Epilogue
Wolfe
“Is everyone ready?” Harriet called from the front of the ballroom, where our entire city had been packed into.
It hadn’t been easy convincing some of the residents to abandon their homes and their businesses, especially Ceri’s father—who had to be sedated for this—but we’d been able to get everyone safely into the castle.
Maybe it was my imagination, but I could’ve sworn the castle had expanded to make room.
Suddenly, people were finding new spaces that hadn’t existed before.
“Are you ready for this?” Cillian asked, standing on one side of me while Niamh stood on the other. Mother and Jerome stood behind us, holding hands, and Nevan was somewhere in the depths of the castle.
Murmurs rippled throughout the room, everyone shifting and looking as nervous as I felt.
I trust my brother. I trust my brother. I trust my brother.
Nevan wouldn’t do this unless he thought it would work.
“I’m so nervous.” Niamh worried at her bottom lip.
Morton was with Nevan, who’d asked the bookwyrm to help him.
They were like two peas in a pod, and I wasn’t sure it was a good thing.
Nevan needed to get out of his shell, not burrow deeper into it.
Morton only encouraged my brother to delve further into his work, become obsessed with more theories and ideas and equations.
I hoped that once we reached this new location, Nevan could focus on more than just his work, but I wasn’t sure anything would ever matter more to him than alchemy.
“What are you thinking about right now?” Niamh asked.
I gave her a reassuring smile. “Nothing. Just that I’m ready to get to this new place. Ready to see where the castle is taking us.”
“What if it’s in the middle of the ocean?” Niamh whispered.
“It won’t be,” I told her. “Tell me a story.”
“Now?” Her eyebrows shot up.
“This is the best time. This is when we need a good story the most.”
She shook her head. “What kind of story do you want to hear?”
“I want to hear a story of our life together, what it’ll look like when Fairwitch arrives in this new place.”
The castle started rumbling around us, and shrieks echoed in the ballroom. Some people took cover while others stood their ground, holding tight to their loved ones.
She wrinkled her nose, so damn cute, then turned to me. “It’s a warm day, the kind where you just want to bask in the sun because it feels so good on your face after a long winter. I’m done with my shift at the library, walking out of the castle and toward our cottage.”
I quirked a brow as the rumbling intensified, more screams echoing around us, and Niamh gripped my hand tighter. “We have a cottage now?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “I couldn’t convince you to move into the castle with me since you grumbled about all the people you’d have to talk to.”
I tipped my head. “Sounds about right.”
“So instead, you built my dream cottage.”
“And what does this dream cottage entail?”
“Well, it has three bedrooms, all of them with thick, colorful rugs and wardrobes that I painted to match. It also has bookshelves in the front room, with a ladder that I can climb to reach all the books.” She gasped.
“And a little reading loft with a window where I can sit and look out at the rolling green hills.”
I smiled, picturing her on the ladder plucking out a book to read. I could see it so clearly.
“The outside has a little front porch where we love to drink our tea in the morning, and where we sit and look at the stars at night.”
The castle heaved, Cillian falling forward, but Jerome caught his arm, keeping him steady. A few people lurched forward, and some grabbed on to the banisters or whatever they could to keep from falling.
“Stay calm, everyone,” Cillian yelled.
“Sometimes”—Niamh’s voice broke through the chaos as she whispered—“we make love on the porch at night under the open sky.”
“Mmm,” I rumbled in approval, gripping her tighter.
“We have the perfect couch that’s fluffy and soft and a few chairs for when your family comes over. We also have a big wooden table that you built for family dinners so your mother doesn’t have to host all the time.” She paused. “And I think I have a garden.”
“A garden?” I asked.
She nodded, wincing as the castle shook and she had to brace herself against me. “I think I want to get into gardening,” she yelled over the roaring that picked up outside. “I can’t survive off your beef and turkey jerky. My jaw is starting to hurt from all the chewing.”
I laughed as the castle tilted, everyone in the room falling, chaos breaking out as statues overturned and crashed to the ground, as people let out blood-curdling screams, as the chandelier that had regrown after the brotherhood attack shattered, glass raining down.
Maybe it would fix itself again after the castle landed.
“We take daily walks together through town.” Niamh’s voice grew more frantic, but she didn’t stop speaking. “I get to talk to everyone, and you get to glare at them, so it’s a win-win.”
The castle quaked now, and Niamh buried her head in my chest. All I could do was hold her tight.
The quaking seemed to last for an eternity, windows shattering, paintings falling, the lights in the sconces flickering and then burning out and plunging us into darkness other than light splintering through the windows.
I held tight to Niamh, shielding her with my body as we slid across the floor when the castle tilted. She screamed, our bodies gliding. Just before we crashed into the wall, the castle righted itself abruptly, and we fell back, both of us hitting the hard floor with a crack.
Light burst through the windows, flooding the room, and it was hard to see anything at first.
I shielded my eyes, slowly sitting up. The quaking had stopped, and everyone was scattered around the room, most on the floor, looking as disoriented as I felt. I helped Niamh up, and we slowly came to a stand on shaky legs.
The room erupted in yells and cries, with questions and demands.
“What is happening?”
“How do we even know we’ll live through this?”
“We should never have left our home!”
Cillian winced, getting to his feet and holding out his hands. “Please, everyone. Remain calm. I know there are a lot of questions and concerns, but right now, we just need to survive this. Then we can worry about the rest.”
“Look, Mama, the water is green!” A little girl sat on her father’s shoulders, peeking out one of the high windows and pointing.
“You see water?” Cillian straightened.
“The castle landed,” the girl chirped. “And the water is green like a slimy frog. I’ve never seen green water before.”
Cillian and I shot each other alarmed looks as Nevan burst into the foyer from the hallway, hair uncharacteristically mussed and spectacles askew. Morton perched on his shoulder. “My lab is back!”
Everyone in the room turned to look at him, his chest heaving. “It’s back. My alchemy lab.”
He was practically vibrating.
“There’s also a woman in it, which is slightly strange.”
“Only Nevan would mention the woman second,” Cillian muttered, shoving a hand through his hair.
“A woman?” Mother stepped forward. “Who is this woman?”
Nevan pushed his spectacles up his nose. “I don’t know. She’s very angry, though. Threatened to break some of my potion bottles. I had to restrain her, and that made her angrier. She’s still in my lab.” A visible shudder rolled through him. “I think we might have landed on her home.”
Cillian jabbed a finger at him. “Find out everything you can about this woman and this place. We need to know where we are.”
Nevan took a step back. “Can’t anyone else do that? I just got my whole lab back. Think of all the things I can do now. My notebooks, my equations, my years of work—”
“Maybe this mystery woman can help you,” Mother suggested.
“Not a bad thought,” Morton said, now at our side. “She did spout off a bunch of plant names, telling Nevan she’d castrate him if they’d been destroyed by this castle.”
“Did she, now?” Mother asked.
I rolled my eyes, knowing exactly what Mother was up to. If she thought she could push Nevan and a completely random woman together, she was going to be sorely disappointed. Nevan had one true love, and it would always be his potions.
“What if I don’t want to talk to her?” Nevan crossed his arms, and I snorted.
Cillian shot him a glare. “Then I’ll make you.” He punched his fist into his hand.
Nevan gave him a disbelieving look. “I saw you hit Wolfe. I think I’ll be okay.”
“Nevan, please take care of this for your brother,” Mother said, and Jerome nodded in encouragement.
Nevan sighed. “Okay. Fine. I’ll . . . deal with her.” With that, he turned and disappeared through the doorway, Morton slithering toward us.
At this point, everyone had forgotten about Nevan and was plastered to the windows, murmuring and pointing, an air of unease rippling through the room.
“Harriet,” Cillian said. “Open the doors, and everybody get back.”
The village listened and shuffled backward, no one interested in leaving the safe confines of the castle.
“Where are we?” I asked as Harriet opened the doors, more sunlight peeking in.
Cillian strode to the doorway, back to me, as Morton, Niamh, and I joined him.
Niamh let out a gasp at the view surrounding us.
“We landed in a swamp?” Cillian asked.
“It’s technically a bog,” Morton said, and Cillian turned to glare at him. “What?” The bookwyrm glared right back. “There’s a difference.”
I blinked, trying to process what I was seeing.
“Well, the good news is all of Fairwitch came with us,” Niamh said.
“The bad news is it looks like it’s being eaten by a swamp,” I added.
“A bog,” Morton said.
Our entire city had landed on it, looking exactly like it had in the previous location with cobblestone streets and all the businesses—except instead of rolling hills, murky green water and marshes surrounded us, ominous green smoke rising from it like a dense fog.
“We’re going to need a lot of boats.” Cillian scratched the back of his head.
“We’re going to need a lot of alcohol,” I said, and Niamh elbowed me.
“Harriet,” Cillian told his guard. “Close the doors and keep everyone safe. We’re going to explore our new home.”
She sighed but listened, closing the doors to the castle and disappearing from view.
“I’ll go first,” I said, pushing forward, but Niamh caught my hand.
“Let him go,” she said. “You’re not the guard anymore, remember? And your brother can take care of himself.”
“I’ll go!” Morton slithered toward Cillian and up to his shoulder. “I want to see if there are any good books around here.”
I was about to tell him that was incredibly unlikely, but Niamh elbowed me before I could.
Cillian and Morton descended the stairs, heading toward a floating piece of land. They hopped onto it, almost falling into the green water that had an ominous smoke rising from it in the process.
Niamh tilted her head. “What is that?” she asked, and my gaze followed the direction of her finger.
It was a cottage covered in thorny vines and black flowers, the windows coated in green grime, the thatched roof covered in algae and moss. And it was stuffed right between Ceri’s dress shop and the blacksmith.
“Maybe it’s that woman’s home . . .” I said. “And now it’s part of Fairwitch.”
Niamh gasped. “Do you think she lives here alone?”
“I guess Nevan will find out, but it looks like it.” Once upon a time, I might’ve understood this woman, understood why she’d build a home in a bog and close herself off from the rest of the world. But in this moment, I couldn’t imagine living in this place all by myself.
Niamh rested her head on my arm. “So what do we do now?”
I thought for a moment. “I believe I have a cottage to start building. I want that life, that story you just told. I want it all.”
“Then we’ll build it,” Niamh said. “Piece by piece. What if we have to move again?”
I shook my head. “Don’t you understand, Niamh? It doesn’t matter. I’ll build a thousand cottages. A thousand ladders. A thousand lofts. I’ll bloody my hands a thousand times. All for you.”
She arched a brow. “Someone is feeling motivated.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway, because none of those things are what makes this a home.”
She shot me a questioning look.
“You’re my home,” I said simply. “You’re what will make any place we go home.”
And that would always be enough for me.