The back patio is small, deliberately built with mismatched stones laid by hand. Clay pots line the edges, filled with plants that, despite the chaos of the last hour, remain green and reaching toward the sun.
Wind chimes suspend from the overhang. Ceramic. Glass. Copper. They make soft sounds as the air moves through them.
Little trinkets are scattered everywhere. A ceramic frog. A painted rock. A weathered sign that readsLife Began in a Garden.
It carries the spirit of Wynmire, even though it sits in the human world. A place where magic and the mundane learned to coexist.
It feels like Jo. Like Elle.
The locket goes warm against my chest.
Peeble suddenly darts off toward the side of the patio. “Oh my goddess, look! Dr Pepper! A whole container of it! Wow, Elle was serious about this stuff.”
“Yeah, she always went for the weekly sale—” Leo stops himself, jaw clenching. “Wait a minute. We’re getting off track. I want some fucking answers.”
Sarah gives him a stern look. Then she turns back to the group and nods approvingly at Raskel, who has mercifully lowered his walking stick.
“Yes, well.” Raskel clears his throat with the self-importance of someone who has been waiting a very long time to deliver a speech. “Like I said. My name is Raskel. The Elder Hedgewarden. Keeper of the Rootline Gate. I have been charged with guarding the boundary between Wynmire and the Earth realm from this side for hundreds of years.” He smooths his beard. “I was supposed to retire this rotation. But this imbecile,” he points his stick at me, “messed everything up.”
Peeble is practically hanging off Leo’s shoulder, drooling with interest. “Oh, please do tell. What has the glorious Kaelren done?”
“He hasn’t brought her back!”
Silence.
“Who?” Bryx asks carefully. “Elle?”
“Yes, Elle! Gods, why am I punished to work with such unintelligent people?” Raskel thumps his stick on the ground for emphasis. “Without Elle here to act as the stabilizer from the Earth side, our two worlds will fracture and eventually both will crumble and die. There has to be a balance. It was always the two of you. Her from the human side, you from the Fae realm. Tethered. Bound. The anchor and the root.”
“But she had to disperse herself to save us,” I say, and the words taste like ash coming out. “She scattered across the threads of time. That was the only way to break the convergence.”
Leo launches himself halfway across the table. “She did WHAT?”
Sarnyx catches him by the back of his shirt and pulls him down. Bryx holds up both hands. “Hold on there, cuz. So, Raskel—you’re saying Elle’s sacrifice wasn’t the whole solution?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying, you cotton-headed nincompoop. Her dispersal stopped the clock. Bought time. But it didn’t fix the underlying problem.” He jabs his stick toward me, then toward the general direction of Wynmire. “The two of you must be bonded and together to hold the realms stable. That’s how it’s always worked. That’s how Josephine designed it.”
“I’ve been trying,” I say, and I hate how raw it sounds. “I’ve spent months searching for a way to bring her back. Every archive, every elder, every forgotten text in Wynmire. Don’t you think I want her here?”
“You’ve had the answer the entire time. You were just too dumb to see it.”
Mora gasps softly. “Kaelren. Of course.” Her eyes drop to my chest. “The locket.”
I reach for it without thinking. The small silver pendant I haven’t removed since Sarnyx found it in the rubble after everything fell apart. I’ve noticed it growing warm when I think of Elle. Warmer when I reach for the bond, warmer still in the moments when her fragmented consciousness brushes mine across the distance. I assumed it was an enchantment left by Jo. A comfort. A reminder.
Not a key.
“Well, that’s great,” I say. “But how do we use it? There’s nothing written about it anywhere in Wynmire. I’ve looked.”
“Because the answer isn’t in Wynmire,” Leo says.
Everyone turns to look at him. Raskel looks up at the human with something approaching approval. “Finally. Someone with some brains.”
Sarah touches Leo’s arm. “Honey, what are you saying?”
Leo runs a hand through his hair, his expression shifting from fury to something more complicated. More tender. “Grandma Jo always said the same thing. Every time Elle or I asked why she spent so much time in the garden, why she talked to the plants.” He swallows. “She’d say, ‘The garden is where my heart lives, and heart brings us home. You can travel a thousand worlds, but if someone holds your heart and stands in the place where you grew, you’ll always find your way back.’”
He looks at the locket around my neck. “She told me once that the locket wasn’t just jewelry. She said whoever wears it carries the way home.” He gestures around us. “Here. This garden. Where she put down her roots when she left…wherever the hell you all are from.”
