NINE
“Are you sure she’s home?” Lucivar asked as Daemon
opened the cottage door. “There aren’t any lights on in the sitting
room.”
“Doesn’t mean
anything,” Daemon replied, touching the hallway candle-light so
they could see as they headed for the kitchen. “Allista left this
morning to spend a few days with her family, and Manny is
celebrating with friends in the village. Tersa told both of them
she was staying home tonight.”
As they walked into
the kitchen, they saw her silhouetted against the open back door,
oblivious to the cold air streaming into the cottage.
“Tersa,” Daemon
called softly.
“It’s the boy,” she
said, sounding puzzled as she looked from him to Lucivar. “Both my
boys.”
“Yes,” Daemon
said.
“Why are you
here?”
Lucivar nudged her
into the kitchen and closed the door. “We’ve decided to establish
some family traditions. Winsol Eve is going to be a time for
fathers and daughters to spend together.”
“And mothers and
sons,” Daemon added.
“So we’re here to
spend the evening with our mother,” Lucivar said.
“But . . .” She
looked around, as if finally noticing where she was. “There is no
food. I should prepare food?”
“We did that,” Daemon
said, calling in several dishes and settling them gently on the
kitchen table. “A couple of things need to be heated, and a few
other things need the finishing touches.” He took off his overcoat
and wrapped it around her, adding a warming spell.
Did she even realize
she was shivering?
Lucivar pulled out a
chair. “You sit down, and we’ll take care of things.”
“That does not seem
fair,” Tersa said. “You are doing all the work.”
“Fine,” Lucivar said.
“You can do the dishes after.”
“That is not fair!”
Lucivar grinned at
her and winked at Daemon.
They talked, they
laughed, and they ate. And as Tersa’s mind flowed between past and
present, they learned more of who they had been when they had been
her boys.
“We’d like to ask a
favor,” Daemon said when he set out the plate of baked goods he’d
wheedled out of Mrs. Beale. “A special gift we’d like you to give
both of us if you can.”
She looked at
them—not with the lucidity of madness, but with clear-sighted eyes.
“Ask.”
So he asked. And
after thinking about it for a minute, she said yes.