"Endings are relative," I said, and Samuel jerked his head up.
"I mean, as long as no one is dead, they get the chance to rewrite their endings, don't you think? Take it from me, Samuel, a little time can heal some awfully big wounds." "Did she look healed to you?" he said, and his eyes were the color of winter ice.
"We're all alive," said Zee dryly.
"And she didn't disappear on us--which she still has the magic to do.
I'd say you have a chance."
13
SAMUEL STARTED TO SAY SOMETHING TO ZEE WHEN the woman he held opened her eyes, which were green again.
She gave us all a bewildered look, as if she could not imagine how she'd gotten where she was.
I knew exactly how she felt.
As soon as he saw that she was awake, Samuel set her down with careful haste.
"I'm sorry, Ari.
You were falling .
.
.
I wouldn't have touched--" I had never in my life seen anything like it.
Samuel, the son of a Welsh bard, who shared his father's gift for words, stammering like an infatuated teenager.
She grabbed Samuel's sweatshirt and looked up at him in utter astonishment.
"Samuel?" He stepped away from her, but stopped short of pulling the shirt from her grasp.
"I can't give you space unless you let me go," he told her.
"Samuel?" she said, and, though it hadn't caught my notice before, I realized that her voice had changed sometime in the middle of her panic attack, and sounded way too young for the late middle-age face she wore.
It was also lightly accented, some combination of British and Welsh or a related language.
"I thought .
.
.
I looked but I never could find you.
You just disappeared and left me nothing.
Not a shirt or a name." He pulled away again, and this time she let him go.
Free, he retreated to the damaged door that separated my office from the garage.
"I'm a werewolf." Ariana nodded and took two steps forward.
"I did notice that when you killed the hounds who had come for me." There was a hint of humor in her voice.