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“Eternally yours,” he swore. “I’ve waited years to be able to call myself the luckiest person in either world, Geneviève Crowe.”
“I was oblivious so long. I’m glad you thought I was worth the wait.”
Friends laughed, but the truth was that we were here because he had the patience to let spark build to friendship build to love. I mean, there were some faery bargains along the way to make me not run screaming into the night. I had always had the sort of commitment fears that bordered on pathological. It took fae patience to get us to this place.
“My heart, my hearth, and my hand are yours, Geneviève Crowe. Unto death I shall live and fight at your side. And in us, the future of my family is bound.” Eli stared into my eyes as if we were the only people here. “It is my privilege to love you, and my great joy to be loved by you.”
“My heart, my hearth, and hand are yours, Eli of Stonecroft. Not even death could tear me from your side.” I swallowed the fear of a world separated from him. Now that we were together, I would never let go. Then I smiled and swore, “I love you and will be honored to be mother to your child one day, partner on the throne ofElphame,and the sword at your side.”
Then Eli gave me a wicked smile. “I accept your faery bargain, Geneviève of Crowe and Stonecroft. Your terms are acceptable to me.”
I laughed at his going off script. “So mote it be, Eli ofCroweand Stonecroft.”
Beatrice shook her head at our impromptu modification and then asked, “Do you take this person to be your spouse, your partner, your equal in all ways?”
“Unto death,” Eli said.
“Unto death,” I echoed.
“By the powers granted me by familial law, as well as my court and kin, I pronounce you wed.” Then she swept her arms open and stated, “May I present Geneviève and Eli of Crowe and Stonecroft.”
1
GENEVIÈVE
Three months later
“I have had worse students, Hexen,”Ignatius Blackwood, formerly dead Hexen Master and acolyte of Baron Samedi--loa of the dead--stared at me from the other side of my training room in the apartment that was mine pre-marriage.
We were at an uneasy peace that was dangerously close to friendship. I had reluctantly grown fond of Iggy, and even kidnapping hadn’t changed that entirely.
“I’m notthatbad,” I grumbled at his faint praise. If I hadn’t been so capable, I’d have been dead a dozen times over by now. The problem, unfortunately, was that Chester, the alchemist who had once killed IggyandBeatrice, was not too keen on my tendency to accumulate power, and Chester tended to kill those he found threatening.
Iggy’s interest in me, on the other hand, was the same sort that a lepidopterist had toward butterflies. I was a curiosity, and he collected curious things. Treasures were his interest. Whereas Chester wanted to eliminate the anomalies, Iggy wanted to collect them. It was no wonder the two men were at odds.
Chester was greedy for knowledge and power, and Iggy was a witch—a hexen—who had crossed Chester in the 1800s. I wasn’t sure how or why, but Iggy had been murdered by Chester.
The formerly dead Victorian man wasn’t sharing details, but I had inferred that his death was violent and painful.
All I knew for certain was that when I met Iggy, he was clad in his death garb—vintage 1800s suit, elegant ring and watch, and an ebony walking stick. Unlike most dead folk, he’d stayed after I tried to send him back to the grave. Then, through a mix of my magic and Iggy’s treachery, he was brought back to life.
Now I was on Chester’s radar, and I suspected Iggy was, too. So Iggy was determined to protect me even if it was against my will—to the point of kidnapping me—and when that had failed, he’d become adamant that he’d train me.
These days, Iggy looked a lot closer to my age, and tended toward designer trousers and shirts that revealed a set of muscles that were out of place with his age at death. Whatever magic it took for him to be able to do so, I could admit that he moved and looked a decade younger.
The new physiquealsomeant he could best me in physical fights. So we’d added that to our training. I taught him martial arts, and he taught me a few dirty street fighting tricks.
So I was in witchy boot camp these days.
Six fight dummies were positioned around the room, and just as many illusory versions of Iggy were scattered among them. Through some mix of magic and genetics, six Iggys grinned at me, looking like a flock of a well-dressed, fit, young pirates.
His next hex, from one of the six versions of him, landed me on the ground with legs akimbo and pride wounded. I tried to laugh it off, but my favorite jeans were now . . . ventilated, and I’d pulled a muscle in a place I was not going to massage in front of anyone but my husband. “I didn’t know I could still do a split.”
Iggy wasthe best Hexen I’d ever met.
Ergo, my current awkward state: sprawled like a drunken giraffe trying to decidewhichIggy was the real one. His duplicates moved independently. If I could find therealIggy, I could attack him and erase the illusions.
“Do you think Chester will be amused by your quips?” the Iggy on the far left asked.
