Kingfisher(90)

“You took it out, showed it to me.”

“I stole it. From this place, actually. I never knew why before.”

“It’s a powerful magic,” Tye said. He was cutting fruit into a blender, pulling peaches, strawberries, oranges out of his enchanted garden behind the bar. “It goes where it wants, finds who it needs, does what it must.” He scooped ice into the blender and splashed liquid from some bottle over it, adding a scent of melon. “Pierce is right. You were brave to recognize what you had to do.”

“I don’t feel brave,” she said ruefully. “I’m just a woman who lost her husband, out looking for a job.”

Tye ran the blender, poured the thick, colorful concoction into a glass, and passed it to her. “Good riddance to the husband.”

She nodded at that, raised her glass. “Good riddance. Thank you, Tye.”

“So you’re looking for work here?” Pierce said.

“I thought—it wouldn’t hurt to ask. I used to be able to cook. At least I think so. Before I met Todd.” She swallowed a sip of fruit and ice, then another. “I had forgotten what tasting is like,” she sighed. “This is so good. It’s like learning to walk again, remembering my life before. Todd fed me enough real food to keep me alive, but he made it taste so dreadful, I never wanted more.”

“Do you have a place to stay?”

“He owned the old bank building; we lived upstairs. It’s mine, now. For what that’s worth. I hate being in it. But I’m not afraid of it. I might clean it up, open it again. But first I need to find out what I can do in a kitchen.”

I can cook, Pierce thought, and saw, with wonder, his life take yet another turn. He had left this magical backwater once; life had brought him back. He had found the family he needed, but he did not need to become a knight. He could sand a floor, paint a wall, put a restaurant back together, help create new memories in the face of the woman beside him.

“Ella’s in the kitchen, probably prepping for tonight,” Tye said. “She’s between meals. Why don’t you go and talk to her? She’ll be happy to see you, anyway, after what you did to help get rid of Stillwater. She was getting pretty worried about Carrie. Take that with you,” he added, as Sage put the glass down. “It’s good for you.”

She smiled then, a thin, tremulous thing, but genuine. Pierce watched her cross the dim room, push open the kitchen doors to a sudden stream of light. He lingered, riffling through his own memories of her, letting thoughts roam idly between past and future.

“Do for you?” he heard Tye murmur; he shook his head. Then he heard Tye’s voice again, still soft but oddly shaken. “Holy shit.”

His mother walked into the bar.

He heard the couch lurch as the two knights rocketed to their feet. She nearly walked past Pierce without seeing him, so riveted she was by her tall, flaming-haired son with his ice-blue eyes, and by the darker shadow behind him. Then she seemed to feel the tug from the bar, the pull of heartstrings, and her attention veered. So did her step. Pierce felt his throat close as she came to him, threw her arms around him.

“I have missed you so much,” she exclaimed, kissing his eye, his jawbone. “I had no idea you would get into so much trouble in such a short time. I chased that demented sorceress clear up into the northlands.” She lowered her voice, pitched it to his ear. “Is that your father?”

“Yes.”

“So strange. I almost didn’t . . . I suppose we’ve both gotten older.” She loosed Pierce, took his arm, walked to Leith through the twenty-odd years of distance between them both. She stood silently, gazing with wonder at Val. She turned to Leith; Pierce saw the glitter of tears in her eyes. “When I was so busy not forgiving you, I forgot that one day I would need to ask our sons to forgive me. One because he never knew you. The other because, for all those years, I hardly knew him. Forgive me?” she said to Val.

“What’s the alternative?” he asked, and she stared at him, tears sliding down her face. Then she laughed, and he put his arms around her.

“I could tell you,” she told him. “I know it well.” She stretched out one hand to Leith, still holding her son. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for this.”

Gradually, as they sat and talked, the bar began to fill. Smells wafted from the kitchen, rich, briny, pungent with herbs and spices. Carrie came in, waved at Pierce, smiling for once before she vanished through the swinging doors. Pierce recognized faces from his first Friday Nite ritual: the father and son who held the doors open, the young priest who carried the gaff. A few knights wandered in, including, he saw, a couple of marauders from Stillwater’s. They looked subdued; they spoke quietly, very politely to Tye, who relented and gave them what they wanted. A party of elderly couples entered, and behind them, another knight, whom Pierce remembered immediately as the first he had ever seen.

The knight with the hair like lamb’s wool and the eyes of balmy, tropical blue, carried his wine over to the family gathering on the couch, and toasted them with it.

“Sir Gareth May,” Leith said. “This is Heloise Oliver. The mother of my sons.”

“Strange how I knew that the moment I saw you,” Gareth said to her, smiling. “That hair, those eyes—such generous gifts to your children. I see this is the place to be for supper tonight.”