Epilogue
Lady Elodie de Clare stood at the window of the lord’s chamber, their chamber now, and watched the courtyard bustle below.
Ribbons streamed from the maypole that had been erected at dawn, bright against the grey stone walls.
Children wove between the preparations, stealing sweetmeats and being chased by indulgent servants.
The smell of roasting meat drifted up from the kitchens, mingling with the scent of spring flowers that burst from every available surface.
One year. One year to the day since she’d tumbled out of the sky in a flash of lightning and landed at Gareth’s feet on May Day.
“You’re meant to be resting.”
She turned to find him in the doorway, his expression caught between fondness and exasperation. He crossed to her, one hand settling on her hip, the other brushing a strand of hair from her face.
“I was resting,” she said. “Then I heard the music start, and I wanted to see.”
You wanted to make sure everything was perfect. His signs were teasing now, fluid and quick. Seven months of marriage had given them their own private dialect, shortcuts and inside jokes, a language within a language.
“That too.”
He smiled a real smile, the kind that still made her heart stutter. He smiled more often now. Laughed, sometimes. Occasionally spoke in quiet moments, when the words mattered enough to be worth the effort.
His voice was still rough. Still broken. But he was working on it, pushing through the pain a little more each day. Last week, he’d managed an entire sentence without flinching—I love you, wife—and Elodie had cried for ten minutes straight.
“Come,” he said now, the word ragged but clear. “Our people are waiting.”
Garlands of spring flowers draped every surface of the great hall.
Hawthorn and primrose, bluebells and wild roses.
The long trestle tables groaned under platters of roasted meat, fresh bread, honeyed fruits, and delicacies that Cook had been working on for days.
Music filled the air, bright and joyful, drowning out the memory of the cold, silent hall Elodie had first entered a year ago.
And everywhere, people were talking. Not just speaking aloud, though there was plenty of that, laughter and gossip and the happy arguments that came from too much mead and not enough chairs.
But signing too. Hands moved in rapid conversation across the crowded hall, adding another layer to the celebration.
Sign language had spread beyond Greywatch now.
Neighbouring lords had learned it after seeing how efficiently Gareth could coordinate hunts and defences without speaking a word.
Other households had adopted it. Traders passing through asked for lessons.
What had begun as one woman teaching one man had become something larger.
A movement, almost. A new way of speaking that excluded no one.
Marian moved through the celebration with easy authority, signing orders to servants and guests alike.
She’d been promoted to the head of the household staff, the youngest in Greywatch’s history, and she wore the responsibility like armour.
Her new gown was deep green wool with embroidered cuffs, and she carried herself like someone who knew exactly where she belonged.
She caught Elodie’s eye across the hall and signed. Happy?
Elodie signed back. Completely.
Good. Now stop standing about and come eat. You skipped breakfast again.
“You sound like Gareth.” Elodie called across the courtyard as Marian came to greet her.
“Someone has to keep you from working yourself to exhaustion.” Marian’s gap-toothed grin softened. “He’s watching you, you know. He always is.”
Elodie glanced toward the high table, where Gareth sat with Sir Miles, deep in conversation or rather, Miles was talking animatedly while Gareth signed responses with the patient air of a man who had heard this particular story several times.
But his eyes kept drifting to her across the crowded hall.
She signed. I see you watching.
He signed back, I like watching you.
That’s either romantic or alarming.
Both, he signed, and the corner of his mouth twitched. Come sit. Miles has composed new verses for his ballad.
Heaven help us all.
She made her way to the high table, accepting congratulations and well-wishes from the guests she passed.
A year ago, these same people had crossed themselves when she walked by, had left offerings at her door, had whispered about faeries and curses.
Now they smiled, reached out to clasp her hands, and asked after her health with genuine warmth.
She had become one of them. More than that, she had helped them become something new.
A flicker of movement caught her eye. An old woman stood near the entrance to the hall, watching the celebration with strange pale eyes. Her clothes were rough, her face weathered beyond age, and she carried nothing, no cart, no mysterious necklace. But Elodie knew her instantly. The peddler.
Their eyes met across the crowded room. The old woman smiled, small, knowing, and inclined her head. Acknowledgment. Benediction. Farewell.
Then someone passed between them, and when they moved, the doorway was empty. Elodie didn’t try to follow. Some mysteries weren’t meant to be solved. Some magic simply was.
Gareth’s hand covered hers on the table. You saw something.
“The peddler woman. The one who gave me the necklace.”
His fingers tightened briefly. And?
“She’s gone. I think she wanted to see how the story ended.”
He smiled. How does it end?
She looked around the hall at the people she’d come to love, at the household that had become her family, at this life she’d stumbled into.
And at Marian, who had found her voice and her place.
At Miles, who was now enthusiastically acting out verse nine of his ballad while soldiers groaned and threw bread at him.
Then at Bertram, whose wounds had healed, watching the celebration with tears in his eyes.
With a smile, she looked at her husband, her silent knight, the man who’d taught her that being heard didn’t require volume.
“Happily,” she said. “It ends happily.”
Later, when the feast wound down, and the stars emerged, Elodie found herself on the battlements.
The moors stretched below, no longer silver with frost but green with new growth.
Spring had come to Greywatch. Real spring, warm and gentle, full of promise.
The maypole ribbons fluttered in the evening breeze.
Somewhere below, someone was still singing, their voice carrying up through the darkness.
Gareth stood beside her, his hand warm on the small of her back.
“One year,” she said softly. “One year ago tonight, I was standing in Lady Baldridge’s garden, wearing a ridiculous faerie costume, wondering why I’d agreed to come.”
And now?
“And now I’m standing in my own castle, married to the most incredible man I’ve ever met, surrounded by people who love me.” She laughed, the sound catching in her throat. “The irony isn’t lost on me. I spent years writing about fairy folklore, and then I fell into a fairy tale of my own.”
He turned her to face him, his hands gentle on her shoulders.
“Not a fairy tale,” he said. The words came easier now, though they still cost him.
He was speaking more with each passing week.
Full sentences sometimes, when he had the energy and the privacy.
His voice would never be what it was. But it was his, and he was learning to use it again.
“Fairy tales are simple. Good and evil. Happy endings that come without a cost.” He traced the line of her jaw, his touch infinitely tender. “This was harder. You chose it anyway.”
“I chose you,” she corrected. “The rest just came along.”
He kissed her then, slowly and thoroughly, a promise and a celebration all at once. When they pulled apart, he was smiling.
What now? He signed.
Elodie considered the question. A year ago, she’d been adrift.
Professionally humiliated, personally isolated, going through the motions of a life that had stopped fitting her somewhere along the way.
She’d believed in fairies and been punished for it.
She’d stopped dreaming because dreaming hurt too much.
Now she stood on battlements older than her entire country, married to a medieval knight, fluent in a sign language she’d helped create. She had a household that loved her, a purpose that mattered, a future she’d chosen with both hands.
“Now,” she said, “we live. Messily and imperfectly and wonderfully. We argue about whether to repair the west tower or the granary first. We host visiting lords and pretend to enjoy their terrible poetry. We teach more people to sign, and I figure out how to preserve fruit without modern refrigeration, and we grow old together in this fantastic castle.”
That sounds, he paused, searching for the word. Then he spoke it aloud, rough and broken and utterly sincere. “Perfect.”
She rose on her toes and kissed him again.
Below them, the celebration continued. Music drifted up from the great hall. Torches flickered in the courtyard. The castle hummed with life and warmth and the promise of tomorrow. Somewhere in the darkness, a nightingale began to sing.
Elodie took her husband’s hand and led him toward the stairs. Toward their chamber, and toward a thousand ordinary tomorrows that felt, to her, like the greatest magic of all.
The story didn’t end.