There is silence from the kitchen. Are they smiling smugly at each other? My forehead is damp. What do they know? What did Anna touch?
“There’s not much he can do at the moment,” March says in a return to her usual brisk tone. “How are preparations for the ceremony progressing?”
“We’re ready. The van is loaded, and all participating members will be on site tomorrow. The moon will be new for the ceremony, of course, and the low king tide is perfect. It can’t go any lower than it will tomorrow. I sent the sacrifice an invitation for the ‘inaugural meeting of the Vancouver Mountaineering Club,’ and she attended at lunchtime.” Anna laughs. “Too bad she’s the only member, and she won’t be one for long.”
“Now, now,” says March in a reproving voice. “No need to be callous about it. She is a regrettable sacrifice for a larger cause. We should honor her for that.” There is a pause, then March says, “You’re not letting your feelings override the mission, are you? You have confirmed that she has a strong aura?”
“I might have checked her because of who she was with, but Arnold confirmed,” says Anna with a hint of sulkiness. “She’s the one we need.”
“But it was a happy coincidence that she is beloved by our mutual friend,” March says. “I understand your impetus, especially given my recent dreams, but don’t concern yourself about him. You are worthy to be loved by someone far better. You had a fling with Merry, leave it at that.”
My heart stops and my mind races back over the conversation, to the implications. What are they saying?
“I wouldn’t take him back now,” says Anna with defiance. “You’re right, I can do better. Unfortunately for Minnie Dilleck, she won’t have a chance to do better herself.”
CHAPTER XVI
My ears ring and blood pumps through them, agonizingly loud. Minnie. Minnie is the sacrifice. She will be killed to further the plans of these tea-drinking, gossiping sociopaths. My fists clench and I half-rise.
Alejandro puts a heavy hand on my shoulder. His terrified face is close to mine.
“No,” he mouths. “Not yet.”
I try to rise again, but Alejandro is stronger than he looks. We tussle silently for a moment, then I desist. Attacking March and Anna now wouldn’t necessarily stop the ceremony. Potestas members are too fanatical, too hellbent on their mission. While the loss of their leader would shock and sadden them, Minnie would still be in danger.
And I am under no delusion that March would give up any information under duress, nor that she and Anna are not protected by spirits. They could incapacitate me, perhaps even kill me, and Minnie would have no one to save her.
Anna gets up to leave, and dishes clatter in the sink.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” says March. “I want to check the supplies in your trunk.”
“Will you bring the grail with you?” asks Anna.
“Yes, when I come.”
Footsteps tap through the hall, then the front door opens and closes. Alejandro rises and pulls at my arm.
“Come on, Merlo,” he whispers in a panic. “Let’s go!”
I rip my arm out of Alejandro’s grasp and run to the grail in its place on the floor. There is only one thought in my mind: take the grail before March can use it in her merciless quest to gain power, a quest that will take Minnie’s life. It’s only lauvan holding it down, after all. They can be broken.
I reach out and grasp the nearest brown strands that anchor the cup to the floor, and yank. A few of them snap, but the rest hold firm. A roaring, grumbling noise fills my ears, and the ground shivers.
“Merlo!” Alejandro’s panicked voice cuts through the sound. “What are you doing?”
“Taking the grail.” I rip again. More strands break, and the floor jolts disconcertingly. A picture upstairs falls off the wall and lands with a shattering sound of glass on hardwood.
I’ve only broken a scant quarter of the earth threads. What will happen if I snap them all? Alejandro must be thinking along the same lines.
“If you keep doing this, the house will fall down,” he whispers urgently, then he grabs my arm again “Come on, let’s go before March catches us.”
I shake my head, but he’s right. It’s too dangerous. There must be another way to stop March. I stumble after Alejandro up the stairs and toward the coat room, slip into my shoes, and fall out of the door. My hands shake with fear and anger at Alejandro’s lauvan, but I manage to knot the correct strands. I pull at my own, and we flap heavily up and over the hedge. I speak once we have transformed back into our human selves.
“We have to warn Minnie.” My voice is rough with fear for her. “Did Anna say they had already taken her? Surely not. Let me call, get her to go to a safe spot.”
I whip my phone out of my pocket and dial Minnie’s number with a shaking finger. The phone rings. After the fourth tone, the voicemail comes on.
“Minnie, it’s Merry. Call me. It’s important.”
I hang up to call her office and try to ignore Alejandro’s worried look.
“Is Dr. Dilleck in?” I ask the receptionist when she answers the phone.
“I’m sorry, she’s away sick today. Would you like to schedule an appointment?”
I hang up without bothering to answer. The shaking has spread to my shoulders now.
“To her house. Now.” I leap into the car and pull into traffic before Alejandro has fully swung his door shut.
If Jen thought I drove fast before, it’s nothing to the tricks I pull out now. Minnie’s life is at stake, and I must warn her, to protect her. Even if it wasn’t my fault, not entirely, still, I brought her to the wrong place at the wrong time. The thought of Minnie’s life cut short far before her time sickens me. My fingers grip the steering wheel with such force that I have a hard time making the next turn. My tires squeal and cars honk behind us.
“Maybe I should drive,” says Alejandro, looking pale.
“No time to stop. And anyway, we’re almost there.”
I screech to a halt outside Minnie’s apartment and double-park. Annoyed horns blare behind me, but I jump out of the car without looking and race to the front door. The buzzer yields no better results than the phone. Alejandro joins me when I run around the side of the building.
“Where are you going?”
“Minnie’s apartment is on the second floor. I can climb up and look in through the windows.”
A ground floor patio furnishes me with a chair, and with the extra height I can reach the railings of Minnie’s small balcony. I swing myself up, long-disused muscles straining with the almost-forgotten motion. Alejandro whistles behind me.
“Were you once a gymnast?” he asks.
“I joined a circus for a while,” I reply, my focus on Minnie’s sliding glass door. We’re far enough up that the latch has a few lauvan attached to it, and it’s a matter of moments for me to unlock the door. “Hold on. I’ll be right back.”
The living room, decorated with large abstract paintings and an overstuffed couch, holds no sign of Minnie. The kitchen is similarly empty, as is the bedroom and bathroom. A faint waft of citrus drifts past my nose and I squeeze my eyes shut tight. Minnie’s scent is painful when she’s not here.
Nothing is amiss, and there are no signs of an attack or forced entry. Minnie left of her own accord. But where?
I won’t learn anything else from this empty apartment, but I unlock the front door just in case. I vault over the side of the railing and land in a controlled roll beside Alejandro. He looks only mildly startled.
“She’s not there.” My breath is coming much faster than my activity warranted. My eyes travel to my center, where strands of all colors branch out from my body to join with all those to whom I’m closest. Alejandro’s forest-green threads span the short distance between us, intertwined with my chocolate brown ones. But Minnie’s navy-blue threads shoot straight down, into the ground. It’s unlikely there is a secret cavern under her apartment building, and there is no subway here. That must me
an…
“The spirits are masking her lauvan connection to me,” I say, my voice barely a gasp. “The earth spirits. I don’t know how to find her.”
Leaves rustle in a bush nearby, although there is no wind, and gravel underfoot jiggles and trembles as my strands flare out and disrupt objects around me. Alejandro looks around at the vibrations, then he grips my shoulders.
“We’ll find her, Merlo.” He gives me a small shake. “Keep it together. We’ll get the group over, compare notes, and solve this. Minnie is not lost yet.”
I stare into Alejandro’s brown eyes, wide with concern, and nod. He squeezes my shoulders and releases them.
“Why don’t you call Jen and I’ll drive?” he says with an outstretched hand. “I’m too young for a heart attack.”
I smile weakly and place my keys in his hand.
“I hope you’ve driven shift before.”
“Grandfather taught me.”
“Oh great,” I say with a grimace. “Braulio never had much in the way of driving skills. I’ll say goodbye to the car now.”
Alejandro laughs and leads the way to the car. It’s garnering filthy looks from other vehicles as they edge around it. I ignore everyone and slide into the passenger seat with my phone. I hope Jen is free―I need her ideas and level head. Alejandro ducks apologetically and starts the car.
“How can I live for so long and still be surprised like this?” I say with weariness.
“Whoa, that reminds me of a dream I had last night.” Alejandro glances at me with a furrowed brow. “You were in it. Actually, you are in a lot of my dreams lately.”
“Oh?” I say without much interest. Jen hasn’t written back yet, and I don’t even have driving to distract me from the gnawing sense of loss and fear that Minnie’s absence has created in my gut. “I thought your tastes ran toward the female persuasion.”
Alejandro huffs.
“Not like that. No, I’ve been dreaming of you in the past, or what my mind imagines you’d be like back then. I don’t know why it started now―I’ve known your secret for years―but it’s been every night for the past week.”
My mind turns over this information.
“Describe one of these dreams,” I say slowly.
“They’re a bit hazy, but this one was definitely in the past―swords and all that―and we were sitting around a campfire. Someone was trying to make me eat a rat. Then there was a prisoner who was spying on us, and we had to change our plans.”
That is an accurate description of one of my memories, too accurate to be guesswork. Minnie dreams of me, too, but I chalked that up to our therapy sessions. Why is Alejandro dreaming, too?
“And there was another one that same night, except you weren’t in it. It felt like the others, though. I was in a hall with a big fire, and a dark-haired young woman in a long dress dropped a pottery bowl. I remember that it was glazed red and black, very distinctive. She was really upset. Random, right?”
I wasn’t there, but Alejandro just described something that I know happened in exactly that fashion. Arthur’s sister Morgan had dropped a serving dish that had been a highly prized gift from a neighboring lord, and she had been sweeping up the shards by the time I had entered the room. Uther had shouted for ages when he found out, and Morgan had come to me for comfort that night, despite the danger of Uther’s proximity. How can he know these things? Whose memories is he channeling?
“I have no idea what is happening,” I say. “But Minnie was dreaming my memories, too, just like you seem to be. Although, it doesn’t sound like you’re seeing my memories. I think you’re seeing Arthur’s.”
Alejandro glances at me, his eyes uncertain.
“How? And why?”
“For that, I have no conjecture.” I lean my head against the backrest and contemplate. I stiffen. “When was the first dream?”
Alejandro thinks for a moment.
“Last Friday,” he says. “The day you got back from the boat trip.”
“The day you touched the grail.” I stare at Alejandro. “The day you had that strange reaction.”
“You think it gave me some memories? I thought you said it wasn’t King Arthur’s at all.”
“It wasn’t. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have some other powers. You certainly reacted strangely, and so did March. I wonder what March is remembering now.” I recall her conversation with Anna on the phone after the incident. “She knows something now or thinks she does. What did the grail do?”
Alejandro shakes his head in puzzlement and turns into the parking lot of my building.
“I don’t know, but we’re here. Let’s find Minnie first, then we can figure out what my dreams mean.”
I snap back into my present worries.
“Agreed.”
***
In my apartment, I start to pace. The walls are too constrictive, when all I want to do is fly away to where Minnie is. But I can’t do that until I know where she is. I need to think of a plan to find her, but my mind only buzzes with unanswered questions and intangible fears. Alejandro watches me for a moment with worry in his eyes, then the door opens.
“Merry! What happened?” Jen races toward me. With a murmured excuse, Alejandro sidles to the door and closes it behind him. Jen doesn’t spare him a glance, instead throwing her arms around me. I cling to her for a moment, then push her away to talk.
“They took Minnie. They’re going to kill her to complete the ceremony. I don’t know where she is, nor how to find her.” The panic threatens to overwhelm me again, so I beat it down.
Jen doesn’t say anything in return, but her expression speaks volumes. I collapse on the couch like a marionette whose strings have been cut and bury my face in my hands. She sits down beside me and places a warm hand on my shoulder.
“We’ll figure this out. Okay? Minnie is not going anywhere. We’ll get her back.”
I grimace.
“I’ve been around long enough to know promises like that are some of the hardest to keep.”
Jen sighs, then squares her shoulders in determination.
“It doesn’t mean we don’t even try.” She grabs my satchel that sits nearby and rifles through it until she extracts a pen and some loose paper. “Here. Write down every place that you know Minnie goes to. And anything else: phone number, address, full name. We will follow every lead.” She stands. “I’ll get you something to eat while you think. You might need to transform later, and we don’t want you distracted.”
I smile weakly at her.
“You remembered.”
She pats my shoulder again then points at the paper.
“Get to work.”
I scrawl Minnie’s name and information on the paper, then her work address. I pause. What do I know about her, truly? Not a lot, certainly not enough to exhaustively search for her. She likes being on the ocean, so she might have a membership at the sailing club. I write that down, then throw the pen on the table in frustration. How can I look for her with no information?
Perhaps I am approaching this wrong. I’m certain Potestas has her, not that she has wandered off to go sailing. I need to focus on every lead I have for March and her people. I grab the pen once more and feverishly write down everything I can think of, the addresses of March’s and Anna’s houses and of headquarters, anything at all. It’s a pitifully small list. My face heats as my blood boils. March. Anna. Potestas. Their hunger for power has led to this. They plan murder for their egotistical gain. My breath comes faster. I pound my fist on the table once, hard. Jen pops her head around the corner.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“Wrong?” I try to control myself, but it’s an impossible task. I rise. “This is all wrong. When I find March, I will end her. And Anna, too. And every one of those psychos in Potestas, every single one that even attempts to stand in my way. They have all made their destiny, and I will deliver.”
The paper with my notes flies off the table and swirls in the air from the action of
my distraught strands. Jen’s eyes follow it with apprehension, then flicker back to my face.
“Merry, please don’t talk like that. We will find Minnie, and make sure March and the rest are reported to the authorities so they can answer for their actions. Just―calm down, okay? We won’t find her unless you keep a cool head.”
Jen’s words break through my haze of anger. The paper flutters to the floor. Jen picks it up and holds it tight.
“I can’t promise that everything will be okay in the end, but I promise I will do absolutely everything I can to find Minnie. Okay?”
I nod mutely then sit on the couch and pass a shaking hand over my eyes. Jen sits gingerly beside me.
The couch jolts and shakes, and Jen squeezes my arm.
“I thought you were calmed down,” she hisses. I shake my head.
“That’s not me.” We wait for the shuddering to stop. My heartbeat takes longer. “The spirits are waking up and preparing for their big debut.”
Jen says nothing and merely squeezes my arm again. A few moments pass.
“Take my mind off things until Alejandro gets back with reinforcements,” I say. “What happened between you two, anyway? Your side of the story.”
Jen’s lauvan bristle at the memory, although she attempts to keep her voice unconcerned.
“Alejandro completely overreacted when I tried to comfort him about his uncle dying. Things between us were amazing, but then he blows up in my face? I don’t need that kind of drama.”
I nod without comment. Jen sneaks a sideways glance at my face.
“I’m dating Cecil again,” she says quietly. I suppress a groan. Jen’s golden threads are taut at her revelation. “I think maybe I made a mistake leaving him. I think. It’s not amazing, but he doesn’t misconstrue my words, so that’s something.” She sighs and leans back into the couch. “We’ll see.”
The front door clicks open, and Alejandro enters, followed by Wayne and Liam.
“Good, you’re all here,” says Jen. “Are you up to speed?”
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