Page 111 of A Bond in Flames

I took her hand, and we walked into the forest. Night was falling, and moonlight filtered through the trees. Like her father, Marigold loved the dark.

“When do you think my familiar will come, Mommy?” she asked as we walked.

“I wish I could give you an answer, baby, but a familiar finds you when the time is right and not before.”

Her eyes lit up. “What do you think they’ll be?”

“I don’t know, but whatever they are, they’ll be perfect for you.” Hemy squeaked his agreement from my shoulder.

We were free to move between Limbo and Roxburgh now. Though Death still worried while we were gone, he didn’t try to stop us. We had an eternity ahead of us, the three of us, and he’d finally allowed himself to believe it.

Marigold ran across the clearing when we reached it, and I laughed and ran after her. She jumped up and down with excitement while I made a small slice in my hand to open the gateway.

The stones rumbled, rolling and reshaping, and a moment later, it was open.

We stepped through onto the skull path, and the gate closed behind us.

“Daddy!” Mari cried and took off.

I looked up as Mors rounded the corner, tall and broad and utterly gorgeous. He grinned wide when he saw us, scooping his daughter up as soon as she reached him.

“Did you have fun with your cousins?” he asked.

“We played in the cemetery, and had a picnic, and I brought you a cupcake.” She thrust it out, and he took it.

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to my lips. “I’m glad you’re back.”

I grinned up at him. “Me too.”

“Tell me, Daddy!” Marigold said.

He looked down at her. “Again?”

“Yes, again,” she said excitedly.

“Your wish is my command, princess,” he said in his beautiful voice.

She tilted her head back in anticipation, looking at the night sky, a sky Death had created, replicated, when he built this realm from the ground up. “Which one was Mommy?”

“See the small cluster of stars above us? They were your mommy and her sisters.”

“And they landed in different realms when Mommy came to Earth,” Mari said, jumping ahead because she’d heard this more times than I could count.

“That’s right,” he said. “See the two bright stars to the left—”

“That was you and Uncle Somnus.”

“Right, again, and the cute little star twinkling closest to me, the brightest one in the cluster, that’s your mommy.”

She blinked up at the sky. “And you loved her even then.”

“I did,” he said in a low, rough voice.

She sighed. “I love that story.”

Yes, she did. She had her father point out those stars almost every night. He curled his arm around my shoulders and pulled me in close. “I missed you both.”

We’d only been gone half the day, but we didn’t like being away from each other for very long. I wrapped my arm around his waist. “We missed you too.”

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