C. E. Murphy - Wayfinder

“Hell,” Kelly muttered, “it’s easy enough to ignore when you’ve only got threescore and ten. Nothing would convince humans they were a dying race if individually we lived for millennia.”

“There are ways in which we are not so different,” Aerin allowed, then transferred her attention back to Lara. “Dozens of us have died in this war already, Truthseeker. Perhaps hundreds, by now. No one imagines it to be a blow we can easily recover from, which is part of why we must win at any cost.”

“You do see the inherent contradiction in that attitude,” Lara half-asked, but she was watching Dafydd now, watching tension play in his shoulders and hands. “Annwn’s magic might respond differently than the Barrow-lands’, Dafydd. Ioan may be able to reach an aspect of your world that the Seelie have forgotten. And even if he can’t, at least there’s just one mortal magic user right now. Nothing should interfere with his attempt to build the spell.”

“Nothing except his head injury,” Dafydd snapped. Envy, Lara thought: Dafydd was envious of his older brother, the brother Emyr had always favored, for all that Ioan had been a child when he was made hostage to the Unseelie king. Maybe because he’d been made hostage: out of sight meant out of the possibility of wrongdoing, where any mistakes Dafydd made were in Emyr’s eye. Envy could be born of that easily enough, and for the moment, Ioan had access to magics that Dafydd had been cut off from.

“Try to prepare the spell,” she said abruptly, to Ioan. “We’ll have to go back to the Common to get the horses before you cast it, but you should be able to tell if you can draw down the magic if you try preparing it now, right?”

Ioan nodded once and Lara got to her feet as brusquely as she’d spoken, offering Dafydd a hand as she did so. He looked askance at her, but took her hand and stood as she said, “I need to talk to you. Kel, can we use the bedroom you lent me?”

Kelly nodded, shooing them away with a gesture, then glanced at Ioan before saying to Dickon, “Maybe we should give him a little while to concentrate.” She got up and went into the kitchen, which was only nominally a separate room, but offered the semblance of privacy without the intimacy of inviting Dickon into her own bedroom. Dickon hesitated a few seconds, then shrugged and followed her as Lara led Dafydd into the bedroom that had been hers for a few scant weeks.

“It’s not so bad, you know,” she said as the door closed. The room was as she’d left it only four days earlier, down to the pair of shoes she’d decided not to wear to court and had put on the bed with the intention of putting them away when she returned. She did that now, returning them to a box in the closet before she clarified, “I mean, being only mortal.”

Almost gently enough to take the sting out, Dafydd asked, “How would you know?”

A knot in her belly forced a small breathless sound free as she looked back at him. There was a full-length mirror just beyond him, angled so she could glimpse herself as well as Dafydd. By human standards, Lara was delicate, small-boned, and fine-featured, but compared to the ethereal Seelie prince, she looked blunt and rough-cut. “Don’t be cruel. Until the last few weeks my truth sense was never enough to make me more than quirky, not extraordinary. And even if it had been, you said yourself that there’s no doubt it’s a mortal magic. I’m only human, Dafydd. And I’m sure that having your magic stripped away makes you feel less than whole, but it’s not that bad. Mortal existence isn’t that bad.”

“Would you have me stay here, then? Half of what I was, forever hiding my face?” Tunelessness ran through the questions, not because they were a lie, but because they were true. Because Dafydd had no wish to remain in Lara’s world as any less than he had been for the century he’d spent searching for her. As any less than a chameleon, able to blend in; as a visitor, able to return to his immortal homeworld when the whim suited him.

“So instead I’d come to your world?” she wondered, though the question didn’t really need asking. “Never see my mother or Kelly again, but knowing I’d outlive them? Becoming like Oisín, a single mortal among immortals?”

“You would be more, there, than you are here,” Dafydd said softly. “The land would welcome and encourage your magic, Lara. You could become something great to my people, a long-lost arbiter of justice returned.”

“I would be different,” Lara corrected. “Not more. I make beautiful things here, Dafydd.” She smoothed a dress in the closet, one of several Kelly had kept in the months Lara had been missing. It was handmade, as nearly all her clothes were, perfectly fitted and subtle with stitching. Even her experienced fingertips could hardly tease out the feeling of seams; that was the joy of tailoring, for her. All the pieces fit together flawlessly, her talent turned to a physical creation of a true thing. “I would be different. Maybe more powerful, and all for the cost of nothing more than a mortal life.”

“I will bring you home again,” Dafydd said in a low voice. “When this is over, if it’s what you desire, Lara, I will bring you back to Boston and disturb you no more.”

“I know you would.” Lara released the dress and crossed to Dafydd, putting her arms around his waist and her head against his chest. His heartbeat was quicker than she expected, his distress echoing her own. “But would you stay? Such a short time for you, Dafydd. In less than the century you’ve already lived here, my life would be over. Would you stay?”

“If you would have me,” he finally whispered, “yes.”

Regret scored wounds through the music in his voice, but he spoke the truth. Lara laced her fingers behind his head and pulled his mouth to hers for a kiss that grew in urgency until Dafydd broke free with a laughing groan. “Our friends will be astonished by our lack of subtlety if we stay in here too long.”

“How long does it take to set the worldwalking spell?”

Dafydd quirked an eyebrow. “An hour or two at the fastest, and Ioan is unlikely to be moving swiftly.”

“Then they can be as astonished as they like.” Lara flattened her hand against Dafydd’s chest, surprised at her own determination. “We don’t know what’s waiting for us in the Barrow-lands, except war. We don’t know who’s waiting for us, and if it’s Merrick having taken one or more crowns, the truth is we don’t know if we’re going to live through it. I’m not usually rash,” she whispered, “but I don’t want the last few minutes of my life to be filled with regretting lost opportunities. You, Dafydd ap Caerwyn, prince of Seelie, are not an opportunity to be lost.”

Solemnity flashed into a brilliant smile that in turn faded to gentleness. “Nor am I one to argue with a truthseeker’s verdict. I like this better, Lara. Solace sought after danger is heady in its own right, but I asked then if I deserved your attentions. I think this decision is a more thoughtful one.”

“Dafydd,” Lara said, suddenly cheerful, “shut up.”

He laughed, murmured, “That I can do,” and drew her toward the bed.

Sunset bled into Kelly’s apartment, turning Aerin’s short white hair to fiery gold as Lara and Dafydd emerged from the bedroom. Aerin gave them a look so neutral as to be hostile, but Kelly seized Lara’s wrist. “Oh good, we were just talking about ordering dinner. Come tell me what you want.”

Lara shot a bemused glance at Dafydd as she was hauled into the kitchen. Kelly lodged herself beside the refrigerator and whispered, “Well?” at such volume there could be no doubt everyone heard it. “Is elf sex better than human sex?”

Laughter burst free, accompanied by a ferocious blush, and Lara, much more quietly than Kelly had, asked, “If I say yes are you going to seduce Ioan?”