They both lifted their hands, palms out.
“What was opened was closed again. What was closed will open for the travelers into the world beyond. Hold them safe as they pass.”
Light swirled on the road, spread above it, circling, widening.
Kavan let out a squeal of delight, but at their mother’s feet, Finian stared, and his eyes deepened.
Throwing his power in, Breen realized. Sweet, magickal boy.
Breen drew in a breath. “Here we go.”
Marco said, “Oh shit,” but gripped her hand, and stepped in as she did.
She heard Kavan’s voice. “Bye! Bye! Bye!”
Then it was all light and wind and Marco’s hand. The breath she’d drawn in was lost in it. Her heart took one hard leap.
In little more than a flash, she stood in their old apartment, and Marco went down on his hands and knees.
“Are you okay? You’re okay. I’m right here.”
“Little dizzy, out of breath. Hold on.”
“I’m right here. I have some potion in my bag.”
“Just catch my breath. It— Jumping Jesus, what a rush. Not as bad as the other time, but whoa!”
Still gasping, he sat on the floor. His eyes, a little wild, ticktocked everywhere. “We’re really here.”
“We really are.” She dug into her bag for the potion. “Two sips, and if your head doesn’t stop spinning, one more.”
“Not my head so much as the whole damn room.” He sipped, sipped again. “Okay, yeah, better. Fast trip, huh?” He managed a smile, and since his color had come back, she smiled with him.
“We’ve beamed up, Scotty.”
She sat with him, looked around. Meabh had added a few things, shifted some of the furniture, but it was much the same.
Nostalgia, she realized. She felt nostalgic for all the good memories she’d made there with Marco. But she didn’t pine for it.
Not home, not anymore or ever again.
“Place looks good.”
“Do you miss it?” she asked him.
“I wondered if I would, but I don’t. It’s good to see it again. It’s like—you know how you walk through your old high school, and you remember stuff, or feel stuff? It’s good, or it’s bad. But either way, you don’t want to go back.”
“Do you think you want to take anything back with us?”
“No, I got—or Sedric got for me—everything I wanted. You?”
“I want to take the table, our dragon table. The one you had painted for me for my birthday. Not this trip, but after.”
“We had us some good times at that table.”
“We did.” She rose, reached down for his hand. “Steady and ready?”
“You bet.”