When You Believe

by Jessica Barksdale Inclan

  “Oh, something Felix said to me in Hilo,” she said, shaking her head. “Never mind. Let me try one more time.”

  Sariel closed his eyes and centered on his image, a thick stone wall, reaching from the top to the bottom of his imagination. “You know what they say. Thirteen times is a charm. Just relax.”

  “I am relaxed!” she said. “Stop bugging me.”

  Sariel opened his eyes and smiled. Miranda’s eyes were still hot, her curls wild loops from the moisture in the air. Without wanting to, he let his eyes drift down her neck to her breasts, her nipples erect from the cold or from anger, he couldn’t tell.

  “Do you mind?” She put her hands on her hips. “That, I could hear.”

  “Well, you see?” Sariel ignored the flush on his face. “You got in. That’s the kind of opening you have to find. The kind you must have found with Kallisto. What was she thinking about? What was she feeling when you got into her mind?”

  Miranda paused and bit her lip. Sariel sighed. “Me?”

  “She was jealous. And she wanted to kill me. Anger. Lots of it.”

  “The combination then of just you being you and her anger created a fissure you slid into, without even trying. Imagine if you were able to do that on purpose. So let’s try again,” Sariel said. He closed his eyes and brought forth the image that had worked for him since school, the stone wall.

  He heard Miranda breathe out deeply, and then she was silent. For a time, he felt nothing, no intrusion, no attempt to breach the stone. But then, there! He slammed down another stone, keeping her back. She tried it again, and he stopped her, just as her mind crept through the mortar. She tried again and again, and he began to tamp her down over and over, his mind moving quickly.

  But then he heard her thoughts, little jibes about being so tough, so strong, so clever. A stone wall? What a metaphor. Let me teach you about metaphor. Couldn’t you find material a bit sturdier? Lead? Iron? Steel? Titanium?

  Round and round her mind went, and then, without him wanting it, she shot a sliver of pointed thought through the wall, into his mind, right into the memory of last night, the two of them in Miranda’s bed.

  That’s better, she thought, watching them hold each other in the darkness, feeling his quick breaths as he moved inside her. Together, hovering in Sariel’s thoughts, they listened to the sounds in the dark room, the breathing, the moans, and finally, the cries.

  There, she thought. That was worth the price of admission.

  Opening his eyes, Sariel walked to Miranda and kissed her, the memory of last night still strong between them. She kissed him back, happy now.

  “Thirteen has always been my lucky number,” she said. “No amount of patriarchy could ruin it for me.”

  “Don’t even begin to explain that,” Sariel said, brushing the back of his hand on her cheek. “I don’t want to know. But we really should try it again. You went for my weakest point.”

  She ran her hand through his hair, clenching a fistful. “What’s your weakest point?”

  “You.”

  “But you don’t even remember me. Try my mind again first. See if Kallisto’s block is still there.” She pushed him back, but he leaned in, kissing her on the forehead, the nose, her lips.

  “It’s still there, but it won’t last for long. She can’t maintain it from such a distance,” he said.

  Miranda leaned back into him, putting her arms around his chest. “You’re scared to try.”

  Sariel was silent, listening to the thrum of her body, the hard beat of her heart. Maybe he was scared to find out what he’d forgotten about her, even though he knew it would be wonderful, just like her. But he wanted his memories back from his point of view, the way he’d experienced them. Seeing her reactions and feeling her emotions when he kept disappearing wouldn’t be fun.

  “Maybe I am,” he said, bringing his lips to her hair, tipping her face to his.

  “Try again!” She backed away before he could kiss her again, wagging her finger. “There’s time for more kissing later. Unless, of course, someone steals our memories, and we have to start over from square one.”

  “No one’s taking those ever again,” Sariel said, meaning it.

  “Well, there’s the end of the world as we know it to deal with. That just might get in our way.”

  Sariel put his hands on his hips, shaking his head. For a second, he thought he should sit her down and show her the images that Mazi gave the entire group before they left on the mission. Then Miranda would see what they were truly up against. She could only joke because she didn’t know what Quain was capable of. But she would soon enough. She’d have no choice.

  Miranda watched him, smiling. He couldn’t ruin this moment. So he went along with her. “It certainly could.”

  “So we’re running out of time.”

  “Perhaps we are.”

  “So go ahead. Try it again.” Miranda closed her eyes, standing still.

  Sariel looked up and saw someone moving away from the window, and then he heard Rufus.

  More training, less fooling around, lad.

  Miranda opened her eyes and turned back to the house. Looking back at Sariel, her face was contrite. “He’s right. Come on. Back to work.”

  Sariel nodded and closed his eyes, waiting for a lull in her thoughts. She wasn’t blocking him, and he ignored her images of the night before, moving back through the two days since she’d left San Francisco on her own. He still couldn’t believe that she’d done it. Untrained, untried, theoretically Moyenne. But she wasn’t. Not with the magic she could do.

  Moving toward Kallisto’s block, he swirled through memory and sensation, searching out, trying to find the barrier, a restriction, an impasse, a pause. But all he could find was sort of a shadow. He stopped in front of it, looking at the dark swirl, wondering if he could get past without hurting her or himself. Knowing Kallisto, it could be a trap. So tentatively, he sent forth a bit of energy, which passed right through, the shadow evaporating at the touch of his mind. Finally, he thought.

  Miranda. I’m here.

  And he was. She was looking at him as she leaned against the bar, her ankle throbbing. Next, she was breathing in sage and citrus, sitting on his couch. Then he was in a room—her apartment—and they were on a bed, tangled together naked. Next they were getting dressed, laughing. Another scene: a street, both of them holding cups of coffee. Then they were holding each other, traveling through the gray. Next they were at Felix’s on his lanai, drinking out of large, frosty glasses, listening to Felix talk about school. There were moments of confusion: she didn’t know how to contact him. She missed him. There were times when she thought she was totally insane, hallucinating the entire thing. But mostly, he felt her acceptance of him, her attraction, her—her love. The past that he couldn’t remember surrounded him, and he felt relief and loss.

  Sariel circled around her memories again and saw himself on her bed, taking in a message. Then he leaned over her, pressing his fingertips on her smooth forehead. She woke up alone, nervous, her heart pounding, and then she was pacing the room, angry, upset. Then there was another memory. Miranda was sitting on her sister’s bed, listening to a story. But this wasn’t a good story. Miranda was confused, angry, amazed. Her sister was telling She was adopted?

  Sariel was flooded with so much anger and sadness, and then, quickly, there was a last memory. Miranda was stepping into the gray, calling his name.

  Sariel, she thought. I wanted to find you.

  I know, he thought back, pulling slowly out of her mind and into his own. He opened his eyes and looked at her, her eyes still closed. Out of all the women in the world, Moyenne or Croyant, he had found her—they had found each other. He never wanted to lose her again, either in body or in mind.

  Opening her eyes, she smiled and tried to smooth her hair, but the minute she took her palm away, her curls bounced back into a fiery halo.

  “You believe me now, right?” she said. “I’m real at last.”

 
; Ignoring whoever was at the window and the concern he felt buzzing from the house, Sariel walked to her, grabbed her shoulders, and kissed her again, Rufus be damned.

  Sariel, Felix, Rufus, and Nala stood on a hill in the falling darkness, all of them encased in an invisibility spell, their thoughts and words muffled in a cone de silence, their ideas safely contained. The sky was pewter, the sun finally emerging from the mist only to set, leaving behind a slim slit of orange on the horizon. Sariel could smell the salt from the ocean, feel the tang of ocean in his nose. Somewhere closer to shore, a seagull called out, its cry echoing in the darkening air.

  Invisible and protected by spells, the four of them surveyed the fortress, which was built in the shape of the Tudor rose, a round keep in the middle surrounded by six round bastions. The arched windows were placed few and far between in the stone walls, and there was only one large entrance. The fortress was built as a garrison, complete with a moat and a drawbridge, which managed to keep out invaders to English shores until the sixteenth century when it was finally conquered during civil unrest. Now it was a tourist attraction— an English Heritage site—and usually open to tourists who were bused in five times a day for a medieval tour complete with knights, nobility, and serfs, and a luncheon of bangers, bread, and beer. There was a large parking lot a few hundred feet away and a careful flagstone walkway that led to the main gate.

  But Lutalo and Mazi had discovered that it had been closed for repairs for months. Quain had created a vortex that hadn’t diminished, so workers had been led astray, driving around the Kentish countryside for miles looking for the fortress. Suddenly, the local pub patrons and farmers and gas station owners had no idea what fortress the distressed masons and carpenters and plumbers were speaking of. Around and around they all went, calling back to the registry offices in the late afternoon with nothing but confusion.

  Nala pulled her robe close around herself and put on her hood. “There,” she said, pointing at the Fortress Kendall. “You can see the vortex, too.”

  Sariel nodded, spotting the flicker of unevenness in the air around the fortress. But he knew that there would be more than a vortex impeding them. Quain had probably enforced the fortress with spells and traps, so that just getting inside would be work enough. Sariel had tried to pick out Quain’s or Kallisto’s thoughts, but nothing came back to him but a dead blankness, as if there were nothing in the fortress but ancient rock and wood.

  “The keep,” Felix said. “In the middle there. That’s the obvious place to set up. Not only would he be safe from Moyenne interference but he would be farther from our reach.”

  “Might be the exact thing he wants us to think. He’s probably out in that thatched hut,” Rufus said. “Eating a hog over a spit, laughing.”

  “It doesn’t matter where he is,” Sariel said. “Don’t you feel his strength? His resistance? His magic? We’ll be lucky to get ourselves through his barriers.”

  Sariel stopped speaking, thinking about Miranda. Suddenly, he didn’t want her to come with them. How could she, so new to magic, crack through Quain’s protections? She barely managed to get herself through matter and only today had she learned to move through someone’s thoughts. There wasn’t enough time to teach her what she needed to know to teach a first-level class of Croyant, much less battle Quain.

  “We’re strong,” Nala said. “We’ll carry her through. Lutalo has been working on actually changing certain protections and spells into others that are more easily breached. Don’t ask me how, but that’s what he can do. We will temporarily shift Quain’s magic so that we can break into the fortress.”

  “And then we battle him down,” Rufus said firmly. “Using Miranda to weaken Kallisto as we do.”

  Nala nodded, her gaze on the fortress below. “And Lutalo will hold his magic in place, while Sayblee and Baris create distractions. Baris will take in as much information as he can, too, using whatever he can find to aid us. And when they know we are in, Phaedrus and his group will press with magic from the outside. The rest of us will push toward Quain until he is finished.”

  “Easy as pie,” Felix said.

  Sariel shook his head, crossed his arms. “We put this plan in motion when?”

  “Tomorrow,” Nala said. “We have to do this tomorrow. Phaedrus said they’ve felt Quain trying to slip through all their defenses around the third plaque. It’s only a matter of hours, now. They won’t be able to hold him off much longer.”

  “We have no choice, then,” Sariel said.

  Nala turned to him. “Is Miranda ready?”

  Sariel breathed in, his chest heavy with—what? Regret? Guilt? Worry? Or was it fear? “As ready as she can be, I suppose, given that she only knew of her powers days ago.”

  Nala put a hand on his arm. “This is why Adalbert took your memories, Sariel. He knew how much you felt for her.”

  “But we’d have no plan if she weren’t here,” Rufus said. “No one else has gotten through to Kallisto like that. Pure images those. We have no choice.”

  “But maybe she should have had more of a choice,” Sariel said. “She doesn’t really know what we are asking of her.”

  “It’s her world, too,” Felix said. “It’s what we’ve always wanted, Moyenne and Croyant fighting together, living together without secrecy. She’s a living example of what we’ve always hoped for.”

  “If she even is Moyenne,” Nala said. “I’m not so sure about that. But magic or not, Miranda has a skill none of us has. She may not understand what she’s fighting for, but without her help, we will not be successful and she will know, soon enough, what we were trying to save.”

  Sariel felt his wall falling, stone by stone. He agreed with everything they said. There was no other choice but to have Miranda work her way into Kallisto’s mind. But after finding Miranda’s memories and making some new ones together, he didn’t want her to face Kallisto again. And he didn’t want the others to hear that. He slammed down his wall, keeping his mind to himself, and turned back to the fortress.

  “Kallisto has a weakness,” Felix said. “If she has a weakness, so does Quain. No matter how evil and corrupt he is, there’s something inside that will turn him. He’s still human, so there’s hope if we can find our way into the fortress and find our way to him. We can end this.”

  The sky was dark now, the sun only a trace of umber. Below them, the fortress was a black hole in the landscape. What were Kallisto and Quain doing in there? Sariel wondered. What kind of evil magic did they practice together?

  “Tomorrow morning,” Nala said. “We will do it then.”

  She looked at them all, her face vibrant even in the misty darkness. Sariel could feel her power pulsing around them, and he knew that they had a chance with her in command and with Miranda as their surprise weapon. Maybe then Sariel could find his way into Quain and subdue him. Maybe then the world would be safe.

  Nala nodded, and they all turned into the matter, whirling back to the house for one last night.

  When they arrived back at the house, there was another training session going on, but this one was full of laughter. They’d arrived in the lounge, and the first sound Sariel heard was Miranda’s giggling coming from the kitchen. Then Sayblee said, “That’s it. Right. Perfect. Keep going. Oh, don’t tilt!” There was more laughter, and Sariel walked into the kitchen to see Miranda hovering about four feet off the ground, her arms outstretched.

  When she saw him, her mouth opened in surprise, and then her expression changed to confusion as she began to fall. Sariel ran to her, catching her in his arms just as she was about to hit the tile.

  “Great timing,” Sayblee said. “We almost had takeoff.”

  Sariel looked at Miranda, who clutched at his shoulders. “So you can fly.”

  “That’s debatable,” she said, looking up at him, smiling. “I think I’m a hovercraft only. One with very little fuel. It’s a long time until I move up to rocket or space-shuttle status.”

  Sariel let her down, but kept
an arm around her waist. “So what else can you do? What other tricks do you have?”

  When Miranda looked at him, her face open and full of a love he could remember, in that instant, Sariel imagined that he was falling, too.

  “I have a few tricks up my sleeve.” She put her head against his chest, and he heard her think, I’ll show you later.

  Sayblee shook her head. “Okay, that’s it. I’m leaving. Miranda, we can practice again after dinner.” She left the kitchen, stopping in the lounge to talk with the others. Sariel squeezed Miranda and leaned down to kiss her.

  “Did you find the fortress?” she asked when he pulled away. “Did you find where Quain is?”

  “Yes,” he said, the rounded image of the fortress pressed against his lids. “I need to talk with you about this. Let’s go for a walk.”

  “Okay. Let me see if I can borrow a parka and an Arctic weather kit, complete with emergency gear. No wonder Felix never leaves the Big Island.”

  Sariel let her go and leaned against the counter as she walked out of the kitchen. He heard her easy laughter and talk with the others, could almost see her happiness trail from her in a gold stream. All that good energy. All that feeling and love. All that ability and strength. How could he take her back into Kallisto’s and Quain’s evil tomorrow? But how, he thought as he turned to the window and caught his own reflection, could he not?

  Sariel went to the sink and turned on the tap, filling himself a glass of water. He’d have to tell her the truth about what had happened to Phaedrus and his group. He’d have to tell her how someone can get lost in another’s mind, putting both the seer and the seen at risk. And he would have to tell her what happened to his father. How Hadrian and Quain were once colleagues, allies, close friends. How Quain had betrayed him, killed Hadrian. Killed him dead.

  Bundled in a borrowed jacket, scarf, and hat, Miranda held onto Sariel’s arm. He was silent for a while, watching the mist swirl around the buildings and houses on Victoria Road, listening to snatches of thought from passersby. If he didn’t get the loo fixed, he bloody well can’t expect me to stay the night, and Brilliant, just brilliant and Wicked cold, this.