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“Rakehell? Never!” Locryn’s grin flashed in the diminishing light. “I merely enjoy the company of the ladies.”

“Well, if my mother catches word of you sharing company with that maid of ours, you’ll wish she had not.”

“’Tis but a flirtation. Surely she cannot object to that.”

“Oh, but she can—and will. So step carefully.”

“I am always careful.”

Gryff glanced up at the sky. “The sun is set. The moon is full tonight and will rise soon. We’d best head back.” He shrugged a shoulder towards the wood. “It’s a night for the Pixies, as tradition holds.”

Thistle nodded. The Cardew family had an understanding of sorts with her kind.

“I am not ready, just yet. But you go on.”

Gryff sighed. “I see what you are about. You’d best take my advice.”

“You’ve no need to worry.”

Shaking his head, Gryff headed back. Locryn stayed, perching on a low garden wall, then rising to pace to the oak and back.

“His eyes are the same blue as . . . you!” Derowan said in an excited whisper. “I’m not sure that is enough, though, to rate any . . . ideas you might have.” She glanced down, doubtful.

“It’s not just that,” Thistle said with a sigh. “I believe he’s kind, as well. Come, let’s get closer.”

Silently, they drifted downward to the lower branches, stopping to perch on a thick limb several feet above the restless young man.

Neither of them noticed the intense gaze that followed them from behind and above.

“I know my kind has dabbled with humans, now and then,” Derowan said. “But have Pixies ever done so?”

“No,” huffed Thistle. “And that’s not precisely why I’m interested in him. I saw him with that girl today. He handled himself well.”

“Oh, so that’s it! I never knew a Pixie before so in love—with love!”

Thistle sighed. “I know. I cannot seem to help it, though. It just seems so unfair! Humans are always pairing up and spending their lives together—and Pixies almost never do. I don’t understand why.”

“Perhaps it’s because human lives are so short—it’s a sort of compensation,” practical Derowan suggested.

“Well, loneliness feels like a hard price to pay for my years.”

“Perhaps you need a familiar, like Tuft with his Jump.”

“Those two are attached to each other,” Thistle admitted. “But if I am old, then Tuft is ancient. And an animal companion, even an uncommon hybrid like Jump, just does not feel like what I am missing.”

“And so you study human love, hoping to learn the way of it?”

That was close enough to the truth. “Is it so wrong? Have you ever seen the glow that their love lights within them? Between them? It’s the warmest, most beautiful light in the world.” Could it be wrong for her to wish for that kind of connection?

“I’m not sure I have,” the dryad admitted. “I have seen them act ridiculously in the name of love, though.” Derowan shrugged. “Is that the case with this one? Is he in love? Is that what he’s doing down there, waiting for his beloved?”

“Oh!” Thistle clasped her hands. “You could be right! Certainly there was a spark of love-light between him and that girl today.”

“Just what did you see—and how did you manage to be there to see it?”

“I was helping a family of water shrews down at the end of the last dock in the village. A thoughtless human sailor tossed a pot of scalding pitch and water over their burrow yesterday. I’d just finished up when Lord Locryn came along to examine that big sea holly atop the bank there. He sat down to sketch it and I had to hide in the marsh grass.”

“Not that you minded, I’m sure. Especially if he was admiring your namesake plant.”