Give Me (19 page)

Epilogue
The Glimmer Glass

C
ade had Glimmer Cottage gutted and remodeled and turned into a pub. When he asked Sharon and Jimmy to run the place, Lilith had suggested they book the wedding reception during Glimmer Pub’s grand opening week. Now Jimmy and his band were tuning up on a portable stage set out in the courtyard, while Sharon good-naturedly harassed the serving staff to make sure all the guests were happy.

Lilith found Marion and Ian with Cade’s mother at a table near the stage. She crossed the lawn to them, glad she’d gone with ankle length instead of a floor-length wedding gown. Beverly was doing well physically. Most of the time she loved being with people. Couldn’t get enough. At the moment she was on a mental holiday, staring into who knows what. It happened sometimes. Marion held her hand but otherwise left her alone.

As Lilith said hello, Sharon came by with a pint of beer. “For you, Dad. I know you’re not much for champagne.”

Behind Sharon’s head, Lilith noticed a man on the roof deck standing at the rail. Originally she and Cade had hoped to have the dancing up there, but it was too small. In fact, the roof deck was supposed to be closed tonight. The man was watching her, which in itself wasn’t unusual. Since she’d agreed to marry Cade, now the earl, Lilith had become accustomed to being watched by strangers. This felt like something else.

She had a strong feeling that the man wasn’t watching Countess Dumnos. He was watching Lilith Evergreen. Her hand went to her throat and touched mother’s necklace, the “something old” for her wedding costume.

She had always thought the macramé with uneven glass and rock was beautiful but odd, like something the French girls would have worn to the Handover. Her feelings putting it on this morning had surprised her. Painful, yes, but a bittersweet happiness. She’d blocked her mother’s memory for so long, and now the necklace was comforting.

Sharon moved on to other guests. Lilith ignored the man on the roof and said, “I’m glad they’re doing well with the pub. I was afraid Sharon wouldn’t accept Cade’s offer.”

“She’s a married woman now, my lady,” Ian said. “That changes a person’s priorities.”

“So I’m told.” Lilith felt a little shock at hearing Ian call her
my lady.
Wasn’t she still Lilith to him, the same person she’d been yesterday?

She glanced at the roof, unable to forget the man. He had disappeared from view, but she had the definite feeling he was still up there and wanted to talk to her.

“Sharon was at the Tragic Fall long enough,” Marion said. “And she was a hard worker. They’ve really made a go of this place. Ah, here comes the groom.”

Cade sure cleaned up nicely, gorgeous in a white tuxedo. He’d insisted on a white satin bell crown topper, but it didn’t keep all his hair in good order. His green eyes had made Lilith think of dangerous sex the first time she saw them, and she’d learned from experience that her first impression wasn’t wrong.

“Wonderful!” he said. “My favorite people all gathered in one place.”

Lilith leaned against him and put her arm around his waist, and he kissed her forehead and whispered
love you
in her ear. She’d be glad when they were home in bed together. No matter who—or what—she was, she was happy. She’d always be safe and loved by Cade.

“I’ll be right back,” she said.

Let them think she was going to the powder room. She had to find out who was on the roof.

“Lady Dumnos.”

She cringed. She’d made it to the stairs’ first tread.

“My lady.”

The French girls surrounded her with congratulations and best wishes.

“Bella, you don’t congratulate the
woman
,” Cammy simpered. “No matter how fortunate the match.”

“It’s so sad Lord Dumnos didn’t live to see this day,” Bella said. “But how wonderful that he and Lady Dumnos were reconciled after their long estrangement.”

“Thirty years!” Cammy said. “I thought The Dowager Countess would be a lot older.”

“She was very young when they married,” Lilith said, “from what Cade—Lord Dumnos has told me.”

“Of course, Lady Dumnos,” Cammy said.

“Yes, your ladyship,” Bella said. “The Dowager Countess must have been quite young.”

Were they mocking her? Lilith was still learning the rules of proper address. Cade was no longer Lord Tintagos, but Lord Dumnos. She was Lady Dumnos. Beverly was also Lady Dumnos, but more properly Dowager Lady Dumnos or The Dowager Countess.

“Please call me Lilith.” Oh, drat. Was that wrong? Likely, from their reaction. “Surely after what we’ve been through…” But how much did Bella and Cammy remember?

“You’re very gracious,” Bella said.

“Very gracious,” Cammy said. “Lilith.”

“Well, then. Please excuse me.”

Lilith found no one on roof deck. She walked over to the rail and searched the grounds for him. Clear skies and stars tried to poke through the clouds, but the air smelled of rain. It was a risk, having the band in the garden, though the tent was supposedly waterproof and could be extended from the stage.

The scene below reminded her of her that night at Tintagos Village six months ago, when tourists crammed the street outside her window at the Tragic Fall Inn. When she believed the Handover was a promotional invention to boost the local economy.

That’s exactly how people remembered it.

When she and Cade woke up beside Igdrasil with Galen and Diantha gone, it was like waking up from a vivid dream, the kind that takes a long time to fade. Lilith had still had possession of Elyse’s and Diantha’s memories of a thousand years, and Elyse’s wyrding knowledge too.

She had used Elyse’s power to wyrd the false tradition of the Handover into the collective memory of Tintagos Village. She’d left Cade and Beverly out of the spell. It seemed they needed to remember if they were to find a way back to each other.

In a few weeks Diantha’s memories had evaporated into the ether. Elyse’s had taken a few months. Lilith remembered them both, but only from her own experience. She knew that she had done the wyrding, but she couldn’t remember how.

Cade spotted her from below and doffed his hat with a grin. She laughed and waved back. She still hadn’t told him that she was…what she was. Outlandish. But it was easier to believe she was part fairy than that she was a countess. Great gods. Now
that
was crazy.

“Best wishes on your nuptials, Lily.”

She whirled around. The man stepped out of the shadow of the jasmine at the far end of the deck. As he came close, she saw he had yellow hair the color of straw and glittering purple eyes.

“Who are you?” Her heart was in her throat. She should have asked what, not who.

“My name is Aubrey.”

She knew that name. She knew it! Sun and moon, who was he?

“I’ve brought a wedding gift for you—for you alone; not Bausiney—from Idris.”

Idris?
That name was familiar too, but its significance slipped away like quicksilver when she tried to focus on it.

Aubrey handed her a bundle of gossamer fabric, lovely, magical.

“Put this cloth under your pillow at night,” he said. “If you care to.”

He said
if you care to
like a challenge. Creepy. As if he knew about the dreams that had brought her here.

“What is this?”

Inside the cloth was a rectangular sheet of glass. As she touched it she gasped. An image appeared, a man with brown skin and flame-red hair and green eyes. He was shirtless and wore a crown of sticks and leaves—and a necklace oddly similar to her mother’s. “Idris,” she whispered. The fae king her mother had been so afraid of. And where else had she seen him? He looked at her and smiled as if he’d just found a lost treasure.

She covered the glass with the gossamer cloth.

“The glimmer glass shows what the glimmer glass knows,” Aubrey said in a sing-song. “And where the Lily grows.”

“Why do you call me that?”

But he was gone. Her heart pounded as she looked all around, but she knew she wouldn’t find him.
Glimmer glass
, Audrey had called the rectangle. She would add it to her collection of artifacts.

One day after the Handover, she’d gone to Igdrasil alone. It took but a few minutes to find the gold and silver ring sitting in a crevice in one of Igdrasil’s roots. As if it had been waiting for her. She’d been afraid to put it on and terrified to leave it for others to find, so she’d taken it home and tucked it away in her dresser drawer with her mother’s necklace. The glimmer glass would join them.

Another clue to her past.

The clouds parted, and the stars blazed in the clear night sky, like the night she and Cade dined on his roof and looked for fae in these woods. She heard a voice on the wind, a message from Igdrasil.

All will be well, all will be right.

So true. The world was beautiful, and this was her home, and she was happy. She wasn’t certain who she was. She didn’t know the full import of
what
she was. But she knew where she was and that she loved and was loved in return.

What was she waiting for? A grin as big as Cade’s spread over her face, and she flew down to the garden to join him in the dancing.

THE END

About…

About the Author

LK Rigel lives in California with her television-watching cat, Coleridge. (His favorite show is
Castle
, but he was enthralled by
Game of Thrones.
) Rigel wrote songs for the 90’s band The Elements, scored the independent science fantasy karate movie
Lucid Dreams
, and was a reporter for the Sacramento
Rock ‘N Roll News
. Her work has appeared in
Literary Mama
and
Tattoo Highway.

Rigel writes the “postapocapunk”
Apocalypto
series which includes
Space Junque,
Spiderwork
,
Firebird
(formerly titled
Bleeder
), and
Copperhead
(coming in 2012).

Her short story “Slurp” about an author with muse problems is included in
Deadly Treats
, Anne Frasier’s Halloween anthology published by Nodin Press.

Give Me – A Tale of Wyrd and Fae
is the first book in the Tethers series.

She loves to hear from her readers. You can reach her via email at
[email protected]
with any comments. And visit
www.lkrigel.com
for more information.

You can see other books available from Rigel
here
.

Acknowledgements:

Debra L. Martin brought her sharp eye and romantic sensibility to editing this book. I thank KC May for her insightful beta read and excellent suggestions. David Voss’s thorough beta read from a United Kingdom point of view saved me errors and provided some meat to the bones.

And of course Phatpuppy has created yet another fantastic cover which TERyvisions brought to life with wonderful fonts and effects.

Turn the page for an excerpt of the second book in the TETHERS series,

Bride of Fae

A Preview of
Bride of Fae
Book 2 of the TETHERS series

Mischief Night

1876

D
onall James Utros Cade Bausiney, Lord Tintagos, sat bolt upright, awakened by prankish laughter. What was that sod Sarumen up to now? In the dying fire an ember crackled and fell. Donall recognized the fireplace. The mantle clock read a quarter hour before midnight. He’d been asleep less than two hours. He let out a relieved breath. He wasn’t at Shrewsbury. He was in his room at Faeview, home from his final term at school. He never had to see his dorm’s obnoxious head boy again.