She brings her eyes to me with a playful quirk of her lips. “You’ve interacted with spirits for months here in Midscape and yet you seem surprised? You’re right, I wouldn’t be as I am now, but I could visit you at first moonlight. I could stroll with you in Den, jumping from beam to beam that pierces the canopies.”
“And if I’m back in the Natural World?”
“The moon also rises in the Natural World. It might be harder for my magic to sustain there, but it would not kill me to pay a visit now and again.” She pauses. “Do you honestly think you will go back?”
“I don’t know,” I admit. So much depends on how gaining Aurora’s freedom goes. “Would I be able to understand you, then?” I stare at Folost, thinking of how limited our communication was before Aurora’s power. When I return the magic in me to her, I’ll no longer speak the language of the spirits. Unless…somehow I’ve learned it after all this time?
Judging from her silence, I probably haven’t.
“We will have to see,” she admits. “But there are many ways to communicate and only one involves words. You have understood me from the moment we met. I doubt anything will change that.”
A smile curves my lips. It’s sincere and sad. “Once all this is over, I’d like to see you again. I don’t want it to be goodbye between us.”
“Then it will be so.”
The declaration hangs in the air and we spend a moment sitting shoulder to shoulder, enjoying the comfortable silence and reassurance that the other will be there.
“So much of my life was spent with the love of my family—the love of a soulmate,” I whisper. “I never realized how good it felt to have the love of a friend.” It is a different balm to the loneliness I felt and feared. One I wish I’d had years sooner.
“That is a lesson we both learned.” Aurora tilts her face to the sky. “As long as the moon shines, Faelyn, you will never be alone.”
My chest squeezes and I hang my head a moment as the emotions weigh on me. I shift my grip on Folost. Everything I ever wanted is in my grasp. Now I have to make sure no one will take it from me. Ever.
“We should get going again. Thank you, Folost.” I dismiss my fiery little friend, pocketing his scrap of brick. Aurora stands also and we begin moving through the woods.
There’s no more running. We walk with determination and comfortable silence. But I’m constantly straining my hearing. Aurora’s attention continues to dart around, looking for potential threats.
That’s why we both glance behind us at the same time the moment we hear the rustle of trees and fallen branches. The heavy footfalls of a wolf’s paws are noticeable in an instant. I step in front of Aurora and grab for the brick, ready to call Folost. To fight the only way I know how.
“If this isn’t?—”
“I’m not leaving you.” Aurora knows what I’m going to say before I do. “We’re doing this together, Faelyn. Until the very end.”
Please, my heart begs,Please be him.
A dark wolf cuts through a beam of moonlight. A flash of its silver eyes, locking with mine. I inhale sharply and exhale a slight squeak of emotion.
Evander.
CHAPTER 43
Upon seeing us,Evander runs even faster. He’s at us in an instant, leaping and changing his form midair. He lands heavily on two feet and takes three steps to close the remaining gap between us. I don’t remember opening my arms for him, but clearly I did, because he crashes into me, pulling me up into his crushing embrace. I squeeze him just as tightly, bury my face in the crook of his neck, and inhale his scent.
“You made it,” I breathe. Relief relaxes every muscle that was holding me upright. I lean into him for support, head spinning. “You’re really here.”
“I told you I would come.” Evander pulls away, smoothing my hair away from my face. It’s gone wild from the swim and the run. Sticks and mud probably cling to me as they do to him. Yet, I’m certain we’ve never looked more beautiful to one another. “Nothing will keep me from you ever again.”
“Conri?” Aurora asks, bringing me back to reality. I ease away from Evander, waiting for his response. The severe expression that furrows his brow and fear that fills his eyes—that he tries to hide but I see with clarity anyway—doesn’t give me much confidence.
“He’s coming. I managed to convince him that you’d probably be heading back across the Fade since you learned the name of the spirit of the Fade when we came across.”
“How did you do that while also managing to convince him to let you come here?” Aurora folds her arms. It could come off as skeptical of Evander, if I didn’t know better. She’s afraid.
“He couldn’t be in two places at once. And he wants to be the one to find you.” Evander doesn’t have to expand on what it would mean if Conri did. The grit to his tone says enough. “So, that being the case, I encouraged him to go to the place you most likely were. But we also couldn’t rule out this possibility.”
“Send you as his right hand,” I finish. Evander nods. “You’re absolutely certain he went toward the Fade?”
“I broke away from the rest of the pack but waited just beneath the ridge for a while. No one followed.”
