Time passed, and Cécile lived it well. But it was a mortal life.
And all mortal lives must come to an end.
Chapter Sixty-Five
Tristan
It came on slowly, and then very quickly.
A chill caught on a ship coming back from the continent. Then a cough that took hold of her during auditions, causing her to excuse herself lest she disturb the young performers. “Just a tickle in the throat. Nothing that a cup of tea won’t cure,” she assured her assistants.
But it hadn’t. Not a cup, nor a pot, nor all the potions and tonics on the Isle had any affect, and before I knew it, the cough had moved into her chest. A deep rasping thing that drained her, leaving her weak and frail. Blackness began to creep up the bonding marks on my hands, and I knew.
“Let a witch see to you,” Sabine had said, but Cécile only shook her head. “You can’t heal age,” and then, “I want to go home.”
The farmhouse in Goshawk’s Hollow was the domain of her sister, now, their father long since passed, and Fred a senior officer in Aiden’s army. Joss and her husband had a legion of children, and even a few grandchildren, and the home had been expanded to accommodate. They kept a room there for Cécile, and it was in that bed they lay her, almost too weak to speak.
“Someone needs to send for Alex,” Sabine said to Chris, who had come as soon as he’d heard. “She isn’t going to last much longer.”
Though I’d known it was coming, the words were a blow.
For many years, I’d been wondering how this moment would go. Whether, now that I was immortal, her death still had the power to kill me. Whether I wanted it to. Or not. And in the wondering, an idea had come to me, little pieces of a lifelong puzzle falling into place. That idea had blossomed and grown, and turned into the wickedest of all things: hope.
Closing the tear, I made my way to the hedge maze that stretched higher than I could see, meandering through the paths that changed depending on his mood, allowing only those whom he cared to see through to the center. The maze opened up into a clearing, at the middle of which lay a lake of molten fire, its surface heaving and shifting, the air above it shimmering with heat. The sun.
“She’s dying,” I said, and the lake settled, my reflection appearing on the smooth surface. “Will you let me see her through?”
An enormous tear opened in front of me, and with a bittersweet ache in my heart, I stepped back into the world of my birth.
* * *
The opening was in a field on the de Troyes farm, and I stood motionless for a moment, savoring the crisp scent of pine on the spring breeze that still had the bite of winter. Icicles dangled from under the eaves of the barn, drip-dripping into the barrels beneath them with a sound like music. The sun overhead was warm on my back, and I stopped to pat the head of the dog sitting on the front porch before adjusting my cuffs and knocking at the door.
It swung open to reveal Chris standing in the front entry. He’d grown sturdier with age, crow’s feet marking the corners of his blue eyes, but his blonde hair was untouched by grey. He stared at me for a long moment, then said, “You pretty-faced troll bastard. How dare you show up looking like you haven’t aged a day when the rest of us had to go and get old.”
A grin – the first in longer than I cared to admit – pulled up the corners of my mouth. “I’ve missed your compliments. No one else phrases them quite like you do.”
“Did I hear you say…” Sabine pushed past Chris, then clapped a hand over her mouth. “Stones and sky,” she whispered. “Is it really you?”
Not waiting for an answer, she flung her arms around my neck. “Oh, Tristan. Cécile, she’s…”
“I know,” I said. “That’s why I’m here.” Her eyes met mine, and she gave a slow nod of understanding.
They led me inside, where Joss stood next to the same scarred wooden table she’d once sat me at. Without saying a word, she lifted my hand, tears flooding down her cheeks at the sight of my blackened bonding marks. “I’d thought maybe…” She scrubbed a hand across her face, wiping away the damp. “It’s good that you’re here – it will mean everything to her.”
Sabine took my arm at the elbow. “She hid it well, but we all knew she never recovered from losing you,” she said. “And of a surety, she never stopped loving you. Not for a moment.”
My chest tightened, and for a second, it hurt to breathe. “She never lost me.”
Boots clattered down the stairs, and my son stepped into the kitchen. “Aunt Joss–” he started to say, then froze, his inability to use his own magic doing nothing to dampen the sense of mine.
“Alex, this is–”
“I know who he is,” Alex said. “I’ve seen his portraits, and even if I hadn’t… Well, I do own a mirror.”