Might still be.

Even now she could see Mallick enjoying wine. But while he did, he huddled with Minh, who’d passed the little girl to her older brother, and Thomas, some of the elders.

She doubted they spoke of love and lovers.

Battles, raids, supplies, strategies, security.

She didn’t need elf ears to know what those charged with leadership spoke of.

She’d made a vow, accepted her duties. One day they would look to her for those plans, those answers. She needed to be ready. Propping her chin on her fist, she looked into the fire, the blue hearts of flame, the snap of red heat, and wondered if she’d see her future.

When she did, she pushed to her feet and walked away from the music, the voices, the dancing.

“Hey!” Mick caught up with her. He had a goofiness in his eyes that made her sure he’d managed to sneak at least a couple sips of the faerie wine. “Where’re you going?”

“Home. It’s late.”

“It’s Midsummer.” He raced up a tree trunk, flipped. When he nearly fell on the landing, she thought he’d sneaked more than a couple sips. “Some of us are going to the glade, going for a swim. Come on.” He snatched her hand.

“No, I can’t. I have to get started early tomorrow.”

“That’s tomorrow. Tonight’s tonight.” He gave her a tug, trying to draw her back to the party.

“Mick, I’m tired.” In the mind, in the heart. To the bone. “I’m going home.”

“You’ll feel better after a swim.” He turned to her in the leaf-filtered moonlight. “It’s Midsummer night. It’s magick. Everything’s magick tonight.”

She heard his thoughts. They gave her a jolt, a warning, but she didn’t evade in time. Maybe, just maybe, part of her wondered. Even wanted.

So on the warm Midsummer night, under the leaf-filtered moonlight, she let him kiss her. It had a sweetness, maybe the faerie wine, maybe the moment. How could she know? It was her first kiss. It felt … comforting, even as it lightly stirred something she didn’t recognize.

Sweet, she thought, analyzing even as she experienced. And soft. For another moment, she let it linger, wishing for the sweet and the soft.

But then she drew away. Not so much a goofiness in his eyes now, she noted. She saw wishes there, too.

“You’re so pretty,” he murmured, reaching for her again.

“I can’t.” Something else stirred in her, and this time she recognized it as regret. “I’m sorry.”

“I like being with you. I like you.”

“I like you, too. But I’m not … I’m sorry,” she said again, uselessly.

“Fine. Fine. Whatever.” Rejection flushed across his face. “I just figured you might want to have some actual fun. Be normal for a night. But I guess you just want to go off and wallow in your Oneness.”

“That’s not fair.” And it stung like a wasp. “That’s really not fair.”

“It’s what you’re doing. What you always do. Because you think you’re so important. You think you’re better than everybody else.”

On the next sting, deep and sharp, she lashed back. “I know I’m better than you. Right now, I know I’m a lot better than you.”

She shoved him back and, tears burning bitter in her eyes, strode away.

“You kissed me back!” he called out.

“It won’t happen again.” She cast her tear-blurred eyes to the sky. “That’s another vow.”

She marched into the clearing. The candles lit through the day glimmered, and were charmed to flame till dawn. She wanted to snuff them out, just sweep a hand out and shut off their light, cocoon herself in the dark.

Because she knew she wasn’t made for the soft and the sweet, but for battle and blood. The battles and blood she’d seen in the hot blue heart of the balefire. The battle raging around her while she rode Laoch through the clashing swords, the rain of arrows, the red spit of lightning. The blood on her face, on her sword still warm from those she’d killed.

And in the ash, in the dirty ash of the fire, she’d seen the rise of crows, heard them scream as they circled over the dead and dying.

She’d looked into the Midsummer balefire, and the pipes and drums of the feasting turned to beats of war. She’d looked, seen her future.

She went into the empty cottage and, for the first time in months, locked herself in her room. Curled on her bed, she cried herself dry. Before dawn broke, she—a girl still shy of her fourteenth birthday—made her third vow of the night.

That those would be the last tears she shed over what was to come.

She didn’t see a sign of Mick for a week, which was fine with her. Determined, she pushed Mallick to teach her more, give her more, test her more. By week’s end she could make those demands in Spanish and Portuguese.

He knew something troubled her, but when he tried—perhaps clumsily, he admitted—to learn the trouble, she’d snapped shut. A locked box.

He could also admit her sudden, insatiable hunger for knowledge and skill exhausted him. So when she rode out on Grace or Laoch, he sighed with relief. And took a nap.

Because in the evenings, she peppered him with questions about battles he’d fought, battles he knew. Tugging, pulling, digging for every detail, debating until his mind blurred on why a battle was lost or won.

He knew she did the same with Minh, Thomas, the faerie warrior Yasmin. Not just of battles, but locations. Camps and settlements, numbers, containment facilities, internment camps.

He suspected she’d had an argument with Mick, as he hadn’t seen the boy around the cottage, and a casual query about him had a heated Fallon snapping back with: Why should I know?

But Mick came around again, and Fallon’s initial coolness toward him appeared to wear off. Though she rarely ran the woods with him as she had now that she spent more time with Mallick himself, or the elders from the clans and packs.

As summer slid away, he no longer held back during sword practice. And still she bested him nearly half the time.

She grew taller, her muscles sharper, leaner. She laughed rarely, and he found he missed the sound of it. And regretted, as they came to the close of their first year together, seeing the cool-eyed warrior consume the girl.

On her birthday, knowing his own lack of skill, he asked one of the elves who baked for a spice cake. He gifted Fallon with a wand he’d created himself from a branch of a rowan tree found on a long-ago journey to the Himalayas. He’d tipped it with a crystal of pure, clear quartz, carved into it symbols of power, then used three strikes of lightning to strengthen, imbue, and consecrate.

He’d made it for her a century before her birth.

“Mallick, it’s beautiful.” She lifted it, turned it in her hand to test it. “And strong. Thank you.”

“It will serve you. You can practice with it by creating a cloaking spell. When we return.”

“Return? Where are we going?”

“As it’s the anniversary of your birth, I will take you to the rise over your farm so you can see your family.”

Her face shuttered. “There’s no need. They’re safe, that’s what matters. If you’d take me somewhere for my birthday?”

She rose, got one of the maps, spread it out. “Take me here.”

Frowning, Mallick looked where she’d slapped her finger. “Cape Hatteras. This is North Carolina. Why?”

“Hatteras Village on the cape, specifically. Maybe I want to see the ocean. I never have. Maybe I want to walk on the beach.”

“But this isn’t why.” Disappointed, he stared into her eyes. “You don’t give me truth.”

“It’s not a lie.” She shrugged. “I’d like to see the ocean and walk on the beach because I’ve never done either. But I want to go because this is one of the containment centers Minh knows of. It was, anyway. I want to see if it still is, see what the setup is, the security, the numbers.”

He could refuse her. But he couldn’t think of a reason to do so—and he knew that before long she wouldn’t need him to astral project.

“Very well.”