Page 17 of Good Golly Miss Molly

Amber rolls her eyes at him.

“Men. Glad mine is gay,” she remarks without further explanation. “But, yes, effectively. When Molly bonded with you as the leannán sidhe do, her gift wasn’t needed in the way it is by humans, because you have a sidhe gift of your own. But with that bond made, she can feed off you — but only because you are, functionally, part human. And because you are also one of the fae, you cannot be drained in the way a human would be.”

“I’m a self-refilling chocolate fountain!”

Amber snorts a laugh, then gasps.

“Sorry — that was quite funny. And I needed the laugh. Even though it hurt.” She clutches her hand over her chest and I force myself to ignore the urge to comfort her once more.

“So I don’t need the collar? At all?”

“Not so long as Logan is still bonded with you and still lives. You know immortal doesn’t mean unkillable, as we’ve all learned this past year. At least for some of your folk. Which of them, I wouldn’t hazard a guess.”

“You’ve studied us.”

“I did the research I needed to make your charm, Molly. No more and no less. It was a need, as it was explained to me at the time, and I felt you’d earned the chance, as did Rónan. The longterm consequences of some of these decisions are still being felt by many…”

It’s a cryptic remark, and I start to wonder…

“But I will undertake to remake Logan’s charm. I need you to go back to the shop, Molly, and bring back some herbs. I’ll give you a list. Don’t worry — no daisies, nettles or forget-me-nots.”

Logan gives us both a blank look.

“Teach him enough that he doesn’t accidentally poison himself on one of Brighid’s tea blends, please,” she instructs me. “I don’t want to make this effort and then have him die by summertime beverage with a lemon wedge on the side.”

We chuckle, but Logan looks mildly worried.

“I’ve got you. Don’t worry.”

He shrugs and relaxes.

“Logan — go home. Take a bath. I’ll give Molly a list of herbs to put in the bath with you — no fooling around, you two. You may live forever, but I need to get this done. Today. And I’m not sending you back for a second bath just because ‘essence of Molly’ got added to the mix.”

She gives us a repressive look, but makes a modest effort to add a wink, despite the pain it clearly causes. This must be the old Amber… I like her. And I’m going to see if I can’t find some way to help her. We owed her even before this.

“Meet back here in two hours. No — make it three. You have no idea how hard it can be to take a bath, even with help...”

Fourhourslater,Amber,wearing a silk robe with her sleeves rolled up high and tucked out of the way, chants to herself — in English, which is novel after seeing Brighid using her Irish as much as possible. A piece of insulated kevlar protects Logan’s wrist. A wet cloth is wrapped around the lower portions of the steel cable and the charm, keeping the heat from spreading as Amber applies flux and solder to the joint and then uses a tiny hand torch to heat the solder into a solid joint between the two ends.

She winces the entire time the torch is lit, her heat-tortured nerves extra-sensitive to what injured them. But she keeps going. She checks her work and nods to herself in approval, turning off the torch and making a final benediction with her eyes closed.

Logan can’t see it because he’s faced away from her, but to my eyes she takes on a distinctive warm glow, and I notice the woven silver four-armed cross around her neck. A priestess and a smith. Of course.

7

Magic

Molly

Several weeks later

Logannuzzlesmyneck,his arms wrapped around me from behind. I ’m tempted to suggest that he close up early so we can go upstairs, but he’s expecting a longtime customer to stop by and I know he won’t hear of it.

As I’ve taken to doing, I locked up at Dream Weaver tonight just after closing time and walked straight down to Mystic Music, where I waited patiently for Logan to finish a monologue on the importance of wiping down a guitar — strings and all — after every time you touch it. The customer nodded at the appropriate points, while I chuckled and grabbed one of Logan’s branded cleaning cloths to hand the poor woman to reward her for her patience.

My man is adorable. Geeky, but adorable.

I’m still reveling in us, in this relationship I never thought I would have… never thought Icouldhave. With no other man on the planet — human or otherwise — could I have had this. And I’d fallen for him without knowing the key to my survival lay in his hands. Call it instinct, call it the intervention of some deity that, it turned out, wasn’t so much having a laugh at my expense as kicking me in the ass so I’d walk down the one path that would save me.

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