Clyde leapt down from the ceiling, crashing across the table, and raced across the restaurant as all the dogs jumped up and took chase.
“Damn it, Clyde,” Lia shouted, her hand at her heart. “I willneverget used to that. Never.”
“Do you need the toilet?—”
“No, thank you very much. I’m fine.” Lia sniffed, shooting Munroe a glare.
“Well, I have a right to be concerned. You’re sitting on my lap, aren’t you?”
The whole table laughed, the tension having broken, and I eased closer to Liora, wanting her to look at me and tell me she was okay.
Thatwewere okay.
Sophie pushed up from the end of the table, dirk sheathed now, expression resolute.
“Archie’s right,” she said. “Tonight was … well, it was horrible. It could’ve been much worse. We’re not going to pretend it isn’t scary. Or that there isn’t a very real chance of things getting worse before they get better. But we’re not doing this alone. Not any of us.” Her gaze found mine, then Liora’s, then Zara’s. “If the Kelpies think picking off one of us will make the rest fall, they’ve badly miscalculated.”
Lachlan slid his hand into hers. “They come for one of us, they get all of us.”
“Aye,” Thane said quietly, Kaia’s fingers twined with his. “That’s how this works.”
Beside me, Liora let out a breath that sounded like something loosening inside her. I took the risk and slid my hand under the table, curling my fingers around hers.
She didn’t pull away.
Her grip was cool and a little shaky, but she held on.
“For better or worse,” I said quietly, mostly to her but loud enough that the nearest few could hear, “I think we’ve found our people.”
Her eyes lifted to mine, blue and deep and full of a fear that hadn’t quite receded—but there was something else there too.
Hope. Just the tiniest spark of it.
“Ceud mìle fàilte, then,” she whispered back. “One hundred thousand welcomes.”
I squeezed her hand.
Outside the windows, the loch lay quiet under the night, pretending to be nothing more than water and reflection. Inside the castle, battered and bruised and covered in mud, we sat shoulder to shoulder around worn wooden tables—humans, witches, familiars, ghosts and all. United.
Whatever monsters waited in the depths, whatever bargains had been struck before our time, whatever lightning serpents uncoiled beneath the surface…
We’d face them.
I was in this now, and I would do whatever I could to keep Liora, and Loren Brae, safe. And I truly believed, as I looked around this room filled with magickals, that we could do it.
Together.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
LIORA
We took Zara home with us because she needed to heal and I needed to see that she was actually okay. I was pretty certain I’d taken a few years off my life after seeing her crumpled at the bottom of that ravine.
By the time we got home and Torin carried Zara in like she weighed nothing, Mitch pacing anxiously at his heels, I was bone-deep exhausted. Faelan had used her healing on Zara’s leg at the castle, but she’d insisted Zara rest up for a few days to make sure the break did heal.
Quite a power, Faelan had. I had about a million questions for her at some point, particularly about her furry boyfriend, but that would have to come at another time.
“I’m fine,” Zara muttered as Torin lowered her carefully onto my bed, her jaw set in that stubborn line. “Honestly, I don’t need this much fussing.”