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“I do. They’re home. You’re well come there.” She tilted her head, water dripping from her fingers as she waved her hand. “So tell me. What’s different about you? You look different.”

“Do I?” He gave himself a once-over, being as dramatic as he could. He wasn’t ready to share about Cullen and their little girl. Not until he spoke to his fathers. “I think I just look like me.”

“Oh, no. No, you look different. Definitely not just you. Something’smore.” Oh, Lania was too clever for her own good.

“I need to go see my fathers. I’ll stop back by on my way out, though, and we’ll have a nice visit.” Hopefully, that would assuage any damage.

“Don’t tell me. Just hurt my feelings, that’s all right. I didn’t want to talk to you anyway.” She splashed him, the spray of water making him glitter.

He laughed and waved, then began to wander deeper into the glade, following the paths that had been worn down by millennia of hooves and feet and stones.

The breeze was warm and pleasant, and he could hear the hint of a pipe playing a seductive tune. The satyrs must be rutting. That meant the dryads would be flirting and hiding, the trees circling them in their boughs.

It was lovely to be home, really. It had been too long.

After an apple and a bunch of grapes, along with a long sip of clear water from a stream, Orion found himself at a familiar hill. It was gentle and rolling, olives and apples and apricot trees offering sustenance and shade to the home built right into the side of it. The front door was a deep purple, a single horn carved into the surface.

He knew that there was a foyer on the other side of that door, with a bench to sit and wait and hooks on the wall for cloaks to hang. There was a table too, with fresh fruit and nuts in their shells, candies created from honey—an offering to both visitors and the gods. If he looked beneath that table there was a tiny door carved into the wall, a spot for their petty drake—her name was Elspet and she had amused him for hours as a child, with her gossamer wings and her rainbow scales.

Ivy and moss covered the home so it looked like it was a piece of the earth itself. It was an illusion, of course. Most everything here was open to interpretation. It was rare that he found anyone who remembered that fact. That very little here was real. Unchangeable.

Orion didn’t bother to knock. He just went and found a comfortable place near the door and waited.

They would come to him.

A tiny fairy came fluttering up to him, her entire body no longer than his finger. “Orion! Welcome home.”

He narrowed his eyes and sniffed, discovering the scent of cinnamon and peaches, pink and silver sparks surrounding her. “Finola, is that you?”

“It is! Are you here to see the children?” She bounced down on a leaf, chin in her hand as she watched him.

“I hadn’t thought to, no. I don’t want to disturb them. Are they doing well?”

“Of course. Don’t worry. None of them will remember you, because they’re not the same children as when you left. Now you’re like a story to them, like a legend. They keep coming, though. There’s a bunch. A little world of little ones. All needing parents. All needing friends. There’s a little fox; you could take him. He has a lovely laugh and bright red ears!”

“Oh, lovely, I think that I have my hands full. But I would love to come and peek. Perhaps.” He didn’t want to disrupt anyone; it was hard enough to care for the children.

He remembered.

“Have you missed me? That’s the important part. Did you bring me a present?”

“Of course I brought you a present.” Orion was neither stupid nor did he have a death wish. He pulled a tiny diamond out of his pocket, handed it over. She took it, fluttered over to give him a burning kiss to his cheek.

“Thank you. You’ve done well.”

“You are most welcome. Have you seen my fathers?”

“They are in the garden in the back.”

“Thank you, sweetness.” He bowed, and she tittered, the sound like tiny bells. And he took a deep breath, then let it out.

She buzzed off like a hummingbird, and Orion waited. Maybe he should go around back…

“Orion.” The deep, mellifluous voice of his alpha father sounded, and he smiled, turning to see him standing at the corner of the house.

“Father.” He bowed deeply. “I was worried you wouldn’t remember.”

One dark brow winged up, the only change of his father’s expression. “Orion, I could never forget you. Neither could Alnitak.”