“Before you go, you are free to take any gold you wish, or other goods.” The frog turned, drawing back to look at the wreckage of the lair scattered all over the ground. “We have no use of it, and it belongs rightfully to humans.”
“Seriously?” Now Kit sounded as delighted as a mega-lottery winner.
“Indeed. It will only lie here to be found by other humans.”
“I promise you,” Kit said, already stepping forward toward the loot, “I’m going to return as much of it as I can to the people it came from.”
“Or donate the money to environmental charities, if we can’t find the rightful owners.” Livy waded in and crouched to scoop up jewelry. “That’d be a fitting use, right?”
“For sure.” Kit found a tin box and began filling it with treasure.
After another tentative glance at Skye that once again left her looking upset, Grady wandered into the debris, wretched, and started picking stuff up. So did Skye. Before long they had both found the clothes they’d been wearing, crumpled on the ground and damp with melted snow, and put them back on. He was still shivering so hard his teeth clattered together.
“Dawn is upon us,” the frog said. “Rest well today.”
“Thank you,” Livy said. Kit and Skye echoed the words, fervently.
Grady glanced up to add his thanks, but the creature had already vanished. Gray-blue sky lightened the spaces between trees. The darkness was evaporating; he could see deeper now into the snowy woods. The forest looked ordinary again, though he couldn’t pinpoint what had changed exactly, other than the disappearance of the glowing frog and the passing of the night.
God, he was exhausted.
“You guys ready?” Kit tucked his box of gold under his arm, holding a bulging sack in the other hand. “I left the truck on the road right over there.”
“Thank God.” Livy wrapped up the bundle of gold she had piled in an old curtain. “I think we all need to shower and then sleep for, like, a day and a half.”
“For sure.” Skye shuffled up next to her, holding a coffee can full of treasure. She and Livy turned toward the truck.
Grady followed, his pajama pockets stuffed with jewelry.
Kit fell into step beside him and tapped his elbow against Grady’s. “You all right?”
Grady nodded, though his head still ached, along with most of his joints. “Just…have to process all this.”
They came out onto the road, where the prosaic sight of Kit’s dented truck was the most comforting thing Grady had seen in a long time. Kit opened the passenger door for Skye and Livy. He frowned at Livy’s clothes, which looked even filthier in the brightening light of dawn. “Liv, what did they make you do, anyway? What happened to you?”
“Oh…” She clambered into the cab with a grunt. “Nature.”
Grady got in last, squished between Livy and the door. Skye sat on one of Livy’s legs, to give Kit enough room to drive. It should’ve been Grady’s lap she sat on. Now she barely looked at him. Grady shut his eyes and rested his head against the cold window.
“Nature how?” Kit started the truck, and began driving down the bumpy road.
“Well, first,” Livy said, “I crawled through a tunnel of dirt under the island. Then I crawled an underwater path across the bottom of the inlet. Then I had to walk through a forest fire. And then I had to climb into the canopy, like a hundred feet off the ground, and jump from tree to tree to get to the goblins’ lair.”
Amazed silence from everyone for a second. Grady opened his eyes and blinked at her.
“Damn,” Kit said.
“I suppose you think you’re so bad-ass now.” Skye employed the skeptically teasing tone that could only come from a sister. Grady knew it well from his own siblings, but he’d never had the opportunity to hear it from Skye.
“I kind of do, yeah,” Livy informed her, loftily.
Skye leaned her shoulder against Livy’s. “That’s because you completely are.”
She was smiling. Only for Livy. It made Grady’s heart hurt in a weird mix of happiness and sorrow.
“You are,” Grady murmured to Livy, because even in the middle of his turmoil he couldn’t forget the immense thanks he owed her.
Livy acknowledged him with a smile, then tipped her head back and closed her eyes.
Skye yawned loudly and did the same. “So. Tired.”
They re-entered Bellwater, and soon pulled up at Skye and Livy’s house. Grady hopped down to let them out. While Livy slid over to kiss Kit goodbye, Skye and Grady stood in their pajamas in the ankle-deep snow in the cul-de-sac, shivering and gazing unhappily at each other.
“You must hate me,” Grady said. “Just…everything. I’m so sorry.”
She pulled her eyebrows together. “What? No. You must hate me. What I did to you…” She shuddered, a level above her cold shivers, and looked away.
“How could you even—no. Of course I don’t.”
Livy climbed down. “Laundry,” she said, running her glance over Skye’s clothes and her own. “After sleep and shower. God, what a night. You ready to warm up?”
Skye nodded. She met Grady’s glance again, but kept her arms folded tight; no hug on offer. “We’ll be in touch. After…sleeping, and everything.”
“Yeah.”
She was probably right. No use trying to sort this out until they’d rested and recovered. Still, he ached for some word of reassurance as he watched them shamble toward their house. Receiving none, he climbed back into the truck.
“Well.” Kit rolled toward Shore Avenue. “Back to the world of the living.” Even through Kit’s exhaustion, happiness bubbled up in his words. He was suddenly free of what had been a lifelong obligation.
Grady was pleased for him. In a cerebral sense, at least. He was also, in theory, pleased to be unshackled from his own curse, and back among the ordinary human world. But now what? Get busy again searching for jobs and an apartment, off in Seattle?
He’d do it, he supposed, but the plan didn’t carry much sparkle anymore. Nothing did, not if Skye didn’t want to be with him.
Grady wasn’t sure at all that he wasn’t still under some kind of spell.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
SLEEP. SO MUCH SLEEP. A BRIEF AWAKENING, THEN A CRASH BACK INTO SLEEP. THEN ANOTHER FAILED ATTEMPT TO keep her eyes open, and more sleep after that. In Livy’s brief glance at the room, she registered it was still daylight, and therefore she and Skye and the Sylvain cousins were safe, just in case any goblins still existed.
The smell of fresh coffee finally woke her properly. It drifted into her room from the kitchen, where she heard the clink of utensils. She glanced at the window—still light out. The alarm clock said it was a little after three p.m. She got out of bed.
Skye sat at the kitchen table, drawing in her sketchbook. She was wrapped in hoodie and sweatpants, hair held back in a bandanna. A mug of coffee and a half-eaten piece of toast with cheddar cheese melted on top of it sat next to her. Hip-hop played from Skye’s phone through the small speakers on the kitchen counter.
Livy hesitated in the door frame. “Hey,” she said. The music and the food were good signs, but what if her sister answered in only echoes again? What if the smiles from last night had vanished?