We walked the rest of the way in silence. When I’d first met Lura I thought she was a sad, pathetic recluse, but seeing her in these woods where she’d spent her entire life, I realized that she’d lived to the full. She knew every inch of these woods and the creatures in it, whether they belonged to this world or Faerie. She’d watched over her sisters as they grew, protecting them against predators and bringing them treats to eat. She might have learned her first magic from her father, but she’d honed her craft in these woods. Watching Lura and the way she looked at each tree and plant and creature, I saw that she loved the forest.

“Here,” Lura said when we reached a fern circled clearing. “This is the source of the Undine.” I followed her through the ferns to a large granite boulder and knelt beside her. It was the spring that Soheila, Liz and Diana had led me to a week ago. In the faint, pre-dawn light the water glowed green, casting an aqueous light throughout the glade.

Lura sat back on her heels and looked around the glade. “This is where I first met Quincy,” she said, her eyes filling with tears.

She parted the ferns growing around the boulder and disclosed a heart carved into the rock with intertwined initials – Q and L – in the same design as the one carved into the bench at Lura’s house. “We met here every day that summer. It’s where he asked me to marry him.”

“It’s a beautiful spot,” I said, admiring once again the spill of water from basin to basin, the wild irises fringing each pool and the yellow water lilies floating on their surfaces. Weeping willow branches fell in a curtain over one of the pools. It looked like the spot in Faerie where I’d made love to Liam. I felt my own eyes fill with tears at the memory and my heart fill with an unbearable sense of loss. Liam was really and truly gone. I was glad he hadn’t come back as Duncan, but the fact remained he hadn’t come back at all. It was time to let Liam go once and for all.