Chapter 22 #2
“It’s not really something the Thornwoods want to advertise. All Fae are capable of leaving their bodies and separating their spirits, but it takes practice to do it properly. Especially when you run the risk of going too far and losing your way home. I’ll be here to guide you back.”
His earlier concern, bordering on overbearing, slipped away beneath a wave of nostalgia. To a time when we were years younger and back in the library at the Fae Academy for Halflings.
I remembered teaching him how to be more effective at levitating. And how Roman was there, watching us, keeping his power curbed to avoid suspicion. Mike’s jealousy at my winning top spot, and our inevitable reconciliation.
Then it was me and Mike, studying. Working together. Training for the Faerie Trials. Winning.
The Wild Hunt that was interrupted by Kendrick Grimaldi.
We’d already gone through so much. What else could we experience, the good and the bad, if we had more time?
I rested against the slope, my head nestled near the base of the tree and my feet pointed toward the river. Day-warmed sand was a soft cushion beneath me and I slid my arms behind my head as Mike settled beside me.
The confined space forced us together but was wide enough to accommodate us.
This particular area was meant to be ours.
“Close your eyes and focus on your breathing,” he instructed.
“I want you to imagine a box in your mind. Inhale to the count of the sides of the box, hold for four. Then exhale and recount the sides. All successful astral walking starts with deep breathing. This will regulate your nervous system and allow the magic to do its work.”
My eyes fluttered shut. “How old were you when you first learned how to astral walk?”
“I was five. Which, according to my father, was late to learn. He’s been constantly disappointed in me. At first I thought that showing him how adept I was becoming at this would make a difference.” A pause, then, “Apparently it’s just another failure.”
A dry chuckle died in my throat. “I’m guessing he was angry?”
“Worse. He no longer cared. I stopped trying to prove myself when it came to this. I kept my abilities to myself and worked on them in my own time, with help from friends. Some of whom were adept travelers.”
“But your mom knew,” I clarified.
“She always did.”
With closed eyes I couldn’t see Mike smile, but I felt it in his words. Mike’s fondness for Queen Laina spoke volumes.
I listened to the soothing drop and rise of his voice, the rhythm he crafted with expertise around us. The longer he spoke, the easier it was to hear him slip from mentor and prince to lover and friend.
This easiness between us had existed from the beginning.
Mike’s fingers found mine. “Focus. If you let your mind wander, you might go with it.”
The reminder tore me out of memories and back to the task at hand. Exhaustion tickled the edges of my consciousness but I forced it aside to craft the box in my mind.
Soon, with Mike’s guidance, my breathing evened out. My heart found his rhythm and together we went deeper.
“There’s nothing to worry about. Your spirit is a part of your body, the animating force behind your magic. Your spirit knows exactly what to do. You don’t have to worry about what happens. Let yourself be weightless,” he urged.
Weightless.
It was the exact opposite of the heaviness I’d lived with inside since clearing the Sylph city. How nice it would it be to drift away from it. To let myself float.
Mike talked me through the entire process. With him there as guide, as guardian, the world fell away without my attention to feed it.
“The astral realm is right there above our own. Like the air, like gravity, it’s around us everywhere as long as you know how to tune in. It’s not separate. It’s a piece of the same picture. A piece of the whole.”
It sure felt separate with Faerie there to act as gatekeeper. The glimpse I’d gotten of the Summerlands felt disjointed somehow from the real world.
But with Mike gently urging me into the right rhythm, it swam closer.
“You’re safe. You’re supported. You’re free to let yourself pull free from your body. Trust my magic and follow me. I’ll show you the way. I’ll always keep you safe.”
There wasn’t a moment I could clarify later, to point to and say there, that was Mike’s soul walking out of his body. But it happened. I distantly recognized there was now a space beside me deprived of the intensity and electricity making him him.
He left me no choice but to follow.
The crossing happened without my awareness. One moment there was only the darkness of closed lids, and the next, the dreamy silver-like quality of my first glimpse of the Sylphs.
Then beyond that to someplace new.
Small buds of starlight blossomed overhead like flowers in the night sky. Delicate lilac-colored clouds stretched lazy fingers, propelled by a soft breeze.
The astral plane was possibility and dreams. It was everything and nothing. I solidified atom by atom.
Mike stepped into my sightline with his hands in his pockets and a smile on his face. “I told you. You’re a natural.”
“You never said it would be anything like this.” My voice, an echo of its usual cadence, reverberated like a plucked guitar string.
“You’ll get used to the differences. Your soul materialized this way because it’s how you see yourself. And how you see me.”
I surveyed him, the intentional loose and limber posture, a boyish mischief he faked under the weight of responsibility. “How does your soul look when you astral walk?”
“I’ve never found a mirror to check.” He shrugged. “But you did it. Now you can get to the Summerlands this way. It’s just another layer of reality, isn’t it?”
“I haven’t taken a step yet.”
“It doesn’t matter. You astral walked on your first try.”
He desperately wanted to believe he was right. He’d given me an alternative, the only thing in his power to give.
I can’t tell him.
Couldn’t tell him he was wrong. I knew what it felt like to be close to the Summerlands, trapped in the Meadow of the Arised. We weren’t even close. This was another stopping point, like Faerie’s meadow, but without the direct bridge to our destination.
This was a realm of possibilities and promise, a space between reality and where I needed to go. Sure, if we had more time, I might be able to find the bridge to the next plane, or the next.
But we were out of time. Unlike other commodities, time had no tap to refill from.
I kissed Mike instead. I cupped his face in my palms and poured everything I had into the kiss, angling to deepen it. To show him what it meant to me that he’d tried.
His tongue swept against mine and in the twilight hush of the astral land, I let myself grieve.
“Tavi.” He gripped my shirt and slid one hand up between us, resting it against my heart. “Marry me.”
His words bounced together and formed something new before I fully processed them. Marry…Mike. The Seelie crown prince of Faerie. Marriage. Like…a ring, and a dress. A commitment, legal and binding.
I sat upright, thrown back into my body at the base of the tree with a disconcerting jolt of adjustment. My soul fell into place, melded into well-worn pathways of familiarity.
Mike was already sitting up, watching me. “Marry me,” he repeated.
There was nothing else needed, no other words to convince me it was the right thing to do, even if it was sudden. We’d been building up to it for years now.
What was there to say but—
“Yes.” Emotion fogged my brain, clogged my throat. “Yes, Mike.”
Yes, and I prayed to Faerie and every other god and goddess out there that I’d fulfill the promise.
He gathered me onto his lap as the kiss stretched. We held each other through the excitement of acceptance, through what it would mean to marry each other, to link ourselves. Privately, publicly.
We were still holding each other when Dorian Jade attacked.