She looked at him. “It wasn’t a miracle,” she disputed. “Miracles are big things that happen to deserving people.”

“And you’re not deserving?”

“That’s not the point. God wouldn’t trouble himself with small cuts on my feet. He has much more important things to worry about.”

Daar harrumphed and scrubbed his face with his hands again, shaking his head. He finally looked at her, his expression confounded. “The whole world is still sitting out there, Mercedes, just beyond those trees,” he said, pointing at where Faol and Morgan had disappeared. “Your valley, your mother and Callum, your two simple-minded friends, and the man who shot you. All are still there, all still waiting for you.”

Sadie looked toward the trees. She hadn’t even thought about trying to leave. “Then, if I’

m not really dead, will my scars return if I leave here?” she whispered. “Will I be ugly again?”

“Ya can’t be what you never were,” Daar snapped. He blew out a tired breath. “But no, the scars are gone for good.” He frowned. “Which will be hard to explain to your mother, I’m guessing. She’s a modern, too, and won’t be able to understand any better than you can.”

“What do you mean, ‘a modern’? You say that as if you and Morgan are ancient or something. And Morgan’s not in the military. So why did you call him a warrior?”

Daar kneaded the back of his neck and finished by scratching his beard. “Because that’s what he is. Or, rather, what he was,” he said. “I had a little mishap with the magic six years ago and brought Morgan eight hundred years forward in time.”

“Youwhat?”

He frowned at her incredulousness. “I made a mistake,” he said, lifting his hairy-white chin. “I was only wanting to bring Morgan’s brother, Greylen, forward, but nine other men came with him, including Callum and Ian and Morgan. And MacBain,” he added with a scowl.

“Callum?” Sadie squeaked. “Are you saying the man my mother is going to marry is like… like Morgan? That he’s old… and also a warrior?” Sadie scrambled to her feet and balled her hands into fists. “What are you saying?” she shouted.

Father Daar lifted his cane into the air and began muttering words softly to himself again. Sadie’s eyes widened as she saw the cane grow to nearly double its size and start to hum with gentle vibrations.

“Take hold of this, Mercedes,” Daar said, holding it out to her. “If ya want to understand, hold this, and I’ll show you.”

She stepped back. “No.”

“Aw, come on, girl,” he cajoled. “Where’s your spirit of adventure? Do ya not want to know who your husband truly is?”

She didn’t understand any of this. What he was saying was impossible. But her scars were gone, she was in a veritable rain forest that shouldn’t exist anywhere near Maine, and the old priest’s cane was now glowing like a finger of lightning.

Hesitantly, but with more curiosity than fear, Sadie reached out and took hold of the surprisingly cool cane.

Light entered her head, flashes of brilliance that should have blinded her. But she was able to see something slowly appear in her mind’s eye. A scene out of a picture book.

Men on horseback, carrying swords and dressed strangely. Actually, some of the men were naked. They were fighting a mighty battle.

She could smell the dust being kicked up by the trampling feet of the horses. She could hear the clash of the swords striking each other. Sadie immediately recognized Morgan.

And Callum. She could see Callum trying to unseat a man whose face was covered in paint. Lightning flashed over their heads. Thunder boomed. The very air around them became charged with the energy of a quickly descending storm.

A torrential rain suddenly blanketed the chaos, darkening her vision. There was an intense explosion of light, the detonation making Sadie flinch in surprise. She tightened her grip on the priest’s cane. Suddenly, there was only silent white light as pure as the center of the sun, muted spectrums of color shading the edges.

The men reappeared, no longer fighting but scattered in dazed disarray on an earth that was the same but different. It was more lush. Greener. There were buildings. Cars and trucks were zooming by.

Sadie looked for Morgan. He was first holding his head, covering his eyes with his hands, then suddenly patting his body as if he didn’t believe he existed. She cried out at the fear she saw on his face, the confusion, the very terror of what had happened to him.

Horses lay scattered around the men, dazed with terror and screaming, trying to stand.

Sadie watched Morgan run to one of them and recognized the horse he’d been riding the first day she’d met him.

“What’s its name?” she softly asked the priest standing and watching beside her in her mind’s eye.

“Gràdhag,” Daar answered. “It means ‘pet.’”

Sadie let go of the cane and stepped back. The vision left as mysteriously as it had come.

She turned and stared out over the still shimmering pool made by the waterfall.

“That’s why Morgan is afraid of thunderstorms,” she said. “He was caught in one and ripped from his home and brought… brought here.”

“Aye. He did not care for the journey,” Father Daar said from right beside her, also looking out at the waterfall. “Nor has he cared much for the new life he’s found himself living.”

He took hold of her shoulder and gently turned her to face him. “Until now, child. He’s found you, Mercedes. And he’s not going to let anything come between the two of you.

Not my magic, not the blackness visiting this valley, not even your own inability to believe. He’s said his vows before God and man and claimed you as his. You belong to each other now. So accept what I have shown you for the gift that it is.”

“Morgan called youdrùidh. What does that mean? Who are you?”

“I’m what your modern language would call a wizard, and I’m nearly fifteen hundred years old.”

“A wizard?” she repeated, taking a step back.

He frowned at her. “And a priest,” he said defensively. “And a hungry one at that,” he tacked on, looking toward where the pool spilled into the valley. He walked back to the fire and sat down again, working it back into flames.

Sadie stared at the cane he used as a poker. What he was saying, what she had just seen, it was… it was the stuff of fantasies and ancient legends that continued to survive despite modern science explaining it away.

But science couldn’t explain her missing scars or the very fact that she was alive right now. And neither could she. Her dead theory made more sense, but she hoped with all her heart that she was alive. She had a new baby sister coming soon, and she wanted to be here when she was born. She wanted to see her mother get married. She wanted to have babies of her own.

So, yes. She wanted to believe in the magic.

Morgan stepped through the towering trees just then and stopped and stared at her.

There were several trout hanging from his belt, his sword was still on his back, and if she looked hard enough, she could see that same warrior from the vision the priest had given her.

And Sadie knew then, no matter what means had brought them together, that she loved Morgan.

She launched herself into his arms, breaking into overjoyed laughter, confident that he would catch her and hold her safe—forever.

“We’re alive, Morgan.” She laughed into his startled face, which she couldn’t stop kissing over and over. “Wonderfully alive, thanks to a wizard’s magic.”

He held her so tightly that her last words were squeaked rather than spoken. He buried his face in her neck, his whole body trembling with what she suspected was relief.

“I swear you two spend more time cuddling than looking to practical matters,” Father Daar called from the fire. “Ya have a lifetime for that foolishness, Morgan. I want my supper.”

Still crushing her tightly to him, Morgan carried her over to the fire and set her down by the priest. He tore the trout from his belt and tossed them at Father Daar’s feet.