Tess and Ash waved. I smiled and waved back, my heart cracking a little. I’d been gone for longer periods of time before, but never for something like this.
“I miss you all so much,” I said.
Moira scoffed. “You can’t start the conversation off like that! You end it being maudlin, not begin it!”
Ash reached for something below my view and hauled up a massive piece of pizza.
“New shop,” Moira said. “They make amazing deep dish.”
“Jealous!” Rowan’s chef could cook just about anything, but he was formally trained and had turned up his nose at some of my requests. He’d made them, but I could tell he thought I had the palate of a rowdy toddler.
“So…” Moira began. “Did Simone tell you my idea?”
I nodded. “Yes, but have you told Ash and Tess?”
The vampire rolled her eyes. “Of course I did. They’re both in.”
I froze. “Seriously?” I breathed. Hope filled me at the thought. They were all willing to come to me if I decided not to return. The thought made a frozen piece of my heart crack open.
Ash and Tess nodded. “None of us is married or has any serious ties to anyone in the community. We’ve all been, for lack of a better term, lone wolves. If we hung out with anyone, it was with each other. You’re family, Evie. And family sticks together.”
I had to make sure they weren’t doing this out of obligation. “Moira is sworn in as a member of my court, so she has to agree with me.”
She snorted. “We both know that’s not true, and you’re way too nice to compel me to do anything.”
True. The thought of making anyone do anything against their will made my stomach hurt. “You really do argue too much with your queen.”
Moira crowed a laugh. “And you love throwing that title around when it suits you!”
We grinned at each other before my amusement faded. “We’ll be leaving everything behind,” I said quietly. “All the work we did for the business. All our customers. The friends we’ve made.”
Moira raised a delicate eyebrow. “Friends?” she scoffed. “You mean the same friends who looked like they wanted to chase you down the road, wielding pitchforks and flaming torches?”
Ash grimaced. Tess shrugged. “We all knew it was both a possibility and eventually an inevitability,” she said.
Moira glanced over her shoulder and shook her head. “Tess, you’re being weirder than usual.”
“My time in fae changed me,” Tess said and stuck her tongue out at Moira’s back when she turned to face the screen. “If someone can take me out of my life and make me forgeteverything important, then maybe nothing is important and we should live each day like it’s the only one we get.”
No one said anything for an uncomfortable amount of time. “For what it’s worth,” I said, breaking the silence, “I am sorry for what happened to you. It was my fault and?—”
Tess threw an olive at the screen. “It was not your fault. Lugh’s the one who did it, and I’m glad you locked that scary bastard in monster world.”
That was Tess’ name for the place I’d stowed Lugh inside—a cold, gray realm made of stone and dirt, where monsters of legend roamed. He could no longer access any portals or use me or any other new World Trees that sprang up as bridges. Even if that world somehow grew a bridge tree, Lugh was locked to the land I’d thrown him in. His travel days were over, and I didn’t feel a lick of remorse about what I’d done.
“It doesn’t take away that Lugh was trying to get to me and used you to do so.”
Tess’s expression softened. “You can’t blame yourself for the plans of a despot.”
Moira blinked and turned again. “Whoareyou?”
I laid a hand over my heart. “It doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop thinking about what happened to you and wondering what I could have done to prevent it.” I looked at all of my friends, my heart so full, and made a decision. “Go ahead and shut the shop down for now. Give me a week, and I’ll make a decision. If we don’t move here, maybe we’ll go somewhere else. Somewhere with a fresh start. Tess, if you don’t mind, can you strengthen the wards?”
She shook her head. “I would, but your mom and dad already made new wards. Caelan’s shifters can’t get within five feet of the store.”
I winced. That was bound to go over like a lead balloon.
Moira set the phone on a stand and backed away, nudging Tess over with her hip. “Why wouldn’t you just move home, back to the Seattle area? I know you loved it there.”
