Page 31 of Wizard of Most Wicked Ways

“We all hate it. We’ll hate it together. At least you’ve got your arm back.”

Merritt rubbed his eyes. “At least that.” Lowering his hands, he glanced down the hall. It remained empty. “We need to talk about Fallon.”

Frowning, Owein leaned against the opposite wall and folded his arms. “What is there to say, Merritt? I’m aware.”

“I know you are. Hulda ... is concerned.”

“Hulda is always concerned. She wouldn’t know what to do with herself if she didn’t have something to concern herself over.”

A soft chuckle passed his lips. “True.” He sobered. “There’s nothing in the contract about fidelity, Owein—”

Something about that word clenched his gut. “I can’t be unfaithful to someone I haven’t courted, Merritt.” He dug a knuckle between his brows. “I don’t even know if it’s me.”

“You?”

“Victoria put in that clause.” He looked away, ignoring the trepidation, the uncertainty, the ache he didn’t understand.

“Ah.”

They stood there, across from each other, for a long moment. Danielle exclaimed something unintelligible downstairs. A floorboard in another room creaked. Owein tilted his head, listening.

“You still do that,” Merritt said.

“Do what?”

Merritt tilted his head to mirror him. “Little mannerisms, here and there. Very canine-like.”

Owein straightened his neck and shrugged.

“Do you love her, Owein? Fallon?”

He let out a long breath through his nose. Very quietly, he answered, “I’ve loved Fallon for a long time.”

Merritt nodded. “I thought so.”

And they left it at that.

The Tanners had graciously turned their eldest boy from his room to give Owein a space of his own—making this the first time Owein had come to Cambridge and not been relegated to the nursery. It was a narrow space with a narrow but elegant four-poster bed in it, and an equally narrow set of drawers against the wall. It smelled faintly of molasses and lavender. A small, circular window looked out onto a wooded area. Two unlit candles sat in a streak of moonlight. Owein ignored them.

He melted away the far wall with a touch of his hand and leapt down into a flower garden. He needed to get away from the mess of things. Needed a respite. The cool night air was a balm to his thoughts, and the steady thrum of crickets relaxed his nerves as he walked without any real destination, so long as it wasaway. There were neighbors to the north and south, so Owein ventured east. He’d been over these grounds before, but it had been a while, and it was dark. His dog eyes would have pierced the shadows better than his human ones, but those weren’t an option at the moment. Fortunately, the moon shined high and bright, and Owein soon found a path winding between sporadic copses of hemlock and white oaks. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he listened to the night, studying the sounds layered beneath the obvious ones—sounds his dog ears had always picked out easily. He heard no other footsteps, no other stirring besides that of a rabbit and a handful of squirrels. He’d only ventured about a quarter of a mile when he saw the silver orb of the moon reflecting off the still waters of a pond. He remembered this pond.

When he reached its bank, he unlaced his shoes and pulled them off. Stuck his socks inside, and his coiled suspenders with them. He only undid the top three buttons of his shirt before jerking it off over his head, folding it into a lopsided rectangle and setting it on a patch of clover. His trousers came off next. He didn’t bother folding those. His drawers stayed on.

Leaping from the bank, he dove into the pond headfirst. The cold shocked his skin, but his body adjusted by the time he resurfaced, shaking water from his hair and swirling his legs to stay upright. Moonlight rippled and warped off the top of the pond. He swam closer to the edge, to where his feet touched down to the silty mud, and dunked his head under again. He stayed in the murky darkness for as long as his lungs would let him before popping up and slicking back his white hair. He stared up into the night sky, emptying his mind, listening to the sloshing of water against the bank.

As he watched the twinkling of a particularly distant star, the first thought to emerge in his mind wasDid Oliver know how to swim?If the boy were here with him now, would he have come in, or told Owein it’d be better to stay in the house with the others?

The thought immediately chilled him more than the pond did. Oliver had died from drowning.

A second splash erupted in the center of the pond, breaking through the haze of his mind. The sound startled him, but the presence didn’t.

Fallon’s head emerged some ten feet away, her long locks floating on the water’s surface. “You okay?” she asked.

Her voice sounded so eerily sweet, her Irish lilt joining the cricket song carried on the breeze. Like she was the Lady of the Lake from King Arthur’s time. Like she belonged here, and she was granting Owein a gift by letting him be this close to her.

“Not really,” he answered, picking up his feet and floating back until his butt hit an underwater rock. He half sat on it, cool water lapping around his shoulders, raising gooseflesh in its wake. “Are you?”

“Not really.” Her nose touched the pond’s surface as she swam forward, bronze arms pushing the water behind her. “I’m so sorry, Owein. For all of this.”

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