“If this is your wish. Daughter of the sea, and of the land. Would you wish to be of both worlds?”
“Oh, yes! Sawyer.”
“Wait. She wouldn’t have to give up her parents, her sisters, her people?”
“She has, as you have, given all. She gives up nothing. Yes,” Aegle said, smiling back at Annika. “There can be children.”
Tears sprang to Annika’s eyes as she laughed, flung her arms around the queen. Riley braced, waiting for lightning to strike at the breach in protocol. But the queen only laughed in turn.
“You are joy, and deserve to have it.”
“Thank you, thank you. Sawyer!” Annika whirled, threw her arms around him. “I can walk and dance with you. We can make children.”
When she whispered in his ear, he cleared his throat. “Yeah, we can do that, right after the party.” Heart in his eyes, he looked over Annika’s head to the queen. “Thank you.”
“You would not ask it for yourself. You are well matched. Our blessings on you.”
She turned to Doyle and Riley. “Doyle McCleary, Riley Gwin, you have only to ask.”
“I have a million questions,” Riley began, and made Aegle smile.
“This is not a wish, but study. You may stay or come back as you will, and learn. The Island of Glass is forever open to you. If you stay, time is different here. You would have more.”
“No. No,” Doyle said, firm. “You have work, you have your pack. We’re fine,” he said to Riley.
“It is for her to ask or not. Would you give up the moon, Riley Gwin, the change and the wolf?”
“I—” Everything inside her knotted. “It’s who I am. Doyle—”
“It’s who I love.” To cut her off, he gripped her hands. “You thought I meant to strike you down that night, the first change, after the battle. But I was struck. And began to change. Those eyes, ma faol. No, you give up nothing.”
“It’s who I am.” Content, Riley turned back to the queen. “Having the door open here, that’s a great gift to me. Thank you for it.”
“I would have been sorry if you’d chosen differently.”
As Aegle spoke, Riley saw the deer leaping over the path, the doe who came out of the woods, the woman holding a little girl on her hip, the rosy-cheeked maid who’d filled her bath.
“You’re a shapeshifter.”
“I am in all, of all. I was always with you. And you,” she said to Doyle. “Will you ask?”
“I have family again, and with them succeeded where I’d failed for three centuries. I have my wolf.”
“The dark marked you, giving you what some men seek, knowing it would bring you grief. Light can lift it. Would you cast away im
mortality?”
“It can’t be done. Even Bran—” Doyle caught the look in Bran’s eye. “It can?”
“I asked, and was shown. It can be done.”
“Hold on. Not for me,” Riley insisted. “And not on impulse. Dying’s no picnic, and—”
“Three centuries doesn’t qualify as impulse.” Hope, real hope brought a kind of pain.
Bittersweet.
“A life with you? A real one? Really living, knowing a day is precious and finite? It’s what I want. It’s more than I ever thought to have.”