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She shook her head. “Don’t be daft, Brinna,” she muttered, then scoffed at herself. “There’s no such thing as magic.” Her humming resumed as she continued through the woods.
Brinna. Her name.
Luc stayed with her, following her back to a hedge where she disappeared. When she didn’t reappear, he returned to the woods and Sevens, waiting for days until she did. He followed her to the meeting house of Sevens once more, and when three atrocious men arrived to claim his woodland fairy and her sisters, Luc was saved from making a very selfish mistake when her own father and brother arrived. He ignored the hope of seeing her in the woods again, of hearing her song, reminding himself repeatedly he wasn’t there to watch her. He had a job to do.
Time to move on. As usual. Because that was what Luc did. It was who he was.
So he waited in the woods, and as much as he wanted to see her again, he hoped the next time someone came into the woods, it wouldn’t be her. As if the stars answered his hope, the next human through the woods was one of her sisters. And this one, Luc decided as she walked through the forest with efficient purpose, was perfect.
He offered her dollops of sunshine, and where the woodland fairy sang, this one stopped, skeptical, and looked around. He was safe within his glamor in the shadows, of course, but he had the impression she could see through them. Despite what appeared to be her skepticism, his woodland fairy’s sister ventured forth anyway, following his drops of sunlight in the falling snow, into the magical meadow. When she found the spelled key, she touched it and disappeared into the enchantment, and Luc took a deep breath.
Yes,he decided.This one might break the spell.He had hope, provided Nixus would get out of his own way, and Luc decided that perhaps he needed to visit his brother to push him in the proper direction.
But just before he left Sevens, the woods, and his singing woodland fairy behind, Luc paused, that ever-present tightening around his heart distracting his resolve. He contemplated staying, if only to see her one more time. He imagined running into her, speaking with her, wooing her. But it wouldn’t do. He would ruin a woman like that. He carried too much wanderlust—too much like his father—and he didn’t trust himself with another’s heart. Not a dreamer like her. He couldn’t afford to make another mistake.
With a deep breath, Luc closed his eyes, wishing himself from Sevens toward his next adventure. If he could just fill his meaningless existence with distraction, maybe his heart wouldn’t remind him of the woman who’d written a song in his heart. So he disappeared from Sevens without any intention of ever returning.
Except…
Aurielle Fareview—sister to his woodland fairy—broke the spell, paving the way for Nix to drag Luc back to Sevens despite his resolve to never—and he was adamant, NEVER—to return. Which paved the way for two of the second-greatest mistakes of his life.
Err in Judgement No. 1
“I don’t need to be there,” Luc told his brother. “Father has forbidden me from leaving Sol.”
“What Father doesn’t know won’t hurt him. Besides, he’d leave.”
Luc gave Nix an impatient look.
Nix—though his intentions were good—seemed to think Luc needed to be out and intended to use his magic to transport him and obscure their whereabouts from their father. Luc couldn’t blame his brother for his wanderlust. Nix had been locked up in a spell for ten years, but Roaming to Sevens? This wasn’t wandering or sowing oats or any manner of things one did while Roaming, and Luc would know. He’d done it. Missed it, actually. Nix returning to the same place, the same woman repeatedly was… was… well, Luc didn’t have a word for it, but it was certainly something tragic.
“You know that’s true,” Nix said. “Plus, you can get out for a bit.”
“Me being there doesn’t change a thing. Just come out with it. Why hide that you love her?”
“Auri’s trying to figure out how to share the news with her overbearing mother. She’s been stuck behind an enchanted hedge that hides their cottage. She has to sneak out to see me.”
“Enchanted?” That intrigued him.
Nix’s eyes widened and he wiggled his eyebrows, knowing he’d snagged Luc’s interest. “You should see it.”
It had been on Luc’s tongue to tell Nix to go by himself, but then the memory of his woodland fairy singing in the woods, and his desire to possibly see her just once more, overrode everything else.
“Fine.”
The organic wall was indeed enchanted. While he’d seen it before, he hadn’t studied it, too concerned with finding a key-keeper, but now he could. When he pressed his hands to the hedge, the pulse of magic flowed through his palms, though looking closer, he could see threads like thin wires of light woven through. The shrub was tall—at least twenty feet—and stretched as far as he could see. The magic wasn’t powerful godlight but of a different kind—a spell—like the one he’d cast on Nix.
Luc snatched his hand back and shuddered, wondering why it existed at all.
“How do you find it?” he asked.
“Now, I follow the god-yoke threads I share with her,” Nix said.
Luc frowned at the thought of the god-yoke, then frowned at the involuntary thought of Brinna Fareview. Just another thing he felt guilty about.
The horror of it. He couldn’t fathom being linked to the same person for the rest of his existence. Seemed a ridiculous notion that there was a single soul that would connect to his. He decided it was natural to be unnerved by the idea of a god-yoke, but despite that, he owed Nix’s little mortal Aurielle as much as he owed Nix. She had saved his brother. Saved them all from a demon bent on escape from the underworld. Everyone owed her.
Curious how this connection in conjunction with the spelled hedge worked Luc asked, “And before?”
