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  A giggle erupted and Lara pulled her hands free to cover her mouth. “Once in a while, yes.”

  “Oh dear.” He looked back at Ioan, whose offense was written plainly across his features. “Regardless of what you call it, brother, the land is one and the same. I—”

  “But it’s not.” Lara straightened as Dafydd’s words filled with an orchestra’s worth of untuned instruments. “He’s right, Dafydd. Annwn is what your world was when it was whole. The Barrow-lands are dying. You’re all dying. You must know that.”

  Not for the first time, Aerin spoke when it became clear royalty would not. “We see that we are stagnant, but it is something we … ignore,” she finally chose. “Immortality grants that leisure. It’s difficult to believe or accept that we are dying when so few of us ever do.”

  “Hell,” Kelly muttered, “it’s easy enough to ignore when you’ve only got threescore and ten. Nothing would convince humans they were a dying race if individually we lived for millennia.”

  “There are ways in which we are not so different,” Aerin allowed, then transferred her attention back to Lara. “Dozens of us have died in this war already, Truthseeker. Perhaps hundreds, by now. No one imagines it to be a blow we can easily recover from, which is part of why we must win at any cost.”

  “You do see the inherent contradiction in that attitude,” Lara half-asked, but she was watching Dafydd now, watching tension play in his shoulders and hands. “Annwn’s magic might respond differently than the Barrow-lands’, Dafydd. Ioan may be able to reach an aspect of your world that the Seelie have forgotten. And even if he can’t, at least there’s just one mortal magic user right now. Nothing should interfere with his attempt to build the spell.”

  “Nothing except his head injury,” Dafydd snapped. Envy, Lara thought: Dafydd was envious of his older brother, the brother Emyr had always favored, for all that Ioan had been a child when he was made hostage to the Unseelie king. Maybe because he’d been made hostage: out of sight meant out of the possibility of wrongdoing, where any mistakes Dafydd made were in Emyr’s eye. Envy could be born of that easily enough, and for the moment, Ioan had access to magics that Dafydd had been cut off from.

  “Try to prepare the spell,” she said abruptly, to Ioan. “We’ll have to go back to the Common to get the horses before you cast it, but you should be able to tell if you can draw down the magic if you try preparing it now, right?”

  Ioan nodded once and Lara got to her feet as brusquely as she’d spoken, offering Dafydd a hand as she did so. He looked askance at her, but took her hand and stood as she said, “I need to talk to you. Kel, can we use the bedroom you lent me?”

  Kelly nodded, shooing them away with a gesture, then glanced at Ioan before saying to Dickon, “Maybe we should give him a little while to concentrate.” She got up and went into the kitchen, which was only nominally a separate room, but offered the semblance of privacy without the intimacy of inviting Dickon into her own bedroom. Dickon hesitated a few seconds, then shrugged and followed her as Lara led Dafydd into the bedroom that had been hers for a few scant weeks.

  “It’s not so bad, you know,” she said as the door closed. The room was as she’d left it only four days earlier, down to the pair of shoes she’d decided not to wear to court and had put on the bed with the intention of putting them away when she returned. She did that now, returning them to a box in the closet before she clarified, “I mean, being only mortal.”

  Almost gently enough to take the sting out, Dafydd asked, “How would you know?”

  A knot in her belly forced a small breathless sound free as she looked back at him. There was a full-length mirror just beyond him, angled so she could glimpse herself as well as Dafydd. By human standards, Lara was delicate, small-boned, and fine-featured, but compared to the ethereal Seelie prince, she looked blunt and rough-cut. “Don’t be cruel. Until the last few weeks my truth sense was never enough to make me more than quirky, not extraordinary. And even if it had been, you said yourself that there’s no doubt it’s a mortal magic. I’m only human, Dafydd. And I’m sure that having your magic stripped away makes you feel less than whole, but it’s not that bad. Mortal existence isn’t that bad.”

  “Would you have me stay here, then? Half of what I was, forever hiding my face?” Tunelessness ran through the questions, not because they were a lie, but because they were true. Because Dafydd had no wish to remain in Lara’s world as any less than he had been for the century he’d spent searching for her. As any less than a chameleon, able to blend in; as a visitor, able to return to his immortal homeworld when the whim suited him.

  “So instead I’d come to your world?” she wondered, though the question didn’t really need asking. “Never see my mother or Kelly again, but knowing I’d outlive them? Becoming like Oisín, a single mortal among immortals?”

  “You would be more, there, than you are here,” Dafydd said softly. “The land would welcome and encourage your magic, Lara. You could become something great to my people, a long-lost arbiter of justice returned.”

  “I would be different,” Lara corrected. “Not more. I make beautiful things here, Dafydd.” She smoothed a dress in the closet, one of several Kelly had kept in the months Lara had been missing. It was handmade, as nearly all her clothes were, perfectly fitted and subtle with stitching. Even her experienced fingertips could hardly tease out the feeling of seams; that was the joy of tailoring, for her. All the pieces fit together flawlessly, her talent turned to a physical creation of a true thing. “I would be different. Maybe more powerful, and all for the cost of nothing more than a mortal life.”

  “I will bring you home again,” Dafydd said in a low voice. “When this is over, if it’s what you desire, Lara, I will bring you back to Boston and disturb you no more.”

  “I know you would.” Lara released the dress and crossed to Dafydd, putting her arms around his waist and her head against his chest. His heartbeat was quicker than she expected, his distress echoing her own. “But would you stay? Such a short time for you, Dafydd. In less than the century you’ve already lived here, my life would be over. Would you stay?”

  “If you would have me,” he finally whispered, “yes.”

  Regret scored wounds through the music in his voice, but he spoke the truth. Lara laced her fingers behind his head and pulled his mouth to hers for a kiss that grew in urgency until Dafydd broke free with a laughing groan. “Our friends will be astonished by our lack of subtlety if we stay in here too long.”

  “How long does it take to set the worldwalking spell?”

  Dafydd quirked an eyebrow. “An hour or two at the fastest, and Ioan is unlikely to be moving swiftly.”

  “Then they can be as astonished as they like.” Lara flattened her hand against Dafydd’s chest, surprised at her own determination. “We don’t know what’s waiting for us in the Barrow-lands, except war. We don’t know who’s waiting for us, and if it’s Merrick having taken one or more crowns, the truth is we don’t know if we’re going to live through it. I’m not usually rash,” she whispered, “but I don’t want the last few minutes of my life to be filled with regretting lost opportunities. You, Dafydd ap Caerwyn, prince of Seelie, are not an opportunity to be lost.”

  Solemnity flashed into a brilliant smile that in turn faded to gentleness. “Nor am I one to argue with a truthseeker’s verdict. I like this better, Lara. Solace sought after danger is heady in its own right, but I asked then if I deserved your attentions. I think this decision is a more thoughtful one.”

  “Dafydd,” Lara said, suddenly cheerful, “shut up.”

  He laughed, murmured, “That I can do,” and drew her toward the bed.

  Sunset bled into Kelly’s apartment, turning Aerin’s short white hair to fiery gold as Lara and Dafydd emerged from the bedroom. Aerin gave them a look so neutral as to be hostile, but Kelly seized Lara’s wrist. “Oh good, we were just talking about ordering dinner. Come tell me what you want.”

  Lara shot a bemused glance at D
afydd as she was hauled into the kitchen. Kelly lodged herself beside the refrigerator and whispered, “Well?” at such volume there could be no doubt everyone heard it. “Is elf sex better than human sex?”

  Laughter burst free, accompanied by a ferocious blush, and Lara, much more quietly than Kelly had, asked, “If I say yes are you going to seduce Ioan?”

  Kelly shot a look toward the living room, where the dark-haired Seelie prince sat in a meditative pose. Then her gaze strayed to Dickon, who had taken his seat in an armchair again and was trying hard not to stare curiously between Dafydd and Lara. “Maybe not. Dickon and I had a long talk,” Kelly admitted in a more credible whisper, then gave Lara a significant look. “A very long talk. You two were in there three hours! And I don’t think it’s just because you were changing clothes.”

  Heat scalded Lara’s cheeks again and she glanced at herself. She’d abandoned Unseelie clothes for jeans and a T-shirt, and changed her soft-soled boots for tennies. “These are more comfortable, even if I’ll look strange in the Barrow-lands. And we fell asleep for a while, that’s all. It happens.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Lara elbowed her. “It does. What did you talk about?”

  “Dafydd. Reg. Magic. Me being a criminal mastermind. The whole mess. He’s not so angry anymore. Whatever Blondie there did to help Reg calmed him down a lot, so I don’t know. Maybe we’re working it out.” Cautious hope lit Kelly’s face.

  “That’s fantastic.” Lara, smiling, caught Kelly in a hug. “I hope it works out, Kel. I really do. He’s a good guy.”

  “He is. And I can’t blame him for all of this being too much. I meant it, you know. If I hadn’t known you for years …”

  “Of course I know. Dafydd and I owe you more than I can say. We all do.” Lara gestured to the other two Seelie, then wondered, “How’s the spellcasting going?”

  “I don’t know. Ioan’s been sitting like that since you went into the bedroom, and Blondie—”

  “She’s not really blond, you know.”

  “I know, but ‘Whitey’ sounds racist somehow.” Kelly grinned at Lara’s expression. “Okay, fine, Aerin has been standing there glowering at the bedroom door like she could set it on fire. Once in a while she checks on Ioan, but I don’t get the impression there’s much she can do to help, and she was getting more mileage out of glaring at the door. Is elf sex better?”

  Shy laughter caught Lara off guard as a vivid memory of Dafydd’s featherlight touch came back to her. “Maybe a little.”

  “I knew it!” Kelly smacked Lara’s shoulder in juvenile delight, then reached for the phone. “Do elves like pizza?”

  “Dafydd does.” Lara rubbed her shoulder and went back into the living room, leaving Kelly to place an order for half a dozen different kinds of pizza.

  “I believe the spell is ready,” Ioan said as she came into the room. He opened his eyes and gave Dafydd an apologetic glance. “You’re right in that I’m not well-prepared to make this magic. Holding the place-images in mind long enough to construct a bridge has been more difficult than I expected, but I think I have it now. If, however, we’re to wait a little longer before executing it … could someone please tell me how I came to this world?” The last words sounded plaintive and young.

  “We were hoping you might tell us,” Lara confessed.

  Dismay rushed over Ioan’s face. “I recall a skirmish in the hidden valley, and then very little until these past few hours. Glimpses, nothing more, as the worldwalking spell thrust me here. I saw your cars,” he said to Lara. “I think that was how I knew I was in your world at all. My thoughts have been unclear. I remember … needles, and incessant sound, and exhaustion beyond any I’ve ever known. I couldn’t so much as draw on my own magics to heal myself. Something prevented me, constantly.”

  “That was the hospital. The needles they used to keep your fluids up are made of what we call stainless steel. They’re iron-based.” Lara sat in the chair she’d abandoned earlier, and Dafydd offered A hand so she could lace her fingers with his. “They couldn’t have known, but I’m sure that interfered with your magic, even if getting hit on the head didn’t.”

  Dafydd said, “Even a head injury should have resolved itself by now. Our individual healing magics may be small, but they’re determined. It would have been the iron, indeed. And we believe Merrick sent you here, Ioan, as he did us. I doubt very much he meant for us to find you, but the spell will lay its own paths if they’re not firmly delineated in the caster’s mind. Perhaps the Barrow-lands themselves are working against him.”

  “As they’ve chosen to work against you,” Aerin muttered.

  Injury splashed across Dafydd’s face and Lara quelled the urge to kick the taller woman. “That wasn’t his fault.”

  “Does it matter? He’s now hardly more than mortal, and we’re forced to rely on a traitor to bring us home.”

  Lara sighed. Aerin’s forgiveness had extended only so far as Ioan’s illness, it seemed. She hoped Dickon would be less fickle, and that his newfound inclination to forge past the events of the past few weeks would prove genuine.

  When she spoke, she was surprised at the steel in her own voice. “I had a vision, Aerin, of how you might turn your back on Dafydd if he couldn’t recover from fighting the nightwings in my world. If his gifts deserted him and left him mortal.” She opened her eyes, meeting Aerin’s gaze. “That vision was driven by jealousy. By the hope that I could somehow have him for myself. Maybe this attitude of yours right now is driven by the same thing, but I can promise you, it’s no way to win his heart. I’m mortal. Even if I stay in the Barrow-lands and live for centuries, eventually I’m going to die. You don’t have that certainty ahead of you. Ask yourself if petty envy and cruelty now is worth an eternity of enmity after I’m gone.”

  She wet her lips and looked away, unwilling to face any of the immortal trio just then. Instead she focused on Kelly, whose arms were wrapped tight around herself and whose face was marred by distress. “Maybe you’d better cancel that pizza order, Kel. I think we need to go to the Common and get the horses and leave now, before we fracture any more than we’re already doing.”

  Kelly, wordlessly, went back to the phone, but Ioan got to his feet, relying entirely on himself for the first time. “No need. With a locus, I believe I can guide the spell to the horses and then into Annwn.”

  Dafydd shook his head. “That’s not wise, Ioan. You aren’t well, and there are four of us as well as the horses.”

  “Five,” Kelly objected from the kitchen, and Dickon, half a breath later, said, “Six.”

  Ioan chuckled, making his way carefully around the room. “Hence the need for a locus, Dafydd. Regardless of how many travelers there are, the attempt would be foolish without a connective point to focus through. But I’ve been thinking about this for the last several hours, and I believe it’s the surest way to succeed.”

  A heartbeat after Lara realized what he intended, Ioan laid hands on the worldbreaking staff.

  Power roared from the staff, flaring through Ioan so brightly that, for an instant, Lara saw him as he’d been: a pale creature like Aerin and Dafydd, hair whitened by the magic coursing through him. It shot upward, ripping at the ceiling with a mind for destruction, and Lara could feel the weapon’s unmitigated triumph at such an opportunity for release. The floor beneath them cracked, sending everyone but Ioan into a stagger: he was elevated just above the floor’s surface, the staff’s power wrapping him in a bubble of its own.

  Wind and magic shrieked together, creating a song that whipped notes away too quickly for Lara to comprehend. Pictures flew off Kelly’s walls and couch cushions rose up to be shredded. Within seconds the weightiest pieces of furniture were sliding, called by gravity toward the downward-slanting cracks in the floor and hurried along by howling wind. Dickon caught Kelly in his arms, but not even a man his size would stand long against the magic Ioan had set free.

  “I can harness it!” Ioan bellowed over Kelly’s screams, conf
idence and belief in his voice. A handful of weeks earlier, that would have been enough to make Lara believe he spoke the truth.

  No longer. Now a greater truth crashed through her mind, drowning out Ioan’s certainty with conviction of its own. The staff’s power would overwhelm Ioan’s, subsume him to its own ends as it had tried repeatedly to do with Lara. Her own magic, she suspected, was different enough—mortal enough—to make it harder for the staff’s uncanny will to grasp and use it fully.

  But Ioan, like the weapon, was born of Annwn, and all the more vulnerable for it.

  For an instant her thoughts slipped sideways, leaping into conjecture: if Emyr or Hafgan had created the staff, built it out of the living land, then perhaps they, like Ioan, had underestimated what they were doing. It was just possible that the drowning of the land had been unintentional.

  Music worsened, rejecting the hypothesis, and Lara had no more time to shake free ideas of what that rejection meant. She flung herself toward Ioan, clawing at the sliding couch and armchairs to give herself purchase against the shrill wind.

  Abruptly, Aerin was beside her, standing easily, as if the wind that lashed and snapped at her short hair was nothing more than a mild breeze. She offered a hand and Lara grasped it, then gasped in astonishment as the shifting floor beneath her stabilized. A deep familiar song touched her, slow notes of the earth itself undisturbed as of yet by the magic Ioan had awakened but could not contain. Lara whispered, “Thank you,” knowing the words would go unheard in the clamor made by magic.

  Aerin nodded regardless, then leaned close to shout, “Can I stop him this way?” into Lara’s ear.

  “No!” It seemed like explanation should follow, but the effort necessary to be heard was daunting. Aerin, unconcerned, only nodded and let Lara go again, though the earthbound magic that gave her sure footing remained in place. The Seelie woman was full of contradictions, willing or unwilling to help on what seemed to be whim.