Dawn and Devilry

by S. Usher Evans

  The rest of the Council were already in their seats when I arrived, and I caught the look of annoyance from Cyrus as I sat in my chair next to him.

  "We're so glad you could grace us with your presence," he muttered under his breath.

  "Apologies for the delay," I said. "I had to stop by the Enchanters to deliver another batch of bread."

  Rogers, the Enchanter, beamed. "Excellent work, my boy!"

  Cyrus scoffed, rolling his eyes.

  "Yes, well, please note the time of our meetings," Alexandra said with a glare. "We can't be sitting here all day waiting for you to arrive."

  I nodded, picturing her face when I told her my wife had sent me on a mission to retrieve Ho-Ho's and other junk food. And also picturing what she'd say if I told her I had a Warrior on the way.

  "…Warrior baby."

  I jumped in my chair, coming back to the conversation at the tail end. Had I spoken aloud? No, I couldn't have. That was impossible.

  "Something wrong, Gavon?" Alexandra asked.

  "No, I must've nodded off," I said, hoping I didn't look too guilty. "I apologize. I stayed up too late experimenting."

  "Have some tea," Alexandra said, magicking the brew in front of me. I ducked my head as I sipped, trying not to grimace at the watered-down taste. Perhaps I'd bring some more tea to the Enchanters next.

  "What was the question?"

  "No question," Alexandra said. "We were merely discussing the latest with Agatha, and her child."

  Agatha… Agatha… My mind drew a blank.

  "The Charmer having the Warrior baby," Alexandra said with more than a little heat.

  My eyebrows shot upward. "Are you serious? A Warrior? Is it certain?"

  "It's clear you haven't been around the village lately," Cyrus chimed in. "As it's all anyone's talked about the past few days."

  This was incredible news. Our village would have a Warrior—and it wouldn't be mine. Not that I would've volunteered my own, but knowing there was another absolved me of having to make that choice. Our village would have a steady hand for another generation.

  "As I was saying," Alexandra continued. "The midwives are very pleased with Agatha's progress. The child is healthy and turned the right way, they believe. We will have a child in a few weeks."

  Unlike Mora, who was probably four or five weeks along, the New Salem mothers could tell the strain of magic around six months.

  "The question now becomes who will take the new Warrior as his apprentice," Alexandra said.

  "You won't take him?" Cyrus asked. "You were an excellent teacher."

  "I would prefer one of you take him. I'm too old to worry about it."

  "Gav should," Cyrus said with a smirk. "It would do him some good to get out of that dark house he shuts himself up in. Nobody sees you for weeks. I can only imagine what sort of trouble you're getting into."

  "But Cyrus," I replied with the same feigned civility. "Having an apprentice might humble you and bring your head down to a manageable size."

  "Enough," Alexandra said. "I won't have squabbling in my Council. I will make the final decision when the baby is born."

  But I caught her gaze on me and frowned. Mora was already freaking out about having three kids; imagine what she'd say when I came home with a fourth. And another Warrior.

  I shivered. Better to nip this in the bud before Alexandra made her decision.

  After another excruciatingly long meeting, I didn't disappear right away, instead choosing to loiter and wait for Alexandra to become free. She was having an extended conversation with Rogers, one I was sure she was stretching out just to get my goat. But I remained patient, standing with my hands clasped behind my back.

  Finally, she left him and joined me at the front of the Council house.

  "It's been a while since we've spoken," Alexandra said. "You usually run away to your manor and disappear until the next Council meeting."

  "I could still," I said with a mysterious smile. "But I'd like to talk to you about this Warrior child. I don't think it would be wise to let Cyrus raise it."

  "I agree. That's why I want you to."

  I swallowed. "I don't think that would be wise either."

  "And why not? You dote on the villagers. You currently aren't doing anything of import—"

  "Except for devising potions to keep the villagers alive," I replied. That would be my angle. If I were busy training a Warrior, I couldn't possibly have time to experiment.

  "Ah, unfortunately, people have become accustomed to it, and no longer think it anything special."

  I stopped in the middle of the street. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

  "People talk, Gavon. They wonder what you're doing. Nobody sees you. They put up with you because you bring us food. But…" She shook her head. "But you're nearly thirty and you've yet to have any children."

  "That you know of," I said.

  She turned. "Oh? Have you been hiding things from me, son?"

  "There have been a couple," I said. "Unfortunately, they haven't made it."

  "I see."

  Better to let her think there was something wrong with me. "It's not something I've been eager to share. Especially considering our lineage."

  She nodded, but didn't look convinced. "Then it's a good thing we have a new Warrior on the way. And a better thing I have you to train them."

  I frowned. "Yes, a good thing we have a new Warrior. But I don't think I'm the right one to raise them."

  "We still have several months until the child is born, and several more until I have to make a decision about it." Alexandra quirked her brow. "It's not something you should concern yourself with right now."

  Twenty-Four

  My wife would certainly be concerned with it, but I returned home, filled with schemes for skirting my responsibilities and excited to see what trouble my kids had gotten into while I'd been gone.

  "Baby, I'm…" I stopped short, finding Irene sitting in our living room, Marie nestled in her arms. She would've looked maternal, had it not been for the severely annoyed look on her face. Nicole was playing with her blocks on the floor, but even she wore a look of nervousness, as if she could sense the mood in the room.

  "So I hear congratulations are in order," Irene said dully.

  I glanced at my wife, whose eyes pleaded with me to make nice, so I swallowed whatever biting retort I had and forced a smile onto my face. "It's so wonderful. And unexpected."

  "Is it?"

  A terse remark was on the tip of my tongue, but I kept it at bay after another pleading look. It was the least I could do after leaving her alone with the girls all day. "Very unexpected. I don't believe we wanted more than two, did we, Mora?"

  "Nope." Mora chewed on her nail, squirming under her mother's gaze.

  "And how very convenient that this was a Warrior, too." Her eyes narrowed at me.

  "If you're suggesting I had something to do with that, then please enlighten me to how the specialties work," I said, catching Mora's eye. "I've certainly not done enough research on how alleles work."

  "You had something to do with it by your mere presence," Irene snapped.

  "Mom," Mora barked before I could jump in again. "Gavon and I are married. We have kids. They've got specialties. Get over it already."

  "And now you have one more child who'll be summoning toys and transporting all over the place," Irene said. "I heard about Marie's little magical escapade. Lucky it didn't require a memory charm on some nonmagicals."

  "It's a toy, Mom," Mora said, again, catching my eye and warning me to stay quiet. "And we'll be more careful."

  "What you need is a containment spell. On both of them. Until they're fifteen."

  "That's not happening," I replied hotly. "I believe we've had this conversation, Irene. I'm not changing my mind."

  "Of course you aren't," Irene said, rising and handing the baby back to Mora. "And that is precisely the problem."

  "W…what is that supposed to mean?" I said, struggling n
ow to keep the anger out of my voice.

  Irene shrugged, the message more for my conflicted wife than for me. "We'll continue this conversation—"

  "Never," I said. "If you can't be happy for us and our kids, we just won't have a conversation about them. Get the hell out of my house."

  Irene rose and disappeared in a puff of dark gray smoke. My final words echoed in the air and promised some sort of retribution later. Probably toward my wife.

  "I had it handled, Gav," she said softly. "You don't need to get involved. You know how she gets."

  "I didn't say anything you didn't say," I snapped.

  "Yes, but I'm her daughter, you're—"

  "Her son-in-law." I folded my arms across my chest. "And the father of her grandchildren. Is that a problem for you now, Mora?"

  "No, of course not. It's just…" She stood, tears in her eyes. "I'm just… Can you watch the girls for me?"

  She dashed up the stairs.

  I hated Irene—probably more than I hated Cyrus. She had a nasty habit of ruining everything good in our life with her judgment. With the way she treated my children and me, ready to betray the clan at the drop of a hat. I'd hoped the girls would've tempered her anger toward me—proven something to her—but if anything, it had made her more suspicious.

  Even more, I hated how her visits always resulted in fights with Mora. I tried so hard not to let her get a rise out of me. To ignore the thinly veiled comments about me and the dangers I posed. But when it came to our kids, I had a short fuse. Family meant something to me, even if it meant nothing to Irene.

  To calm down, I gave the girls a bath and read them a bedtime story. Once they were tucked in, I kissed them both and left them in their beds.

  Then I went downstairs to watch TV and drink a beer.

  When bedtime rolled around, and my wife still hadn't shown herself again, I steeled myself, climbed the stairs quietly, so as to not wake the girls, and opened the door. Our room was dark, but I could see her form outlined on the bed and hear her sniffling. What was left of my anger evaporated. I couldn't stand to hear her cry.

  "Mora?" I called, softly closing the door behind me. "Baby, I'm sorry—"

  "I gotta know," she whispered in the darkness. "I gotta know if you had anything to do with this."

  I stopped in the middle of the room. "What?"

  "Please don't be mad," she said, sitting up and wiping her face. "But Mom has a way of putting thoughts in my head, and I can't shake them. I just have to look at you in the eyes—"

  "Mora." I knelt in front of her. "Do you think if I had any control over this, I would've had a Warrior third? If I were truly this genius master planner, I'd have had one Warrior and been done with it."

  She sniffed. "Not helping."

  I took her wet cheeks in my hand. "I have no idea how the roulette works with genes and specialties. Perhaps one day our children can study themselves and understand it. I'm sure there's a genetic marker or something…" She released a sob, and I kissed her forehead. "What other stupid thoughts did your mother put in your head?"

  "Why don't you want the tear closed?"

  "I want the tear closed," I said, a little too quickly.

  "No, you don't. You kind of want it closed," she said. "You put it off and dance around it. And when Ashley gives you a lead, you only sort of follow it."

  I didn't want to know, but I asked, "And what does your mother think?"

  "Gavon, you know what she thinks. You're biding your time until you've created an army of magicals to take over the world." She wiped her cheeks. "I don't believe her, but I also don't believe you want the tear closed. If you did… you're brilliant. You would've done it by now."

  I closed my eyes. "I went to London. I talked to the guy. What do they want from me?"

  "I don't know, Gav. But Ashley isn't really happy right now either. And with a Warrior coming, it just looks like…"

  "I don't care what it looks like," I snapped angrily.

  She rested her cheek against my shirt. "But they do. And unfortunately, that's how it works around here. Image is everything. One small indication you aren't who you say you are…" She exhaled shakily. "But you have to tell me. Why haven't you closed the tear yet?"

  "Because I don't know how."

  "Baby."

  I released a loud sigh. Perhaps I wasn't as good at hiding my intentions as I'd thought. In any case, I supposed I needed to come clean for my wife to trust me again. Damn that mother of hers.

  "If I close the tear, I'm effectively sentencing everyone in that village to death.'

  "What?" Mora said, wiping her cheeks. "How?"

  "I've been bringing fresh food for years. If I stop, if the tear closes, they'll die."

  "But you survived three hundred years without the stuff from this side?"

  "And it was slowly killing them," I said. "Magical rot has all but disappeared since I started introducing real food into their diets. People are living longer, they're healthier. If I close the tear, they go back to what they had before."

  "But Gavon…they were surviving before."

  "Barely. If I hadn't made the tear, we would've dwindled to a few hundred within a generation. All the children were dying from malnourishment. Maybe they would've lived to adulthood, but…" I hung my head. "Despite what you might think, they're still my people. I still feel like I should protect them—should help them. I have a duty to you and the girls, but I also have a duty to them and… I'm sorry."

  I expected her to go on, to rant and rave at me. Instead, she just exhaled. "I understand."

  "Do you?"

  She wiped her cheeks and shook her head. "I do, baby. I get where you're coming from, but…those people. You don't owe them anything."

  "They're my people."

  "They may be your people, but we're your family," she said. "What might happen if someone like Cyrus made it over here? What would he do? What could he do to our kids?"

  It had been my fear for many years, but I'd balanced that with the knowledge that I'd been saving more lives in New Salem. A balance I'd been keeping for over a decade. "The tear is hidden," I said.

  "Baby, listen to me. I know you feel responsible for New Salem. But you can't… They were banished for a reason."

  "No, their ancestors were," I said. "Just as mine were. What gives me the right to enjoy you and our girls when they have to live in darkness?"

  She worked her jaw, unsure what to say. "So what would you do? In an ideal world…"

  "In an ideal world…" I sighed, closing my eyes and letting my true hopes come out. "In an ideal world, I would gather all the magicals in New Salem and bring them to our world."

  "But they would—"

  "Most of them are Charmers and Enchanters," I said with a sad shake of my head.

  "But they could have kids like ours. What if they had a Warrior like we are?" She swallowed. "What are we gonna do with our Warrior?"

  "Our kid will be a good kid. She or he'll only use their powers for good," I said with a smile. "But I can't say that for the others." I slumped against the bed. "The truth is, I know what I have to do. I have to close the tear, and I'll have to live with the guilt of knowing I've sentenced them to death, albeit a slow one, for the rest of my life. I just…want to delay the inevitable for as long as I can. It's not an issue right now, so…"

  She wrapped her arms around me. "I wish there was an easier solution."

  "Me too." I loosened a chuckle. "And since we're being honest with each other, there's another Warrior in the village."

  "You mean Cyrus?"

  "No, I mean…there's a woman pregnant with a Warrior," I said.

  My wife's head rose off my shoulder. "And is it yours?"

  "Oh, of course not," I said, with a laugh which evaporated under her stare. "And I don't think it's Cyrus' either. Most Warriors are flukes anyway."

  "So…why are you telling me this?"

  "Because if you'll recall, Warriors don't raise their own children. They give them to
other Warriors to raise and train. You know, to make the best, strongest, and most ruthless children they can. And today, my mother hinted that she wanted me to train the child."

  She was silent for a long moment. "I'm not raising another child. Three is my limit."

  I laughed, and she tucked herself under my arm. "I agree. Three kids is all I want."

  Twenty-Five

  Irene left us alone for the next few weeks, especially as word spread of Mora's pregnancy. The rest of Clan Carrigan stopped by with well-wishes and toys for the girls, along with curious questions about what a Warrior meant and what they might do. Having gone through this twice before, Mora and I were old hat at deflecting interest and gossip.

  "But how will you manage having three children with magic at such a young age?"

  Mora shared a look with me. "We'll make it work. Luckily, Nicole's magic is much more controllable."

  "Any luck on closing that tear, Gavon?"

  "Absolutely," I said with a firm nod. "I feel we're close."

  And that was the end of that—no mention that I'd been saying the same thing for the past five years. But Ashley's warning to me hung in the back of my mind like a storm cloud in the distance, as did the seed of doubt Irene had planted in Mora's mind. For her, and the sake of my marriage, I dove back into research with fervor.

  I decided to spend some time back in London, re-reading the journals of John Chase and his associates. This magical library, a rarity in its own right, was the largest collection of letters and documents related to the Separation outside of Clan Carrigan. It would take me several hours, maybe even a few trips, to sort through all the boxes.

  "You get to take a kid," Mora said, when I informed her of my plans. "I don't care which one."