Page 127 of Fae Reckoning

My pained wince was part smile as I guided little Saffron around to my front so I could hug him tightly. “Shhhh-shhhhh-shh-shhh. It’s okay, boy. It’s all over now.”

He scrabbled up my torso, using a boob as leverage. I sucked a grunt through my teeth even as I soothed him with a gentle touch along his back, between his tucked wings. “It’s alright, Saffy. You’re safe now.”

He only tried to climb me some more, his goal seeming to be to perch on my shoulders, when the dragonling was far too large for that. Struggling to untangle his claws from my loose hair, I guided him back down, amending, “I’m safe too, Saff. We’re all safe.”

The truth behind the assurance was too recent not to feel like a lie, not to feel like Talisa might rise from the ashes to somehow piece herself together and come at us again. But no. Before they’d headed outside, the dragons had roasted Talisa’s and Braque’s corpses until no fragment of them remained that was larger than my pinky nail. Their only destiny now was to fertilize the gardens and do perhaps their first—and last—piece of good for Embermere.

I clutched Saffron close. As his squirming began to quiet, the fast patter of the long, dragon-like feet of a goblin sliced through the boisterous guffawing of Rush and hisbrothers, a denomination that had expanded to include Roan, Reed, who wore a bandage wrapping hisshoulder, and even Xeno, from the looks of their close huddle and easy camaraderie. I supposed there was no faster way to bond than through facing down a common enemy of the worst caliber.

Pru burst through the crowd. Her large eyes were wide and frantic until they landed on me and Saffron. Her slim shoulders rose and fell abruptly.

“Oh, thank the Ethers,” she said on an out breath, running both knobby hands along her face before squinting at the youngling in my embrace and wagging a finger at him. “You are a naughty boy, scaring Pru like that.” Her chest heaved. “Pru thought something might’ve happened to you.”

I unwove an arm from around Saffron to lower it gently to the goblin’s shoulders. Even though she saw it coming, at my touch she shuddered. I squeezed her gently. “You don’t have to worry anymore. There are no more monsters coming for us.”

Another shudder racked through her.

“You’re okay,” I insisted, with a glance at Rush and the others. Rush caught my eye and grinned like a beam of happy moonlight. “We’re okay.”

I scanned the busy hall. We weren’t the only ones celebrating the return of loved ones who’d been fortunate enough to go into the mirrors whole. But there were still too many whose heart-wrenching loss quivered and drooped across long faces.

I noticed Jolanda, whose bright, copper-hued hair was a precise match to Lennox’s, the son whose unmoving body she was prostrated over. I surelywouldn’t mourn the despicable drake who’d literally stabbed me in the back and had been a coward who preyed on those he considered weaker than himself. But I would respect a mother’s mourning.

Bringing my attention back to Pru, I sighed. “It’ll take time to recover. We all need it. I need it. But itwillhappen. And then we’ll see the Mirror World righted. We’ll get it as close to Faerie as we can.”

Pru sniffed.

I found my hand rubbing circles along her back. “You alright?”

For several long beats, she didn’t do or say anything. Then, finally, she gave a jerky nod.

“You sure showedherwho was boss in the end,” I said on an unintentional cackle.

A shiver traveled the length of her small body, and I guided her head against my thigh, trying to soothe both the dragonling and goblin at the same time.

Pru sniffed again. “Pru did, didn’t she?”

A smile crept up my mouth. “Pru most certainly did. No doubt about that. Pru kicked some major ass.”

When Pru was silent, I glanced down at her. She was struggling to hold back a grin.

“Oh no,” I said. “Let that smile out. You earned it.”

Pru pressed her lips together in a valiant effort not to celebrate the death of anyone, no matter how deserving, but one side ticked up.

I pressed, trying to tease out the rest of that smile. “You took down the big, bad, awful, horrible queen all by yourself. You’re a hero.”

The goblin stilled. “Pru … is?”

“Oh yes. You most definitely are. You vanquished the most terrifying monster of them all, and you did it in the name of everyone she should have protected.”

For several moments Pru and I watched Rush and his brothers, their easygoing interactions, the relief dancing constantly across their animated faces, their hands gesturing grandly.

Ryder was tugging on Rush’s short hair, apparently taunting him for the bad haircut, while his eyes glistened at the moving gesture. Ryder’s eyes moistened further as he took in Roan’s and Reed’s blunt locks, and West’s too, shorter than the last time he’d seen them.

Hiroshi was telling Xeno, who was back to being a man and clothed in his pants and boots if shirtless, how it had been the goblins’ magic that had called them forth from the other side of the mirrors, where it had been dark and cold and empty. When the goblins had gone to set the mirrors back to how they’d been before, the mirrors had ejected them and everyone else—whether whole or in parts—who’d gone into the bespelled glass. The monsters that had emerged from the mirrors had vanished.

Saffron snuffled into my shoulder, settled his head heavily upon it, and I knew he was preparing for a nap in my arms.

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