I rolled my eyes, but Galen smiled. “I’m just as surprised as you are. Speaking of surprised…” He glanced at Taryn. “Bring back some strays, did you?”
“Not that I’m complaining, but what’s going on?” I asked as I looped my arm through Rose’s.
“Well…that’s a bit of a long story,” Rose said.
“And some not-so-good news,” Leo added.
“But,” Taryn jumped in, clapping her hands, “how great are family reunions, am I right?”
I propped my free hand on my hip and leveled her with an expectant stare.
Taryn sighed and kicked off the wall. “Relax, it’s not that big of a deal. Has he always been so dramatic?” She nudged her head toward Leo, and I chuckled. She added, “Let’s sit down. And probably get a drink or two.”
“You had me at ‘or two,’” Galen said as he made his way over to the armchair by a fire in the center of the drawing room. Two large couches and one smaller armchair surrounded the ornate stone fireplace, with a glass liquor cart next to the wall.
Taryn claimed the other chair, while Leo, Rose, and my mother got comfortable on one of the couches. Heat radiated from Thorne’s body behind me before his fingers pressed into my lower back and he murmured, “How’s your leg?”
I twisted my neck to meet his gaze. “It’s healing.” Not as quickly as it would with my Shifter abilities, but still.
“What about the rest of you?” he asked, concern lingering in his gaze. “Areyoudoing alright?”
“I’ll be fine. Especially now,” I whispered, sweeping my eyes over the couch full of the people I loved most in this world. I caught Rose staring at Thorne’s hand on my back before she quickly looked away.
Thorne took a seat on one end of the free couch, and I sat opposite him, keeping distance between us. “So how do you two know each other?” I pointed between Taryn and Galen.
“Taryn is an old friend,” Galen started. “We’d spend time together whenever my parents would visit the South Territory. And when hers sent her off to a trade school in the north eight years ago, we reconnected.”
“I didn’t last six months in that place,” Taryn added. “But dearest Mother and Father would’ve had an aneurysm if they knew. What you saw tonight was them beingnice. Try growing up with that. It’s a miracle I made it past childhood.”
“So, I convinced my parents to let her work for the palace. She’sdone odd jobs here and there—mostly as a courier, delivering messages to and from the territories,” Galen said.
“But I’ve always had my sights set higher. I’mrealambitious, you know.” Taryn tapped her nose.
Galen snorted. “Ambitious, or bored?” She stuck her tongue out at him. “She was on the correspondence team we sent back and forth to Veridia. Their last scheduled trip arrived at your capital city a couple of weeks before you left to come here, so they should’ve been back long ago. Whathappened?” he directed to Taryn. “We thought you were lost.”
“Close. We got beached in Tenebra. Those cliffs are a nightmare,” Taryn answered.
“Thankfully, twoincrediblygifted Alchemists with unresolved hero complexes just so happened to see the accident,” Rose said, raising her glass in the air toward Taryn. “We got some help to repair their ship and restock their supplies.”
“In exchange for about a dozen favors,” Leo grumbled as he settled further into the couch. His brown, furry tail slipped out from beneath his cloak and flicked against the floor.
Galen jumped to his feet. “What isthat?”
“Oh, right,” I said. “I forgot to mention he has a tail.”
“You get used to it,” Rose added.
Galen cleared his throat. “I thought your magic didn’t work here.”
“Did you think it would fall off?” Leo asked with a snort. “I can’t access my other Shifter or Alchemist abilities, but this one is permanent, unfortunately.”
“It’s not so unfortunate,” Rose said with a wink. “For me, anyway.”
“You two are worse than I remembered,” I said, but my shoulders relaxed as we fell into our familiar banter.
Fates, I missed this. I missedthem. I hadn’t realized how much more difficult this last week and a half—truly, the last eight months—had been trying to keep up appearances with hardly any moments to relax.
“So what, you two just decided to hitch a ride back to Mysthelm?” I asked Rose and Leo.
