Page 41

Was he about to object? Merrik braced himself, all of the ways he’d imagined this conversation going badly running through his head. “Yes.”

Fieran ran a hand over his face, his gaze swiveling away once again as if he were gathering himself. When he turned back to Merrik, the grin on his face was still tense but it was there. “Good. That’s…good.”

Those words quenched some of the heat in Merrik’s chest. Fieran had been thrown by the news, but he was choosing to accept it rather than protest his best friend courting his sister.

When Merrik didn’t speak, Fieran’s grin grew slightly less tense as he rocked back on his heels. “Pip and I are courting.”

The warmth in Fieran’s voice and light in his eyes when he spoke about Pip further eased the tension in Merrik’s shoulders. It reminded him of the friendship he and Fieran had before the crash. The kind of friendship where Merrik had been doing his best to help Fieran and Pip along in their romance.

“Finally.” Merrik couldn’t quite work up a smile just yet—his legs hurt far too much—but he managed some warmth in his tone.

He and Fieran still had a lot to discuss, and Merrik had some resentments that he still had to resolve for himself.

But they would be all right. They had been brothers bound by friendship all their lives, and, someday, they would be brothers for real.

As Merrik and Fieran strode toward the hangar after a stop at his tent, Merrik struggled to keep the grimace off his face. His stump hurt with each step, and the ache in his ankle had turned piercing. But he had left his staff at the tent, wanting to greet the squadron on two feet before he resorted to the wheelchair that Fieran currently carried.

With a grin, Fieran hefted the folded wheelchair higher. “You know, it wouldn’t be that hard to add a small magically-powered engine to this.”

“Do not even think about it.” Merrik gave Fieran a light shove. What was with the Laesornysh siblings and their desire for reckless speed? “The only ones I would trust to do that would be Louise and Pip. Perhaps Bennett and Uncle Lance. But I would break my neck for sure if you were the one to do it.”

Fieran grinned and raised his eyebrows. “You wouldn’t trust Adry? She has the same experience and degree that Louise, Pip, and I have.”

Merrik didn’t try to hold back a laugh. “Not a chance. I love her, but I would trust her to fiddle with it even less than I would trust you.”

It had been risk enough letting her rig up the lift for his balcony.

“True. I wouldn’t trust either of us with something like that.” Still grinning, Fieran waved at the metal hangar rising before them. “Ready?”

“Not really.” Despite the nerves twisting his gut, Merrik shared a smile with Fieran. It was good to have his best friend at his side once again. With a deep breath, he straightened his shoulders and walked through the large open door into the hangar bay.

“Merrik!” The shouts reverberated off the metal walls and ceiling as the pilots—both humans and elves—turned in his direction.

The hangar bay had been mostly cleared of aeroplanes with a few tables and circles of chairs, upside-down buckets, and stools set up as if in preparation for a party. Oil drums held ice with soda bottles poking out the top while a large banner proclaimed “Welcome Back, Merrik.”

Merrik felt the beginning of a smile ease across his face. As much as he already missed Adry, it was good to be back with his squadron.

Lije, a tall young man with blond hair and a gap-toothed grin, reached Merrik first and thrust a jar of a noxious-looking off-white concoction at him. “Please say you’ll adopt George the Twenty-fifth.”

“No, take Trevor. He’s far superior.” Stickyfingers, the short former thief with crooked teeth, shoved past Lije to present another jar of that same suspicious substance.

“Don’t listen to him. Beatrice the Beautiful is the best.” A short but bulky and muscular half-troll called Tiny bulled the other two aside as he, too, held out one of those jars, though his was decorated with a ribbon formed of a scrap of silk from a flying scarf.

What in Tarenhiel was going on here? Had the entire squadron lost their minds while he’d been gone? Merrik shot a look at Fieran.

Fieran just shrugged and flapped his hands almost helplessly, as if he couldn’t find the words to explain the chaos.

Clearly, the squadron had needed him to bring back a level of sanity.

“Are you sure you don’t want George?” Lije held out the jar again. “You’ll want your own for making donuts.”

“George? Donuts?” Merrik swept a glance over everyone again.

“Tiny’s girlfriend taught us to make sourdough donuts.” Stickyfingers jabbed a thumb at Tiny.

“We have been cultivating our own sourdough starter ever since.” Lije still presented the jar, as if expecting Merrik to take it.

No way was Merrik touching that thing. He had a feeling he didn’t want to join this craziness. “I see.”