My heart swelled. I believed them.
Seeing I was a bit flustered, nobody pushed. They simply left me to parse out what I needed from what they’d shared.
We finished our chocolate and continued to loop around the market streets, and I was encouraged to choose things that brought me joy. None of them were shy about picking items up either, and before long, we were headed back to the carriage with full arms and lightened purses. Not one of them had minded when I went quiet, all of them somehow able to keep me in the conversation even when I couldn’t participate.
It was as perfect a day as I could have dreamed up for myself.
At least until we were within sight of the carriage and my heart decided to start racing, my fingertips went numb, and they had to catch me before I sagged to the cobbled street.
Chapter 21
Tap
The walk up the stairs to the observatory stretched out as I mentally prepared and then discarded several responses to my brother. I ended up giving the simplest one.
“I suppose it’s Seir’s fault. He’s the one who dragged me to Vincara.” I had meant it as a joke but saying it like that felt wrong. It was nobody’sfaultI’d met Phin. It was truly the happiest accident that could have ever occurred. “Just blind luck, honestly. I’d never have gone there if not for him hunting down some seeds and things for Hailon.”
“Tormund sent word after he first saw you there,” Magnus chuckled. “He sends his thanks, actually. Now that she’s no longer being cloistered in the church, he can be reassigned.”
“He did tell me I could pass along a message. He said he’d see you soon.” Magnus laughed. “How long was he there?”
“Twelve years.”
“He’s very good at his job, then. She only suspected a little bit.”
Magnus grinned proudly.
“It’s a development none of us could have predicted,” Rylan added. “We only wanted to see you less overworked, perhaps toget out more. You finding your mate is well beyond anyone’s imagining. She seems like a good match for you, though.” He glanced over his shoulder at me as we continued to ascend, a smirk on his mouth. “The Fates sure are having a laugh on our account lately. Falling like stones, the lot of us.”
I made a noncommittal noise in my throat.
“Are you not pleased by the development, brother?” Vassago queried.
“I am. But it is very complicated. Was it simple for either of you?”
They scoffed at the same time, and Magnus boomed with laughter, the sound of it echoing around them in the stairwell.
“That one”—he pointed to Rylan—“was in such self-loathing denial he had to do a spell before he believed it was real, and this one”—he shifted his finger Vassago’s direction—“was convinced he’d accidentally do Greta harm. Terrified and foolish, the pair of them.”
“Let us not forget how your face looked when Grace began aggressively returning your flirty advances, stone man,” Vassago teased.
“Exactly. You nearly fainted right there on the dining room floor over a shirt color,” Rylan chuckled.
“It was even odds she’d kill me for trying to woo her,” Magnus insisted, but he didn’t seem all that put off by the idea.
“Yes, one little human woman could definitely have taken you down,” Vassago teased, eyebrow raised.
“I’d go happily,” Magnus said. “Same as you.”
“Fair enough.”
“How does Phin feel about things?” Rylan asked.
“She … doesn’t.”
Everyone came to an abrupt stop.
“Surely that’s not right.” Vassago pinned me with a look.
