Page 80 of The Fae Menagerie
"I had to. Grandmother?—"
"We could have faced her together."
He wasn't wrong. Grandmother hadn't made it two steps inside the menagerie before Phiste tracked her down.
"We should visit them at the old castle."
"Them?"
"Grandmother and Phiste left the menagerie together. The coin worked in everyone's favor that day in the menagerie."
He nodded. "It's a good thing it vanished. Imagine what my dad would do with a coin that powerful."
I had a feeling Parker's dad had been the source of the demon-summoning book and the coin, but I didn't have the heart to tell him. I'd save that for the awkward "meet the parents" dinner in our near future.
Epilogue
PARKER
It was finallythe weekend back in the human realm. That meant I would have an entire month in the fae realm with Doyle before we had to return, instead of the usual week between days. He'd promised to show me the castle where he grew up, which meant a trip to see his grandmother, Lilium, and Phiste, her fated mate.
The grandmother who had tried to kill me. The irony was not lost on me.
I didn't appreciate being the target of her misguided hate, but I understood her fear. She and Phiste weren't the same court, let alone the same type of fae. It made our human/fae pairing seem almost normal. A gorgon and an anthousai didn't look compatible on paper, but together in a crumbling castle where Phiste’s stone shape spell came in handy, we saw the pair work wonders before our eyes.
"Hello, Grandmother!" Doyle called.
"Doy'al'ini!" She flitted down to us, her giant butterfly wings fluttering in the wind. "Thank you for stopping by. I didn't expect to see you again after everything I put you through."
"I wanted you to meet Parker."
She ducked her head and bobbed a tiny curtsey. "We have met. I'm sure you remember."
I dropped my head in a slight bow. "It's good to see you again."
She rolled her eyes. "The humans and their lies. How can you put up with him?" She met my gaze this time and then gave me a once-over. "Though he is pretty enough to look at, and you always were a sucker for the needy ones."
"So needy he summoned me to his realm so we could be together." Doyle’s laugh sounded forced. "I'm the needy one. He's never leaving my side again."
She nodded to Phiste, who deftly climbed down from the battlements, her tail squeezing into crevices too small for a toehold. "I have discovered the same joy."
I'd expected a tirade from Doyle, or a lengthy apology from his grandmother, but neither happened. Instead, she and Phiste invited us into their home for tea and strawberry pastries and shared tales of the past weeks they'd spent together.
"I should have trusted fate," Lilium said. "It was wrong of me to turn away from it, and even worse for me to ask you to do the same."
Again, I expected Doyle to rant about the millennia he'd spent in captivity, no thanks to her, but he shook his head and grinned.
"Your antics led me to Parker and kept us trapped together long enough for him to fall in love with me." He brought my knuckles to his lips for a kiss. "I'd do it all over again."
"You want to go back to the menagerie?" Phiste asked, horror etched on her perfectly symmetrical face.
"No." There was a bit of heat to the word, but then Doyle relaxed into the plush guest settee. "I think we've seen enough of the menagerie. We're ready to explore the rest of the realm."
"I am still punishing your grandmother for her misbehavior." Phiste's tail cracked like a whip, and Lilium, who had been slouching while she ate, sat bolt upright.
Phiste smiled, showing rows of sharp teeth. "It's too bad we don't know how long, exactly, we were in the menagerie. Not even your Prince Drummond knows, since his dreams lasted only a night."
"She's going to punish me forever," Lilium whispered. She met Doyle's gaze and flashed him an apologetic grin. "I can't ask you to forgive me, but I hope you acknowledge this as punishment enough."
