Sister Seeker

by Shelby Hailstone Law

  But Andrew. . . . I swear, I’d catch him sometimes looking at Elaine in sheer disbelief, like he couldn’t wrap his head around how he got to be so lucky. As endearing and sweet as his total devotion was, at times like this, I couldn’t help getting frustrated with his cluelessness. I mean, what, did he need it in skywriting? Because if that was the case, I’d ask the clouds to put “Elaine loves Andrew” across the sky. If I could talk to the stars way out in space, I’d put up a new constellation.

  Those two apparently only communicated through the most dramatic means possible. I had to speak their language.

  I put my hand on Andrew’s shoulder to steer him away from the group so I could talk to him more directly; I waited until Elaine took her place guarding Wendy before I said anything, since I didn’t want her to overhear anything that would hurt him. “Andrew, I know you don’t like the guy, but the alternative is leaving Elaine out to dry.” I fixed him with a look he couldn’t possibly misunderstand. “After the battle, she told me she’s terrified you’re going to leave her. Pull yourself together and stop thinking about yourself and your Family for two seconds, would you?”

  Andrew narrowed his eyes, but I think he knew he couldn’t argue with me. Not when I was on a roll lately of being too right to argue with.

  I definitely liked that trend.

  With Andrew more or less along for the ride, then, I rushed over to Theresa before the rest of the group could leave. I threw my arms around her in a hug that I’m pretty sure surprised her, considering the way she had to step back before she balanced herself, but then she hugged me back just as tightly. “What was that for?” she asked.

  “I wanted to say thanks again for helping me,” I explained. “I don’t know how long fixing this thing with Andrew is going to take, and for all I know, you might have moved to a different spot with your family by the time we get everything sorted out and I’m back with the Rendezvous. I wouldn’t blame you for looking for someplace else to live. Someplace more permanent or secure or—I don’t know.”

  “Michelle—”

  “I want to make sure you know how much I appreciate what you did.” I raised an eyebrow and leaned forward to add in a whisper, “And I wanted to make sure that, if no one else says it, you know I don’t blame you. I’ve done crazy things trying to keep my own family safe—and lost my mind in the process. It’s not your fault my father and his followers are willing to stoop to such low methods.”

  “Tony already told me as much,” Theresa assured me.

  I smiled at that. “He did?”

  Theresa laughed. “You really are a romantic,” she said. “You should find someone for yourself, matchmaker.”

  “The last person I had a crush on was brainwashed into liking me back,” I pointed out. “I think I’ll stay out of the dating pool for a while.”

  Theresa’s smile widened. “Better be careful. I said almost the same thing before I met Santo’s father.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “I didn’t think I would ever find someone I loved as much as I loved Tony,” she admitted. “I didn’t even want to try.” As she spoke, she glanced over her shoulder, and I could see Santo talking animatedly with Aaron—no surprise, since Aaron made friends with pretty much everyone. “When he died, I felt as lost as if I’d said goodbye to Tony all over again.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It wasn’t your fault.”

  “My prophecy, though.”

  Theresa smiled sadly and shook her head. “No, it was your father’s prophecy. He’s the one who found my sister and asked her to look into the future. She’s always been too trusting and too eager to help, and I think he knew that. He has a knack for seeing a person’s weakness and using it against them, the way King Peter can see a person’s heart and find a way to pour in more strength.”

  I shook my head at that. “They couldn’t be more different.”

  “They used to be more alike,” Theresa said. “The Queen chose William to be her first consort before she ultimately left him for Peter because William was older and more passionate, and when they were first married, he was completely devoted to her.” She shook her head. “No one could have seen his fall from grace coming, but in retrospect, we can all look back on the steps that led him there. The same passion the Queen loved was the kind of obsessive drive that started to consume him when he dabbled in forbidden magic. The more power he gained, the more he fell in love with power.”

  “You sound like you know that from personal experience,” I said, unable to hide my curiosity. I might have been able to learn more about my mother from our forays into my memories, but the rest of my family history was still a mystery to me. I hadn’t grown up knowing the stories of the magical side of my heritage. But the idea that my father had once been better . . . that actually made sense to me. My mother had been gentle, heroic even. Knowing that, I couldn’t imagine a scenario where she would willingly give herself to my father.

  But if he had been passionate and charming once, that explained what my mother might have seen in him.

  The more I remembered of my past, the more I realized there was more to my family history than I cared to admit.

  “Even before Tony was part of the royal guard, we lived close to the palace,” Theresa explained. “He was working his way up the ranks, and I had so much faith in him that I moved with him to be closer to his dream.” She smiled fondly at the memory. “You know how Tony is. It’s impossible not to want the best for him.”

  I nodded at that. “It goes both ways, too. He always makes me feel like I can do anything.”

  “I loved that about him,” Theresa agreed.

  I glanced toward where Tony was arranging the mass exodus of Theresa’s friends and family. Surprising absolutely no one, he was going to fly everyone out of there, so the only thing he had to figure out was how to divvy up belts so that the Halfsies and witches in the group could give rides to the humans or the less powerful Halfsies who couldn’t fly. “Yeah,” I said. “Everyone loves him.”

  “I know,” Theresa said in a long sigh before she shook her head. “Anyway, I’m sure we’ll see each other again. You still have my cell phone; I know how to find you if I need you.”

  I unconsciously reached for my pocket, where a square bulge gave away where I’d shoved the phone. “Right. I almost forgot.”

  Theresa smiled. “That was my plan if the Royalists took you all away,” she admitted. “I wasn’t going to leave you completely without backup. Once my family was safe, I fully intended to come find you again.”

  “GPS tracking?” I asked.

  She nodded. “And I know how to pull up the coordinates with a spell so I don’t have to call or find an internet connection or anything.”

  “I’ve mentioned before how cool it is that you actually use human technology, right?”

  “Why wouldn’t I?” Theresa asked. “If I can save my energy by using technology instead of casting a spell—or by using a human invention to harness the energy of the world around us to more clearly direct a spell—why wouldn’t I?”

  “Well, because my father does it.”

  Theresa let out a noise that said exactly what she thought of that answer. “Your father and his followers use any kind of magic they can get their hands on, and they don’t care about anything but results. The only thing your father and I agree on is the idea that humans are a lot smarter than witches give them credit for—and there’s nothing wrong with working in tandem.” She paused and then repeated herself. “In tandem. Not whatever your father did to Izzy.”

  “Yeah, that’s an important distinction.”

  Theresa nodded, then made a visible effort to switch from annoyance to something softer. “But enough about your father. Focus on taking care of yourself, alright? Go ahead and keep the phone,” she said with a warm smile. “The next time I see you, I’ll teach you how to do the tracking spell. That way, if you have someone you want to find again. . . .” She raised her eyebrows and
tipped her head toward Aaron and Izzy but didn’t elaborate.

  “Preventing another Iceland?” I surmised.

  “More or less.”

  “Thanks.” I gave her one more hug and then stepped aside, letting her go back to the obviously more important business of getting her family out of the forest and out of the line of fire.

  A few minutes later, the band of refugees had taken to the air, leaving me alone with Andrew, Wendy, Elaine, and Izzy. The forest seemed suddenly much quieter—and much emptier.

  Already, I could feel the sense of deep loss from the forest around me; it had liked having Theresa’s family around. But then, as soon as I had processed that feeling, I also felt a different surge of energy from the forest around me and closed my eyes. For a moment, I could see the forest rushing into the clearings left by the Royalists and Theresa and her family. Maybe if the forest had magic to help it along, the clearings would be overrun faster, but I knew it wouldn’t take long at all for the forest to fill those spots with life to make up for the absence.

  I took a deep breath and let the relief of the forest wash over me. This was really the first place that I’d felt so in tune with the elements, and I almost hated to go myself.

  I guess it was a good thing I’d decided to stay behind with Elaine and Andrew.

  “So, what’s the verdict?” I asked, my hands in my pockets as I made my way over to my friends.

  “Ivan’s on his way,” Elaine said, looking up from the paper she had in her hands, the same one she had used to call Ivan when Izzy and Aaron had been kidnapped by Royalists and we needed his help to track them down.

  The first time I’d met Ivan, he had more or less dropped everything to respond to her call for help. He’d come popping out of the page like a book character coming to life right before my eyes and spent all his time charming everyone he came into contact with.

  But he wasn’t there, and as the seconds ticked by into a minute, I had to wonder what was taking so long.

  “Busy?” I asked, genuinely curious. Ivan didn’t seem like the kind of person to break form and stop offering his help in genuinely dire straits because Elaine was dating someone else. He had been so gracious and understanding, the very model of a gentleman—and Elaine had liked him because he was heroic and gentle and kind. He wouldn’t stop being any of those things because of a dating decision, right?

  But then, just because he hadn’t made a scene or said anything out loud didn’t mean he wasn’t hurt. And he wasn’t perfect; no one was. I couldn’t blame him if he was reluctant to come running back to the person who’d broken his heart.

  Still, he had seemed like one of those knights all caught up in duty to the princess and that kind of thing. He was honor-bound to respond to a distress call, right? Or was I totally off on my assessment of chivalry in the magical world?

  “Ivan was working with a different Rendezvous group to track down some agents that were taken captive,” Elaine explained. “It’s not something he can drop at a moment’s notice.”

  Before I could stop myself, I asked, “Well, what was he working on last time?”

  One of these days, I’m going to learn how to keep my mouth from running away with the rest of me. I would get in far less trouble that way.

  Elaine looked deeply uncomfortable, a red tinge on her cheeks; and Andrew looked like I’d proven him right. “It wasn’t a life or death situation,” Elaine finally said.

  “Right.” I pushed my hands through my hair and mentally cursed myself for my ability to completely shut everyone down with a badly-placed comment. I should have known better than to bring that up, especially because Elaine obviously had cared for Ivan and still did care for him. Those feelings weren’t going to go away just because she was dating someone else.

  Hadn’t I learned anything from my slow and agonizing attempts to distance myself from Aaron?

  When I couldn’t come up with anything to say, Izzy came riding in to my rescue. (Seriously, I love that girl.) “I’m glad he came,” she said. “Speaking as one of the people that you asked him to track down, I’m glad he wasn’t too busy to help.”

  “Hey, we weren’t going to leave you to die,” Andrew said, obviously trying to seize on something to talk about that wasn’t quite as awkward as how devoted Ivan was to Elaine.

  “Much obliged,” Izzy replied easily.

  And that probably would have been the start of a teasing back-and-forth—if Ivan hadn’t chosen that exact moment to finish up whatever he was working on and finally come through. The ink on Elaine’s paper spilled out over the edges onto the forest floor, and just like before, Ivan lifted himself up out of the portal.

  He hadn’t changed much at all, outside of the fact that he was dressed like he had been spending time in the desert instead of like he was going to spend the winter in Russia. He still seemed perfectly happy to see everyone, giving Elaine a deep bow and a smile before he did the same to me and smiled at Andrew and Izzy. “I am sorry for the delay,” he said in his deep voice, which was somehow both booming and gentle at the same time. “I had to get my team close enough that they could find the missing agents on their own. The Royalists hid their new prison in the Sahara, deep under the sand.” He shook his head. “I don’t mind telling you: tracking in the desert heat when everything looks the same for miles around is not the best way to spend three weeks.”

  “But you found them?” I asked.

  Ivan turned my way with a broad smile. “Of course I found them,” he said. “I would not be here if I had not. I had to leave the fight early, that’s true enough, but I left my team at the front gates of the hidden prison. I have no doubt they can take it by storm.”

  “Good. I hate to think our people are languishing,” Elaine said.

  Ivan nodded her way and then at last turned his attention toward the two Family members in our midst, his gaze halting at Wendy first before he moved on to Andrew. “Elaine told me you had a strong tracking spell placed on you.”

  Andrew nodded, shifting his stance so that Ivan could easily see the still-red mark on his neck. “She told you right.”

  As soon as Ivan saw the mark, all trace of his easy smile disappeared, and he took a step closer to examine it before he whirled on Wendy. None of us had been expecting such a reaction, so none of us were between them before he grabbed her by the shirt and hoisted her up to slam her against a tree.

  “You would do this to your own brother?” Ivan demanded angrily.

  I’d never actually seen Ivan get angry before. Upset, worried, yes, but anger didn’t seem to be in his vocabulary. Then again, I had seen a heartbroken Tony and a desperate Elaine in the past few months since arriving in this rainforest, so maybe I needed to adjust my mental expectations.

  Wendy was gagged, so she could only defiantly raise her gaze to Ivan’s in response to his fury. I don’t think he expected an answer anyway.

  He let her drop to the forest floor and then turned back to Andrew. “I will see what I can do,” he said, his tone still laced with anger but the slump to his shoulders already giving away the fact that he didn’t exactly have a lot of hope that this would work. “But it is a very strong spell. Ancient, even. One that draws power from your soul every time it answers the call of a tracking spell. It causes you damage just by existing!”

  Andrew nodded, holding Ivan’s gaze. “I know,” he said. “It’s been around as long as the Family has.”

  “And it is usually reserved for—” Ivan cut himself off. “I am not doubting your ability to anger the Family, mind you. Your presence in the Rendezvous itself—”

  “Yeah, no, I get it,” Andrew said with an easy shrug. “I’m not exactly Sir Peter. Not a high-value target.”

  “You are now,” Ivan said. He glanced toward Elaine. “And have the potential to become even more so,” he added, softer this time.

  Elaine bit her lip and looked away.

  Ivan let out a sigh and then turned back to Andrew. “Come sit with me. I cannot promise a
nything, but I can try.”

  Chapter 18: We Are Gathered Here Today

  . . . At A Moment’s Notice . . .

  You’re making me dizzy.”

  Izzy and I had been watching Elaine pace circles in the forest as Andrew and Ivan sat farther off to address the tracking spell on him. Wendy sat between me and Izzy and looked smug as she watched Elaine quietly lose her cool—but Izzy didn’t have the patience to put up with it much longer, so she was the first one of the two of us observers to break her silence.

  Elaine stopped in her tracks and looked toward Izzy—and then went right back to pacing. “I’ve never seen Ivan that uncertain,” she muttered loud enough that the rest of us caught it.

  “We’ve also never dealt with anything like this mark,” I pointed out. “Ivan said himself that it was rare.”

  “It’s supposed to be used by the Family only if a target is powerful enough that they need the extra help,” Elaine said bitterly.

  “It’s the nuclear option,” Izzy said, nodding her understanding.

  Elaine scrunched her nose up as she turned Izzy’s way. “What?”

  “We seriously need to start educating you on human lingo,” Izzy said, leaning back against the nearest tree as she shook her head.

  Elaine simply frowned at Izzy before she went right back to pacing and upkeeping a defensive shield around us so that no one could come rushing in to grab Andrew while Ivan worked.. She couldn’t do anything else when Ivan and Andrew had been sitting together in still silence for ages now. Ivan had one hand on Andrew’s neck, covering the mark, and I could sometimes see the shine of magic working, peeking out between Ivan’s fingers. But other than that, both of them were fully concentrated on the task at hand.

  And Elaine clearly didn’t like feeling this useless, this helpless.

  Finally, after another half an hour of watching Elaine wear a path into the dirt, I saw Ivan hang his head and let his hand fall away from Andrew’s neck, and I knew before they even made their way over that whatever they’d tried hadn’t worked.