The next morning I woke slowly, stretching out in an unfamiliar bed. My fingers brushed up against something warm and solid, and I smiled as I fought off a yawn. Devlin shifted next to me, then flung an arm out and pulled me closer. I laughed and made no effort to resist him.
“Did you sleep well?” he murmured into my ear.
I shifted around so I could face him, then gave him a kiss.
“Yes,” I answered dreamily, biting my bottom lip before adding, “and do I owe you any more favors?”
“Oh no,” he responded, scooting forward, so he could prop his elbow against the pillow. “I do believe you are all paid up.”
He regarded me with clear blue eyes, slowly studying my face and every other part of me not covered by the bed sheet. Some tiny fragment of the worry I’d harbored the day before must have shown on my face, because Devlin’s relaxed expression tightened ever so slightly. He reached out with his free hand and brushed a loose strand of hair behind my ear.
“Meghan and Cade will be fine, you know that, right?” he asked quietly.
I turned my eyes toward the windows. Through the glass, the jagged outline of the canyon barely stood out against a sky filled with charcoal-tainted clouds.
Heaving a great sigh, I admitted, “Yes, I know. I’m just a little worried, not a feeling I’m too accustomed to.” I laughed a little. “Tully was always the sensible one, Meghan the timid one and me, well, I have always been the one to jump through the flames even after someone’s doused me with gasoline.”
Devlin leaned forward and kissed me on the top of the head. “And that is what I love so much about you. You don’t back down, Robyn Dunbarre.”
He fell back a little, and the glimmer in his eyes faded ever so slightly. “Worrying about your friend doesn’t make you weak. It simply means you care.”
“I know,” I said, “but since she was the one to destroy the Morrigan, she’s probably more of a target than anyone else.”
Devlin considered my words, then nodded. “That’s true, but she has Cade, and she has you as her friend. As well as many others. She has earned respect from the Tuatha De and the other people of Eile. She is not without allies. And,” he added with a soft smile, “from the stories I’ve heard, she’s much stronger than you give her credit for.”
I snorted. “If you had known Meghan all throughout high school, you would also have a hard time imagining her as a fierce wielder of powerful glamour.”
“The same could be said for you, caelihn,” Devlin teased, tapping the tip of my nose with his index finger. “At first glance, the people of the Otherworld are bound to underestimate you. Fortunately, I know better.”
After scrunching up my face and giving him a sharp look, I scooted forward and wrapped my arms around him. All joking aside, Meghan, and even Cade, appeared far too frazzled for a young married couple. They had too much on their plates, and I let Devlin know it.
“I hope that despite whatever awaits us in the Amsihr Mountains,” I stated, “we’ll be able to help Cade and Meghan, and everyone in Eile for that matter, in the long run. I’m not sure what exactly is going on here in Eile, but it must be pretty bad if it has started spilling over into the mortal world.”
I thought of the fall and winter months I had spent avoiding the Daramorr and his sister and shuddered a little. Yes, if I thought those two were bad, surely the dark magic plaguing Eile was worse.
Devlin didn’t respond to my comments. He simply stroked his hand up and down my bare back, sending warm sensations of comfort through me.
We stayed in bed a half an hour longer, luxuriating in the warmth of the blankets and the relaxation of knowing the chores that usually demanded our attention in the Weald would not be bothering us here. Eventually, we crawled out of bed and made our way down to the entrance hall. Meghan was downstairs already, but Cade was nowhere in sight. A handful of the castle staff bustled about, all of them busy transferring various goods from one room to another, or carrying baskets of linen towels down the hallway. Weak, grey light flooded in through the tall windows, and both hearths beneath the north and south towers were lit and belching heat like two snoozing dragons.
“Oh, good, you’re up!” Meghan called out to Devlin and me.
She ushered us over with her hand. “I had wanted to show you more of the small village Cade has insisted on constructing on the other side of the hill, but I have no desire to go outside today, and you two took your time getting up this morning.”
Meghan gave us both a knowing look and I felt my cheeks warm a little. Ha! Look at me, blushing beneath the radiation of her scrutiny. I remembered a time when it was I who made Meghan flush when snooping around for details about Cade. Oh, how the times have changed!
“It was my fault, Meghan,” Devlin said without a scrap of shame in his voice. “I ran her ragged on the journey here to Luathara, then kept her up far too late last night paying back a debt she owed me. She needed much rest after such a marathon of vigorous activity.”
I felt my eyes widen in surprise and saw my own shock reflected on Meghan’s face. I whipped my head around to glare at Devlin, only to find his eyes gleaming with mischief. I narrowed my own gaze, warning him with a look that stated he would pay for that remark.
Behind me, Meghan snorted. When I faced her once again, her hand was pressed to her mouth and her shoulders were shaking.
“I had no idea,” she managed, “that anyone could ever top your knack for making inappropriate, suggestive remarks, Robyn! I do believe you’ve met your match.”
I crossed my arms and pressed my molars together. Oh, they thought they were funny, did they?
Devlin only continued to smile, and eventually, Meghan got control of her laughter. “I have no problem with you two sleeping in, if that’s what you really were doing. This is supposed to be your vacation, after all.”
When I met her smiling eyes with a dry, unamused look, she continued, “Cade is in his study, Devlin, if you’d like to join him. He’s going over some of the ongoing construction plans with Briant.” Meghan rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “I swear, if we ever get this castle completely restored, it will be a miracle.”
Devlin nodded to both of us, giving me a little smile, then headed for the hallway.
“Second to last door on the right!” Meghan called after him, then she turned to me, her teeth clamping down on the corner of her bottom lip. Apparently, she was still amused by Devlin’s comment.
Go ahead, I thought, hit me with your best shot.
Meghan must have picked up on my slightly disgruntled mood, because she simply cleared her throat and proclaimed, “So, what would you like to do today?”
I shrugged. “Whatever you have planned sounds good to me.”
Meghan glanced past me at the door to her study. “I was going to wait until you and Devlin were gone before I started organizing my study, but if you want to help...”
She let her sentence trail off. I grabbed her arm and pulled her toward the room. “That actually sounds better than sitting around, sipping tea and watching the clouds roll by.”
Meghan laughed. “And maybe it will give us time to catch up a little more. We didn’t really get a chance last night. Besides,” she added as she fumbled for the key to the small study, “I’m sure there are some things we’d like to discuss without the men hovering.”
Her eyes lit up, and I was beginning to wonder what had put her in such a good mood this morning. Perhaps Devlin and I weren’t the only ones who’d stayed up far later than we should have the night before.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, Meghan and I had managed to clear out a spot on the floor of her study and were currently sorting through the several stacks of documents piled up on the desk and clogging the bench in front of the bay window. Birgit and her younger sisters, Oriana and Wynne, had dropped in to check on us. They had brought several trash bins, as well as a tray with tea and finger sandwiches with them. Niall had also poked his head into the small room, surprise lighting up his brown eyes when he found us sitting on the floor.
“What are you doing in here?”
Meghan dropped the folder she had been rifling through and huffed a great breath of exasperation as she turned her eyes toward the ceiling.
“Niall,” she said sharply, “you are as bad as Robyn! The entire castle doesn’t need to know what I’m doing every minute of every day.”
His eyes widened even further. “Sorry. I can’t help it, you know,” he said defensively.
Meghan just glared at him, but Niall’s lingering look of innocence easily crumbled her defenses. “Fine!” she said in defeat. “If you must know, Robyn has agreed to help tidy up this room a little.”
Niall murmured something that sounded suspiciously like, “About time,” but dropped his eyes the moment Meghan flashed him an accusing glare.
“Can I help?” he asked quickly, most likely hoping to make amends for his remark.
Meghan took a breath to respond, then stopped to consider. “Actually, do you think you could fetch some of the other boys to clean out the fireplace and check the chimney? It’s freezing in here, and a fire would be most welcome.”
He beamed, ducked his head and disappeared.
“So,” I said, picking up a folder similar to the one Meghan had just set down. It looked like it was from the mortal world, not Eile. Clearing my throat, I continued, “What is all this junk, anyway?”
Meghan flinched ever so slightly. “All the stuff from my room back in Arroyo Grande.”
I gave her a disbelieving look, and she shrugged.
“Mom said Logan and Bradley were getting too old to share a room, and since mine was just sitting there, empty, they might as well make use of it.”
“Apparently, it wasn’t as empty as she might have thought,” I said dryly, waving my hand around.
Meghan flushed a little. “Nope.”
“Why didn’t you just throw all this away?”
She gasped in mock outrage. “Are you mad? This is an accumulation of eighteen years’ worth of memories! I couldn’t just throw it away!”
“Oh, really?” I countered, holding up a faded poster of some neon cartoon character that had been very popular when we were five. “This is worth holding onto?”
Meghan’s brow creased, then she smiled and shook her head. “I didn’t say every last piece in here is worth holding onto, but I would like to go through it and keep what matters.”
“So, I can chuck Crazy Eyes here?”
I flapped the dusty poster in front of her, and Meghan gave me the thumbs up. With far more pleasure than I’d like to admit, I crumpled the poster into a tight ball and threw it into the closest waste bin.
For the next few hours, we continued with our work. I ended up making two piles. One was for the stuff I thought for sure Meghan would want to throw out, the other for the items she should go through. Niall returned during that time with two other boys, one older, one younger, to check out the fireplace. Once they had removed the charred logs and swept up the soot (depositing a great deal of it onto the floor), they spent another several minutes inspecting the chimney. Finally, they declared it clear of any obstructions and got a new fire lit.
When I could finally see patches of the floor showing through the rubble, I drew in a deep breath and said, “So, do tell me what it’s like being a Fae princess married to Eile’s bad boy.”
Meghan, who had been rifling through a stack of open envelopes, froze and fixed a sharp glance in my direction. I grinned broadly, showing all my teeth, and proceeded to drag a dusty cardboard box toward me.
“Eile’s bad boy?” my friend countered, her voice tinged with just a hint of derision.
“Yeah,” I shrugged. “I mean, he does give off that vibe.”
I peeled open the box, trying my best not to send a cloud of dust into the air, and discovered several scrapbooks inside. I picked one up and started flipping the pages.
“Cade is not a ‘bad boy’,” Meghan insisted.
Photographs of Meghan and her family decorated the pages, bringing to mind the weekends we used to spend in her basement room with Tully, watching our favorite movies and putting together these dumb scrapbooks. Except, now they didn’t seem so dumb, especially since it was a life both Meghan and I had left behind. These were the precious memories worth holding onto.
Taking another deep breath, I added the scrapbook to the ‘Save’ pile and reached for the next one.
“Going off of what I already know about him,” I drawled, getting back to our conversation, “and from what Devlin has told me, he meets all the criteria. All he needs is a pair of black leather pants with a matching jacket, some dark sunglasses and a five o’clock shadow.”
Meghan dropped the pile of envelopes she’d gathered together and stared at me.
I gave her a wary look. Her changeable eyes were narrowed, and she’d turned her focus onto me, forgetting the envelopes. Huh. For some reason or another, she didn’t like my title for her husband. Time to find out why.
I shrugged. “What? It’s true. He already has tattoos, owns a classic Trans Am and hunts monsters with a big sword. He’s also got the whole dark and mysterious thing going on.”
“Devlin has tattoos,” Meghan pointed out. “And piercings.”
I grinned wickedly. “I know. He’s a bad boy, too.”
Meghan rolled her eyes.
“Why does it bother you so much?” I asked, reaching for a third scrapbook.
My friend heaved a great sigh and turned back to her envelopes. Her posture suggested she had decided to give in to my pestering, but there was also a tightness about her shoulders she couldn’t seem to shake. I perked up. Meghan had always gotten this way in high school when one of us, usually me or Tully, managed to pry open a door on some secret she was trying to keep from us. Meghan was about to tell me something, and I had a feeling it was going to be big.
“Robyn, when I wrote those letters to you, Tully and the boys after the battle with the Morrigan, there was something I didn’t tell you.”
She looked up at me then, her mouth drawn tight, her eyes darkening to some color between blue and green. Intrigued, I shoved aside my box of scrapbooks and folded my legs in front of me, resting my elbows on my knees and propping my hands beneath my chin. I imagined I resembled a young child in a classroom, eager and intent on hearing a story from her teacher.
Meghan took one look at me, and I could tell by the way her eyebrows drew together that she was already regretting what she was about to divulge. Oh well. Too late to back down now. If she tried, I’d just keep bugging her. It was one thing for me to be mildly curious and then told to back off, but quite another for her to dangle the bait in front of me and then decide she didn’t feel like fishing after all. In those situations, I was like a barracuda, more than willing to leap onto the boat to get the morsel I’d been tempted with. Was I afraid of landing in the fisherman’s net? Nah. If I did, I’d just use my nice, long, pointy teeth to get away.
My friend turned her head to regard the grey sunlight spilling through the grimy window overlooking the garden. Clearly, she was unsure of how to begin. Go ahead, I thought at her, take your time. I am patient.
Finally, she turned back to face me and said, “There is something about Cade you don’t know. A reason why he has all those characteristics that would make you view him as a bad boy.”
She paused, and I waved a hand, “Go on.”
She gave me a terse look, and I simply smiled and batted my eyelashes.
Meghan scrunched up her nose. “I’m not saying you are wrong with your observations, but being a bad boy in Eile isn’t just about the vibe someone gives off. It goes deeper than that. In the mortal world, it means you are the tall, dark and slightly dangerous guy most of the girls go for. Back at home, if Cade had gone to Black Lake High, he’d have had an entire flock of girls drooling after him.”
I quirked my lips and nodded. Couldn’t argue with her there.
“But here in Eile,” she continued, “those characteristics have made Cade an outcast his entire life. There is a term for what he was, before he married me. People here called him Ehriad. It is someone who is an outsider, a wandering warrior with no family and no ties. Cade had his sister and foster father, but it wasn’t enough to take away his Ehriad status.”
Meghan paused to collect her thoughts. I furrowed my brow and prompted, “Why was he an outcast?”
I had only met Cade a few times, and although I thought he still had an aura of trouble surrounding him, I couldn’t imagine him being a complete outcast.
“Because,” Meghan said carefully, “of who his mother was.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Who his mother was? She’s dead?”
I knew nothing about Cade’s parents. I’d never thought to ask. Guess I was going to find out.
Meghan gave a wry smile, then looked me in the eyes. “Yes. She’s dead. For now.”
I sat up from my relaxed position and gazed at my friend as if she’d sprouted horns. “For now?” I repeated with a pinch of cynicism. “What, is she going to come back to life? Is she some sort of goddess or something?”
This time, Meghan’s smile was cold, her eyes haunted. “Yes, as a matter of fact she is. And someday, she will come back to life.”
I stared at her, the prickling sensation of realization dawning upon me. A dead goddess who, although defeated, could never truly be destroyed. No. Way. In a slightly raspy voice, I demanded, “Who?”
“The Morrigan.”
Even though I had known the answer before Meghan spoke it, the acknowledgment hit me in the face like a bucket of ice water. I drew in a shocked breath and gaped at my friend in slight horror.
“No freaking way!” I hissed.
The Morrigan, the goddess I had once revered, and later despised for her role in making my friend’s life a living hell, was Meghan’s mother-in-law? Or, had been her mother-in-law? That must have made her relationship with Cade pretty complicated.
A million questions swam through my head, but the one that surfaced above all the others was, “Have you always known?”
Meghan shook her head. “Remember the night I missed senior prom?”
I nodded. Oh yeah, I remembered. She had asked me to cover for her, and when she and Cade disappeared without a trace, my parents had come down hard on me. I didn’t blame them. I was pretty ticked at her myself. Not only had she dragged me into trouble as well, but I had been terrified something had happened to her. When she finally did show up, after missing for two days, Meghan had fed me some excuse about losing track of time and not being able to get into contact with us.
“That’s when I found out. Cade and I had been at the Dagda’s for a party when we received word the Morrigan was planning on crossing through the dolmarehn to hurt my family. We raced back to Luathara only to realize she had set a trap for us. That’s when the truth had come out, the truth about how she was related to Cade and how she had treated him like a slave since his birth. On top of everything else, that was the day my glamour finally decided to wake up,” she said, her voice slightly rough. “That’s why I didn’t return home right away. It knocked me out.”
Meghan stopped speaking and turned a shade paler, her eyes doing the same. As much as I wanted to press her for details, I held off. Clearly, something awful had happened that night
“Anyhow,” Meghan continued after taking a breath, “that’s why Cade is an outcast, or at least why he was. Even now, despite all we did to defeat the Morrigan, some people in my mother’s court still do not trust or like Cade. Danua discouraged our relationship at first, but she has since warmed up to him.”
Once the initial shock of learning Cade was related to the Morrigan wore off, I cleared my throat, eager to apologize for enticing Meghan into spilling her soul. It never occurred to me that my prying could cause hard feelings until after the damage was already done. My curiosity could be such a jerk sometimes.
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t realize calling Cade a bad boy would stir up such awful memories.” I took a breath and shrugged my shoulders, smiling a little. “But I’m glad you told me. I had no idea how bad it was for you. You always brushed us off, and I just assumed it was guy problems. Now I see why you didn’t include all of this in your letter.”
Meghan snorted. “I didn’t want to worry you all, so I left out all the nasty details.”
For a few moments, we let the silence stretch between us. The faint whisper of flames dancing over the logs in the fireplace, and the gentle patter of the rain that had finally started to fall, soothed our frayed nerves.
“Other than dealing with the lingering contempt of a select group of my mother’s courtiers, and all the nasty things the Morrigan’s flunkies have thrown at us since her death,” Meghan finally said, “married life with my bad boy has been wonderful.”
I looked up at her only to catch a dreamy smile plastered on her face. I chuckled, well, snorted would be a better term. Meghan giggled along with me, and then told me all about Cade’s many qualities and how he was constantly doing things to please her.
“The twigrins were a gift for defeating the Morrigan,” she informed me. “He remembered how much I liked them during our trips through the Weald, so he gathered up a small family of them and moved them to the alcove where they now live.”
“I still can’t believe I’ve never seen them before,” I admitted. “Maybe the noise of the Wildren keeps them away from the village.”
“Ah yes, you live in the Weald now,” Meghan said, drawing her knees up to her chest and giving me a bright smile. “Still trying to wrap my head around that. You know, before your letter arrived, I had no idea you had visited the Otherworld. I took it to read on the balcony and must have made some sound of shock, because Cade came running out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel, his eyes wild. He thought I had either fallen from the ledge or that I was being attacked by something. I felt pretty bad about it.”
I snickered. “I’m sure you don’t regret seeing him in a towel, though.”
Meghan gave me a half-lidded glance and shook her head, a small smile creeping onto her face. “Nope. Didn’t regret that part. Once I had assured him I wasn’t dying, I read the letter out loud. That’s when he told me about Devlin and the role he played in helping him and Enorah with some monster a while back. Anyway,” she huffed, “tell me more about living with the wild children of Eile.”
For the next half hour, I told Meghan all about my settling in with the Wildren, everything from describing the cabin Devlin and I shared, to my training in self-defense and fighting and how I had taken naturally to the crossbow. When she asked about Enorah, I told her she had left shortly before our own departure to answer a summons from Danua. Upon hearing the news, my friend sat up a bit straighter.
“What sort of a summons?” she wondered aloud.
I shrugged. “I have no idea. She simply said that the high queen had requested an audience with her, and she needed to travel to Erintara as soon as possible.”
Meghan turned her head and glanced at the fire, her mouth screwed up in thought.
I waited patiently, hoping Meghan would start to shed some light on the finer details of what had been happening in the Otherworld of late. At this point, all I knew was that she and Cade were helping her mother deal with the aftermath of the Morrigan’s downfall.
My friend let out a breath and shrugged. “Oh, well. I’m sure Danua will tell us if it’s something important.”
I wondered if by ‘us’, she meant Devlin and me as well as her and Cade. Meghan tilted her head from side to side and then rolled her shoulders, chasing away whatever tension had been building up. I would have liked to grill her more about the role she and her husband had been playing with regards to the Daramorr and those like him, but at that moment, she picked up another envelope, smiling when she peeked inside. She reached in and pulled out a large photograph.
“I had forgotten about this,” she murmured.
Nipping my slight disappointment in the bud, I asked, “What is it?”
Meghan flipped the image around, displaying the portrait of a boy around ten or eleven years old. He had dark, thick hair with a little curl to it and brilliant, blue-green eyes. At this stage in life, he was still a cute little boy, but it was clear his soft features would one day sharpen and transform him into a good-looking young man.
“Is that Aiden?” I asked, the surprise ringing clear in my voice. I scooted across the debris-free section of the floor to get a better look.
Meghan nodded and held the photo at an angle, so I could see it better. He looked so much older than the last time I’d seen him, but then again, it had been two years and kids grew so fast. Yup, my initial reaction had been correct. With those thick lashes, and those captivating eyes of his, there was no doubt in my mind that he’d be fighting off the young ladies in just a few more years.
I narrowed my eyes as I continued to scrutinize the almost grown up little Aiden. Now that he was older, he seemed to share more of his sister’s features. They had the same hair and skin tone. Even the shape of their faces were similar.
“Crazy,” I breathed.
“What?” Meghan asked.
I shook my head. “Well, I don’t know,” I fumbled. “It’s just weird how much he looks like you, except for his eye color, of course. You’d almost think he was your real brother.”
Meghan didn’t say a word. Fearing I had hurt her feelings, I glanced up only to see her biting her lip against a nervous smile.
That was never a good expression. “What?” I asked flatly.
“Another little detail I never got around to sharing.”
She paused, and I nudged her with my toe. “Out with it!”
“Aiden is my real brother. Danua is his mother, and we have the same father.”
Honestly, after learning about Cade and the Morrigan, I shouldn’t have been surprised. Especially since I just saw, with my own eyes, the evidence that Meghan and Aiden were blood-related. But really, what were the chances? For two children of the same parents, from the Otherworld, to end up in the same family in the mortal world?
Meghan laughed at my expression.
“Oh, this I’ve got to hear, too,” I insisted.
Meghan crossed her arms and arched one of her perfect eyebrows. “Think you can handle another one of my dramatic tales?”
I rolled my eyes so hard I nearly gave myself a headache, then threw my arms out to my sides and said, “Duh!”
Meghan laughed. “Alright, now would be a good time to take a break anyway. Let me see if I can scrounge up some more tea first.”
We abandoned our chore for the time being and headed toward the kitchen, picking up a fresh pot of tea before seeking the comfort of the chairs in the library. I helped Meghan crack open some of the windows to let in the fresh, crisp air, welcoming in not only the cold, but also the rushing sound of the swollen creek below. The rain from earlier had stopped for now, but in the distance those dark clouds from this morning continued to linger on the horizon, not yet ready to get on with their task of drenching the landscape.
“Looks like another big storm is on the way,” Meghan said with some trepidation.
I shrugged. “Not to worry. We still have a lot of work to do in that study of yours. We won’t die of boredom.”
Once we were each comfortably settled in our own stuffed chair, sipping at tea and listening to the gentle whisper of another fire Niall and his friends had lit for us, Meghan began the long tale of how she came to know the truth about Aiden. I listened to the story, my attention riveted like a cat watching birds through a window, while my friend wove a tale of intrigue and danger, bravery and valor. She told me all about how the Morrigan had kidnapped him, and how Danua had informed Meghan of the brother who had been placed with her family. She explained how her Faelorehn mother had set a geis on him to hide his magic, and how this act had made him appear autistic in the mortal world. Their biological father, it turned out, was Fomorian, the dreaded enemy race of the Faelorehn. During a diplomatic trip into Eile in which the Fomorian king had hoped to initiate a peace treaty, Meghan’s father had met Danua and fallen in love with her. It was the stuff fairy tales were made of, and I ate it up.
“And so, Aiden and I are full brother and sister, and Danua has worked out a deal with my mom. Aiden has been spending his summers here so he becomes acclimated to Eile, and when he turns eighteen, he’ll come to live here permanently.”
“And your father? The Fomorian one?” I pressed.
Meghan sighed and sipped her tea, then shrugged, her face taking on a slightly sad expression. “He returned to Fomor after Aiden was born, and no one has heard from him since.”
I slumped in my chair, my head spinning. “This is insane,” I said aloud, “you and Aiden being Faelorehn and the children of a queen, and me having connections to Eile.” My eyes suddenly grew wide. “What about Will and Thomas? And Tully? Could they have Otherworldly blood too, do you think?”
Meghan grew unnaturally still, her face paling a little. Holy crap! Was I right? I opened my mouth to say something, but Meghan cut me off.
“No,” she said, shaking her head and studying the teacup in her hands. “No. Just me and Aiden.” She looked up and smiled, her hazel eyes darkening slightly before returning to their usual, lighter color. “And you, of course.”
I furrowed my brow. Something about the way she had brushed off my question wasn’t quite right. Meghan had been relatively relaxed, but now tension hummed just below the surface of her skin. Before I could prod her about it, the door to the library opened, and Devlin stuck his head in.
“Ah! There you two are. Cade was wondering if you’d be interested in visiting the archery range while it is still relatively dry out. That storm hovering over the hills will be a nasty one, so if you want to shoot, now’s your chance.”
I sat up straight and gave my friend a wicked smile, forgetting all about the unsettled edge to her composure. “Want to see what I can do with a crossbow?” I asked, waggling my eyebrows.
Meghan blew out a breath of air and said, “Oh please! I’ve had two years to hone my archery skills. You’ve only had a few months. I’ll kick your butt.”
We both bolted for the door at the same time, squealing in laughter and almost bowling Devlin over on our way to the entrance hall.
And just like that, we were images of our younger teen selves once again: silly, slightly awkward and utterly carefree. No recent experiences with evil goddesses and their sadistic minions to damage our innocence. Nope. It was like all the darkness in our lives of late had been wiped clean. I knew it wouldn’t last, but I was okay with that. For an hour or so, at least, I’d enjoy this archery competition with my friend.