Page 80 of Outside the Veil
He summoned the flows of magic to his fingertips and reached for the water, his element, all around him, in the air, the ice, and the snow piled about around the house. A different sort of artwork for Diego, with a different sort of purpose. It would be temporary, but he hoped its very fragility would render it more beautiful in his eyes.
Swiftly, silently, he worked until well after midnight, expending more energy in creation than he had in centuries. With the last piece in place, he sank to his knees in the snow, satisfied but exhausted.
He told himself it would be best to go inside, but his eyes refused to stay open and his feet would not obey to take him. Finn curled up in the snow bank and went to sleep.
Diego woke with a start and stared at the clock. Two in the morning, and the other side of the bed was empty and cold. Had it been summer, he would have assumed Finn had gone out hunting in the moonlight.
This below-zero weather, though, with more snow falling, was not good hunting weather for a pooka. He rolled out of bed, threw on a robe and padded downstairs.
“Finn! Are you down here?” No one prowled about in the kitchen looking for a pre-dawn snack, no one in the studio on a midnight inspiration and no unable-to-sleep pooka in the den watching bad late-night TV.
The anxiety clawing at his insides evolved to an icy wash of fear when he realized the front door stood unlocked. The wind tugging at the corners of the house gave him a terrible feeling ofdéjà vu, which the failure of the porch light to turn on worsened. Not that he thought Finn would be foolish enough to run off and waken asecondwendigo, but there could be other fell things lurking in the woods.
He pulled on a pair of boots, took the fireplace poker and a flashlight in hand and stepped out onto the snow-swept porch.
“Finn! Damn it, where are you?”
Only the wind answered. Clouds blanketed the moon, impossible to see beyond the rectangles of light from the front room windows.
“Damn, damn and damn.” He stepped carefully through the miniature drifts, feeling for the porch step, letting the flashlight roam over the patch of snow-covered lawn in front of the house. “Dios ayudame, what the hell is that?”
A snow-covered lump lay at the bottom of the porch steps, not a natural drift or a hump that might be caused by an ornamental stone. This was far too large and appeared to have frozen…what? Hair?
“Oh, God…Finn.” Diego rushed down the steps, clumsy in his boots, and stumbled to his knees by the strange drift. Flashlight and poker lay abandoned in the snow while he dug furiously, fingers soon frozen, though he barely noticed.
“Querido, mi vida, mi amor, what were you doing out here?” he lamented as he uncovered enough of Finn to pull him from the snow bank. Finn’s skin had an unhealthy blue tinge and, though he no longer appeared to breathe, he had an odd little smile on his face.
Fighting panic and driven by adrenaline, Diego lifted the long frame in his arms and rushed back inside, where he placed Finn on the oversized ottoman by the fireplace. He put his ear to Finn’s chest. The logical part of him knew an hour or two in the snow could never kill one of thefae,but relief still flooded through him to hear that beloved heart still beating.
“You idiot. I’m going to be so pissed at you when you’re better.”
Finn lay limp and unresponsive while Diego dried him, wrestled him into flannel pajamas, and wrapped him in the electric blanket. He started a fire, fetched more blankets from upstairs then curled up with Finn to hold him, pressing his chilled face to his chest for good measure. He heaved a long, shuddering sigh. At least nothing worse had happened, and Finn was safe in his arms again.
Diego jerked awake. Gray daylight filtered in through the trees, and as his back complained, he recalled why the ottoman was not the best place to fall asleep. Beside him, Finn stirred and nuzzled at his throat.
“Good morning, my hero,” he said, his voice hoarse and groggy.
Diego lifted up to one elbow to glare at him. “What the hell did you think you were doing last night? Were youtryingto turn yourself into a pookasicle?”
“Ah. You are angry with me. Please, please don’t be. Not until I’ve given you your present, at least.”
“Present?”
“Yes, for the Solstice.” Finn untangled himself from the blankets and rose, none too steady, as he staggered to the windows. He waved for Diego to join him. “Come, love, come and see.”
Every cautious nerve on edge, Diego went to him, and even let Finn wrap an arm around him as he peered out. The sun chose that moment to overtop the trees, and Diego gasped in undisguised wonder.
The space between the house and the woods had transformed from yard and driveway to a fantastic sculpture garden of wondrous, ethereal shapes. Ice spheres and arches of snow, graceful spirals and spires, parapets and polyhedrons, all decorated in a frost filigree of such delicacy, a snow spider might have spun it. The ice crystals shattered the sunlight in a thousand diamonds and blinding rainbow prisms, a riot of green, blue and gold amidst the pristine white. In the center of this hibernal wonder stood two of the one-handled rolling pin figures Finn used to represent people in his art, one taller than the other, their forms joined by a single, slender bridge of frost decorated with lunettes and gleaming parabolas.
“Finn—” Diego gaped, unable to find adequate words. “For me?”
“For you, my heart.” Finn took his hands and dropped to one knee. “Only for you.”
“What’s this?” Diego’s chuckle came out as a strangled croak. “A proposal?”
Finn’s black eyes gazed up at him, as serious as Diego had ever seen him. “A promise, my promise, to you, that while you live, while you breathe, in this or any other lifetime, I am yours and yours alone. While you are with me, as long as you will have me, I will seek no other mate, no other’s bed, no other’s kiss but yours.”
The backs of Diego’s eyes stung. Finn had gone to such incredible lengths for him, had tried so hard to understand what he most needed. His heart filled to bursting with gratitude and love. He had to clear his throat twice before he could speak. “You don’t have to—”
