Chapter 38 #2
“It’s all gone, isn’t it?” he said sadly.
Though Luna made little protesting noises, he rose to his feet, swaying hard.
She slipped under his shoulder, one hand resting on his stomach, the other wrapped around his waist, offering her support.
And he needed it. He was embarrassed just how much. But he was utterly drained.
He surveyed the damage surrounding them, his sorcerer’s vision extending beyond the valley, on to the once-wondrous acreage. So much devastation. So much draining, like a corpse left behind after the vampire’s suckling.
Tears sprang to his eyes. He tried to stop them, but more came.
So he gave up and allowed himself to weep.
For Garden. For the flowers. For the beauty and life and everything he’d poured into this place, everything it had poured back into him.
He’d never really known himself before. Never comprehended his purpose, his being.
Never understood his father, his mother, his family of origin, or felt he had anywhere he truly belonged.
Not until he finally got his hands deep in that soil.
Even then, he’d failed to recognize what it was he felt until it was too late. Until everything was lost.
No. Not everything.
His heavy heart lifted, and he drew a cleansing breath. Because he knew the truth. His great purpose—she was right here. Tucked against his side, holding him upright with her strong arms and her stout heart. The woman he loved. The woman he was born to save.
Only, had he saved her? Because if Jastira wasn’t in hell, then . . .
“Where did she go?” Nigel asked, looking down at Luna.
She rolled her jaws, her gaze skirting away from his uncertainly. Then, with a little shrug-like tip of her head, she said, “The Heart Tree.”
“What?”
“The Heart Tree,” she repeated. “It’s alive, Nigel. Garden isn’t dead—his heart still beats. And I locked Jastira away deep inside him.”
Nigel gaped down at her.
He had . . . a lot of questions.
So many questions.
So many layers of questions, which he couldn’t begin to organize right now, not with most of the lifeforce drained out of his body.
“Wow,” he said, looking up, his brow pensive as he once again surveyed the empty grounds. “Wow,” he repeated. Then, with a snort: “Jastira will hate that.”
And Luna’s laugher was like the sun rising over the horizon of his soul.
There was no way out of Garden other than the long way.
After some discussion, they decided to leave the unconscious sorcerers behind for now.
There wasn’t anything they could do, no harm they could cause in their current reduced state of magicless-ness.
Auntie Arabella declared they should let them “sleep it off,” then she and Aurora would return with some reviving tea and send them on their way after a bit.
Nigel hated this plan, hated leaving them where he couldn’t keep an eye on them. But he also couldn’t think of a reasonable alternative. In the end, he agreed.
So, when his strength was recovered enough—after a gulp or two of the tea dregs remaining in Auntie Arabella’s pink-chintz teapot—Nigel, Luna, the aunties, and Fabian began the long trek back across the landscape to the lone-standing door.
Debbie flew overhead, making broad circles, her shadow flickering across the ground.
It was a heartbreaking journey. And yet, not as bad as Nigel feared.
For one thing, he’d done this before. After the previous Last Stand he’d had with Jastira, everything had been worse than this.
There had been awful chunks of Dire Matter scattered everywhere then, but not now.
The land was drained, but not actively poisoned.
With proper nurturing, it could be restored.
Also, the last time he’d faced devastation on this scale, he’d faced it alone. But now . . .
Nigel stopped. Luna, still pressed up against his side, afraid to move for fear he’d topple, stopped with him.
The aunties and Fabian went on ahead, leaving the two of them together.
Nigel looked back over his shoulder, across the barren hills, the grayness, the wind-whipped dust rising in clouds.
But the sky was blue overhead, tinged with traces of pink and golden glow, and he knew what Garden was trying to tell him. A new dawn, a new day. A new life.
Shading his eyes, he could just see the Heart Tree, towering in the distance.
It was, as Luna had claimed, alive. Alive and full of greenness.
He knew now that it would go on living, no matter what else happened.
So long as he and his children and his children’s children continued to put their hands in the dirt and feed this land their love and receive Garden’s love in return.
“I’m going to help you, you know,” Luna said.
Nigel looked down at her, found her smiling up at him. “We’ll get them back,” she stated with confidence, despite the sheen of tears in her eyes. “The double-delight. The tiger lilies. My teas. We’ll get them all back.”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to—he simply believed her. With absolute conviction, he believed her. And in that conviction he bent his head and kissed her softly, relishing the sensation of her lips on his, the tender stroke of her fingers against his cheek.
Then, as they turned and started walking again, trailing far behind Fabian and the aunties, he said, “How would you like to live in Tealeaf Cottage?”
“What?”
“Only, I was thinking,” he continued in a musing tone, “when this damned severmist is entirely purged from my system, I might just hide Garden inside the aunties’ tea garden.
It’s a nice remote location, and their grounds are already well-primed to hold all that Green Magic.
And I bet I could construct a portal from the back gate to The Arcane Bouquet.
It would be tricky, and it would require a great deal of energy.
But as long as I source that energy responsibly, I think I could manage it without causing any harm.
I might even be able to source enough from myself, as long as I’m fit for it. ”
Luna’s eyes widened hugely. “You think it could be done?”
“Yes. There’s not much by way of an SSSD presence in Crimble, so I don’t think we need worry about the anti-sorcery laws. I managed to establish a portal in the middle of Ballycastle without alerting anyone; I can certainly do it again.”
She faced forward, her brow crinkled with thought, and gnawed at her lower lip. “I don’t like you performing sorcery, Nigel,” she said at last.
“I know.” He stopped walking and turned her to face him, held her shoulders as he gazed deep into her eyes. “But what if . . . what if this were my last spell? Will you consider it? Raising our children in your old home? While still maintaining the shop?”
His heart throbbed, shocked by the offer he made, shocked even more by the sincerity with which he made it.
His last spell. A simple portal. There was a time when the very idea would have killed him!
That he, the Grimshade Lord, should give up on all his great, immortality-grasping ambition.
And for what? For a wife. For a family. For a cottage in the mountains and a humble tea garden.
For a shop in a not-particularly nice part of town. For a simple life.
Yet, when he looked into Luna’s eyes, he could think of nothing more worthwhile on which to spend the very last of his magic before giving it up forever. Yes, he would sacrifice it all. And so very much more. For her.
Her face broke in a beaming, lifegiving smile. “You know what?” she said. “I will consider it, Mr. Grimm. I will indeed!” Then she wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers sliding up into his hair. “Have I told you lately how much I love you?”
“No, I don’t think you have,” he answered, slipping his arms around her waist, highly conscious all over again of how very thin her little nightie was.
Thank the gods, that trowel didn’t have any effect on it, didn’t tear the soft fabric.
It really was quite a neatly done spell, if he did say so himself.
“Hmmmm.” She tilted her head. “Well, I do, in fact, love you. Rather lots, actually.”
Nigel leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers, and nuzzled her gently. “And I love you, Mrs. Grimm.”
“More than sorcery?”
“More than anything.”
“Never mind!”
“Well, other than Debbie, of course.”
Luna laughed and pressed a kiss to his mouth, and Nigel felt the green goodness blooming between them. And in that moment he knew that yes. Yes, it was going to be green and good for Ever After.