CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

What did I just see in Sturrm’s eyes? Regret? Sorrow? It’s sure not what I hoped to see for our morning after.

Dios mio! Does he regret what we did? Does he see it as a betrayal of his lost love?

A pang of jealousy goes through me. I shouldn’t think ill of a dead woman, but I let myself for just a moment. What did she have that made her so special, that made her keep his heart clutched tight with no room for anyone new?

I release all my mad with a sigh, because I know that’s not what’s happening. I paid attention in all the psychology classes I had to take to get into med school. Even if I never planned on that being my specialty, a good doctor needs to know how to read people. And for Sturrm, what eats at him most is right there in his story about that long-distant day. Everything he’s feeling might not even be about Bruna any longer—not really. It’s about the fact that he couldn’t save her.

He crouches at the stream running across the very edge of the clearing, his wide shoulders tense as he washes the dishes.

I want to go to him, to ease his stress, but he’s clearly not ready, and I’d probably only make it worse. It’s always hard for me to rein in my enthusiasm, but there are times—and people—who need more patience.

“I’m a big girl,” I mutter under my breath. “I can do patience.”

“What’s that?” Dash asks, his tone amused.

“Nothing,” I chirp, making my voice carefree and light. It’s a lie.

I thought I unlocked the first tiny bit of Sturrm’s heart last night. What we shared was special, more than just sex—I know it was. It hurts to see him pull away.

It hurts even more to know he’s only doing it because he’s in pain.

Due to Sturrm’s speedy work, we’re packed up and ready to go within only a few minutes. His quick strides carry him out of the moss-lit cavern like his butt’s on fire, but I linger in the opening for a moment, taking one last look at this magical place.

Then I follow him down the tunnel to where the others wait in the cave with lots of tunnels. Sturrm holds up the map, using the other glow stone to light it.

Bella’s head swivels back and forth between it and the various tunnel openings until finally she points at one on the left. “That one.”

“You’re certain you read the map correctly?” Sturrm growls.

“I am.” She sounds affronted. “Dragons study from a young age, and maps are one of the first things taught.”

He grunts. “I will go first, then Selena, then Dash, with Bellavesaria bringing up the rear.”

“Will you two be okay without a glow stone?” I ask.

“ I will be,” Bella says. “Dragons are superior beings, and that includes our eyesight.”

Dash snorts. “I’ll be fine.”

“I still don’t see how you’re going to fit,” Sturrm eyes the unicorn skeptically. “You barely made it through that first tunnel, and that’s probably the largest one we’ll pass through today.”

“As to that…” Magic shimmers in the air, breaking Dash into wavery lines like looking at him through the heat haze coming off Florida blacktop. When it clears, a black pony stands in his place, shorter than me, but with stocky legs and a barrel chest. He still has Dash’s golden eyes and whorled horn.

Sturrm grunts his surprised grunt .

“I thought you said animal fae can’t shift now that all the doors of Faerie are closed,” I say.

He scowls. “They aren’t supposed to.”

“Dragons don’t have the ability,” Bella says, sounding personally affronted that Dash can do something she can’t.

“It’s true we can’t shift into our bipedal elven form,” Dash says. “But pooka are special. We’ve always had lots of forms instead of only two or three. When the doors of Faerie are open, we can shift into anything we want. Even with the way things are now in Faerie, we can access this, the oldest pooka form.”

“Why didn’t dragons know this?” Bella’s wings rustle on her back. “Dragons know everything .”

“Clearly not.” Dash laughs, his amused whinny the same.

“You look strong,” Sturrm says. “Will you carry the packs so that I can fight, if need be?”

“If I have to,” the unicorn teases.

Sturrm lifts the saddle onto Dash’s back, and his large green hands stroke over the leather. With a tingle of magic, the cinch belt shortens, adjusting to Dash’s new size. Instead of hanging the packs on the sides, Sturrm uses more of his magic to create new fastenings and straps them to the top of Dash’s back, laying everything as flat as possible.

Soon the only thing left is the guitar. Sturrm starts to sling it onto his back, but I say, “I’ll carry it.” When he glances my way, I add, “You might need to fight, and it doesn’t weigh much. I can carry it.”

“Thank you.” He hands over the case like it’s his baby, and I suppose in many ways it is .

A sprout of warmth and hope blooms in my chest that he trusts me with his prized possession. I take it carefully, shoving one arm and my head through the strap and making sure it lies flat against my back.

“Let’s go!” Excitement skitters through me. Who knows what we’ll find? More magical moss caverns? Lost cities?

But as Sturrm’s wide shoulders enter the tunnel ahead of me, I know what I most wish for.

I want Sturrm to find his way to me, to the possibility of us.

It’s a lot less exciting than I hoped at first. I wanted all of us to talk, but Sturrm quickly put a stop to that. “Sounds echo and carry in these tunnels. We don’t know who else is down here.” He even went so far as to make little leather booties for Dash’s hooves to keep them from clattering against the stone.

We walk on and on, most of the time spent in tunnels instead of caverns. I’m glad to be the smallest.

Sturrm has to turn and sidle through the narrow places sideways, making me glad I have the guitar, because he’d have to move it around constantly to keep it from hitting the walls.

Bella’s the widest of us, but she’s also able to bend and twist her spine with a reptilian sinuousness none of the rest of us can match. Even so, her sides scrape the narrowest passages, and I make us stop for a moment so I can heal her.

Sturrm keeps throwing little glances back over his shoulder, making sure I’m okay. Every time he does so, I catch his eye and smile, making him scowl.

I bite back a laugh. He’s not fooling me. Even with all this hurt he doesn’t know how to process, his big heart still shines through.

We keep walking. After another hour, Sturrm squishes through the narrow mouth of a tunnel, and I follow him into another of what I’m starting to call subway-station rooms, caves with multiple tunnels branching off them. This one’s covered in the same kind of glowing moss as the cavern we stayed in the night before, the pink, purple, and light-green brightness welcome after hours with only the glow stones to provide any light.

He stops and waits for the others to join us, so Bella can read the map and point us in the right direction.

She comes through with an audible scrape that makes me wince.

I hurry over to her and press a hand to her shoulder, sending a trickle of healing magic into her in a diagnostic scan. As expected, her sides glow red, the abrasions mild. I still heal them.

She lays her head on my shoulder and sighs. “Thank you. I like you.”

“I like you, too,” I whisper, throwing my arm around her neck and giving her a hug. Her purple scales are smooth and warm against my cheek.

“Aww.” Dash comes into the room. “Am I missing the big group hug? ”

I bite my lip to muffle a laugh and lean over to offer him a hug, too. My magic reaches out in a quick check and repairs a tiny bit of muscle strain in his back. My logical brain says I do it to keep us all in tip-top form in case we run into trouble, but I also just love using my magic and knowing I’m helping people.

“Don’t expect me to hug you, unicorn,” Bella says.

Mischief glimmers in his golden eyes, even more brightly in this form. “I wouldn’t dream of it, dragon.”

The only one I haven’t gotten my hands on is Sturrm. While he frowns at the map, I edge over to him and lay a hand on his arm.

He startles and opens his mouth, but before he can protest, I’ve already sent my magic spooling through him. He’s astoundingly healthy. There’s not a single thing to heal.

At least not anything physical.

Because he flinches away from my touch, pain flashing through his dark eyes and making my heart hurt.