“I like the sun,” he said. “Most dragons do not, except the warrior. Jade’s father enjoys the beach.”
Yeah, I didn’t follow that segue. What did he and Jade’s father have to do with dragons? And wait, dragons were real now? Like fire-breathing, treasure-hoarding dragons with wings and scales and wickedly long claws?
Chi Wen held his right hand to the side at hip height, palm up.
For a moment, I thought I was supposed to take it. Then I tripped again. I caught my fall this time, without his help. I’d never felt so clumsy in my life.
He withdrew his hand.
“You are weary,” he said without turning his head. That was an easy enough assessment to make just by looking at me. “You were not ready for the sorcerer’s request.”
I was lagging behind, both in the conversation and the walk. I jogged a couple of steps to catch up to him. He was walking with his eyes closed. I opened my mouth to admonish him, as if he was some child. Then I snapped it shut.
He chuckled.
“I’m confused,” I said.
“Yes.”
“You’re not helping.”
“I am helping. You are not absorbing. Shall I speak slower?”
“God, no. You could pick up the pace.”
“I do not believe you could follow if I were to walk faster.”
I sighed. Then I walked into him as he pivoted to stop directly in front of me. It was like hitting a brick wall and bouncing off. I stumbled back but managed not to fall. I’d cracked my forehead against his, and along with a wallop of pain, I got that burst of electricity again.
Magic. That was what a hell of a lot of magic felt like.
“First lesson, for hasty fledgling,” the old man said.
“I’m not hasty at all,” I countered while I rubbed my sore forehead. “I’m steady. I’m focused.”
“Hasty fledgling,” he repeated. “What do you see when you look at me?”
“Old Chinese guy.”
“Look closer.”
“Wrinkles, kind of gnarly teeth.”
His smile expanded. Then, so quickly that I didn’t register the movement until he withdrew his hand, he tapped me lightly between the eyes. “You are using the wrong eye.”
I frowned. I didn’t like hokey crap. Just because I was willing to take the leap that magic actually existed, that didn’t mean I was going to get all spiritual or metaphysical.
“And be truthful with yourself, fledgling.”
That pissed me off further. I was always truthful to myself … at least I always tried to be.
But I’d asked the questions. I wanted answers. So I’d jump through his hoops.
I looked at Chi Wen more closely. He stood about two feet away and was maybe an inch taller than me. “White … gold,” I murmured. “All around you. Is that … magic?”
The old man shrugged. “Aura reading. A basic skill that your kind should manifest early.”
I gritted my teeth at the ‘your kind’ part of the statement. I had no idea if he was dissing me or not, and normally I wouldn’t put up with that garbage. But I was slightly worried about the pavement-staring-thing happening again. He’d been about to tell me something that I thought might be important — like how I could figure out what was real and what wasn’t real — when I’d distracted him by correcting his word choice. I wasn’t going to derail him a second time.
“What do you see when you look at me?” I asked him.
His smile widened until it was almost impossibly large for his tiny face. This expression informed me that I didn’t want to know the answer.
“What color?” I amended.
“White,” he answered. “All around you, but especially in your eyes.”
He could see through my tinted glasses. I knew that shouldn’t have surprised me. But I was getting the feeling he could also see inside my head, and that freaked me out.
“I’m a seer?”
“An oracle by birth.” I wasn’t sure that was an entire answer, but I pressed forward with my initial line of questioning, hoping to keep him on track.
“Same as you?”
“No.”
“You don’t see the future?”
“I do.”
“But we’re not the same.”
“No.”
Could he be more frustratingly enigmatic? Probably not. Based on his choice of outfit and the ever-present smile, I had a feeling it was kind of his shtick.
“Why do I see what I see … Blackwell and Jade Godfrey. And not, like, anyone I know, or public figures, or whoever?”
“Magic sees magic, not the mundane,” Chi Wen answered. “Perhaps the sorcerer and the warrior’s daughter are the most powerful Adepts within your sphere. Or perhaps magic has its own reason, only to be revealed when it comes to pass.”
Well, that cleared that up … like not at all.
“Can I see my own future?”
“No.”
“Can you see my future?”
“Yes,” he answered. Then he leaned into me and spoke very deliberately. “As you will see mine.”
With that statement hanging in the air between us, he glanced to the left, down the road behind me. “Ah, here comes the boy. Good. I’m hungry, and you have cookies.”
I followed his gaze up the road, away from the waning sunset toward Portland. “The boy who?”
Chi Wen, grinning mischievously now, rocked on his feet and didn’t answer me.
As far as I could see, the road was empty in both directions.
Chi Wen tilted his head to one side as if listening to something.
“Suanmi, fire breather of the guardian nine, calls,” he said. “Let’s not answer her right away.”
“Okay.” I had no idea what he was talking about, but it seemed to make him happy so it was cool with me.
Then I saw the Brave barreling toward us. “Beau …” His name came out as a sob that I quickly swallowed.
Chi Wen patted my shoulder and I tried to not flinch from the touch of his magic. “You must be careful, oracle,” he said. His tone was epically serious suddenly. “What you choose to change won’t always change. And when it does, the change is not necessarily what is best. The sorcerer had no ill intent toward the boy, and the pack underestimated you just long enough. Jade Godfrey’s magic is powerful, but it is volatile and not solely within her control. You were lucky.”
“I’ll take it.”
Chi Wen nodded. “Luck is also capricious. It demands a sacrifice. Magic moves where it will, not where we wish it.”
I swallowed down the ball of fear that had lodged in my throat, as I nodded back at him.
The Brave pulled up next to us. I looked up. Beau was grinning down at me from the open window, but his smile looked strained. “Am I late?” he asked. “I got your note, but I figured as long as I had the Brave, I could come to you. I’m not so cool with the waiting.”
“Have you eaten all the cookies?” Chi Wen called out. He was shuffling around the front of the Brave to the door on the street side.
Beau laughed and looked down at me questioningly. I couldn’t stop gazing at him. Only the need to also be touching him forced me to finally look away in order to follow Chi Wen.
I climbed into the Brave to find the old man at the kitchen table with my sketches already spread out before him and the bag of Oreos in his lap. Inexplicably, he also had my sketchbook, which should have been in my bag. I hadn’t seen or felt him lift it off me.
“That’s not disconcerting at all,” I muttered as I latched the door behind me.
“The old man moves fast,” Beau said.
As I crossed toward him, I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror. For a split second, I didn’t recognize myself. It could have been the thick white streak among the black mass of my hair, or the goofy grin spread across my face, but maybe it was just that I was seeing me. As I truly was, magic and all.
�
�Rochelle?” Beau asked. “Everything okay now?”
I didn’t answer.
Instead, I climbed in his lap to plaster a kiss on him. My ass hit the horn, but I chose to ignore it.
∞
We cut west out of Portland on Highway 26 and turned south at Highway 101 to stop in Cannon Beach and get a glimpse of the Haystack Rock in the moonlight. It was chilly and windy on the beach, but not so much in Beau’s arms. Chi Wen had left us before we pulled to a full stop in the Tolovana Beach State Park parking lot. The old man had just wandered off and not returned, at least not yet.
I had a feeling I’d be seeing him again. Soon.
Beau and I had tumbled into bed right there in the parking lot, though we couldn’t legally park overnight. My boyfriend seemed very eager to make sure that every inch of me had survived my meeting with Blackwell unscathed. I had, but I certainly wasn’t going to stop Beau when he wanted to check a second time.
And, yeah. I said boyfriend. My first and only.
Who else was going to put up with a girlfriend who saw the future?
Beau didn’t ask about the vision that made me sneak out of the house and meet with Blackwell. I guessed he could flip through my sketchbook for enlightenment, but I didn’t think he’d do that without asking permission. I really hoped he didn’t ask though, because I’m not sure I could ever say no to him. But seeing himself dead wouldn’t be very good for his soul, would it?
I was pretty sure Beau was mad about me leaving without him, but I certainly wasn’t going to mention it lying naked, sprawled across his chest, post-orgasm. In fact, part of me never wanted to move again.
“An oracle, huh?” Beau murmured into my neck as he traced the edges of the peony tattoo on my left shoulder. The newly inked tattoo was still a little sore, but he was careful not to touch it directly.
“Yeah, supposedly.”
Silence fell between us again, and I really wanted to drift off into the bliss of a post-coital nap, but I felt … off. I didn’t like having things unspoken between us. It was a new and, honestly, unwelcome sensation. I’d never needed to be okay with someone before. I didn’t really like the idea of needing anything other than food, water, and some sort of shelter.
“How did you know where to find me?” I asked.
Beau sighed, like maybe he’d wanted the bliss to last a little longer as well. “Yeah, Audrey texted,” he answered. “She told me that you were okay, and where to find you. I was waiting at the Brave.” He half-rolled off the bed, fished around in the pockets of his hoodie that he’d tossed on the floor, and held up a brand-new looking iPhone.
“What does that mean?”
“That I had to kneel down to get out of the house, otherwise they weren’t going to let me go.”
“Like Kandy did?”
“No, she was already a member of the pack, that kneeling thing was just her acceptance of Audrey as beta. I guess Kandy had been against it for some reason.”
“So … you had to become a pack member?”
“No,” he answered. He sounded steady and straightforward as always. “I didn’t have to take an oath or anything, but I’m under obligation now because Audrey vouched for me. It means I’m on the pack leash, for a trial basis at least.”
“And that’s bad? Being tied to them?”
“Maybe. It goes both ways, though. They might not want me as much as I don’t want them. But you … they’ll always want some sort of access to you. Everyone will, won’t they? Even beyond the dowser, the old man, and the sorcerer.”
“I don’t think Jade will be seeking me out anytime soon,” I said, but then brought the conversation back to the deal he’d made with the pack. “Being a pack member has benefits, like the healing thing you told me about?”
“Yeah.”
Beau didn’t elaborate and I didn’t want to push any further into the fight I could feel looming now.
“Then I guess we both made deals to protect the other today,” I finally said.
“Yeah? With Blackwell?”
“Yeah. Does that make us even?”
Beau laughed, quietly. “I took you to the pack full well knowing what could happen, Rochelle. I don’t regret one second of it. I’d do anything for you.”
Emotion welled in my chest and I pressed my face into Beau’s shoulder, hard, as if that would help me control an explosion of tears or declaration of undying love. He grunted, and ran his fingers up and down my spine to soothe me. I’d never had anyone say, or even act like, they’d do anything for me before. So, yeah, I guess we were on even footing in that regard, because I already knew I’d throw myself in the path of a runaway train for Beau. Though, if I thought about it too much, the path that now connected me to Blackwell and Jade Godfrey could prove much more destructive than that of a single train.
“You left me.” Beau spoke so quietly I almost didn’t hear his specific words. “I wasn’t sure you wanted me to follow.”
“Not today,” I said. “Any other day, but not today.”
He nodded.
“Let’s see how far the pack leash stretches,” I said.
“I’m game. North or south?”
“South, for a bit, I think.”
“No more leaving, Rochelle,” he said. “Not even for my own good.”
“I’m not going to promise that, Beau,” I replied. “You have to trust me. The old man said I was lucky this time, but that luck was capricious.”
Beau lifted my left hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the black butterfly tattoo on my inner wrist. “I’ll follow your luck anywhere. Then I’ll fight and survive at your side if it runs out.”
“When it runs out. It’s always when, not if.”
“Yeah, it is.”
“To that I’m willing to swear, then. Me and you, beyond luck,” I whispered. Then, I pulled the covers over my head as I climbed on top of Beau for the second time. He wrapped his hands around my hips, as I leaned over to press a tender kiss to his mouth.
Three days ago, I wouldn’t have been capable of being tender, because that would have meant opening myself up to the betrayal and heartbreak that people left in their wakes when they walked away. But for Beau, I’d try anything once.
I had everything that mattered within my reach. Every single step forward was mine to take.
And that was more than I’d ever thought possible.
The following pages are an
EXCERPT
from
Shadows, Maps, and Other Ancient Magic
(Dowser 4)
by
Meghan Ciana Doidge
WARNING: Possible spoilers ahead for Dowser 1 – 3
The blade was inches from my neck before I felt it. Thankfully, I had my blond curls clipped back today. Otherwise, I would have gotten an unwanted and unneeded haircut. I flung myself sideways, rolling over my shoulder and coming up on one knee to block the reverse strike with my jade knife.
The over-the-head blow glanced off my knife and was knocked to the side, but the force of it reverberated down my arm in a wash of pain. I slid back on the white stone floor even as I rolled forward onto the balls of my feet to step into my attacker. This close, his sword was a little useless.
Unfortunately, he was faster than me, or I would have managed to gut him.
Instead, he grabbed the wrist of my knife hand and twisted my arm up over my head, then around my back. This forced me to pivot away or have my shoulder dislocated. He pinned my knife hand, wrist still painfully twisted between my shoulder blades. I had to rise up on my toes to lessen the pain of the hold.
“Branson!” I screeched, completely forgetting the formality with which I was to address the sword master of the dragons. “I was meditating.”
He brought his blade up to my neck. I managed to get my left hand around his wrist, but had to practically lay my head back against his shoulder to avoid having my throat slit.
“I don’t think you are capabl
e of such, warrior’s daughter,” Branson replied. His voice was deep, his tone brusque. He was wearing traditional black training leathers, with a laced vest that left his well-muscled arms bare.
I twisted his wrist to try to get the blade away from my neck. Tattoos of water dragons twined up his forearms, which I’d mistaken for snakes when I first met him.
I gained an inch.
The sword master hadn’t spoken directly to me for over a week after that display of ignorance. Drake — the fourteen-year-old apprentice to Chi Wen the far seer and adoptive son of Suanmi, the fire breather — had delighted in relaying Branson’s drills during my period of punishment.
“Are your fingernails green?” he asked, completely bemused.
“Jade is the new black, baby,” I said. “You should see my toes.”
Then I kicked him in the head.
Well, first I twisted my own head quickly to right, dropped underneath the blade at my neck, and spun away to face him again. Unfortunately, he was still holding onto my wrists, so my arms were now crossed in front of me. I threw all my weight backward. This off-balanced the sword master enough that he stumbled forward, letting me snap a kick between our crossed arms directly underneath his jaw. I always loved having long legs.
Oh, yeah. Befuddlement of ancient beings was my new secret weapon.
Branson grunted, lost his hold on my wrists, and staggered back. My entire right leg went so numb it wouldn’t actually take my full weight.
I’d been sitting cross-legged and eyes closed in the center of the dragon nexus when Branson attacked me. The circular room was supported by gilded columns, between which nine ornately carved doors were situated. Two archways stood across from each other, leading deeper into the nexus — to the residences of the guardian dragons, as well as the library and the training rooms.
Still listing to the left, I raised my knife before me as I faced off with the sword master.
I was wearing my printed T-shirt and jeans uniform. And though my brand-new teal-with-white-piping Liz Fluevogs offset my black-and-white ‘UM — Element of Confusion’ top in an utterly cute way, I really needed to see about getting the shoes fitted with metal plates and toes. All the better to kick indestructible people in the head.
I See Me (Oracle Book 1) Page 23