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broke off, trying to hold back feelings that had been building inside her for months. “You’re more like your father than you know.”
    “What do you mean?” Neall asked.
    Ashk laughed softly, a pained sound. “Kief used to worry over whether or not he was good enough for Nora, whether or not he pleased her as a lover. Your grandmother didn’t approve of him, you know, because he wasn’t a witch’s son or even pure Fae. But he loved Nora, and she loved him in that quiet, deep way she had. She planted beans that first summer. Lots of beans. Because they were his favorite.
    He didn’t understand it was a declaration of love, didn’t understand that passion doesn’t always burn hot and bright on the surface, not when it’s deeply rooted in the heart.”
    “I remember them,” Neall protested. “I remember their laughter, how they looked at each other. I was a child when they died, and maybe I didn’t understand what those looks meant, except that I always felt warm and safe, but I would have known if they were unhappy with each other. I would have felt it.”
    Ashk leaned against the nearest tree. “You can’t see how you and Ari look at each other. For me, it’s like seeing Nora and Kief again. The way you work together, laugh together, squabble about chores. The way you both look on some mornings, it’s obvious you spent a long night in bed and didn’t spend much of that time sleeping.” She sighed, closed her eyes. “There are times when I’ve come here and seen this dark-haired woman hanging out the wash. I almost call out Nora’s name before she turns and I know it’s Ari.” She opened her eyes and fixed her gaze on Neall. “It’s easy for passion to blaze for a short time when you don’t have to consider all the small day-to-day things that make up the rest of a person’s life. It flares hot and burns out quick, unless it’s nourished. When it came down to a choice, Lucian couldn’t offer enough to give her a reason to stay. Consider that the next time you doubt, young Lord of the Woods. A Daughter of the House of Gaian chose you over the Lightbringer, the Lord of the Sun.”
    Neall picked up a small dead branch and idly broke it into pieces. “I don’t remember my grandmother.
    When did she die?”
    “She hasn’t yet.” Ashk saw his eyes widen. “She lives on Ronat Isle with her Lord of the Sea, her selky man.”
    “But—”
    “Cordell’s gift is water, but it’s the wildness of the sea that calls to her, not the quieter songs of rivers and streams. This Old Place is too far away from the sea for someone like her. By the time I came to live here, she had left for good, leaving Nora and the land in her own mother’s care.”
    Neall snapped to attention. “Came to live here? This wasn’t your Clan?”
    No matter how she turned, she was still caught in those emotional thorns. “No. But I needed ... a different place ... so my grandfather brought me here where I would still have kin. That’s why—” She bit her lip.
    “Why what?” Neall asked quietly.
    “I didn’t know.” The words burst out of her. “I was nineteen when Nora and Kief died. My path wasn’t something I could change, so I couldn’t keep you here with me.”
    “Ashk.” Neall reached out to touch her arm in comfort.
    She stepped away from him. “I thought it would be for you the way it had been for me. People who were kin who would become family. I thought they would take care of you.”
    “They did take care of me.”
    Tears stung her eyes. “No, they didn’t. ‘Poor relation.’ I know what that means among the gentry in the human world. They had no right to say that to you. They had no right.”
    Neall sighed. “Ari cares about me. I think she’s colored things blacker than they were.”
    “And I think you try to heap flowers over a pile of shit to cut down the stink. It doesn’t make it any less a pile of shit.”
    He said nothing for a long moment. “You told me I had to leave in order to