Page 74 of Dark Fae's Destiny

And then it truly is time to go, as I clasp her hand and finally depart. Devi lets me go, staying behind in the Hotel that is now hers as I trot down the upper steps of the Glass Bar, striding out through the beautiful doors and into the main hotel.

All my lovely pastoral paintings have been restored upon the walls, the dark, midnight-blue velvet drapes and marble archways painstakingly restored since our battle against Florian. Everything looks as it should, the Hotel ready for its grand re-opening tonight.

Patrons I know come and go through the halls, getting ready for the gala in an hour. I nod to them, and some bow to me. The hotel is packed for its grand re-opening, though none stop me or mention the transfer of leadership, as none yet know except Devi.

Curio has already departed back home to Novakitsk, his duties to his father long past done. He’d been wanting to take some time to get to know his people once more, now that the Dark Fae are no longer hidden from the world. His wintery brightness no longer graces the main Concierge desk as I move past.

But that is as it should be, though it saddens my heart.

But the United Haven of Florence will always have its home here; I will be back to tend that, at least, and not entirely be a stranger to these halls.

For though we have created a pact between the Summer Fae, the Dark Fae, and the Vampires, such progress and understandings do not happen overnight. Without the Music, we have to engage the greater Vampire, Fae, and Dark Fae community with old-fashioned diplomacy now, and allow them to see that what we’re doing here is an excellent thing.

Thankfully, diplomacy is my strong suit. I trot down the front steps of the hotel now, through the main vaulted portico and into the street. As I gain the cobblestone walkway on the other side, I turn, taking one last look at this amazing place I’ve built.

And then a blazing white Maserati pulls up.

Lucca honking the horn as he leans out the driver’s side window, beaming.

“Come on, Quinn! You’re going to be late.” He chuckles at me, a devious look in his summer-blue eyes.

“For what?” I ask him, my eyebrows rising.

“You’ll see.” Lucca grins at me now, like the shining ruffian he is, and it’s everything I want in my life.

Always.

“Idiota.” I grin at him as I come to the passenger side of the car, lift the door and settle my parcel in, then slide into the seat beside it.

“Bastardo.” Lucca grins at me.

And then we’re zooming away, into the deepening twilight towards Ariana’s new home.

27

ROOTS

Istand with Alleno in the late-summer field, and gaze upon the ruins of my treehouse. A Fae’s Livingtree is never finished; but this one is now, felled in the battle of the Summer Fae that claimed it.

Standing with my hands on my hips, I take it in, this beautiful tree which had stood since time immemorial. It is dead now, uprooted and fallen over, its spreading limbs crushed and its flowers all fallen. Everything of my once-home is gone, except for a few personal items Alleno has recovered in the past few days as he scoured it. But the tree itself is dead.

And it is never coming back.

With a deep breath, I move forward, setting my hands on its massive fallen trunk. I close my eyes in the late afternoon, feeling for the very heart of the tree which once sang so loudly I could hear it day and night. Now, it is a tired thing, only the barest whisper of that ancient song left. But just as Alleno said, there is yet a whisper of this tree alive.

And a whisper is all I need.

“Where did you say the roots were still in the ground?” I turn to Alleno as I open my eyes. In his charcoal Darkwatch attire, he stands in the late afternoon shadows of the glade and nods me towards the far left of the gargantuan root bundle, which thrusts far up into the clear blue sky.

“This way,” Alleno says, as he leads the way.

We traverse our way around the tree’s towering roots, using our Fae magic to leap up onto broken roots high as houses, then down into their gulleys as we search for the root bundle Alleno mentioned.

Finally, we find it. As we jump into a deep pit within the earth now where the very heartwood of the tree was dug up as it fell, along with its deepest, most entrenched roots, I see it.

Just a slender, long side-root, it’s still buried in the loose soil that was thrown about when the tree thundered over during the battle. It’s there that I see it; the smallest sapling, it’s only a hand’s width high.

Shining with bright silver-green leaves and a small cluster of moon-white flowers right at the very top.

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