Leanna shut her eyes against the closed door, against the sound of her father's retreating footsteps. The hard wood was a far, pitiful cry from the comfort of Finvarra's chest. Yet, against this lifeless surface, Leanna discovered one consolation that a million beats of Finvarra's cursed heart could never offer: a wooden door wouldn't ever reject her.

Holding tight to that solace, and to the folds of her skirt, Leanna opened her eyes to the incarnation of her fate: a closed door. She sighed. There was nothing else to be had.

"Take it," she rasped, voice hoarse and soul weary. "Just take my heart and be done with it all, please," was as much as she could say. If she dared any more, words would only wane to the cries of a sad, sad girl. Caging sobs behind clenched teeth, Leanna curled into the door the way a child would a mother. She shivered against it as if meaning to waken it from its eternal sleep. But it was dead, and regardless of her quiet tears, it wouldn't ever come back.

Silence stretched thick, cut only by two hollow steps behind her—away from her. Never did Leanna imagine a sound could hurt so.

Finvarra exhaled weightily. "It's too late to take your heart now, I'm afraid," he said, sounding anything but. "You're my tightrope walker, and what circus is a circus without a tightrope walker?"

He took two more steps. Bereft, Leanna no longer cared whether it were closer or off into the unknowns of the wind.

"Besides, the advance men have already posted the bills announcing your act," he added above the quiet footfalls and the gentle rustle of his cape. "It would be a pity for me to take your heart now. The notices really are quite nice," he murmured as an afterthought.

Chilling anger sent Leanna whirling wildly, smearing the world behind her tears. "I don't care how nice they are! They're a mistake—this is all a mistake! I am not some muse, neither am I magnificent. In case you hadn't noticed, I'm not even free to come and go as I please!"

Leanna paused, struggling to keep the quaver from her voice. Failing, she said, "You're best off just taking my heart now, before..." Before my sorrow swallows it whole, she thought, but pressing trembling fingers to her mouth, she said no more.

Finvarra was quiet for a thoughtful moment. He clasped his hands at his back and walked around her bed quietly, a shadow of flowing black fabric and secret thoughts. Stopping at the vase on Leanna's night table, he admired the snow white lilies, caressing a finger slowly down the stem. He eased the flowers aside and peered within the porcelain vase curiously.

"No, I hadn't noticed. Still don't," he said distractedly. He let the lilies tilt back to their belonging stance and regarded Leanna. "The last I heard, it was your heart that was the problem, not your legs. Unless you lied, of which you told me you were no a liar. But then, it is like a liar to lie, isn't it?"

Leanna opened her mouth, a barrage of curses swelling in her throat. But she swallowed them and instead cursed her romanticism birthed from countless hours of loneliness spent living vicariously through the many damsels in her books. She'd always favored the likes of the tortured man seeming incapable of ever caring for anyone else. She'd always looked for the better in them. But Finvarra was not a fictional man, as magical as he may have seemed.

Closing the book on all her childish fantasies, Leanna sucked in a weak breath. "I am no liar, but—"

"Then there should be no problem," Finvarra cut in above her, tonelessly. "You've your own legs to walk with and a mind to lead you. Whether you let your father or any man control it for you is another matter."

Regardless of her tears, Leanna shot him an incredulous look. From beside her bed, Finvarra gazed back at her, unapologetic.

Leanna clenched her hands into small trembling fists, knuckles pale with rage. "No one controls my mind, or my legs. But that means nothing now!" She stormed to the bed and tore her carpet bag from the flowered quilt. "Don't pretend not to have heard. I know you did. My family will not let me go that easily. My father knows my greatest dream was to see your circus. For me to vanish so close to when you are set to arrive—I may as well leave a note telling them where I'll be!"

Snatching open the wardrobe doors, Leanna jerked the travelling purse inside with a thud. She gripped the edge of the door severely, and closed it quietly with chained anger. She said in equal frustration, "However you have managed to keep the circus hidden will mean little once I go missing. In four days' time, your precious circus will appear to the world, and they will come down on you like vultures. The Constable plans to request a meeting with you. What of that?" Leanna did not brush her tears away. "Wings and feathers, fire dragons and icy towers—this magical world you live in does not extend to me. There are actions and consequences in my world that cannot be fixed by flying off into the wind—oh—"

Leanna cringed with a silent moan. Emotions gathered painfully in her chest, and her heart could not bear it all. She pressed back against the wardrobe, taking in a few deep breaths against the tight pain roping around her chest.

A derisive, helpless smile curled Leanna's lips and she strained through the last of her shaking words. "Magnificent, you say?" She met Finvarra's cool gaze and shook her head solemnly. "Your job is to sell illusions, Mr. Finvarra, not to believe them."

His face hard and the blue in his eyes severe, one moment Finvarra watched Leanna as her heart found its rhythm and her breaths their flow. A sudden, he tore the flowered quilt from Leanna's bed in one furious sweep. Leanna's head beat against the wardrobe doors as she jerked back at the violent snap of fabric, that now gathered like a corpse at the foot of the bed. Possessed by secrets that settled over his eyes, Finvarra quit the bed and strode to the window. He snapped the curtains shut in one even stroke and stood deathly still amidst the newly gathered shadows.

Staring at the nothingness before him—his own closed door—Finvarra's viselike grip tightened on the blood red curtains. "Then only one thing can be done," he murmured in equal darkness. Finvarra's shoulders lowered with an exhale, his clutch too loosening. Pale hands trailed down the length of the velvet hangings until falling away, back at his sides.

He turned. In spite of the flickering fire at the grate, many shadows now veiled his stare. Leanna swallowed. This was it. There was but one prospect, and the realization trickled cold down her spine and to her fingertips. Finvarra meant to take her heart, and she was helpless against it.

In face of Leanna's fear, Finvarra lowered his lashes and set off around the room as if caged—which he was, by whatever feral thoughts possessed his mind. He looked in corners, drawers and closets, but then shook his head to himself, muttering words that abandoned whatever idea he had.

Leanna trailed his weaved path along her room, not daring a word. He was probably looking for something with which to cut her heart from her chest, she mused dreadfully. Her insides contracted at the thought, and with it a wave of nausea.

Not finding anything sharp enough, Finvarra gazed down to his immaculate black shoes. He tilted one polished shoe outward, revealing spotless soles. It was as if his feet never touched the ground. He lowered it down.

Looking to a blanched Leanna, Finvarra held out a hand. "I need your boots."

Leanna stared at the extended ghostly hand draped by white hooded sleeves. She gulped. "M-my boots? Why ever would you need m-my boots?"

"Those are the ones you wore last night, no?" he asked whirling the hand in wait.

"Yes, but—"

Finvarra's hand dropped with an irritable pat and he stepped toward her. Frightened, Leanna paced aside and away. Why on earth did he want her boot? Surely he didn't mean to beat her heart out of her? Oh why on earth had she been so dramatic to offer her heart!

Finvarra stepped forward, Leanna back. "W-wouldn't it be easier if you used something sharper than my boots? Oh!" Leanna gasped as she blindly fell back onto the chair by her reading table. Cornered. Caught.

Mid-step, Finvarra stopped abruptly, floundering for a moment. Blond brows snapped together in great offense. "Good God, Miss Weston! I'm no savage. I don't want your blasted heart. I need your boots." His pursuit resumed.

Liar! yelled Leanna's mind. She gripped the arm rest tightly and pressed back against the chair. "B-but they're muddy and my hands might get dirty!" The moment the words left her mouth, Leanna groaned. Truly, of all things to say!

Finvarra stopped just inside the faint ring of firelight. "Precisely, Miss Weston. I need the dirt from your boots. A very small amount will suffice. I would get them myself, but my touching your foot would just be utterly improper, and would make me an insufferable, impossible, infuriating man." He was quiet for a thoughtful moment. "Did I get them all?"

Had Leanna half a mind, she would have asked what the dirt was for. But in seeing the slight flicker of uncharacteristic mischief beneath the sorrow of Finvarra's eyes, Leanna gasped. "You're mocking me?"

A sharp exhale brought traces of a dark smile to the corners of Finvarra's mouth. "Miss Weston, please. Mercy, I say. Your boots?"

Leanna skewered him with a glare. He didn't deny it. He was mocking her! He thought her a flameless creature bound by society, incapable of tolerating a simple touch. Leanna sat up on the winged chair sharply and raised up her skirt, enough to expose one booted foot. Lips tight and brow arched, she slid it toward Finvarra and met his mockery measure for measure. Where this boldness came from, she didn't know. But the surprise that flashed in Finvarra's frozen pools was pleasing.

With the cool wave of a hand, Finvarra unleashed an arctic breeze around the room. The sprinkling of a chime in a fading spring wind resounded as rogue particles of glass swept to the shadowed corners of the chamber. Leanna trembled as the harmonic sigh wrapped its invisible arms around her, prickling the bare skin of her shoulders.

The ground now cleared, Finvarra strode forward in even, determined steps, traces of vanilla preceding him. He raised a hand and loosened the tie of his cloak, his chilled gaze never abandoning Leanna. The knots he undid magically retied in Leanna's stomach—or so she thought, feeling her stomach twist with each flutter of his fingers.

Finvarra shrugged once, and the black fabric eased down his arms with a quiet hush. He tossed it coolly onto the chair opposite Leanna. As it floated down to the time between seconds, Finvarra crouched at Leanna's feet. Their stares slid past one another, a mirror imitation of the moon and the sun across polar ends of the skies. Their gazes still joined, Leanna sucked in a quiet breath at the feel of Finvarra's hands at her ankle. Had she not looked down, she would have believed his touch burned right through the leather boot.

Finvarra set Leanna's terse leg down on his knee and methodically eased the black laces from each hole. With each gentle tug, Leanna fisted her skirts further, simultaneously wondering and cursing the fickle nature of her heart, that now pounded ferociously and unfailing as if...normal.

Maddened at her body's reaction to his feather-light touch, Leanna crossed her arms over her chest, wishing to force her heart into submission. It didn't work. Annoyed, she turned her face away sharply. This most definitely was not how a proper woman behaved!

"This is difficult for me as well, Miss Weston," Finvarra said through her thoughts, though he spoke it so softly, Leanna nearly mistook if for just that. She stole a glance at his downturned face only to discover sadness reclaimed his shaded features, chasing away all prior mischief.

His eyes remained hooded beneath thick lashes as he spoke into the open air between them. "Our woes may be dissimilar, but what we seek is the same. I can offer you some freedom from this life, and you can offer me freedom as well."

"Freedom from what?" Leanna wondered aloud, wishing to know more about this curse, about the elders, about Machina, about her role in it all. She fixed her eyes on his fingers at the laces, disliking feeling intrusive.

"That remains to be told," Finvarra said vaguely. "But I think we can be of great use to one another if we could simply try and get along. Caution is not something I am able to take lightly—for my sake and for the sake of my troupe, and so I make no apologies for last night. But I will do my part to make our arrangement as painless as possible from this moment forth. We may have our differences, but I do not want for us to quarrel at every turn." Finvarra's fingers stilled on the laces. "Nor do I wish for you to fear me," he said lastly and lifted his eyes.

Like falling through a sky of frozen diamonds, the openness in Finvarra's eyes stole at Leanna's breath. For that instant, the break in his mask of fire and ice, of indifference and arrogance fell away, leaving but a man appealing to a kindred spirit.

I don't, Leanna wanted to say, I don't fear you. She didn't—she did—oh she didn't know! All Leanna knew was that not knowing how to feel was the worst feeling of all. Reason warned her that he'd fooled her before. He's a liar, it told her. A beautiful, murderous liar...

Her heart, however, sent her hands relaxing around the fabric of her skirt, and pushed the words from her mouth. "I'm not frightened," Leanna started, yet let out a shaking breath at feeling Finvarra ease the boot from her foot. She looked down to her small foot trembling, caged within long, frigid fingers.

Finvarra's crystalline gaze narrowed, drinking in her reaction.

"Your hands, they're cold," Leanna barely whispered, willing herself to still.

Seriously holding her stare for an added moment, Finvarra set Leanna's foot down gently. She retracted it in strangled gradualness, but never once faltered in composure.

Finvarra lowered his gaze and worked through her other boot, though oddly now with less delicacy. A hard line marked his mouth as if the laces scorned him. A sinking feeling settled in Leanna's stomach. Had she said something wrong?

With the edge of both shoes clamped between his thumb and forefinger, Finvarra came to his feet. Towering above Leanna, he chuckled bitterly. "You say you're not frightened. Yet, you haven't asked me what it is I mean to do."

Realization warmed Leanna's cheeks. She hadn't said anything wrong. She'd said nothing at all, and that spoke louder than words ever could.

Finvarra turned his eyes down to her, his mask of coldness reemerged. But as Leanna had seen it fall once just seconds before, she saw its cracks now in the seemingly perfect façade of indifference. And in those crevices, she saw his challenge. You fear me, it said. In spite of all you say, you fear me and what I may do.

Finvarra turned away.

"You said you were a trustworthy man," Leanna said a sudden, staying his steps. She wetted her lips. "Unless you lied, of which you said you were no liar..."

Her words echoed between them. Finvarra looked over his shoulder, long blond strands shielding his mask. He remained there, frozen in the glow of firelight dancing on the hardwood. He moved to the bedside without another word.

Leanna could have mistaken day for night by how fast the mood of the room dimmed, the air now humming with traces of chilling anticipation. Finvarra drew in a great breath and lifted the boots over the bed—

He paused and lowered them back to his sides. "Fear and trust apart, threats and hearts aside, Miss Weston, how precious is this freedom you crave?" He glanced sideways. "Do you seek but a taste of it?"

Leanna gulped, her throat dry. "A taste?"

He sighed weightily. "Our bargain is only until I am free, of which then you are released of your word. Until then, we can try and hide you— disguise you as best we can." He met her eyes evenly. "I don't have to do this."

There was a warning in those words. He said it emotionlessly, but the way he stiffened told Leanna that whatever 'this' was, most certainly was no small matter. She feared.

But then she looked to the closed door, to everything that awaited her on the other side. She gazed at her dollhouse, at her dead dreams mocking her through the small windows. She said, "Of all, I want peace, Mr. Finvarra. I'll be as much a prisoner of my thoughts, thinking that I'll be uncovered and that they'll come for me, as I will be if I stay here. I want my freedom, badly. I don't want a taste." She looked to Finvarra. "I want it forever."

The muscles in Finvarra's jaw tightened. "Very well."

Without further ceremony, Finvarra raised the black shoes over the bed and tapped them together, side by side. With each tap, small chunks of dried earth tumbled onto Leanna's white sheets, chipping away from her soles and heel. Before Leanna could utter a protest, Finvarra reached over to the vase at her bedside. Holding the lilies in place, he drained the water onto her boots, washing off the remaining dirt onto the muddy pieces.

Leanna wondered what he meant to do. Yet looking to him, to the graveness in his face, she kept to her silence.

Setting the vase and shoes aside, Finvarra plucked a strand of his hair. He dropped the luminous tress over the damp bits of earth. As it floated down, he rolled back his sleeves. The thread of hair now lying across the muddy chunks, Finvarra gathered it all into a small, insignificant mound of wetted dirt. Retracting his hands, Finvarra took one measured step back.

For a moment, nothing. Leanna frowned. How on earth was smeared mud supposed to free her?

In the void, however, Finvarra's eyes grew distant as if he chased a distant memory through the course of his veins. He whispered quiet words that swirled at his mouth as curls white, luminous smoke. It was then Leanna realized how cold the room had grown. Her heart pounded.

His words at an end, Finvarra exhaled. At once, the mound pulsed once. Again. Leanna's eyes widened as it took to a steady boil. Vapors wafted from the throbbing substance as wisps of white smoke, a foul stench filling the room.

Leanna couldn't be bothered to cover her nose. Especially not when with each pulse, the small mound unfolded and doubled, until only a long, solid matter lay in the middle of the bed. Within seconds, Leanna detected the shape of a human surfacing...of a girl—Leanna clapped a hand over her mouth. It was a replica of her!

The framework of her body complete, strands of silvery thread sprouted from the muddy figure. The silken buds intertwined creating spider webs of silver across the lifeless corpse. At once color sparked through these silvery veins, the way a slow moving flame burns at the frayed edges of a canvas. It shaded the hair with color, the face, the neck, the shoulders—

Finvarra held up a hand abruptly. It all stopped.

Leanna let out a stricken pant, not having realized she'd stopped breathing. "W-what happened?" she asked, agitated, breathless. Strange or not, that was the most magical thing she'd ever seen! "D-Did something go wrong?"

Quiet, Finvarra walked to the foot of the bed and raised the quilt to the mannequin's bare shoulders. He walked back to the bedside, and with a grin whirled a wrist. Magic resumed.

When slowly color crept down the figure's shoulders and lower, Leanna blushed fiercely, understanding the need for a quilt. After a moment, fabric flowered along the pale skin, until Leanna's exact dress covered the mannequin's naked body.

When the last of the ribbons Lydia had perfectly tied burned into existence, Finvarra stepped back coolly and appraised his work. A spellbound Leanna abandoned her chair and neared it, doing the same. She gathered her hands at her mouth, eyes brimming with wonder.

"How did you—where did you—what are you?" Leanna asked, the awe in her voice undeniable. She looked to Finvarra, who did not share in her amazement.

"I am a cursed man with dirty hands and nothing more," he said bitingly, looking down at his stained hands in disgust. Leanna tilted her chin toward the basin, where Finvarra proceeded to wash his hands, evading her question.

Abandoned by the bed, Leanna tore her gaze from Finvarra's somber figure and braved nearing her imitation. She sat on the edge of the bed, transfixed, taking in every feature that though her own, seemed so foreign. She lifted a trembling hand, trailing a finger along the pointed nose, the sunken, freckled cheeks. Dark circles cradled her eyes, and a sad, belonging expression marked her mouth as if she never smiled. Lifeless brown strands framed her face, making her seem paler, deathlike. Leanna's amazement wilted. Had her loneliness really overcome her so?

Overwhelmed by pity for herself, Leanna lowered her eyes and ran her gaze along the mannequin, along this tomb of everything she was. Sad, miserable, lifeless...

It hit her then—

"I-I can't do this..." Leanna retracted her hand to her chest and looked at Finvarra across the room. "There must be another way, surely. My Papa would think I died of sorrow, and after our argument, he would only blame himself. I couldn't bear it," Leanna lamented. "He was wrong in forcing me to marry and of what he did to my mother, but he wasn't ever a bad father." Leanna lowered her eyes. "He doesn't deserve this."

After a while, a soft exhale stole around the room. "I figured as much," Finvarra murmured lowly, staring at the lifeless figure while drying his hands. Leanna dared a glance at him. Contemplation drew a deep line on his brow. But in seeing that he wasn't angry, Leanna allowed herself a breath.

Finvarra clutched the towel tightly, his knuckles whiter than Leanna thought possible. "There is another way," he revealed quietly, troubled. "I can make it so she lives."

Hope soared within Leanna. Surely that was the way!

"But," Finvarra said, clipping her wings. "You must be certain it is what you want. As it stands now, they can think her dead, and you are free. But once I give her life, you will lose everything, Miss Weston. We must leave this place at once and never return."

A shiver trailed down Leanna's spine and scurried to her limbs. She knew there was but one reason for his concern. "Is it because of Machina?" she asked hesitantly, half expecting Finvarra to scold her for minding her business. She bit her lip in wait of the harsh response.

Finvarra set down the towel slowly. His footfalls chipped at Leanna's reserve as he walked to the bed, opposite her. He gazed down at the lifeless body, brushing a strand away from her cheek. "Machina is bound to come, eventually," he said seriously. "I can never give her what she wants. But if I grant you this freedom you desire, there will be no doubt that she will appear sooner rather than later. She will smell my magic like the beast she is, and will come for blood."

Leanna shuddered. "B-but my family, will they be in danger? Will she hurt them? No, I couldn't possibly leave them if she's to come and harm—"

"They mean nothing to me, Miss Weston," Finvarra said harshly. He lowered his hand and his voice. "Thus they're safe."

It was a simple answer that should have eased Leanna. It didn't. Finvarra thought her his Leanan Sidhe. If he thought it, surely Machina would as well. Her family was safe. But she wasn't, and wouldn't ever be. A sudden trembling took to Leanna's hands. Like it or not, there was no other way.

Leanna steeled her spine. "It will offer my Papa no solace. To think me dead will kill him. My disappearance—not knowing whatever happened, or if I'll ever return, will kill him slowly. I need you to do this, Mr. Finvarra. I need you to give her life."

Finvarra extended a blink, as if her words had wounded him. He shook his head somberly and with no further ceremony, he walked around the bed, determinedly toward Leanna.

Instinctively Leanna stood, but did not flee. Finvarra moved closer, but Leanna forced herself not to flinch. She could not fear him.

Finvarra stopped in front of her, eyes of blue fire bore into hers. "To bring her to life, I will need some of yours."

Leanna floundered. And as Finvarra lifted his hands and cradled her shoulders, bringing her closer, she froze. What did he mean to do? Surely he did not mean...mean to kiss her?

Finvarra held her, his hands an impossible mixture of gentle and firm. "Now breathe," he spoke onto Leanna's lips, noticing the war in her eyes. "I normally do these for myself, and I can simply breathe my own life into it. Since it is my magic being used for your life, I need to transfer your breath to her so she will mimic you." His hands eased, but did not release her. "It would be quite odd for your double to walk around with my voice, and my air—however charming I may be," he said, with a flicker of something settling over his eyes.

He was trying, Leanna acknowledged this, but it did not make her feel the least bit better. Distracted by the intoxicating paradox of his touch—of danger and security, impropriety and belonging, coldness and heat, she could only tremble against him.

"Cold?" Finvarra said softly, the traces of lightness in his eyes vanishing behind a darker expression—disappointment. His hands fell away from her shoulders. She feared him, and he knew this.

Staring into Finvarra's blue pools, an exhale stole from Leanna's mouth —her apology. He was trying, and so would she.

Finvarra tilted his head closer and drank in the white cloud in one slow inhale. Leanna felt the pull on her soul, in places she never knew existed. Though Finvarra was the one drinking her breath, Leanna swayed as if intoxicated on the sweet scent of vanilla on his skin. Her eyes slowly surrendered to blackness as she closed her eyes, offering a hint of her life.

Finvarra released Leanna so suddenly, that she stumbled back, breathless.

Her eyes snapped open, and she watched him walk to the bed with her breath caged in his mouth as if his own. Finvarra sat on the edge of the bed and looked down to the lifeless slab of mud draped in humanity. His gaze lingered there for a moment as if bewitched by his own creation.

Delicately cupping the figure's chin, Finvarra leaned forward and whispered soundless words against its lips, the sound lost behind his veil of hair. When Finvarra's deathly words of life ceased, the figurine's back arched with a gasp.

Leanna too gasped.

Finvarra shifted back and pressed a gentle hand to her stomach, easing her down. Her eyes remained closed, but living; the mannequin's chest rose and fell. In a quiet tenderness, he tucked the blanket further up her chin and watched her sleep.

Blinded by the sight, Leanna did not see Finvarra rise and move across the room hastily, recovering his cloak from the reading table chair. Whirling it about him, he secured it quickly and moved to the wardrobe, retrieving Leanna's carpetbag. He closed the door while turning to her. Seeing the look on Leanna's face, the door remained ajar. "Miss Weston, we must leave now."

Leanna heard the urgency in his words. She knew after such a display of magic, Machina would be coming with a vengeance. Numb, Leanna could not will herself to move. Though warmth ruled the open spaces with golden light, Leanna only trembled, staring to the girl now sleeping in her bed, in her room--in the only home she'd ever known.

Leanna's throat swelled, suddenly feeling more alone than ever. "I suppose in the end, I had to lose my life to get my freedom," she whispered as a single tear fell.

"I told you," Finvarra murmured.

"I know," was all Leanna could say.

Gazing at the sleeping figure, who though gifted with breath, had just been condemned to death by marriage, by duty, by life, Leanna whispered, "I'm so very sorry."

Leanna turned her face away from her replacement to the window, where Finvarra stood with a hand extended toward her: the culmination of his promise.

Leanna looked to the pale hand—the hand of a killer, a madman, of the infamous Ringmaster Finvarra—a cursed man, burdened with a heart. Yet now in the dark, whether it was the hand of a demon bathed in silver or of an angel draped in darkness—Leanna saw it clearly for what it was: the hand of death and freedom.

Swallowing her fear, Leanna rose and closed the distance between them. Sliding her hand into his, she let him draw her close to his side, where a breath was all that kept their hearts apart. As he'd once drawn her hands down, he led them to his chest where Leanna could feel the pulse of a man's life just beneath her fingertips.

Finvarra parted the curtains, just barely. Outside, the day had grown bright with early afternoon as the gilded treetops swayed in the passing breeze. Finvarra let out a slow breath that ruffled her hair in a like manner.

"Whatever you do, do not let go," he warned, his arm tightening around Leanna's waist. Obediently, Leanna curled her fingers into his chest.

His words died to a blur of black fabric when Finvarra whisked his cape around them to the sound of crashing lightning. Enveloped in a howling wind and the scent of vanilla, Leanna felt the ground vanish beneath her.

She never let him go.

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Thank you for reading!

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