Leaning against the crabapple, I tried to catch my breath as I emptied my pockets and repeated the experiment. The return trip was every bit as nausea-inducing, but my stomach was empty. I arrived at Christoph’s side out of breath.
“Ready?” he asked, chuckling at my discomfort.
“Ready.”
Christoph’s wings snagged on the strips of fabric in the doorway to the underland, adding a touch of drama to our entrance. He sucked in a breath when he noticed the cage and its contents and rubbed his hands together when our eyes adjusted to the scene at the tea table.
The bird-man straightened his spine, stepped closer to the women, and bent at the waist to acknowledge Maritza. Pivoting, he then bowed to Idunn and kissed the hand she offered.
The goddess rose from her seat, her arm stiff and her fingers curled over Christoph’s. “Christoph. Aviator and rogue of hearts. Pardon me for keeping my distance. I do not count raptors amongst my favorite birds, though I have no quarrel with you.”
Blush brushed her cheeks and just as quickly faded as she released his hand and turned to Tanner.
Mercifully, someone had decided the tablecloth would serve a higher purpose as a toga of sorts. Tanner fumbled for my fingers and tugged me against his side.
“Tanner Didier Marechal, student of Ni’eve du Blanc. You and I have business to finish.” Idunn stepped toward us. Her facial features elongated as she continued to grow in height. “You signed a binding contract, and try as you might to run from your vow, the time has come to make this right.” She turned to me. “Before we depart, there is one thing I wish to show you.” Idunn gestured for me to come closer to her. “Tanner, you, too.”
Idunn was now at least six feet tall, with golden-white hair trailing over her shoulders and down her back, all the way to her ankles. She lifted the cords of the necklace from underneath the shirt I had neglected to change and pulled the well-worn leather strips through her fingers.
“You have guarded this well,” she said, speaking to Tanner while cupping the pouch in both palms. “Almost as well as you have guarded your heart. I have seen your dedication to keeping the sacred objects within safe and on your body at all times.” Clear stones—icy diamonds, pale blue aquamarine, pink tourmaline—set in delicate rings, glittered on every one of her fingers. Idunn winked at me and smiled. “Unless, of course, you knew that to wear this into certain situations would endanger its contents. Calliope would have been my choice too.”
I stood a little taller, relieved the Norse goddess wasn’t there to school us on magical object etiquette. Or punish Tanner for his choosing me.
“There is one thing.” Idunn giggled softly and lowered her voice for my and Tanner’s hearing only. “Perhaps more than one thing, but for the sake of brevity, I shall say ‘one thing.’” She returned to speaking to the group gathered in the underland. “There is one thing I neglected to mention when I tasked this druid with guarding the seeds to my beloved apple trees.” She lifted one loop, drew it over my head, and drew the other loop over Tanner’s, forcing the two of us to stand chest to chest. “Only the beating of true hearts in tandem can awaken the seeds.”
Idunn placed one hand between my shoulders blades and guided me closer to Tanner, close enough the pouch was pressed between his bare chest and my blood- and mud-soaked shirt. The golden sparks I had seen flickering around Tanner’s eyes when he was amused or aroused returned. Similar sparks, more green in tone, flickered in a fine mist around the both of us.
The pouch at our hearts warmed, the leather softened. Spring-green tendrils peeked through the whipped stitching edging the square and began to curl around the cords.
“Uh-huh, children,” cooed Idunn, “that’s enough for now.”
Tanner’s eyes grew wide as saucers. He grabbed my hand and turned us to face Idunn as she removed the cords from our necks and looped both around her own. The stems emerging from the pouch reached for sections of the hair falling over one shoulder, and intertwined themselves throughout the pale golden strands.
Idunn patted at the curlicues and leaves absentmindedly, whispering in a language I’d never heard, until the movement stopped with an audible sigh. The goddess kissed the inquisitive leaflet budding near her lower lip, and tucked it behind her ear.
“Though it is time for you to return to your teacher,” she said, her smile for Tanner tight, yet not without…hope, “I think we may have to renegotiate the terms of your indenture.”
I squeezed my wolfy druid’s fingers and tried to bring him close for a parting kiss. But a Goddess’s will pulled harder than an earth witch’s connection to gravity. Tanner and Idunn were gone in the space between heart beats, swallowed into the gloom of the underland, and I was left with the imprint of an apple seedling over my heart.
“I think we should call Malvyn to come get this one,” said Maritza, tilting her head in the direction of the cage housing Meribah. With a flick of her fingers, she orchestrated a hands-free clean-up of the tea table, returning the underland to its original state.
“I would be pleased to escort Malvyn here.” Alabastair’s baritone spread like warm caramel as he approached us from the far end of the underland.
“Thank you, Alabastair. Before you do, would you please assist with moving this cage? I find this place is giving me a headache.”
Maritza had shrunk, perhaps from all of the magic she’d expended,
