by Krista Walsh
“What about those two?” asked Jeff, nodding his head towards the lovers on the stairs.
Jasmine shrugged. “They’ll join us when they’re ready. Come on.”
She looped her arms through Jeff’s on one side, Cassie’s on the other, and Jeff stared at her in surprise.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “I only ask because I don’t think I’ve ever seen you quite this… happy before.”
“I’m perfectly wonderful,” Jasmine replied. “Just very, very hungry.”
She laughed and released them, hurrying off into the dining hall.
Jeff leaned in towards Cassie. “Do you know what any of that is about?”
Cassie just smiled and raised a shoulder. “You said you didn’t want to know about anything except me. Besides, this isn’t my news to tell.”
“It’s not Brady, is it? He’s all right? All is well?”
Cassie’s smile grew. “Brady is beside himself. Figuratively. Mentally, he’s just fine. Now. But they’ll tell you their own stories. It’s your turn to wait.”
Jeff pressed down the rest of his questions, and together they entered the dining hall where a long table was covered with an assortment of dishes, surrounded by ten people eagerly waiting to dive in.
Jasmine sat at one end, Brady on her right side, and Maggie on her left. Conrad sat beside Maggie, with William and Venn following. Jeff watched them closely, saw Venn say something under her breath with a wicked grin, and William’s face turn bright red. He hoped his little cousin behaved herself and didn’t do anything to hurt the man so clearly infatuated with her.
Next to Brady sat Philian and Joly, both of whom appeared a little overwhelmed to be sitting among so many people after two weeks of an empty universe, but Joly eyed the roast with a deep appreciation and Jeff figured they’d adjust quickly.
He clapped Phil on the shoulder. “You made it through all right?”
Phil looked up with his usual contented grin. “That was quite the experience, I’ll tell you. I can’t wait to tell Corban. I’m pretty sure I’ve found a way to dull the seven suns thanks to that little Meratis spell thing.”
“That’s a great relief,” said Jeff. “On behalf of all your future patients, I thank you.”
He introduced Cassie to the men who saved his life, and then they grabbed seats at the end of the table, Jeff sitting closest to the other end.
Jayden and Ariana came in and took the last two seats, much to Jasmine’s delight.
“Let’s eat!” she said.
Brady chuckled, but before everyone could reach for the dishes, he tapped his knife against his cup.
“Before everyone dives in,” he said. “I would like to propose a toast. A short one.” He added the last bit for Jasmine, who looked crestfallen as her stomach grumbled loudly enough for the whole room to hear.
Brady, his eyes no longer white, looking healthier and happier than Jeff had ever seen him, stood and raised his glass. “I can’t begin to say how pleased I am to see all of your faces around this table. There have been many times over the last year and a half where I thought for sure my family would grow smaller. Instead, I get to celebrate with the people I love most that, in fact, it’s getting bigger.”
Brady and Jasmine looked on each other with so much love and joy, the whole room warmed. Brady reached for her hand to kiss the back of it, and somehow in the movement, or maybe in the way Jasmine’s other hand brushed her stomach, the truth fell on Jeff like the crumbling rubble at Treevale.
“You mean—” he said.
Cassie’s wide smile told him everything.
Jeff was speechless. Everything about Jasmine’s recent moods and health fell into place and no longer was it something to worry about, but the best possible news. His face broke into a grin so wide his cheeks ached, and Jasmine sent him a wink across the table.
Jayden cleared his throat and knocked on the table. “Sorry to steal your thunder, counsellor, but now might be a good time to throw in that the family might get even bigger than you think. Princess Ariana—”
“In spite of her better judgement,” Ariana cut in with a laugh.
“Has agreed to marry me. Again,” Jayden concluded. “I, Jayden Feldall, am settling down. To be married. To one woman.”
He said it as if he didn’t believe it, but the laughter and applause from his friends around the table smoothed over the shock.
Brady raised his glass. “To trials faced and won, and many happy days to come. Cheers.”
“Cheers!” came the uproarious reply.
Jeff downed his cup of wine and poured himself another, helping himself and Cassie to roast and potatoes, gravy, pies—the table was a veritable smorgasbord. After weeks of eating nothing but rabbit over the fire, everything tasted rich and delicious.
Halfway through his plate, once the edge of hunger had been sated, he set down his cup. “Now that we’ve all got food in our stomachs, does anyone feel like filling me in on what I missed? Last I saw there were dragons, crazy magic people, a devouring vortex. I know the Raul skeleton came with me, but what about everything else?”
“What happened with the stone dragon?” Jasmine asked. “We saw it disappear with you, but what then?”
Jeff took his knife in hand. “I fought him single-handedly. What else could I do? I was alone, injured, and here was this great beast that—no, okay, he fell to pieces as soon as we crossed through the rift. But thanks for humouring me.”
“You don’t need to make up reasons to impress us, Jeff,” said Maggie. “You were brave enough to bind him and take him with you. We wouldn’t have won without that.”
“It was your binding spell to thank. More than once. I miss that spell. It didn’t survive the jump, either. But come on, Raul’s followers. The asshole who stabbed me and the whiny little girl that led the crazy people. What happened to them?”
Jayden answered first. “Raul’s followers scattered. Between us, Lyle, and Kariel, we hunted down as many as we could, but they’re still out there somewhere. We each sent soldiers after them, so they won’t be gone long. And they certainly won’t be quick to gather again. We’ll keep hunting until they’re all dead or locked up, don’t worry about that.”
“As for Darcy,” said Ariana, “he’s downstairs in the dungeon, enjoying some nice time with a shrieking sobbing Sophie, who doesn’t understand why her plans failed. Lucky for her, her parents are with her to express their disappointment. She’ll stay here for a while until we can figure out what to do with her, but Darcy will come home with me and face my mother’s justice.”
The way she said the last part made Jeff smile. Ansella’s justice would not be of the lenient kind, he imagined. Good. The bastard.
“And what about the dragons?”
Everyone turned to Brady. As usual, the counsellor flushed at the sudden attention, and brought his knuckle to his lip as he cleared his throat. “Talfyr herded them up like cattle. He was pretty angry they’d come out to begin with, especially on his territory, and it nearly came to another sky fight. Fortunately for the people on the ground, the younger dragons surrendered.”
“And you’re all right? No adverse effects from Talfyr spending so much time in your head?”
An expression of concern marred Jasmine’s perfect happiness, but cleared before Jeff could get too anxious.
“He wasn’t all right for the first couple of days,” she said. “We thought he’d died again.”
“But I wasn’t dead,” Brady assured him. “Just not… in my body. If that makes sense.”
Jeff shook his head. “None of your situation makes sense.”
“After the battle, Talfyr’s and my mind met on another plane. He talked and instructed, I listened and learned. My mind expanded. I’m definitely not the man that you met, but I’ll be all right.”
Cassie swirled her wine in her cup. “And is that going to keep happening, Talfyr taking over your body? Could make parenting a little interesting.”
Brady ch
uckled. “No. He’s still in there,” he tapped his temple, “I can feel him. He’s watching, and learning a little more himself. But he’s back in his mountain. Raul is gone, the rifts are mended. His time is over.”
“For now,” said Jayden.
“For our lifetime, anyway,” Brady agreed.
Jeff smiled, but felt sad. “It’s strange, but I would have liked to see him again. Say goodbye or something. But I guess the goodbye would have been mine before he turned me to cinders, so it’s probably for the best. But you mentioned the rift is closed. Is it? Cassie mentioned it was complicated.”
He directed that question to Maggie, who looked especially lovely that evening in a cerulean blue gown, with her blonde curls pulled up. Conrad’s hand was on her lap under the table, and he didn’t seem able to take his eyes off of her.
“Not so complicated as that. It’s closed-ish.”
“All right?”
Jeff looked to Cassie, and she reached over to squeeze his hand. A bit of a hush fell over the table, and Jeff’s pulse sped up. He didn’t like that hush. Phil and Joly, outsiders from the family, looked as uncomfortable as Jeff, but somehow he didn’t think they had anything to worry about. This hush was for him.
“We wouldn’t have been able to send you home if we closed it all the way. So we’ve stopped the damage, and with Raul’s followers spread out and put down, there shouldn’t be any new ones popping up. For now. It still needs to be closed.”
“So we need to go home pretty soon,” said Jeff, doing his best to follow, but feeling like they hadn’t got to the worst part yet.
Maggie nodded. “And once it’s closed….”
Jeff got there. “There will be no way to come back.”
“That is the long and short of it, yes,” said Jasmine.
“Well,” said Jeff. He couldn’t think of anything else to add, so he fell silent and took another swig of his wine. Cassie’s hand tightened around his, but the gesture caused uncomfortable things to happen in his throat and behind his eyes, so he pulled away, patting her fingers to take the sting out of the rejection.
Across the table, Maggie forced a smile. “Come now, it’s not as bad as all that. You have your imagination again. You can write about us whenever you want. Throw us into all sorts of new troubles and then get us out of them.”
“Or,” said Jayden, “you could not do that. Throw money at us instead. Success, minor skirmishes so I don’t get out of shape. Nothing but fun adventure from here on out.”
Jeff chuckled. “I’d say I’ll see what I can do, but I made a promise to you guys. From here on out, I’m hands off. You’ll have to create and sort out your own problems. Besides, if Brady’s right, it wouldn’t matter what I wrote anyway.”
It felt right, somehow, that one of his last conversations with his friends should bring up the old arguments. The unresolved issues. The questions that would haunt him no matter which story he started next.
Brady laughed and slouched back in his chair, playing with the stem of his glass. “I almost hope I’m wrong about that now. It’d be nice to know you were around somewhere.”
His words dulled the forced mirth, and Jeff smiled, feeling the warmth and pain of the insinuation. He was loved and respected and wanted here with these people, and soon he would never see them again.
“You could always stay,” Venn spoke up. She’d been silent up until now, and Jeff caught a bit of redness around her cornflower blues, something she tried to hide under another glass of wine. “Just saying.”
Cassie sighed. “Another wonderful idiom I’m so pleased you picked up from your time with us.”
Venn grinned. “It works in so many situations. But why not? Really, I’ve given this a lot of thought. You write here instead of your apartment. Cassie, you help the poor and downtrodden of Andvell. I’m sure we have enough of them to keep you busy. What’s so important that you need to rush home?”
Jeff allowed the thought to ripple through his mind, lingering over some of the stresses he would face when he got home. He and Cassie would be looking for a place together—what better than a suite in a Keep as the family’s writer-in-house? Or maybe they would follow Jayden and Ariana and get set up at the palace. He would miss his friends at home, but what the hell, he hardly saw them these days anyway. His parents and his agent? Sure, they’d worry, but over the last year Jeff had proved himself unreliable, so maybe they’d believe he went trekking over the Himalayas and got lost.
On the list of pros and cons, it made far more sense to stay.
Most importantly, Cassie was here with him. Cassie and words—what more did he need in life?
Jeff sensed her watching him and met her gaze. She looked amused, as if she knew everything he was thinking, but beneath the humour, he saw the reality of their situation. In the trace of sadness and disappointment in her eyes, he saw the practicalities of their lives.
This was not their world.
His shoulders slumped with a sigh. “Sorry, coz. I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Venn shrugged. “Was just an idea.”
The words were flippant, but he caught the disappointment in her, as well. Ariana reached over to pat the young woman’s shoulder.
“So,” said Jeff, turning his attention back to Maggie before reluctantly asking, “what needs to be done now? When does this have to happen? Is this a right after dinner thing?”
He hoped she’d say no. He hoped she’d say they could stay as long as they wanted, they could just do the Meratis incantation only once more.
“It doesn’t need to be today,” Maggie assured him, and he let out a breath. Beside him, he felt Cassie relax as well. “But the sooner the better.”
Jeff forced a smile. “It’s too bad, really. I already missed one wedding. I wouldn’t have minded being around for the other, or the introduction of a new character into my little world.”
Ariana waved a hand. “If you want to come to our wedding, that shouldn’t be a problem. Five days from now, we can be at the palace, six days from now standing at the altar. My mother’s had this day planned since I was born female.”
Laughter trickled around the table at Jayden’s expression. Fear, uncertainty, perhaps a few symptoms of him about to get up and run from the table. Making the promise of commitment was one thing. Having it stare him in the face and tell him this time next week he would be a husband was another.
Then he met Ariana’s gaze and must have seen something—maybe the teasing glint in her eye; the dare for him to run, knowing she was stubborn enough that, now she had him, she would drag him back; the knowledge that he was in way over his head and it was too late to go back—because he grinned and brought his fist down on the table.
“Next week it is then. After a decade of not having you with me, what’s the rest of our lives together?”
He pulled her close for a kiss, but she pressed two fingers against his mouth. “One very important thing, my Lord. You do know that under the laws of my mother’s court, you and I cannot consummate this marriage until after the ceremony. Make sure everything is legal and all that.”
Horror returned to Jayden’s face, much to everyone’s entertainment. His mouth fell open, eye roaming over her face, and then he growled and tugged her hand from his mouth, pulling her as close against him as the large dining chairs would allow.
“Then I guess it’s a good thing we’re already legally married,” he said, and kissed her.
Jasmine laughed and slapped the table. “Stop it! I still have half a plate to eat and you’re making the baby sick. That’s a plan then. Tomorrow morning, we’ll head back to the capital, watch the event of the season, and go from there.”
Jeff turned to Cassie. “If that’s all right with you?”
She took back his hand. “It’s just what I wanted.”
After dinner, they bid each other good night, and Jeff and Cassie disappeared to the Green Room, happy to have one last night together in his second home.
; Chapter Twenty-Eight
Jeff couldn’t sleep.
Beside him, Cassie’s chest rose and fell in undisturbed slumber, but Jeff’s mind whirled around with no grounding point.
This night would be his last in this room. Not just on this trip, but ever.
Ever.
That sounded like a very long time.
He kissed Cassie’s cheek, grabbed his robe and the candle on the bedside table and wandered around the room. The sofa where he had passed many an intoxicated evening, the wardrobe and washing basin that had first triggered him to recognise a scene from his novel.
He rolled his eyes at himself, at his initial reaction to waking up here and believing it to be a dream, or a setup by his agent. What a fool he’d been. An arrogant fool that he wasn’t proud of, but at least he could look back on with self-deprecating humour for the rest of his life. The way Corey had beaten him in the training yard, his inability to find his way from one room to the next.
Shaking his head, he pulled on his boots and headed out into the corridor. How could he ever have got lost here? Now, he felt like he knew these halls better than his parents’ house. These rooms would be with him forever, trapped in his memories and dreams, never again to be walked, but also never lost.
He wandered the hallways, looking at the tapestries, listening to the silence. A few candles were lit in the sconces, creating an eerie but warming glow.
The morning would be a rush as everyone prepared to leave, so this could be his last time to take the tour. To remember all the little details.
Footsteps behind him nearly made Jeff jump out of his skin. He turned around, hand on his heart, to see a black shadow standing behind him.
“You can’t sleep either?” asked Venn.
“Bloody hell. Do you insist on wearing black just so you can creep up on people in the night? You scared the shit out of me.”
White teeth flashed in the candlelight. “I’m an assassin, Jeff. Of course that’s why I wear all black.”
He laughed out a breath of relief. “And no, I can’t sleep either.”