Page 83 of Sky and the Grumpy Troll

He was quiet, his hand drifting up and down my spine. “Your family. The door we’re going to Liminia to find.” His jaw set. “You have a whole world over there, and people in it who love you, and I would never stop you from going back to them. I want you to have that. But some small, ungenerous, frightened part of me is already counting the days until you go home.”

“Moerrven.” I took his grumpy, beautiful face in both hands and made him look at me, and I let him feel it through the door even as I said it, so there could be no mistake, no taking it on faith. “Listen to me. I will go see my family, but I’ll always come back. I would never go through a mirror unless I knew there was a way back to you. And I know time is different between our worlds, so we’ll figure it out. Quick visits. In and out. Because my home isn’t a place anymore, you idiot, it’s you. Keep up.”

I felt it land in him, felt the dark thread loosen and let go, felt the love come back up and swallow it whole. He pulled me down and kissed me, and I curled against his side, one hand on his horn, forehead pressed against his, breathing him in.

Chapter 28

Moerrven

“Aeldryc made his scary face, and the harbormaster suddenly remembered a free cabin on the Sea Lark for you,” Pip said as Aeldryc slid a wooden crate beneath the bench and the two of them slipped in across from us. “You set sail in a week’s time.”

Sky bounced a little next to me, and we all went quiet as the tavern wench showed up with a tray laden with ale, fried potatoes, and hearty bowls of vegetable soup. We dove into our food, waiting until she was out of earshot before speaking again. We were seated at a dockside tavern in the port village of Reach, where we’d been staying for the past few days as we tried to arrange passage to Liminia.

I glanced out the window at the harbor, with its deep gray water. Fishing boats and large cargo vessels bobbed lightly on their moorings, and I wondered which ship would be ours. I did not see one named the Sea Lark.

“So this is real,” Sky said. “We’re headed to Liminia. On a boat. I haven’t ever been on a boat.”

“Neither have I,” I admitted. “When you live in the landlocked mountains, there is never a reason.”

“Not at all?” Aeldryc looked horrified. “Ever?”

“That’s the same expression he had when he found out I didn’t know how to ride a horse,” Pip said.

“Still appalling,” Aeldryc said, kissing the top of his head. “I’m glad you learned.”

“Is the Sea Lark cat-friendly?” I asked.

“I told the captain Poppy was a good mouser, and he agreed to allow her in your room,” Aeldryc said. “Hopefully he won’t notice she prefers napping and eating food prepared on a porcelain dish.”

I considered defending my cat, but Aeldryc was correct. Sky shifted closer to me, reaching for my horn, and I felt a rush of his nervous excitement as he touched me in the spot that opened doors between us. I realized at once that he was telling me something he didn’t want to communicate out loud, and I reached out to steady him, rubbing a hand down his spine as he curled in close.

“I hope the training in spycraft we did this week has sunk in,” Aeldryc muttered. “I have low confidence in this going well. Remember, you are posing as travelers visiting for pleasure.” Pip sat up straighter. “Not sex pleasure, Pip.”

“Are you going?” Sky asked.

“No, I discussed it with the Queen, and after the wars, it seems Liminians aren’t too fond of my kind. And apparently my… military bearing is quite obvious.”

Pip snickered. “Just a little.”

“Also, Pip works for the palace seamstress and is in the middle of the Queen’s winter solstice gown, so she will not allow him to leave, and Pip and I cannot be separated.”

“Why not?” Sky asked.

Aeldryc blinked. “Because we cannot.”

“Because he loooooves me,” Pip clarified, grinning.

Aeldryc cleared his throat. “Nevertheless, we’ll be staying in Feravael, ready to manage any more portal leaks. Having a human from your world is essential for communication.”

The Queen was funding our expedition, but wanted to keep everything quiet, so Sky and I were headed to Liminia alone, posing as adventurers traveling the world.

“Which reminds me.” Aeldryc reached beneath the bench and set the wooden crate on the table. “From the palace. The mages duplicated every text the Crown holds concerning Liminia and the Liminal Order. The originals stay in Feravael. The copies sail with you.”

Sky pried up the lid and lifted out a book whose cover showed a shirtless fae swooning against a plow horse, beneath the title The Stablehand’s Secret.

“I rebound them myself,” Pip said proudly. “All thirty-one. Nobody searches a honeymooning couple’s crate of dirty novels. It’s the perfect cover.”

“It is research material,” Aeldryc said, with dignity, “traveling in deep cover.”