Chapter 25

Oh, I guess I died after all.

That sucks.

Tamsyn swam up into consciousness slowly with those two thoughts in her mind, even as she began to realize she was freezing

and wet, and surely you didn’t feel like that if you were dead?

Or maybe you did, but only if you—

“You’re not dead, fy ngeneth i, ” a gruff voice said near her ear, and Tamsyn opened her eyes then.

Bowen was leaning over her, his hair wet with rain and dripping onto her face, but his eyes warm as he cupped her face and

looked down at her.

Suddenly everything he’d said earlier came back to her, about her being smart and sexy and him being in love with her...

“Did I say that stuff out loud again?” she asked, her voice hoarse, and he nodded, his thumb moving briefly over her lips.

“And are we back? Where we should be?”

Bowen lifted his gaze, but just for a second, almost like he couldn’t bear to stop looking at her.

She liked that.

“I think so?” he said. “Bit hard to say until we go inside and see for ourselves, but we’re back in the clothes we were wearing

the night we went back in time.”

Tamsyn nodded, or at least she tried to. Her head still felt very... spinny.

Still, she had to get up, had to make sure they’d saved Emerald after all, had to know they’d—

“Easy,” Bowen said, gently pushing on her shoulder, but she shook him off, rising to her feet on wobbly knees.

“I’m fine,” she said. “Just the world’s worst jet lag.”

“You thought you were dead,” he said as he got to his feet, too, and Tamsyn shot him a look.

“Yeah, I think that after long flights, too. Now can we please get moving, Mountain Man?”

With that, she took off back toward the entrance of the maze, the ground muddy beneath her heels, slowing her down.

Kicking out one foot and then the other, Tamsyn sent the shoes flying into the hedges with a sound that was suspiciously like

one of Bowen’s grunts, and then, on bare feet, she jogged out onto Tywyll House’s lawn.

“Christ Almighty, how do you move so fast for such a wee woman?” Bowen asked, coming up behind her and sounding slightly out

of breath.

“I did track in high school,” Tamsyn replied, but she was looking at the drive, her heart pounding as relief flooded through

her veins.

“My rental car,” she said, pointing to the little red Yaris. “We’re back. Elspeth did it, Bowen.” Tamsyn couldn’t help the laugh that bubbled out of her. “Oh my god, Elspeth really did it. Not that I thought she wouldn’t, but still.”

“She really was that powerful of a witch,” Bowen replied, and Tamsyn nodded before that word— was —sunk in fully.

Was.

They were gone now, Elspeth and Harri, even though just moments before they’d been standing in front of her and Bowen, young

and alive and in love...

Tamsyn felt Bowen slide his hand into hers, and she turned to see him looking down at her, his handsome face grave. “I know”

was all he said, and Tamsyn squeezed his fingers before sniffling just a little bit and turning resolutely back toward the

house.

Elspeth had gotten them back to the right time—now they needed to make sure Emerald had been saved as well.

“Tam—” Bowen started to say, but she was already moving again.

Or at least she was, until her bare feet hit the freezing—and pointy—gravel of the drive.

“Ow!” she cried, wincing as she went to step back onto the grass, and then suddenly she was off her feet altogether, swept

up into Bowen’s arms.

His tux was as wet as her jumpsuit, but she could still feel the warmth of his body, smell the familiar scent of him that

she’d come to think of simply as home sometime during the last few days, and as she wrapped her arms around his neck and let him carry her toward the house, Tamsyn looked at that stern jaw, that determined gaze.

“It really is stupid how much I love you,” she told him, and he glanced over at her, one corner of his mouth quirking.

“Did you mean to say that out loud?”

“I absolutely did.”

“Good,” he replied, “because I meant what I said back in 1957. I’m in love with you, have been since that first night.”

“It’s because you saw me drink out of a twirly straw,” she told him. “Men can’t resist that.”

He gave one of those huffing laughs she loved so much, and Tamsyn held him tighter, snuggled in closer.

“Must’ve been that,” Bowen said, mounting the steps with her still in his arms. “And I was a damn fool not to tell you right

then. Damn fool for not telling you a lot of things.”

“Like about Declan,” Tamsyn guessed softly, and Bowen nodded.

They were at the top of the steps now, and when he paused, Tamsyn maneuvered herself out of his arms and onto her own feet,

turning to face him.

“We’ll fix it together,” she told him, as solemn a promise as she had ever made. “Between the two of us, there has to be something.

Some spell you know, some artifact I can acquire... whatever we can do to help Declan, Bowen, we’ll do.”

She saw his throat move with emotion, his eyes bright as he looked down at her, and then, as the door behind her opened, Tamsyn

saw those same bright eyes go wide.

“Help Declan with what?” a lilting voice asked, and Tamsyn turned to see a redheaded man in evening wear standing there, amused as he took in the pair of them.

Tamsyn didn’t remember seeing him at the party the first time they’d been there, but then, she’d been so focused on YSeren

and everything else that she’d barely noticed anyone.

Confused, she looked to Bowen, who was pale now, his lips slightly parted, and then at the man, who rocked back on both his

heels, hands in his trouser pockets.

“If anyone needs help, it appears to be you, mate,” the man said. “Jesus, what were the pair of you up to out there?” He glanced down at Tamsyn’s bare and grassy feet,

eyebrows raised, but before Tamsyn could answer, Carys appeared at his side, and Tamsyn caught her breath.

The difference between the woman she’d last seen sobbing her heart out in the maze and the vision now standing before her

was so stark it was hard to believe they were the same person. She technically looked the same—same fair hair and dark eyes,

same slender frame—but there was a light to her now. She glowed, standing there at the man’s side in a deep red gown with

a tartan sash, and while rubies sparkled in her ears and at her throat, YSeren was nowhere to be seen.

“Declan, stop being cheeky and let them in, it’s freezing!” Carys said, jokingly shoving at the man, and suddenly Tamsyn understood

why Bowen was so pale.

“Declan?” she echoed, and the redheaded man shot her a look of faux hurt as he slipped an arm around Carys’s waist.

“Don’t tell me you already forgot the name of yer boyfriend’s oldest, dearest, and frankly only mate, did you?” he asked, and then gestured for both of them to come into the hall.

Tamsyn felt numb from more than just the cold as she moved into the house, the stone floors chilly underneath her bare feet

as she took in Declan—handsome, cheerful, and...

“Alive,” Bowen said, the word so soft that only Tamsyn really heard him.

“What was that?” Declan asked, but instead of answering, Bowen just threw his arms around his friend, damn near lifting him

off the ground with the force of his hug.

“Whoa!” Declan exclaimed, still laughing, but he thumped Bowen on the back all the same, his grin never wavering, and suddenly

Tamsyn understood just why this man’s death—or whatever it had been—had hurt Bowen as badly as it had. Like this version of

Carys, there was a light around him, an innate energy, and even though Declan was currently very much alive and standing right

in front of her, Tamsyn’s heart broke for Bowen all over again.

When he pulled back from the hug, Bowen’s eyes were bright again, but some of the color was returning to his face as he gave

an almost disbelieving laugh. “Just... always good to see you, Dec,” he said, and Declan shook his head, bemused.

“Well, remind me to send you off into the maze with your lady love more often,” he said, just as Carys suddenly seemed to

notice the state of them.

“Oh, you must be freezing! Let me get some towels.”

As she scurried off to do that, Tamsyn stared after her, still feeling like the ground was tilting beneath her a little bit.

“What they need is alcohol, my darling!” he called, then waved it off before saying, “Wait here.”

Tamsyn could hear people talking in the library, but she and Bowen stayed in the front hall as Declan sauntered off.

“That’s—” Tamsyn said.

“It is.”

“And he’s—”

“He is.”

“But he’s not —”

“He’s not.”

“How?”

In the silence that followed, Tamsyn could hear the ticking of the hall clock, the gentle clinking of ice in glasses, and

the murmured lull of several people in low-voiced conversation, but Bowen didn’t answer her for the longest time until, finally,

he just said, “I don’t know.”

“Because sometimes,” a voice said, and they both turned to see an elegantly dressed elderly woman making her way toward them,

“magic finds a way.”