Maid of Ice

by Shona Husk

  “What do you mean?” She’d lost interest in her phone, and the silver in her eyes was barely visible.

  She didn’t know that she could glimpse the future. That would be a handy skill right now given that he was supposed to be searching for an unknown vampire. He preferred that name to Albanex. Vampire sounded dangerous. Albanex sounded like something you could catch if you drank dirty water while traveling overseas.

  “I told you about the vampire. But there is also someone here making them.”

  “Here as in, here? L.A.?”

  “Possibly. That’s”—he almost said father, but his father was technically her king—“the king’s best guess.”

  “We have a king? What else do we have? Are there secret meetings? Magical schools? What have I missed out on?”

  Everything and nothing and he didn’t know where to start.

  “Why don’t I bring some beers in here and bring you up to speed.” He could give her a brief history of the Albah, the treaty with the Guardians and how that had unraveled, and the rising of vampires. He wouldn’t tell her about the Keepers of the Law. Some Albah thought they were a myth, he knew they weren’t. He’d spent years resenting his mother for caring more about cold, undead things than him. Even now it pricked, but he also knew it was an important job. If someone were to accidentally wake one, well, horror movies had been made with less of a premise.

  She grinned. “That sounds like an excellent idea.”

  He wasn’t so sure. This wasn’t like any date he’d ever had before and that may, or may not, be a good thing.

  * * * *

  An hour later the two beers were gone and Alina had a bowl of water in her lap. She stared into it hoping something would happen. Nothing was happening. “I thought you said I could see the future?”

  “You should be able to, but I don’t know how it’s done, as I can’t. It’s not a skill male Albah have.”

  “But you can heal?”

  Finley nodded. He shouldn’t even be up and walking yet. According to him his injuries should’ve kept him in hospital and in bed for weeks. Magic had lessened the extent.

  “Why can’t we all do the same things?”

  “I don’t know. I walked away from all of this years ago.”

  “Your father is king. You’ll be king.” She glanced up from the water. “Why would you do that?”

  He lay down on the bed and groaned. “You don’t know my father. I should’ve left all of this until the morning.”

  “It’s not even one yet. Still early, or are you too old?” She poked his ribs and he curled up as if wounded. He ran his fingertip along the sole of her foot.

  She flinched and managed not to splash water everywhere, although she didn’t know if that was because of magic or luck.

  He put a hand on the bowl to steady it. His fingers brushed hers. “I’m not old. I grew up with magic and the expectations and now I’m expected to find a damn vampire and stake it.”

  “All parents have expectations.” That she knew too well.

  “I’m not good with responsibility.” He lay back down.

  “So why did you agree to look into the vampire?”

  He pulled a face. “I couldn’t really refuse. If I don’t then the Guardians will feel justified in hunting us because we’re letting it happen. They might even think we want it to happen.”

  “Well, someone obviously does. It doesn’t seem like the kind of spell one does by accident.” Maybe it was. She actually had no idea. Did she do magic accidentally without realizing?

  “We don’t do spells.”

  She lifted an eyebrow and pointed at the bowl of water. “This isn’t a spell?”

  “That’s scrying. And it’s not working so why don’t you put it down and we can turn off the light.” His hand traced up her leg. “Maybe you need something other than water to focus on.”

  “Or maybe I need to talk to someone who can do this.” She pressed her lips together. Her gut instinct was something she always listened to. When she ignored it, something bad happened. Going home with Finley had been the right thing to do. She was sure of that. But she’d expected more. More magic. Like just being here would unlock that part of her and it hadn’t.

  “You could ask your mother,” he said perfectly seriously as though that were actually a possibility.

  She stared at him. She could, but it was now quite clear why her mother hadn’t wanted her to date Finley and it had nothing to do with his reputation. Her mother had known what he was from the moment she’d seen him. “I think it would be better if I pretend I don’t know about the Albah with her.” She didn’t know why her mother had wanted to vanish, or why she thought magic was a bad thing. She didn’t even know what her mother’s element was. “Do you think she’ll be water like me?”

  “It doesn’t work that way. My father is air, but my half brothers are earth and fire.”

  “Then how does it work?” She wanted to be able to put it all together so it made sense. So she made sense. This is what she’d been looking for and never finding.

  He shrugged. He was lying on the bed, the sheet pulled halfway up, like he was waiting for someone to ravish him. She was that someone, except she’d been sidetracked by the talk about magic.

  “If we ever knew, that information has been lost or destroyed,” he said softly. His lips turned down at the corners, but he didn’t say anything else. He might’ve walked away from the Albah, but he didn’t like what was happening to his people.

  “Are we really dying out?”

  “We’re critically endangered.” There was no light in his eyes, no quirk to his lips as he made a joke. That was the simple, brutal truth.

  And no one was calling for donations to save them. Wasn’t magic worth fighting for? Or for those brought up knowing about magic was it so ordinary? She’d only just found her people and they were literally on the brink of extinction. That wasn’t fair.

  She glanced at the glass mixing bowl filled with water. Something rippled across the surface, but it was gone before she knew what it was. “Did you see that?”

  “No. Are you sure it wasn’t a reflection or a ripple?”

  “Of course I’m sure.” She wasn’t, not really but she wasn’t going to admit to that. She glanced at the water again. A flick of silver like the blade of a skate as it caught the light, then nothing. “Damn it.”

  “Come back to it tomorrow when you are fresh.”

  “I should be able to do this.” Where was her magic?

  The water in the bowl started to bubble, and the glass became warm in her hands. She didn’t know how to stop it.

  Finley jerked up and put a hand over hers. “You’re exercising a muscle that has never been consciously worked. It’s going to be painful at first. Breathe and be calm.”

  Easy for him to say as he wasn’t holding the boiling water. She inhaled, then exhaled slowly and concentrated on the feel of his hand on hers. The way he was leaning toward her not away. He wasn’t afraid of what she’d do. The bubbles calmed. “Was it painful for you?”

  Finley was silent for a few seconds. “My stepmum had just died, Julian had unexpectedly got his magic early because of the accident.” He’d told her about the car accident that was no longer thought to be an accident and how Julian had saved his brother but hadn’t been able to save his mother. He shouldn’t have been able to save anyone but fear had made his magic bloom. “I just stumbled along doing my own thing for a while. My brothers were little and I wasn’t. She wasn’t my real mum, so it shouldn’t have mattered.”

  She could see in his face that it had, but he’d been overlooked in all the drama. “Did you ever get taught?”

  “Yeah. Once everything had settled down. My father isn’t evil. He was just once again a single dad with a preteen, a baby, and a six-year-old who could start fires when he got scared. I learne
d how to put out fires with air very fast.” A small smile formed. “I think Dad liked having another air user in the house. He knew how to teach that.”

  “What about Julian, the one with fire?” That sounded like the worst element to have.

  “He got it all under control eventually. He spoke to other Albah online. If we weren’t so spread out, then it would be easier. He’s with the only fire-using woman.”

  “How did she learn?”

  “She still is. Fire is hard to master and not a magic I’d wish on anyone.”

  “So if it wasn’t that bad at home, why leave?” Why hadn’t she left? She could’ve said no so many times over the years. She could have packed her bags and walked away. Refused to skate. Refused to move, yet she’d played along. “Weren’t you worried about being on your own over here, so far from family?”

  “No.” He took the bowl of water—it had stopped boiling—and put it on the bedside table. “That was the attraction. I wanted to be alone and I didn’t want to be Albah.”

  “And now you are the most well-known Albah in the world. On TV for all to see.”

  His lips turned up in a lopsided smile. It was his secret for all to see. “But not everyone knows about us. We can’t go public.”

  “I know that.” She wriggled down into the bed. It was firmer than she was used to. She wasn’t used to staying the night and sharing a bed either. Maybe she should’ve gone home, but then she would’ve missed talking about magic and learning more about Finley. The bits that no one else knew. Could never know. He’d never shared that he was Albah with any of his other girlfriends.

  She’d never shared what she was either because she hadn’t known. She would speak to her mother about it, but not yet. She wanted to enjoy this time. She wanted to grow her magic and learn to glimpse the future.

  “So can I help you find the vampire?”

  He turned off the light and faced her. “You don’t have to. I don’t even want to.”

  “No, but we need to. I’ll ask Mom about my ears.” Maybe the doctor had done the ears of other Albah. Maybe it was nothing. But they had nothing right now anyway. “How do we find a vampire?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “If I was a vampire, and I don’t want to be one for the record, then I’d hang out where there was blood.”

  “Blood is everywhere. It comes in people-shaped bags.”

  She slapped him. “That’s not even funny.”

  He laughed. “It wasn’t meant to be. The vampire could be anywhere. The only thing that is certain is they will look Albah. But there are no bodies turning up so he, or she, is being super careful.”

  “How does your father know it’s here?”

  He sighed. “I don’t know. I don’t want to know. If I ask too many questions I’ll get drawn back in and then I won’t be able to get free.”

  He saw being Albah as a net to break free of, while she saw it as something exciting, a new world of unlimited possibilities. Should she be as concerned as he was? Did she really want to be part of a race of people who were being hunted to extinction?

  She wanted to stop those people from destroying real magic. The first step to doing that was stopping the vampire. She was only a little curious about how an Albah became a vampire, and that was purely because she wanted to know everything about the Albah and magic, not because she wanted to become vampire.

  “So the vampire takes only a little. And the people don’t raise a fuss. A hospital or nursing home or something like that then. A place where blood gets taken every day.”

  “And one extra vial means nothing,” Finley said. “I’d been thinking nightclubs and murder.”

  “As you said nothing is showing up so maybe this vampire is subtler than the one back in Perth.”

  “Yeah. That’s not a good thing for us.”

  She moved closer and he put his arm around her. “At least there aren’t bodies turning up. That would be hard to explain and would piss the Guardians off.”

  They didn’t seem like the kind of people one should ever annoy. They sounded like righteous psychopaths. They should be the ones getting charged with murder and locked away.

  Finley was a very public target. That must really eat some of them up.

  She wanted to say something about the car accident, but he already knew that there was a chance it had been no accident. If he was worried, it wasn’t showing. He’d lived with this knowledge and threat his whole life.

  She was glad her mother had fixed her ears as a kid, but she didn’t think she’d ever admit that to Finley.

  * * * *

  Will searched his photos for something that proved Finley had used magic. He had, that was clear to anyone watching, or at least to anyone looking for magic. That was the only explanation for how the thief had rolled down the street like a leaf in the wind.

  But the cops hadn’t thought anything was amiss. There should be laws against using magic on humans. It was disgusting how elves got away with it.

  He added the video to the Web site he was building. It wasn’t as convincing as he’d like. He needed more. Maybe he could get Alina on his side. He zoomed in on her look of shock. She had no idea. He’d tell her the truth and she’d help him catch Finley in the act.

  He checked his messages and saw another couple of pictures had been sent to him. They were nothing. The people didn’t even have the right hair color. He knew how to spot an elf. It wasn’t that hard.

  Somehow none of his grandfather’s children had inherited magic. Maybe his grandmother hadn’t been faithful. They were both dead now, so it was too late to ask. When he’d raised the issue of magic at one family gathering they’d all but laughed at him for thinking that any of his grandfather’s tricks were real.

  But he’d seen the way his grandfather had grasped flame, and he’d seen the oddness of his grandfather’s eyes. After that day, he’d made it his mission to get the truth out of the old man. And he had. Magic was real, but only those born with it had it. Will was nothing like his cousins. He’d started seeking ways to expose the truth after that. People with magic shouldn’t be able to do whatever they wanted. The only reason they got away with it was because no one believed in magic anymore.

  Finley had never done anything as obvious as holding fire.

  Will needed to switch focus. Alina was the key to unlocking Finley.

  He’d show Alina the truth.

  He’d show them all.

  His family wouldn’t laugh at him then. He sent off a few photos of the happy couple along with a little bit of story to one of the Web sites he sent stuff too. If they took it, he’d get paid. At least Finley was good for something.

  Finley was a guaranteed paycheck as long as he kept up his antics. Everyone loved to see who he was with this week. Which meant that Will had better make sure Alina didn’t become a permanent fixture.

  Or would stories on their relationship be worth more?

  People did love a whirlwind romance followed by a shattering breakup. Trouble was Alina was a no one. A silver medalist whose career had stalled. She was probably using Finley to relaunch herself. That was another story he could spin with the right photos.

  He made a few notes and decided that it would still be worth approaching Alina at some point in the near future.

  Chapter 12

  With the cast hindering everything she did, Alina struggled to put on her skates but got there eventually. She’d come down to the local rink in an attempt to enjoy skating, something she hadn’t done in a very long time. Every time she’d stepped onto the ice it had been all about work. This morning she’d woken up with the realization that ice was water, and she knew ice really well.

  Since water was her element, this was the place to try to tap in and see what magic she could do. She wanted to be able to peek into her future.

  She did a
few laps, skating as casually as the dozen other people there, but she was feeling the ice beneath her skates. The way it felt, the way it moved as she cut through. The scuffed patches compared to the smooth.

  When she pushed to go faster the ice seemed to help. She wobbled but didn’t fall. Soon it was nothing but her and the ice. She knew the connection, the familiar place she’d always called the zone, when everything was going right and nothing else mattered but her and the ice. This time she knew it for what it was, magic.

  It was what she’d felt when she’d won silver and been beaten by a fraction of a point.

  The other woman hadn’t been using magic.

  Nausea swept through her. The connection broke and she barely made it to the rail. Alina leaned on it, gasping for breath. Her skin prickled with heat as she sucked in cold air to calm herself. She’d been using magic when competing without realizing. She wasn’t good at ice-skating. She was cheating. All the medals, the championships she’d won as a child and a teen were all lies.

  Her breathing came hard, and the cold pinched her lungs.

  Her mother had known. She’d used to tell her to feel the ice, learn its different textures, but that hadn’t been what she’d meant. She’d meant connect with it on a magical level. How much of her skating was her and how much was magic?

  Could she shut off her magic completely?

  What would happen now she knew what it was?

  Happy skaters went around and around. A few tried simple jumps or skated backward.

  Deliberately she tried to separate herself from the water beneath her skates. It wasn’t as easy as she’d thought it would be. She’d been connected every time she’d skated. It was just the depth of the connection that changed.

  Magic was part of her. It had always been part of her. She just hadn’t known. Was it cheating if she didn’t know? She had no idea and it wasn’t as though she could ask anyone.

  Except her mother.

  She didn’t want to have that conversation yet.

  Unable to pull away from her element and the magic in her blood, she went the other way and widened the connection until she wasn’t just on the ice, she was in it. She felt other skaters moving over the surface, the pressure of their skates. She took a breath and pushed off. It didn’t even feel like work. She moved with ease, one with the ice. She spun, tightening her circle then opened out like a flower. She kept going, trying a more complicated move after each success.