Meggy looked stricken, and I squeezed her hand before stepping out from the line. “Come down here, Oli—Moyna,” I said, trying to toe the tonal line between no-nonsense and reasonable. “We need to talk.”
“Murderer!” she screamed, then leapt into the air as the snake’s head plummeted toward me, mouth open and fangs extended. I felt Val’s shield form as I threw a wall of pure force at the monster, and the snake rebounded as if it had struck concrete, hissing and suddenly minus a tooth. The broken fang fell into the water a few feet offshore and bobbed in the chop, and Moyna landed back on her snake, furious but controlled.
“Let’s talk about this,” I tried again once she had ceased to hover. “You’re outnumbered, Moyna. You can’t win like that, and nothing good ever comes from giant snakes. Come on, now, let’s be rational.”
But she shook her head. “Come down?” she mocked. “Why, so you can bind me again? You took away my memories, my mind—”
“Because you asked Mother to execute me! What was I supposed to do, throw you in a cell and lose the key? I tried to give you the life you should have had!”
Moyna laughed incredulously. “So you cast me out of Faerie and dump me in Rigby? Take away my power? My…my soul?” she sputtered. “You killed my mother, and you expect me to play your little game without complaint? No!” She stamped her foot, and the wounded snake winced. “I’m not your pawn, Ironhand, and I’m not your plaything!”
“Please, Olive,” Meggy begged, “just come down—”
“Moyna!” she screamed. “I am Moyna, you stupid cow! Olive is dead!”
Oberon whistled softly and looked out at the sunrise. “If you’re wise, boy, you’ll kill her now. Save yourself the trouble.”
Before I could rebuke him again, Aiden kicked off his shoes and waded into the surf. “Hey, Moyna!” he yelled up at her, cupping his hands into a makeshift megaphone. “It’s Aiden! Remember me?”
She peered over the side of her mount and wrinkled her nose. “Robot Boy? One of his minions, are you?”
“Not exactly. I’m, uh…I’m your uncle. Surprise,” he said with a shrug. “And one hundred percent grade-A witch-blood.” He held up his empty hands, then pulled Val’s sword from his belt and tossed it back onto the sand. “I’m unarmed.”
“Aiden, get back here!” I began, but Val gripped my arm to stay me and shook his head.
My brother continued, heedless of my order. “You’re angry. You have every right to be,” he called. “I’d be angry, too, if someone killed my mom in front of me.”
“I didn’t kill her,” I muttered to no one in particular.
Joey glanced down from his saddle. “Dude,” he whispered, “I think you’re getting into technicalities at this point.”
“The thing is,” said Aiden, ignoring the chatter behind him, “we’ve got to figure out how to make this right. Now, I know you think you’re in a Mexican standoff, but Moyna, they’ve matched you in oversized reptiles and beaten you in numbers. You want to get in a firefight with two kings? Oberon’s not going to lose any sleep if he kills you, and you’re pushing Coileán into a corner.” He paused, letting that sink in, then said, “If I come out to you—just me, unarmed, no tricks—could we talk?”
She planted her hands on her hips and stared down at him, puzzling out her circumstances. “In good faith?”
“Absolutely,” said Aiden. “And look,” he added, pushing up his sleeves and lifting his shirt, “nothing hiding, nothing strapped on. We can talk about what you want, okay? Maybe you can work something out.”
“This is a terrible idea,” Meggy muttered.
“Just a minute,” I yelled, and beckoned Aiden out from the water. He marched back up the beach, his jeans soaked to mid-calf and wicking higher by the minute, and looked at me enquiringly. I waited until he was close, then bent to his ear and said, “If you go out past a certain radius, I can’t protect you. She’s raging right now, and I don’t know what she has on her mind—she’s repelling me.” I glanced at Val, who nodded. “Repelling all of us. You go out there, and you’re a sitting duck.”
“Do you have a better idea?” he replied.
“I do,” said Meggy, joining the huddle. “Bind Olive again, take down the snake when she’s safe, and we’ll deal with the repercussions later. You’re not going to reason with her like this. Listen to me, Colin,” she insisted, “I’m the one who’s lived with her, and I’ve seen her moods. She’s close to impossible when she’s angry—there’s no sense in trying diplomacy until she’s calmed down.”
I cut my eyes to the waiting monster, which had drifted away from the shore while we debated, then back to Meggy. “I don’t trust myself to bind her like this. The first one obviously failed—”
“What about him?” she interrupted, nodding to Oberon, who was now nursing a cup of coffee and enjoying the sunrise from a wooden beach chair. “We know he’s good at it,” she added bitterly.
“You want to entrust Oberon with her safety right now? Bastard’s got an itchy trigger finger, Meggy.”
She huffed in frustration. “Okay, what about knocking her out? You kept her unconscious while I recouped last spring.”
“No, Toula did, but I could replicate the effect…”
“And if you do that,” said Aiden, “she’ll never trust you again. I wouldn’t.” Meggy and I wheeled on him, and he stared impassively back at us. “Look, I’m not saying she’s right, but you guys screwed with her head for the last eight months. I’d be pissed if I were in her shoes, and that’s not counting whatever you did to Titania.”
“I defended myself,” I shot back. “And I shouldn’t have to justify that to—”
“I’m not asking you to justify it,” he said. “Not to me, anyway. But look, I get it, you tried to find a solution to a bad situation, and now it’s biting you in the ass. You want to make things right with Moyna? Start by acknowledging that she’s got a legitimate grievance or two, stop treating her like she’s throwing a tantrum, and try to negotiate a cease-fire.” He pointed to the distant snake and added, “Her fight isn’t with me. I’m the least threatening person on this island, and she knows it—what’s it going to hurt if I try to talk her down?”
I looked at Meggy, whose pursed lips silently said enough, then sighed and raised my hands in surrender. “Don’t get hurt.”
“That’s the goal,” he replied, heading for the water. “Got a boat or something handy?”
“How about this?” I muttered, gesturing to the sea. With a moment’s work, a sandbar rose out of the water in a beeline for Moyna. “Have you gone far enough?” I called out to her.
“Suffices!” she called back.
With a last smile of reassurance, Aiden stepped out onto the sandbar and made his steady way toward Moyna, who had paused perhaps fifty yards offshore. He walked carefully, testing for boggy patches, and held his hands out to prove to her he was unarmed. After a tense few minutes, he reached the end of the bridge and waited. The serpent’s head descended to the sea, and Moyna stepped to the edge, beckoning for Aiden to join her. He scrambled up the snake, and the head rose again, cutting off Aiden’s escape route.
“Oh, look,” said Oberon, still sipping his coffee, “she’s taken her first hostage. Delightful.”
“We don’t know that,” I began, but he chuckled into his mug.
“The boy’s helpless, and he’s obviously of some value to you,” he said, sparing me a glance. “Sentimental value, I suppose. A mongrel’s not good for anything else.”
“Except the mongrel who killed Titania, of course,” I retorted.
“And hi, there,” said Joey, waving down at us. “Yoo-hoo, guy on dragon checking in. You’re looking at your backup plan.”
“Yeah, sorry,” Meggy mumbled, “but that’s not reassuring.”
Valerius, who had been observing the negotiations in silence, abruptly wheeled about and grabbed my shoulder. “Gate opening,” was all he had time to say before a short brunette in jeans and a purple p
eacoat sprinted through onto the beach. She looked around wildly, spotted Aiden in the distance, and dashed for the makeshift land bridge.
“Hey! Hey!” she yelled between ragged breaths. “Let him go! You let him go right now!”
“Uh…who the hell is that?” said Meggy.
I ran to the gate as it started to close, just in time to see Greg watching with his arms folded on the other side. “What’s going on?” I demanded.
He cut his eyes to the sea monster. “Could ask the same thing, old timer, but I guess I’ll get an earful later,” he replied, and the gate vanished.
In the meantime, the runner on the bridge had pulled something from inside her coat. I feared she was carrying a gun until the suddenly sparking tip gave it away as a wand, which made the situation infinitely worse. “Let him go!” she continued to yell with the breath she could spare. “You want to fight someone, fight me! He’s just a mongrel, let him go!”
Georgie shifted her weight as she readied for flight, and Joey asked, “Want me to break this up?”
“Hold for now,” I said, groaning inside as the pieces fell into place.
Moyna looked over the side of her snake, spotted the wizard on the bridge, then sent her ride back to sea level once more. “You would fight me?” she asked in the faint drawl she’d picked up in Virginia, her voice echoing over the waves as it rose. “Me? Do you know who I am?”
The wizard stepped into a combat stance. “Yeah. You’re a bitch with a giant snake who’s threatening my little brother,” she shouted back.
“I am the Lady Moyna of the queen’s court, idiot!”
“Okay, fine,” said the wizard. “You’re still the bitch with the giant snake who’s threatening my little brother. Let him go.”
I couldn’t see Moyna’s expression from the beach, but I could hear the contempt in her reply. “He came freely. You have no right—”
“The wand says I do,” she interrupted, flinging a thin bolt of lightning into the sea. “Aiden, get your ass off the snake, now.”
He slipped closer to the side of the beast’s head and held up his hands. “It’s okay, we’re just talking,” he said, looking back and forth between the girls as if unsure whom to placate. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
“The hell it’s fine! Get out of here!” the wizard snapped. “Are you friggin’ stupid?” She extended her wand arm as if wielding a foil, and her open coat flapped around her in the wind. “Let him go,” she told Moyna, “or so help me, I’ll blow you to kingdom come.”
Moyna cocked her head, giving the wizard a close look, then grabbed Aiden’s wrist and pulled him off the snake with her. They landed at the foot of the sandbar, and the snake’s head rose above them, casting the three into its shadow. “I don’t like threats,” Moyna said, then shouted incomprehensibly at the snake, which reared and plunged to strike the wizard, snapping her into its mouth before she had a chance to fight back.
“And that’s my cue,” said Joey as Aiden screamed. “Come on, girl, let’s do it,” he muttered, rubbing Georgie’s neck, and she lumbered down the beach, broke into a near-gallop, and rose with surprising grace. Georgie circled once, testing the wind, then started a sudden dive toward the end of the sandbar.
Meggy, who had been momentarily frozen with shock when the wizard was eaten alive, grabbed my arm. “Get them out of there! Olive’s going to kill them, she’s lost it, get them back—”
The rest of her frantic plea was cut off by the ripping, squelching blast of the snake’s head exploding outward from the spark of the swallowed wizard’s wand.
I had time to see Georgie pull up and out of the way before I grabbed Meggy and flung her to the sand, then threw myself atop her ahead of the rain of raw meat and bone shrapnel. When the patter of gore against my shield ceased, I pushed myself upright, pulled her back to her feet, and ran for the sandbar as the headless neck swayed and spurted.
Replaying that moment in distant retrospection, I can’t help but cringe. There was no need to run like a madman—a second’s effort would have sufficiently warped reality to put me at the end of the sandbar, right where Aiden and Moyna had been. But I was a madman that morning, and when reason failed, only my legs remembered what to do.
People talk of time slowing in moments of crisis, but I’m not so sure. It wasn’t time that changed as I sprinted down the packed sand toward the dying serpent, throwing up intermittent shields against the bright blood spraying above me and bellowing my brother’s name. Rather, it was my mind that malfunctioned as it attempted to process too many simultaneous stimuli—the sand, the sea, the massive splash as the snake gave up the ghost and sank into the water, and the overwhelming, racing thoughts: Aiden’s dead. I sent my defenseless baby brother to his death. Moyna’s gone. What’s this relief? Am I wishing her dead? I’m a terrible father. I’ve become Mother. Meggy will never forgive me. Aiden, where’s Aiden?
And then, like headlights through the fog, I heard Georgie’s thoughts interrupt mine: Got him!
I looked up and nearly wept with relief. Georgie was hovering—or the closest thing to it, frantically beating her wings to maintain an approximate location—while Joey, who had one arm wrapped around Aiden’s chest, was thumping his back as the boy coughed and retched seawater. “One down, going in!” Joey yelled over Georgie’s flapping. “I don’t see the other two, and she can’t carry four!”
I waved him on and resumed my race for the end of the sandbar. One of the snake’s dark coils had fallen across the path, and I vaulted it, fearing what I’d find on the other side.
But there was nothing to find—sand, sea, a faint indication of the corpse below the surface, but no trace of the wizard or Moyna. I stopped and planted my hands on my thighs, catching my breath as I scanned the water for signs of life. For a moment, all I could hear was the blood pounding in my ears, and then something splashed behind me.
It was the wizard. Soaked, scowling, and streaked with bits of the snake that were never meant to see daylight, she kicked toward the sandbar, swimming awkwardly with one hand. The other towed Moyna, who half-floated behind her, limp as a raft of kelp. As I watched, the girl reached the sandbar, dragged her unconscious prize onto dry land, then stuffed her wand into the back of her pants and knelt over Moyna. “Breathing,” she announced a few seconds later, wiping at a bleeding cut on my daughter’s forehead. “Concussion must have knocked her out. You want her or what?”
“I’ll…I’ll handle this from here,” I replied, thrown by her perfunctory assessment. “Are you al—”
“The fuck were you thinking?” she snapped as she found her feet. “How the hell did Aiden get out here? Did no one bother telling you he’s a damn mongrel, or was your head too far up your ass to see that he’s got no talent whatsoever?”
I floated Moyna a few feet above the ground and glanced over the wizard’s shoulder as Joey and Georgie landed on the sandbar. “Helen Carver, I presume.”
“Damn straight. Where’s my brother?”
“He’s resting,” said Joey, and Helen, who had been too preoccupied to notice the incoming dragon, spun around and yelped. “He’s awake, just got a little water up his nose,” he soothed. “I think he’s got a few broken ribs, though, and he’s worried sick about you—want a lift?” he asked, patting Georgie’s side.
Helen took a retreating step toward me, then seemed to accept the fact that she was caught between two things that upset her and chose the lesser evil. “Sure,” she muttered, and let Joey pull her onto the dragon’s back. “Does this thing come with seatbelts?”
You smell awful, Georgie thought, unable to understand the wizard’s complaints, and took off before Helen could change her mind and disembark.
Left alone with Moyna, I sighed, blasted a hole through the snake bits blocking my path, and made my way back to shore, dissolving the sandbar behind me.
CHAPTER 15
* * *
“He’s coming home with me, and that’s final.”
“Ms. Ca
rver,” I sighed, rubbing my head to distract me from the morning’s headache—which, by then, had become the afternoon’s headache—“that is entirely up to him, and he’s not going anywhere until he’s whole.”
“Mom’s been putting him back together for years!” she protested, slamming her fist on my desk. “She knows what goes where! Why are you being so damn difficult?”
I cracked my eyes open, found her leaning over the desk in an obvious attempt at dominance, and decided I didn’t have one more fight in me at that moment. “Aiden is here because he wants to be here,” I said quietly, resuming my massage. “And the last time I took him back to your little bunker, your parents locked him out. So tell me, Ms. Carver, what’s changed?”
She stiffened and withdrew slightly from my personal space. “They didn’t say—”
“They told you about him, didn’t they?”
“The grand magus did.” Her chin rose as her jaw clenched. “I let him know when I was coming home for Thanksgiving break—he’d promised to work with me on this defensive matrix…never mind,” she muttered, remembering her audience. “He wrote me back and said we needed to talk before I came home, and that my folks weren’t to know about it. Hence the five a.m. meeting. I thought he wanted to chat about the succession again, but he told me what had happened to Aiden.”
“What did he say?”
Helen folded her arms and rested her hip against the desk, staring out the window at the perpetually blooming rose garden. “Told me the truth. Aiden’s a mongrel, Mom’s not his mother. Said you were holding him over here.”
“Did Greg bother telling you I’m trying to help him?” I asked, looking at her until she turned to glare at me again. “Did he tell you Aiden spent most of last year in his bedroom out of fear for his safety? Did he tell you what happened to the poor kid once you left?”
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