Page 196 of A Fate of Blood and Magic
“It looks young,” Teddy whispered. “Is it young, or do they grow small?”
“No.” Alastor laughed. “They grow thick and tall. Their branches reach wide and are filled with leaves so that you can barely see through them to see the sky. We once had a whole forest of them.”
“I remember seeing a forest in Leanora’s vision,” Teddy said. “It was to the side of the village.”
“The village would’ve started over there.” Alastor pointed at the area covered in gray snow.
Teddy looked around, turning in slow circles as if she were picturing what it once looked like. “Then the forest would’ve started here.”
Teddy walked away from the young tree, and when she stopped in front of the single dead tree, the snow beneath her melted to give way to green grass. Startled, Teddy touched the dried tree and, with a gasp, stepped away from it. From the base of the tree, the bark started to crack off, only to be replaced with newer, healthier bark.
I stared in awe as the large tree took form, the limbs stretching with leaves covering the canopy of the tree.
“How?” Teddy whispered. “I didn’t use any magic or anything . . .”
“Mage land responds to mage blood.” Alastor grinned.
When he stepped on another patch of snow, his smile widened when the snow melted to unearth the green grass that somehow still lived beneath the frozen ground. He knelt when a tiny leaf popped up from the ground.
“I don’t think it’s going to take much to heal your land,” a familiar voice said with a shy laugh.
“Leah.” Teddy spun around to smile at our healer.
“Is everything all right?” I asked her, worry immediately gripping me.
“I invited her,” Alastor said as Leah blushed.
“You . . .” Oh.
Smirking, Teddy settled by my side.
When Alastor reached his hand out to her, Leah took it. He led her to the green grass where he pulled out a blanket fromhis inner pocket of magic. Before laying his blanket out, he handed Brenton and me one too.
On the blankets, Leah curled against Alastor’s side while Teddy did the same with me. I held her to me, running my hand over the long sleeve of her shirt. Once Brenton pulled out our gifts, he gave the girls a few toys to play with, and they soon took off running with Juanita rolling on the soft grass.
“Your babes seem quite happy right now,” Leah said, a smile pointed at Teddy’s stomach as she took a sip of the glass of spirits Brenton had poured for her.
I stilled to listen better, and sure enough, their hearts beat stronger. Similar to the way they beat when the magic emanated from the living book.
Teddy grabbed a cube of cheese. “They’re either happy about being here or that I’m feeding them cheese.” She closed her eyes as she chewed. “It’s our favorite food.”
“I don’t remember you liking cheese this much in Colina,” I said.
“That’s because our cheese sucked compared to this,” she said, taking another cube.
Brenton screwed up his nose. “Aside from burgers and maybe cupcakes and coffee, your food does suck compared to ours.”
“Maybe coffee?” Teddy gaped back at him. “That’s sacrilegious.”
I shrugged when Brenton shot me a confused look. Guardians, if I knew what my mate meant half the time.
“So are we going to pretend we all knew Alastor and Leah were together?” Brenton shot them a mischievous look.
Teddy raised a finger to her mouth. “I was going for pretending.”
Leah shifted uncomfortably.
“Just checking.” Brenton winked, and although he kept his smile in place, I noticed the way his shoulders stiffened. “Since we’re pretending everything’s normal, how’s Etienne?”
