Page 86 of The Unseelie War
“Oh, but I came to cheer you up,” Puck replied, and there was something in his voice—something uncharacteristically gentle—that made her pause.
Footsteps approached through the grass, but they weren't Puck's usual bouncing gait. These were measured, careful, achingly familiar.
“Hello, songbird,” said a voice that made Alex's heart stop. “Miss me?”
She spun around so fast she nearly fell over, her eyes wide with disbelief. There, standing beside a grinning Puck in the moonlight, was Izael. Her Izael. Teal hair perfectly styled despite having supposedly been erased from existence, that crooked smile that had first made her fall in love with him, those faintly-glowing teal eyes that held all the intelligence and insanity and terrible jokes she had thought she'd lost forever.
“That’s—that’s impossible—” She scrambled to her feet. “Valroy destroyed you. “You were dead?—”
“I was. Inyourtimeline. That’s where Goodfellow comes in.” Izael jerked a thumb toward Puck. “I’ve only made about half a lick of sense of it but something about quantum physics and particle theory and getting yanked from the fabric of time prior to being erased and?—”
She had already stopped listening. She was already kissing him.
When they parted, she was crying. This time with joy.
Puck's grin widened, and for once it wasn't manic or chaotic—itwas purely, genuinely happy. “You didn't think I'd let my favorite snake die, now did you?” He spun in place, silver hair catching the moonlight. “Plucked him right out. Bit tricky, that—had to make sure the timeline didn't collapse. But hey, I'm very good at impossible things.” He shook a finger at her. “Just don’t ask me to do thisagain.It won’t work a second time. Trust me.”
Alex stared at them both, her mind reeling. “I don’t…okay.” None of this made any sense to her. But when it came to Puck, she was pretty used to that.
“Besides,” Izael added, stepping closer to her, “someone has to help you keep Puck from burning down all of Tir n'Aill in his first week as councilor. From what I hear, he's already reorganized the Seelie court hierarchy based on who can juggle the most flaming torches.”
Alex looked between them—her impossible husband, somehow returned from the void, and the chaotic trickster who had apparently decided to play fairy godmother. Then she launched herself at Izael, wrapping her arms around him and holding on as if he might disappear again if she let go.
“Don't you ever scare me like that again,” she sobbed against his shoulder. "Don't you ever be thatfuckingnoble again, you beautiful, stupid idiot.”
“I’ve decided being a hero doesn’t suit me. So I don’t think we’ll ever have that issue again,” Izael murmured, holding her just as tightly. “Though with Puck in charge, I suspect we're all going to have to be a bit more flexible about what constitutes 'normal' around here.”
In the distance, they could hear music—wild, joyous, utterly chaotic music that could only mean the fae courts were already adjusting to their new reality. Alex pulled back to look at her husband, at his beloved face that she had thought she'd never see again, and felt something she hadn't expected.
Hope.
Maybe the world was broken. Maybe the old order was endingand something strange and unpredictable was beginning. But she had Izael back, Puck was somehow keeping the courts from tearing each other apart, and somewhere in the space between dreams and reality, their friends were making new lives in impossible circumstances.
It wasn't the ending any of them had planned.
But maybe it was a beginning, instead.
Ava lookedup at the house she had built. Well…she had created. She hadn’t exactlybuilt it.More like she had simplymorphedit out of thin air. It seemed she could still do that. Using Book, she could pull threads of reality through Earth and carefully, well,weavethem together.
And much like how Serrik had created his home and it had touched the edges of Earth?
She had made a new place for them. Even if she’d decided to keep this new structure considerably lessdecrepitthan the one she’d been drawn into that first night. Shit. That felt like eons ago. How long had it actually been? A month? Two? Days?
She’d gone with a Victorian style mansion. Something thatThe Addams Familywould have been proud of, if in better condition. A tall tower was its most defining feature, with its cast iron railings and widow’s walk, but it was painted a stately desaturated green with darker green trim and golden-tone brass hardware.
Spiderweb details were hidden everywhere, if one knew where to look. Arches in the corbels, the twisting patterns of the inlaid header moldings—subtle, but present.
It seemed only fitting.
Spooky. But refined. Just enough to send a shiver down someone’s side without screamingdollar store Halloween rental.
Serrik stood beside her, scrutinizing the mansion silently. He hadbeen lost inside his own thoughts since the worlds had been split apart. Honestly, so had she.
They had both been prepared to die. It was a certainty.
One they had…somehow avoided. And now…they were alive. Guardians of Earth. She was the Web. And now warden of Valroy, the Unseelie King.
What the actual fuck.
