“What? What aren’t you telling me?” Chloe said impatiently, cupping his face with her hands.

“Och, ’tis naught, lass. I was just thinking there were undercurrents betwixt the two Tuatha Dé that I didn’t fathom. At any rate, Adam healed me and the queen lifted the souls of the Draghar from my body and destroyed them.”

Chloe sighed happily. “Is that when she closed the stones?”

“Aye. She said she’d reconsidered and decided the power to move through time was not one man should yet possess.”

“So why did it take you so long to get back here?”

“Chloe-love, for me, but a few hours have passed since that moment in the catacombs. Only when you told me that it’s been nearly a month, did I understand what the queen meant when she said that time didn’t pass the same way in our realms.”

“So that part of the legend is true too!” Chloe exclaimed. “The ancient tales claim that a single year in the Tuatha Dé’s realm is roughly a century in the mortal world.”

“Aye. Theirs is a different dimension.” He paused, staring down at her with a troubled gaze. He took in the sight of her swollen eyes, her reddened nose. “Och, lass, you’ve been grieving me for a long time,” he said sadly. “I wouldn’t have had such a thing happen. What did you do?”

“I waited with Gwen and Drustan and—oh! We have to call them!” She tried to squirm from his lap for the phone, but he tightened his arms around her, refusing to let her go.

“Anon, love. I’m so sorry you suffered. If I’d known—”

“If you’d known, what? If this is what had to happen so I could have you back, I don’t have a single regret. It’s okay. You’re here now, and that’s all that matters. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

“I could,” Dageus said quietly.

Chloe blinked, looking confused and a bit wounded.

Dageus kissed her tenderly. “I’ve been wanting to ask you this for so long, but I feared I may not have a future to promise you. I do now. Will you marry me, Chloe-lass? Here, at this moment, in the Druid way?”

And so commenced one of the most thrilling hours of Silvan MacKeltar’s life. He sat across from the queen of the Tuatha Dé Danaan and renegotiated terms. It was fascinating; it was frustrating because she would tell him nothing of herself; it was exhilarating. She was clever, and immensely powerful, tenfold what he’d sensed in the Draghar.