Page 129

“No, it—” he sat back with an exasperated huff. “Our house would have walls, Meda. You aren’t listening. I’m only talking about leaving off the roof, so—”

“So we can get sunburned and watch birds try to poop on us,” I suggested. “Well, personally, I love it. Very regal, for a palace.”

“You’re the worst. I hate you,” he said.

“Oh, really?”

Kalcedon glared at me.

“I’m going to build my house with trees inside it, just like I want, and you can make some boring windowless library right next door. Then we both get what we want.”

“Or they could be connected,” I told him.

“Obviously,” he agreed. “But where will we put the bedroom?” He patted the earth firmly over the row of melon seeds he’d just planted.

“Probably on the side that isn’t made of windows,” I told him, and opened back up the book Tarelay had lent me.

“I don’t like it,” Kalcedon said a moment later.

“Your weird house idea?”

“You leaving. So soon.”

I looked at him over the pages of my book. He was and wasn’t looking at me, staring in my direction without meeting my eyes. I set the book back down again.

“Then lucky for you, you can visit anytime. Sable-Pall isn’t too far. And we can talk anytime.”

“Not when you’re working,” he grumbled. “Tarelay said if I interrupt you with a speech spell, he’ll put a curse on me.”

“It won’t be every waking hour.”

“I know you,” he reminded me.

“I take breaks. Sometimes. I do. For you, I will. And Tarelay agreed we could come back between each stone, remember.”

“You’d better.” He sniffed and looked away; at the rows of churned earth he’d spent the morning making. He was intent on restoring the land between the mountain and the river, starting with a garden. And a home. And then working out from there, sowing the ground with wild things and magic and life.

“It’s going to be perfect,” I told him.

“I know. I am happy for you,” he told me grudgingly. “Getting to do a working like that. Who’d have imagined?”

“No,” I said, though it was true. The new Ward would be perfect, as perfect as we could dream it. “I meant here, this. What you build. What you grow. It’s going to be perfect.”

“I’m not aiming for perfect.”

“You two remain?” I turned over my shoulder to see Tarelay approaching with a linen-wrapped bundle of tools under one arm. “I thought you were to meet the bulk of your human kin today. Are you not?”

“We are,” Kalcedon confirmed. “But not until afternoon.”

“It is afternoon,” Tarelay said.

“What?” Kalcedon looked up at the position of the sun, squawked, and then blinked away the brightness. “Dung, Meda, come on, we—” he was suddenly frantic, spelling the dirt off his clothes and then leaning down to pat one of the seeds tighter, and then spelling the dirt off his hand. I watched with some amusement as Tarelay shook his head and walked past us.

“Whenever you’re ready,” I said.

“I’m ready, damn it,” he said, and then spelled the wrinkles from his outfit. He closed the distance between us and grabbed my hand. For a moment we were face to face, his blazing heat against me. I’d always known Kalcedon was powerful; I hadn’t realized the half-faerie had more magic than most things here. A consequence, I supposed, of being Sorrowborn.

And now a Lord, himself, with an unruly court to keep under thumb and hungry fae neighbors on three borders.