Chapter 26

“Hello, you two.”

Bowen stared at the woman in front of him, blinking. She was old, but her hazel eyes were still bright, and if they hadn’t

given her away, the brilliant green of her dress and the emeralds sparkling in the tiara holding back her white hair would’ve

done it.

“Emerald!” Tamsyn cried, throwing her arms around Emerald, not unlike how Bowen had done so with Declan, albeit a good deal

gentler. The girl they’d met at fifteen was in her eighties now, something that was almost impossible to believe, but then

Bowen was getting used to believing a lot of impossible things lately.

Time travel was real.

Declan was back.

Tamsyn loved him.

Chuckling, Emerald patted Tamsyn’s back as she said, “Actually, I’m Her Grace, the Duchess of Hareford now, but my old friends

can always call me Emerald.”

“A duchess?” Tamsyn asked, pulling back, her eyes wide. “Does that mean I have to bow to you?”

“No, but Madoc does, and that’s very fun,” Emerald replied before pounding on the stone floor with the elegant silver—and emerald-crusted, obviously—cane Bowen now saw she held.

“Madoc!” she called, and Bowen turned, half expecting to see that chubby little boy with the curls tearing down the hallway.

Instead, it was the older version who came, if not running, then definitely hurrying, his white tufts of hair bouncing as

he made his way from the library to the front hallway.

“Yes, Your Grace?” he asked, his face red from the exertion and also, Bowen guessed, from the very nice glass of whisky he

held in his hand, whisky that sloshed as he gave a little bow of his head.

Emerald lifted one shoulder in an elegant shrug. “Never mind. I forget what it was now.”

Scowling, he pointed at her with the hand still holding the glass. “You enjoyed that,” he told her, and she smiled back at

him, serene and unapologetic.

“I did, actually.”

Shaking his head, Madoc muttered something in Welsh before looking at Bowen and Tamsyn, his brow wrinkling.

“We met when you arrived, didn’t we?” he asked, and Bowen, who had no idea if that were true in this version of things, just

nodded.

Madoc nodded as well, thinking it over. “Yes. Yes, I’m sure we did. That’s why the two of you look so familiar, no doubt.”

“No doubt,” Tamsyn echoed, and Madoc nodded again, but looked a little unsure as he headed back to the party, leaving the

two of them alone with Emerald.

“Now,” Emerald said, turning back to Bowen and Tamsyn. “In answer to your question, namely, how, the answer can actually be found in that silly little book of mine. You were right that it wasn’t real magic. Or rather it

was, but it was cobbled together from actual spells, and not exactly the safest spells at that. But there was one thing it said,

one thing I always liked, and that was that magic is a wild thing. You can study it, you can learn it, you can attempt to

master parts of it, but you’ll never really know it, never understand it. The best you can do is try to avoid its risks and

be thankful for its gifts.”

Stepping forward, she laid one hand on Bowen’s cheek. It was the strangest feeling, looking into those eyes he’d last seen

in the face of a child and seeing them shining out of the face of the beautiful elderly woman in front of him.

“This was a gift, Bowen Penhallow. Whether it was from Elspeth or the universe or magic herself, it was a gift. One I suggest

you be thankful for.”

“I am,” he told her, then leaned down, pressing a kiss to her wrinkled cheek, the skin there thin but soft and smelling like

some expensive perfume. “And I’m so glad you’re here, Emerald.”

“As am I!” she said with a laugh, patting his shoulder. “The things I would’ve missed out on if I’d been stuck as a ghost

all that time! Finding out I really did have powers for one. And my husband for another, but that’s... well, that’s a story for later. After drinks.”

She threw him a wink that once again reminded him of the teenage girl she’d been, and Bowen laughed, nodding. “Sounds good.”

“Is anything else different?” Tamsyn asked, folding her arms over her chest. “Like, did we alter the future in any ways we might need to know about?”

Emerald shook her head. “No, nothing I can think of. We had always been at war with Mars in 2024, yes?”

When Tamsyn’s mouth dropped open, the old woman laughed again, waving a gloved hand.

“Only joking, darlings, couldn’t help it. But no, as far as I can tell, things are as they should be.”

“And Harri and Elspeth?” Bowen couldn’t help asking.

But Emerald only met his gaze, sad but firm. “Things are as they should be,” she repeated softly.

Tamsyn stepped close to him, wrapping an arm around his waist and tucking herself tight to his side. “I’m sorry,” she said,

but he shook his head, remembering what his nain had said there on the staircase.

She had been with Taid Harri, and that had been what mattered. Maybe if they’d lived, Bowen’s father would’ve been a kinder man, a gentler one,

but then Bowen’s mother would’ve died all the same, and that would’ve changed him. Or maybe he still would’ve been the same

stubborn, self-centered man he’d become no matter what had changed.

That was the past now.

What mattered was the present.

With Tamsyn.

“Oh, by the way,” Emerald said, nodding at Tamsyn. “I’ll take YSeren back, if you don’t mind.”

Tamsyn blinked at her, her face blank for a moment, before she reached into the pocket of her jumpsuit and slowly pulled out the brooch. She and Bowen both stared at it as it lay in the palm of her hand, the jewels glittering dimly under the chandelier.

“How did it get there?” Tamsyn wondered aloud, but Emerald only snapped a slightly imperious hand at her, making Tamsyn blink

again. “Okay, not used to you being older than me,” she said, but she handed the jewel over all the same. Even without touching

it, Bowen could tell the power it had once held was gone yet again, leaving it nothing more than an ugly piece of jewelry.

And then Emerald looked up at Tamsyn and said, “I assume I can have the reward wired to you?”

Bowen felt Tamsyn startle as she looked up at him and then over at Emerald. “The... reward? Wait. You placed that listing? I was getting YSeren for you?”

“I was feeling sentimental,” Emerald replied, smiling smugly at them before turning and sauntering away as well as an eighty-two-year-old

woman with a cane could saunter. “I’ll have the money sent as soon as possible.”

They both stood there in stunned silence, watching her walk away, before Tamsyn called out, “How do you have that much freaking money?”

“I told you I have some good stories!” Emerald called back, and the laugh that followed sounded much younger than her years.

They were alone again now, and Bowen turned back to Tamsyn, sure he looked just as dumbstruck as she did right now.

“Time travel is really, really weird,” she said at last, and he couldn’t help but laugh, pulling her in tight, his arms wrapped around her.

“Rhiannon’s tits, is it ever,” he said, then pulled back to look down at her. “But I’d go anywhere with you. 1957. Mars. That

loud bloody pub with its vile bloody drinks.”

“America?” she asked, and he heard the real question behind that one.

“Anywhere,” he repeated, dipping his head to kiss her.

His lips had only brushed hers when they heard the sound of rushing feet, and they broke apart to see a rather sheepish but

grinning Declan and Carys approach, glasses of whisky and towels in hand.

“Sorry, sorry!” Declan said as Carys handed them the towels, her cheeks pink, her eyes shining. “There was, um... Well,

there was this bit of mistletoe, and we possibly got a little distracted.”

“Dangerous thing, mistletoe,” Tamsyn said somberly, and Bowen looked at her, this woman he loved so, and then at his best

friend, smiling and happy and alive, the woman he loved at his side, and thought how lucky he was, how incredibly, stupidly,

unfairly blessed.

“I love you,” he told Tamsyn now, not caring that Declan and Carys were standing there. Hell, he would’ve said it in front

of the whole bloody castle full of people if they’d been there. The whole world.

“A Yuletide miracle,” Tamsyn mused, her lips curling up in a soft smile that he knew was only his.

Would only be his.

Forever.

And then he kissed her, absolutely no mistletoe required.