Gregory grabbed the back of my mail shirt as I started off, pulling me back. “You don’t want to do that, Gwen.”
“Why don’t I?”
“Because they have something we badly need.”
“They really aren’t that great at healing, although they do try their best—”
“No,” he interrupted. “Not that. See?”
I looked at where he nodded. My mothers were picking their way through the half-sensible people, the slight form of Mrs. Vanilla in their grasp. “See what? All I see are my moms and Mrs. Vanilla.”
“Yes.” He looked expectantly at me.
I shook my head. “What is it that you see that I don’t?”
“It’s not see so much as hear. What’s the name of the bird that Aaron is looking for?”
“Vanellus.”
“Right. And what does that sound like?”
“Vanessa?”
He looked at me.
I pointed to my forehead. “I have a head injury. Stop giving me the look that says I’m missing something . . . Oh. Vanilla.” Enlightenment dawned with a prickle of electricity along my arms and legs. I turned to look back at my mothers. Gregory very gently placed a finger beneath my chin and pushed it upward until my mouth stopped hanging open in surprise. “You are kidding me!”
“I think, unless we are very mistaken, that we are about to make Aaron extremely happy.”
“Goodness!” Mom said as she and Mom Two lifted Mrs. Vanilla over the moaning, recumbent form of De Ath. “What did we miss?”
“Nothing other than Gregory being awesome and stopping Death and Holly in one lightning-bedazzling blow.” Gregory smiled at the pride that I couldn’t keep out of my voice.
“Death?” My moms stopped and looked worried.
“He’s a new guy, evidently.” I waved toward De Ath, who once again was sitting up. “Not the same one you had the run-in with.”
“G’day,” he said, lifting a shaky hand to my moms.
“Oh, thank the goddess for that. Gwenny, dear, I believe Mrs. Vanilla is needed here.”
“I do believe she is.” I watched as my moms stopped in front of me, gently setting Mrs. Vanilla onto the ground. She was just as crumpled as ever, a wrinkled old woman with hair that stood up in the back, and weathered skin that hinted at more years than most mortals saw.
But she wasn’t mortal. At least, I didn’t think she was.
“Do you want to do the honors?” Gregory asked me.
“No. You figured it out. You can be the one to tell him.”
“I love you, Gwenhwyfar Byron Owens.”
“Almost as much as I love you, Gregory . . . er . . . what’s your middle name?”
“I was born Rehor Ilie Nicolae Faa, which is Anglicized to Gregory Elijah Nicolas Faa.”
“Rehor? Really?”
“Really.”
I licked the corner of his mouth. “Almost as much as I love you, Gregory Elijah Nicolas Faa.”
“Do that again, and I won’t wait for a healer before I take you to bed,” he growled.
I smiled, enjoying the way my heart sang when he turned and called for Aaron.
“What is it? I’m busy right n—” Aaron, who was assisting the warriors nearest him, froze in mid-word, his expression blank as he stared past us.
“I have goose bumps,” I whispered as Mrs. Vanilla, who had been making her usual unintelligible squeaks, stopped. She took one tottering step forward out of my mothers’ grips.
Gregory said nothing, just held me with his good arm, his breath ruffling my hair in a way that was both sensual and comforting. We were meant to be together, meant to be at that place at that time, watching as a frail old lady moved past us, every step she took transforming her. Her back straightened, her skin smoothed, her hair darkened and lengthened until it flowed down her back in ebony waves. Her bathrobe lengthened as well, becoming a long dark green velvet gown that hugged blossoming curves.
“Vanellus,” Aaron breathed, his voice filled with awe at the vision of young womanhood that stopped before him.
“Aaron,” she responded, her voice as light and high as . . . well, as a bird’s.
I sniffled happily as they stared at each other for another minute, and then she was in his arms and the air was full of birdsong.
“OK, that’s seriously romantic,” I said, blinking back a few happy tears.
“It truly is,” Mom said, handing me a tissue before using another to dab at her own eyes. “And aren’t you glad that your mother and I liberated her when we did? Just look at how happy they are.”
I turned to look up at Gregory and basked in the love evident in his beautiful eyes. “They can’t possibly be happier than we are.”
“Not in a hundred lifetimes,” Gregory agreed, and took my breath away with a kiss that sent lightning shimmering about us both.
EPILOGUE
“Right, so I get the bit about that Death guy not having powers in Anwyn and calling off Astrid after you beat him, and I understand that Aaron was so grateful that you found his bird that he is letting you guys have visitation privileges as well as allowing Gwen’s moms to stay there where they won’t get into any trouble, and I even understand that Ethan’s tree dudes refused to go back to being plants once he was defeated, and they were assimilated into Aaron’s folk, but I do not get the whole thing about Mrs. Vanilla. Why did everyone call her a bird if she was really a woman? And why didn’t she do something to find Aaron when she was back in Anwyn?”
Gregory greatly enjoyed the warmth of Gwen, pressed close to him, seated on a couch in the sunny Paris apartment that belonged to his cousin Peter.
The cousin in question, sitting across from them, patted his wife’s leg. “I think, my love, you need to let Gregory and Gwen finish explaining what happened.”
“I know, but I’m just so impatient to hear it all.” Kiya gave them both a smile that was just as sunny as the living room. Gwen, who had her lap occupied by three squirming pug puppies, was too busy murmuring to them to notice. “Go ahead, Gregory.”
“You cannot take them home,” he told Gwen quietly.
“Sure I can. There are no quarantine laws in the States.”
“You said you wanted to live in Wales, in order to take care of your mothers’ house. You said you loved that house. You said I would love it as well, and we’d both be happy there and make love in the bower, and I could open up an antiques shop in order to fund a lifestyle that you warned me will need ample resources.”
“That doesn’t mean we can’t have dogs. Kiya said we could have a puppy.” Gwen looked up and Kiya nodded. “Besides, the UK relaxed its quarantine laws. We just have to wait three weeks now, so we can have our puppy settled by the time we go visit my moms.”
“You seem like a very dog-friendly person, and I know Gregory is despite him being all Travellery and claiming they’re dirty and other ridiculous things like that,” Kiya told Gwen. “I would have no problem letting you have one of the puppies, but only if you finish explaining why no one realized that an old lady was really a bird.”
Gregory laughed, and rejoiced in the sense of happiness that Gwen brought him. Not even the threat of a puppy keeping him up nights and, if he knew Gwen, snuggling in bed between them, could diminish his well-being. “We didn’t know because we were repeatedly told she was mortal, which in hindsight, was by design. Ethan’s mage brother who effected her exit from Anwyn—at Constance’s behest, no doubt, although she refuses to admit anything—did so in a manner that would defy detection by anyone looking for a bird, either in her natural or her human form.”
“That’s why she was so helpful about getting us to Anwyn in the first place,” Gwen said. “Ethan’s rat bastard brother had enchanted her so that she appeared to be her actual age, which meant she was a helpless old lady stuck in care over the centuries, first by private individuals and later in nursing homes.”