He stepped so close to me that the tip of his boots scraped mine. “And you? What about you? Are you safe here?”
I brushed my fingers over the pearls at my neck. “So long as I wear the enchantment, I’ll be of sound mind, never you worry.”
He palmed my cheek, staring down at me with something in his gaze I’d never seen in another’s eyes before when they looked at me. Then he lowered his head, so unbelievably slowly that I was aware of the fluttering beat of the pulse in my neck and the scent of raspberries lacing the warm breeze.
The touch of his lips on mine was like trying to ride lightning—electrifying, wonderfully painful, and exquisitely addictive.
I leaned up on tiptoe, bunching the column of his shirt in my fingers, wanting more and more of him.
But soon I became aware of a sound, and so did he. He grasped my biceps, and we pulled apart at the same moment.
“You hear that?” he whispered.
I peered over his shoulder just as the jangling, creaking sound coming down the lane turned the corner, revealing an open wagon laden down with hay, grains, and wooden barrels of goods.
“We can’t be seen, Zane. Hurry,” I choked out breathlessly. I took his hand in mine, and we raced for the tree line, gulping in air more from the adrenaline than exhaustion.
He was right on my heels. By the time we got behind the thick trunk of a massive walnut tree, I saw the group of three sitting in front of the wagon—a white-haired beauty, a blue-haired beauty, and one with luscious locks of deep auburn that glinted almost like fire in the noonday sun.
They were dressed in long, elegant gowns of hunter green, amethyst, and crimson, respectively. Their hair flowed long and loose around their shoulders, and each of them wore a crown of baby’s breath and miniature rose blooms on her head.
There was something about them that I instantly recognized, but they were unlike anything I’d seen before. But I knew them. I knew them instantly. My brain just hadn’t quite caught up to that fact yet. I stood there like a dumb, gawping bird, my mouth slightly ajar as I noted all their distinctive markings and mannerisms.
“Are those your...” Zane trailed off, scratching at the side of his face with a finger as a tight frown pulled at his lips. “No, I must be wrong. Right?”
The white-haired female was guiding the team of horses. Her full lips thinned, scowling deeply as though she was annoyed by the constant chatter of the other two beside her. Her firm flesh was a lovely shade of mint green.
“Dear goddess above,” I croaked, louder than I’d intended.
Zane slapped a hand against my mouth as the gorgeous auburn-haired one frowned and turned to peer into the grove of trees now hiding us.
Aunt Violet’s quicksilver eyes thinned to near horizontal slits, gleaming with fierce intelligence and wisdom. Her nostrils flared a little as she pulled her full bottom lip between pearly white teeth. Then she went absolutely still, unnaturally so, and I saw her swallow hard.
I shivered, desperately trying to hold still and not give away our positions. She’d spotted us. She knew we were there. Aunt Violet had the sight, and I’d made a mess of things before they’d even begun. She would give away our position to my other aunts, and I would rewrite all of history in one feel swoop. I bit my bottom lip hard to keep from groaning out loud.
There was a keenness in Aunt Vi’s eyes that seemed entirely absent from the woman I knew today. Aunt Violet was as powerful as her sisters, but far more scatterbrained, more concerned with having fun and being carefree than the other two.
But that woman in the wagon didn’t strike me as someone frivolous or prone to daydreams. Her eagle-eyed gaze never wavered from my hiding spot behind the tree trunk. I knew she was aware of us, so why hadn’t she outed us yet? My skin shivered with goose pimples.
“Violet, are ye listening to me?” Aunt Primrose snapped a second later as she gave Aunt Vi a quick, hard shove.
Aunt Violet frowned, her brows gathering into deep scowl lines as she finally, blessedly turned away.
I released the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. My nerves were crackling like sparklers all over my body. Gods, but Aunt Violet could be intimidating when she wanted to be. I’d never known this side of her.
I kept myself as hidden as I possibly could, waiting ten beats until I was sure I would not be made. Then slowly, oh so excruciatingly slowly, I peered out from around the tree trunk, digging my nails so hard into the coarse bark that I felt two of them snap off at the tips.
Scratching the back of her head, Aunt Violet said, “Sorry, sister. Thought I saw... something.”
I swallowed, my stomach a fluttery mess. Zane wrapped his fingers into my hood, clutching tight, and I knew he realized the precariousness of the situation we were now caught in.
Aunt Hyacinth turned sharply at that, halting the forward progress of the wagon. The horses shook their large heads in protest, whickering and stomping their hooves with their need to continue moving forward.
“Who or what?” Aunty Hyacinth asked with a wild edge to her uptight tone. “Who did ye see, Violet?” As she asked that, she stood, whipping her wand out from a hidden sheath in her large bell sleeve. She held it in a loose, but steady grip.
Aunty Cinth scanned the woods, and my scalp started tingling. How the devil were Zane and I supposed to learn whatever it was we’d been sent there to learn if our position was already compromised?
My heart beat a furious rhythm, and I closed my eyes. How badly was I going to mess up Blue Moon Bay’s timeline? What had I just done?
I heard an inhale and peeked out from just behind the tree.
Please, Aunty Violet, I whispered in my head. Please, goddess, don’t do this. Don’t do this.
I knew she couldn’t hear me, and I knew it wouldn’t have helped anyway. At whatever point in time we currently were, my aunt Violet wasn’t actually my aunt Violet. She wasn’t an aunt at all.
She licked her lips, looked behind her shoulder, unerringly toward just the spot of the tree trunk that Zane and I still hid behind, and said in a low tone strong enough for us to hear, “I was mistaken. There was no one there.”
Aunt Cinth frowned hard, but her wand grip finally went lax. “Then we must hie off to Camillia, We’re already late,” she groused, taking her seat. With a firm yank on the reins, she put the wagon into motion again.
But I’d gone still, absolutely still. And I was cold all over.
The wagon pulled away from us, far enough that I felt it was safe to speak without the fear of outing our position.
“Camillia is my mother,” I croaked, and glanced at him.
Zane’s hands were on my shoulders, turning me toward him. His deep-blue eyes searched mine. “What?”
“C-Camil...” I stuttered, overcome with emotions I’d not expected—panic, fear, and desperate, desperate desire.
“Sweetheart,” he said gently, brushing my cheek with his thumb.
“She died giving birth to me. I’ve never met her, Zane.”
He looked toward where the wagon continued riding off down the lane and shook his head. “Are you sure we should be here? Should we go back? Would you rather—”
I grabbed his wrist and shook my head. “I need to see this. I need to know the truth. I have to.”
He nodded, pulling me into his strong arms before planting a hard kiss on my forehead. “Then we’ll stay. Okay? We’ll stay.”
I nodded, still feeling cold all over, but starting to warm up finally. Like a foot that had fallen asleep and now was coming alive again, I was tingling everywhere, and my ears were buzzing.
“Do you think she knows we’re here?” Zane asked.
I shivered, less from the wash of heat caressing the shell of my ear and more from the fact that I knew without a doubt that not only had Aunty Vi known we were there, she was almost certainly lying about it to her sisters.
The question was, why?
It made no kind of bloody sense. I loved my aunt Violet, but she?
??d always been the dependable, trusted—some might even go so far as to call her the narc—of the bunch. Everyone in town knew that if someone wanted something to remain a secret, they never told Aunt Violet. And conversely, if someone needed the entire town to know something but didn’t want to be the one telling the secrets, they always told Aunt Violet first. She was basically Blue Moon Bay’s version of the gossip mill, all wrapped up in one adorably happy package.
“Not only do I think she knows, Zane, I think she just protected us.”
He frowned, giving his head a slight shake. “But why? Do you think Time tipped her off that we were coming here?”
I shrugged. “I haven’t the foggiest, but if we don’t hurry, we’ll lose them.”
We followed on foot at a discreet pace after that, but even so, it was getting harder and harder to make out what they were saying. I signaled at Zane to walk just a little bit faster, but we were hindered by our limitations. We could only walk from tree trunk to tree trunk and not be seen as we did it.
When we finally got within hearing range of them again, I heard Aunt Prim teasing Aunt Vi.
Aunty Prim popped Aunt Violet in the shoulder with her balled-up fist. “Dinna make Cinthy worrit so, ye silly goose. And ye claim to have the sight. I should knock ye in the head for being such an idjit.”
Violet adjusted the silky locks of her hair. “I said I was wrong. Drop it, Primrose.”
Aunty Prim wrinkled her nose. “Aye, weel, I’ll drop that if ye’ll finally admit that I was right and ye were wrong.”
“Pft, I’ll be admitting to no such thing, ye cow,” Aunt Vi said with a dainty snort.
Aunty Prim growled low.” I’ll tell ye again. That wastrel was no good for ye, Vi.”
My heart rang so loud in my ears, it was a wonder they could not hear it. I looked around, trying to orient myself as best I could, wondering yet again at which point in time we’d been dropped into. Then I finally saw a sight that stopped me cold.
There was a creek, a beautiful, burbling creek full of minnows and trout. It sparkled like diamonds in the noonday sun. It was the creek that ran behind my aunties’ home, the creek I’d grown up mucking and splashing through, the very creek where I’d chanced upon my very first and truest friend in Blue Moon Bay, Meri Undine.
I gripped Zane’s fingers in mine and lowered them, whispering so low, he had to bend down to hear me.
“This is my home we’re coming to, Zane. This is where I grew up.”
Frowning, he looked around then hissed to himself. “You’re right. This looks just like the path leading to your aunts’ cottage, though it’s different too. Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
“When the hell are we?” he asked, sounding just as baffled as I felt. “They’re so young. Why did Time send us here?”
“Will ye two squawking peahens shut it,” Hyacinth snapped.
I yipped, covering my mouth with my hands, ready to retch at the thought that we’d been caught because of me.
But through the noise of the violently trembling pulse rushing through my ears, I finally noticed that Aunt Hyacinth wasn’t looking at us, but instead at her sisters. “If I have to hear another word about King Lucas and his impressive worm, I might just vomit.”
Aunty Prim chuckled.
Aunt Vi on the other hand scoffed. “Is that jealously I hear, Cinthy?”
“Ye wish, ye mangy mongrel.”
Aunty Violet’s grin curved from ear to ear as she said, “Weel, just so’s ye ken, it was impressive, verra impressive indeed. I think I’m in love.”
She giggled, and the sound caused a gaggle of floating hearts to burst around her head. One landed dangerously close to Hyacinth’s cheek, and Aunt Cinthy hissed and swatted at it with a long, dagger-like black nail. The heart burst in a halo of shrieking fire.
I grimaced. “It would seem Aunty Cinth has definitely calmed with age.”
“Mm-hmm,” Zane agreed.
Their wagon continued to roll on at a steady pace, their voices beginning to fade as they rode onward. The trees that had hidden us well were starting to thin out, and soon, we would lose their cover completely. We were maybe half a mile from the cottage, far too great a distance to walk so exposed. How in the devil was I supposed to keep an eye on them and not let them see us?
Aunty Prim had made me promise that I would not change a thing in time. So what was I to do?
I reached for my wand, wondering if maybe I could fashion a concealment charm. But the truth was, I was but a babe with my concealment skills. And even as young as they were, my aunts had been born sorceresses of the arcane arts. I was nowhere near their level of skill, and I knew they would sense me. Then we’d be zozzled for sure.
I clenched my hands, watching as they drew farther and farther away from us.
“Zinny, shouldn’t we follow them?” Zane asked.
I grimaced. “Yes. No. I don’t know. They can’t see us, Zane. They absolutely must not see nor sense us.”
“But they’re getting away.” He pointed. “Maybe we just throw the hoods over our heads and hope for the best.” As he spoke the last words, he did just that and instantly vanished from sight.
I gasped. “You’re bloody brilliant! And I’d kiss you if I could see you.”
His disembodied voice chuckled. “Well, hurry up, newt, because we might be missing out on valuable information now.”
I yanked the hood over my head and instantly saw him.
“Either we’re both invisible now, or this has suddenly stopped working,” I said, holding my hand out for his.
He slipped his hand in mine without question. “I guess we’ll soon find out. Let’s hoof it.”
Not confident that I should use magick just yet, we followed the old-fashioned way—on foot. And as we ran, I knew we were definitely invisible, because no matter how many twigs we stepped on, none of my aunts seemed to notice.
In just a few minutes, we were near them again and following their wagon. I planted a finger on my mouth to let Zane know not to speak. He mimed locking up his lips and tossing away the key. It seemed only he and I could hear each other with the hoods on, but I wasn’t keen to test my theory just yet.
But my aunts spoke of nothing of any great significance, and fifteen minutes later, we were finally cresting the hill that would lead us to their cabin. Things had changed some, the typography of the land, but my aunts had always craved their solitude and even still lived rather apart from the rest of Blue Moon Bay.
But it wasn’t the view of my childhood home that stopped me dead in my tracks, not the thatched roof that was home to hundreds of roosting ravens, nor the endless parade of frogs and cats, their trusted familiar companions, that came out to greet them happily with ribbits and meows. It wasn’t even the gorgeous bucolic scenery of rolling, sweet tallgrass swaying in the spring zephyr or the rose garden full of every color of bloom, which to this day, was Aunt Hyacinth’s pride and joy.
No, it was the woman and the man standing in the doorway with welcoming smiles of greetings, though the joy didn’t reach the woman’s eyes. They were pinched, and even from where I stood, I could see the worry gleaming in her glass-green eyes.
“Mother,” I whimpered from between numb lips.
“That’s her?” Zane asked.
I couldn’t tear my eyes off her long enough to look up at him so I nodded mutely instead. Seeing her there, so wholly alive and in the prime of her life, was like a man coming back to life after feeling the shock of his own death. My knees shook so hard, I would have toppled if not for Zane’s arm around my waist, holding me up. Black spots danced in front of my eyes, and my ears rang with a hollow and echoing sound, like a vacuum sucking in reverse. I dug my nails into his shirt, harder than I’d intended, but he didn’t hiss or pull back. He gave himself over to me completely, comforting me the only way he knew how, murmuring words in my ears that I’m sure would have exhilarated me in any other circumstance, but they now rang out hollowly and made me sa
dder than anything else.
Unlike the time Zane and I had traipsed through Illusion and he’d bumped into the image of his wife, this was no illusion. Mother was really here.
But in truth, she wasn’t at all. She might as well have been a spirit to me for all that she knew me now. What little I knew of her and father was that they’d believed they could never have children. I’d been a surprise to them and had come far later on in life. Aunty Cinth had told me often of Mother’s beautiful snow-white curls when she’d finally been blessed by the goddess with me. She’d been well into her elder years by then and not strong enough to handle the ordeal of birth. She’d only ever held her child once, just before closing her eyes and breathing her last breath.
Father, who’d been as human as Zane was, had perished along with his bride. Humans often tethered their life strings to ours when there was an aging disparity between us. In seconds, I’d gone from having both parents to having none at all. The spinster aunts had taken me in as their own, and they’d been glad to do it. At least that was what Aunty Vi had always said with a fond pat on my head.
And though I’d grown up in a happy and loving home, I’d always wondered. Of course I’d always wondered about my real parents, who they’d been, if they’d truly been as kind as my aunts had always claimed. Or had losing them made my aunts only remember the good and not the bad as was so often the case when a loved one perished.
And now, there they were, at what was surely their home.
Which meant the house I’d grown up in hadn’t been my aunts’ first as I’d always imagined, but rather my parents’ house. My aunts had raised me in my true home. It gave me a feeling of even greater fondness and affection for them. I’d never thought about their sacrifice, until now.
Mother’s chestnut-colored hair was gathered into a sloppy bun around her head. Loose tendrils curled around her long, pretty face. The man behind her with short, wavy, thick auburn curls and dark-brown eyes held fast to her shoulder.
“Sisters,” he said gruffly but with a soft, gentle voice that instantly brought a pang of tears to my eyes. “Be ye welcome here.”