Give Me (Wyrd and Fae #1)(2)
“The veil will fade when your rage dissipates.” She spoke quietly, but Aeolios would hear. She sensed him backing away from the veil and its infused higher divine power.
After a silent prayer of gratitude to Igdrasil and the high gods, Frona turned homeward to Glimmer Cottage. She was the most powerful wyrder in all of Dumnos’s history, but she didn’t feel so mighty. Great magic always demands compensation. Brother Sun and Sister Moon had allowed her to draw on Igdrasil’s energy to keep Aeolios at bay, but now it took all her strength to force her legs forward. The encounter had damaged her heart.
She didn’t mind. She’d wyrded the iron out of pride and thoughtless arrogance; she should be the one to pay. She’d give anything to protect her daughters from harm. Aeolios was as changeable as the wind; likely he’d already forgotten that he even wanted a wife.
1
Lucida in Platinum
21st Century California
It seemed every ad insert had fallen out of today’s Times and the Journal too. Lilith Evergreen dropped a K-cup in the Keurig and scooped up the mess from the break room table. As the leaflets fell into the recycle bin, she inhaled sharply.
Great gods! She dug through the ads until she found the image that had caught her eye. It was on a travel brochure for somewhere in England she’d never heard of. The tree was on the front. Unfolding the flyer, her heart pounded harder with each picture.
Come to Dumnos, a magical fairyland.
Impossible. Impossible. It was impossible. Her hands trembled all the way back to her desk. It was all she could do not to spill her coffee. She spread the brochure out: green fields, thatch-roofed cottages, cliffs overlooking the Severn Sea, the rock piles of a ruined castle—all images featured in the wild dreams she’d had this past month.
Every night, a dream of those castle ruins and that sea. And of that tree, a lone oak at the edge of the cliffs—except that in her dreams the tree was split down the middle as if it had been struck by lightning.
Dumnos is a land of mist and rain.
She couldn’t find an email or internet address anywhere on the brochure, no contact information but a UK telephone number. She pulled out her phone to text Greg. Ha! What would he say now? This proved they were more than just crazy, random dreams. They meant something.
I’m psychic! she texted. I just found the ruins from my dreams. They rarely actually spoke during the day anymore, not since Greg had started practicing law. He never knew if he’d be busy with clients or in a deposition. We should go there on our honeymoon.
Maybe she shouldn’t have mentioned the honeymoon thing. They weren’t officially engaged yet, not until tonight. They were meeting after work at the Bistro at Fantasy Springs, and he was going to propose. She’d seen the bill from Tiffany’s: a Lucida diamond in a platinum band setting, $18,550.
She didn’t need a diamond. She would have been deliriously happy with the antique ring on her right hand, the one Greg had brought from London last month. He’d gone to take a deposition in his current big case and bought it from a street vendor in Piccadilly. A simple band of braided gold, and the moment she’d seen it the thought love everlasting had settled over her.
She had started to slip it onto her left ring finger, but Greg stopped her. He said it wasn’t good enough for an engagement ring. It was just a souvenir since she hadn’t been able to go on the trip.
She had wanted to. She’d even taken the trouble to get her passport when the deposition was first set. She hadn’t realized that of course significant others weren’t allowed to travel on the company dime.
Then just last week, she’d seen the bill for the Tiffany ring. Shocking. But Greg did like what he called the finer things. She knew what he’d say: They’d sacrificed and worked hard the past three years to make the kind of life where they could buy things like that.
Of course she’d love to have that fabulous rock on her finger to show the world how successful her man was and how much he loved her. Truth be told, the sparkle of fine stones made her heart sing. But her little gold band held a tender place in her heart. When she’d put it on, a sense of well-being had washed over her. Something about herself, her life, had seemed to fall into place. This wasn’t about material braggadocio. It was about love. Love everlasting.
Psychic? His return text popped up. You should have been a witch in Salem, Lily. Greg had called her Lily since London. Her mother would have snapped his head off, if she were still alive. She’d always insisted people call her Lilith.
Weren’t the witches hanged? she texted back.
Flower child then. Hippie tarot reader.
How he equated her, a boring insurance claims adjuster, with witches or hippies was a mystery. She chuckled and put away her phone. Everything was working out perfectly. Only six months after passing the bar, Greg was already lead assistant to a partner in his firm. His team was deep into a massive construction defect case expected to take years and bring in millions in contingency fees—they’d already settled out one subcontractor.
While Greg was in law school, worry over money had become a habit. It was strange shopping for groceries now without adding up in her head the cost of each item she put in the cart. For years she had stressed over whether the rent check would hit the bank before her paycheck did. The belt-tightening was finally over. She even bought expensive, high-quality baking chocolate at Sur La Table.