Lost in Mist and Shadow: A Between the Worlds Novel (38 page)

That did give him pause. He contemplated the ambulance crew, loading Bleidd’s still unconscious body onto their stretcher. His eyes roamed the parking lot, over the different people trying to make sense of the chaos. And then back to her and his brother. Her nerves couldn’t take the delay, knowing that her future rested in whatever he was about to say, because the reality was she could do nothing about whatever he decided. If he said she was going to the Outpost that is what would happen, and there was nothing at all she could do about it, short of fleeing Ashwood and the immediate area of Queen Naesseryia’s realm entirely.

Finally, slowly, he spoke, “There may be some truth in what you say.”

Another agonizingly long contemplative silence, then, “I will not compel you to go where you do not wish to go. The offer remains open and at any time you may choose to seek sanctuary with us and you will have it.”

He locked eyes with Jess, who was furious, his anger radiating out like heat from a fire. Zarethyn’s voice when he spoke to his brother was calm, even though he was certainly aware of Jess’s reaction. “I will not compel Allie in anything, but if it suits her you may stay with her when you are not actively working. And of course I still expect her to help us in this investigation. I suspect we shall be in dire need of cultural translation assistance at every turn.”

There was some undertone to that last that Allie didn’t fully grasp, and she was filled with foreboding. Jess’s anger gave way to disbelief as the captain walked away. He carried Allie over to the closest Guard vehicle, setting her down in the front passenger seat. She looked up at him, not sure she’d understood. “What just happened?”

“You convinced him that the only way to solve this is to allow it to play out without interference,” Jess said, his voice inscrutable. “And I am moving in with you.”

“I did…wait, what? You are? Do I get a say in that?” she stammered.

“Do you not want me to stay with you?”

“I didn’t say that. I…”she looked down suddenly shy, “I would like that. For you to live with me. But because you want to not because you have to.”

He sighed, “Allie?”

“What?” she said suspiciously.

“You’re being stupid.”

She punched him weakly in the arm. “Come on, let’s go home.”

******************************

Jess wanted to carry her from the car but she refused. It reminded her too much of coming home after the last time she almost died investigating this case. So he walked next to her, helping her as she slowly stumbled her way up the walkway.

When he stopped abruptly halfway up she stopped with him, squinting towards the house. A large black dog was standing in front of the porch.

“Ciaran!” she said eagerly. And despite Jess’s obvious reluctance she limped forward towards him.

Ciaran approached slowly as well, “Allie what has happened? You smell of blood and death.”

Allie flushed, seeing dead birds in her mind, and looked down, “Bleidd was shot. At the store. But he didn’t die, he was healed.”

“And you? I smell your blood too. How badly are you injured?” he said, his voice coming out of the dog’s mouth like an uncanny special effect.

“Not badly. The bullet hit my arm after hitting Bleidd. I’m okay now though,” she blinked back tears remembering Bleidd laying out, bleeding to death.

He looked from her to Jessilaen, contemplating the situation. “And the Guard is letting you return here?”

“Yes,” she said, as Jess’s arms tightened around her.

“Then they believe the threat has passed?” Ciaran asked.

“No,” Allie said, realizing that she would need to figure out what to say to everyone else in the house about what had happened and why Jess was living with them now. “No, they don’t. They think it’s only just starting.”

Allie was sitting by the edge of the garden at the side of the house, staring listlessly at the ground. She’d come out planning to weed the small plot which was only just beginning to show signs of growth, but found that her heart wasn’t in it, so instead she sat in the grass watching the sunlight and shade shift across the lawn as the wind blew. When she heard footsteps she glanced over her shoulder just far enough to see a familiar pair of battered sneakers and sighed. “If you’re going to tell me I need to keep your secret, I already figured out I shouldn’t tell anyone. If you want people to know or not know that’s your business.”

Jason sat down next to her, carefully, “No. I mean yeah please don’t tell anyone, but that’s not why I’m here. I wanted to see if you were okay.”

“I’m not sure okay is something I’m ever going to be again. Can I ask you something?” Allie said softly, reaching out to touch the grass around her knees.

“Sure. What’s up?”

“I get not telling anyone about your, you know, history. I even get hiding it. I guess I do that too a lot. Pass as human I mean. And, ummm, not talk about my past, where I come from. So I can’t criticize you for it. But I was just wondering…is that why you’re friends with me?” Allie kept her eyes down as she spoke, not daring to look at him.

“I don’t understand what you mean,” Jason said.

“I mean are you only my friend because you feel like I’m safe to be friends with because I’m mixed? Or…”

“No,” Jason cut her off, sounding upset, “No, Allie. Please don’t think that. I like you because I like you, for who you are, not because of something stupid like your ancestry…”

He trailed off, but Allie smiled slightly, nodding. “Okay. I just had to know.”

“Why would you even think that?”

“I don’t know. Because I feel like I can’t trust anything anymore. Nothing’s like it should be. We saved Jenny, but she’s…it’s going to be a long time before she’s herself again, if ever. And three other girls are dead. Bleidd almost died because of me, because I’m too stubborn to listen to anyone telling me I’m in danger. And I still just can’t let the elves totally take over my life, even knowing that it’s probably the smart thing to do,” Allie sighed again, resting her cheek against her knees.

They were silent for a while, lost in their own thoughts. Allie knew Jason had been visiting Bleidd at the clinic, and she wanted to ask how he was doing but part of her was afraid to find out. She hadn’t dared to go see him yet herself. The two days since the shooting had been stressful even though a kind of fragile peace had settled over everything, and Allie feared finding out how much Bleidd remembered. Allie and Liz had gotten into a huge fight about Jess moving in, and she felt like she’d lost all the ground they recently made up. And there was still a subtle tension between her and Jason. Finally Jason cleared his throat, “Is that what you were thinking about before I came out? That you can’t trust anything?”

Allie shrugged, “Kind of. I was thinking of an old Robert Frost poem. He’s a poet from regular earth, from America.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard of him. Which poem?”

“It’s a short one called Nothing Gold Can Stay. It’s about how leaves look gold at first but turn green quickly…basically just how everything changes and nothing stays the way it starts out I guess,” Allie finally turned and looked at Jason.

“Sounds like fairy gold turning into leaves,” he smiled at his own weak joke.

“I guess,” she agreed. Then, looking up at him, afraid of what he’d say, “Jason? Do you think this is all my fault?”

“Of course not,” he said forcefully. “You aren’t making those people kill people. You aren’t making them hurt people. You’re just trying to help.”

“Yeah, and Syndra’s dead and Bleidd got shot because I was trying to help,” she said.

“And you’ve been hurt too Allie, don’t forget that. And if you hadn’t done what you did Walters would still be killing people and no one would have any clue it was a big crazy ritual and not just a normal crazy serial killer,” he said.

“It seems so unfair that trying to be the good guy has such a big price tag attached,” she said.

He laughed, “You know I kind of feel that way about being a firefighter sometimes. Its hard work and there’s so much training all the time, and people get hurt, sometimes even killed. But it’s still worth doing Allie. Somebody has to do it or the town would burn down.”

“Yeah, I guess,” she sighed again.

Jason looked over his shoulder towards the house, “Speaking of benefits of being the good guy, I think yours just got home. Looks like you have a hot date tonight. And wow.”

“Huh?” Allie said cleverly. She twisted around to see what he was looking at and realized Jess was walking across the lawn towards them. For the first time in the months that she had known him he wasn’t wearing his Guard uniform or his armor. Instead he wore tight dark green leggings and a lighter green tunic, belted at the waist. His hair hung loose, falling to the middle of his chest.

He was stunningly beautiful.

Jason scrambled to his feet, “Wow, ummmm. Yeah. I’ll be…ummm, somewhere else…”

She barely noticed him leaving, her attention fixed on Jess. He nodded slightly at Jason as the two crossed paths, and Jason tripped over his own feet, blushing and stumbling the rest of the way into the house. As Jess got closer she could feel an odd nervous tension that set her on edge. He had seemed so accepting of her actions after the shooting, but his feelings now were so reserved and uneasy that she fully expected bad news. Then she had a truly horrible thought. Was he here to tell her that he had been called back into the Fairy Holding? The Guard worked rotating assignments and the Outpost was only one possible place they could be set to work. Maybe Zarethyn had changed his mind about Jess staying here with her…

He reached her side and hesitated a moment, then extended his hand down to her. She took it and he helped her to her feet. She looked up at him in mute resignation waiting for him to break whatever bad news was waiting.

Instead he launched into small talk. “Good afternoon Allie.”

“Hey Jess, you look…amazing,” she said, distracted from her worry by the novelty of seeing him so finely dressed.

He relaxed slightly, his emotions shifting to something gentler, “As do you my heart.”

She laughed nervously, “Me?” she gestured down at her grass stained jeans and plain t-shirt.

“You always look amazing to me,” he replied. She blushed and he stroked her cheek, his lips turning up in the barest hint of a smile. “Has your day gone well?”

“Well, no one’s tried to kill me so far, that’s an improvement,” she joked, but his face tensed and she regretted mentioning it. “I’m sorry, I was just trying to make a joke. My day has been boring. My arm feels much better today – Brynneth is coming out tomorrow to do more healing work. Physical and non-physical.”

He nodded, “That is good. He is very fond of you, you know.”

“Wasn’t he one of the ones urging you to break up with me and start seeing other people?” she quipped, once again seeing her attempted joke fall flat as he looked distressed.

“Don’t think badly of him for that Allie. They worry for me, my family and Brynneth who is my friend. That is a rare thing among the elves, to have a true friend and I value him very much.”

“Why do they worry?” she asked, deciding to keep her humor to herself from then on.

“Because I love you too much. Because they fear that if I lose you, through death or rejection, that it will…be bad for me,” he answered honestly.

“That you’ll Decline you mean,” she said referring to the term the elves used for a person falling into suicidal despair.

“Yes,” he said earnestly. “They do not understand you as I do. They do not understand that your ways are different, more human, and they judge you by an elven standard.”

“They must hate my habit of getting into these near-death situations,” she said, grimacing.

“They understand that seeking to fight darkness is a dangerous thing to do and they do not judge you for that. My brother and Brynneth both respect you more for your determination, and blame your penchant for injuries on youth and inexperience,” he said sincerely. “What they dislike is the appearance that you don’t return my feelings.”

Her eyebrows arched upwards. “Even now? When I’m calling you like a hysterical child every five minutes and you live with me?”

He pulled her into him, until she rested her cheek against his chest. She decided the tunic must be silk, and fought the urge to run her hands all over it. “You call me for work related things, and they appreciate the importance of that. But from the outside looking in they do not see the intimacy. You are a very guarded person Allie, and they see the caution and misinterpret it, while they see my feelings only too plainly. And the sex means nothing to them.”

“Yeah,” she said closing her eyes and sighing, “I don’t suppose it would.”

“Allie…” he started and stopped. She looked up and then stepped back a little as his emotions were overtaken again by anxiety.

“What is it?” she asked.

He opened his mouth again, then closed it again. Finally he reached down and took her hands in his. When he spoke his voice was rushed, the words tumbling out on top of each other, “Aliaine of clan Draighean, will you agree to marry me?”

She looked at him, completely stunned, and the only thing she could think was,
He’s flouting custom, I should be the one to ask him, or his mother should arrange it with me and then ask him
…

When she didn’t immediately respond, he rushed on, “You can negotiate whatever contract you want, anything you want, and I will see that my mother agrees to it. Only say that you will take me as your husband Allie, under the law.”

“What?” she managed to stutter, her brain still stuck in neutral.

“Marry me,” he repeated, squeezing her hands, then raising them to his lips and kissing them.

She stared up at him, completely dumbfounded.