Sign language had spread beyond Greywatch now. Neighbouring lords had learned it after seeing how efficiently Gareth could coordinate hunts and defences without speaking a word. Other households had adopted it. Traders passing through asked for lessons. What had begun as one woman teaching one man had become something larger. A movement, almost. A new way of speaking that excluded no one.
Marian moved through the celebration with easy authority, signing orders to servants and guests alike. She’d been promotedto the head of the household staff, the youngest in Greywatch’s history, and she wore the responsibility like armour. Her new gown was deep green wool with embroidered cuffs, and she carried herself like someone who knew exactly where she belonged.
She caught Elodie’s eye across the hall and signed.Happy?
Elodie signed back.Completely.
Good. Now stop standing about and come eat. You skipped breakfast again.
“You sound like Gareth.” Elodie called across the courtyard as Marian came to greet her.
“Someone has to keep you from working yourself to exhaustion.” Marian’s gap-toothed grin softened. “He’s watching you, you know. He always is.”
Elodie glanced toward the high table, where Gareth sat with Sir Miles, deep in conversation or rather, Miles was talking animatedly while Gareth signed responses with the patient air of a man who had heard this particular story several times. But his eyes kept drifting to her across the crowded hall.
She signed.I see you watching.
He signed back,I like watching you.
That’s either romantic or alarming.
Both,he signed, and the corner of his mouth twitched.Come sit. Miles has composed new verses for his ballad.
Heaven help us all.
She made her way to the high table, accepting congratulations and well-wishes from the guests she passed. A year ago, these same people had crossed themselves when she walked by, had left offerings at her door, had whispered about faeries and curses. Now they smiled, reached out to clasp her hands, and asked after her health with genuine warmth. She had become one of them. More than that, she had helped them become something new.
A flicker of movement caught her eye. An old woman stood near the entrance to the hall, watching the celebration with strange pale eyes. Her clothes were rough, her face weathered beyond age, and she carried nothing, no cart, no mysterious necklace. But Elodie knew her instantly. The peddler.
Their eyes met across the crowded room. The old woman smiled, small, knowing, and inclined her head. Acknowledgment. Benediction. Farewell.
Then someone passed between them, and when they moved, the doorway was empty. Elodie didn’t try to follow. Some mysteries weren’t meant to be solved. Some magic simply was.
Gareth’s hand covered hers on the table.You saw something.
“The peddler woman. The one who gave me the necklace.”
His fingers tightened briefly.And?
“She’s gone. I think she wanted to see how the story ended.”
He smiled.How does it end?
She looked around the hall at the people she’d come to love, at the household that had become her family, at this life she’d stumbled into. And at Marian, who had found her voice and her place. At Miles, who was now enthusiastically acting out verse nine of his ballad while soldiers groaned and threw bread at him. Then at Bertram, whose wounds had healed, watching the celebration with tears in his eyes. With a smile, she looked at her husband, her silent knight, the man who’d taught her that being heard didn’t require volume.
“Happily,” she said. “It ends happily.”
Later, when the feast wound down, and the stars emerged, Elodie found herself on the battlements. The moors stretched below, no longer silver with frost but green with new growth. Spring had come to Greywatch. Real spring, warm and gentle, full of promise. The maypole ribbons fluttered in the evening breeze. Somewhere below, someone was still singing, their voicecarrying up through the darkness. Gareth stood beside her, his hand warm on the small of her back.
“One year,” she said softly. “One year ago tonight, I was standing in Lady Baldridge’s garden, wearing a ridiculous faerie costume, wondering why I’d agreed to come.”
And now?
“And now I’m standing in my own castle, married to the most incredible man I’ve ever met, surrounded by people who love me.” She laughed, the sound catching in her throat. “The irony isn’t lost on me. I spent years writing about fairy folklore, and then I fell into a fairy tale of my own.”
He turned her to face him, his hands gentle on her shoulders.
“Not a fairy tale,” he said. The words came easier now, though they still cost him. He was speaking more with each passing week. Full sentences sometimes, when he had the energy and the privacy. His voice would never be what it was. But it was his, and he was learning to use it again. “Fairy tales are simple. Good and evil. Happy endings that come without a cost.” He traced the line of her jaw, his touch infinitely tender. “This was harder. You chose it anyway.”
