“Did…we lose?”
“Not yet.”
“If Silvus dies…I definitely lost.” She covered her face with her hands. “He told me not to use dark magic. That was the very first thing he told me. But I was so angry…”
“Magic has consequences,” I said. “But he would rather sacrifice himself than you.”
“No…!”
“It’s a bad result. If you want to recover from it, you’ll have to forgive yourself and fight another day.”
Eileen looked at me like I was being cold and went to hug her daughter. “Alissa…it’s okay to just cry. I will help you any way I can. Let me make you some tea.”
Of course, I was a practical creature. Familiars were like that. I understood human minds, but my own emotions were different. I could live in the moment. I would always protect Alissa, like all of Clan Walvis, even at the expensive of my own life. And I would stop her from doing stupid things, no matter how much she hated me for it. Familiars were not supposed to get involved with a witches’ life for a reason, I felt—I needed to remain objective. I couldn’t get attached.
But if it takes her a little longer to become a vampire and for my life to end…well, maybe I don’t mind that.
When Eileen went to make the tea, I followed her downstairs, slipping into an older form, because this was the version of me that Eileen found soothing. Where Alissa liked young people, Eileen preferred a father figure.
“I am worried about her,” I said in a low voice.
“I am too. Poor girl. Although I’m selfishly enjoying having a chance to take care of her.” She smiled sadly.
“I want to wipe her memories…”
Eileen’s head shot back up from the tins of tea. “Oh, Waldemar…that isn’t very ethical magic…”
“Not usually. But how could I do unethical magic? I can’t hurt her. It’s what I feel she needs right now. She has been through so much and she won’t forget Rayner’s clan or her sisters for a moment unless we force her to clear her mind.”
“Why didn’t you bring her sisters here? We could take care of them too. Aren’t they young still?”
“Johannes turned Carrie into a vampire.”
“Oh! Oh…”
“I could have brought the baby, but…it’s too complicated now. Alissa is going to look for them. She won’t be able to put it out of her head. And he could use Carrie to find her.”
“She will remember,” Eileen said. “Someday.”
“‘Someday’,” I repeated. “Yes. But right now, she needs peace. Time to learn magic. And we have to keep her away from them. You can finally be her mother, the way you should have been.”
She bit back tears. “I like it when you talk to me, Waldemar. I didn’t know what to do when they took her away, and I’ve missed her so much…and when you talk, I hear the years in you. You’ve always been…mysterious. Right now, it’s comforting.”
“I can’t take care of everything,” I said. “You know that. This still isn’t my world.”
“I do know that. Don’t worry. I won’t get too close, now.”
I wonder what it would be like…if this was my world.
If I allowed it to be.
The world had changed tremendously since I last had a purpose. The rules were different in so many ways. In the old world, none of these people would have talked to me, and now I couldn’t stop them from trying to talk to me. Why, even Silvus, who was old enough to know better, had scolded me for being a bad familiar! I was still annoyed about that.
I was walking on the beach, a week after we had arrived here. The village was tiny and old-fashioned, houses perched up on stilts to protect them against the tides, a handful of boats. There was electricity, and a TV for Alissa, who was blissfully enjoying a “binge watch” with her real mom.
I’d had to sedate her to get her under the hands of the wizards who wiped away her bad memories and replaced them with simple ones plucked from their own memories. She thought she had grown up here. Her memory lapses were explained with a story that she was recovering from a head injury from a fall while hiking.
And it worked.
Of course I did. I knew it would. She had been through a lot of pain and her subconsciousness was aching for this uncomplicated existence. It didn’t hurt that her mom had grown up with dreams of Lisbeth too. She wanted her daughter back. She wanted what was lost.
Now they were both happy.
If she never remembers…she’ll never become a vampire, and…we can grow old here by the sea.
I saw a girl standing down the length of the shore, barefoot and wearing a summer dress, even though it was December, blonde hair whipping around her face in the cold wind.
It was Alice and for a moment I was happy to see her, without makeup or fancy clothes, looking sort of ghostly and pure.
I don’t know why I’d be happy to see her. I wasn’t an idiot. I knew she was trying to seduce me in Hawaii, and the idea was ridiculous. I was a clan familiar who had spent more of my life in the ocean than on land, who just happened to look like a boy for this moment in time, and she was only a hundred years old, and a broody little vampire, so basically…still a kid. Even if she wasn’t as much of a kid as she appeared to be.
But the longer I looked at her, the less she looked like a kid either. She did have very old, haunted eyes and expressions no mere girl would ever have, and…well, I don’t know why I bothered to analyze it even for a minute.
We walked toward each other until we were in speaking distance. “Rayner sent me,” she said. “He wanted to know if Alissa is happy.”
“The wizards here took away her memories of everything,” I said. “And…she’s very happy. For now.”
“He thought you might do that.” She clenched her hands. “He hoped you would, actually.”
“How is the clan?” I asked, not that it should be my business, really…
“Johannes has Silvus,” Alice said. “We don’t…really know how things are until we can get into the Order and save him. I mean, he’s still alive, but that’s all Rayner can tell.”
“And Alissa’s sisters…?”
“Rayner, and all the boys, really…they’re taking really good care of them. It’s real cute, actually. You’d think Rayner had had babies before! Well, I know Thom took care of his little sisters and all. But poor Carrie. She’s having a terrible time. When you get turned, it’s just awful for the first bit, and she’s too young to deal with that. I wish I could kill Johannes myself, but Rayner told me not to get near it. He asked if I could watch over Alissa and tell them how she’s doing. From a distance, of course.”
“There’s a house for rent in the next town over,” I said, although maybe I shouldn’t have volunteered this information.
I wasn’t even sure she heard me because she suddenly covered her face with her small white hands. “I’m so scared,” she said. “I don’t know who to talk to, Waldemar. I’m just so scared.”
“Of what?” I tried to resist a protective urge. Alice wasn’t my witch.
“I’m afraid Rayner will decide to just…pass on. If Alissa doesn’t remember him…I saw his face. He knows that he’s brought her pain, and if I tell him that she’s…happy. here, and Silvus dies…” She swallowed. “I want Alissa to be happy, too. I do. I’m just really alone, and…” She looked toward the sea. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to just blab all that out.”
I looked at her for a long moment and I thought her very human pain was interesting, and it was mixed up with the lingering sense that I was happy to see her, and that was extremely strange.
I guess it had just been so long since I was around humans.
“I thought you tried to commit suicide once,” I said.
“No! I—I tried to—escape, I guess. Just for a minute. I’m actually pretty scared to die. But whenever things got dark inside my head, I would go to Rayner’s, or Ulf’s…I had places to get back on my feet. If they’re all gone, I just don’t know. And Alissa and Rayner an
d all those boys were meant to be together. This is too sad! To just give up! But maybe that’s my selfishness talking. I know Alissa would have to become a vampire, and that would kill you, and…I don’t really wish being a vampire on anyone, and I don’t wish anything on you, that’s for damn sure. I don’t know.”
“It sounds like you don’t have to decide,” I said. “Just tell Rayner the truth and he’ll have to decide for himself.”
“I guess it’s simple when you put it that way.”
“I think you should inquire about that house for rent,” I said.
“It’s difficult for me to rent a house by myself.”
“Oh. Hm. I suppose.”
“Well, you’ve seen me!”
“I wasn’t particularly thinking about how humans will see you. I’m not doing anything else…so I guess I could take on an older form and go with you.”
“Just like that, huh?”
“I’m flexible.”
“That’d be great. I’d appreciate it.”
I was about to turn into the older form that Eileen was more comfortable with, and then I stopped short.
“It’s hard to do with you watching me.”
“Oh, I can look away!” She twirled to face to other direction.
“Um…hm. Maybe…you know what? It’s probably better if I just ask Eileen to inquire about the house for you, because she probably knows the owner in the first place.”
“You don’t want to show me your grownup man form?”
“I don’t care about that. It’s just that it makes a lot more sense for Eileen to do it.”
“Well, I’m curious to see what you look like as a man.”
“This is my current form for Alissa, so…”
“I thought you were flexible.”
I am, I thought. I shouldn’t have any trouble with this. But when she was looking at me, I felt stuck. As if, when she saw me at an older age, she would…
(What?)
“I’m not here to do tricks for you, anyway. I’m going to the house to speak to Eileen and you should just wait here so Alissa doesn’t see you,” I said.
“All right, Waldemar,” she said. “I’ll wait as long as you need me to.”
Thank god I wasn’t looking at her. I think that, somehow, my expression might betray something that she would take the wrong way.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Alissa
“Mom, I could hang these up. Or could I do something to start dinner?” I cut her off before she could say anything else. “I don’t need anymore rest. I feel fine.”
I really did feel fine, but I knew the head injury must have been terrible, since the smile she gave me was always concerned, and my memories seemed extremely mixed up. Whenever I so much as took a walk around town, I knew everyone and I recognized all the houses, but I couldn’t put my memories in order. It felt like everything that had ever happened to me came all at once.
She was hanging wet sheets out to dry in the sun. The sight of them was familiar too, in a strange way. Like I remembered the clothes line being in a different spot.
“Well, if you’re that eager to get to work…but I really want you to focus on your education.”
“But it looks like you need help.”
She smiled. “Nope. Not at all. Angelique said she was making pumpkin soup when she gets home, and we already have bread…so…you just go read some books or watch PBS or something.”
“Okay. I just don’t want to seem lazy.”
“Never! You need to know your history!”
“I can’t wait for gardening season,” I said wistfully, as I walked back in, past the brown and tan seeds and brittle leaves of the herb garden in winter. “It must be because I spent the summer recovering, but I miss working in the garden so much. I wish we lived in the south.”
“I don’t. The heat! But I can do some work with you tomorrow on making herbal tinctures, okay?”
I ducked back into the house, put a couple more logs on the woodstove, and heated myself a cup of hot cocoa before turning on the television and finding a show about an empress of China. I was totally riveted by it. China sounds beautiful. It would be really cool to visit other countries someday…
Angelique was my mom’s roommate since we didn’t have much money for a place of our own, and she had a little dog who jumped up onto the couch beside me. He laid down beside me and I stroked his sturdy fur. I felt a sense of peace. Relief, almost, like I’d been running from something, and now…everything was okay.
Before I knew it, Mom was patting my arm and I jerked away from a dream.
“Dinner’s ready.”
“Oh—“
“Dreaming again?”
“I guess so.” I was dreaming about a boy, in a setting like some historical movie, an old city in the winter with everyone wearing old-fashioned clothes and a warm hand in mine. How embarrassing. I guess it was a little lonely here. With only ten families in the town, there was no one to even think about dating.
“Dinner’s ready. Waldemar brought us some mussels.”
“Ohh, they smell like heaven!” Angelique said. “Mussels with white wine and garlic are my favorite thing!”
“Waldemar, are you eating with us?”
“I suppose I will,” he said, pouring himself a glass of the leftover wine.
“Are you ever going to grow older?” I asked him, still thinking about the dream and the tall, fair man who held my hand and how excited and happy I felt at his side. Waldemar could have been a tall, fair man if he would grow up already.
“Probably not,” Waldemar said, with an aloof look. I wondered about him. He was always hanging around but he never said much about his own thoughts.
Winter seemed like it could be very long and lonely, but at least I had my family, and good food and a warm house, and…I was safe.
Spring would be wonderful.
Chapter Thirty
Silvus
“Good. You’re awake.”
I came to slowly and painfully, realizing that my arms were pulled behind me into handcuffs, and I was sitting in a wooden chair, my clothes torn and scorched, and my skin…not in much better condition.
I needed blood, but I was quite sure I wasn’t getting it anytime soon.
A wand was pressed to my breastbone and Johannes was smiling at me with sadistic pleasure, knowing perfectly well that Rayner needed me, and if he had me, it was all over.
The sense of failure that washed over me, of knowing I was putting everyone I loved in danger when we were so close to tasting true happiness…
No, Silvus. You didn’t chase your beloved girl around the world to please the man you love, to bring them together and share in their joy, for the past four hundred plus years, to give up now.
“You would do anything to save Alissa…wouldn’t you?” Johannes said.
“Of course I would,” I said.
“That’s unfortunate for you. If only you were a little more selfish, I could use you. But right now, your wicked magic is just another thing that might stand in my way. And as a servant of Etherium, and a priest of the Order, it is my duty to purge you of the demon inside you. Silvus, it is better to die in the light than to live in the dark, wouldn’t you agree? Inimicos nostros…”
He claimed that he was the light, but I knew he was a liar. Every word out of his mouth sounded heavy with evil, and again I wondered how it was that he could be welcomed into Etherium while I was banished.
Magic jolted from his wand, burning me from within, and although I tried to resist, there was nowhere to go.
So this is purification…! This is what he has been doing even to his own people…
I tried to hold back my screams, as the spell ripped through me, but in the end, the pain was so great that I didn’t even know if I succeeded.
Rayner…Meg…
Forgive me…
**
…”forgive me!” says the author, just like Silvus, because I know this is cliffhanger city, but
you know what my mood is right now? Just survive the great 2020 Quarantine of Doom. It’s been hard to write or focus, but I managed to get words on paper anyway, and that ain’t nothin’ right now! I hope that before long you will all be reading this note like “Oh man, remember that weird time we have all practically forgotten, because we are out at a restaurant again?”
Still, one thing remains the same, I love my characters and they help me sleep at night. I’ve been having a lot of worries, but thinking about vampires in Hawaii and Thom taking care of a baby and what sort of weird dates Alice is going to rope Waldemar into in Nova Scotia, all these things give me something else to think about, and I hope they gave you a moment of escape too. I’ll be working on book three and also on a new, more light-hearted series called Paranormal House Flippers, which is also set in the same paranormal universe as this trilogy, as well as Charlotte and Daisy’s stories.
The final book of Alissa’s story, Kill Me Softly, is available for preorder now and so is book one of Helena’s house flipping adventures, Demons in the Bedroom.
Enjoy, and I hope you are all safe and well and happy, and as always, come see me at my Facebook group!
More Romantic Fantasy from Lidiya!
Forever in Their Thrall
Book One: Take Me Slowly
Book Two: Love Me Madly
Book Three: Kill Me Softly
A Witch Among Warlocks
Prequel: The Wild-Eyed Boys
Book One: The Fairer Hex
Book Two: Boys Over Powers
Book Three: A Fine Necromance
Book Four: Battle of the Hexes
Available in audio!
Finishing School for Faery Brides
Book One: Fae Sworn
Book One: Fae Tempted
Book Three: Fae Bound
Paranormal House Flippers
Book One: Demons in the Bedroom (coming soon!)
Love Me Madly Page 22