Chapter Fourteen
I woke to sunlight streaming through unfamiliar windows.
For a moment, I didn't remember where I was. Then it came back in pieces: the estate, the Archive, the note tucked into Velas's journal. Truth yields to the tale most often told. áedán's face when he'd read those words, fear flickering behind his eyes.
The kiss.
I sat up too quickly, my heartbeat going from calm to frantic.
We'd kissed last night. A second time. After Agnes had swept away with the mysterious note, and I had escorted áedán to a guest room a few doors down from mine.
We'd stood in the corridor outside his room, neither of us quite ready to say goodnight.
The silence had stretched between us, charged with anticipation.
Then áedán had leaned in. Slow enough that I could have stopped him.
I hadn't. His mouth had been soft against mine, so careful.
As if he were afraid I might bolt if he pressed too hard.
My hands had found his waist, fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt, and for a moment the entire world had narrowed to the warmth of him, the faint smell of herbs and fresh air that clung to his skin.
When we'd pulled apart, he'd looked at me with an expression that hovered between wonder and hope. “Goodnight, Ethan.”
I nodded, too shaken to speak, and hurried away down to my room.
I forced myself not to look back, but I'd lain awake for hours replaying it.
The way his breath had hitched. The way his hand had come up to cup the side of my face, his thumb brushing my cheekbone.
He had smiled against my mouth, just slightly, as if he couldn't help himself.
Now, in the morning light, I felt the full weight of my awkwardness settle over me like a blanket. What was I supposed to say to him at breakfast? Good morning, I've been thinking about kissing you again ever since I woke up?
I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. The water was hot enough to scald, which helped. By the time I'd dressed and made my way downstairs, I'd almost convinced myself I could act like a normal human being.
The dining hall was already full. I spotted áedán immediately.
He sat at a table near the windows, the morning light setting his dark hair to shining.
He was talking to Mei Lin, the Curator of Living Traditions, who was gesturing enthusiastically about something, and he was smiling.
Not the dangerous, flirtatious smile he wore like armor.
The real one. The one that made the corners of his eyes crinkle. And made my heart race.
I went to the kitchen pass-through with its long counter.
Condiments stood on steel plates to either side of the opening.
On the lower counter on the kitchen side of the passageway, warming dishes held an assortment of breakfast food.
A woman in an apron came up and filled a dish for me, heaping on my selections.
I added some salt to my eggs and then went to the beverage table to make a cup of coffee.
With mug and plate in hand, I went to join áedán.
“Ethan!” Mei Lin waved me into the empty seat beside áedán. “I was just telling áedán about the Mid-Autumn Festival we're planning. We're going to have lanterns and mooncakes and—”
“She's trying to convince me to participate,” áedán interrupted. His eyes met mine, and something warm flickered in them. “Apparently I'm supposed to tell stories aboot kelpies.”
“You'd be perfect.” Mei Lin looked up, her attention caught by someone across the hall. “Oh, I need to ask Hassan about the music. Excuse me!” She was gone in a whirl of brightly colored silk and long dark hair.
áedán and I sat in sudden silence. I glanced at him, willing my heart to slow.
“Good morning.” His voice dropped into a low, sensual range.
“Morning.” I focused very hard on my plate. “Did you sleep well?”
“Not particularly.” The sensuality turned into amusement. “You?”
“Not really.”
“Hmm.”
I risked another glance at him. He was watching me with an expression that was entirely too knowing. Heat crept up the back of my neck. Then he reached for me. I froze. He picked something off my shirt. Blinking, I focused on it—a blond hair.
“Just a hair.” áedán flicked it away.
“Oh.” I chuckled and smoothed a hand over my shoulder-length hair. “Thank you.”
“You look nice today.”
“Thanks. Uh, about last night—” I started.
“Ethan.” He said my name like it was something precious. “Eat your breakfast. We can talk aboot last night later, if you want. Or we can just—” He paused, searching for words. “Let it be what it is. See what happens.”
I nodded, my throat tightening.
We ate in companionable silence. I was hyperaware of everything about him.
The way he held his fork, elegant even in such a mundane task.
The way he tilted his head when he was thinking.
The way his knee brushed mine under the table and didn't move away.
This man had been born a horse. He spent half his life underwater.
Still, he was more civilized than many of the men I had known in college. Maybe that wasn't a high bar.
Across the hall, Brannoc was arguing with the espresso machine again.
Zephyr had climbed into someone's lap and was being fed bits of sausage.
Zoe laughed at something Eleanor said. Everything felt so normal and yet so fantastical, terrifying in its casual acceptance of the extraordinary.
And áedán fit in there. He belonged in a way I wasn't sure I ever would.
“Julian is meeting with Caelum. I'd like to spend some time with my old friends.” áedán stood, collecting his empty plate and mug. “Maybe finish that chess game with Zoe. Do you mind?”
“Of course not.” I tried not to feel disappointed. “I'll probably—I need to clear my head anyway. I think I'll take a walk and then head to the Archive. We never got around to looking through the kelpie books.”
He looked at me for a long moment. “I've changed my mind.”
“About what?”
“Talking aboot the kiss.” He leaned down, close enough that his scent invigorated me, and whispered, “I intend to kiss you again and then, hopefully, more than that.”
Before I could respond, he straightened and left. I sat there for another few minutes, my heart doing acrobatics, before I finally gave up on acting normal and went outside.
The central garden was beautiful in the morning light. Roses bloomed in neat beds, their petals heavy with dew. Lavender lined the pathways, releasing its scent with every brush of wind. Up ahead was the low hill where Velas's oak stood, its branches spreading wide against the pale sky.
I started walking mindlessly. My feet carried me along the grass path, into the maze of flowers.
I needed to think about the note and the altered stories.
I needed to think about áedán and the possibility of sharing more than a kiss.
I should have gone straight to the Great Archive and started searching for when áedán's stories had changed.
But I knew I wouldn't be able to focus until I worked through my spinning thoughts.
A few minutes later, a soft chirping sound made me look down. Zephyr had appeared at my side, his golden eagle head tilted in curiosity. His lion's paws were still slightly too large for his body, giving him an endearing awkwardness despite his obvious majesty. His tail wagged in greeting.
“Hello, Zephyr.” I reached down and stroked his sleek, feathered head.
He chirped again and bumped his head against my hand. I scratched his neck where the feathers merged with golden fur, and he started purring.
“Want to come with me?”
Apparently he did. He trotted beside me as I climbed the gentle slope toward the oak tree, his paws occasionally tangling together. By the time we reached the top of the hill, I was smiling despite my worry for áedán.
The oak was even more magnificent up close. Deeply furrowed bark covered its massive trunk, easily fifteen feet around. Thick branches spread in all directions, creating a canopy of green that filtered the sunlight into patterns of gold on the grass.
This was where Caelum had buried Velas. Velas, the monk who had saved a man who was also a myth and then fell in love with him.
I reached out and touched the bark. It was warm under my palm.
áedán had said we wouldn't have been able to hold hands in public in the past. I wondered what it was like for Velas and Caelum.
As a monk during the 1400s, Velas would have taken a vow of celibacy.
Breaking his vow would have been bad enough if he'd done it to be with a woman.
But he'd fallen in love with a man. A magical man.
What had they gone through to be together?
“He would have liked you.”
I spun around.
Caelum stood a few feet away, one hand resting on Zephyr's head. I hadn't heard him approach. Tiny flowers bloomed around his bare feet.
“I didn't hear you,” I said stupidly.
“Most people don't.” He smiled. It was a gentle expression, but there was something ancient in his eyes. This man had seen centuries pass, many of them spent in mourning. “May I join you?”
“Of course.”
Caelum moved to stand beside me, his hand settling next to mine on the oak's trunk. For a moment we stood in silence, and I had the strange sensation that the tree was listening to us.
“You're troubled,” Caelum said. It wasn't a question.
“This is my first assignment, my chance to prove I can be one of you, and I feel like I'm floundering.
I thought I would go to Scotland and save a myth.
I thought I'd be sharing áedán's stories with others, not uncovering mysteries.” I lowered my hand.
“The changed stories, the spiral in the water, and now the note in Velas's journal.
I know it's all connected, but I can't figure it out.”
“Neither can I.” Caelum looked down at the base of the tree before lowering his hand.
“There's a reason the stories changed so drastically, and I suspect you're right about the spiral being connected.
It reeks of magic, but I don't know if it's an attack against áedán or the result of something else.
I don't know why anyone would want to alter stories about a myth.”
“To make the myth fade faster? If people only remember kelpies as monsters—”
“Then they're harder to believe in. Good is easier to believe in than evil.
Many Christians believe fervently in their god, but as for the devil, they say they believe, but they don't really.
They scoff at people who say they're possessed and comfort their children by saying the devil doesn't exist. No one wants to live in fear.” Caelum turned to face me.
“Yes, that's one possibility. But there are others.”
“Do you think—” I started, then stopped. The kiss kept replaying in my mind. The way áedán had looked at me afterward. The way my heart had felt too large for my chest.
Caelum watched me with knowing eyes. “You're distracted.”
“I'm sorry.” I didn't know how to explain it. “A lot's happening. It's why I came out here. I needed to clear my head.”
He smiled, but it was bittersweet. “áedán is remarkable, isn't he?”
Heat flooded my face. “I, well, uh, yes. He is.”
“Velas would have liked him too.” Caelum's hand went to the trunk again and moved over the bark. “My Velas used to say that myths deserve to live as much as humans do. He believed we should forge our own futures, separate from what humans believed of us.”
“That's why you formed the Velasca, isn't it? To give other myths the freedom to live as they choose.”
“Yes, that and to honor the man I loved.” Caelum looked up into the branches. “But sometimes I wonder if we've become too moored in our past to help myths live in the present.”
“Then you don't think that preserving the stories is enough?”
Caelum went quiet and lowered his hand. A breeze moved through the oak's branches, making them whisper.
“No, we need to do more than preserve the stories, and we have done more.
We've ensured that the myths are told and shared.
We ensure that they live in people's hearts and minds, not just in archives.” He looked at me.
“But we need to do even more now. I just don't know what.”
I nodded slowly. I didn't know what to say. But I knew I had to stop áedán from fading. And to do that, I had to figure out what had changed his stories and why. I had to give áedán a future because I desperately wanted to be a part of it.
“You're afraid.” Caelum cocked his head at me, and a shaft of sunlight caught in his hair, bringing the auburn to blazing life.
“I'm afraid I won't be enough. That I can't—” I gestured helplessly. “áedán has survived six centuries. He's powerful and magical. How am I supposed to save someone like that? What could I possibly offer him?”
Caelum's smile was soft. “Ethan, myths save Velascans as often as Velascans save myths. Perhaps more often. We are not the only ones doing the rescuing.”
“I don't understand.”
“You will.” He patted the oak tree once more. “Velas saved me when I was fading. But I saved him too, in my own way. We saved each other. That's how love works.”
He said it so casually. Love. But just hearing the word made me nervous.
áedán couldn't possibly fall in love with me.
I wasn't special enough for someone like him.
He was lonely. That's why he kissed me. That's why he wanted more.
But once we stopped him from fading, he'd have more options.
He'd want to be with someone more like himself. I shouldn't get attached.
“I should let you think.” Caelum stepped away. “But, Ethan, don't be afraid of what you're feeling. I built the Velasca on a foundation of love. It's our greatest strength.”
I stood under the oak tree, my mind spinning. Zephyr had curled up on the roots, but watched me. I stared back at him, a mythical creature who had become real to me. As real as the last kelpie.
I touched the oak tree one more time in farewell, then started back down the hill.
The estate spread out before me, beautiful in the morning light.
I could see people moving through the gardens, hear the distant sound of Brannoc's hammer from the smithy.
Somewhere, áedán was playing chess with Zoe—one myth challenging another.
Instead of going to the Archive as I'd intended, I headed for the main hall. But as I did, movement caught my eye. Someone was standing at a fourth-floor window in the Archive, watching me. I stopped and squinted up at them. But they were gone.
Just another Velascan going about their day.
The estate was full of people, after all.
Or maybe my mind was playing tricks on me.
I shrugged my shoulders and headed inside.
I needed to find áedán. The thought made my stomach clench, but I ignored it.
We'd come here for help and answers, but so far, we'd only found more questions.