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Corinn and Elsseran are badgered into spending a year in Umbria, which Corinn hates. Elsseran doesn't mind; she finds it interesting, especially since she'd always had a private worry that Corinn was ashamed of her, and that was why he wouldn't introduce her to his family. She's introduced by name only -- no one mentions her species, and she's always in human form while they go out in public in Umbria -- so nobody quite realizes Corinn's wife is a fairy. While she finds this a bit frustrating, she prefers this to the widespread shunning they know would happen otherwise.
After Tilia and Corinn get into a particularly huge fight, he storms out of the castle and announces he's not going to come back, ever again. Tilia assumes he is exaggerating, but he packs his bags that night and tells his wife they're moving to her country before morning. She's taken aback, to say the least, but she packs up quickly and follows him to go spend a year with her family. Corinn has no fairy form, so in her own country, there is no way to avoid people noticing their mixed-species marriage. Her family barely notices or cares, but a lot of strangers give them lots of grief about it. At last, Elsseran determines that she really isn't any happier here than Corinn was in his home country, and the best answer really is to return to the world they had adopted when they ran off to get married. They return back to their empty house (they never sold it, as they'd never planned to leave it permanently), and settle back into their old lives happily. Their neighbors continue to be oblivious to the fact that one of them isn't human, but as magic becomes more widespread, Corinn starts using his magic openly. He considers it a hilarious triumph when one of their neighbors asks if he'd be willing to give her ten-year-old son magic lessons. |