Page 46 of A Fae’s Guide to Tactical Botany

“I am,” he said, though it felt like a stab to the heart. “If you want it.”

She smiled faintly. “I believe I do. I think…it is time.”

“Okay then.” He took a drink of his own water. “Tell me about Tristan.”

It lasted well into the night, the telling. Long past sunset, until the stars had come out and constellations had turned around the North Star and the warm summer breezes had been replaced by the colder winds of the high desert. At some point, Ethan lay on the ground, gazing up at Mara, until she sank down to meet him. At another point, he took her hand, and she never took it back.

She was more beautiful than he’d ever understood, when she spoke of her husband. The light in her eyes, the ineffable curve of her lips.

This is Mara in love, he thought dreamily as he drifted off to sleep on the sand. There you are.

Goodbye.

Chapter seventeen

Surrender

Mara lay beside Ethan for a long time, listening to the rush of his breath, the night sounds of the desert. His fingers had gone slack in hers, and she aimlessly traced patterns in his palm as she thought. The solar lantern had gone pale, ready to sleep until the sun returned to revive it.

She could not sleep.

It had hurt to speak of Tristan. Of course it had. She still missed him, every moment of every day, the loss a gaping hole in her soul.

But it had not hurt the way she’d expected.

She had laughed, remembering their meeting, the clumsy way he’d introduced himself in the park, long before the nightclubs and beer gardens of the city had come to be. The sweet kisses and pointless arguments and tender apologies.

It had been good. They had been good. Perfect. A love for the centuries.

But Tristan was dead.

And she had to live.

On a whim, she reached out and set her hand to Ethan’s chest, felt the pump of his heart, rise rise and fall of his breath. There was something primal in it, gently so, the simplicity of his existence. Not just any man’s existence, but this man. Ethan. He had been kind, yes, made her laugh, bantered and teased, but that did not explain the warmth in her breast when she gazed at him, the way the lantern shone in his hair and carved out the contours of his face.

Mara did not want him to leave.

But he had made up his mind. He would not stay. He had decided he would not force his presence on Mara anymore. Which was what she had always asked of him. And if she asked now… He would still leave. She could see it now, see that his distance over the past days had been the beginning of his departure. He was surrendering. Giving her what he believed she wanted and needed, ceding the field to Tristan’s ghost.

And suddenly Mara was furious.

How dare he decide what she needed? What she wanted?

How dare he not fight for her?

It was ridiculous. She knew it. She knew she was getting angry over a situation she herself had created, pouting because she’d gotten what she wanted and now decided it wasn’t what she wanted at all.

And she could only blame herself, her own stubbornness. He was only doing what she had asked. Leaving her with the garden she had wounded him to defend. Siege ended, war over. He no longer wished to scale her walls, not the physical ones she’d created nor the ones in her heart.

She caught her breath, an idea taking root. Blooming into a plan.

Heart beating fast, she reached into his open backpack for his sketchbook. It was mostly full now of sketches and notes, but there were a few blank pages at the end.

With a wicked smile, she wrote her message, complete with diagram. She was a better artist than he, but not by much; the diagram was crude. But he was intelligent enough to understand it.

Mara took care of a few more preparations and left the notebook where Ethan was sure to see it. See it and make his own decision. If he chose not to follow her, then, well, he clearly was not worthy. He would still have been the catalyst for her to do what she needed to do for herself. She would remember him with gratitude.

But he would follow. She was sure of it.