Page 32 of The Last Kelpie

Áedán chuckled. “Och, now. Thank you very much, lassie.”

“Come on, darling.” The girl's mother kissed her cheek. “How about a hot chocolate?”

She nodded, but then she looked at me, standing at Áedán's side. “Is that your husband?”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. My brain had stopped working.

Áedán glanced at me. “Not yet.”

The little girl leaned closer to Áedán and whispered loudly, “Maybe you should buy him a hot chocolate like my mommy is going to buy me.”

“That's a very good idea.” Áedán winked at her.

She giggled as her parents exchanged amused smiles. They thanked Áedán again and carried their daughter toward the town. As they walked away, everyone who'd been standing nearby, watching, cheered.

I just stood there staring at Áedán. With water dripping from his hair and his clothes plastered to his skin, he looked like something out of a myth. Which was accurate.

“Not yet?” I finally managed.

He shook out his hair, water pooling at his feet, then removed his sweater to wring it out. “Was I supposed to lie to a child?”

“You were supposed to—” I stopped, distracted by the sight of his broad, muscular chest in the midday light. “That's not funny.”

“I'm not joking.” He pulled on his sweater and walked past me, back toward the village center, where a crowd of people still cheered for him. “One thing I actually like aboot modern humans is their acceptance of a person's sexuality. Just a few years ago, we woulda been spat on for holding hands. Now, they ask if we're married.” He looked over his shoulder at me. “It's aboot time.”

I followed, my mind spinning as I watched people shake Áedán's hand and praise him for his heroism. I wanted to focus on how the world had changed for the better, how wonderful it was that people could love whomever they wanted to love, but I couldn't. All I could focus on was his casual declaration that he wasn't joking when he'd said “not yet.”

Not yet implied a future. It implied intention. It implied too much when we'd barely known each other for a few days.

I forced myself to stop thinking about it. That lasted approximately thirty seconds before my brain circled back to those two words and everything they might mean. I nodded and smiled at the crowd as we passed through, then settled into a walk beside Áedán.

We walked in silence until we came to a small passage between two buildings. Áedán ducked into it, telling me to guard the way. I stood at the passage mouth, arms crossed, and glanced over my shoulder. Áedán stood with his eyes closed while water ran off him in rivulets. I spun my head to face forward and guard him from discovery. It took only a few seconds before he stepped past me, dry.

“What was that?” I whispered.

“I'm a kelpie,” he whispered back. “What good would I be if I couldnae manipulate water?”

“Holy shit.”

“Holy water,” Áedán corrected with a wink.

With him dry, we could go into a restaurant without issue. We found one that had lovely smells wafting from it and went in. Word about the child's rescue had spread fast, and the manager comped our lunch. Áedán looked shocked, but he accepted the gift and thanked the man.

At last, we headed back to his cottage. When we came to the bridge, Áedán stopped and cocked his head. The bridge looked old, maybe even centuries old, and one of the support stones had cracked. That's what Áedán stared at.

Áedán glanced around and then went to the support stone.

“What are you doing?” I followed him.

He winked at me and then placed his hand on the bridge. I felt something shift in the air, like pressure changing before a storm. Water flowed up the bridge from the stream, carrying sediment and small stones to the crack. In a few seconds, the slurry had filled the crack. When Áedán removed his hand, the stone looked solid again.

“How did you do that?” I looked from the stone to Áedán.

Áedán gave me a look that said I was being an idiot (or rather, an eejit) and crossed the bridge.

I stared at the bridge. At the smooth stone. Áedán had old magic. The kind that didn't need words or ceremony, just intention and connection to the elements. I'd read about such magic in the Archive. Magic that predated modern understanding, that came from a time when the word “myth” didn't mean a cultural story that wasn't true. Seeing that magic was different. Seeing Áedán use it so casually, so naturally—to dry him in an instant and fix something that would have taken human workers days or weeks—was humbling. The Velasca had magic too. They used it to preserve the Great Archive and maybe even more than that. I was still too new to know everything they could do. But I couldn't imagine that it was like this. Áedán's magic was special, and the world would lose his special magic if we lost him.

I ran across the bridge and caught up with him. “You do that often?”