Page 98 of The Trick of It

It made him grin. “‘Twit.’ ‘Silly boy,’” he translated. “It was … Well, I suppose it was like how I call you ‘gwrach.’ It might offend someone else, but between Hughes and me, it was a term of endearment.”

“Oh,” said Seph.

Had Madame Ivanova guessed that?

Was it a common word in Welsh?

“My friends,” came Merlin’s voice as he sidled up behind him, looking surprisingly hale, given the hour. “This was everything I could have wanted. The entirety of it. But alas, my constitution is not what it once was, and I am afraid it is time for me to retire.”

“Of course,” said Seph, reaching out to hold the man’s shoulder and put a kiss on his cheek. “Rest well, Merlin.”

Merlin gave her a fatherly smile and turned to shake Rhys’s hand. “Take care of one another,” he told them. “We changelings must stick together.”

And then he turned and departed.

Apparently, they had been the last to receive his farewells.

Rhys stifled a yawn and gave a lazy sigh, drawing Seph closer to his side. “I’d invite him to the wedding,” he said, dropping his chin on top of her head, “but I think he said he was departing once Samhain had passed.”

“To unknown shores,” Seph remembered, giving a sad, little sigh. “I shall miss him.”

“Yes,” said Rhys. “I shall too.”

She sucked in a little breath and squeezed Rhys’s arms. “I have to thank him. Before he goes. For the invitation. For … For making us work together. For …”

“Thank him tomorrow,” Rhys said, reaching up to cup her face with both his hands. “But I think he already knows we are appreciative. I am certain of it, in fact. And remember what he said when we first got here?”

“No,” she said, frowning. “What?”

“That he didn’t wish to waste what little time he had left on manners,” Rhys told her. “Let him sleep. He’s earned it.”

She twisted a little to look at the empty space in the doorway behind her but sagged, nodding. “You are right,” she told him. “He knows.”

“You know what we could do,” he said, dragging his syllables into a suggestive drawl, “to honor the excellent matchmaking skills of our good friend …?”

She cut him a narrow-eyed look but could not hold it for more than a second, a giggle bubbling up in her throat as she dropped his arms and reached for his hands instead. “Good idea,” she said. “Let’s say our goodnights.”

*

When they awoke for the breakfast bell, it was with a tinge of regret in the air. This was likely their last morning in this room. Their last waking in this bed.

And Seph had to remind herself that every end was a beginning too to bat away the sense of mourning at that thought.

What else had they learned here, in this place, if not that?

“Mr. Cagney will likely arrive around luncheon,” Rhys told her as he carefully closed the trunk lid on their props, the curtain rods, and the velvet bolts of fabric. “We have time before we have to go.”

Seph nodded and took his hand as they descended this last time, for this final breakfast.

She wondered if Merlin would stay to see them off, or if he would go first, after announcing his chosen winner.

She wondered a great many things.

But when they arrived to the breakfast table, it was to their fellow guests, all standing awkwardly around the chairs, none of which had been pulled out yet, circling a box in the center of the table, and a letter, pinned to the top.

“Well, isn’t anyone going to read it?” Nini demanded, hands on her hips, looking from person to person. “I can’t reach it. Someone hand it to me.”

Rhys rounded on the footmen, standing on either side of the dining entry, and pointed to the blond one, the prig. “What happened?” he demanded. “Where is Merlin?”