But Gabriel just stood there as if he’d found his place, marked a claim, and never intended to leave. “You didn’t make a mess,” he told her, stern and austere, the way he always was in his first lecture of the year, so his students knew they could trust what he taught them. “Well, you did, but it was like a fresh breeze. You brought me wild joy in a life that had always been about safety, and excellent school marks, and mapping my every step exactly. Ellie, my sunshine, I loved you that first day when you tripped right into my heart, and I’ve loved you every moment since.”
“Oh,” she said.
“It’s always been you for me. No one else, ever. You’re inevery dawn I watch rising over cities and fields. You’re in everything I do and dream. You are the heart of the world for me.”
Delight cascaded through Elodie, spilling over as a jittery laugh from her throat. “Oh my, Professor Tarrant. You can indeed talk in poetry.”
“I must have hit my head when we fell,” he grumbled.
She grinned. “You’remine, Gabriel. I love you with all my soul.”
Which wasn’t a declaration anywhere near as gorgeous as his had been, but she could not seem to summon better words. They had all turned tolove, love, love.
So instead she just stared at her husband with the fierce adoration she felt for him, utterly, indescribably beloved man that he was. And as if she’d willed it into being, a smile blossomed, gentle and ravishing, from his solemn expression. He lowered his head, and she raised hers, and they kissed, there in the ruins of the magical explosion.
“Elodie Tarrant, you are so beautiful,” Gabriel whispered against her lips. It sounded like he was commenting on a map that bore a clear visual hierarchy: passionate, intense, leaving her breathless. “That fact is far more real than some poem.”
“Gosh,” she sighed as dreamily as any Miss Trevallion. Hearing herself, she rolled her eyes with exasperation, then glanced around at the grass surrounding them. “I could have sworn I left my intelligence around here somewhere.”
But her levity faded as she saw the long black scars in the land. “Bloody hell, we’re lucky to be alive.”
“Hm,” Gabriel agreed.
They shifted apart, although only by inches, and turned to assess the fey line. It lay quiet, with only a length of charredand broken earth to show that it had been violently active minutes before. The woods were unstirred. And northwest, where low sunlight blanched the horizon, there existed no sign of smoke or magic.
And yet, Elodie thought of the energy that was now rebounding up the line. Would it squelch vulnerabilities as it went, or cause even more turbulence?
“We need to get to a telegraph station,” Gabriel said a second before she was about to suggest the same thing. “If things don’t go as we expect, Dôlylleuad’s going to require more help than Professor Jackson can give it.”
“And if they do go as expected, the village will require help being rid of him before he causes new mayhem,” Elodie added, making Gabriel snort with amusement. “We should also check our own lot haven’t burned down the observatory in their effort to build a defense.”
She turned toward where the velocipede stood at the edge of the field, but Gabriel caught her wrist. When she gave him an inquiring look, he frowned.
“There’s something I need to do before anything else,” he said.
“Oh yes, I forgot about the Hereford artifacts.” Elodie bit her lip guiltily as she looked at the paper strewn about the grass.
“More important than that.”
“Confirm the stability of the terminal point?”
“No.”
“Clean up the litter that your broken thaumometer—”
“Ellie.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, then apparently managed to restore his briefly lost patience, for he smiled at her. “Just stay there, all right?”
Elodie nodded, thinking that she could certainly get usedto those sweet, shy, heart-melting smiles of his. She watched him cross to the barricade and crouch down to inspect its tumult of dirt and charred grass. The ravaged prayer book lay open some distance away, the King’s Writ in its charred leather sleeve nearby. The scroll of the Magna Carta was half-buried inside the shattered trench. Gabriel pulled it free, checked that the casing was still intact, then tossed it aside with all the heedlessness of a geographic scientist for whom history meant tree rings and river sediments. Then he stood, brushing dirt from something small in his cupped hand.
Her wedding ring. A breath of riotous emotion spilled from Elodie, and Gabriel looked over, his expression daring her to flee.
Instantly Elodie responded by lifting her chin and staring at him with magnificent hauteur. His mouth twitched, and she could have sworn she saw a hint of swagger as he walked back to her. It made her grin. By gods, she loved him, egotism and all.
An arm’s length away, he stopped as if meeting some hard boundary, and he held out the ring before him. It was completely unharmed by having blocked an ultrapowerful cascade of devastatingly lethal magic; indeed, its thaumaturgic gold seemed to dazzle even more gloriously. Elodie had never before seen a piece of jewelry look quite so smug.
“To think,” she mused, “one ring saved the world.”
“Well, Oxford,” Gabriel amended.
