Chapter Nineteen

 

“Could you stop wiggling? It’s annoying.”

“My wiggling is more annoying than being tied up and staked out under a bridge?” I didn’t understand my son’s thought process.

We were bound by some sort of invisible rope, back to back, sitting on the frozen ground. It had taken mere seconds for whatever thing had captured us to get us tied up and left under the bridge, probably as a sacrifice to whatever troll would show up first.

“I find the entire thing annoying. Is this what you used to do?” Rhys asked. “I’ve heard some tales of your adventures, and you always made them sound charming. Now I wonder if most of those adventures could have been avoided if you had simply not.”

“Not what?”

“Not done whatever it is you did to piss off every supernatural creature you come in contact with,” my son replied. “Like that frost giant that Dad killed in Faery. Maybe if you hadn’t pissed Dad off you could have gotten in and out very quickly and the giant could have lived.”

Oh, I had not been the problem that day. “Or your father could have listened to me and we wouldn’t have been in the situation in the first place. Tell me something, Rhys. Are you this rude to your fathers? Is it because they’re men and men don’t make the silly mistakes women do?”

He went quiet. “It’s because I’m far more afraid of you than I am of them. I’m sorry. I should have told you that field is a known place for the invisible ones. Are you cold?”

I was still irritated with him. “Yes, I’m cold. I’m sitting on a foot of snow. And I don’t know why you would be afraid of me.”

He went silent. Maybe I didn’t want the answer to that question.

“What are the invisible ones?” I could at least find out something about our captors.

“They prefer the term Hidden Folk,” Rhys said with a sigh. “They’re a group of Fae who exist on a parallel plane. They don’t like it when you hit them. They’ve got a thing about it. It’s a good sign that they didn’t show themselves.”

I disagreed. “I wish they had. I would have liked a word.”

“No, you wouldn’t. Look, Mom, I know this is annoying, but you broke one of their rules, and this is punishment of sorts. Just stay calm and Lee will come looking for us,” Rhys promised.

“Or we can figure a way out of these bindings and leave.” A frustrating day had gotten even worse and everyone was going to blame me, but how was I supposed to know where invisible people were standing?

“Please don’t listen to her,” Rhys said in a calm voice. “She didn’t mean to offend.”

“I didn’t know they were there,” I insisted. “Are they still here?”

“I don’t know. Probably. Maybe.” He went silent for a moment. “I should have told you to be careful out here. I’m sorry. I take it for granted that everyone knows how to behave.”

I could have told him I almost never behaved, but it seemed like that might make things worse. “If they exist on a parallel plane, how did I hit them? And how did they manage to manhandle us because I could totally feel them.”

“In the places where the Hidden Ones exist, think of them as being slightly out of phase with our plane.” Rhys’s voice had taken on an academic tone. “There are many theories as to why. I personally believe that they were Fae who chose not to leave this plane during the great retreat. When humans got to be too much, they used magic to hide from them and got caught in an in-between place. Over the years they’ve figured out how to make themselves corporeal on this side of the veil. So they technically exist in both worlds.”

I didn’t see why they would want to be in both worlds. Like pick a side, people, but I often didn’t understand the hows and whys of what any being does. “So some human accidently hits one of these guys and they get punished?”

“Yeah, but if it had been a human, they wouldn’t have tied up the offender. They would have done something more subtle. Like pushing the poor dude into traffic or tripping him so he fell off a cliff.”

“Are you serious?”

“Like I said, they’re on the vengeful side. It doesn’t happen often,” Rhys admitted. “In this case, they will honor my Fae nature and not attempt to kill us.”

I rather thought he wasn’t thinking big enough. “Baby, you’re a Green Man. You do know you rank pretty high in the world of the Fae, right? Tell them to let us go.”

He went silent again, and I got the feeling we were in for a superlong punishment.

If he wasn’t willing to deal with the situation, then it was time for me to take control. “Hey, Hidden Folk, I’m the goddess of the High Priest of Faery and this is my Green Man son. You want fertility? Let me out. I’m very sorry you got your butt hurt by a snowball, which considering where we are, you should be more used to.”

“Mother, please stop.” It was easy to hear Rhys’s frustration.

“You can’t rule a kingdom if you’re skittish about ordering people around.”

“I don’t intend to rule anything at all, and the longer you talk the longer this will likely take. I pray Lee is smart enough to bring Lily with him or he’ll have to figure out how to deal with invisible rope. I’m fairly certain it’s magical.”

So we were stuck. We were supposed to meet Neil in an hour or so, but I worried I would freeze to death before then.

We sat there in silence for the moment. They’d looped the rope around our torsos so we sat back to back, unable to see each other. I had a lovely view of a half-frozen stream. Slushy ice made its way downriver, and the bridge over our heads was a rickety wooden contraption that no one with any sense would actually try to traverse. I could have told Rhys that my godparents would never have considered it a proper bridge. Maybe back in the 1800s when it had been constructed it had been a luxurious place, but not now. It was a murder bridge.

And I couldn’t even get to my gun. Not that I would have known where to point it. Also, if the grand invisible ones had been upset about a snowball, I can’t imagine what they would do if I shot one of the fuckers.

“I thought silence would be more comfortable, but I was wrong. Now I wonder if you’re plotting.” Rhys managed to make each word an accusation.

My son had a bad impression of me. “I promise, I’ll sit here and freeze to death and then you won’t have to talk to me again.”

His head dropped back slightly, leaning against mine. “I don’t understand what you want. Why did you think throwing a snowball at me would make me… See, I don’t even know what you were trying to do.”

I sighed and wished I could see his face. “When you were young and you would shut down because you couldn’t handle what you were feeling, sometimes your dad would make you hit the punching bag in the gym. You would punch and kick and yell, and it seemed to help you.”

He chuckled. “Yes, I do remember that. But you should understand I don’t do that anymore. I fight enough these days. I don’t need to hit things that don’t hit back.”

I thought he kind of did. Rhys was wound tight, but he didn’t seem willing to admit it. Every word I said seemed to make things worse. “So you’re perfectly fine and don’t need any help from anyone. It would have been easier if we’d never shown back up again.”

“I didn’t say that. I’ve been looking for you for years. It was logical to bring the king back so we can free the supernatural world from the wizard. Through careful studies and much discussion I came to the conclusion that Dad is the only one who can deal with the problem.”

“Not according to the prophecies.” The academics had been studying the prophecies for years. Sasha had whole notebooks of different interpretations, almost all of which led back to Lee and some mysterious other—who we now believed was Dean—to be the ones who could save the plane.

“Lee can’t take out Myrddin on his own. And now I’m even happier we have Dad back since Lee’s turn will be easier with Dad close. King’s blood will calm him and help him find his footing, so to speak. The goddess only knows what would have happen if he’d turned without any of us knowing what was going on. Human Lee can be chaotic. I can’t imagine what he could do as a newly risen vampire.” He paused and then continued in a lower voice. “It was also good to get you and Papa back. I’m sorry it’s been so awkward.”

“It’s going to continue to be if you won’t even allow me to apologize.” We needed to get to the heart of the matter.

“I don’t need an apology. I’m not angry with you.” He bit off every word like he had to make sure he got them all out. “Why should I be? You didn’t make the choice to leave us. I knew that. I wasn’t sure what had happened, but I knew you wouldn’t leave me willingly.”

He’d been so young, and there was no way he’d processed the loss as an adult would. “But I was still gone. You still woke up the next morning without a mother, and you had no idea where I was.”

He was silent again, and I was left listening to the chattering sound of my own teeth.

“I’m sorry about the cold. Lee should be here soon. Somehow he always knows when I’m in trouble.”

“It’s a twins thing. You and Lee were very connected when you were younger.” It was part of why it had hurt Rhys when Lee had started spending more and more time with Kelsey.

“I don’t think Papa and Uncle Declan had it,” Rhys said. “But I do remember being very close to Lee when we were young. It changed when Kelsey came on the scene.”

I had to wonder how much Rhys knew about Lee’s connection to the Nex Apparatus. “You know I named him after my guard, Lee Owens. He was Kelsey’s biological father.”

“Yes, I knew that.”

“Do you remember when Lee got sick and he sounded different? He was young. Maybe ten. There were several days when he acted very weird.”

“When he kept asking for a beer and telling me off for all the things I did?” Rhys sighed. “Yes. I remember and I remember that it was something weird and no one would tell us what was going on.”

We might have mishandled that situation, but at the time it seemed better to tell them Lee was sick. “Sweetie, Lee has old Lee’s soul. I know that sounds odd but a long time ago, I went to Faery and I was pregnant with you. Someone poisoned my drink and the result was I lost the pregnancy that should have resulted in you. Only you. You were what’s called a new soul.”

“Okay, now you sound like a crazy person.”

“Of course I do, but I’m also telling you the truth and you know it. You might not have seen an angel in a long time, but you know they exist and our family has had dealings with them. After I lost that first pregnancy, you were on the Heaven plane and you were given a choice. You could be born to someone else or you could wait for your brother.” Even thinking about that time made me tear up. “You chose to wait. I found out I was pregnant around the time Lee died. And then things got weirder.”

“Really?” Rhys asked. “You’re going to get weirder than knowing my soul before I was born?”

“Yes. I died the day we took over the Council.”

Rhys was silent for a moment as though this wasn’t something he wanted to think about. “You got shot, but Dad brought you back.”

“Technically, he did. The truth is more complicated. When I died I found myself on the Heaven plane and I was given a choice. I had done my job. I was finished and I could stay there or I could go back and have my babies. I saw you that day. I saw you, and Lee was there. He was teaching you how to play cards. Your connection to Lee started long before you were born. But he has a connection to Kelsey that you cannot understand.”

He was quiet for a moment. “So what you’re saying is Lee’s soul recognizes that Kelsey is his daughter. And they didn’t have a relationship when old Lee was alive. His soul has unfinished business with her.”

“I think we meet the same souls over and over again as we move through existence. Kelsey and Lee recognize each other. You are something different. You’ve just started your journey. We’re the first souls yours has ever encountered, and the one you trusted most in all the world left you.”

“You can’t know I trusted you most.”

He wasn’t remembering our circumstances. “Yes, I can because I was with you last week, Rhys. You were eleven and you had a bad day at school and you didn’t want to talk about it. So I watched some anime show with you and you leaned against me and after a while you got tired and laid down with your head on my lap and you finally told me that some of the kids were bullying you. I’m your mom. If I’m not the person you trusted most in the world when you were a child, then I did something terribly wrong.”

He went quiet for a moment. “I remember that day. And if you had gone through my other pack, the one I take with me when we go on missions, well, you would have found the last note you left me. It was in the backpack I had on me when we went on the run. I’ve kept it all these years.”

I had slipped the note into his backpack because they were serving pizza in the cafeteria and he liked to buy lunch on pizza days. “The funny thing is I don’t remember exactly what I wrote. It was something about standing up to them, right?”

“‘I love you and I’m proud to call you my son. You are a prince and a brother. A son and a friend. You have power and you will use it for good.’” He sighed. “It was a lot for an eleven-year-old, but I needed it then. I still do.”

“I never meant to leave you. If I could change it, I would. If I could go back and stay there, I would change everything to stay with you. I would send your dad through and survive these years with you and Lee and Evan.” I sniffled because I meant every word. I would give up that time with Summer, give it to Daniel and Dev not because I didn’t hold it precious, but because my other children had been so young. They’d needed one of us. “I hope Lee gets here soon because my tears are freezing as they come out and it’s uncomfortable.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought you here until I was sure. Though you are the one who pushed the matter. Is it so important you talk to them?”

“I had another reason to look for them. It was important to spend time with you,” I admitted. “I can’t spend time with Evan, and Lee seems to be surprisingly all right. You’re the one who shuts me out. I know I should be patient, but that has never been my strong point.”

“I’m not trying to shut you out, but you have to understand that I’m not a little boy anymore. And I would think you would need to spend more time with Lee. After all, you have a heist to plan with him. I’m surprised you haven’t holed up with Lee and Grandad. They do that from time to time. They go off on fishing trips.”

“And they don’t take you?” That would bug Rhys on several levels. He would be upset that he’d been left out and that Shy was spending time with Lee and not him. Even if it wasn’t really Shy.

“They’ve offered, but I find my relationship with Grandad uncomfortable, to say the least,” Rhys admitted. “I’m attracted to Shy in a way I never have been with another woman. And honestly, Grandad never has known what to do with me. I’m not half the thief Lee is. He always liked those lessons of Grandad’s, and I was happier helping Christine with her garden. I will admit that all those lessons came in handy. Lee is a good thief. He’ll make you proud.”

“He taught Lee because he thought Lee was human.”

“He did that because he saw himself in Lee,” Rhys corrected. “He saw Papa in me. It’s fine. I dealt with the fact that I was on the outside a very long time ago. Lee was the fragile human and Evan was the daughter you always wanted.”

“Rhys, you can’t think that way.”

“I don’t see why not,” he replied. “It’s the truth. Everyone worried about Lee not fitting in and Evan walking around like a glowing ball of light for any vampire to find. I was the easy one to forget because one day I would be given to the Fae.”

Surprise jolted through me. “What? You can’t possibly think that we meant to give you to Faery.”

I felt him shrug behind me. “It’s what my uncle told me. He told me one day I would go with him to Faery and I would like the prince I am there. I believe he thought I would find it comforting, but I had nightmares about it.”

“I will kick your uncle’s ass, and this time I won’t leave his balls on his body, I swear.”

There was a long sigh from my son. “In some ways it made sense. What would I do here on the Earth plane?”

“What you’re doing now. Lead the earthly Fae. They were left behind by the more powerful, and the oldest among them choose a solitary life.” Like my godparents. Ingrid should have been a queen but she’d never wanted to rule. “The Fae seat on the Council was held by your uncle, and he placed no importance on the earthly Fae. They’ve been left behind, truly caught in between worlds, and Frelsi proves they can thrive with a good leader. You can help them. That’s your place if you choose it.”

“I never thought of it that way. I was just helping out.”

I had watched him for days, and I’d seen how the Fae came to him with their problems. They liked Lee, but they deferred to Rhys. “Sometimes it starts that way, but you can’t deny that they look to you. They come to you with their questions and to settle their differences. You could do that on the Council. You could represent them and help them find ways to make their lives better. You could be a real voice for the Fae here, not merely a figurehead who only cares for the Fae in their safe sitheins. The Fae here need a king.”

“What would you know about what the Fae need?” There was suddenly a tall, elegant sidhe standing in front of me. She had long blonde hair and a fierce frown. She stared down at me.

“Like I told you before, I’ve been the goddess of the High Priest of the Fae for years.” The cold was starting to get to me. It wasn’t truly dangerous because I had Daniel’s blood, but it made me uncomfortable.

“The Seelie and Unseelie of the Fae planes mean nothing to us,” she replied. “They left us long ago.”

“My son was born on the Earth plane, and he never plans to live in Faery. He values the Fae here. He helped found a whole city of Fae,” I announced like he’d come home with an excellent report card.

“He doesn’t leave it often. You know there are more of us here,” she said.

“It’s dangerous for him to leave. I don’t know if you’ve heard but there’s a war on this plane.” I had no idea how much the Hidden Folk kept up with Earth plane events.

“What good is a leader if he’s in hiding?” That deep voice had not come from the female. I really hated not being able to see. “You call yourself a Green Man, but it’s a boy I see in front of me. He can’t even protect his family.”

“Well, I rather thought I was being politic,” Rhys said, and I could hear the tension in his voice. “I was trying to honor your traditions.”

“One of our traditions is strength, boy,” the male returned with a derisive snort. “You have none, Green Man. I’ve listened to you whine to your mother. She’s got more fire than you. And if you thought for a second we were leaving you here as some inconvenience, let me assure you no one insults me without consequences.”

“Magnus, perhaps we should rethink. I have heard of this female, and she does have power.” The female had turned her frown to the man who was standing behind me. “You know we could use a true Green Man. His father is one. He’s been gone for over a decade.”

“Then his father should have trained him better. Ah, there’s justice coming,” the masculine voice said.

I felt the earth rumble under me.

“What was that?” I asked.

The Hidden Folk were gone, vanishing like a shadow in the gloom.

Rhys shushed me and then his voice went low. “Be quiet and maybe it will pass us by.”

“What will pass us by?” I whispered the question.

“Mom, we’re in a place covered in Fae, and they set us under a bridge. What do you think is coming?”

I heard a rattling sound, and then a low growl filled the air around me.

“Sweet meats. Someone has left me some delicious treats.”

“What is it? We should turn around so I can see.” Whatever was coming for us was coming from the wrong side. Although, might I point out that I didn’t need to actually see it to know it was going to be bad. In the supernatural world, when one gets called a delicious treat by anyone who you’re not in a relationship with, the best advice is to run. Because it probably is going to eat you in a non-erotic fashion. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to run because of the freaking invisible rope that bound me to Rhys.

“Mother, I am not turning us around so you can see the incredibly large troll that is coming to eat us.”

That was what I was afraid of. I was even more pissed at the Hidden Assholes. “Really? I mistakenly hit you with a snowball meant to unleash some of my son’s reasonable anger at me and you try to feed us to trolls?”

“If your boy is who he says he is, he’ll get you out of it. If he isn’t, then he’s only good for troll meat.” The male’s voice whispered across my ears.

“Rhys, I think you should do something.” It was one thing to get super cold, but I wasn’t about to be eaten by a troll. I had things to do, and I couldn’t save the world from the inside of a troll’s belly.

“Do what?” Rhys asked, clearly exasperated.

“I don’t know. This is the point where your father would use plants as a weapon or something.” Dev would already have us out of the rope and he would be trying to use it on me in some weird sex way.

I caught the scent of really righteous BO and knew this particular troll didn’t keep up the fastidious grooming routine some did.

“You can handle this, Green Man.” The female’s voice was quiet as though she had moved and was now closer to Rhys than to me. “My partner has what the humans would call a short fuse. He’s stubborn, too, or we would be having this conversation in a civilized manner. I can sense your power. I believe your mother is correct, and you could be all she says you are. The Hidden Ones need help. We’ve been apart from our fellow Fae for so long we cannot connect anymore. We cling to shadows and old grudges, and it is killing us. But they will not listen to you until you prove yourself. So I will step away. You will live and be our hope, or you will die and we will know there is none.”

There was something desperate and plaintive in her plea. Something that made my heart ache because I’d heard that plea before. I’d heard it in the leaders who were trying to save their people—even from themselves.

“You look tasty.”

I turned my head enough to get a look-see at the troll who was planning to make us a snack. “I’m not. I think you’ll find I’m very gamey.”

“Mother,” Rhys hissed.

“Lee isn’t coming, baby. I need you to be ready to run if we can get out of this rope.” My adrenaline was up. It pulsed through my body and reminded me that I could get out of this. I could save Rhys, and maybe if I was fast enough I could save myself, too.

“Or you can unleash all that power,” the Hidden One said. “I can feel it. Why are you so afraid? Are you so afraid you will let yourself die, Green Man?”

I was starting to panic because Rhys truly was afraid of his power. He was terrified of it, of what it could do, of what it could cost him. “I did it. I hit your asshole husband or whatever he is. Rhys did nothing. I want a judgment. You have rules? Well, then you have to have justice, and killing my son isn’t justice. I demand a trial.”

It had worked for me before. If they took me to some weird hidden realm to be judged, I would go with them. I would trust that Danny and Dev would find a way to get me out if I couldn’t do it myself. The one thing I couldn’t do was watch some troll take my son’s life.

I planted my feet in the snow and started to push against Rhys, trying to move so I was in front of the troll.

“You want a piece of me?” I yelled the troll’s way. I was ready to kick and bite and fight. Anything to give my son time to get away.

And then the ropes came off and I felt a wave of warmth, a strong wind that blew the cap off my head. The snow beneath us melted and grass sprang under me. The strong body that had balanced me shifted, and I was on my back in the grass. It was a silky carpet beneath me.

I looked up and Rhys stood over me, reaching out his hand. His hair had come undone, flowing dark and long around his shoulders, and his eyes bled to green. Like his father’s, but not the same shade. Dev’s eyes were emerald, and Rhys’s had become a bright shade, like someone had taken green and mixed light blue in. Like spring was there in his eyes.

I had witnessed a Green Man come into his full power. Rhys didn’t have to ascend. He didn’t need an ancient god to give him power. He held it all within himself.

“You are a menace, Mom.” The sound of his voice reminded me that this was still my son.

“Am not.” I took his hand and allowed him to haul me up. I looked around and saw the extent of his power. “Oh, Rhys, it’s beautiful.”

All around us spring had come, pushing out the winter’s gloom. It was as though someone had put a dome over the valley we were in and locked out the cold. Trees had sprung where there had been none before, and there were swaths of white and purple flowers.

“Uhm, I would like to point out that I wasn’t actually going to eat anyone,” a far more cultured voice said. The troll suddenly didn’t sound so savage. “I have a deal with the Hidden Folk. I help them with their system of justice and they help keep the humans away from my bridge. I’m actually a vegetarian.”

I glanced to my right, and the troll who’d called me a sweet meat was wrapped in thick vines, his head the only part of him visible. “Sure you are.”

“No, I truly am, Your Grace. Had I known who they were asking me to frighten, I would have explained that Her Grace, Queen Zoey, cannot be frightened by such a little thing as a troll. And good day to you, Prince of Spring. You seem to have finally come into your powers.”

I stood in front of the troll, hands on my hips. He was at least five nine, with a roughhewn face and a head of scraggly hair. “Oh, you are not complimenting your way out of this, mister.”

“He’s not lying.” The female was corporeal again, her legs tied up in long threads of grass. “He’s there to scare people away from our field, and we try to do the same for his bridge. The humans have many meetings about demolishing the only home he’s ever known. We persuade them not to. We whisper to them at night and seed doubt or convince them to forget this place exists. He would not have truly eaten you. Like I said, my mate is a stubborn male, and you pricked his pride.”

“Well, he needs therapy,” I announced. It had done wonders for Danny.

“What we need is the spring,” she replied. If she was upset she’d been trapped by grass, she didn’t show it. “Green Man, my name is Asta and my husband and I lead this tribe. We’ve been pushed to these fields, and they are fallow, my lord. We are starving and sorely in need of your help. I beg you to look past your anger with us and see that we are Fae, too. We are yours, too.”

My son stood at my side as we saw what we hadn’t before. The Hidden Ones shimmered to life before us—all thin and hollow. The shadows they pretended to be had become the truth of their existence.

I saw mostly adults, with a few children clinging to the hands of their weary parents.

“Sweetie, I’m afraid you can’t take out your vengeance on them. No matter how much you want to,” I said quietly.

“And there is the mother I remember.” He stepped in front of me, a flick of his hand releasing both troll and sidhe. He turned toward Asta. “If I do this, the Hidden Folk must change. I understand the old ways taught us to torment humans, that it was our right to play with them because they are mortal, but that stops now.”

“And you can’t like stand by a person’s bed while they sleep and whisper to them,” I added. “It’s creepy and weird.”

“But then they will take my bridge,” the troll lamented, fat tears welling in his eyes.

“I will handle it,” Rhys promised. “The only thing my father grows better than plants is money, and you will find the humans understand that particular language well. If I grant you fruitful fields, how will you hide them from the humans?”

A big old field of spring crops in a place that didn’t normally grow much more than moss would probably cause someone to have questions.

“We can hide our fields the way we do our homes.” Asta’s words held a note of hope.

“And you may punish me in any way you see fit, Green Man.” Magnus moved to stand beside his mate. He got down to one knee. “I will take the punishment in exchange for food for my people, for that place at the table your mother spoke of. We have been voiceless for eons. My death will be a good exchange.”

I groaned. “Do you people know what a drama llama is?”

Rhys’s seafoam eyes narrowed. “There is a reason you do not deal with politics.”

I shrugged because truth matters. I preferred to shoot things. Especially when I could see them.

“Until now I have not used my power because I’ve always been afraid of it. I worry if I use it, it will overtake me and I’ll be further from everything I love,” Rhys explained. “But my mother was right many years ago, and she’s right today. I have power and if I choose not to use it for good, then who am I?”

Rhys leaned over and touched the ground, whispering something in Gaelic, and then he bent down and breathed over the dirt. Crops sprang up around us, crops and arbors of fruit trees. Warm winds shifted through what had once been cold and icy. Spring washed over the fallow fields, bringing life and hope.

“This is my gift to you, Hidden Ones,” Rhys said, his tone steady and deep. “I give it to you willingly and with no request but to live in our world and follow our laws. You cannot hide from the world and then punish it when it accidently touches you. I do ask that you send a representative to Frelsi so we might open talks about how to best be allies, but make no mistake. You are earthbound Fae and I am your Green Man. I am walking spring.”

They surrounded him like he was a messiah, and to them I supposed he was. To the Fae my son was a god of sorts, but I remembered when he was a child who wanted his brother to play with him, who clung to me when the world seemed unfair.

He’d stepped into his power when he needed to, when to not step into it would have been an act of selfishness he wasn’t capable of.

“Hey! Rhys? Mom!”

I turned and Lee was standing at the edge of the field, and I realized the Hidden Ones had already proven they could keep their secrets from the world. Lee couldn’t see us. Shy stood there with him, looking over what I suspected seemed to be a snowy, empty field. There was a look of pure fear on her face as she tried to figure out where we were.

I strode over to them, unwilling to leave them on the outside. I had to hope physical connection would pull them in. I reached out and grabbed their arms, pulling them close.

“Hey!” Lee yelled, and then his expression changed. “Mom. Whoa. What the hell? Where did all those people come from?”

“The Hidden Ones,” Shy said. “They showed themselves to Rhys? And he did this? Oh, it’s beautiful.”

Flowers popped up around Shy’s feet, making a circle around her. One sprouted up to the level of her hand, offering itself to her.

Rhys stared at her across the field, nodding her way as though acknowledging that she was here.

I watched the moment my son fell hopelessly in love with a woman, when he found his goddess.

“I think I want to vomit,” Lee said. “I do not get the romantic stuff.”

I pointed his way. “Don’t you tease your brother.”

“I won’t now. Now he can like shove a tree up my ass,” Lee countered. “I’ll probably be way more polite to him from here on out, but the flower stuff is gross. So how did you manage to get Rhys to loosen up and unleash the god within?”

“You know how it goes. We had a nice talk, almost got eaten by a troll, and then your brother became walking spring.”

All in all just another day in the life of a mom.

I stood in the warmth of spring, hidden from the world, and wondered if our new allies couldn’t help with my problem, too. After all, they breached space. Could they do the same for time? The celebration went on around us, but I was stuck with a world of questions.