My roots grew deep into the well of my two-hundred-plus years. Some of what I drew up fouled the waters of my mind, but most of it didn’t. The trick was to filter so only the best reached the leaves closest to the sun.
And my sun was about to be ripped from me because of the spells of her fae mother.
The ash tree understood. It also fought for clean roots and clear skies. It also stood stalwart and against all gales.
Blood to blood, it said, deep down in the World parts. Breath to breath.
Ellie screamed against my chest. The tree picked up every frequency in her voice and everything turned white—the bark, the magic coiling around us and into us, the snow, the sky, Salvation, the cottage. Everything became a ghost of itself as if the gain in the vision processing parts of my brain had been turned all the way up.
The buzz on my skin ramped up to a lightning strike. I gritted my teeth, and held on.
“I’m hurting you,” Ellie said.
Buzz. Jolt. Blinding nothingness. Pain.
Breathe, said the tree, and…
The world was struggling with its own doubts and flashbacks, frustration and anger, death and destruction, but the World Tree did what it always did—it stood. It breathed. It grew and it became a forest. It took the worst, and if it burned up, it sprouted anew from its roots.
It did it for itself. It did it for its sun. It lived because living was its purpose.
The cottage pushed away Ellie’s power instead of siphoning it into its enchantment engines. Sal called that power to her, and drew it up from my connection to Ellie.
Salvation released it into the tree.
Every branch shook. All remaining leaves fell to the muddy ground. The tree took every ounce of living, burning energy.
Behind us, the cottage implemented the commanded spell to move, but with empty batteries. The spell wove itself weakly around the building and the yard, dancing along the boundary of the fence, and in the whiteness overlaying my vision, I swore that for just a second I saw the too-blue sky of Titania’s realm.
Then it was gone, vanished into the ghostly brilliance.
The cottage was the first to fall into unconsciousness. Salvation followed as the vast amount of power she channeled overwhelmed her mind. Between my chest and the tree, Ellie sucked in her breath as her connection to her cottage reset to its default siphoning.
All the remaining free power flowed from Ellie, to me, through Sal, and into the ash tree. The blinding whiteness diminished, and the golden early-evening light returned. The electrical agony vanished into a post-fire buzz. My muscles loosened.
The trees beyond the gate stayed the same. Jays called. My lake lapped against its shores and my cabin stayed just down the path.
Ellie dropped her legs to the ground but held tight to my waist. She was okay. I was okay. Sal and the cottage were okay, if drained.
The ground under my feet moved.
I tipped away from the tree, releasing my grip on Sal and carrying Ellie with me, and fell onto my backside.
Every branch and twig of the tree shimmered with real and magical light as if millions of fireflies had come to paint its branches with the evening’s light.
“Oh, wow…” Ellie said.
I ran my hands up and down her back. “Are you okay? I felt the cottage start its siphoning again.”
“Everything reset.” She pointed at the tree. “Look.”
The shimmer evaporated from the outer branches, then the next in, as the tree pulled Ellie’s magic downward.
It was healing itself.
I scrambled to my feet and yanked Salvation from the bark just as the tree’s shimmer increased to a real glow. The slice blazed for a moment, then closed as if Sal’s blade had only nicked the bark.
The ground jerked. I stumbled and tripped, landing on the ground next to Ellie once more.
The remaining magic drained downward from the trunk and into the ground.
Ellie dropped her ear to the leaf litter. “I think the tree is rooting.” My beautiful girlfriend smiled as she reached for me. “We’re rooted to Alfheim.”
I hugged her to my chest. Could it be true? Had the tree overwritten part of Titania’s complicated concealments?
Ellie yawned. I yawned. My mind wanted to mull and plan, but my brain would have none of it. Breathe filtered up. Breathe and rest.
But snow and mud did not make for a bed.
“We should go—” Yet I was asleep with my head on a pile of leaves and my arms around the woman I loved before I finished my sentence.
Chapter 23
Sheep lips nibbled on my ear and I was suddenly completely awake.
We’d fallen asleep out in the cold, in the mud, but I was dry, warm, and inside a pile of fresh, sweet-smelling hay heaped so high I couldn’t really make out much of the world beyond the straw and the lamb’s fluffy head.
The sheep sniffed at my face. His little nose wiggled, and he licked my cheek.
I knew this lamb. I’d carried him up to the barn while in the veil. “Do you mind?” I wiggled to get away from the next lick, but Ellie slept snuggled in under the hay and next to my side. She sighed and smacked her lips, and instead of rolling away, rolled against my hip. I didn’t dare move.
The lamb laid a full lick onto my face from my jaw all the way to my hairline.
I swatted at him, trying to shoo him away. He backed up a bit but stopped when his butt hit another sheep.
Bells rang. Baas and bleats filled the air. I lifted my head as best I could to get a look around. We were still in Ellie’s yard, inside the fence and under the ash tree. The cottage looked the same in terms of its size and layout. No extra overheating magic filled the air. Morning sun spread out over the roofline and set the
