“You’ve learned a lot since you’ve been gone.” It had been barely a week since he’d left and yet their separation had felt like a lifetime to her.
“I have, you’d be quite impressed. Apparently, having my heart broken and my world ending was just the thing to make me better able to handle my magic.” His rueful smile tore at her heart. “Lady Batsford’s husband, Curtis, taught me that my emotional reaction to my magic failing became a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I cared less about it failing, it might work better. He was right.”
“But now that you’re here… will it make it hard again?” she asked, biting her bottom lip.
“No,” he whispered. “Being here with you, where I belong, I no longer feel torn about my life. This is where I’m meant to be, and my magic knows it.”
The emotions in his green eyes would forever be her undoing. She had to touch him, had to kiss him, had to do everything with him before she lost her mind.
“Malcolm, come here.” She sat up on the edge of the bed as he came over. She placed her palms on his chest and stroked the spot where the bullet had hit him. The skin was smooth and perfect. She looked at his hand next, seeing the scar on his palm that he’d gotten the night her parents had died.
“It’s strange. The bullet wound is gone, but…” Malcolm frowned again.
“I suppose some wounds never fully heal,” said Calli.
“I can still feel it, but it doesn’t hurt anymore,” he added, pressing the pale streak of flesh. “I suppose there’s a metaphor there somewhere, but I’m too tired to figure it out.”
Calli pressed her lips into his palm and kissed the scar. “Some scars you’ll always feel, but eventually the pain goes away? I can see that.”
Malcolm looked down. “Calli… we should talk.” His green eyes rose to meet hers, dark as a forest. “I’m sorry I took them from you.” His voice was thick with pain. She pulled them closer, sliding her hands up his arms to his shoulders.
“I know it wasn’t your fault. It doesn’t matter if there was a prophecy involved, it was still an accident. It took me a while to understand that. I had a wonderful life with them, even if it was short. When they left, they knew you would be here for me, that you would find me.”
“I will always be here for you.”
She nodded. This wasn’t just a promise, it was a statement of fact. “And what about Boston? The council?” she asked.
“Turns out my duties are not as restrictive as I was led to believe, or as frequent. I have a secure traveling mirror I use to attend meetings when I’m summoned. So I don’t need to live in Boston. I can move here.”
“Where you belong.” The warmth in Calli’s chest spread out as she tilted her head back. “I love you, Malcolm. Lock or no lock, I choose you. I choose a life with you.”
Her warlock, her love, her destiny.
His face softened and he cupped her cheek, leaning down to kiss her.
“I love you too, Calli, with everything in me. I will love you until we are both stardust.”
“Then come to bed.” She pulled at him to come closer, but he stepped back.
“I want to show you something first. Stay there.” He left the room and returned with a small crystal ball in his hands. “I’ve been thinking about how prophecies are stored in these. I don’t see why a regular memory can’t be stored as well.” He held the ball in his palms and closed his eyes. A moment later it glowed a soft white. He opened his eyes and held it out to her.
She took the crystal and gazed into its glowing light. Shapes emerged in the opaque center of the ball, pulling her down into the spell of Malcolm’s memory.
She was dying… no, it was Malcolm who was dying. She was merely seeing through his eyes.
“Not yet… not yet, son of Salem…” a voice spoke. It was familiar, like when an old favorite song was unexpectedly played on the radio. It brought back hundreds of memories for Calli.
Dad.
It was her father speaking to Malcolm, his spectral form shining in the fall of night.
But Malcolm was barely hanging on, he was going to die soon.
“Son of Salem…” her mother’s voice now filled the crystal in captured memory. “Tell her I was wrong to be afraid. Tell her that the only way forward is to trust her heart.” Her mother’s voice was followed by a kiss to Malcolm’s forehead as she comforted Malcolm in his pain. “How I wish that we could have known you, could have loved you, but she will have you and that must be enough.”
“Willow, the council coven is coming.” Her father then spoke to Malcolm one last time. “The only truth to fate and destiny that matters is how we choose to love. Love her and all will be as it should.”
The last member lingering part of the memory was her mother’s lips upon her or rather Malcolm’s forehead as the memory ended and Calli slipped back in her own body. Malcolm’s hopeful look when he met her gaze filled her eyes with tears.
