“What are you sorry for?” I asked. “I’m the one who destroyed the lake shore.”
He sighed. “I was hard on you because I was mad at myself. You’ve been channeling magic for twenty months and aside from throwing around hints and suggestions, I never came right out and told you there was danger.”
“Why not?”
“I convinced myself it wasn’t that big a deal. That the risk wasn’t that great. That you knew enough to protect yourself, at least.” He shook his head. “I was half afraid that if you did learn, you’d never want to give it up. We were both afraid of the same thing, but for different reasons.”
It was my turn to shake my head. “You did offer to teach me. All the time. If you weren’t pushy about it, well, I can be a little stubborn. Pushy might have backfired.”
“You are stubborn,” he agreed, a little too readily.
“Hey pot.” I punched him playfully on the shoulder. Then sobered. “When I was with Mr. Wolf today, he showed me you and Aunt Sherry by the lake shore.”
“Oh.”
“I really did mess up. And I – I need to learn. I want you to teach me. As soon as we have a minute.” I looked at him, gazing into his blue eyes just a shade or two darker than my own. All our children had blue eyes, I thought. Every one I’d dreamed about. It was the one thing they all had in common.
“All right.” He lifted a hand to brush it against my cheek.
“I won’t ask you to drain your magic. Ever.”
“I won’t take the offer off the table.”
“If you insist. But I want to be a dreamer, and I don’t think I can do it as long as I’m channeling.”
His hand stilled. “Oh?”
“It’s something Belle said – I’m going to ask her more about it when I get the chance. She’s a Blair, even if that’s not her last name, and I think she knows something. Maybe something Grace never passed to her son and grandsons.”
“Matthew’s going to be pretty mad if it turns out most of the ten years you owe him will be useless because you’re channeling the whole time.”
I giggled at the thought, then suddenly sobered. “You’re not seriously planning to keep me pregnant for the next decade?”
“Only if you’ll let me.” His hand trailed down my arm to my right hand, where I wore a ring to protect me against pregnancy. He paused with his hand on the ring, silently asking for permission to remove it.
I held my breath. Henry would be conceived tonight. I felt it. There were other children, other possibilities, all swirling in my subconscious, some a little more real to me than others, but only Henry would have a chance to live.
I felt a moment of panic at the thought of consigning the rest to death, but of course, they’d never all have the chance to live. It was never a possibility.
“What’s wrong?” Evan asked sharply.
“Nothing. I-nothing.” I let myself think of Henry for a moment, and only of Henry. Of my painfully shy, sweet-natured boy with his father’s gift of driving a woman insane.
Then I thought of Evan, and smiled.
He slid off the ring and tossed it behind his head before leaning forward to kiss me.
I let my eyes slide closed as the world exploded into a thousand tiny points of pure pleasure. My body quaked and tears dampened my cheeks. Evan swallowed my cries as I moaned against him, inviting him in, begging him to join with me.
He must have needed the connection as much as I did because he didn’t linger over the preliminaries like he often did; I’m not even sure what happened to our clothing but the next thing I knew they were gone and he was inside me, filling me, making me feel complete.
“I love you,” I whispered just before another climax hit.
My body arched into his as I felt him begin to pulse inside of me. I cried out, momentarily stunned by the certain knowledge that we had just created a new life. The thought spurred me into yet another climax, and this time I cried out loud enough to wake the whole house. Evan bent down to kiss me again, swallowing my cries, and pretty soon we began making love all over again.
It was a very long time before we fell asleep.
Chapter 23
I DREAMED OF THE LAKE. And only the lake. I remember feeling disappointed, because I’d wanted to see Henry again. It was a sign that I was just beginning to have conscious control over my dreams, or at least the ability to separate a conscious part of myself from my subconscious. But that night, I merely felt disappointed. I wanted to see my son again. To feel solidly confident that he did exist. To take him from the realm of the hypothetical to the certain.
But I dreamed of the lake, and of the node glowing beneath the lake. Glowing brightly. Almost blinding me. I’d dreamed of it before, but now some part of me seemed desperate to tell me something.
Look!
I looked. And as I did, the surface of the lake began to freeze.
I woke up, blinking in the early morning sunlight. Evan still snored softly at my side; we could only have slept for three hours or so. He probably needed a full eight hours, but we didn’t have time.
“Wake up,” I told him.
“Huh?” He smiled at me, then frowned and sat upright in bed. “What’s going on?”
“Call everyone and tell them to meet here as soon as possible. I know what we need to do.”
* * *
It took an hour for everyone to arrive. I was dressed and ready to go within two minutes, not even bothering with my hair or makeup save to throw my hair in a long ponytail. I nursed Ana, threw together breakfast for the kids, then paced anxiously, checking my watch every two or three minutes.
Maya and Michael were still asleep when the first White Guard members arrived – Matthew, accompanied by Kaitlin and Jay.
“I get babysitting duty again,” Kaitlin said on a sigh that made me wonder if we were all taking advantage of her a bit. I’d have to talk to her, when this was all over. I’d definitely offer to watch Jay for a whole week if she and Matthew needed some time away.
“Isaac can help,” I told her. “He’s surprisingly good with the kids, especially the little ones.”
She nodded. “Can I just get some coffee?”
I led her into the kitchen and poured her a cup. Matthew followed, his eyes narrowed, as if in concentration. I smiled at him mysteriously, knowing I’d kept my thoughts to myself for once. It wouldn’t last, but I had no intention of explaining myself or what I’d realized more than once.
Scott Lee arrived with two iron cages a few minutes later. Madison came with him, to Kaitlin’s delight. She’d have company, at least, in the midst of half a dozen kids.
Clark and Linda Eagle were the last to arrive, bringing my brother, Nicolas, with them. I should have invited him personally, I realized, but I’d lost track of things. He didn’t say anything about it, fortunately. He just settled himself in the den with the rest of the inner council and waited for me to start talking.
“We’re going to the lake,” I said, gesturing vaguely toward the back of the house, which was built maybe thirty yards from the edge. “We need to be away from other people, when Maya does the summoning. There’s going to be a fight. I saw the lake freezing, and the node glowing – I think we’re going to need its strength, too.”
“You can’t expose the twins to that kind of danger,” Juliana said.
“We’ll all be there to protect her,” Matthew said. “If I’m reading Cassie’s plan right, she wants you to be the one to take care of Maya, so you can heal her in an instant if anything goes wrong.”
Juliana looked at me and I nodded.
“What about Michael?” she asked.
“He’s staying here.” I drew in a deep breath. “Evan will wake Maya up when we get to the shore, away from everyone else. If I’m not mistaken, when she realizes her brother isn’t there, she’ll get upset and summon her creatures to her, just like she did last night when we tried to bind her powers. As soon as she’s summoned them, Juliana, you get her back up to the hous
e and get ready for the binding.”
Juliana looked pained, but nodded.
“Mr. Eagle, will you lead the binding circle? We’ll need a full circle to make it work.”
“Of course, of course,” he said. “Linda, Nicolas, Kevin, James, Robert, and Scott – you’re with me.”
“Have your phone on you, Jules,” I said, “so I can tell you when we’ve captured the fairies.”
I looked at Evan, who hadn’t spoken, not even when he realized I planned to go with him and Juliana to the lake. I’m not sure if I was going to back up him or Juliana, because as much as I tried to sound confident, I was terrified of putting Maya in danger. If anything happened to her, I’d never forgive myself. But if someone else died at the hands of the deadly fairies, either through suicide or cold, I’d never forgive myself either.
“Maybe we should have the full circle at the lake,” Nicolas said. “We could help fight the fairies.”
“Cormack didn’t use a full circle to capture the Fairy of Despair, or we’d have heard about it.” I drew in a deep breath. “I have a feeling that these fairies are skittish. They’ve always hit vulnerable people and left the moment they were challenged. We can’t let them think they’re walking into a trap, and having seven or more powerful sorcerers waiting for them …”
I shook my head. I’d seen the lake freezing and sensed the urgency; someone else was going to die today if we didn’t get going.
“If there’s nothing else,” Matthew said, obviously having read my mind, “let’s move.”
* * *
It was a crisp twenty-six degrees by the lake, even before the Fairy of Cold showed. At least the mist was gone. The sun shone brightly in the cloudless sky, illuminating the water clear across to the opposite shore. And somewhere beneath the lake – actually, I could sense exactly where, south and west of our location – the node pulsed with magic.
Juliana carried a still-sleeping Maya in her arms, glancing dubiously out over the water. She had Maya bundled up in a pink coat that made her look like a sleeping marshmallow. It also made her look a bit hard to hold onto, but Juliana didn’t falter as we walked until we were well clear of the house and all the people in it. The nearest neighbors, sorcerers as well, though not connected to the White Guard, had been warned to stay inside this morning.
It was just Evan, me, Juliana, Maya, and the fish. Oh, and my iron fireplace poker. I’d grabbed it on the way out, when Evan had grabbed the cages. It couldn’t hurt.
“Ready?” Evan asked.
Juliana and I nodded, mutely.
He passed a hand over Maya’s face, murmuring the words that would free her from the enchanted sleep. I held my breath and waited.
Maya yawned, widely, and began to stretch her marshmallow limbs. Juliana held tight, crooning nonsense as Maya’s eyes fluttered open. Did they actually see anything? Was she looking at anything? Maybe not, but it was hard to tell. Whatever was wrong with her eyes, it wasn’t obvious from looking at her. Although maybe … maybe they didn’t quite focus right. It was subtle.
A blind summoner.
Maya’s hands began flailing to the sides and her face fell. I could tell the moment she failed to sense her brother nearby, although the scream took another half a minute or so to come.
“I don’t think she’s ever been this far from Michael,” Juliana said as she continued to try to rock and soothe Maya.
My youngest sister would not be soothed. Her cries grew in volume no matter what Juliana tried, no matter how she danced or swayed or crooned.
“How long do you think it will take?” Evan’s gaze swept past my sisters as he checked the sky for incoming dangers. He set the cages on the ground nearby and readied himself. He could dispel the cold if he had to, but I knew he wanted to trap the fairies first. The last time he’d dispelled the cold first, the fairy had scampered away before he’d had a chance to think.
“Is it getting colder?” I asked. I really wasn’t sure, bundled up as I was in a heavy winter coat, gloves, and boots. It was all a bit overkill for mid-twenties, but I wanted to be prepared for anything.
“I don’t think so,” Evan replied, still scanning the air. “I thought they’d be here by now.”
“Me too.”
I shifted nervously from foot to foot, trying to block out Maya’s cries as I helped Evan scan the horizon. In the bright morning sunlight, it would be harder to see the telltale flicker of light that was all I knew to identify a fairy by. I even thought I saw something out over the water, but it turned out to be a reflection.
Maya’s cries made my chest ache with guilt, the longer we stood there. What was I doing? She couldn’t see without her brother. Well, apparently Christina would work in a pinch, so maybe others could too, but right now it was mostly Michael. And when we bound her powers …
People were dying. They had been dying for days. No, months! The Fairy of Despair had apparently been in town longer. And I hadn’t noticed. I’d blamed my mom instead of helping her. I’d refused to see the culprit in my own family, under my own nose, until it was too late.
And now I was about to curse my youngest sister with true blindness. It had been so clever of her, really, to borrow her brother’s sight, but it had gone too far. Now, I had to bind her powers. What else could I do?
You could bind Christina’s powers, then neither of them can see the dangerous creatures to summon. Why are you picking on Maya? Choosing between children, just like you chose between Abigail and Henry. Who did you kill last night? Who did ou carelessly dismiss as unworthy, perhaps because their gifts made them less convenient?
Belle, I thought. I’d lost Belle, with her sight fixed on distant worlds. There were others, too. So many others. Now I was choosing between children once again.
If only Mom were able to make this decision. She should be involved, at least. But no, she was off feeling sorry for herself while the rest of us tried to pick up the pieces.
I’m doing the best I can, I thought.
But are you? whispered a nasty voice I didn’t recognize as my own. You used your baby’s healing gift last night, too. Look at you, leaning on infants to feed that void of power. It will never be enough, though, will it? Learn magic, get addicted to it, or fail to learn and risk destroying something else? That’s your choice.
Hadn’t I already worked through all this? I shook my head, a little wearily. Last night, when I’d apologized to Evan, when I’d told him I wanted to learn magic, I’d made up my mind. I might have lingering regrets, but this desolation was over thet op.
I glanced at Evan and saw, to my horror, that he was on his knees, weeping. I had never in my life seen Evan cry. The sounds of his sobs were lost over Maya’s screams, but I saw the tears streaming down his cheeks.
No, frozen to his cheeks.
It was cold. My own cheeks stung with the bitter temperatures as I realized that we had been visited by both fairies at the same time. And they had slipped under our guard.
“Go!” I cried to Juliana. “Run!”
Juliana stared at me, and I saw tears frozen to her cheeks as well. She wouldn’t be able to heal herself, but she had to get Maya to safety before it was too late for both of them. I ran at her and shoved with all my might. “Go! Run!”
Juliana looked at me blearily. “I tried so hard, but I’m not her mom. She knows it too. I’m not enough for her.”
“Of course you are. Now get her out of here!”
Juliana shook her head and fell to the ground. I felt like falling too, but I didn’t. Instead, I raced to Evan’s side, kneeling by him and holding him tightly, trying to offer him both my support and my body heat.
“Come on, snap out of it. I need you to get the fairies. They’re here.”
“I’m sorry,” he sobbed. “I’m so sorry. I know I’m selfish, but please don’t leave me.”
“What?” I had no idea what was going through his mind, and wasn’t even sure I wanted to know. “I’m not going anywhere.”
He c
lasped my hand in his and held on so tightly it hurt. “Promise?”
“Yeah. That’s pretty much what our wedding vows were about, remember?”
“Promise again.”
“I promise.”
“Good.” He started breathing heavily, and I sensed he was beginning to fight the Fairy of Despair. But not quickly enough. It was so cold, I could barely feel my fingers.
I felt something in my gloved left hand, the one not grasping his, and remembered the iron poker I’d taken from the fireplace. I looked up, seeing the tiny lights flitting above us, and could think of only one thing to do: I swung the poker at them wildly.
I heard little gasps and the lights fell back in a sudden panic. It was still cold. I still felt an aching sadness that wasn’t entirely of my own making, but I had a little breathing room.
“Evan? Can you get them?” I tugged at him, urging him to his feet.
“Yes.” He was still breathing hard, but I felt him coming back to himself. His face hardened and he stared at the tiny little lights in a way that made me shudder. No one wanted Evan Blackwood to look at them like that.
He raised his hands and the wind began stirring around us, adding to the bone-chilling cold. The flittering lights stilled for a moment, caught in his power, but I suddenly knew it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t right.
“No,” I said. “You can’t attack them directly. Bring the cages to them, not the other way around!”
He nodded, once, to show his understanding. The next moment, the two iron cages were in the air, flying toward the flitting lights. The cages closed with a deafening clang before being lowered to the ground.
Suddenly, the cold lifted. My mood lifted. And inside the cages flitted two frantic, angry balls of light.
“What happened?” Juliana asked.
“It’s over.” I rushed to her side to make sure she was okay.
Juliana’s face was a little blue, but she was already offering healing energy to Maya, to keep her from succumbing to the cold.
Frozen: a ParaNormal mystery Page 21