Just like in Grayson’s dreams, or as Rowan’s gifted memories had revealed, Elysia has only confirmed what Nix has known in his soul of souls.
“My love, we should go!” Ignatius calls from where his feet are firmly on the ground once again. Nimue waits patiently in the third row of the large SUV.
“So impatient. Even after forty years, we still argue over time management.” Her eyes are soft with memories and affection. “I see I’ve given you something to think about. Perhaps we can talk again, and you can share what has you looking so shell-shocked. Yes?”
“Yes. I’d like to understand a bit more about—” He pauses, not sure how to talk about her Affinity and his revelation in a way that won’t be abrupt, or keep them standing on the tarmac for another hour. Or make him sound like an egotistical, megalomaniacal loon.
“I’ll look forward to it.” She grins, taking the handle of her own suitcase and rolling it toward her life partner, accepting his hand into the car.
Jamie tilts his head in question, no doubt wondering why Nix is still standing there in the late afternoon sunshine, but he waits, with no sign of concern or urgency.
Nix isn’t the only one who has learned to be still and wait.
He squeezes Rosie to his chest. She rewards him with a giggle and then a yawn, her sweet floral scent filling him to overflowing with love and grounding him back in his real life. Reminding him that while he may have held the full power of a Goddess for a moment—and maybe still does, and certainly has over many lifetimes—he is still just a man.
Mate, lover, father, and friend.
And that is where the real light in his life comes from.
Grayson
The halls of the Guild are virtually abandoned as Grayson takes the stairs toward his last session of the day. Fatigue wears him down and reminds him that he’s been too long without Nix’s hand on his chest or the soft press of his daughters in his arms.
The door to Professor Kirwan’s room is closed, but she is no doubt tapping her foot impatiently on the other side, waiting eagerly to remind him that if a twelve-year-old can be on time, why can’t he?
He’s always had a good relationship with time—never too late or too early, and blessed with an inner clock that means he awakens before his alarm, if he needs to set one at all. But since Time Studies had been added to his already overburdened schedule, Grayson has been dragging his feet. He’d even taken to shaving a few minutes off here and there, escaping early when Professor Kirwan drops her guard, or claiming an appointment to cut their time short.
Grayson is as self-aware as a person can be, and he knows that, without a doubt, there are two reasons he hates every millisecond spent in her chaotic office. The first being that this Talent he has manifested is most assuredly not as mild as the name “Talent” would imply.
Sure, his precognition is mild and mostly limited to his family. It is usually beyond his current abilities to call upon atwill, often appearing under pressure or when he’s drawing on The Plain in great waves.
While that’s admittedly embarrassing—as no one wants to fail at practice time and time again, most especially Grayson—it’s also exhausting.
He does not—cannot—call upon the full breadth of The Plain while practicing Time, because his Time is not a Talent as he and the Floridian allies have led the Guild to believe.
It is an Affinity.
Strong and sure, and becoming more and more accessible with practice. And certainly not its strongest when it comes to precognition. If his Time Affinity were an iceberg, precognition would be the tip—and the rest? Big enough to sink the Titanic at least ten times over.
What had once been snippets of past lives, where he could see history in the making and how his mates—and those close to them—had affected world events, now, he can dream full life experiences, often with emotions and physical sensations. He can see the past, present, and sometimes, the future of his mates. The eight (sometimes six, which is a story for another time) of them working and living together in the Goddess’s design in this timeline and others.
It’s taken some getting used to, that’s for sure. And while he can’t say he’s enjoyed being at school with humans half his age, his professors are enthusiastic, educated, and with only a few notable exceptions, dedicated to helping him master his magic.
But Time is something else altogether.
The discovery of a single significant manifestation of Time would set Grayson on a long flight to the Swiss Alps. Away from his family—or worse, moving the entire pack for the three years it would take to be evaluated, trained, and then put to work in the name of the government.
No, Grayson did not want to dedicate his life to government work. He’d lived far too long with flexibility, art, and freedom to give it up now. So hiding the strength and breadth of his gifts has been his only choice. He is well aware that the political-cultural game he is playing is a tangled web, made even more complicated by the fact that he knew none of the rules, none of the other players’ skills, and that the stakes were fucking sky-high.
He was learning, though, that humans in general, and magic users in particular, approach magic differently than a Were might expect—aside from a few notable exceptions like Ignatius or Nimue.
For the most part, modern magic users don’t acknowledge that accessing The Plain is a gift from Them, boiling it down to science rather than magic. They have long lost touch with the history of The Plain’s origins and therefore have a difficult time understanding Grayson’s inherent Were-ness, nor do they see the need to bother trying.
Magic serves them—not the other way around.
As Ignatius had said many times, Weres are the Goddess’s most beloved children. Each child knows of Them, whether they practice or not. And even if they do not, they instinctively feel a connection to Earth’s power.
It’s who theyare.
