And there it was. Said so casually, but with a firmness no one there would gainsay. It was not the elders’ place to contradict a decree from their prima. In that moment, Margot realized she was finally free.
* * *
No one lingered. Bryce and Allegra left almost immediately, Bryce still grumbling, Allegra looking remarkably unruffled. In fact, she even leaned close to Lucas as she left the house, whispered, “I was rooting for you two,” and then was gone.
He and Margot saw Angela and Connor to their SUV. “Thank you, Angela,” Lucas said. He felt as if he should say more, but he could tell they wanted to get on the road. Maybe the expression of gratitude on his face was enough. He had to hope it would be.
Then they were gone, and it was just him and Margot standing on the front porch of her little house. She was looking vaguely shell-shocked, and he slipped an arm around her waist.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m fine. Just…taking it all in.” She leaned her head against his shoulder. “And Angela…I think I saw a little of Great-Aunt Ruby in her today.”
“I take it that’s a good thing.”
“It’s a wonderful thing. Ruby was a very great prima.”
He tightened his hold around her waist. “So…what now?”
At first she didn’t reply, only stood there, head still cradled on his shoulder. But then she straightened, pulling away from him slightly. “It’s time for me to renew the illusions. I want to do that before I go. Will you come with me?”
“Of course.” He’d wanted to see her at work, so he wouldn’t turn down the chance now.
And so they walked the streets of Jerome, as she hid a gate here, or built a wall there, or made a street dead-end where it shouldn’t. All so subtle, and yet so intricate, that he could only marvel at her talent, and at the strength of her ability to allow those illusions to keep going when she was nowhere around or even paying attention to them. What had she said? “Set it and forget it”? Pretty amazing.
Finally, though, she was done, and they went back to the house. She headed into her room and pulled a suitcase from under the bed. Without speaking, she began packing clothing into it, moving efficiently, as if she’d already thought ahead as to what she would take with her.
“Hey,” he said. “You don’t have to do that now if you don’t want to. We can stay another night here.”
“No,” she replied, her voice firm. “I want to go. I’ll have to come back and get another batch later, and decide how much I really need to take, but this will do me for a few days.”
Lucas could tell then that she wanted to continue the momentum of the afternoon, to move ahead, and he certainly wasn’t going to tell her no.
“Okay. Let’s put that stuff in the trunk and get out of here.”
* * *
The sun was just beginning to set behind Mingus Mountain as they headed out of Jerome, winding down 89A into the flats of the Verde Valley. For some reason, Margot felt as if she were leaving forever, but she knew that wasn’t true — she would return in a week to renew the illusions. And when she came back, someone else would be elder in her place.
She’d thought that realization would cause a pang of regret, but it didn’t. Instead, all she could feel was an overwhelming sense of relief. Was it true? Was she really engaged to Lucas Wilcox, and going to live in Flagstaff?
A glance over to where he sat in the driver’s seat, handsome, reassuringly, solidly real, told her that did seem to be the simple truth. So much had happened, her brain wasn’t done processing it. She hadn’t called her mother to tell her she was engaged, or to tell her she was leaving Jerome, or —
“It’s okay,” Lucas said, and reached over to wrap his fingers around hers.
“What’s okay?”
“Everything is going to be okay. I saw you over there, fretting about something or other. Whatever logistical knot you’re working on, we can take care of it tomorrow. It’ll be fine.”
As he smiled at her, dark eyes glowing, she knew then that he was right.
It would be fine.
Everything would be fine.
* * *