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One
It was a crisp fall day, the sky was a crystal clear shade of blue, the remaining leaves on the trees in Central Park were a brilliant gold, and I was on a romantic Saturday-afternoon stroll with my handsome boyfriend—fiancé, actually. It was taking some getting used to that. “This is for real, isn’t it?” I had to ask the question. The last time my life had been just this perfect, it had turned out to be a bizarre facsimile of a romantic movie created in the elven realms as a kind of prison.
“I’m pretty sure it’s real,” Owen Palmer said, giving me a smile that made my heart flutter.
“You’re sure we’re not off in elf land?”
“You’d know. You’re back to not having a trace of magic in you, so they wouldn’t be able to sustain the illusion for you. If that’s where you were, it wouldn’t be perfect.”
“Okay, good. Just checking.”
His smile transformed into a mischievous grin as he stopped and released my hand so he could pull me close with his arm around my waist. “Of course, if you want to be absolutely certain, you could try breaking the spell.”
As somberly as I could manage, I said, “It’s probably better to be safe. Just in case. You never know.”
Owen was nearly physically incapable of keeping a straight face. Even if he didn’t smile or crack up, he blushed adorably. “We really do have to remain vigilant.”
Our kiss may have set off a few fireworks, but not the magic kind. Although there was a lot about him that could have come straight out of a dream, he was most definitely right there. When we both came up for air, I said, “Looks like we’re still here. It must be real.”
“Must be. But at least we’re sure.”
“And we should probably check every so often.”
We resumed walking, and I couldn’t resist lifting my left hand to let the sunlight glint on the sapphire in my engagement ring. “You do like it?” he asked, sounding a little uncertain.
“I love it.”
“When Gloria took it out of her jewelry box to show it to me, I thought it was better suited to you than a huge diamond would have been, and I suspected you’d like having a family heirloom.”
“It’s perfect. Just my style.”
“Speaking of style, have you come up with any ideas for a wedding?”
“I’ve thought about it, but nothing seems quite right. If we have it here, then my family has to travel and we’re throwing my mother in among all the magical people, which we really don’t want.” Both of us shuddered at the thought of that. My mother is as immune to magic as I am, but not in on the secret, and she has odd ways of interpreting the strange things she sees. “If we have it back home, our friends and your family have to travel, and my mother takes over the planning.” We shuddered again at the thought of the kind of wedding she’d want for us. Pink, puffy Southern belle bridesmaid dresses would be only the beginning.
“I’d say that a minister and a couple of witnesses would be the ideal solution, but I know that would hurt a lot of feelings.”
“My mother would disown you before you even joined the family. But not in the fun way where you never hear from her again. You’d still have to be around her. You’d just never be allowed to forget how you wronged her. It would be a life sentence.”
Maybe it was the mention of my mother, but I was starting to get that weird itching sensation on the back of my neck that told me I was being watched. Of course, we were in Central Park, with much of the rest of the population of Manhattan, out enjoying the gorgeous fall weather, and I was with a guy good-looking enough to stop traffic, so obviously someone was looking at me. The question was whether we were being watched specifically.
I tried turning halfway around, like I was looking at the statue we’d just passed. There were people behind us on the path, but I didn’t recognize anyone.
“Do you feel like we’re being watched?” I asked Owen softly.
He paused a long moment before answering, his dark blue eyes scanning our surroundings. “Maybe,” he said.
The next time the path intersected another one, we veered off in a new direction. “Is it still there?” Owen asked after a few minutes.
“Actually, I think it’s worse.” Or maybe it was just that thinking about it made me hyperalert and it was all in my head. Given the way my life had gone for the past year or so, being vigilant about my surroundings was second nature. I wouldn’t have been surprised if I started noticing things that weren’t there.
Even worse, I was seeing things that were there, things most of the people in the park probably couldn’t see. Magical creatures tended to love nature and draw power from it, and Central Park was the best location for that in the city. As a result, the place was teeming with people with wings and pointy ears. There were small ones in the grass and underbrush, and tall ones walking around us. Ordinary people probably didn’t see the small ones and saw the large ones as normal human beings.
But if I wasn’t imagining things, there were more magical creatures than usual out today. “Are you seeing more fairies than you’d expect?” I asked Owen softly.
