Page 71 of Wizard of Most Wicked Ways

“I’m so sorry, Fallon—”

“No, stop.” She pressed two fingers to his lips. “There are options, Owein. You know there are options. Even if this sassenach had a gun to your head, nothing is absolute.” She lowered her fingers, her other hand squeezing his even harder. “Please tell me you understand that.”

He did, too well. He’d signed his name, but he wasn’t on British soil anymore. There was a whole unclaimed nation stretching out to the west, and there wasFallonand the Druids and all the promises between them, spoken and not. All of it, crushing him.

“I need a minute,” he managed, half whisper, half croak. “Alone. I’m sorry, I just—”

Fallon shook her head. Her eyes glistened. He’d never seen her cry. “Don’t apologize. Take your time. Do what you need to do.”

He forced taut muscles in his back to relax. Nodded and pulled from her grasp. He didn’t go outside, nor back to the living room, but upstairs. The summer had made his room hot and stuffy, but he closed the door anyway, then the window. Stared at nothing for a while, until he came to himself once more. Opened his wardrobe and pulled out the thick stack of Cora’s letters. Brought them to the bed and sat beside them. Breathed in and out until his body felt his own again.

He began to read, starting from the beginning, unable to break the seal on Cora’s last letter to him. Because one way or another, he knew it would be her last.

Mr. Adey did stay for dinner.

Owein heard them all talking downstairs. Beth and Merritt, Baptiste and Hulda and Adey. Not Fallon. He could have picked up her Irish lilt in the middle of a busy Boston street. Her voice wasn’t among them, and neither was his.

He read the letters, even the ones he’d memorized. Read through them in order, trying to recall what he’d written in response. At some point he fell asleep, because he woke lying down, his room a little dimmer, a tray of food, no doubt left by Beth, on his writing desk. His appetite wasn’t strong, but he ate anyway—he’d promised Blightree he’d take care of this body, and Owein Mansel kept his promises.

He noticed, in the silver curve of the spoon, that he’d slept on one of the letters. Ink mimicking Cora’s handwriting marked his cheek, the black letters backward. He studied it for a moment before licking his thumb and scrubbing it off.

He sat with his half-finished meal a long moment, his mind still frazzled, the sun setting. Footsteps came up the stairs. Knowing they were for him, Owein pushed away from his desk and opened a hole in the wall of the house, jumping down into the cool summer evening. He wasn’t ready for them. Not yet. He barely felt the side effects of the spell; the numbness from the news hadn’t completely abated.

He should have been more prepared. He would have been, if the summer had unfurled more ... peacefully. All his summers on the island had been peaceful and perfect until now. Strange that this one had been so tumultuous.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Owein started a loop around the island. Not to scan the waters for danger, but to stare at the passing flora at his feet and pick apart his thoughts. To take in the scents of weeping cherries and honeysuckle and listen to the song the wind played on boughs of sycamore and maple. He inhaled deeply the scents of the bay and let them fill him. Let them drive away the stiffness and disorientation. Let him see himself and his present, his future.

Part of him had always assumed that Cora would find someone else, anyone else, because she’d been so distraught by the idea of marrying him. That had been before their letters, though, and if Dwight Adey was here, there was no other suitor. Not one the magic-obsessed nobility would approve of, at least. Maybe Cora remarked upon it in her letter. He still hadn’t read it. All her letters over the last three years he’d opened readily. This one sat in his pocket like a lead ingot.

He mulled over his memories of her, the words in her letters. Found a crevice in the island, a natural ditch that led to the coast. Dropped into it and walked through mud and a couple of inches of seawater until he found a decent rock to sit on. He sat and closed his eyes, drawing into himself the scents of the sea, and took a note from Hulda’s book.

He tried to see his future.

He imagined himself packing his bags and leaving with Adey, alone this time, wishing his family farewell for an indeterminate amount of time. Not forever, surely, but he was moving across the ocean to a different continent entirely, taking upon himself responsibilities not easily set aside. Visiting would be difficult, and happen seldom. He tried to imagine Cora, painting her blue eyes and brown hair on a grown version of her. Imagined her smiling at him, reading with him. Pictured the elaborate dinner parties and stuffy aristocrats who would become his comrades. Who may not accept him, asotheras he was. Tried to imagine himself in a too-large house with a mother-in-law constantly asking after grandchildren, and doctors or scholars or whomever it would be poking and prodding his children to see what magic theymight possess so they could be betrothed to strangers in the future. He tried to recount every rule Hulda had drilled into him over the years and apply them to every facet of his life. He pictured himself in the blue uniform of the Queen’s League of Magicians, working alongside people like Jonelle and Pankhurst, using his magic for a country he felt no allegiance toward.

He drew in another breath of sea air, and instead, imagined a life in the wild. First, perhaps, to the American West, in the direction of the Ohio facility. Starting a homestead, or perhaps simply exploring, Fallon at his side, teasing him and pushing him into new adventures. Eventually they’d make their way up to Canada. When things across the pond had settled, they’d cross the ocean to Ireland. Reunite with Sean, Kegan, and Morgance. He’d meet the others he knew only by name, from Fallon’s stories. Live in the forest, embrace it, find a second family away from Blaugdone Island. He imagined great bonfires splitting the night, flute music, and dancing with Fallon under the stars. Imagined Sean tying a cord around his and Fallon’s clasped hands as he had with Merritt and Hulda. Imagined life free of the cages people so often put around themselves and others.

He floated with the images until he was old and gone again, until the world would move on without him. Both visions broke his heart. But he realized as he opened his eyes to the depth of twilight, one broke his heart a little more than the other.

When he climbed out of the ditch, he pressed a hand to his chest as though he might hold the pieces together. His thoughts still spun as he picked his way through reeds, clover, grass, and goosefoot, but at least they all spun in the same direction now. A direction that hurt. A direction that terrified him, but there was no choice he could make that would be easy. He could only hope that, someday, she would forgive him.

He was in the middle of that agonizing thought when Fallon stepped from behind a slippery elm. She glanced once towardWhimbrel House, alight with candles within, before hurrying to Owein’s side.

She grasped both his hands in hers and squeezed. “You don’t have to do this.” She kept her voice down but spoke too earnestly to manage a whisper. “You could come back with me, to Ireland. The Druids would welcome you.”

On another day, Owein might have chuckled. Now, he just felt heavy. Squeezed Fallon’s hands back, maybe too hard, but she didn’t complain. “I know, Fallon.”

“You don’t need Druid magic,” she continued, words so quick they seemed to spill from her lips. “They love you, Owein. We’ve talked about it before, on my trips back. They ... They already know everything. They’re willing to hide you until this passes over.”

“Fallon—”

She went on, “The monarchy, they won’t find you in Ireland. I promise you they won’t. And even if they bothered to try, we could slip into Scotland or Greenland. They wouldn’t search too long, not when they’re so desperate to put a baby in their broodmare—”

“Don’t call her that,” Owein pleaded, but Fallon didn’t seem to hear him.

“They’ll move on and find someone else, like they did with her sister. Cora can marry someone else! If it was so important for it to beyou, they never would have added that clause. They never would have let you come back home. I know how they work—how they manipulate everything around them to get what they want. And your magic and hers barely align anyway. It’s just a way to control Cora and her family, and to control you.”

Owein’s throat tightened. He tried to swallow but found he couldn’t.

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