by Faith Hunter
“Daddy says it means you can spank me if I’m real bad, but I don’t believe him. You would never hurt me.” When I didn’t reply she asked, “Is going fast being bad?”
“Can you fly?”
Angie tucked her chin at my seeming non sequitur.
“Let’s say you had a spell that you thought might let you fly, and you wanted to jump off a cliff to see if it worked, instead of testing it by jumping off your back deck. I’d have to stop you from jumping off a cliff. And if you were really grown-up enough to test that spell, you would never have thought of testing it by jumping off a cliff in the first place.”
Angie thought about that for a while as I kneaded my belly and breathed in the wonderful bacon smell that was wafting under my door. “You mean that if I was stupid you would have to stop me from being stupid?”
“Yep.”
“I was stupid to go fast?”
“There might be a cliff at the bottom of go fast.”
“Did my magics get messed up because I tried to go fast?” Tears gathered in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks, and I felt like crap because of them. “I can’t use my magics no more.” She sobbed and buried her face in my pillow.
Thank God, I thought.
Kit, Beast thought. Pull kit in to nurse.
No way. Ick. But a good cuddle, maybe, I thought back at her. I managed to get to my feet and went to the bed, where I sat on the tangled sheets and pulled Angie to me. She was overheated and sweaty and smelled like . . . like Angie. I placed her on my lap and positioned her head on my healed shoulder, my nose in her hair. She smelled wonderful, of little girl and happiness, even over the scent of anger and tears.
“You didn’t mess up your magics trying to go fast. At least not permanently. But you did get snarled back up in the binding while you were trying to figure out time, and now your magics are tied in with it. Meaning that you can’t use your magic until your parents say so. You won’t be able to make them forget things or not see you doing things.”
“Not fair!”
I chuckled. “It’s fair, it’s just not what you want. There’s a difference.”
“You jumped off a cliff.”
My breath caught at that accusation. Because she was right. I jumped off cliffs all the time. “I guess I did. But I’ve jumped off cliffs for a long time and I started with little cliffs and I know how big a cliff I can jump off of. And I also know that, sometimes, it’s better to jump off a cliff and risk death than the alternative.”
“What’s alternative?”
“What’s it mean?”
Angie nodded her head, bumping my nose.
“Saving you and your mama and the new baby is worth jumping off a cliff. Worth risking my life for.” I nuzzled her head, and she repositioned herself on my lap and sighed. “Some things are worth fighting for. Worth dying for.”
“But if you died, then what about us? We might have died too.”
I nodded. “I knew that was a risk. And if I’d had lots of time to reason through it, I might have taken the selfish way out and gone fast and changed things to my benefit. To all our benefit. But making things turn out the way I want can have unintended consequences. You know what that means?”
“It means that I plan for a good thing to happen with my magics, but my plans make a bad thing happen. Mama says that’s witchery one-oh-one.”
I grinned against her head.
“And I’m not supposed to say that to other people who aren’t witches because it might creep them out.”
She was quoting Molly and my grin grew broader. “Right. Even something good, if it’s done in the name of selfishness, always results in evil. Only good, done in the name of unselfishness, results in good. Most of the time. Sometimes. It isn’t guaranteed, no. But it sometimes works out.
“When I fought in real time—instead of going into fast time—it allowed your mama to wake up and get down here. To help. It also allowed Soul to get here. Doing the right thing doesn’t mean good things happen. But it does keep my spirit clean and pure, my soul home clean and pure. It does mean good things are more likely, and not selfish, bad things.”
Angie pulled away and looked up at me, scowling. She’d gotten really good at it, and I had to fight not to laugh in the middle of what had turned into a deadly serious discussion. “Are you trying to say I shouldn’t undo Mama and Daddy’s magical bindings? That I should stay a little girl forever?”
That was a sideways slide from one subject to another subject, but I followed it. “It’s up to you whether you fight the binding or not. I guess it has been for a while now. But the bindings have let you mature and grow and learn to use your magics slowly, at a pace—that means speed—that lets you grow into being a witch and an adult at the same time. So yes. I think you should wait until you’re eighteen, like I did.”
Angie flinched and her eyebrows went up fast. Her scent spiked with the sharp pheromone of surprise.
I said, “I grew up without a mother and father, in a children’s home. With humans. No witches, no skinwalkers—no people like me. My magics were bound by a thing called amnesia.”
“That’s where people forget stuff!”
“Yeah, it is. And I forgot everything, even how to speak. And my Beast—”
“Your big-cat?”
“Yes, my big-cat. She made sure I didn’t remember how to change into my big-cat shape until I was grown-up. Until I was eighteen years old and had learned enough to figure out how to use my magic properly.”
“That sucks.”
I couldn’t help it. A giggle came out between my lips with a sound like shurffle.
Angie giggled with me. “Don’t tell my mama that I said a bad word.”
“Trust me, I won’t. So, are you going to let your magics be bound and not jump off a cliff?”
“I guess so. Since you did it. But only biscause . . . because . . . I’m letting it happen, not because Mama and Daddy are making it happen to me.”
“Mmm.” I decided in an instant not to tell Angie that I had bound her magics. The less said the better, or the better part of valor, or the likely detail that I was chicken. Whatever.
“When you grow up, you can be bound no more, your magics yours to use.”
“Okay, Aunt Jane.” Angie sighed, her whole body getting into the deep breath. “But it still sucks.”
With that momentous decision made, I carried Angie to the kitchen and managed not to crawl into the platter of bacon. I ate steadily, knowing that the coming discussion with Molly and Big Evan was going to be difficult, because of my chat with their daughter and the things I’d told Angie Baby. I still felt I’d made the right decision, but as I’d told my godchild, doing the right thing can have difficult consequences.
But for now we were all safe and alive, and tomorrow had come with a golden dawn and a chance for a future for all of us. There wasn’t much more I could ask of life.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Faith Hunter is the New York Times bestselling author of the Jane Yellowrock series, including Dark Heir, Broken Soul, and Black Arts; the Soulwood series, set in the world of Jane Yellowrock; and the Rogue Mage series.
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