Curling into a ball, she thought of the shadleech attacks and whispered a prayer that Rothly stayed unconscious until she retrieved him.
She had the night to rest, to prepare for the missions, and couldn’t afford to lie about doing nothing. Struggling to an elbow, she realized Chinook snored gently beside her. Her old cat, a cat she’d gotten as a kitten a year after she’d moved into the house, was now her only family. A cat who was in indifferent health that Jenni would be leaving to brownies who didn’t particularly like cats.
All the gloppy sentimentality in her nature swamped her as she cuddled Chinook. “I love you. I’ll miss you.”
The cat spared a lick on Jenni’s hand then grunted and slipped from Jenni’s loose grasp to walk over to the table and investigate the drink. She made a disgusted noise then thunked to the floor and waddled from the room.
Chinook would be fine when Jenni left. The brownies would take care of her.
Jenni rubbed her face. She needed another shower, this time to rehydrate herself.
Stretching aching kinks from her body, she found a tiny amount of elemental energies had dribbled into her while she had slept. Too many earth particles—the brownies must have been concerned. After she drank Hartha’s potion, she was able to equalize her own small store of energy and discovered she was ravenous. Too much magic spent wastefully.
With a deep breath, she set down the mug, shifted her shoulders. Her house felt odd, the balance off—more air and tree…Aric was here.
She’d have to tell Aric about the Dark one.
As she stood under the shower, she let the atmosphere of her home envelop her. It was odd to feel Aric in this place that she’d made her own. Obviously the brownies had let him in, and since he was her contact with the Eight—and between the choice of the Eight and Aric, she’d choose her ex-lover—it was efficient that he was there.
She dressed. Much as she’d like to avoid the home she’d grown up in, she would have to go to Northumberland to get more tea. She was hoping that Rothly had left notes about the mission. She cringed to think of him trying to practice his craft as a cripple.
Her childhood home would haunt her, she knew that. It would hurt.
Being with Aric there would hurt her more. They’d become lovers there. Every second would remind her of her guilt.
She took a big breath, and checked the tapestry bag with wooden handles. It was full of clothing from natural fibers—hemp, wool, cotton, even silk shirts and her two cashmere sweaters. For an instant she mourned her long red trench. Her own damn fault it was gone.
From her closet shelf, she pulled down a padded cloth backpack.
Nothing that was synthetic could pass through the trees on her journey with Aric. Odd and strange and sad all the little habits that came back from when they were a couple. It would only get worse.
So she just walked down the stairs and didn’t look back.
Aric was seated on the couch in the living room. Chinook was on his lap, purring. “Beautiful cat,” he said, stroking her.
“Yes, she is,” Jenni said. “And very loving.” Her mouth pruned. “Not very discriminating, though.”
Aric’s jaw flexed. He inhaled deeply, blinked. “This place is wonderful, Jenni, very powerful.”
Jenni swallowed as the compliment touched her, narrowed her eyes. “Don’t think of doing any great casting here.”
Aric gave Chinook a last stroke, then carefully placed her on the sofa beside him. “I wouldn’t, and you should know that. Are you going to snipe at me all the time we’re together on this mission?”
Jenni’s nostrils flared as she inhaled. “I don’t know you. You’ve changed. I have changed. And I don’t think that my anger is unreasonable. The Lightfolk sent my crippled brother on a mission he couldn’t hope to fulfill, just to manipulate me to save him, to be in their debt and do the mission myself.” Her voice still had the roughness of fear and sleep and tears.
Aric stared at her. The light was dim, the brownies only had a couple of glow globes going, so Jenni couldn’t make out the expression in his eyes.
Finally, he inclined his head. “It’s the truth that I have changed. As we all have, since that day of the opening of the portal and the Darkfolk attack. Your anger may not be unreasonable, but it is uncontrolled.”
Well, she deserved that. “Yes. Obviously I have issues—psychological problems to work on.”
“I know the word issue, and I’m not the only one. We are trying to integrate back into the mortal world.” He gestured in the direction of downtown. “When magic and technology fuse, humans may be ready to accept us.”
“Much as that appeals, that’s not the point. The point is saving Rothly, then doing this mysterious mission for the Lightfolk,” Jenni said. She squared off against him and silence pulsed.
Hartha walked in with a tray holding two large pottery bowls of steaming stew. She put down a bowl at Jenni’s place at the dining room table. A table now clean of books, papers and laptop, and set with another mat, bread plate and silverware. She put down the second bowl there.
Frowning, Jenni said to Hartha, “You invited Aric into my home when you knew I didn’t want him here.”
“A great Dark one is after you,” Hartha said. “Safety is more important than tender feelings.”
Jenni flinched.
“You knew?” Aric asked.
Jenni didn’t look at him and said, “A recent development.”
He stood tall, his stance set but balanced, and Jenni knew that he now had more than the minimal fighter training for a Lightfolk male. Jenni’s middle brother had surprised them all in apprenticing himself to a great Lightfolk as a soldier. Her throat tightened. Stewart’s body had been covering her mother’s. He’d been the first to defend and the second to die. She’d never had the chance to say goodbye. Like all the others.
She rubbed her eyes.
Aric said, “I won’t eat the offered food and I will leave if you do not wish to discuss this now.” His soft tones backed with steel slid through her. She’d never heard such from him before that morning. She was too right, he’d changed.
She hadn’t changed enough. Today’s events had made that painfully clear in so many ways. “You’re going with me.”
He nodded, no muscle of his face soft. “I remain your liaison.”
She shook her head, gestured to the place setting Hartha had made for him. “Then we should speak of saving Rothly.” Before she sat, Jenni extended her senses for any negative energy in her home or Mystic Circle—and discovered the area was better shielded than ever. The brownies and Aric had helped…and her neighbors were reinforcing it a bit. There also seemed to be some dryad Treefolk magic from the parklike center of the cul-de-sac. “We must go to Northumberland first.”
Aric flinched.
So he didn’t want to relive memories there, either? Too bad for both of them. After a deep breath that brought no relief, Jenni said, “I must see if Rothly left any notes about where he was going, and discover if he made any of the special tea that helps me enter the interdimension.” She let stew broth dribble from her spoon.
Frowning, Aric dipped his bread in the stew and ate, then said, “You didn’t need the tea often…before.”
He meant all of them, the Mistweavers, and when she lived with her family.
“The tea can be helpful even when one steps into the interdimension daily.” She scowled. She was talking as if there was more than one whole elemental balancer in the world. There wasn’t. There was only her. Hunching a shoulder, she shrugged the reality of the thought away, met Aric’s eyes. “I haven’t been traveling to the interdimension much.”
“Then it is all the more impressive that Mystic Circle and Denver are so well balanced with the four elemental magics,” Aric said softly.
A compliment. It made her throat tighten with longing for the past. Which she had to put behind her or doom them all with her uncontrolled emotions.
“Northumberland, eh?” Aric asked.
“Yes.”
He spooned up more stew, ate. When he met her eyes, his own were resigned. A corner of his mouth twisted. “A journey to Northumberland before a quest to save Rothly before a mission to help the whole magical community—”
“The Lightfolk,” Jenni corrected.
Aric’s gaze was stern. “The whole magical community, and benefiting humans, too. A mission you don’t want to know about.”
“After we save Rothly.” She managed a bite or two. Her mouth savored rich beef, but her stomach remained tense.
“About this Dark one—”
Hartha appeared, shook her finger at Aric’s nose, rumbled something in her own language, gestured to Jenni.
Aric nodded. “The browniefem’s right, such talk will definitely upset your digestion.”
Another bite before Jenni replied, “Her name is Hartha.”
“That I know, but she hasn’t given me leave to use it.”
Quiet sifted through the room, and the quality of it—gold from the brownies’ homey glow globes and the soft shades of summer green that Aric brought with him—soothed Jenni. As if this was a standard meal among family instead of two people ready to embark on a dangerous adventure. In that quiet lilted by Chinook’s purr, Jenni ate her entire meal. As soon as she put her spoon down, Hartha whisked the remains away with invisible speed.
Aric stood, turned slowly in the room as if testing the elemental energies, shields and threat. He nodded. “The Dark one can’t come nearer than that business district in the south.”
Jenni shivered at the recollection of what had happened there, expected Hartha to show up and reveal all the circumstances of her save. Leaving Jenni as emotionally naked as she had been physically and energy-wise when Hartha had found her earlier. But Hartha remained in the kitchen, actually making a little noise to show she wouldn’t be interfering. Jenni had to tighten a slack jaw at that. The brownies were loyal.
She stood and angled her body toward Aric’s again, but this time not in a face-off, this time her legs moved her almost in reflex to how she’d stood near him…before…but she didn’t step back.
He did.
That hurt but she mixed the pain of it with the renewed fear of the Dark one when she met Aric’s eyes, and got out the most important aspect of the attack first. “I believe he was the one who killed my family.”
CHAPTER 6
ARIC’S SUCKED BREATH CARRIED THE NOTE of a gale tossing leaves. He swept his arms in circles, vertical and horizontal, adding a layer of muffling spells, then said, “Kondrian.”
The inner, heavy plastic storm windows trembled with clicks as the air pressure changed and Jenni shivered as her fine hair rose. She whispered, “Kondrian.”
With an effort she kept her voice conversational, but scooped up the purring Chinook, liking the heavy weight of the cat. “It said it liked…um…Mistweaver essence.” Words—though not quite the sentence—that she’d used often here at home. They wouldn’t be singled out. She couldn’t stop her question. “They know who killed my family?” She’d thought the melee of the Darkfolk ambush had been chaotic. It had seemed chaotic to her, but she wasn’t a fighter. She’d thought several beings had killed her family.
“Yes,” Aric said. “I must tell King Cloudsylph this. Mystic Circle will not let the Dark one in…or rather, it would hurt him more to attack you here than it would benefit him. You are safe for tonight.” Aric looked at Hartha, who stood shifting from foot to foot, twisting her hands in her apron as tiny sparkles of brownie glitter fell to the floor. “And I think that once Jenni is gone the neighborhood will be free of any shadleech or Darkfolk activity.”
“The Dark one had shadleeches, from its ‘estate,’” Jenni said. “They seemed to be under his control.”
Aric’s brows rose and the light caught them and showed the deep green. He’d look great with a silver brow ring.
He bowed to Hartha and Pred, who stood in the dining room, arms around each other’s waists. Then Aric bowed to her. “I must leave. Since we’re heading to Northumberland first, we’ll leave at dawn. Seven hours’ time difference between here and Northumberland.”
Dawn wasn’t that early, a few minutes after 7:00 a.m., but it would be another bright and cold day here…and probably a dim and weepy afternoon in Northumberland. Not helping her dread.
She made herself smile at Hartha and Pred. They looked right, here in her living room, as if they should always stay. “You’ll be safe here.”
The brownies nodded.
Aric donned his trench and paced from dining room to living room and back, the tail of his coat lifting. He wasn’t suppressing any of his magic around her. Jenni wondered if that was a good or bad sign.
He said, “We may be able to travel to Northumberland and save Rothly without the Dark one interfering. He will be expecting you to start the mission for the Lightfolk immediately, believe that the Eight would coerce you into that.”
“Instead of just manipulating me.”
“Give your anger up at that, Jenni. Dispose of that tonight, or it will work against us and Rothly.” Harsh again. “We are not always bad. The Eight are not Darkfolk.”
“I suppose not.”
With no more than another nod he was gone out of the house, moving faster than any mortal or half mortal.
Jenni turned to the brownies. “Chinook and I are glad you are here.”
The brownies bowed together, once again flicking luck at her and murmuring a spell. Hartha glanced at Pred and said, “We prefer not having an empty house. Looking after a family.” She glanced at the front door, and Jenni felt her ears heat. The brownies knew she and Aric had been lovers and seemed to be hinting…something Jenni didn’t think she wanted.
Pred’s upper lip lifted as he stared at Chinook, still purring in Jenni’s arms. “We will take care of the feline.”
“Thank you.” Her shoulders felt stiff, there was tension in her body she hadn’t known she carried. “I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Would you like a hot toddy?” Hartha asked.
“Sure.”
Before the word was out of her mouth, a mug of chocolate laced with rum was floating before her. Trapping a small sigh in her mouth at all the magic and the loss of her human lifestyle—nothing would ever be the same—Jenni turned and let the mug bob with her to her bedroom.
She drank it, set alarms on her chiming clock and her pocket computer as if she were alone—one last attempt at normalcy—then drank the toddy and slipped into sleep.
Dreams did not come and even in sleep she was grateful.
She woke before her alarms rang and dressed in the dark. Slipping on the clothes of natural fabrics, comfortable undies with thin drawstrings instead of elastic, sewn by Hartha. More would be in the tapestry bag.
With a soft word Jenni summoned a glow globe, made her bed awkwardly around Chinook, who moved immediately to the middle. “I’m going bye-bye.” It was what she said when she stepped out for groceries, to run errands, informing Chinook she’d be the only one in the house. Not that Jenni knew how much Chinook understood.
Such innocuous words. Jenni petted Chinook, rubbing her head, as she always did. “I’ll be back.” Usually when she was going on a trip she would tell Chinook the length—five days, a week. “As soon as I can.”
She bent down and kissed Chinook between the ears. “I love you.” Always the last thing her family said to each other before going anywhere. I love you.
There was a slight shifting in the atmosphere, then Aric knocked at the front door and was admitted to her space. Jenni slipped into her wool coat, shouldered on the pack, lifted the tapestry bag and walked downstairs.
He stood in the entryway and looked up. Pain seemed to flash over his features before his expression became impassive again.
“You don’t have any bags?”
He shrugged. “We won’t be in Northumberland long today, then we’ll go to the Earth Palace where I have rooms.” He seemed to close
in on himself. “Warriors travel light. Ready?” he asked. He held out a hand for her again. Another step from the mortal world into the Lightfolk and Jenni knew it. She took his warm hand.
A soft “hmm” came and Jenni turned to see Hartha and Pred standing together in the arch from the entryway to the living room.
More emotion flashed through Jenni. She wanted to bend down and hug them both, but something in their manner prevented it. So she nodded to them. “Thank you for taking care of Chinook and the house.”
“We are honored,” Hartha said in a muffled tone.
Aric opened the door and she left with him. The sound of the door shutting and the locks being flipped were metallic clicks of her old life ending.
They walked to the round park in the center of the cul-de-sac. Then he stepped into a pine not wide enough for him and pulled her after.
There was the smell of resin and the harsh caress of bark. Jenni didn’t know how the trees—and the dryad’s homes—were larger on the inside than the outside. Some sort of inner space that the Treefolk called greenspace or greenhome, just as the Mistweavers had called the misty place the interdimension.
Greenspace was still on Earth—if you considered living in the spaces between atoms as solid reality. Jenni just accepted it as magic.
So they went through the tree into the greenspace and Jenni caught a brief glimpse of a dryad’s living room. Aric angled his body and there was a whooshing sound and a feeling of rushing.
They stepped out of the ring of beeches in the patch of forest and into a gray, early afternoon. Before them was the long, low house against the hill, and Jenni’s heart lurched into her throat. Her eyes stung. She hadn’t seen her childhood home for over fifteen years. It was so dear.
For a few seconds, she couldn’t get her feet to move, she just stood and stared at the two-story house of gray stone, long side facing her and two wings on each side angled back toward the hill, forming a small courtyard in the back. A courtyard where the family spent most of their time, usually noisy with their talk and shouts.
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