Page 111 of By the Fae

Gasps were emitted amidst the crowd. Soundlessly, Holly mouthed my name.

I lowered my voice to a whisper, not that it mattered, I had forgotten about the microphones. “You’ve stolen my heart, my every waking thought, and every single one of my dreams. And anything you haven’t stolen,” I trailed my finger down her cheek. “I will gift wrap for you. My glamour included.”

I took the mic from her and held them both in one hand.

She pulled it back to her mouth. “I stole your Rockets jersey, too.”

Laughter rang out. I hardly registered it.

“I love you, Holly,” I whispered, threading my fingers into her hair. “Please tell me you’re mine. Forever.”

“Forever?”

“Well, five-hundred-ish years.”

“Yes. Forever yours.” Her hand came up to caress my jaw. To trace my lips, nose, brows, the points of my ears.

“Marry me?”

Surprise flitted behind her eyes before another flood of tears. “Well, duh,” she said through cry-laughter.

I brought my mouth down to hers and kissed her like I hadn’t seen her in a fortnight.

Like I had been gone a thousand years.

Like I’d never left.

People were cheering. Neither of us paid them any attention.

Eventually, we broke apart. Her eyes stayed glued to mine. I lifted both microphones to my face. “My apologies for that interruption. The presentation on Holly’s game is now over. If you have any more questions, I’m sure she’ll be happy to answer them another time.” I thrust the mics towards a very bewildered looking Greyson, who stepped out onto the stage as though he were stepping into a gladiator ring. His eyes like saucers, his mouth pinched into a soundless ‘W’.

I draped my arm over her shoulder. She braced a palm against my ribs, and I led Holly down the gangway to the back of the hall.

As I passed an open-mouthed Seth, I grabbed the cord of his Harness Stone and snapped it from his wrist. Immediately he shifted from a slightly smoky Holly to his true form. A mass of black wispy tendrils.

The audience gasped, and Seth’s arm went up to pointlessly cover his face.

“How?” she asked once we were near the bar at the back. “You said you found a way for us to be together forever. Five hundred years, but, what—How? I saw your search history. It said there was no way for me to extend my life beyond my normal human years.”

“You stole my phone?” I said.

“And hacked it.”

I had no words for my little thief, so I kissed her, twisting my fingers into her hair, letting her violet raspberry scent envelop me.

“Well . . . it’s kind of a long story. Should we get a drink?”

So Mal, Bailey and I set off up the mountainside. The climb almost vertical. Occasionally steps and staircases had been carved into the cliff face which made things only marginally less arduous. Like the Eight and a Half Kingdom’s most preposterous Jacob’s Ladder. Mal trumped us both by simply flying.

“No, I can’t carry either of you, I don’t have the energy. But I will hover at your level to keep you company and spot you in case you fall.”

Bailey sang to us — turned out he had a pretty decent singing voice — and we set up camp on a dusty outcrop. Mal hunted (a goat), Bailey foraged (mushrooms, nuts, and wild rosemary — truly my brother), and I glamoured a fire and cooked for us.

When we finally ascended the mountain the next day, we were met by the Stone Circle. The headquarters of the High Court of all fae. Fae royalty if you will.

The Elders.

The Stone Circle was, in fact, not a genuine ring of stones, but a coffee shop. An Ichor to be precise. Even in the darkest depths of the Mythic Realms, it was impossible to escape capitalism.

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