than they had been before. Elegant, powerful, resistant to evil—
He took a deep breath and looked at his brother. “Why didn’t you go home or to Lake Cladach?” he asked, realizing Soilléir had asked him the same thing.
Rùnach’s laugh was faint and humorless. “To have those at Seanagarra pity me my ruined hands and lack of magic? To have Grandmother Eulasaid fret over how to restore either—or both? Nay, Ruith, both places were closed to me.”
“But why here?”
Rùnach looked at him seriously. “I wanted the seven rings of mastery.”
Ruith felt his mouth fall open, and he laughed a little in spite of himself. “Surely you jest.”
Rùnach shook his head slowly.
“But you never wanted those,” Ruith said in surprise. Indeed, he and Rùnach had had numerous conversations about the folly of subjecting their magic to the scrutiny of masters who couldn’t possibly hope to wield the same power and might. Ruith supposed, looking back on it now, that they had been a little arrogant about it all.
How things changed.
“I wanted to walk through the doors the rings would open for me,” Rùnach said with a shrug, “so I would have lowered myself to make the attempt. But Léir wouldn’t allow it.”
“What a woman you’ve become,” Ruith said. “Surely you could best him and his pitiful spells in order to do as you saw fit.”
“Perhaps before,” Rùnach said, smiling faintly, “but not now. I suppose in his own way he was attempting to keep me safe. In Mother’s memory, no doubt.”
“Does no one know you’re here, then?” Ruith asked in surprise. “Even after all these years?”
“Not even Droch, who would likely turn me into a pawn without hesitation should he learn the truth,” Rùnach said with a snort. “Nay, brother, there are advantages to masquerading as Soilléir’s servant. I live and breathe, for one thing. And I have the run of the library downstairs, which you will readily admit is something to envy.”
And for Rùnach, that was no doubt indeed the case. Ruith studied his brother for a moment or two in silence, then shook his head. “I still don’t understand why you ever would have wanted any of those bloody rings.”
“Can’t you?” Rùnach asked, sounding faintly amused.
“To have Soilléir’s spells?” Ruith asked, not at all surprised to watch Rùnach nod. His brother might have lost his magic and his hands, but his ambitions had obviously not changed. “Which ones?”
“I would have taken all of them, but I was willing to settle for two.”
“And those would have been?”
“Return and Alchemy.”
Ruith began to smile. “You can’t be serious.”
“Oh, I am,” Rùnach assured him. “And just so you know and can be envious, Léir gave them to me.”
“Good of him,” Ruith grumbled.
Rùnach’s face was, the poor lad, as scarred as his hands, but that didn’t stop him from managing a look of supreme smugness. “He was more than generous, actually, for he gave me all his spells.”
“Damn you,” Ruith said with an uneasy laugh. “Very well, you have what Father would have killed for. What, pray, did you intend to do with any of them?”
“Bring Father back to life, then turn him into a rock.”
Ruith smiled. “Your problem, brother, has always been your lack of imagination.” He ignored the fact that he’d thought exactly the same thing. “Rather you should have turned him into a truffle, exposed perilously in a forest full of insubordinate pigs, perhaps. Or a large, hairy spider sent into a chamber full of feisty ladies’ maids with heavy court shoes. Or a target pinned to a haystack for use by Meithian archers who are, you will remember, simply unparalleled for their accuracy and ability to practice for all the hours daylight allows them and often into the night when torches can be fetched. But a rock?”
“As if you could have invented anything more interesting,” Rùnach said with a snort.
“I believe I just did.”
“And I believe you don’t have the spells to do it, so, little brother, ’tis naught but speculation with you.”
Ruith wanted to laugh, but his brother’s words hit too close to home.
He decided, for the third time that day, that he didn’t like being less than he was. He didn’t like it at all.
Nay, if he was going to be truthful with himself, he would have to admit that he hadn’t liked the fact that his magic was buried and unused for quite some time now. Since he’d been in the great hall at Ceangail and found himself completely unable to protect Sarah.
Nay, that wasn’t true either. He’d known, on a night a month ago when he’d sat against the wheel of Franciscus’s ale wagon and held Sarah in his arms so he could wake her if she dreamed about his father’s spells burning like lamps all over the world, that if he’d been half the man his mother had expected him to be, he would have not run but instead turned and faced his demons squarely.
Actually, his father would have agreed with that as well, but Ruith preferred not to think about that.
“And at least you have the magic to do what I cannot,” Rùnach mused. “If only you had the spells.”
Ruith pursed his lips and remained silent.
“You should, if I might offer an opinion,” Rùnach began carefully, “be grateful for what you have.”
Ruith smiled wearily. “Am I so easy to read, then?”
“I just know you, Ruith,” Rùnach said quietly. “I know your demons.”
“Because they’re yours as well?”
Rùnach nodded. “I’m simply fortunate I’m not forced to confront them.”
“You have always led a charmed life.”
“Haven’t I, though?”
Ruith smiled. “I’ve missed you.”
“And I you, but if you fling yourself in my arms again and slobber all over me like a woman, I’ll stick a knife in your gut.”
“Do you ever talk this much to Soilléir?”
“Oh, aye. He begs me to be quiet.”
Ruith smiled, then looked down at his hands for a moment or two. He could feed himself, clothe himself, and keep himself from freezing to death in the mountains. He could wield a sword, make arrows for a bow, and extricate himself from situations not requiring a sword but instead a tactfulness his mother would have been satisfied with.
But that wasn’t enough to do what he had to.
“Tell me of the pages you’ve been hunting.”
Ruith looked up. “What—oh, those. I’ve been finding pages of Father’s book—well, Sarah’s been finding them. We had a few, but I lost them.” That wasn’t exactly the case, but the truth was too unsettling to look at presently. “I suppose I don’t need those, though, given that I could write at least most of them from memory.”
“Could you?” Rùnach asked in surprise.
“Couldn’t you?” Ruith asked, feeling equally surprised.
Rùnach shook his head slowly. “I had the entire bloody book memorized ... before. When I lost my power, I lost those memories as well.” He smiled grimly. “Blow to the head and all that, I suppose. I have over the years, however, found most of the spells I think he drew from.”
“Where are those?”
“I gave them to one who needed them.”
“Do I want to know who?” Ruith asked unwillingly.
“I don’t think so today.”
Ruith dragged his hands through his hair and sighed deeply. “What do you think I should do now?”
“Oh, nay,” Rùnach said, shaking his head. “I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to stop making a complete arse of yourself. Unless you’d like me to echo the suggestion that you take your lady for a wee walk. I, however, would suggest that you do so in Grandfather’s garden.”
Ruith wondered why it was he was continually being caught off guard. He didn’t remember his last visit to Buidseachd having been so taxing. “An interesting thought.”
“You can’t tell me it hasn’t crossed your mind before.”
“It has,” Ruith managed. “And I made certain the thought continued on into the darkness where it belongs. I’m quite happy pretending to be something I’m not and ignoring things that make me uncomfortable.”
“You’re a terrible liar,” Rùnach said sadly. He shook his head. “How have you managed without me all these years, Ruith?”
“Poorly,” Ruith admitted, then steeled himself for the better part of an afternoon spent listening to his elder brother point out to him just where he’d gone wrong. Instruction on how to go about winning a woman he wasn’t at all sure would want to be won would no doubt figure prominently in Rùnach’s conversation.
Ruith supposed that whilst he was listening, he would think more than he should have about the fact that whilst he would happily have retreated to his mountain sanctuary, his brother would have shouldered his burden and marched doggedly into the battle that lay ahead.
But Rùnach couldn’t.
While Ruith realized with a start he most certainly could, but he wouldn’t.
Fadaire is smothered by Olc more often than not, he had said to Soilléir that first night.
If you believe that, Ruithneadh, then you do not give your mother’s power its due.
He wondered, casually lest the thought become more important than he wanted it to be, what would happen in truth if he sauntered down to his grandfather’s garden, released all his magic, then attempted entry, just to see what Fadaire in its strength would think of him.
Aye, he wondered, indeed.
The thought burned in his soul like a raging fire, leaving him fighting for breath until the sun began to set and Sarah woke. She didn’t look any better than she had before, but Soilléir promised her a walk would do her good. Ruith would have happily avoided the bloody expedition until the next day—or never, if he could have managed it—but Soilléir handed him a rucksack full of supper, assured him that Droch was shut up in his chamber, raging at his current crop of spies, and held open the door for him. Never mind that Ruith had already opened it, perhaps in spite of his better judgement. Sarah didn’t seem opposed to being liberated from a nest of mages, so there was no rescue coming from that quarter.
He supposed he would just have to carry on down a path that was so full of thorns he could scarce put his foot to it.
He slipped out the kitchen door with Sarah, then heard her sigh of relief at the reprieve from being inside a keep full of spells. He wished he could have shared the feeling, but what he dreaded lay in front of him, not behind. He walked quickly with her along side-walks just the same, keeping to the shadows as much as possible, following a path that even he could see was laid out before his feet.
The way to the garden of Gearrannan hadn’t changed at all in a score of years. He found the place without trouble, then stopped in front of the gate. He wondered, absently, if he should have brought a lamp. He knew there was a path whose head lay just inside, but he wasn’t sure they would manage to find the end of it.
He reached out toward the gate, then froze as memory washed over him. He could see his father’s hand there on that latch, the flat black onyx stone in the ring he always wore glinting dully in the moonlight. But his father had drawn his hand back immediately, as if the gate had stung him. He’d laughed off the moment, then pleaded a sudden thirst as reason not to accompany his family inside the garden. Ruith had thought little of it at the time; he’d simply been relieved to be free of his father’s oppressive presence.
Now, though, he didn’t feel any relief at all.
He stood there with his hand on the latch, unable to move. He heard Sarah call his name, but he couldn’t speak—partly because he was still so damned tired he could hardly stand up and partly because he had, at some point during the afternoon, turned into a blubbering ... something. It would have been an insult to call himself a woman because the women he knew didn’t blubber. They wept, when appropriate, or drew steel, or wielded spells. But they never blubbered.
And still he stood there, motionless, wrestling with things he couldn’t see but definitely couldn’t ignore.
“I’m going to go.”
That surprised him out of his stupor. He looked at Sarah. “What?”
“I appreciate the refuge for a bit,” she said quietly, “but I know you have things to do. I do too. I should be about them sooner rather than later.”
He was still struggling for something to say when she brushed past him. He caught her hand before she went three paces.
She stopped, but she didn’t turn around.
He looked down at her hand in his. It was her right one, the hand with his father’s spell burned into her flesh, tangible proof that there was evil in the world that would stop at nothing in attempting to destroy what was beautiful and whole. And she, Sarah of Doìre, had set out from the ruins of her home with nothing more than a drooling hound, a fierce-looking kitchen knife, and an unquenchable desire to do good in order to try to stop that evil.
And he had shut his door in her face.
Never mind that he’d followed after her within hours. He should have offered to help her immediately. He should have told her who he was from the start, then he should have taken back his magic from the ghost of his father and used it to keep her safe.
He feared it was too late.
He took a deep breath. “There is a pleasant garden beyond this gate.”
She still wasn’t moving. “How do you know?”
“’Tis my ... grandfather’s garden,” he said, having to take another deep breath or two. “His glamour is laid over it, but I don’t think that will trouble you. Fadaire is a beautiful magic.”
She turned slowly and looked at him. She was silent for so long, he wondered if she was wondering how best to stab him and be free of him, or if she was looking for something particularly cutting to say to put him in his place, which he supposed he would have deserved. Or perhaps she, like he, was wrestling with things that for all their innocence were very serious indeed. Such as her sight. Or his ability to survive the evening without his grandfather’s garden snuffing out his existence.
“It would be a safe place to linger,” he added.
She hesitated, then let out her breath slowly. “Perhaps for a few minutes.”
“An hour,” he countered.
Her eyes narrowed. “Very well, an hour, but then I will go.”
It was a start, but only half the battle had been won. He would have to get them both inside the gate—alive—before safety would be theirs. He took a deep breath, then very carefully released his magic. He felt Sarah catch her breath.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
He looked at her in surprise. “What do you mean?”
She gestured helplessly at him. “What you just did. I saw it. The riverbeds are now full to overflowing.”
He didn’t mean to gape at her, but he couldn’t help himself. “Riverbeds?” he echoed.
She waved away the words. “Don’t ask. Let’s just go.”
He promised himself a goodly bit of speech with her later—hopefully he would still be alive to do so—then nodded. He hesitated, then cast caution and pride to the wind. He put his hand on the gate, then looked at her.
“We have a bit of a problem here.”
She looked over her shoulder immediately, as if she expected Droch and a contingent of his vile minions to be standing there, then back at him with a frown. “What sort of a problem?”
“The garden is not without its safeguards,” he said slowly. “To keep out undesirables who might attempt entrance where they shouldn’t.”
She stared at him blankly for a moment or two, then a look of profound pity came over her face. “Oh, Ruith.”
If he hadn’t been finished before, he was then. He didn’t dare reach for her, simply because he found he did have a bit of pride left and he couldn’t stomach the thought of her knowing how badly he was trembling. He attempted a casual shrug.
“There’s nothing to it, truly,” he said, tossing away the words as if they touched him not at all. “Just a feeble spell that keeps out what the garden doesn’t want in or, more insultingly, allows the refuse in but doesn’t acknowledge it. If my grandfather were here, the trees would make light of their own for him. Actually, I think they would do it for any of his family. But for me, assuming the gate doesn’t fell me on the spot the moment I open it ... well, I imagine I won’t be welcomed.”
Sarah’s expression was very grave. “Because of Gair?”
“Because of Gair.”
She shrugged. “I don’t mind the dark.”
He most certainly did, and she was lying. He knew the dark bothered her even more than it bothered him, but there was nothing to be done about it now. He wanted to mutter a casual nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh? but he found he could do nothing but stand there and breathe for several minutes in silence, like a poor, spooked nag facing what terrified it the most.
Sarah squeezed his hand, just the slightest bit. “You are not your father.”
He laughed a little. “So we could hope.” He started to open the gate, then paused and looked at her. “If something happens to me,” he began carefully, “the garden will let you inside, I’m sure. If you can bear to, wait for Soilléir. He will know if I perish. He won’t leave you here alone.”
The last galled him to say out loud, but more galling would have been the thought that he’d left Sarah unprotected.
Which, he supposed, was why he was willingly trying to find the place where his soul would shatter and doing so by presenting himself to a place that judged mercilessly, just to see if it would reject him.
Sarah said nothing. She merely squeezed his hand again and waited.
Ruith took a deep breath, then reached out with a trembling hand and opened the latch of the gate.
He didn’t feel anything amiss, and he still drew breath. It was promising, but not overly. His grandfather, it could be said, was nothing if not imaginative whilst about the happy business of tormenting miscreants.
Ruith walked inside, drawing Sarah behind him. He shut the gate and felt his grandfather’s glamour drape down behind him and seal itself with a click. Sarah shivered, but he supposed that came more from the twilight mist rather than the spell.
“Still breathing,” he said, a little more breathlessly than he would have liked. He looked at the path beneath his feet, trying not to think about the last time he’d walked up it. It had been with his mother, Rùnach, and Gille. In fact he could almost see them hurrying up the way in front of him, laughing, heedless of the magic that protected them as only lads who’d enjoyed its benefits for the whole of their lives could be. The path had been lit, of course, because of his mother and his brothers.
“What now?” Sarah asked.
“We carry on.” He nodded toward the path. “That leads upward to a bower. A lovely place, truly. Happily secluded and undeniably safe.” He hesitated. “I would make light—”
“We’ll manage without it.”
He supposed they’d both managed over the years with less light than they would have liked. He promised himself a decent bit of werelight at the top of the hill, but until then ... well, until then, he would just make do.
A bit like he’d been doing for the past score of years.
He squeezed Sarah’s hand, then started up the path. He felt as if he were walking into a battle, just waiting for the first blow to fall, the first arrow to find home in his chest, the first sound of a knife slicing through the—
Sarah gasped.
He looked up, then froze.
Lights had begun to appear in the trees, faintly where he stood, but more brightly as the path wound upward. The flowers on either side of the path began to glow as well, as if they were, well, pleased at something. Ruith struggled to breathe normally.
“They’re doing it for you,” he managed.
“Don’t be daft,” she said without hesitation. “They’re doing it for you.”
He wanted to curse, but he thought that might be inappropriate in his current location. He supposed Sarah had seen him at his worst—or very near to it—so there was no shame in a very minor display of emotion. Unfortunately, by the time they reached the top of the hill, he feared he’d wept more than a stray tear or two. He dragged his sleeve across his eyes and looked around himself.
The trees were singing a song of Fadaire in which his name was whispered over and over again, as if they not only recognized him, but had longed to see him and wondered why he had been away. The lights sparkled, clear and warm, casting a beautiful light over the bower. He turned around in a circle, stunned at what he was seeing, then looked at Sarah.
“I can’t believe this,” he whispered. He started to say more, but he couldn’t. All the years he’d spent with his back turned on himself, denying himself the pleasure of family, the beauty of his mother’s magic ... all years apparently wasted. He looked at Sarah helplessly.
“Regret is a terrible thing,” she said very quietly.
“Are you reading my thoughts now as well?” he managed.
“Your face, rather.”
He dragged his sleeve across that face, then attempted a smile. “Well, at least we have light. What do you say to a game of cards?”
“Ruith, surely not—”
“Please,” he interrupted. “I’ll weep in truth if I must think on this any longer. Please let’s discuss food, or steel, or the many and varied flaws of a certain master of Buidseachd who talks too much about some things and not enough about others.”
“I would join you in that,” she said, dabbing at her own cheeks with the hem of her sleeve, “but I haven’t the heart for it.” She looked at him seriously. “I’ll play cards with you, but for every time I win, I want a memory of yours that’s beautiful. Franciscus didn’t know very many tales, but I loved the ones he told me. Despite my loathing of all things elvish, of course.”
“I know many tales—”
“Memories, Ruith. Good ones.”
He took a deep breath, looked over her head at the trees behind her with their lights swaying delicately in their boughs. “Very well. And from you, I’ll have an hour more of your company for each hand I win. Here in the elven king’s garden where his spells will keep you safe.”
“I don’t belong—”
“And I do?” he asked with as much of a careless laugh as he could manage. He felt his smile fade. “Please, Sarah. I’ll help you in the morning if you still want to go. You shall choose a place and I’ll make it safe for you. But tonight, I want you to stay.”
“Why?” she asked, pained.
“Because I don’t want you to go, and I’m putting off the misery of it as long as I can,” he said, before he thought too much about it and talked himself out of being honest.
She closed her eyes for a moment or two, then looked at him. “I’m terrified.”
He didn’t need to ask her why. Of course she was terrified because she had an enormous amount of good sense and a very long list of things to be terrified by.
She swallowed. “I’ve been blustering before about it all, but I’m not sure I can ... that I can face ...”
He drew her into his arms before she could reach for blades to place delicately in his gut. When she continued to shiver, he took off his cloak, wrapped it around her, then pulled her close again.
“We’ll put it aside for the night,” he said, hoping he sounded more confident and hopeful than he felt. “You can decide what you’ll do in the morning.”
She didn’t want to give in, he could sense that, but she did. Eventually.
“Be thinking on my prizes,” she said, pulling away finally and dragging her sleeve again across her eyes. “Now, Your Highness, stop dawdling and conjure us up a deck of cards and a place to sit before I turn off your lights with my salty language.”
“Don’t call me that,” he said quietly.
Her smile faded. “I said it before to hurt you. But not now. Not here.”
“I still don’t like it.”
“What shall I call you, then?”
“I suppose darling is out,” he said, struggling to capture a light tone, “as is Your Handsomeness. I suppose you’ll just have to settle for Ruith.”
“Very well, Ruith,” she said, waving him on. “Stop talking and start thinking.”
He had, as it happened, an enormous store of lore in his poor head, most having to do with Heroes trotting off on their trusty Angesand steeds to do marvelous deeds with their swords, but he supposed if he tried hard enough, he might be able to remember a few things he’d read in his grandfather’s library. Or manage a few decent memories of his own for her.
He made them a place to sit, enjoyed the supper Soilléir had packed for them, lost badly at cards, then didn’t argue when Sarah said she thought she could perhaps lose a game or two to save his pride if she stretched out and played with her eyes closed. She was asleep long before the game was finished.
He pulled her cloak over her, but she shivered still. He considered what he might do to remedy that, but realized it could only be solved with magic. He sat up and took a very deep breath. The trees seemed to be waiting for him as well.
“Well,” he said reasonably, “I’m just thinking about her.”
The lights only sparkled pleasantly and the boughs began to sing again, a sweet song of peace. Ruith looked down at his very sensible hands, thought about what they could do, then thought about what they could do if he allowed them to.
If I had been Gair, I would have kept my family safe.
He had said those words to Sarah on their journey toward Ceangail. And he had meant it. If he’d had a family, a wife he adored, sons he wanted to show how to be honorable men, daughters he wanted to keep safe, he would have protected them to the very limits of his endurance and power. That he hadn’t done so for Sarah on their journey was inexcusable.
He took another in a very long series of deep breaths, then put his hand out into the darkness.
He could have sworn he felt his mother’s hand there, waiting for him.
He dragged his sleeve across his eyes one last time, then very carefully conjured up a cloak fit for a princess and spread it over Sarah, then set spells of ward, Fadairian spells that the garden approved of, just inside his grandfather’s glamour.
Which had been refreshed quite recently, as it happened.
He would have considered that a bit longer, but he realized with a start that he wasn’t going to manage to stay awake long enough to do so. He stretched out next to Sarah, then put his arm over her and contemplated the events of the evening.
He had walked in his grandfather’s garden and found himself accepted.
He felt years fall away as if they’d never been there, leaving him with his magic and his memories and a freedom from the burden of hiding he hadn’t realized he’d been carrying. He supposed if he’d had any sense at all, he would have been terrified.
But he wasn’t.
He closed his eyes and fell into the first dreamless sleep he’d had in twenty years.