Epilogue
Enid, Two Years Later
“That doesn’t look right,” Fiona said as she leaned over my shoulder while I was stitching up her aunt.
“Fiona,” Harriet warned. “Let the healer do her job.”
The healer. It still didn’t feel like a real title. Like a real job. I got to do this for a living. People came to me to fix them.
“I’m just saying that the purse-string suture is a little sloppy.” Fiona crossed her arms, and I raised a brow at her.
“I’m not going to let you shadow me if you keep criticizing everything I do.”
She rolled her eyes and stepped away from the patient chair. “Fine. But you should listen to me. I’m smart.”
“A little too smart for your own good,” Harriet mumbled, and I hid a smile.
“All done.”
“Vine, can we get a bandage?” Fiona asked.
Vine slithered up the counter and to the shelves and returned to my assistant with the requested material.
Harriet stood and stretched out her hand. “Like new,” she said.
“No more combat training with the Fair Folk,” I said. “I’ve had at least ten guards in here over the last few weeks.”
Harriet shrugged. “We have a lot to learn from each other. Besides, my royal guard could use the practice. It’s been so quiet since we moved here.”
The captain of the guard stared out the stained-glass window wistfully.
Fiona wrinkled her nose. “You’re not supposed to want to be attacked, Auntie.”
Harriet scoffed. “I don’t. I just miss the excitement sometimes.”
“You’ve got problems,” Fiona said.
Harriet grabbed her shoulders and steered her toward the door. “Okay, and that’s enough out of you. It’s time for school.”
Fiona groaned. “I want to stay here.”
Vine wrapped around her waist, and she hugged it in return. Harriet shot me a smile over Fiona’s head. Fiona and Vine had become best friends over the last few years, and it was a very sweet relationship, even if she’d reduced my python vine to a cuddly little teddy bear.
“Vine, why don’t you just walk her to school? That way you two can have a little more time together.”
Vine unwound itself from her waist and slithered up to hang over her shoulders.
Fiona pointed a finger at me. “Don’t mess up any more sutures!”
“I didn’t mess it up.” I rolled my eyes. “Now get out of here.”
Harriet shoved her niece out the door right as Nevan was arriving.
“Tell your wife I’m better at sutures than her,” Fiona said.
Nevan raised his eyebrows. “Not a chance.”
Harriet, Vine, and Fiona disappeared, and Nevan shut the door behind him. “All done with patients for the day?”
I sighed, exasperated. “It’s first thing in the morning. Shouldn’t you be opening your apothecary shop?”
He strolled forward, a heated look in his eyes. “I decided to open a little late this morning.” I snorted as he swept me up into his arms and kissed me. “You left before I could give you a morning kiss.”
“You were still sleeping, and I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You always wake me for a kiss.”
I pressed my hands against his chest, gazing up at him. “So that’s why you’re here, then? To get your morning kiss?”
His lips pressed to my neck. “And maybe a little more.”
I laughed and pushed myself out of his arms. “I don’t think so. Maybe that’s how you ran this place when you were in charge, but I’m a professional, Mr. Wolfgang.”
“That’s not what you said last night when I dropped in after your last patient.”
My blood heated at the memory of his face between my legs last night while I sat in the patient chair, which, for the record, I’d thoroughly disinfected afterward.
“I have a patient coming in a few minutes.” I walked toward the stained-glass window and stared at the view of the forest surrounding us, so different from the view of the bog I’d had for centuries.
Instead of marshes and channels, tall, thick trees surrounded us now.
Even after two years, I was still getting used to it.
“So that’s a yes?” Nevan asked. “I can work fast.”
I gave him a pointed look. “You’re relentless.”
“Of course I am. I have the sexiest wife in the world.” He walked up behind me and wrapped his arms around me. “Fine. I’ll wait until later.”
I patted his arm. “Good plan. Besides, you need to get to your apothecary shop. The first trial is today, and everyone’s on edge. They’re going to be visiting you to buy up all those calming tinctures.”
“Godwitches,” Nevan said. “I can’t believe Castle invoked the marriage trials.”
“Well, you’ve been missing a queen for almost a decade. I suppose this is Castle’s way of finally giving Cillian a bride.”
Nevan snorted, and I knew what he was thinking: Cillian didn’t want a bride.
But he’d officially run out of time. Castle was forcing this on him.
Twelve women had been selected, and one of them would become Cillian’s wife.
The only problem was that Cillian wasn’t the one deciding who won the trials—Castle was.
It had put everyone in Fairwitch Isle on edge—especially the Fair Folk, who didn’t answer to Cillian or the castle and who wouldn’t answer to this new queen.
I watched as a faery with green hair that flickered on her head like flames walked through the street down below alongside a woman from Fairwitch with brown hair, chatting.
It warmed my heart to see the faeries and the humans getting along.
It hadn’t been the easiest transition for either group, but we were making it work the best we could.
“At least one person is happy about these marriage trials.”
We looked at each other. “Your mother,” I said at the same time as he said, “My mother.”
She hoped Cillian would find his true love, but I wasn’t so sure. Cillian had looked ill since the trials had been announced.
Nevan kissed me on the cheek. “Okay, you’re right. I need to get to the shop.” He squinted out the window. “I think I already see a few people lined up at my door.”
“I told you,” I said in a singsong voice.
No one knew what the first trial was going to be, and everyone was anxious about what Castle had in mind for the twelve women it had chosen, some of whom were Fair Folk. This involved everyone in the city.
“I love you,” Nevan said. “Don’t forget to eat your lunch today.”
“I won’t forget,” I said, annoyed at the reminder.
He pointed toward the counter, where a small satchel sat, packed by Nevan. “I’m serious. You need to eat and keep up your strength. Sometimes I think you forget you’re not immortal anymore.”
“It’s a little hard to forget when I have you and Vine reminding me every day. Multiple times a day.”
I turned in his arms, pleased that he had the decency to blush. “Also I just remembered it’s book club tonight, so your plans to ravish me might have to wait.”
His eyes danced. “Ah, you ready to eviscerate another romance book?”
“I actually liked this one.”
“Really? You ranted about it for almost an hour the other night.”
“Well, I finished it and decided it wasn’t so bad after all.”
He smirked. “What changed your mind? Was it acting out that scene with me . . . the spicy one on the kitchen counter?”
That certainly hadn’t hurt. “No,” I said. “I liked it because maybe they reminded me of us a little bit. A guarded woman. A sweet and nerdy man.”
“Nerdy?” Nevan asked, pretending to be offended.
“And they still found their way to each other.”
He smiled. “That does sound like us. So they got their happily ever after?”
I nodded, and he squeezed me tight. “They did. They had to fight for it. Just like we did.”
Like we were still continuing to do. Like we always would.
***