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He stopped and spun around so fast I took a few steps back. “You don’t get it, do you, Raphael? You and me, the two of us, something between us is as likely as Austri suddenly growing to six feet tall. It’s impossible. You are not for me. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have but—” His gaze dropped to my mouth. “Those lips, those fucking amazing lips and everything that goes with them. I can’t stop thinking about you.”

The hurt in his face made my chest tighten. “Then don’t stop thinking about me.”

“I’ll go mad from wanting you, and it won’t matter. There are no battles or wars or fucking rules that will allow this to happen. It will mean certain death for both of us.”

“You’re wrong. As long as I stay within the borders of Norvale—” The beads in his braids swung like pendulums as he shook his head.

“You’re not mine, Whisper. You won’t ever be mine.” He turned again and strode with angry determination back to the wagon. I trudged dejectedly behind him through the sticky mud.

The remainder of the journey felt grim, and I could swear another little piece of my heart broke off with each jostle of the wagon.

The poor donkeys were caked in mud by the time we reached the narrow passage. The wagon driver and passenger hadn’t fared much better. Revel attempted to give me a hand down from the cart, but I ignored the offer and climbed down alone. Having my hand pressed in his, even briefly, was too much to bear. I wanted nothing to do with the fate I’d been given and being tied to that fate, or double fate, in my case, made me homesick for the dull normalcy of my old life. I wished I’d never met Revel Greyhart.

Revel unhitched the donkeys.

“Won’t they run off?” I asked. “Poor creatures. I’m sorry we put them through this.”

“We’ll take them through the passage. They can graze in the grass and sun on the other side. They won’t be visible from the human side because they won’t have gone across the bridge.” He dropped the burlap sacks over his shoulder and motioned for me to go ahead of him. I took a few hesitant steps and some of the same claustrophobic panic that hit the first time returned. Then something he’d said snapped me out of it.

“Do you mean we get to walk across the bridge to return to the human world? No piggyback ride across the river?” Admittedly, that part of the journey had been weighing heavily on my mind.

“That direction, we can cross the bridge.”

I nodded. “One direction at least. Good to know.” I took a deep breath and entered the narrow passage. Being “no bigger than a whisper” allowed me to slip easily between the walls of rock. I stepped out of the passage and instantly took a deep breath of the fresh, fragrant and familiar air. Revel had a harder time squeezing through, especially with his two buddies. He squinted up at the blue sky and seemed to take a deep breath as well. The donkeys wasted no time rolling in the fresh grass to kick off their coats of mud.

There were a few men standing on the bridge with fishing lines dropped in the river. They nearly fell over the railing when we stepped onto the bridge. Up until that time, we were invisible. The fact that my partner looked as if he’d just stepped off a Viking longship didn’t help matters either. We walked casually past them. I even nodded and said hello, but the two stared at us with eyes wide and chins dropped. We stepped off the bridge, and I glanced back a few feet later. They’d returned to their fishing rods, and all was normal in their world again.

The long walk back home went the same, a rippling wave of shocked faces and curious stares followed by people going about their day. Revel and I kept the conversation to a minimum.

A deep ache of homesickness hit me when we reached the corner of my street. I’d felt instantly at home in Norvale, but here was home, too, and that feeling became even more intense when I spotted my best friend Paxton standing in my yard. He was watering the sunflowers and vegetables.

I took off at a run. “Pax! Paxton!” I was sobbing by the time I reached him. He swung around the hose still spraying water, and he held it like a stone statue in a fountain.

“Rafi?” My name squeaked out of his mouth. “Raphael Willow, is that you!”

He tossed the hose aside, and I slammed into him so hard he nearly toppled backward. We hugged for so long neither of us had heard Revel walk up. But it didn’t take long for Paxton to spot the stranger in my front yard.

Paxton mumbled into my ear. “Rafi, there is a massive and gorgeous man standing on your lawn, and he looks like he’s off to a movie set or costume party.”

“He’s with me.” I wiped at my tears and then at Paxton’s. “I have so much to tell you.” I backed out of his arms and noticed that Revel was wearing what I termed his grumpy face. He scowled at Paxton.

“This is my best friend, Paxton,” I said cheerily, right past his glower. “I would love to have a few minutes of private time to talk with him.”

Revel’s glower deepened. “We don’t have much time.”

I winked at Paxton. “Just a second.” I walked over to Revel and stepped close enough that I could talk in a low voice. “First of all⁠—”

“Who is that man to you?” he barked.

“Pax? I just told you. He’s my best friend.” It had taken a moment, but the reason for his grumpiness finally hit me. “Trust me, he’d be far more interested in you than me.”

Revel’s brow creased in confusion, then he seemed to grasp my meaning.

“First things first.” I waved my hand at the garden. I’d worried that everything would be dead from the summer heat, but Paxton had been taking care of the plants in my absence. Everything, especially the sunflowers, were flourishing. “Lion’s bane?” I asked Revel. My earlier words had smoothed away the glower, and at the same time, I took a second to enjoy the fact that Revel had been jealous of Paxton.

I heard Paxton suck in a sharp breath as Revel walked past him. Paxton turned to me and mouthed the words “holy smoking hot” to me. I nodded in agreement. Revel made my nicely sized garden and the tall sunflowers look like they belonged outside a dollhouse.

Revel surveyed the sunflowers and reached up to pull a few seeds free from the face of the flower. He pushed them into his mouth, moved them around and spit out the shells. I held my breath in anticipation. Had I been mistaken? Was it possible the sunflowers just looked like lion’s bane?