Chapter 2
I spitthe gulp of water back into my cup with a sputter.
“Luella, you should have told us!” Mother gasps and claps her hands together. “This is wonderful news!”
“I thought you were too busy with your shop to think of courtship?” Father arches his eyebrows. I’m still coughing up a lung. He adds, “Are you all right?”
“Well, I…” I cough. “Sorry, water in the wrong pipe.”
Marry him?When did I agree to that? Oh, right, I didn’t. I look at Luke from the corner of my eye. He’s beaming from ear to ear.
I can’t marry anyone. I’ve told him that. I’ve told everyone that just so my mother’s friends would stop digging their noses into my affairs.
I don’t have time for marriage. I don’t have time for whatever it is Luke and I have already been doing. I’ve never even thought of marriage.
For the entirety of my nineteen years, I’ve known I was destined to be married to trees and herbs and duty before a man. I have been content—fulfilled, even—with that alone. But marriage? Motherhood? Wifely duties?
I have more important things to focus on…like keeping people alive.
Standing, I say, “Mother, Father, please excuse us. I have rounds to make before the town hall and I don’t want to keep Luke from his duties.” I catch Luke’s eyes with a pointed look. “Shall we head to the forests now?”
“Yes, we’ll clean up, go and enjoy yourself.” Mother is beaming. Father, however, gives me a knowing, wary look.
I feel bad making my parents clean when they cooked, but I need to escape. I need to talk to him and sort this marriage thing out. I practically drag Luke back downstairs, into my shop, past his stupid bag still by the door, and out into the crisp Capton morning.
“What was that?” I whirl on him as we emerge onto the street. “Marriage?”
“You said you loved me.”
“I may be inexperienced with all this but saying ‘I love you’ is not the same thing as ‘I’ll marry you.’”
He tilts his head with a gentle smile and rests his hands on my shoulders. “Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?”
“What?”
“You and me, together. We love each other, Luella, we have for years. There’s no one more perfect out there for you than me.”
“That’s not the point,” I mutter.
He hooks his arm with mine, beginning to lead us down the road lined by brownstones of the residential area of town. “You need to stop holding back and stop being so focused on your work.”
“My work makes me happy.”
“Don’t I make you happy?”
“Yes, but—”
He kisses the tip of my nose, silencing me. “Then I’m all you need. Your father can perform the wedding himself…”
Luke rambles about silk and flowers and toasts the entire walk down the street, up the narrow stairs that lead into a stone path lazily wandering the cliff-tops overlooking the ocean. A river cuts across in the distance before crashing down as a waterfall to the sea foam beyond. Its stunning blue waters are under the protection of the Keepers, as is the forest we head toward.
Our island is small, just off the coast of the mainland and across from Lanton. Nestled in the only sheltered bay of the island is the lonely town of Capton. I grew up wedged on this narrow strip between mountain and sea. The thick and gnarled redwood forest runs down from the foot of the great mountain that looms over us to the town. The temple winds as a sort of bridge between the two.
Capton historians say the temple was built long ago, before the great war that resulted in the treaty. But it’s hard for me to think of anything that old still standing. More likely, one of the original Keepers built it to house their order.
Slithering out from the side of the temple is an unassuming pathway of arches. I’ve never walked that path. I’m forbidden to, even with a Keeper escort. That is for the Human Queen and the elves. Luke tells me it stretches all the way into the darkest part of the forest at the foot of the mountain.
It is the path that leads to the Fade—the split between the human world and the magic wilds.