Page 22 of Stolen Hours

“Maybe. I need... I need... I’m still trying to decide which part of the world I belong in. My parents travel a lot between America and the United Kingdom.”Why am I telling him all this?

Farrah didn’t know, but her mouth kept moving.

“So, no family home to go back to? No clan lands?”

“I mean, there’s always my adopted ‘hometown’ of Pine Ridge in New York State.”

The Orc faltered forward, his big, beefy frame suddenly towering over her, snapping a branch.

The perfect branch that she’d wanted.

“Are you all right?” she cried.

Ian nodded, looking thunderstruck. He placed the branch with its double fork in her palm. It was snapped clean, so perfectly broken that it looked as if it had been cut.

It was her turn to look thunderstruck.

She could feel the magic moving around her, and if only she knew for certain that it was moving between them... Then maybe she could take it as a sign.

“Pine Ridge?”

“Yes, in New York state, back in America?” Farrah explained again, speaking more slowly, twirling the branch in her fingertips.

“That’s our clan land! I mean, we have clan lands here in Scotland, too, but my uncle bought us one hundred and sixty acres in the mountains that border the town of Pine Ridge— years and years back, right at the beginning of the Troubles. One of our ancient cousins of cousins was one of the first settlers, even before the land was bought and papers filed through all the ‘official’ channels! There have been Fenclans and Silverbows around Pine Ridge all the way back to the 1800s”

“Oh, God. You have Irish clans, too?”

“Aye, and English. Not just the Fenclans. It’s in trust to us, the Silverbows, the Wickstaffs, Bogchurches, and more. But the big acreage in the mountains, it’s held in the name of the Fenclans. In case.”

Farrah didn’t have to be told about “in case.” Any witch who read about Salem knew the meaning of “in case.”

“So. What a coincidence, meeting a lass from Pine Ridge in my back garden, when I could end up in hers.”

Farrah tried to speak. “Too big to be a coincidence.”

IAN WALKED TOWARD THEbeach with the willowy goddess on his big, meaty arm, feeling like a giant holding a china doll. She was tall and slender, and his chest would have made three of the span of her shoulders. Even with her height, he was a full head taller.

The perfect height to watch her, and to see her look up at him.

“When do you leave?”

The girl didn’t say anything for a long time. When she did, she stopped and faced him. The salt air blew strands out of her braid and out of his. It took everything he had in him not to kiss her right then, risking everything for one single perfect moment of beauty, waves, sand, and salt.

He leaned forward a little, and the long, dark-blonde wisps from the tail of his plait met hers. He could see the light, ashen-wheat strands from Farrah’s head twining with his errant ones. Weaving.

She’s magic. A little glimpse of magic.

“I’m not sure I’m leaving. I’m looking for the person I belong with before I find out where I go. I need to have him with me. Home isn’t a place—”

“It’s a person,” Ian finished.

Little fingers fondled the rowan branch as he looked into his eyes.

Twins. He could see twins, their wee bairns, half-human, half-Orc, nestled in her arms as he stood guard over them.

“Will you please not leave without me?” He made a slip of the tongue. Or was it? “Will y’ not leave without telling me, please?” he corrected himself.

Farrah nodded, stepping closer to him as the scraggly woods gave way to the pebbled beach. “I promise.”