Cassie knew that already, but it was always nice to confirm.

When they slipped into the car, garment bag in hand, Cassie’s stomach grumbled unhappily. She took a quick glance at her watch and realized it had been hours since she last ate, and that had been a sugary pastry confection, not a true meal. “Ok, next stop, dinner.”

“Next stop, the El Rey for a quick change and to pick up Ainsel. Then dinner. Ever been to the Blue Corn Café?” Brendan navigated the empty streets with ease. Everyone had left the Plaza district for home or hotel. This time of year was still quite busy for the tourist season, since the weather stayed warm and dry for the most part until mid November.

“Actually, yes, it’s quite good. Give me a chance to get some more water glasses for the house. Oh.” Cassie halted her speech and took a deep breath. “Where are we going to live?”

“Wherever you want to live, my love. It makes very little difference to me. I have lived in many, many places, and they all have their charms.”

“Well, Orion and Bootes will be fine wherever I am, it will just take a bit of adjustment to new surroundings. And as long as you have some southern exposure for the plants, everything will be fine. To tell you the truth, I’ve always wanted to live and work in Boulder, I just could never afford it.”

“That is never a problem with the Prince of the Fae, my love. Faerie gold is my specialty.” Brendan glanced at Cassie and chuckled at her astounded look. “I’m kidding, sweets, just kidding. When you’ve been around as long as I have, you have investments and caches and other things that just make it easy to make and hold on to money. I don’t truly give off gold that returns to my pocket at the end of the day. That’s for leprechauns, dirty rotten scoundrels that they are.”

Cassie looked introspective, then piped up. “Just exactly how long is ‘as long as I have’ really?” She did some calculations in her head, if Titania, his mother, knew Shakespeare four hundred some odd years ago, he could be… her thoughts stalled.

They had pulled up to a red light. Brendan turned to face Cassie and watched her mind work through the math. “How old do I look?”

“That’s not fair, you look like you’re in your late twenties or early thirties. My age.”

“Well, faeries mature slowly, and for our purposes, I am in my late twenties or early thirties. How does thirty three years old sound? Is that a good age? How old are you, anyway?”

“I’m twenty seven, but you are not getting away with changing the subject. And thirty three sounds fine, just fine.” Cassie’s forehead creased with an irritated frown.

“I’m not changing the subject. You know about dog years, where every one year to a human is seven years to a dog?”

“That’s only true for the first three or four years of a dog’s life. After that, it’s more like four dog years to one human year. They slow down. What does this have to do with…”

“Well, think of Faerie years in the opposite way. Say 10 years to a human is 1 year to a Faerie, in round figures. Except for the first twenty years, it’s more like five years human to one year Faerie.”

Cassie struggled with the math. She was not in accounting or anything, she did well enough when selling her paintings and paying her bills, but damn, this was confusing. Nearly as bad as translating Canadian Dollars into U. S. Dollars, not like she accepted Canadian dollars after that one fiasco. She decided to talk it out, since she had no paper and pencil in front of her.

“So, after one hundred human years, you matured to a twenty year old level? Or you were four years old after twenty years? I think the first makes more sense.”

“Yes, your first computation is what I meant. Except for measures in recipes and money, I’m not terribly good at math. And fractions drive me crazy. Eighths of teaspoons are just a size to me, not really a fraction, they all have compartments in my head. And I never go to sales, it’s too damn complicated, and I just prefer to pay full price rather than aggravate myself with the math. Or buy it no matter what the price is, usually.” Brendan laughed.

“Let me make this easier on you. I was born some time after Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer’s Night Dream. And just before your American Revolution. Not that politics outside the Realm are much noticed by the Fae, I just happen to love history and learned as much as I could while wandering around your beautiful country.”

“So, you’re over two hundred years old?”

“In a manner of speaking, yes. But time flows differently for my kind, well, our kind since you have some of the Blood, too. Not only for our kind, but in the Faerie realm as well. It sounds more complicated than it really is.”

“I feel like I’ve tumbled down the rabbit hole. This is so strange,” Cassie mumbled to herself. They drove in silence for the next several minutes, as Brendan took a few extra turns, allowing Cassie time to think. After they passed the El Rey for the second time, he finally spoke.

“Sweetheart? Was this too much all at once?”

Cassie tilted her head, her auburn hair spilling across her shoulder. “It is a lot to absorb,” she finally admitted. “That doesn’t mean I’m not showing up at the church tomorrow, or that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life getting to know you.” She paused. “I..” she began, then stopped. “Nevermind, I don’t want to know right now. I’ll figure it out later.”

Brendan patted her knee and finished his circuit of the block. When they reached their room, he gathered both garment bags, his had already been inside the car, since he had some extra time while she was trying on gowns, and opened their door with the flimsy key card.

They took a few minutes to shake off the dust of the day. Brendan tried to get a peek at the wedding dress, but Cassie threw her hairbrush at him. Narrowly ducking out of the way, Brendan laughed and took Cassie into his arms. He kissed her on her nose. “I can wait, my love. Well, truly, I can’t wait, but I will wait to see my beautiful bride in her stunning dress.”

“You better; we have enough trouble, what with your mother and our little secret. I hardly think we need any additional luck added to the mix, especially bad luck.”

“Good luck would be nice. But I’ve already used my allotment of luck in this life. I met you.” Cassie’s heart melted, again, at his words. She was going to have to get a less meltable heart if they were going to get anything done.