Phoenix Falling

by Laura Bickle

  “Thank you,” she said, a tear dribbling down her nose. The roots delicately touched her nose, and then withdrew.

  Shouting echoed downstream. Gingerly, she and Sig walked along the pebbled beach until she saw Gabe’s shining eyes. Her heart leaped into her throat to see him. He was alive. His arms were around her in an instant, and she shrieked in pain.

  He thrust her hair back from her shoulder. “You’ve been shot.”

  She wrinkled her nose at the smell of burned flesh. “And you’ve been burned.” She placed her good hand on his cheek, once dark with stubble and now dark with smeared ash. He was a mess, looking as if he’d crawled out from beneath a burning building.

  “I’ll heal,” he said dismissively. “Let’s get you to the hospital.”

  “Did you catch the phoenix in the mirror?”

  “Not the phoenix . . . I caught the toad that ate the phoenix.” He wrapped an arm around her waist as he explained the fight. They limped toward the mouth of the tunnel, Sig trotting in the lead. Rain poured in sheets into the river beyond the grate, and it was the sweetest sound Petra had heard in weeks.

  “I sent the toad to you. Told him where the Hanged Men were buried,” she said.

  Gabe’s face split into a smile. “Thank you.”

  She reached into her pocket and pulled out the stone. “And the Lunaria gave me this.”

  He froze when he saw it. He gently plucked it from her hand with blackened fingers and stared at it in wonder.

  “It’s an emerald,” Petra said as they crossed into the world above and slowly climbed the hillock. Cool rain dripped down her reddened face and over her shoulder. It felt delicious, like the sky had opened up and brought a blessing to Temperance.

  “It’s more than that,” Gabe said, holding it up in the rain to inspect it. “It’s the beginning and the end of all magic. It’s wealth and immortality. It’s the key that will allow me to leave the tree forever.”

  Petra gazed up at the stone, confused.

  He kissed Petra while the rain pelted them. Sig chose this moment to pee on the Tree of Life. Petra swore that the tree sighed in irritation.

  Smiling, he said, “Don’t you understand? It’s the culmination of the Great Work,” he murmured against her lips.

  She shook her head, still confused.

  “It’s the Philosopher’s Stone.”

  She blinked. That thing that alchemists had been chasing since the beginning of time . . .

  “I didn’t think it was real,” she blurted. “And if it was, why wouldn’t it be some metaphorical thing that would need to be chased down and restrained?”

  Gabe laughed. “After everything you’ve seen . . . you doubt magic in the world?”

  She turned her face up to the rain. “No. I don’t.”

  He pressed the stone back into her hand. “And it’s now yours.”

  Chapter 22

  Ever After

  The wolf walked through the field, feeling the warmth of early spring seeping into her coarse winter coat. The cool, dark earth was splitting open, shoots of new green grass soft against her paws. It had been a hard several months, but the sun was turning, and with it, so did the world.

  The wolf stretched, luxuriating in the feeling of her supple muscles and strong bones. She had worn the body of a human woman for long enough. Months after the fire, after the evacuation and return to the reservation, Nine had told Maria, Petra, and the Raven King of her decision to return to her life as a wolf. There had been tears, but also understanding.

  The three women and Coyote hiked to the edge of the pack’s autumn range with supplies and set up camp. After marshmallows, drinking, and the rise of a fat harvest moon, Nine swallowed the stone the Toad God had given her.

  Part of her was afraid that, as much as he’d expressed his appreciation for the bones and blood, he was still an evil being, and there was mischief in the stone. Or, since the Toad God was gone, the magic wouldn’t work. And for a while, she believed the former was true, while the latter definitely was not. Because the stone burned when she swallowed it, flaming through her belly and crackling through her bones. She curled in on herself as Maria and Petra held her, with Coyote at her feet. It took three days, three days of excruciating pain as bone and muscle reknit. Three days of soothing murmurs, water poured into her mouth, and cool cloths pressed to her neck. But this is what the Toad God had promised, and though it was the god of decay, it didn’t lie. And as the hours ticked by, the pack, summoned by her howling, gathered at the edge of the campsite. When it was done, Nine stood up on four wobbly wolf feet. Coyote touched his nose to hers, and smiled. She gathered her strength, turned, and walked away to join the waiting pack.

  The wolves received her as if she’d never left. She slept a deep, dreamless sleep that night in a tangle of legs and tails and fur. But there was one change—she was no longer the omega wolf. They remembered her, remembered her actions as a human woman. She did not eat first, but she ate after the pups did, now. She was not the alpha. But she had proven herself.

  When she woke up, she walked at the edge of Temperance, through the field where Petra’s trailer once stood. The metal shell had been hauled away, and a gravel drive simply ended in new grass.

  She continued trotting down the road to the town. Temperance had come out of its winter slumber. The Compostela, as always, stood. Lev was sweeping dust from the back door into the alley. She knew that he had begun drawings, detailed architectural renderings of how the town might be reconstructed. The man had an uncanny knowledge of structures, of what was pleasing to the eye and touch using materials at hand. It was as if he spoke with the land to ask what wanted to grow there, like a plant or a tree. To him, buildings were as much living things as the grass.

  Nine paused at the entrance to the alley and Lev beckoned to her. He went inside, and she waited. He came back with a paper plate full of cheeseburgers that he laid beside the door. Nine shyly gobbled them down.

  Lev nodded at her, leaning on his broom, and she went on her way.

  Across the street, Bear’s Gas ’n’ Go was bustling. The gas station had been rebuilt in the fall; Bear had kept the place well insured. He was now the only gas station for miles around, and he was doing a good business with his deli and gift shop, a new building designed by Lev that was full of salvage glass and bricks from a ruined house. There had been talk of him opening up a second location near the reservation, but for now he was too busy. He stood in the parking lot today, offering a stuffed bear to a little girl whose parents were checking the kayaks on the roof of their vehicle. The little girl grabbed the bear and hugged it to her chest.

  The post office had been rebuilt, and the hardware store would be ready to reopen soon with a beautiful copper roof that Lev had talked them into. The pawnshop had closed, and Stan had decided to move to Florida. Stan’s daughter was in the process of developing the land with the intent of opening a small sporting goods store. New structures were going up. One was rumored to be an inn, another a Laundromat. Nine was certain that Temperance would never become a true tourist hot spot, but the flow of tourists brought money and prosperity to the place for now, and there was optimism in the air.

  Nine continued on, circling back to Yellowstone. Lodgepole pine had burned to black fingers reaching up to the sky. Some had fallen over autumn and winter, but the ash and burned debris had provided rich soil for new saplings to grow. She wove around tiny trees planted by the Forest Service. Others had come on their own, pinecones blossoming from the heat. The new pine needles caressed her fur as she passed by.

  She walked, smelling the rich earth, crossing streams and grassy fields. White spring beauty flowers popped up in areas of sun, and wild strawberry curled underfoot. Yellow violets prickled in pockets of shade, where fawns drowsed with their mothers. Squirrels dug into the loose ground, searching for forgotten treasures.

  She reached the reservation in late afternoon. The fire had not reached here, though the people had been evacuated. The r
ain that had swept through the land damped down the fire, and the trenches that the residents dug held. She walked past Maria’s house, trotting up to her porch. She nosed the doorbell. No one answered, but Pearl perched in a window. Nine smeared her nose on the glass to tease Pearl and tell Maria that she’d been visiting. Pearl pressed her head to the window, as if she could touch Nine through the glass.

  She continued on, moving through the reservation to the land that had once been the Rutherford Ranch. Maria’s tribe had long disputed the Rutherfords’ claim to a strip of land in the ranch’s back forty. Those fences were now gone. Owen Rutherford, in a surprising act of magnanimity, had signed papers that turned over the back half of the ranch to the tribe. He hadn’t done it in person, though—Owen had disappeared with a prisoner, and his burned SUV had been found a month after the fire. Rumors were that the prisoner had killed him, ditched the body in a well, and then been killed in the fire. After his death was confirmed, Owen’s lawyers executed his will, to the utter shock of the tribe.

  With Owen gone, a new sheriff had been elected, a woman who had worked as one of his lieutenants, and she’d been cleaning house. Fully half the force were new hires, and there had been a number of firings and forced retirements.

  As with Temperance itself, the sheriff’s department was looking toward a newer, brighter future.

  Nine trotted on, and the land that had been given to the tribe now saw buffalo meandering through the fields. Grasses had been coming up, providing forage. With the possession of new grazing land, the tribe had sought to revitalize the ranch with a buffalo herd of their own. The herd was small now, but it would grow.

  Nine crossed into the land that still belonged to the ranch. There was no fence here, but it still felt different from the reservation. And part of that was because it was no longer the Rutherford Ranch. It had been renamed.

  It was the Firetree Ranch now.

  She continued on, to where the house had stood. Now all that was left was the foundation, the structure having burned to the ground. A new house was going up, but it was not the grand eyesore that had been there before. It was a small cabin, nearly finished. A dark-haired man worked at planing logs with a hatchet. Nine trotted up to him.

  The Raven King paused, wiping sweat from his brow. He knelt before her and stroked her ruff. “Nine. It’s good to see you.”

  Nine’s lips parted and her tongue lolled out.

  “What do you think? It’s coming along.”

  Nine looked past him at the cabin. This was the Raven King’s dream house. Owen had left the rest of the ranch to him. And he was starting over, the ruler of this kingdom.

  A truck tooled past, full of men, and parked. They piled out of the truck, chattering with each other. They brought with them tools, jokes, and a case of beer. They greeted the Raven King and Nine cheerfully, clapping backs and slapping hats on their heads to get to work.

  These were the Hanged Men. But they were no longer the Hanged Men. They were Michael and Patrick, Connor, Bishop, Matthew, and Jonathan. Through the power of the Philospher’s Stone, they had been revived. There had been more than two dozen men granted new lives. Some had gone away to seek their fortunes elsewhere. Some stayed, and they worked the ranch with the Raven King.

  She was glad to see the Raven King had his own pack once again.

  An excited yip sounded behind Nine. She turned and was tackled by Coyote. She rolled on the ground with Coyote, play-nipping and fighting with him. He was always happy to see her. Today, he smelled of bacon. She pressed her nose to his belly and inhaled. He grinned at her and wagged his tail. The bacon was gone, and he wasn’t sharing.

  Maria’s SUV crunched down the gravel drive. Coyote bounded up to see Mike and Maria climbing out. Mike had two bags of sandwiches from Bear’s deli. Coyote lunged for a bag, succeeded in tearing it away from him, and spilled sandwiches on the ground. Coyote snagged a sandwich and trotted off to the newly-constructed barn with Mike chasing him.

  Maria knelt down to gaze into Nine’s eyes. “I hope you are well, my sister.” It took a little doing for Maria to kneel down; she was heavily pregnant now with Mike’s child. Nine snooted her cheek. She hoped she would be able to see the baby someday.

  As the human chatter grew too much, Nine withdrew. She knew she had her feet in two worlds, but she tried to keep her visits short. She was a wolf, and there was no sense longing too much for what she’d left behind.

  She turned to go back the way she’d come, toward the Tree of Life. Coyote came with her, his belly round with devoured stolen snacks. The sun kissed the horizon, painting the ranch in shades of false fire. The Tree of Life had survived the winter through careful pruning and heavy fertilization in the fall. Green buds studded the branches. The river that ran beneath the tree burbled peacefully, and a buffalo drank from the creek below.

  A woman stood before the tree. Coyote ran up to Petra. She was standing before a flat stone that she’d set near the tree, one that had been inscribed with her father’s name. Nine had seen her here often, and kept her distance. Grief was a complicated emotion, especially in the face of so much new life, and Nine tried to respect that.

  Petra turned. “Nine.” She smiled, squatted, and put out her hand. Nine pressed her nose into it and whined.

  “I’m okay,” she said. “It’s all so different, you know?” Her hand slid up to her neck. Where she’d once worn a pendant depicting a lion devouring the sun, she now wore an emerald. Nine could feel the power of that emerald from here, how it hummed like a living thing. Her old necklace had been set into her father’s gravestone. Though the Hanged Men had been restored, Joseph Dee could not be. He was in the light, and like time, the Philosopher’s Stone could not overcome it.

  Nine yipped.

  “Yeah. I’m trying. I made peace with the magic, the good and the awful. I want . . . I want to bring something good out of all this magic, all this loss. I want . . . there to be a golden age of alchemy. Here, in Temperance.”

  The alchemist’s daughter smiled. Nine wished that she could tell her that she was no longer the alchemist’s daughter, but the alchemist.

  A distant howling echoed across the field. Nine looked over her shoulder. The pack ranged in the meadow below, calling her. They had moved to the ranch, too, knowing that they would never need to fear being hunted by men here.

  Nine turned back to look at Petra. Will you be okay? Nine thought.

  Petra smiled at her. “All is well. Go be with the pack.”

  Nine turned and ran into the meadow, into the gloaming of this new domain, overseen by the new Alchemist of Temperance.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to the awesome folks at Harper Voyager for their help in bringing this book into being. Thank you, David Pomerico, for bestowing your superhuman editorial insight on this book and supporting this series. And thanks to Bianca Flores for all the publicity magic. You guys are the Justice League of publishing!

  Thank you to my wonderful agent, Becca Stumpf, for ongoing support and encouragement, and not thinking that any idea I send across your desk is too weird to consider.

  Big shout-out to Elizabeth Lucas for all her help with the art and science of glasswork, and being unfazed with my hypotheticals. You shall henceforth be known as the Queen of Magic Mirrors!

  Thanks to Marcella Burnard and my husband, Jason, for the beta-reading, cat wrangling, and chocolate. Yes, I will be taking a nap now. I promise.

  Special thanks to Roxanne Rhoads at Bewitching Book Tours for the awesome promo over the years. I always know I’m in excellent hands with you.

  Thanks to Salt, or rather: Salutations And Lexemic Thanks.

  And last, but not least, a shout-out to Michelle Fox and Michael Lucas for all the moral support that I have been using and abusing this past year. Thank you.

  About the Author

  LAURA BICKLE grew up in rural Ohio, reading entirely too many comic books out loud to her favorite Wonder Woman doll. After graduating with an MA in
Sociology-Criminology from Ohio State University and an MLIS in Library Science from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, she patrolled the stacks at the public library and worked with data systems in criminal justice. She now dreams up stories about the monsters under the stairs. Her work has been included in the ALA’s Amelia Bloomer Project 2013 reading list and the State Library of Ohio’s Choose to Read Ohio reading list for 2015-2016. More information about Laura’s work can be found at www.laurabickle.com.

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  Praise for the Wildlands Series

  Dark Alchemy

  “This fun adventure in modern-day Wyoming introduces Petra Dee, a geologist looking for her missing father and trying to make peace with her past. Bickle (Rogue Oracle) adds a dash of romance to the charming adventure, wrapped up with a perfect ending.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “Mix in some Native lore, great characterizations, a gift for bringing a setting to life, and a plot that eschews any hint of the tiredness of too much contemporary fantasy, and Dark Alchemy’s a winner on all fronts for this reader. Bickle writes with an individual clarity and style, leaving the reader to appreciate a dark sense of wonder that’s all her own. Highly recommended.”

  —Charles de Lint, Fantasy & Science Fiction

  “Dark Alchemy reads like a stand-alone work, but Petra is such a likable protagonist and the slightly off-balance world in which the town of Temperance exists is so well drawn that it’s hard not to hope we’ll see more of Petra’s adventures . . . More, please.”

  —RT Book Reviews (4 1/2 stars)

  “If Dark Alchemy was a movie, it’d pass the Bechdel Test and more than passes equity tests . . . Dark Alchemy was a compelling read with a satisfying conclusion promising more Petra Dee stories set around Temperance. I’m hooked.”