Casey swallowed past the lump that threatened to rise in his throat.  It still twisted him to remember.  The hand that slipped into his was a tether however.  A tie to all that was good, and light in the world.  He searched her eyes.  She was uncomfortable, but she was there.  For him.<br/><br/>"Annie and I were in love.  Madly in love.  The passion of youth."  He quirked an apologetic smile.  It couldn't be easy to hear about your partner's exes.  "We had our special, secret world.  A little piece of no-man's land in the Otherworld.  Nobody came there.  In all our juvenile wisdom, we thought we were clever.  We left a ward so small so diaphanous that not even the Sidhe should have been able to feel it.  Something to let us know when magic had been through our sanctum.  Anything stronger, and we'd have brought the courts down on our heads.  Well,"  His smile slipped.<br/><br/>"One hot, summer's night when we were seventeen, we went back.  What we didn't know was that the Sidhe had started up another war.  Given the time of year, the Seelie were winning it.  No-man's-land had moved.  We were in the middle of the Summer's frontline.  Annie opened the portal back straight away, and we ran for it.  Her hand was in mine.  I made it through.  She was hot on my heels, and then..."  The letter fell from his hand to the floor, and he gestured with his now-empty palm.  "Something pulled her back.  Right out of my hands.  The portal closed."<br/><br/>His eyes turned down to Evelyn's hand, and his own tightened around it, as if determined not to let the same thing happen again.  "I went to my father straight-away, and an envoy was sent to the courts.  I was in a world of trouble, but the council kept it quiet.  War time for the Sidhe is a bad time to put misbehaving wizards in the spotlight.  When the envoy came back, we were told that Annie was being held as a possible spy, and would remain as a prisoner of war until such a time as her very literal trespasses against the Seelie court had been repaid.  Her family moved further south, and tried opening up negotiations with the Seelie, but dealing with the Sidhe always draws too steep a price.  No accord could be reached.  At least...  Not for the last seven or so years.  That she could send me this..."  He trailed off.  "It either means she's free, or that the Seelie want something from me."