She’d looked forward to returning home for so long, but now that she was back, she didn’t know what to feel.

Over the last two hours, the sky had lightened and the morning suns had breached the horizon. Golden beams streaked through the trees, illuminating trails and paths that had grown increasingly familiar. She’d never ventured as far west as the boardwalk, but here every tree, every rock, every signpost was familiar.

Her return wasn’t anything like she’d imagined. Instead of arriving triumphantly in the capital with Kassia at her side and Bastian welcoming her with open arms, Kassia was dead, Bastian probably thought Clio was dead, and she had a fugitive Underworld spell weaver as her companion.

When she reached Bastian, would he be relieved to see her alive? Or would he be upset she had come to the capital, risking their family’s safety with her presence? If Ra ever found out about her, they would use her against the king.

Exhaustion dragged at her limbs and every bone ached, but she didn’t stop until she came to a familiar towering tree with huge roots that sprawled across the forest floor. Moss covered its ancient bark and vines hung from the broad boughs, their scarlet leaves forming thick curtains that swayed in the breeze.

The main trail continued past the tree, but a narrow path blanketed in leaf litter branched off under an arch in the tree roots.

“The village is at the end of the main trail,” she told Lyre as he stopped beside her. “My old home is just up this path.”

His gaze slid across her face. “Are you okay?”

“Yes … I think so. I haven’t been here since … since shortly after my mother died.”

He searched her eyes for a moment longer. “Together?”

He held out his hand. Dirt and dried blood smudged his skin but she didn’t hesitate to grasp his fingers. Together. With her hand entwined in Lyre’s, she walked beneath the arch and followed the trail between gargantuan trees.

After a hundred yards, the trees ended. Stretching before them was a small meadow with emerald grass, lush and tall, swaying in the breeze. In the center, a cabin stood, its walls covered in moss and vines so thick that the building appeared to have risen from the ground as naturally as the trees. Well beyond the house, three elegant ceryn, deer-like creatures with gold antlers, raised their heads to stare at the daemons, then bounded gracefully into the forest beyond the glade.

She and Lyre waded through the waist-high grass to a low wooden fence that kept wildlife from wandering right up to the cabin. She shoved the gate open, flattening the grass, and her steps slowed further as she approached the door, half hidden beneath vines. She reached for the latch, but her hand froze before she could touch it. For a long moment, she stood with her fingers hovering above the handle. Grief and loneliness flooded her chest, leaving no room for air.

She realized she was crushing Lyre’s fingers in her grip and loosened her hold. “Let’s go around to the back. There’s a well. We can get a drink.”

“Sure,” he agreed. No impatience or exasperation touched his voice. No judgment. She could have kissed him just for that.

The grass in the backyard was even longer, hiding the squat well. Only its little peaked roof was visible, the same old bucket hanging from the center post. On one side of the yard, a more robust fence circled a large garden plot where plant stalks and leaves of all shapes and colors were tangled up in the grass.

“I don’t believe it!” Releasing Lyre’s hand, she ran to the fence and leaned over it. “There are vegetables!”

“Huh?” He joined her at the fence.

“I can’t believe the weeds didn’t choke out everything else.” Brightening with excitement, she hopped over the fence and pushed the grass aside. “We can eat before we head for the capital. How about vegetable soup?”

He agreed enthusiastically and headed to the well while she sifted through the garden, getting an idea of what plants had survived and which were ripe for harvest. Crouching in a patch of low, broad-leaved plants, she dug into the soil and unearthed a cluster of fat gray bulbs.

Lyre returned from the well and stretched over the fence to pass her his waterskin—the only piece of gear they had left. It had been tied to his belt when they’d escaped, but the rest of their belongings were long gone.

Clio guzzled down the cool liquid, the tang of the well water painfully familiar, then handed the waterskin back. She gathered the bulbs and passed them to him. “Can you peel these?”

“Peel them? I guess …”

She frowned at his tone, then a laugh bubbled up in her throat. “You’ve never peeled a vegetable before, have you?”

“Um … that would be a no.”

She swallowed a giggle. “Do you want me to show you how?”

He sank into the grass and leaned back against a fence post. “I think I can figure it out.”

She returned to the garden and pretended not to notice when he shimmered out of glamour to access one of the short throwing knives strapped to his arm. If she acted like she hadn’t seen, she could pretend her heart hadn’t immediately started racing at that brief glimpse of his breathtaking true face. Luckily, once he had a knife, he slipped back into glamour and picked up a dull gray bulb.

“Oh hey,” he murmured as he cut into the tough skin. “It’s orange inside.”

“It’s a lot tastier than it looks when you first dig it up.” She pulled out a clump of grass and a swarm of giant butterflies took flight from the stalks, their pink wings flashing.

“Hm.” He continued peeling. “So you used to live here with your mother?”

“Yes.” She crouched beside a large plant weighed down by green pods on the verge of over-ripeness. “My mother and I moved around a lot for my first two or three years, but I don’t remember much of that. We eventually settled here, and this is where we lived until she died.”

“How did she die?”

“Sickness.” Clio’s hands stuttered, but she forced herself to continue gathering pods. “She came down with a fever, but we didn’t think it was serious. By the time we realized something was wrong … it was too late.”

Lyre was quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry.”

“It was six years ago … but I still have trouble talking about it.” Finished harvesting pods, she carried them over to the fence and dropped them beside Lyre. “Can you cut the tops and bottoms off these when you’re done with the rockroot?”

“Sure.”

She ambled back among the plants, enjoying the warm soil under her feet and the morning sunlight streaking over the trees. Crouching, she stripped tiny round fruits off a bush, her thoughts wandering across the meadow where the ghosts of memories lingered. Behind her, the house was like a dark shadow drawing her attention.

“This place seems kind of isolated,” Lyre commented, drawing her back to the present. “One woman and her child … why didn’t you live in the village?”

“My mother …” Clio chewed on her lower lip. “Nymphs are very family oriented, but my mother and I had no other family, and because of that, we never fit in with the villagers. My mother tried—it’s why we moved so much in the beginning—but she could never find a place that would welcome a single mother and child with no father or other family in the picture.”

“So you were outcasts?” Lyre asked quietly.

“The villagers were nice. They were always polite, but … aloof. We were welcomed at the large gatherings and holiday feasts, but no one ever invited us to their homes or anything like that.”

“It must have been lonely.”

“Mother and I had each other. I was never lonely … at least, not until she died.”

“What happened then?”

She stared at her hands. “The villagers helped me for a couple weeks. We held a parting ceremony for my mother, they gave me food, someone checked in on me every couple days, but … they eventually forgot about me.”

“There was nowhere else you could go?”

“I felt just as alone in the village, and here I had privacy and no one judging me.”

Quiet fell again, broken only by the raucous chirping of unseen birds. The startled butterflies had cautiously returned and were fluttering around the plants she had disturbed.

“How long did you live here alone?”

“Six months.” She held up a red fruit and stared at it sightlessly. “Then one day, completely out of the blue, a man knocked on my door. I’d never met him before, but he introduced himself as my brother.”

“Your brother?” A cautious note touched Lyre’s voice.

“My half-brother. He said I didn’t have to live in isolation any longer. He said he was bringing me home … to our father’s home.”

“Your father,” Lyre murmured. “The king.”

“The king,” she agreed with a sigh. “Bastian had me pack my things that very afternoon, and he took me straight to the capital. I haven’t been back here since that day.”

She glanced at Lyre and found him watching her, his somber expression framed between the fence rails.

“If nymphs are so family oriented that you and your mother were ostracized by the community,” he murmured, “why would the king welcome you into his family as a teenager?”

“He didn’t.” She carried the fruits over to the fence and poured them onto the ground beside the rockroots. “He didn’t want me back. I’m a threat to his reputation. Bastian forced the king to accept me.”

She picked up a rockroot and checked Lyre’s peeling job. “Only the royal council knows I’m related to the Nereid family. My official position is as a lady-in-waiting for Petrina, the young princess.” She glanced up. “Don’t look so grim, Lyre. It’s a hundred times better than living all by myself. I had everything I needed and more. I had a place to belong.”

“And the king? How does he treat you?”

“I think he was warming up to me a bit, actually. Bastian arranged a family dinner once a month. Once the king realized I didn’t want him to acknowledge me as his daughter and I wouldn’t reveal the truth, he was friendlier.”

“You don’t want to be acknowledged? You don’t want to be part of the family for real?”

“I …” She pushed to her feet and smiled brightly. “I’ll pick a few more things for the soup.”

She felt his eyes following her as she waded back into the garden and pulled up the Overworld equivalent of potatoes. It wasn’t long before he posed a new question.

“How did you end up living on Earth?”

She pressed her lips together. She didn’t want to explain anything more, but she owed him the truth. “The Ra threat. Bastian and the king were concerned I was too visible in the royal family’s life. There were a few rumors—nothing serious, but questions about who I was and where I had come from.”

“So they forced you to leave.”

“Bastian asked me to, and I agreed.”

“He made you nice and comfortable in his palace, then a few years later, he exiled you to Earth? Why couldn’t he just move you out of the capital instead?”

She shifted uncomfortably at his disapproving tone. “Bastian wanted to send me somewhere out of the way. Somewhere safe. It was only temporary.”

“A month is temporary, not two years,” Lyre muttered under his breath, quietly enough that he probably hadn’t intended her to hear.

She carried the potatoes over to him and added them to the pile. “Can you peel these too? I’ll pick some herbs, then we can get started on the soup.”

“This vegetable peeling thing is tiring.” His tone was one of complaint but humor sparkled in his eyes. “Not sure I like this sort of work.”

“Get used to it,” she shot back cheerfully. “You have to do your own cooking now.”

“Fair point.”

“Besides,” she added as she sifted through the grass and weeds, searching for surviving herbs, “everything is tiring right now because we’re exhausted.”

“Also a good point.” He paused to yawn. “The sunlight is nice. Warmer than in the Underworld, I think.”

She glanced up. He had leaned back against the fence post, his face tilted into the morning sunlight and his eyes closed. The golden beams lit his skin, gleaming on his pale hair and smoothing the haggard lines of weariness.

“This place is peaceful,” he murmured without opening his eyes. “I like it. Feels … safe.”

A butterfly bobbed out of the garden and danced above his head, fascinated by his hair. It dropped, wings fluttering against his face, and his eyes opened, buttery gold in the sunlight. He blew at the insect and it flew upward on the puff of air.

Clio’s chest tightened. He was so gorgeous it hurt to look at him, like staring into the sun. He settled back against the post, his knife and a potato in his hands, but his eyes drifted closed again as though he couldn’t help it.

Safe, he had said. She felt it too: an aura of protective tranquility. If her homeland was anything, it was safe. The nymph people were peaceable, lacking the aggression that many castes possessed. Their chimera allies, the other caste that shared this territory, were their aggressive protectors, standing as guardians in exchange for a heartfelt welcome in nymph land.

Irida was safe. It was quiet. It was a place where a damaged soul could heal.

Realizing the direction of her thoughts, she quickly focused on gathering herbs to season the soup. Lyre wasn’t staying here. He couldn’t. As much as he might like Irida’s serene air, this was the Overworld and he was an Underworlder. She’d never heard of an Underworlder visiting the Overworld before, let alone living here.

She bit her lip, unable to stop the forbidden thought now that it had reared its persistent head. What if he could stay here?

What if he could stay here with her?

Would he want to? Did he enjoy her company that much, or was their bond only as incidental allies? Did he care to tie his fate to hers permanently?

Was that what she wanted?

It was so easy to imagine more days just like this. Sunny afternoons. Working in the garden. Lazing in the grass. No dangers, no threats. Lyre’s amber eyes glowing in the sun. His rumbling laugh that made her belly do somersaults. Here, he could weave the beautiful illusions he’d hidden from his family.

She glanced over her shoulder. Lyre’s head had drooped, eyes closed and face slack, too weary to stay awake any longer. Gathering the herbs, she climbed over the fence and crouched beside him. He didn’t stir, breathing slow and deep.

She hesitated, then lightly ran her fingers through his hair. He was so tired. So was she, but he had fought longer and harder than she had. He’d been exhausted in mind and soul before she’d even met him, and now he was exhausted in body and magic as well.

Her fingers trailed down the side of his face and across his lips as she remembered how she had kissed him. How he had kissed her. Was that how incubi kissed all women? Was it his charm and his aphrodesia that made her think he felt something for her—something stronger than just companionship or lust?

Her nerves twanged, and she pulled her hand back from his face. Shaking her head, she slipped the knife out of his loose grip and quickly peeled the last few potatoes. She threw the scraps into the garden, then filled the well bucket and rinsed all the vegetables. After dumping the water, she filled the bucket again, threw the vegetables in, and, holding the heavy bucket under one arm, turned to the cabin.

The dark windows stared at her, dusty and covered with vines.

Leaving Lyre to sleep, she crossed the yard to the back door and stood in front of it. Seconds passed. A minute. Steeling herself, she flipped the latch and turned the handle. The hinges creaked as she pushed the door open.

Dust roiled, sparkling in the sunlight. She stepped inside, her heart twisting at the familiar scent of wood and the unfamiliar odor of dust and dampness.

The main room looked exactly as she’d left it, minus the thick coating of dust. A kitchen counter on one side, a little island with pots and pans hanging above it. A large fireplace, the cooking grate still in place from the last meal she’d made six years ago. On the other side of the small room, hand-sewn pillows in bright colors muted by dust were piled on a wooden sofa.

She could almost hear her mother’s bubbly laugh echoing through the room.

She carried the bucket to the counter and set it down. For a long minute more, she stood there, staring at every little thing. A wooden carving of a lycaon sat on the mantel above the fireplace. A wreath of dried flowers hung above the front door. A neat stack of worn books—her childhood textbooks—were piled on the floor beside the sofa.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. Then she got to work. Start a fire, wipe the counter, clean a pot, fill it with water, set it in the fireplace. Chop the vegetables, mince the herbs, add them to the pot.

As the water steamed, she absently wiped down the counters and other dusty surfaces, lost in memories. She paused and squinted at her hand. Her arm was smudged with dirt. Her other arm was splattered from wrist to elbow with dried blood and an angry pink line traced the path of Sabir’s dagger.

Throwing the cloth into the cleaning basin, she crossed to the bedroom door and opened it. Inside were two narrow beds with patched comforters in bright, sunny colors and a wooden dresser in the center. Flowerpots lined the windowsill, the plants in them dried to brown husks, their shriveled leaves scattered across the sill and floor.

Clio stared at the dead plants she’d left behind without a second thought. Plants she and her mother had nurtured for years, abandoned as worthless, as unnecessary and unneeded in her new life with her new family.

Tears spilled down her cheeks.

She choked back a sob as she went to the dresser and opened the top drawer. Empty. She’d taken her clothes with her when she left. Crouching, she opened the bottom drawer. It was stacked with neatly folded bundles wrapped in rough brown paper. She hadn’t opened this drawer since the week after her mother’s death.

She lifted out the first item and unwrapped it: a light flowing dress with an embroidered pattern of pink butterflies just like the ones in the garden. A hundred memories assaulted her at once: her mother in the dress, whirling around the kitchen as she cooked with abandon, ambling through meadow flowers swaying in the breeze, holding Clio’s hand with their arms swinging as they walked to the village on market day.

She pressed her face into the soft fabric, her shoulders heaving. It smelled like stale paper and musty wood. It should have smelled like herbs and golden belle flowers. It should have smelled like her mother.

The floorboards behind her creaked. The air shifted with the movement of the door, then Lyre was kneeling behind her. His arms wrapped around her, enclosing her and the dress still clutched against her chest.

She wanted to stop crying, to apologize for losing her composure, but she couldn’t. The grief rose through her in an unstoppable tide, and all she could do was weep the tears she’d refused to shed since the moment she’d last walked out of this house.

Lyre held her, saying nothing. Just held her, his silence full of understanding and compassion.

Eyes squeezed shut, she surrendered to the sorrow and to his embrace.