EPILOGUE ONE
AURORA: LATE SPRING
“Strawberry or raspberry?” London yells through the kitchen window.
“Both?” I suggest.
“Good call. I know you like options!”
Lay snorts at my blushing face. “The goat speaks truth, Barbs.”
Layla has just gotten home from her morning shift at the clinic. She’s taking classes in the afternoon in various healing techniques. Francois found an online university which he enrolled her into.
She wasn’t very impressed by his high-handedness at first.
My snake still needs to learn to ask before making executive decisions. Still, she begrudgingly admits she’s learning a lot. Opal and their patients are benefitting.
Talking of our bossy French man—Francois has called a mandatory family meeting, acting incredibly mysterious and high-strung.
Because the afternoon weather is absolutely lovely, London and I completely ignore his request to gather inside and decide the meeting should be outside. We’ve moved the wooden picnic tables together in the sunny yard.
I’m in the process of smoothing tablecloths over all three.
“That’s completely unnecessary, Barbs,” Layla laughs. “You’re just making more laundry.”
That may be true, but London has gone to a lot of trouble producing ‘high tea’, so I want to make a nice setting for it.
Layla is scoffing at the glass jar full of bluebells on the table center, as a truck pulls up. Tally and Clay stumble out looking wiped.
For the past three days they’ve been doing intense manual labor down in the valley; picking early cabbage crops for a local farmer to bring in some extra cash.
Even though me and Francois have cash a-plenty, it is not in the Ashgrave nature to take a handout. Clay is covered in dirt, shoulders slumped. Tally doesn’t look as exhausted, but he has shifter energy to draw on.
Much to Clay’s dismay, he is not a shifter.
Though Layla is!
Her first shift, only days after she was released from Quo, transformed her into an Elk. Which makes a lot of sense: powerful and muscular, attuned to nature.
Sky skips out of the second cabin to greet the guys. “Ugh, you smell rancid.” She wrinkles her nose and takes several steps back. “Wash! Immediately!”
Both men look abashed and head to their respective showers. “So gross,” Sky groans, shaking her head. “Do you need any help, Rory?”
“Nope. Did you finish up the unit on medieval history?”
She rolls her eyes at me. “Yes, and that’s why I can tell you Tally smells like a midden, and Clay looks like he was flushed down a garderobe.”
I grin. “Good job, babe. And as for him, I bet London needs a hand. He was bleating about his cream not clotting earlier.”
She zooms off. Layla watches her go. “Think she’ll be ready for in-person school soon?”
I shrug. “It’s up to her. I’m kind of enjoying the role of home-school teacher.”
“Weirdo,” Lay snorts. “I can’t think of anything worse.”
The cabin door bangs open and again, and London appears, carrying a huge tray. Sky is behind him, teapot in hand. “FOOD!” she yells at the top of her voice.
By the time the high-tea—mini pate sandwiches, scones, jam and cream, plus two steaming pots of Earl Grey—has been assembled, Clay and Tally are back, looking and smelling much fresher.
Now we are just missing the one guy who called this assembly in the first place.
Ah, there he is.
Francois walks towards us holding a laptop computer, his brow furrowed as he looks at the loaded picnic tables.
“I explicitly requested we meet inside.” His jaw tightens slightly. “I set up the projector to do a digital presentation. There are interactive spreadsheets to go through.”
“Oh, sit your ass down and stop pouting,” Layla snorts, slathering clotted cream onto a pastry. “Just spit out what you have to say.”
“What she said,” Tally rumbles, taking a massive bite of a scone.
London lets out a dramatic gasp. “But what about his interactive spreadsheets? Quick—toss the tea time, cancel the cake. Our Shane needs us.”
Francois huffs, giving a long-suffering sigh.
Though it’s only long-suffering because he hardly ever chooses to go with the flow. “Fine.” He slides onto the bench next to me, his grumpiness fading as our eyes meet.
I lean over and give him a lingering kiss. “Good job, babe. That’s called being flexible.”
London opens his mouth but Francois points a finger. “Shut it, goat. We don’t need any more commentary about your flexibility.”
“Boo, you’re no fun.”
“That’s what makes Frank the funnest of all of you,” Sky grins. “His eyes go snake-slit when he’s mad.”
I push a cup of tea in front of Francois. “Speak, then. Tell us what’s up.”
He clears his throat. “Very well.” Everyone quietens down.
For all the banter, we are a reasonably respectful gang.
Francois looks at us all, one at a time. “For the past several weeks, I have been working on a project.” He pats the closed laptop. “I have been in negotiations with the WMO and the regional oversight council, and finally got all the documents signed for the real work to begin.”
“Real work for what?” Tally asks, eyes narrowing. “What the fuck are you up to?”
“Well…” Francois actually looks a little nervous. What has he been working on?
I squeeze his leg. “Go on…”
“OK, well, we’ve officially secured the rights to the old Quo Reformare building.”
The entire table goes silent. Clay freezes, his fork halfway to his mouth. Layla stops chewing, her eyes instantly suspicious. “Why the hell would you want that place?” she asks.
“To give it an entirely new legacy,” Francois answers, swallowing. “To turn it into a fully-funded, community academy for the local youth of Ashgrave between the ages of sixteen and twenty. Vocational and magical training.”
I stare at him, mouth slightly open. An academy here in Ashgrave?
Community-based, for the kids of this under-served area?
It’s brilliant.
“Alexis Feniks is writing up the curriculum,” Francois continues, looking at me. “And I am liquidating the entirety of the Crankshawe fortune to fund the infrastructure, the staff, and the supplies.”
Something I can’t describe burns in my chest. Not pride, it’s more than that. It’s an overwhelming thankfulness that our generation is nothing like our parents.
We can make this world better.
It just takes imagination—and money.
Lots and lots of money.
I grab his hand, and squeeze his oh so elegant fingers. “You can count the Drakeward fortune in, too,” I pledge “Take my half. Every single cent of it. Let's do this.”
“Holy shit,” Layla drops her fork onto the table. “Holy fucking shit.”
Sky leaps to her feet, eyes glittering. “I’ll go! I’ll be the first student!” She doesn’t even blink at the idea of returning to the Quo location.
Tally and I meet eyes. “This could work,” he growls. “This could fucking work.”
“Of course it could.” London leaps onto the middle of the table, spilling tea, then plucking the bluebells out of the vase and tossing them in the air. “You’re like Robert the Bruce. Tell me, did a spider whisper in your ear? I know it did!”
I lean my head against Francois’s shoulder, as Clay and Sky wrangle the upset cups and mess of jam.
This is brilliant.
They are all brilliant.
This day couldn’t get any better.
???
The golden spring afternoon melts into a deep blue twilight. The picnic tables are pushed back, replaced by a circle of logs as seats and the crackle of a campfire. None of us want to go our separate ways yet.
This is our family, and the best company anyone could wish for.
Tally sits with his arm slung over my shoulders, pulling me tight against his side while his thumb traces lazy circles on my arm. On my other side, Francois rests his back against a timber bench, long legs stretched out toward the flames, a glass of cognac in hand.
And then there is London.
He is currently cross-legged on a stump, blowing a series of airy, slightly erratic notes into a set of wooden panpipes he’d ordered on Francois’s account.
“I told you to put parameters on your settings,” Tally growls at Francois. “Who knows what he’ll buy next.”
The flute drops from London’s lips. “Don’t fret, I’m telling you, it’s an instinctual thing, it will just take a minute.”
“You’re driving that owl crazy, goat,” Layla calls out dryly from where she’s snipping at Clay’s hair with a pair of shears. “I’ve never heard so much hooting.”
“It appreciates my free-jazz, Layla. Unlike you, who obviously still needs to embrace your avant-garde soul.”
I laugh, looking up to see stars starting to appear in the denim blue sky.
Talking of Sky, she’s curled up under a blanket, and has been oddly quiet for the last hour or so.
Suddenly, she shoots upright, shoulders rigid.
“Sky?” I ask, straightening up. “What is it, babe?”
Her head tilts sharply toward the dark canopy of the pine trees surrounding the clearing. “I... I feel funny.” She rolls her neck and shoulders like they are unbearably stiff. “Something, something is pulling. In my chest.”
Before I can even stand, the magic takes her.
The blanket drops to the grass as her form blurs, shrinking and reshaping in a flash of shifting light until sleek, beautiful warm feathers coat her body.
With a sharp snap of her wings, she launches off the log, soaring straight up into the night sky.
“Barn owl!” Layla breathes, a brilliant smile on her face. “How perfect.”
I can’t see her any more and that makes anxiety twist in my gut. What if she doesn’t know how to fly properly? What if she shifts back to human mid-flight?
Tally grips my waist, anchoring me. “Rory, it’s all good. Just wait.”
So that’s what we do. We wait, breathless, until she appears again.
Fuck! So beautiful.
Sky circles the tall Douglas firs at the edge of the yard, hovering near the topmost branches of a massive pine, letting out soft, inquiring hoots.
A beat later, another pale shape detaches itself from the deep shadows.
A second owl. Larger, completely snow-white, its feathers catching the moonlight like a ghost.
The two birds dance through the air, dipping and diving in perfect synchronicity before Sky swoops back down toward the campfire. The moment her talons touch the grass, she shifts back, landing on her knees with a breathless gasp.
Her face is completely flush, her eyes wide with a mixture of awe and tears.
I kneel beside her, wrapping the blanket back around her shoulders. “Whoa, that was amazing. How do you feel?”
She looks up at me, then switches her gaze to Tally, then Layla and finally Clay.
“Guys,” she breathes. “It’s Immy!”
The entire camp goes dead silent.
The only sound is the crackle of a burning log spitting sparks into the air.
“How?” I croak.
“When he shifted,” Sky explains, her voice trembling, “he felt well again. He didn’t die! He told me he can keep living, but only in his owl form.”
I fall back on my heels in shock. Clay lets out a sob. “But, but—is he happy?”
Sky beams. “More than you could ever imagine. It’s like Immy is all owl now, but he still knows us.” She turns, pointing a small finger toward a low-hanging oak branch just a dozen feet from the fire’s edge.
The white owl is there, his knowing eyes roaming over us all.
“He’s been following,” Sky whispers, her voice choking a little. “Ever since you left Quo. He was so happy when you found me.”
She swallows hard, a tear finally slipping down her cheek, even though she’s smiling. “He’s here with us, and he’s so glad that we can know that now. Know that he’s part of our family.”
I look back up at Imran, meeting his wise gaze.
“You’re home,” I tell him. “Thank you for making our family complete.”