“I was. In many ways I still am. But it’s done now. If I’ve learned anything over the years it’s when and how to let things go.”

Is it? I wonder. Or is that he forgets and it no longer looms large in his mind the way it would in another’s?

“I’ll see you again,” I tell him. “But for now, I need some time alone.”

“I understand,” he says.

He hesitates, as though he’s about to add something else, but then he simply nods and walks away, on through the forest. When he reaches the bough where Chloë waits for him, she drops down onto his shoulder.

I look back through the trees to what I can see of the meeting field. Odawa’s no longer there. There are only some gulls, riding a thermal across the headland.

“I hope I did right by you, Mira,” I say.

There’s no response, but I wasn’t expecting any.

Lizzie

The sun was just pinking the horizon in the hills behind the Custom House Hotel in Sweetwater when Lizzie awoke. It took her a long moment to remember where she was. Her dreams had been filled with elves and dwarves and people that were part animal and part human. Not like werewolves or monsters, so much, but in a way that seemed natural and unthreatening.

She turned her head toward the nightstand and looked at the clock. 6:14. Reaching behind her, she tugged up her pillow, then sat up and leaned against the headboard. It was only then, when she was sitting up, that she realized she wasn’t alone in the hotel bed.

Oh boy, she thought, looking down at Con’s handsome, sleeping face. He was turned toward her on the bed’s other pillow, a half smile on his lips.

She’d thought that coming to her room with him had been part of the dream, too. Not to mention everything that had happened after they got to the room . . .

But obviously it wasn’t.

Blame it on running around in bizarre worlds and all the unbelievable things that happened to her. Blame it on the whiskey, if nothing else.

But she didn’t really need to blame it on anything. She’d been tipsy, not drunk, and Con had been lovely and sweet and very attentive—all the things she’d needed after the ordeal of the past few days.

It was so not a good idea to get involved with a band member, but the heck with it. Maybe they could make it work. Surely it had worked for other couples in the same situation, but she couldn’t think of a single one.