Magic Shifts

EPILOGUE

I SIPPED MY iced tea, holding the glass in my left hand. The right still had no skin under the bandages, despite a week of Doolittle’s careful ministrations, but he said in another ten days or so my hand would recover. He’d also said a few other choice words that I didn’t know were in his vocabulary. He sat at the other table now watching Eduardo and George slow dancing their way around the lawn. George looked lovely in a pure white dress. Eduardo was still too thin and probably should have been on bed rest still, but trying to outstubborn a werebear and a werebuffalo was a losing proposition.

Eduardo had told me about fifteen times that he was grateful for the rescue. George kept hugging me. She also sent chocolate to our house. They were moving in on the other side of Barabas’s house, which meant I would see them often. If either of them told me “thank you” one more time, I would have to run away from home.

I moved my head to toss my braid back before I remembered it wasn’t there. The heat from the ifrit had melted all my hair. It was barely touching my shoulders now, and it drove me nuts.

Across the lawn Mahon sat at the table, his hand over his face. I was pretty sure he had teared up and didn’t want anyone to know. Bahir sat at the same table, looking slightly out of place. He and Eduardo had spoken. Things weren’t quite smoothed over, but George said she remained hopeful.

In the past week, spring had exploded in Atlanta. Everything had turned green, as if nature rejoiced in the ifrit’s banishment. Flowers bloomed and the apple blossoms in the tall vases on the white-clothed tables sent a gentle aroma into the warm air. I was so glad George and Eduardo had decided on an open-air wedding instead of trying to pack fifteen hundred people into the Keep’s main hall.

A hand slid down my back.

“Hey,” Curran said.

“Hey.” I leaned against him. He put his arm around me.

“Everyone is getting married,” he said.

“Mm-hm.”

“We should, too.”

In my mind I saw my father on the grassy hill, walking away with our child in his arms. I wrapped my arm around his back, hoping his strength would chase it away. “I thought we agreed we would. You asked, I said yes, we are all good.”

“Yes, but it was theoretical. Let’s set a date. An actual date.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, how does the sixth of June sound?”

“Ivan Kupala night? The night when everything goes crazy in Slavic pagan folklore?”

“The last day of the Werewolf Summer.” Curran grinned at me.

Every first week of June, the Pack celebrated the Werewolf Summer. They ate, they drank, they celebrated being alive, and generally had an all-around good time.

“I mean it. Marry me, Kate.”

“No preacher will marry us.”

“We don’t need a preacher. We’ll get Roman to officiate.”

“You can’t be serious, Your Furriness.”

Curran got up off his chair and knelt. Oh my God.

“Marry me.”

“What are you doing?” I ground out through clenched teeth. My face was so hot, the wedding cake fifteen feet away had to be melting.

“I’m formally proposing. The first time didn’t take.”

Kill me, somebody.

“Curran! Get up. People are looking at us.”

“Let them look.” He smiled at me. “Marry me, Kate.”

“Okay. The last night of the Werewolf Summer it is.”

He got up, leaned to me, and brushed a kiss on my lips. I kissed him back and heard clapping. The bride and groom had stopped dancing and Eduardo was clapping. Someone else clapped from the left. Andrea. Screw you, too.

I smiled and gave them a little wave. “I’m so mad at you right now.”

“Don’t be mad. Here, I’ll bring you more tea.”

He laughed, took my glass, and went to the table to refill it.

We would get married. We would have a child. I would love it more than anything I had ever loved in this world, and then my father would take my baby from me.

No. It wasn’t happening. I had to find a way to beat him. What the hell was I going to do? How do you kill the unkillable?

Bahir approached the table. “May I sit down?”

“Of course.”

He sat on the right. “I wanted to thank you once again.”

“No need. How is it going with Eduardo?”

Bahir smiled. “Some fences take time to mend. He is angry with me for leaving him. He’s angry with his mother for not telling him any of it. Eduardo was always a sensitive, gentle child.”

I tried to reconcile a six-foot-four werebuffalo gouging the giantess’s eye with the “sensitive child” and failed. “Mm-hm.”

“I understand his stepfather wasn’t the most understanding parent. But I’m not losing hope.”

Curran had refilled the glasses and was walking back to us. I loved him so much. I loved his eyes, the way he looked at me, the way he walked, the way he made me crazy . . .

Sometimes, when the power of your enemy is too great, the only thing you can do is contain it.

“Bahir,” I said quietly. “You told me before the fight that if I ever needed anything, you would help me.”

“Yes.”

“Does that offer still stand?”

“Of course.”

“After the wedding, when things calm down, I would like us to meet. I want you to tell me everything you know about that box.”