We stay at the Spidae tower for a few more hours, as Kassam works out a bargain with the Spidae in order to bring my mother over into this realm. Yulenna keeps me company, and now that all the tension is gone between her masters and mine, she's a chatty thing. She gossips with me about the other anchors of gods that came over to this world as we eat a feast of food that I try not to think about the origins of, and I tell her about Seth.
It seems the High Father is making a lot of changes. Seth is poised to take Riekki's spot and the High Father is going to allow it. Both Death and War have permanent anchors (in addition to Fate). The goddess of magic's city has been destroyed. And of course, Kassam is returning.
"It's been quite an eventful Anticipation," Yulenna says between bites of the world's worst bread.
"Are most not like this?" I sop the hard crust of bread with a bit of oil, avoiding the sausage set out for both of us. Yulenna admits she's not much of a cook and they have a trader that brings them goods every now and then, but most of their diet is…meat-based thanks to the spiders. I stick to bread, as hard and stale as it is.
Yulenna pops a bit of meat into her mouth and shakes her head. "My masters let me peer at the threads sometimes and I've seen many of the past Anticipations. They had some big events, like when Lady Tadekha took over the Citadel and launched it into the skies, or the War of Thirteen Lords, but nothing like these events."
"What about the future?" I ask, gnawing on a bit more bread. "Do you ever ask to look at that?"
Her eyes go wide and she shakes her head. "No. Not after I've seen what it does to poor Zaroun. He can't tell what time-thread we're in, or what is truth and what was a possible event that never happened." Her mouth pulls down into a frown. "I stick to the past and present threads. Everything there has happened in the past or is happening now, so I feel comfortable watching them while I knit or sew."
I guess when you don't have television, you have a lot of spare time. I'm about to comment on that when there's a tickle in the back of my nose. I sit up, blinking…and then I sneeze.
"That'd be Kassam working on my garden," Yulenna crows happily. "I guess they reached an agreement."
I rub a finger under my tickling nose. A tickle in my brain is better than a nosebleed, at least. "I guess they did." Here I'd thought that the Spidae would make all kinds of crazy demands in exchange for bringing my mother over to this world, and instead, all they want is a couple of gardens for Yulenna. One for her to grow fruits and vegetables in, and one for her to have pretty flowers. Both gardens are to be self-tending and grow without too much care, because the Spidae want to keep Yulenna busy with other things.
I can guess what those other things are.
They bickered over the exact “price” for a bit, and the Spidae wanted a dryad attached to the gardens themselves to tend to them, and Kassam argued with exactly how big the gardens should be. To me, it seems a silly thing to argue over—it's a freaking garden and he's the lord of nature, it should be a cakewalk—but Yulenna assured me it's all for show. "No one wants to cave too quickly," she'd told me. "It sets a bad precedent. So even if they're completely agreed, they'll argue and moan about what's being asked to make it seem like a bigger deal."
So we continue to eat and gossip, and I sneeze a few more times, and as I chew on the last bit of oil-soaked crust, the pleasant scent of wind and leaves touches me. I straighten, molten desire pulsing through my body even before Kassam can put an arm around my shoulders and pull me against him. I close my eyes, reveling in the feeling of him touching me, of feeling whole again, and feeling that thick, heady pulse of desire instead of a pinprick.
I'm never going to take this for granted. Never. "Is it agreed?" I ask, snuggling back against him. God, he's warm and smells amazing. It's making me crazy.
"Agreed," he says, and nips at my ear, sending a shiver up my spine. "She will be here soon. Do you need anything else, my little light? If not, we shall take our leave."
"Dresses?" Yulenna asks. "Clothes? Bread? I'll share what I have."
Before I can answer, Kassam makes a soft, dismissive noise. "She needs none of that. The forest will provide."
Oh. Okay. He's the expert. I shrug, smiling at Yulenna. "I'm good, but thank you." I rub a hand over Kassam's arm and then get to my feet, stepping away from the table in the tower kitchens. The sight of Kassam takes my breath away. I'm not sure I'll ever get used to looking at him like this. He's gorgeous, his skin glowing with inner magic and his eyes so intensely silver that they're otherworldly. More vines are twined in his hair and up one arm, and it's like he looks a bit more unearthly every time I see him…and I love it. I wanted this for him so much that it made me ache, and I'm aching all over again at how good he looks. "I'm ready when you are."
He grins, roguish once more, and tilts his horned head at me. "Shall I take you home?"
I nod. "I'm ready."
"Hold on tightly to me."
I move forward into his arms, pressing my cheek to his warm chest even as I'm grumbling a little. "If I get any closer, I'm going to be on your jock."
"And this is a problem?"
I reach down and pinch his naked butt, because he's such a twerp and I love it.
"I hope you enjoy your garden, Yulenna," Kassam says, and then my hair lifts off my head as a rush of wind encircles us. It's like a tornado has formed around us, and I squeeze my eyes shut as debris and leaves pick up in the buffeting wind. I hope we didn't just make a mess of Yulenna's kitchen. My shift dress flaps and blows against my body, and then, everything goes still once more.
The scents around us change, and the air pressure, too.
I hear the sound of birds calling out to one another. Of a monkey chittering somewhere in the distance. The thick fragrance of greenery and fresh air hits me, cool and ever so slightly sweet. When I open my eyes, Kassam's expression is one of pure joy, his eyes streaming with tears.
He doesn't have to tell me where we are. I know he's home.
It's my home now, too. Still clutching at him, because part of me never wants to let him go again, I look around. It's a forest, which doesn't surprise me, but like everything to do with Kassam's magic, it's like a forest on steroids. The leaves are so green that they could be carved from glossy jade. Thick flowering vines hang down from massive trees, and birds flutter past. As I stare at my surroundings, a deer pokes his head out from behind a tree, quickly followed by a figure that looks like it is made entirely of plants, right down to the cascading vines and flowers where hair should be. A dryad, I assume. They gaze at us in wonder.
"It has been so long," Kassam whispers, his voice raw. "I thought I'd never be able to return."
I step out of his arms, and when he extends his hand, I immediately take it. We move forward a few steps, and there's a rocky path covered in mossy stones, and in the distance I can see a lovely waterfall with a rainbow over it. The sky is an endless, clear blue peeking through the leaves, and up ahead, I see a berry bush so laden with fruit that the branches droop. As we move forward, a rocky outcropping shifts, and a sinewy neck raises a triangular, reptilian head to gaze at us.