He shrugs. “I’ve gotten to know Trystan quite well in a short span of time. And... Tierney, as well.” I notice his magic kicks up when he says Tierney’s name. “I tend to follow my gut on these things,” he adds. “I’m with you.”

I let out a long, shuddering breath. “Thank you, Or’myr.”

He gives me a small smile as he finishes charging the crystals, then falls back into muttering to himself about which magicked stones are likely to provide the best geo-shield. I look around, my gaze snagging on a nearby shelf covered in small pieces of every type of wood I could imagine. My magic gives a hard lurch toward it.

I reach out to touch a few of the curving, knotty pieces—pine, cypress, cedar, ash, oak. Repeated waves of delicious rapture course through my lines as each tree unfolds in my mind, a whole forest of them. Enthralled, I pick up a gorgeous fragment of silver wood marbled with veins of bone-white. Awe shudders through me as an Alfsigr Elm tree expands in my mind. I close my eyes and breathe deep, lost to the wood’s sparkling canopy.

“Can you envision trees?” Or’myr asks, cutting into my wood-trance, his tone one of complete astonishment.

I open my eyes to find him frozen, staring at me. “Can you, as well?” I ask.

He swallows, nodding. “I never thought I’d meet anyone else who could do it.”

We hold each other’s gaze in mutual wonderment, the whole world paused by the incredible prospect of sharing this ability with someone.

“I had a collection of wood as a child,” I finally blurt out. “I hid them everywhere.”

“I did too,” he confides, suddenly just as breathless.

“Here.” I tentatively slide the wood toward him. “Touch it with me.”

Eyes widening another fraction, he complies, folding his hand over mine, his fingertips sliding down to meet with the wood.

The moment he makes contact with it, the tree-vision intensifies and I let out a small huff, silver-leafed branches swooping in to enfold us both as the entire elm grove forms around us. We both inhale, an enraptured shudder passing through our combined magic.

Or’myr releases the wood at the same time I do, the grove-vision dissipating as the two of us hold each other’s stunned stares.

“I wonder...” I venture in an unsteady voice, “if we’d been allowed to grow up together...” my lip tics up in a rueful smile “...I wonder if we might have had a secret collection.” A sudden pang knots deep in my chest, and it’s clear from my cousin’s tense expression that he feels it too. Because we shouldn’t be discovering these things only now.

Or’myr is quiet for a moment. “I’m sorry we never got to do that, cousin.”

“I had to hide this affinity over there,” I falteringly tell him. “Because it’s a Fae draw.”