Copper Veins (2 page)

“We have the makings of a feast,” I said, gesturing at the banquet the silverkin had assembled. The setup was reminiscent of the Beltane celebration Micah and I had hosted a few weeks back, with long wooden tables set up in the gardens and piled high with food and drink. Already the residents of the Whistling Dell were arriving, bringing along gifts of food and wine
and who knew what else. Really, around here it could be anything. “Would you… are you hungry, Dad?”

“I am,” he admitted, releasing Sadie and Mom so he could slip an arm around my shoulders, “and even though I missed my daughter's wedding, at least I am able to be here and celebrate it with all of you.”

I leaned my head on Dad's shoulder, and we walked out to the gardens together. Yes, this was without a doubt the very best day of my life.

Micah's and my wedding reception was unusual, to say the least. Don't get me wrong, it was wonderful in every sense of the word. I truly was the luckiest girl in any realm, given that Micah had broken Otherworldly tradition and married me before I had borne him an heir. I loved him for that, for his willingness to compromise for me, for just being himself. When you got right down to it, I just loved Micah for being Micah, my silver elf.

My silver elf
husband
.

However, unlike most brides on their wedding day, most of my attention was captured by another man—my father, the legendary resistance leader. When our own government had declared war on magic and sent forces of Peacekeepers to implant trackers in
Elementals' arms in an attempt to catalog us like animals in a zoo, my father had been called up by the war mages. He'd kissed me (then seven years old) and the rest of his family goodbye, and that was the last time I saw him.

Now, he was seated across from Micah and me, between Sadie and Mom, and was focused almost entirely on my sister. Figures. The little one always gets all the attention.

“Sara,” Dad said suddenly as if he were telepathic. He fixed his gaze on me, and I saw that his eyes were green like mine, not the pale coppery hues of Sadie and Max's. I'd forgotten about that. “Tell me about your new husband. Where did you two meet?”

My face grew so hot I worried I'd boil the wine, but Micah didn't miss a beat. “Sara pulled me into her dream,” he replied, thankfully leaving out the part about me not wearing any underwear. “Her power was so strong, I couldn't resist her. Then I learned that she was a metal Elemental, like me, and I knew that we were meant to meet.”

“Another Dreamwalker,” Dad murmured. His quiet shock surprised me. Shouldn't he have known that? Then again, he hadn't seen me for sixteen years. I doubt I'd done much dreamwalking when I was seven. “Are you a Dreamwalker as well?” he asked Sadie.

“I've never tried,” she replied. “My dreams are calm. I don't think I go anywhere in them.” Knowing Sadie,
she had action-packed dreams about shelving books in an endless library or diagramming sentences.

“I never knew, either, until Micah popped up,” I said. “I didn't even realize I was calling him until we shared a second dream.” I gazed into Micah's silver eyes, remembering how he had appeared in my room, first as a dream but then in his waking form. I wondered what else would have happened that night if we hadn't been interrupted by my fake best friend, Juliana.

“And how long ago were these dreams?” Dad prompted.

“Four, maybe five months ago?” I said, almost unsure. I'd had a hard time keeping track of time since coming to the Otherworld, especially since the death of Old Stoney. Micah had been so gravely injured during that fight, my sole concern had been his wellbeing, not ticking off days on a calendar.

“And you've married him already?” Dad demanded. My gaze jumped from my husband to my father—his disapproving tone turned my blood to ice.

“Now Beau,” Mom interjected, “that's far longer than we'd known each other when we escaped the
brugh
.” I silently sent my thanks to Mom while the furrow between Dad's brows deepened. “Don't tell me you've forgotten what it's like to be young and in love?”

Dad sighed, drained his wineglass, and set it on the table. A silverkin refilled it in an instant. “I feel like
I've forgotten so many things,” he mumbled, swirling the liquid in its glass. “Not the least of which is how to be a father.”

“I assume you have been in hiding since the wars ended?” Micah asked.

After staring at him for a few moments, Dad nodded.

“Were you in this realm, or the Mundane world?”

“Mostly here,” Dad answered. “In the beginning I traveled between the two as my business warranted, but the Peacekeepers kept sniffing out my portals. For the last few years I've stayed in the Otherworld.”

“Business?” Mom asked. “You had business that brought you to the Mundane realm up until a few years ago?” What she left out was that he had never found the time to visit us, or even send a message letting us know he was still alive. Her tone and crushed expression made that all too plain.

“Maeve, I couldn't risk it.” He took her hands in his, lightly squeezing her fingers. “If I'd contacted you and the Peacekeepers had learned of it, they would have arrested you and the girls. I couldn't risk that, not after what happened to Max.”

“You knew I was in the Institute?” Max piped up, the first time he'd spoken since we sat.

“Who do you think rounded up iron warriors to break you out?” Dad replied. “Forgive me, son, for not planning that better.”

“Is that how The Iron Queen captured you?” I said,
remembering how Old Stoney had taunted us just before Micah killed him. Just before Micah almost died.

“Yes,” Dad replied. “She turned me over to the Peacekeepers in charge of the Institute, but I managed to escape.” Dad looked down. “I… I did not want to leave you, Max, but I had to seize the opportunity. I was no good to you locked away.”

“S'alright,” Max said, leaning back with a grin. “Sara sprung me.”

“And Micah,” I said. Call me middle-child, but everyone seemed to be forgetting about Micah, and it was his wedding day, too. “I couldn't have done it without Micah.”

“Yeah, Sara nearly got captured herself,” Max said, as if he'd been a credible witness to my first botched, deliberate dreamwalking attempt. At the time he'd been nothing more than a drugged-up lab rat. “Good thing Micah talked some sense into her or we'd both still be there.”

I scowled at Max, but before I could fire off a witty comment, Micah asked, “So, Baudoin, why now?”

Dad blinked. “Now?”

“Why return to your family now?” Micah picked up his wineglass and gestured to our entire family. “Even if you did not know the specifics of the Institute's fall, surely you knew that it was destroyed some months ago. Why did you not investigate the site, if for nothing more than to learn if your son still
lived?”

“I did investigate,” Dad said, his ears getting a little red around the edges. “When I learned that Max had escaped, I came out of hiding and returned to the Mundane world. Eventually, my contacts pointed me here.”

Mom made a strangled noise. “You left this world just as we arrived, and it's taken you this long to show your face?” she demanded. “A simple message would have been enough—no, it would have been more than enough. It would have given us hope.”

Dad turned to her and grasped her hands. “Maeve, it is no longer a simple matter for me to travel to and from the Mundane world,” he said. “Every Peacekeeper knows to look for me.”

I nodded. “Our images are playing on vid chips all over the place,” I said. Well, I'd only seen them playing in the Promenade Market, but I assumed there were other places, too, and maybe a few wanted posters in post offices and such. “Micah had to glamour us so we could get married.”

“Micah,” Dad murmured. “You almost don't need me with him around.”

“That's not true,” Mom said softly. “We've always needed you.”

Conversation died down after that, what with Dad mostly talking to Sadie, Max's quiet satisfaction with Dad's botched jailbreak, and Mom gazing contentedly at her husband. As for me and my husband, we were
making plans of our own.

“A copper staircase?” I asked. I hadn't forgotten about Micah's promise to let me add a few copper accents to the Silverstrand manor. “A swirling spiral one, three stories tall?”

“And where will this staircase lead?” Micah indulged.

“Maybe to Sadie's library. Can the bookshelves be copper?”

“Anything you like can be copper,” Micah said, kissing my temple. “This is our home, Lady Silverstrand. It should reflect you as well as me.”

Lady Silverstrand
. I suddenly had the urge to take Micah upstairs and make him repeat those words over and over, and after I fell asleep in his arms to whisper them to me in my dreams. Before I could figure out a way to classily demand he take me to bed
now
(Right then I'd have traded dreamwalking for telepathy in a heartbeat), Dad shoved back from the table.

“Max,” he said, “Walk with me.”

Max snapped to attention, and without another word, the two strode off toward the orchards. Mom stared forlornly after them, but didn't follow.

“All he did was interrogate me,” Sadie murmured.

“He just wants to get to know you,” I said, trying to soothe her.

“No,” Sadie said, shaking her head. “He didn't ask any questions about me. He asked about my power,
how I'd used it, if anyone at school had ever realized that I was the Inheritor. He asked me who my college professors were, but nothing about me.”

I pursed my lips, not wanting to agree with her. Yeah, Dad had been a bit distant, but he had been gone for a long, long time.
Shouldn't we cut him some slack?

“Beau has changed,” Mom said, her eyes shining. “War…changes people.”

“That it does,” Micah murmured.

And not always for the better
.

Dimly, I heard my name being whispered. My eyes opened, and I saw Micah sitting next to me. “Hey.”

“And hey to you,” he said. I realized that I was lying on the vine couch in the sitting room. I also noticed the faint glimmer in Micah's eyes, which meant only one thing.

“You're dreamwalking?” I asked as I sat up. My physical body was indeed asleep on the couch. I remembered our wedding feast, then Dad walking off with Max, and Mom going to bed alone. Micah and I had tried to go to bed, too, but Sadie wanted to talk about Dad's return, about how she couldn't look at this copper-haired man and accept that he was her father. I understood her trepidation—I could hardly remember him myself, but at least I had a few real
memories.

Sadie and I had eventually holed up on the couch, and Micah had given us our privacy. After a time, the silverkin had brought us cocoa and a few blankets. I didn't even remember falling asleep.

“I am,” Micah replied, tucking a stray piece of hair behind my ear.

“Where are you?” I asked. In an instant, we were in our bedroom, Micah's physical body tangled in the sheets.

“We're sleeping apart on our wedding night?” My dreamself had always been a bit slower than my wakeful self.

“I couldn't bear to wake you,” Micah murmured, caressing my cheek. “You looked so peaceful, I thought it best to leave you be.”

“You could have carried me up here,” I said, pouting.

“Not without waking Sadie.” He pulled me to the bed. “You had a very hectic day. I would rather you were rested for our first time.”

“It won't be our first time.”

“As husband and wife it will.” Micah tilted my chin up to his. “My Sara, you make me so very happy. I only wish to make you happy in return.”

“What about now?” I asked, looking at him through my lashes.

“No,” he replied, shaking his head. “It should be with our wakeful forms. I… regret the circumstances
surrounding the first time I loved you.”

“You didn't like it?” I asked, my heart fluttering to the floor.

“On the contrary,” he murmured, his long fingers stroking my collarbone. “I can hardly put into words how wonderful it was.”

“Really?” He couldn't be serious. “But—”

“But,” he said over me, “my wife deserves more than a dirt floor and a meager fire. I wish to make up for that now.”

“None of that mattered,” I said, gripping his hand. “Only you mattered.” He kissed me then, and wouldn't you know it, my dreamself yawned right into his mouth.

“I guess I really am tired,” I apologized. Micah kissed my forehead before settling our dreamselves alongside his body.

“In the morning, I will fetch you,” he promised, pulling a blanket across us and snuggling me close. “Then we shall spend the day in this room, ignoring the outside world.” I smiled at that—a whole day of nothing but Micah was like winning the Otherworldly lottery.

“How come our dreamselves can walk through walls and lie on beds?” I asked with a yawn. “And why doesn't the blanket fall through us?”

“Sleep, love,” Micah murmured.

“But I want to know.”

“Tomorrow,” he murmured. “Tomorrow, we can
talk of dreamwalking all day, if you like.”

I snuggled against him, tucking my head beneath his chin. Before I could offer up another witty retort, I was asleep.