Page 28

“I’m not sure where to settle in,” I said hesitantly. Norvale felt familiar, significant, but I had no idea why or where the heck I was supposed to live.

“Lyric, my little angel!” a small woman bellowed from a good distance away.

“Mama!” Lyric hollered back. She swiped hastily at her last few tears and raced ahead, her yellow braids flinging back and forth on her head as she ran down the dirt road. Madigan and I picked up our pace, too. Lyric dove into the arms of the woman and the big, heavily built man who’d joined them.

I leaned my head closer to Madigan. “Her parents, I presume.”

“Anton and Isla are wonderful folk. They had three daughters, but they lost one. It shattered the family, but the rest of the community came together to support them. When you lose a loved one here you can count on a lot of people coming around to help out and grieve with you. The young woman who just joined them in the hug is Anji, Lyric’s younger sister.”

“What happened to the other sister?” I asked but before Madigan could answer, Isla bellowed for the two of us to join the hug.

“Come ‘ere, I finally get to meet you, Raphael.” Isla was petite but her grasp was strong. She yanked me hard against her. She smelled of something savory, like rosemary. As fast as she’d pulled me to her, she pushed me back to hold me at arm’s distance. She had red cheeks and blue eyes, and her thick blond-gray hair was piled up on her head in a messy bun. “Prettier than I even imagined.” She favored Lyric with a proud smile. “Ya did well, my angel. Ya did a good thing.” She placed her hand on Lyric’s cheek. “We’re glad to have all of ya home.” As Isla said it, she looked straight at me. “Where ya belong.”

Lyric took my hand. “I need to formally introduce everyone. Papa, Mama, Anji, this is Raphael, my best friend.” Anji was pretty and looked a great deal like Lyric, but she wore her long golden hair clipped primly back and flowing down over her shoulders. She was dressed more demurely, in a simple, handmade dress made of some type of cotton or linen. The two sisters couldn’t have been more different. Anji was the calm to Lyric’s storm.

“I’ve got so much to tell you about the human world,” Lyric said. “Do you know they have these things called phones, and they stare at them nonstop, as if they might come to life in their hands.”

A blush warmed my face. “I don’t hold onto it that much,” I insisted. I looked at Madigan for backup, but she was wearing a wry grin. “I guess I looked at it more than I should have.” Aside from two very big urges to text Paxton and tell him about boneweavers and that glitches were apparently part of my ability to travel through time, I hadn’t missed the silly little device at all.

Madigan gasped next to me. Considering that she was not the gasping type, I was a little shocked. “Everything all right?” I asked.

“They came,” she said quietly. I was certain I saw her eyes get glassy, something entirely out of character. I turned toward the direction of her stare. A group of stunning men, each one tall and broad shouldered with long hair ranging from white like Madigan’s to dark brown like cocoa, stood in the distance. Several, including the older man with thick gray hair, had Madigan’s big brown eyes. A few of the younger men wore braids like Revel’s, and each braid was tied off with a silver bead.

Madigan looked at me for permission. She was loyal to the mission right to the end. “Go to them, Madigan. They’re waiting, and may I say, I can’t imagine the food bill in your house.”

She laughed, also mostly out of character, but this homecoming had been a long time coming. I hadn’t heard any clear explanation, but it seemed as if Madigan, Austri and Lyric had all been assigned the job of being my protectors, just like Mom had said. I’d considered them exactly that, even knowing the grand limitations of three six-inch wooden figurines. Never had I suspected they were anything more than that.

Madigan’s family were less into hugs and tears and more about hearty pats on the back. Madigan paused her family reunion briefly and glanced back at me. I thought she might wave me over for an introduction, instead she pulled a few of her brothers aside so the road would be cleared. A woman wearing a sage green dress and gray apron was standing in the middle of the road staring our direction—staring in my direction.

With all the unreal experiences I’d had in the last day, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. “Raina?” Her name fell off my lips.

Raina lifted her arms. Everyone stopped their own reunions to watch. I raced down the road so fast I was sure I left smoke coming off my heels. “Raina!” I cried.

“My little Rafi.” Tears streamed down her apple cheeks. “My Rafi is home at last.”

Lyric and I hugged briefly, Madigan gave me her signature wink and the three of us parted, each with our own family. Mine was smaller than theirs, but I was used to a small family, and while Raina wasn’t my mom, she definitely came in a close second.

Many neighbors stopped and waved as Raina and I walked arm in arm to her cottage. I would have expected curious stares, but most smiled at me as if they knew me, as if I’d been part of the community forever, and oddly enough, that was how it felt. I’d come home—to a place I’d only seen in the occasional glitch, a place I thought only existed in my rattled mind.

The sky was murky and misty and the wet air smelled almost briny, but the smoky chimneys and cooking aromas coming from many of the houses made up for the unpleasant atmosphere. Small farms with rows of crops stretched over the mostly flat landscape. Goats that were far bigger than the ones I was used to grazed in lush fields. We walked past one of the tall towers. Its torch wavered in the damp air.

“Raina, what’s with the towers? Are they lookout towers?” As I said it, I considered that a real possibility, which indicated that Norvale needed lookout towers. That wasn’t a good sign. Lyric had mentioned the three battles Austri led Valian warriors through. Three sounded like three too many battles.

“They have several purposes, but you don’t need to know about them right now.” Raina still had that familiar scent of fresh bread and coffee swirling around her. I figured it had always been in my imagination, an aroma I conjured up for her because she was always in the kitchen and very often baking, but it was there even now.

“Raina, I’ve been asking a lot of questions, and those are only like one percent of all the questions I have lined up behind them, but I can’t get anything answered. I do, however, know more than I’d ever want to know about boneweavers.”

Raina’s sturdy legs stopped. “Did you meet up with those monsters?” Her brown eyes were round with worry.

I held out my free arm. “Don’t worry. Thanks to Revel I’ve still got all my bones—rare ones at that, I hear.”

We kept walking. “Not a laughing matter, Rafi,” she scolded, and damn, I’d missed her scoldings. “It’s a good thing you had Revel with you. Where was he? I didn’t see him when I came to meet you.”

I was almost sorry I’d brought him up. The last scorn-filled words I spat at him had been on repeat in my head all the way home. Still, they felt justified. He’d taken my mom away, and he didn’t seem to have any regret or, for that matter, explanation. I tucked the questions about that terrible night away for now.

“Revel and Austri took off as soon as we were safely inside the gate,” I said.

“Ahh, I’m sure Austri has been wanting an ale. It’s been many years.” She looked over at me. I hadn’t seen her in years, and while there were a few more creases around her eyes, she looked heartbreakingly familiar. “You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman, Rafi.”