But how had she been driving at all?
That was the question that struck her now. There was no road. The car sat broken on what was no more than a footpath through the forest. Trees crowded in everywhere, along with brambles and wild vines that bloomed with unearthly flowers. And when she slowly turned in a circle, she saw no route she could have maneuvered through them in the rain, in the dark.
She saw no tracks from her tires in the damp ground. There was no trace of her journey; there was only the end of it.
Cold, she hugged her arms. Her sweater, she thought, wasn’t ripped. Cautiously, she pushed up the sleeve, and there, where she’d been badly scraped and bruised, her skin was smooth and un marred.
She looked back at Flynn. He stood silently as his horse idly cropped at the ground. Temper was in his eyes, and she could all but see the sparks of impatience shooting off him.
Well, she had a temper of her own if she was pushed far enough. And her own patience was at an end. “What is this place?” she demanded, striding up to him. “Who the hell are you, and what have you done? How have you done it? How the devil can I be here when I can’t possibly be here? That car—” She flung her hand out. “I couldn’t have driven it here. I couldn’t have.” Her arm dropped limply to her side. “How could I?”
“You know what I told you last night was the truth.”
She did know. With her anger burned away, she did know it. “I need to sit down.”
“The ground’s damp.” He caught her arm before she could just sink to the floor of the forest. “Here, then.” And he lowered her gently into a high-backed chair with a plump cushion of velvet.
“Thank you.” She began to laugh, and burying her face in her hands, shook with it. “Thank you very much. I’ve lost my mind. Completely lost my mind.”
“You haven’t. But it would help us both considerably if you’d open it a bit.”
She lowered her hands. She was not a hysterical woman, and would not become one. She no longer feared him. However savagely handsome his looks, he’d done her no harm. The fact was, he’d tended to her.
But facts were the problem, weren’t they? The fact that she couldn’t be here, but was. That he couldn’t exist, yet did. The fact that she felt what she felt, without reason.
Once upon a time, she thought, then drew a long breath.
“I don’t believe in fairy tales.”
“Now, then, that’s very sad. Why wouldn’t you? Do you think any world can exist without magic? Where does the color come from, and the beauty? Where are the miracles?”
“I don’t know. I don’t have any answers. Either I’m having a very complex dream or I’m sitting in the woods in a”—she got to her feet to turn and examine the chair—“a marquetry side chair. Dutch, I believe, early eighteenth century. Very nice. Yes, well.” She sat again. “I’m sitting here in this beautiful chair in a forest wrapped in mists, having ridden here on that magnificent horse, after having spent the night in a castle—”
“’Tisn’t a castle, really. More a manor.”
“Whatever, with a man who claims to be more than five hundred years old.”
“Five hundred and twenty-eight, if we’re counting.”
“Really? You wear it quite well. A five-hundred-and-twenty-eight-year-old magician who collects PEZ dispensers.”
“Canny little things.”
“And I don’t know how any of it can be true, but I believe it. I believe all of it. Because continuing to deny what I see with my own eyes makes less sense than believing it.”
“There.” He beamed at her. “I knew you were a sensible woman.”
“Oh, yes, I’m very sensible, very steady. So I have to believe what I see, even if it’s irrational.”
“If that which is rational exists, that which is irrational must as well. There is ever a balance to things, Kayleen.”
“Well.” She sat calmly, glancing around. “I believe in balance.” The air sparkled. She could feel it on her face. She could smell the deep, dark richness of the woods. She could hear the trill of birdsong. She was where she was, and so was he.
“So, I’m sitting in this lovely chair in an enchanted forest having a conversation with a five-hundred-and-twenty-eight-year-old magician. And, if all that isn’t crazy enough, there’s one more thing that tops it all off. I’m in love with him.”
The easy smile on his face faded. What ran through him was so hot and tangled, so full of layers and routes he couldn’t breathe through it all. “I’ve waited for you, through time, through dreams, through those small windows of life that are as much torture as treasure. Will you come to me now, Kayleen? Freely?”