struck us, but when the woman nearest me pointed and screamed, “It’s a mechanical monster! Flee! Flee the monster!” I knew what had really happened.
“It’s Aaron and his Velociphant. He must have gotten it working.”
“A Veloci-what?” Mom asked.
“This I have to see. Stay here!” I ordered my mothers before bolting painfully for the stream and Aaron’s camp.
“We aren’t going to miss something exciting,” Mom Two answered, and just as I knew they would, they trotted after me.
On the far side of Aaron’s camp, several men struggled with large wooden poles, obviously in the process of erecting a tent suitable for a king. To the side of them, the massive iron machine was surrounded by what appeared to be everybody in the entire camp, the warriors and squires and support people all cheering and shouting excitedly.
“Glory of the good green earth, what’s that?” Mom asked, pointing.
“That is Aaron’s answer to the war.” A thought struck me. “I guess, given the fact that Ethan’s people are all really trees in human form, you could say it was a glorified lawn mower. Aaron intends to use it on Ethan’s dudes.”
“This Aaron either is very stupid or has been misinformed,” Mom Two announced. “Lord Ethan’s warriors are magical beings, summoned from the spirits of the forest and field. No mere machine could destroy them.”
“I have to say that I hope so, despite wanting the war to end, because I kind of like Ethan and his wacky bunch. Except maybe that Holly . . . oh! Holly! You think she’s—”
“Of course she is,” Mom Two said, giving me a look that said I should have sussed out Holly’s origins long ago. “Didn’t you notice the green in her hair and her rather painful manner?”
“Yes, but I thought that was just her.”
“Oh, Gwenny.” Mom shook her head. “And we raised you to see all the possibilities . . .”
“Yes, well, I think a little slack can be granted due to the circumstances.” I craned my neck over the shoulder of the knight in front of me, wanting to get a better look at whether or not Constance had accompanied Aaron. If she had, I wanted badly to have a few words with her.
The crowd rippled, and several people gasped, sweeping us backward and to the side in a wave of bodies.
“What’s going on?” Mom said, hopping up and down in order to see over the wall of warriors in front of us. “Gwen, what do you see?”
“Nothing but helms and heads. Stick with me.” I grabbed my mother’s arm, and muttering apologies, pushed my way through the various bodies, finally emerging into the open.
“—and Lord Ethan wants to lodge a formal complaint about it,” Holly was saying to Aaron, who stood in front of the mechanical maw of his beast. “You sent a Traveller to attack us, and that is in clear violation of the agreement of 1717.”
“I did nothing of the kind. I hired a thief to take back what is mine, nothing more.” Aaron, a screwdriver in hand, was fussing with something on the foot of the giant mechanical beast.
Holly didn’t like being more or less ignored; she marched forward and grabbed Aaron by the arm, spinning him around so she could poke him in the chest. “Your so-called thief smote two of our men with lightning. That is against the terms of our agreement, and thus you have forfeited this war and must hand over control of Anwyn to me. Er . . . to Ethan.”
Aaron said a word that had my mothers gasping. I wanted to give him a thumb’s-up, but the sight of Constance strolling into the mix, followed by her cavalcade of white cats, drove that thought from my mind.
“What is going on here? Are we entertaining, husband?” Constance called out.
“Stop calling me that! We are not married. We have not been married since I found out what a devil you really are. The fact you should keep uppermost in your mind at all times is that I divorced you four hundred years ago, and you are only in Anwyn because your blasted herd of felines keeps the rodents under control.”
“Stay here out of trouble’s way,” I warned my mothers. “I want to have a word with the queen.”
“Oh, is that who that cat is?” Mom Two asked, looking with interest as Constance approached.
“Cat lady, you mean? Yes, that’s her.” I took a step forward to intercept Constance, but was suddenly yanked to the side. A short, dark-haired woman in a red wool power suit faced me with flaring nostrils and an extremely irritated expression.
“There you are! I knew you must be close by if that Traveller was trying so hard to get rid of me.”
Oh, great. This was just what I needed. “You must be the soul reclaimer.” I reached for my sword, swearing under my breath when I remembered that Seith had taken it for its cleaning. “Where’s Gregory? If you’ve done anything to him, I will make you the sorriest excuse for a human being as has ever existed.”
“Oh, Alice,” Mom said to Mom Two, “did you hear how she threatened that evil soul-stealing woman? Our Gwenny is in love with that nice young man!”
I was? I hesitated a moment, stunned by the thought that my mother was right. At some point during the last few days, I had stopped being enamored of Gregory and had fallen in love with him. I shook my head at myself. The phrase “in love” seemed to be so inadequate for the emotion I felt. If I could be “in love,” then I could be out of it as well, and I knew without one single shred of doubt that the love I felt for Gregory would never dim. “It’s like . . . he’s part of me now.”
“That’s exactly how I feel,” a deep voice said behind me.
My heart sang with joy as I spun around. The mass of warriors parted again when Gregory walked toward me with long strides that spoke of carefully controlled strength. I hadn’t realized until I saw him in the midst of the other warriors just how much an aura of power surrounded him, but as the lightning streaked across the sky above, I acknowledged that he was the sexiest man alive.
And he was mine.
“I see you found—” He hesitated, frowning at the reclaimer. “What is your name?”
She looked startled for a moment, then said, “Astrid.”
“Ah.” He made a slight bow. “I see you found Astrid, Gwen. And, apparently, everyone else as well. What are they fighting about?”
I glanced at Holly, in Aaron’s face. He was snarling back at her, trying to grab the screwdriver that she had apparently snatched from him. Constance, her cats in tow, was staring in surprise at Ethan’s rogue hand, which was on her breast. I half expected her to slap his face, but instead she covered the alien hand with her own, and smiled a slow, sensual smile.
“Holly and Ethan—although really, one gets the idea that it’s all Holly—are upset because they believe that Aaron sent you over to attack them with your elite Traveller skills. Aaron appears to be annoyed to find Constance here, as well as about the fact that Holly has taken his screwdriver and won’t give it back. I gather from the besotted expression on Constance’s face that she and Diego are hitting it off. Ethan looks less enamored with her, but given his self-obsession, that doesn’t surprise me.”
“Thank you for the summation,” he said politely, and pulled me into his arms despite all the people standing around watching.
Mom Two giggled.
“Do you really?”
I looked up at those beautiful eyes, the color of a flawless summer sky, and knew he’d overheard my mother. “I suppose I do. It will make everyone happy, and it’s probably better that I love you if we’re going to spend the rest of our lives together.”
“This would be touching,” a voice said just as Gregory leaned down to kiss me, “if there was any truth to it, but alas, you will not be spending your lives together because your soul belongs to me. Or rather, to my employer.”
“She has bad timing,” I said against Gregory’s lips.
“Extremely poor. I suppose I shall have to address this issue, however, so that I can take you to your tent and allow you to tell me, in many words and more actions, just how deep is your love for me.”
“You big ham,” I said, biting his lip before turning to face the annoying Astrid. “Look, I don’t know you, but I’ve heard that you’re obsessed with my soul. The fact is that I’m not dead, so you can’t have it.”
She picked a minute bit of fluff from her sleeve. “That’s not how it works. You died. I was sent to fetch your
