by Nicola Shill
Eerin continued, ‘You both have to be able to totally relinquish control.’ She glanced at Lorcan. ‘You must give yourself over to being dependent. You have to have faith in each other.’
‘Dead’s pretty dependent.’ The words were out before Cassandra knew what she was saying. She slapped a hand over her mouth to prevent any other idiotic comments slipping through. How could she be facetious at a time like this? The others either didn’t notice or ignored it.
‘Which is why you’re not a good candidate, Lorcan,’ said Eerin.
Lorcan opened his mouth to argue, but Oonnora got in first. ‘I think it should be me.’ She turned to speak directly to Cassandra, ‘It would normally be your mother or father in this situation where you’re half fae. Your fae parent would be your paladin.’
‘Oonnora, I know you’re very fond of Cassandra and try to provide her with a mother’s love, but are you sure it’s enough?’ Eerin asked.
Cassandra was starting to feel uncomfortable about the tone and direction of this conversation.
Oonnora looked wounded. ‘Of course I love her enough.’
‘I didn’t see you trying to get her back,’ Lorcan grumbled.
‘It wasn’t my place to interfere.’ She spoke directly to Cassandra again: ‘I thought it was what you wanted.’
Cassandra was trying her hardest not to squirm.
Zabeth came to the rescue. ‘This is not productive. Cassandra, you can see that it’s not something you can just pick anyone to do. Both of you have to feel certain that your love is pure and strong. It’s also better to choose an older person because they have more wisdom built up, so you benefit more from the transfer. I would have considered Iznaya. I know she loves you very much, but her age means there’s a high probability that her death would be permanent, however good a healer you turn out to be.’
Lorcan stood up and crossed his arms over his chest. ‘I want to do it.’
‘In case you’ve forgotten, Lorcan, you have control issues,’ reminded Eerin.
Oonnora waved him down. ‘You’re too young. You could only give Cassandra basic wisdom.’
Lorcan sat obediently, but he looked ready to spring to his feet again. ‘I’ve experienced more than the average …’
‘There’s another problem too,’ Zabeth cut in. ‘Aside from the fact that you and your paladin will share an intense and traumatic experience that no one else will ever fully comprehend, the transfer of quiddity becomes a permanent, unbreakable link. You’ll become hypersensitive to each other’s emotions and may even experience each other’s physical sensations if they’re strong enough. You can imagine that being disconcerting for each of your future spouses if the paladin was once your sweetheart. It may even prevent you from forming long-term amorous relationships. That’s why family’s always a good bet.’
‘Perhaps we should try to find her mother,’ Eerin suggested.
‘I’ve already tried,’ Zabeth said, to Cassandra’s surprise. ‘I could find no trace …’
‘I’ll marry her.’ Lorcan said it quietly, but everyone heard. Cassandra resisted the urge to tap her ear to check if it was working properly.
He spoke into the shocked silence, meeting every wide eye in the room, one by one. ‘So, as her fiancé, I insist that I be given the honour of being her paladin.’
Eerin sighed.
‘Have you even discussed this with Cassandra, Lorcan?’ said Zabeth.
Lorcan stood up, turned to Cassandra and said, quite matter-of-factly, ‘Cassandra? Will you marry me?’
How was she supposed to answer that? Yes? No? Someday, but not now? He’d made himself scarce since they had returned to Gillwillan and now, from out of nowhere, he was proposing marriage – except that it didn’t feel like a real proposal, it felt more like an afterthought. She knew that she loved him and had even fantasised about their future together, but this sounded only slightly better than a shotgun wedding. Could she settle for that? Should she? Everyone was staring at her, wondering how she would respond, but she was wondering the same thing. The only thing she knew for sure was that she felt angry with Lorcan for cornering her like this.
As the silence stretched out, Lorcan raised his eyebrows. ‘Cassandra?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, and immediately knew it was the wrong answer.
Lorcan turned on his heel and stormed out of the house.
— CHAPTER 72 —
Frosty Acquaintances
Lorcan felt the astonished stares boring into him as he walked into Ith and Iznaya’s yard.
So, it had been a while since he’d come to one of these lunches. What of it? He was only here to see Cassandra, anyway. He moved through the crowd acknowledging greetings and making polite small talk, all the while relentlessly zeroing in on her.
Cassandra was evidently not so eager to see him. In fact, she seemed desperate to flee. She dashed into the house as though it was sanctuary, but as a solution, it turned out to be short lived. Inside, Iznaya must have taken the opportunity to have Cassandra deliver a plate of shortbread outside because, a minute later, Lorcan saw her peeking nervously through the door at him, clutching a loaded plate in her hand. He could almost hear the debate going on in her head. Should she risk the dash to the table and back? She never failed to entertain him, even when he was angry with her. Especially when he was angry with her. He feigned complete absorption in the rattlings of the girl who had all but knocked others down in her rush to engage him in conversation.
Cassandra stepped out and hurried to the table, put the bowl of shortbread down and grabbed two empty bowls.
Even with her back turned, Lorcan knew she sensed his presence when he stepped up behind her. She spun around and stared at him coldly.
‘Hello,’ he grunted at her.
‘Hi,’ she grunted back.
Stalemate.
They stared at each other for a moment before Cassandra muttered something about having to help Iznaya and scurried away.
Lorcan stood rooted to the spot for a few seconds. He wasn’t about to start chasing her, particularly not in public. He’d assumed that she was shy because, having had a couple of hours to pull herself together, she now realised how insulting her uncertainty about committing to a future with him had been, and was feeling ashamed of herself. But, up close, she didn’t seem ashamed, or even shy. In fact, a quick check of her emotional state showed indignation. Indignation! He turned and moved into the crowd, his face easily falling into its well practiced mask of charismatic politesse. He wondered if anyone had noticed that he’d just been snubbed by a girl. It was certainly a first. He switched his charm to autopilot, circulating and making mannerly conversation, all the while trying to guess what was going on in Cassandra’s mind. He hoped she was merely overwhelmed by the stress of the past few days. Or did she feel that their relationship should return to the state it was in before she left? If she did, she could think again. He would give her a bit of space to adjust, but he hadn’t humiliated himself trying to bring her back only to have them revert to being frosty acquaintances.
As these thoughts were simmering in his head, a darker, more terrifying thought kept swimming to the surface. What if Cassandra really didn’t love him? Maybe she had seen him as a convenient way to get back to the fae domain. She had mentioned that she was preparing a return attempt. Maybe she’d recognised him as a better bet. And she’d have been right. She wouldn’t have been successful without him; Eerin wouldn’t have allowed it. She wouldn’t even have had a chance to tell them her mother was fae.
Could she have used him? He’d certainly given her many reasons to dislike him. It was with a considerable amount of chagrin that he recalled the occasions when he’d deliberately bullied her. Why had he always needed to be antagonistic towards her? She brought out the worst in him … and the best. Or perhaps what she brought out in him were emotions that he had long ago learnt to bury. Uncomfortable emotions. Emotions which made him feel out of control, uncertain and angry. Making him f
eel that way also made her the scapegoat for his fear and malcontent. So yes, it was entirely possible, plausible even, that she had used him to come back and now had no further use for him.
But he didn’t think so.
He watched Cassandra keep herself busy helping Iznaya while diligently avoiding looking at him. He was impressed with her willpower. He tuned into her emotions: yes, she was angry, but he delved deeper and found that she was also in love. He couldn’t be absolutely certain, but he was pretty confident it was with him.
This was ridiculous. He stalked up to Cassandra. By the time she sensed him coming and turned around, it was too late to save herself. She only managed two steps backwards before he caught her wrist and started dragging her through the crowd towards the opening in the hedge. She was tripping over her own feet trying to keep up with him, so he picked her up and flew with her in the opposite direction: up over the top of Ith and Iznaya’s house to land beside the fallen branch on the edge of the agora where he had interrogated her the first night they had met. It seemed appropriate.
‘Sit down.’
‘Get stuffed.’
Lorcan’s eyebrows hit his hairline. She was going to be so much harder to argue with now that she wasn’t scared of him. She stood glaring at him with her arms folded over her chest.
He sat on the log. ‘What’s the problem, Cassandra?’
Cassandra put one foot on the log beside him and leaned her forearms on her thigh. ‘No problem here. What’s your problem?’
‘My problem is that I asked you to marry me and you couldn’t decide if you wanted to or not.’
‘Lorcan, you can’t even publicly acknowledge our relationship. You disappear whenever there’s a crowd around, and then you ask … no, you don’t even ask, you just announce your intention to marry me in front of Zabeth, Oonnora and Eerin. How was I supposed to react?’
‘You can’t claim that I haven’t publicly acknowledged our relationship in the same sentence that you complain about me telling Zabeth, Oonnora and Eerin that I want to marry you. And you walked away from me just then. I’m certainly not going to start chasing you around Ith and Iznaya’s yard, so if that’s the sort of public acknowledgement you’re after, you won’t be getting it. And I might add that I put on a pretty good show for Tani and Eerin while you were away. You, on the other hand have not even acknowledged your feelings for me privately.’
‘How can you say …’ He felt the moment when it occurred to her that it might be true. She straightened up and removed her foot from the log.
He stood up, suddenly feeling very sad. She could try to sort through everything she’d said to him in her own time, but she would discover that he was right. ‘And I expected you to be happy. Euphoric, even. When you can come up with an emotion nearing that, let me know.’
He flew away before either of them ended up saying something they would both regret.
— CHAPTER 73 —
Oops
Cassandra wasn’t in the mood for partying that night, but Tani talked her into going to the revelry anyway.
She didn’t expect to see Lorcan, so she wasn’t constantly looking over her shoulder for him. On a visit to a refreshment table, she ran into Garris, who was taking a break. They were like old friends now, and Garris insisted she dance with him.
‘Don’t you have to play the music?’ she asked.
‘Oh, that’s right!’ He feigned confusion for a moment. ‘Well, the music won’t be as good without me, but I can’t miss the opportunity to dance with the most beautiful girl here.’
He was as impossible to refuse as his sister. He was a good dancer and great fun to be with. Occasionally, he would hold Cassandra tightly around the waist and fly gently into the air, but she felt completely safe and comfortable with him.
They were dancing their third dance when Garris suddenly laughed out loud for no apparent reason. Cassandra assumed she’d done something stupid. ‘What did I do?’ she asked.
‘Lorcan’s telling me to back off.’
‘Lorcan? Where is he?’
Garris twirled her around to the music as he scanned the tops of the surrounding trees. Then he stopped and spun her so that he stood behind her. He held her shoulders, dipped his head down beside hers and pointed high up into a banksia tree. Cassandra saw nothing but foliage … or could she discern a slight glitter?
Garris spun her back around to resume the dance, holding her even closer than before.
‘So, you’re not planning to back off?’ she asked.
‘Oh, no, this is way too much fun.’
Fun maybe, for Garris anyway, but probably not wise.
At a break in the music, Garris said, ‘I’d better go and save those musicians from themselves. They obviously need some talent up there.’
‘Where’s Lorcan, now?’ Cassandra asked.
‘He’s gone.’ He kissed Cassandra lightly on the cheek. ‘Thank you for the dance.’
Cassandra looked up into the tree that Lorcan had vacated. She had the sinking feeling she’d just made another mistake. She found Tani and told her she was going home. Tani linked her arm through Cassandra’s and insisted on coming with her.
As they lay in their hammocks, Tani asked, ‘What’s going on with you and Lorcan?’
Cassandra told Tani about Lorcan’s marriage proposal, the argument this afternoon, and Lorcan watching her dancing with Garris.
‘I can see how that marriage proposal would have caught you off guard,’ said Tani.
‘It wasn’t even a proposal, really. It was more of a statement of fact.’
‘But he didn’t have much choice, did he?’
It wasn’t what Cassandra wanted to hear. She steered the subject in a different direction.
‘What did he mean when he said he put on a good show for you and Eerin while I was away?’
‘Did you know he’d been visiting you every night?’
‘No … well, I suppose so, yes.’ The cat being locked up every morning gave it away.
Tani told Cassandra all about Lorcan’s dark mood while she had been away and how he’d begged Eerin to bring her back. Cassandra was stunned. She knew it would have been difficult for Lorcan to subdue his pride and beg.
‘We knew in advance that he was coming because Zabeth warned Eerin. Apparently, he tried to talk her into overriding the council.’
Cassandra cringed. Zabeth wasn’t someone you wanted to get on the wrong side of. ‘I think Zabeth’s pretty angry with him.’
‘She’ll get over it. Grandmothers always do.’
‘Grandmother?’
Tani laughed. ‘Didn’t you know?’
‘No, but it explains a lot.’
‘And Iznaya is his aunt.’
‘Oh no! Don’t tell me that.’
‘That’s worse than him being Zabeth’s grandson?’
‘Lorcan being Zabeth’s grandson is intimidating, but at least I know I haven’t bad-mouthed him to Zabeth.’
‘And you have to Iznaya? Or Ith?’
‘I can’t remember.’
Tani asked the question Cassandra had been asking herself all afternoon. ‘What did he mean when he said you haven’t acknowledged your feelings for him privately?’
‘I think he means that I haven’t actually told him I love him.’
‘I thought you both said it when he rescued you.’
‘Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure that when he told me he loved me he asked if I loved him too and I only said that I thought so.’
‘Oops.’
‘Mmmm.’
Cassandra heard Tani moving around in her hammock, getting comfortable. ‘Cassandra,’ she said. ‘You know you’re not allowed to get married until you’re an adult, don’t you?’
‘No. I didn’t know that.’
‘You’re not even really allowed to be engaged. Lorcan knows that. He would have just been asking for you to commit to marrying him – to kill any objections to him being your paladin. You wouldn’t have
to move in with him or anything.’
Cassandra wouldn’t have minded moving in with him. ‘It would have been useful if someone had explained this to me at the time.’
‘I suppose everyone was in shock. Including Lorcan.’
Why did Tani have to be so bloody reasonable? Cassandra had gone from being certain that Lorcan’s behaviour this morning had been inexcusable to now feeling like she had betrayed him. She needed to talk to him and make things right – first thing in the morning.
Cassandra thought Tani had fallen asleep until she said, ‘Cassandra?’
‘Mmmm.’
‘If you don’t want to marry him, I’ll take him off your hands.’
‘Thanks, Tani.’
— CHAPTER 74 —
A Second Chance
An hour later, Cassandra was still wide awake, watching the dark shadows of the trees outside her window morphing in the wind.
What did Lorcan think of her now?
Had she made him unhappy?
Was he lying awake thinking about her?
She hoped so.
It would be much worse to think that she had done such a good job of putting him off that he had actually been put off. He wanted commitment and she’d given him uncertainty. He’d said that when the idea of marrying him yielded an emotion nearing euphoria that she should come and see him. Well, if he gave her a second chance she would feel euphoric.
She wouldn’t give him a minute more to remember his no second chances policy. She rolled quietly out of her hammock, pulled her shawl around her shoulders and slipped her feet into her sandals before creeping down the stairs and out the front door into the cold, windy night.
Cassandra had only seen Lorcan’s house once, and she had never been in it. Tani had pointed it out to her one day when they were wandering aimlessly around. Unfortunately, because they had been wandering, she didn’t really know how to get directly to it from here. All she knew was that it was roughly over the other side of the agora, a little way into the bush and that, rather than being built leaning against the side of a tree, it made use of a hollow in the base of a tree trunk so that only a front wall had been required.
Cassandra faced the agora and began a purposeful walk in a straight line to the other side. All traces of the bonfire were completely gone. It still amazed her that the fae were able to do that. Occasionally, the moon would shine through a break in the clouds as they jostled across the sky and Cassandra had a quick moment to check her position. In a couple of minutes, she was across the agora and preparing to walk blindly into the bush. Memories of the night she had become lost sat doggedly in the forefront of her brain. This was ridiculous. She would never find Lorcan’s house in this darkness. She was probably way off course already. She didn’t even know how far into the bush it was. She could easily become lost again and not be able to find her way back to the agora.