Page 5 of Finding Closure

“You are a wonderful woman,” Taeral praised when we arrived at my house on Earth and he saw what was set up. He gave me a half hug and kissed my hair before going right over to the bar.

It might still have been cold out, but with the fire pits and heat lamps set up, being outside was no big deal.

Plus, we had magic.

“This is perfect and Mother would love it,” Neldor rasped as he took in the spread. “Yeah, we need today for sure. Everything can’t just go back to business as usual.”

No, no it couldn’t, and fairies were a bit too hard on themselves like that sometimes. So instead, the dark fairies got pretty hammered, and those of us who cared about them kept feeding them to soak up the booze.

Two days after, I did another interview to distract people from the topic and let the reporter and film crew into my castle to see the updates. I made it clear that the focus the people of Faerie should have was on the future.

A future of their leader not trapped by corruption, the planet, and outdated beliefs of her role. That now we were going to do it better and be one united people like we were originally and the gods wanted.

Julian and I also did several events so normal people could congratulate us on our wedding. As much as I was an introvert and hated to be the center of attention, the mood was sojoyfulthat it healed my soul a bit. Every time.

I basically came home or went back to school and cried happy tears. People were so happy for me and glad I was loved. It… Yeah, it healed me.

So saying a lot happened over the next few weeks was an understatement and not my normal life. But there was a lot of that too.

There had been an explosion at Artemis. A magical mistake that went severely wrong. Luckily, there had been a fairy in that class, and he’d immediately blocked everyone, people astounded at how fast he’d reacted and handled the situation.

I’d heard it and immediately gone there with my security, all of us helping to evacuate and help.

“We could have died,” a witch whispered, completely shaken. “He saved us.”

It took me a bit to get caught up, and I immediately found the man, checking he was okay and didn’t push too hard. He was shocked at my reaction but promised he was fine. I hugged him and praised him—again, shocking him.

My security was too busy chuckling.

“Auntie Tamsin is checking on the kids again,” Ara joked under her breath so only we heard.

Brat.

She wasn’t wrong, but… Brat. Seriously.

Just in case, I ordered him to be done with class for the day and returned to Faerie. I wanted a healer to check him out and for the hobgoblins to dote on him at one of the rest stops.

All the fairies on campus were waiting outside to clap for their hero classmate, and it wasn’t lost on me that both light and dark fairies praised the dark fairy. That was all I’d ever wanted when I’d learned about the hate between them. Each of these little steps meant so much that I felt it in my soul.

It was a packed few weeks like that, and when Izzy asked to spend some time together, I’d thought it would be just to relax and she missed that as much as I did her.

Apparently, I was wrong. She was waiting for me at home with Claudia.

And they were both nervous.

Izzy immediately realized her mistake, probably from whatever was on my face. “Tams, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to mislead you. I meant more I needed to talk with you.”

“Right, sorry, you probably said that, but I was—I’m always in the middle of forty things.” I wiggled the bags of food from her favorite little hole-in-the-wall place which was awesomeMexican food. “Let’s eat and talk then. I don’t know what you like best, Claudia. Sorry, I thought we were doing a roomie night.”

“I can get back to work after we talk, Your Highness,” Claudia immediately offered.

“No! No, don’t be silly. You can chill with us and again, I’m just Tamsin at home. Please. Leave that all out there.” I started bringing out containers and thanked the fairies who brought in more bags. I shrugged when Izzy chuckled. “You should be used to this by now.”

“Tams, I’m not sure I can ever get used to how fun you are,” she said with a wink, cooing when I handed her what was her favorite.

“So what’s up?” I asked when we were settled in.

Izzy cleared her throat as she cut into her enchiladas. “We’ve been discussing moving in together after graduation.”

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