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With an impatient twist of his hand, the leafless trees lining the path seemed to awaken, branches creaking and bending low. Penbrook staggered away from them as a narrow limb lashed down much like the ones had at the Willows, but instead of stealing her shoes, the branch wrapped around Fia’s wrists and hauled her up and up into the air.
She screamed, her wrists scraped and pinched painfully together, her shoulders straining in their sockets. At the mercy of Sebastian.
Below, murder flared in Penbrook’s eyes as he spun toward the other magician.
“Don’t!” Fia cried, knowing every drop of magic he used rushed him closer to sleep. And his grievous end. Let Sebastian go, she pleaded silently, and it was a selfish wish. Caring so much for this one person that she hoped to spare him above everyone else.
But Penbrook was unstoppable. Teeth gritted with effort, he called on his magic, and a flame flared to life in his palm, flickering and unstable and bright as the sun. Fia’s eyes burned, and she had to squint against the beautiful glare as Penbrook hurled the pulsing firelight at Sebastian.
It shattered into a thousand sparks, and Sebastian howled, every part of him set aglow.
Fia didn’t know if it was an illusion or if it was real.
What was real was Penbrook going down on one knee. Hands to the ground, head bowed, he panted, unable to catch his breath. Crouched on the very brink of collapse.
Desperate to help him, Fia squirmed against the branch knotted around her wrists; never mind that if it released her, she’d fall hard to the ground below. But it cinched her tight, and so she could only look on as Sebastian thrashed against the orange cinders like he couldn’t see past them, consumed wholly by the light.
“Penbrook.” Fia’s voice fell urgently toward him, because she feared—she knew—he’d used too much magic. And she thought of her spell, the one that would give him more time. He needed it, another day and so many more, though he’d never ask.
“There is a clock ticking our demise,” she whispered, golden dust swirling from her fingertips. “So let it slip, and let it slide counterwise.”
“Fia. Fia,” Penbrook said, head still bowed, as if her words pained him. “No.”
His voice was so soft, and yet it cut into her more sharply than the branch ensnaring her wrists. He’d made a plea she couldn’t betray, and she almost hated him for it. Despairing, she bit off the rest of the spell.
With aching effort, Penbrook pushed back his shoulders—then slowly, he rose.
His fingertips strummed the wind, which he’d only ever used gently before. Now, he turned it on Sebastian like a gale. The air snapped, and Sebastian went flying backward, the light around him flaring, then darkening to shadow as he slammed into the ground. And, for the moment at least, stayed down.
Penbrook had scorched through his magic, and his legs nearly buckled. But he fought the curse back, rising in the air toward Fia, his coattails like low-slung wings. Gently, he placed one hand to the branch that held her, and his other arm slipped around her waist. When the bough broke under his palm, he caught her there, as close as they’d ever been.
With his eyes half closed, he whispered, “I’m afraid I’m out of time.”
And Fia was simply afraid. For just another breath she wanted to pretend there could still be endless tomorrows. “Not yet.”
“Not quite,” he conceded, spinning her slowly in the air, and she went a little dizzy, caught up in the sleepy scent of him.
“I’ll wake you,” she vowed.
“I’m afraid a kiss won’t do the trick this time,” Penbrook said regretfully, dark lashes casting lavender shadows against his cheeks, and on a sigh, he asked, “Would you let me have one now?”
She would have given him anything. A falling wish star; a field of luck-spelled clover; an apple orchard in full bloom, wild with butterflies, all of them fluttering on polka-dot wings.
Yet he asked for much smaller, much more precious things.
Her hand. Her heart.
Her lips.
“Yes.”
The single word dissolved against the press of Penbrook’s mouth.
She sank into him, wondering at how she’d ever held herself back from feeling like this—the swell of her heart and even its aching. One moment or a million, she would never have her fill of him, so wasn’t the best thing to take what she could?
Their kiss deepened, sweet and sorrowful, bodies aligned as if nothing could separate them. She felt his heartbeat and his trembling, or maybe those vibrations were her own.
Slowly, they descended. When their feet touched the path, they broke apart—and if they could break, why, why, why couldn’t the curse?
