Page 126 of Truly Madly Magically

I can tell by the way he grins while he argues that he agrees.

Outside, the rickety house on stilts looks the same, but as he ushers me inside, I come to a dead stop. Everything is different. Bigger, cleaner. The furniture is new, the kitchen is huge—with plenty of room and supplies for me to brew my teas.

I turn back to him, to find him looking all smug. And hot.

“When did you do all this?” I ask, because he’s barely got the energy to fly, let alone magic himself a brand-new home.

He skims his hand down my back. “A few days ago. You can change anything you don’t like, but I figured I’d get it started.” Then he drops his head to kiss me on my forehead, which is somehow sweet and hot and beautiful, all at once. “But we can do the baby’s room together.”

We can do the baby’s room together. My poor heart. And I’m not magically cured of the resistance to crying in front of him just because I’ve done it a few times now, so I blink back the tears as he keeps talking.

“If you need to keep the apartment above the tea shop, that’s fine. We can—”

But I don’t. I really don’t.

Not when there’s this whole home he created for the both of us and the baby.

I hear Ruth hooting outside and Storm’s approving call.

And I shut Zander up by pressing my mouth to his.

It feels like too much joy to bear. But then again, we’ve suffered to get here. There’s been so much pain and sacrifice, trauma and loss. Some of it what the Joywood did to us. Some of it what we did to each other.

Some of it just the price of being alive.

Maybe, I think tentatively as he pulls me into his arms, this is actually what we deserve.

Because leading witchdom won’t be easy. Having a child won’t be easy. There will always be natural losses ahead, that’s the inescapable problem with life, so maybe there’s no such thing as too much joy. Even witches get old eventually, no dark magic required.

Maybe the best thing to do is soak in the good stuff for as long as we can.

Maybe that’s the best choice I can make, a legacy with every breath I take, the swiftest path to the best and brightest future.

Tonight, I believe it.

Before he can carry me into the bedroom—something he’s still not well enough to do no matter what he thinks, and I know he thinks he’s invincible, despite the scar on his arm that suggests otherwise—I pull him with me. But I stop at the threshold.

“Men,” I say in despair. “Such a dedication to the color brown.”

“What’s wrong with brown?” Zander demands with a laugh as I magic some color and much-needed style into the room.

Once I’m satisfied, for now, I turn to face him. I wrap my arms around his neck, the bump that is our daughter pressed tight between us.

It’s too much to think about everything it took to get here. Too much to think of all that lies ahead. So I just focus on this. Here. Now.

Him.

Us.

“I love you, El,” Zander says, lowering his mouth to mine. “Always.”

I sigh into that always, and then into him.

Always, I reply in his head.

I might be able to see the past, reach into the future, and see the different ways a thing might be, but I don’t need any of that to know always is our promise to each other. Regardless of what comes, what hurts, what changes.

Our path is always clear.

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