She got up to get more coffee. “We need the numbers, Duncan.”
“I hear you. Are you going to eat the rest of that?”
“Yes.” She poured the coffee, sat, picked up her fork. “The numbers determine how soon we can move on New York. Can you work directly with the ones you feel need that seasoning?”
“Sure.” Since it didn’t look like he’d get the rest of her omelette, he took his plate to the sink. Assumed, correctly, he’d take cleanup since she’d cooked. “I could use Mallick.”
She sighed. “I really wanted to give him some time at his cottage, but you’re right. He’s needed.”
When she finished, she cleared her plate, wandered to the glass doors. “I’ll spend some time on it, too. I need to go to the elf camp near the cottage, check in there, and up north. I thought Meda and I should scout in the West. We could pick up more. And I need to go back to the farm, the village. God, I miss the farm.”
Leaning on the door, she looked out at winter, the snow-covered garden, the woods beyond. “I don’t know if it’ll be home for me again. It’s like your mother talked about Brooklyn. It’s not home for her anymore. I don’t know if the farm will be for me, even though I miss it like a limb.”
“I’ll make a home with you.”
It took her breath so she had to steady herself as she turned to face him. He held a dishcloth, but, God, he’d never look domesticated. The winter sun streamed through the windows, pale as water, and flowed over the sword he wore, as she did, as routinely as another wore shoes.
“We can make a home. Here, there, somewhere else.”
“You’d leave New Hope if—”
“It’s you I won’t leave, Fallon.”
It trembled through her, the solid certainty of him, in him.
“Loving you makes me afraid,” she told him. “Afraid of what’s to come, where I’m leading others to go. Are you afraid?”
“Of dying in battle? Of losing someone else I love? Damn straight I’m afraid. And afraid doesn’t mean dick. Doing what’s next, that’s what counts.”
She let out a half laugh. “You’re the only one.”
“I’d better be.”
“No—such an ass—you’re the only one who measured up.”
“To what?”
“My fathers.”
He tossed the cloth aside as he crossed to her. “You’re calling your fathers asses?”
“No, that’s just for you.” She gripped his hands. “At fourteen, I opened the Book of Spells, and all it held blew into me in a storm of power and knowledge. With that I leaped into the Well of Light to take the sword and shield from the fire.”
“Now you’re just bragging.”
“No, no.” She laughed, squeezed his hands. “All of that, all of it, is no more magickal than being able to stand here with you, knowing I can be afraid with you and we can do what’s next. Knowing we will do what’s next.”
She brought his hands to her lips. “I’ll make a home with you. Here, there, or somewhere else.”
He started to draw her in to hold that moment. And they both felt it.
“They’re back.” She let her hand lay on his heart another second. “Mallick and the others.”
* * *
They gathered in the war room after Duncan went to get Will. As her mother’s daughter she made coffee, tea, lit the fire, and struggled to be patient until everyone settled in.
“I want to thank all of you for making this journey,” Fallon began.
Travis gestured with his mug. “I want to say, straight off, the snow queen’s got, you know, style. Her HQ’s the next thing to a palace.”
“Excessive.” Meda chose tea, black, no honey. No frills.
“Yeah, maybe, but it didn’t hurt my feelings to have a little taste of luxury. Which she definitely has.”
Arlys, prepared to take notes, shot Travis an indulgent look. “She’s converted what was a five-star hotel in the heart of Montreal to her headquarters, her home. She lives the high life, literally, in the penthouse suite—and takes the entire floor. However, she’s also seen to it her people have housing, food, clothing, medical attention. Other buildings we toured have been converted into clinics, schools, greenhouses, tanneries.”
“She indulges herself, a great deal,” Meda put in with clear disapproval. “Fancy clothes, dripping jewelry. But.”
She jerked a shoulder in what Fallon read as reluctant respect. “Her people aren’t neglected or misused. They have food, shelter.”
“And she listens to them,” Travis added.
“Yes, in her way. They use, primarily, wind and solar energy. Their training