Epilogue

Maya walked in the front door of the house on Lighthouse Hill and realized this was the first time she’d gone to visit Lainie since Tomás stole the post from under her nose.

No. That couldn’t be right. She must have—but—

Had it really been that long?

And hardly any time at all.

Almost a week was a long time not to see her friend, and not a long time at all to change her life.

Then again, given the previous times her whole world had been upended had taken a matter of minutes, not days, maybe it was a long time.

“Is everything all right?” Corin asked, his hand on the small of her back.

“Sorry,” she said as Tomás tugged on her hand, eager to go inside and show more friends his treasures. “My brain got stuck.”

“My fault, I hope.”

“Part of it.” She smiled up at him, then stepped in.

“You’re not going to knock?”

“In a house with a baby, who may or may not be sleeping? I value my life, thank you.”

Lainie and Harrison’s house was, in Maya’s mind, perfect. And not just because the piles of laundry made her feel better about her own housekeeping. Harrison was a griffin shifter, and had built their hilltop nest using all the skills at his disposal and all the love he felt for his cherished mate. It was all warm wood and cheerful color, with windows perfectly angled to catch every hour of sunlight and views out over the town in one direction and the vast ocean in the other.

The beach where she and Corin had their picnic was tucked under the cliffs on the ocean side. Invisible from the house, and accessible via a secret passage in the ruins of the old lighthouse.

Tomás ran ahead. Maya followed him, confident that her little dragon would unerringly know how to find his newest partner in crime. Lainie and Harrison’s maybe-griffin, maybe-human.

She hoped they had a longer wait to find out whether their firstborn was a shifter than she had.

And a shorter one than her mother. And, potentially, her.

“Baby!” Tomás announced triumphantly as he stood in the doorway to the lounge. He looked back at Maya and Corin and pointed into the room, making sure they both saw. “Baby!”

“They’re in there, huh?”

She crept in, anyway, because the presence of Baby didn’t mean that Baby was awake—and found Lainie leaning over the bassinet.

“Good timing,” she said, lifting a tiny bundle out of the bed. “He’s just waking up.”

“Baby!” Tomás stormed up to them. “Look!”

“Don’t throw—” Maya began, starting forward. Tomás gave her a look of extremely teenaged, toddler-ish disgust. “Oh, no. Of course you wouldn’t throw your hoard. How undignified.”

Lainie sat back in her chair, her son cradled in her arms. He was barely awake: little eyes scrunched up like he wasn’t sure about any of this, mouth pursed, hands grabbing at the air.

Then he saw his mom. His eyes opened wide and his little fingers stretched up towards her.

“Hello, my love,” Lainie murmured, kissing him. “Welcome back from your nap.”

There was a loud snuffling sound from the other side of the room. Maya turned and jumped slightly before she connected the dots that the huge pile of fur and feathers in the corner was Harrison in his griffin form.

“You can stay asleep,” Lainie called to her mate. He huffed and went quiet again.

“He’s still not sleeping?” Maya asked, sitting down next to Lainie and arranging the picnic they’d brought on the coffee table. Corin helped her, laying out sandwiches and fruit.

“Do you need to ask? Oh, you’re the best,” Lainie groaned as Maya passed her a plate.

“Thank Caro, not me.”

“I’ll thank you both, thank you very much. She cooked, you lugged them up the hill. Both very important parts of the job.” She sighed. “Though … tomorrow’s dumpling night at the Hook and Sinker, isn’t it? Maybe I’ll have to lug myself down the hill.”

“Everyone would love to see you.”

“And catch me up on all the gossip, I hope.” Lainie’s black eyes were a sharp contrast to her blonde hair, and there was something sharp and bird-like in them as she quirked an eyebrow at Maya. Lainie was human, but her father was a magpie shifter. Even though she couldn’t shift, her heritage was still a part of her. “Shifters are so used to news traveling by light speed on the telepathic grapevine, they forget some of us are limited to more earthly means of communication. So. Is this the guy?”

‘The guy’ did his best to look kind and trustworthy, and not like the infamous dragon who’d chased Maya into Hideaway’s waiting arms. She laughed. “Yes, this is Corin. Which you know .”

“Sure, I know lots of things about him. Felicity’s told me stories about him and Montfort’s fights.”

“Oh, god,” Corin muttered.

“But I haven’t met the man you decided to let back into your life.”

She sat back, her baby in her arms, her hair a tangled mess and shadows under her eyes, every inch the queen of this homely nest on top of the hill.

“So,” Lainie said. “You’re the guy, huh?”

He nodded gravely. “I am the guy.”

“And are you planning on moving here, or taking Maya away from us all?”

Maya raised her eyebrows at him, echoing Lainie’s question. His eyes were soft as he gazed at her. “I will take her anywhere in the world she wants to be, and always bring her home here.”

“And I’ll travel with you to deal with your family drama, and always drag you back here to hide from them behind Apollo’s magic afterwards.”

“Promise?” he teased.

“Good.” Lainie resettled herself and the baby absently. “Then there’s only one other thing I need from you.”

“What is it?”

Her eyes widened. “That bath I saw coming out of the moving truck the other day? The one that looked like a leaf? Where did you buy it?”

“A leaf bath ?” Maya turned equally wide eyes on Corin, who cleared his throat.

“I’ve largely let my mother take on redecorating that house while I stay with Maya,” he explained.

“That was before I knew your house now has a bath shaped like a leaf!” she laughed, mock-dismayed. “I want to see it. And lie in it until I turn into a prune or a mermaid, which I assume is the only reason anyone would own something like that. Can we get one for Lainie?”

“I want one so badly,” Lainie agreed.

“Consider it a late wedding present,” he told her.

Tomás had pulled a necklace out of his shirt and was dangling it in front of the baby, who alternated cooing and frowning at it in confusion. Corin cleared his throat.

“I have already met Mr. and Mrs. Eaves-Galloway. But I have not had the pleasure of making this child’s acquaintance.”

“Oh,” said Lainie happily. “This is Fletcher.”

“Hello, Fletcher,” Corin said gravely.

Fletcher babbled up at him briefly, then wriggled, his face screwing up.

“I’ll get a bottle from the fridge,” Maya offered.

When she returned, Harrison was in human form, wearing a fluffy robe and a serious expression as the three grown-ups talked business.

“We could never afford what we wanted to do with the subdivision, even with a loan and Harrison doing the work—and that was before Fletcher,” Lainie was saying. “If there’s one thing we’ve learned these last few years, it’s that there are far more shifters out there who don’t have any home or community than we ever thought. Jacqueline and Arlo’s children had at least heard of Hideaway, even if it was more of a myth than anything—and you had no idea the place even existed, Maya.”

“I had no idea shifters existed,” Maya reminded her.

“And I don’t know how to solve that. But we can solve the problem of Hideaway not having enough homes to house all the people out there who need a place like this.”

“Most small, ex-industrial towns have trouble with their populations leaving, not being too full,” Corin said. “You’re in a unique position.”

“Lucky us. It’s our job to make the most of it,” Lainie said plainly. “For people like Harrison and Arlo and Pol, and Tomás, and you , Maya, and—and me,” she added unevenly.

Harrison leaned across and kissed her. “Always you,” he murmured.

Maya thought of all Corin’s contractors, and how just being in a town where other people knew what shifters were had been a revelation for them. How half the people she spoke to in Hideaway had a story of finding community here, and the other half were stalwartly dedicated to creating that community, and keeping it safe.

She thought of all the other shifters who must be out there in the world with no idea a place like this was possible.

“You know,” she said to Corin slowly, “I don’t think I ever gave you my one condition for staying in town.”

His eyes glittered. “No. Have you finally come up with one?”

“Yes. Hideaway Cove gave me a home when I thought nowhere in the world would be safe for me and Tomás. Let’s make sure that if anyone comes needing sanctuary like that again, there’s space for them.”

He raised one eyebrow. “My family’s experience with the duskfire does mean I have a great many contacts in the construction industry.”

“See?” she teased. “I knew your magic wasn’t all bad.”