by H G Lynch
His voice, when he spoke, was so quiet she had to strain to hear it over the wind and rattling branches. “Hiro’s right to ask why, you know. I’d like to know why too. You’re not a delicate flower, Ember—”
It was never a good thing when he used her name, instead of Emz or firefly. He was careful about when and how he used her nicknames, never called her firefly when she was most angry, called her Emz when they were bantering with their friends, only used her proper name when things were serious.
“— You’re not the kind of girl to take crap from anyone, especially not a worthless boyfriend. You aren’t the kind to crawl after a guy – after me. So…why are you? What could I possibly have done to—” He shut up very abruptly, turning his head away.
Ember saw his throat move as he swallowed, knew he was fighting some strong emotion, and possibly tears. Because that was the thing about Reid that nobody else knew; he could be sensitive. Under that mask of nonchalance and sarcastic amusement, things ate at him. Often, in the time she’d known him, she had seen him rue the mistakes he made, feel a responsibility he needn’t take on. Right under the surface, Ember knew he was a mass of writhing guilt and anxiety, worrying over her motives because if he didn’t know why she was still with him, he couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t still up and leave him any time.
“I just feel like…more than anything, like I’ve let you down. Again. And I can’t stand that feeling. I can’t stand feeling like I’ve broken it all so badly this time that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men can’t put humpty together again.”
She couldn’t stand it any longer. She wrapped her fingers around his arm tightly and turned him to face her. His head came up in a snap, but his eyes avoided hers. “Stop it, Reid. Stop kicking yourself, stop letting the guilt gnaw at you. What’s done is done. Don’t ask me why I’m still with you because the answer is as obvious as it is complicated; I love you. So long as that is still true, I’ll be right here to make sure you don’t get yourself into trouble. If you want to put the pieces back together, stop looking like that, that forlorn expression. It kills me when you look like that.” The stupid thing was that it was true. She still loved him, and while she still loved him, it would hurt her more to see him this upset than if he’d been like a normal guy and just accepted that she wasn’t kicking his ass to the curb.
“Uh, guys? If you’re done with your moment, there’s kind of a situation here! You know, the whole ‘everything is frozen and there are ice crystals forming in my hair’ thing!” Ricky called over, jerking their attention away from each other.
Reid slyly slipped his hand into Ember’s though, and squeezed her fingers. She squeezed back and dragged him toward the waiting group before he could say anything else that might make her want to burst into tears or chop his head off.
Brandon, completely out of the loop regarding Reid and Ember’s relationship issues, gave them a confused, wary glance. He looked like he was considering asking what was going on, but Ember shot him a glare that said that wouldn’t be appreciated because it was none of his business. With a sigh, he focused on the icy crisis before them instead. “We have a problem here,” he pointed out the obvious, as usual. “I don’t know what this is or how it happened, but if someone comes along past here, they’re going to wonder about a random patch of land being frozen like this while, not twenty feet away, there’s not a snowflake to be seen. It’s not natural and somebody is going to notice that. Whoever’s in this lake, they want to cause us as much trouble as possible. I don’t know what kind of creature would freeze their own lake just to keep us away, but I need someone to check if there are still wardings up and if they work through the ice.” Everyone’s eyes slid to Ember and she rolled her eyes.
“Chickens,” she muttered under her breath – despite knowing they would all hear it anyway – and went to crouch on the frosted lakeside. The crisp grass crackled under her boots and a deathly chill rose from the lake like mist flowing into her lungs and stealing all the warmth from her body. She shuddered, gasped for breath as the frigid air scraped a rough path down her throat. It was like breathing shards of glass that worked their frozen magic through her body from the inside. But she managed to hold her hand out over the thick ice, the white mist curling around her fingers and turning them blue. Hoping she wouldn’t get frostbite, she sent out little feelers from her fingertips – a sharp pain lancing through her head at the effort it took to form and hold the magic. The ice was draining her power like a black hole — let them skate across the ice, and felt a sharp, angry buzz reverberate through her magic lines. It was strong enough to make her whole arm fill with sudden pins-and-needles, like she’d bashed her funny bone. She snatched her hand back, reeling in the magic, and backed hastily away from the lake before the awful cold could freeze her in place.
Frowning, she shook her head in dismay. “The wardings have been reversed again, and they’re stronger now. They work even through the ice. This isn’t a protection thing anymore – this is revenge for trying to twist the wardings in the first place. Whatever this creature is, it’s pissed at us big time. If it had been anyone but me who’d gone over there…they would’ve been electrocuted and frozen solid.” She shivered and Reid moved to put an arm around her. Somehow, he still felt warm even though she could feel him shivering too. She couldn’t get a clear gauge on the temperature, but she thought it had possibly gotten even colder. Now even Sherry was looking a little uncomfortable, shifting closer to Ricky. He took her hands and put them in his pockets, sliding his own pitifully bare hands into her hoodie and holding her close. Perry was lingering at a little distance away, his arms crossed over his broad chest and his sleeves pulled down over his hands. Hiro had dropped into fox form while they talked, snuggling up against Ember’s legs and curling his tail around his little furry body. While he had fur, she imagined his tiny paws were getting awfully cold on the frosty grass. Bending, she picked him up and cuddled him to her chest, both for his warmth and for hers. He was amazingly cozy despite the icicles crystalizing on his soft fur.
“I guess it’d be pointless trying to re-reverse the wardings. It was hard enough la-last time and if they’ve gotten stronger…plus the cold-d will weaken Ember’s power and we-we’d need every last-t bit of strength. The o-only thing I think we can d-do is melt the ice and figure out what this t-thing is before it k-kills someone else,” Cris spoke up for the first time, his teeth chattering violently.
“And I suppose that’s my cue then, is it?” Ember snorted. To be honest, she wasn’t certain she could melt the ice, not with her magic so weak and the lack of heat with which to melt it – the ice layered over the lake had to be at least four inches thick. But she wasn’t going to tell the others that; they’d come to see her power as immeasurable, if not infinite, in regards to her ability to create fire and burn anything she liked to cinders. So, she cast out her mental net and caught at every particle of warmth that she could, feeling the frigid air trying to pry the fine threads of her invisi-limb apart. It was working, too, but she held it together for long enough to suck in the buzzing warmth and sighed in relief as it coursed from her head to her toes and back up to flood her hands. Then she lifted her hands, and directed a stream of hot magic toward the lake. The warmth cut the air with wavering heat waves, leaving her body so she felt every bit of the cold even worse than before. When she got back to her room, she was going to suck up all the heat she could into her ice-riddled body.
The wave of heat melted the frost on the grass, the white powder shrinking back and leaving behind clean, green grass and hard, brown dirt saturated with dew. The warmth crept along the ground, up the trees to the icicles on the branches, water dripping steadily down into the roots below. Her magic hit a wall at the edge of the lake, but she pushed it hard over the wardings, fighting the bright shock of nausea and pain rolling through her stomach and skull. The wardings crackled audibly, lighting up the whole lake through the ice with a mysterious blue glow that reminded her of the auror
a borealis. It sent sparks back through the magic to Ember, making her temples and fingertips prickle painfully. But slowly, slowly, the ice was melting. God, it hurt to keep pushing, it felt like someone was digging an icepick into the base of her skull, but she forced her magic until she thought it would either snap or recoil like a rubber band.
Eventually, after an agonizing eternity of burning muscles and pounding brain cells, the lake was free of ice and the surrounding area was clean of frost. Everything looked normal once more, and Ember finally released her grip on her magic, letting the warmth dissipate back to the earth and trees from whence it came.
Almost immediately, as if the magic had been holding her up, she collapsed – or she would’ve, but before she hit the ground, there were arms around her, swinging her up to carry her as her legs gave out. Even as exhausted as she was, she felt a spark of…something…something not nice as Reid held her close, like he had a right to carry her, like she was his to take care of.
A week ago, she’d have been only too happy to let him hug her close and carry her, but now? Now she couldn’t stand it so she used what was left of her energy – and a good deal of that was produced simply by sheer force of will – to push herself out of Reid’s arms and stand on her feet. She swayed a little, and Reid made a noise that could’ve been surprised or hurt or both, but she didn’t care which. Instead, she said, quite convincingly, “I’m fine. I can walk. I just…need to rest for a second.” She didn’t dare look at his face, sure that if he saw her eyes, he’d see what was really wrong and, absurdly, she didn’t want him to know that. It would be like punishing a dog that bit you after you kicked it.
Thankfully, Hiro stepped forward – she wasn’t sure when he’d changed to human form again, but she suspected he’d done it solely to help her out — and took her hand, raising it in front of him, pressing his palm against hers. “Well, I’m bloody freezing, so let’s skip the resting part and just get the hell out of here,” he said, and as he spoke, she felt the bright, sudden shock of him transferring energy to her through their link – or maybe it was just a normal Kitsune ability, since so much of their power came from physical contact. Whatever, it gave her enough energy to stand easily and walk, though she knew her magic juice would be low for a few hours unless she fed. And seeing as Reid was her usual donor, she figured she could live with her batteries recharging the slow way.
Brandon thanked her, Perry gave her a cheerful half-wave as he trailed after the leader back into the trees. Cris, looking frankly like he was going to lose a digit to frostbite if he didn’t get warm soon, tried to grin at her but his teeth were chattering. Sherry and Ricky were curled with their heads bent close together, whispering away as always. And Ember just wanted away from Reid, so she suggested, “Hey, Hiro, how about you take me and Cris back to the dorms the Kitsune way, save us both some pain? I think we need to dunk Cris in a hot bath or he’ll lose that sunny grin to frostbitten lips.”
Hiro gave her a canny look that told her he knew what she was doing, but he nodded nonetheless. He was a blessed creature really, despite his usually harsh manner. She’d have kissed him right then if she hadn’t known he didn’t like contact unless it was necessary; still, she was tempted, just to see how Reid would react. But she was too tired to be cruel, so she put her hand in Hiro’s and Cris put his in the other, and they were gone.
*****
** Reid **
Feeling all sorts of wrong, Reid shoved his cold hands – had his hands ever really felt cold before? No. This was horrible. He was glad he wasn’t human – into his pockets and sighed, his breath turning to mist on the air. There was still enough of a chill in the air that he felt it, registering a bitter minus nine degrees on his vamp thermostat. But the bitter chill in the air wasn’t just the abnormal lakeside weather. It was also Ember’s swift departure. It left a sick feeling in his stomach and a bad taste in his mouth. He’d heard her talking to Hiro, and it was only then that he’d realized she hadn’t forgiven him at all. He’d been stupid to think that she had. No, she’d just saved them both a lot of pain by not breaking up with him – yet – but they were by no means okay. He could almost measure the distance between them now, the distance he’d caused. But he’d heard her say she was going to talk to Lia, which meant she still loved him enough to be jealous, to warn Lia off. That meant there was still hope, that maybe if he gave her some space for a while, she’d come around and eventually forgive him and everything would be okay again. He just had to give her space. That he could do, even if the anxiety and wondering would kill him.
Dejected, feeling quite sorry for himself, he was just turning to leave, deliberately avoiding looking at the happy couple Sherry and Ricky made as they murmured to each other with smiles on their faces, when his ears pricked up, detecting…something…something faint under the howl of the wind. He paused mid-step to listen, halting his breathing to listen harder. He imagined he could just about hear it, a whisper of a breath of…music? Confused, sure he was just hearing things now, he closed his eyes and tilted his head to one side, ignoring the sounds of his heartbeat and Sherry’s giggling and the wind in the trees to hear the soft tinkle of music so fine and delicate it sounded like it was being played on glass instruments. It was sweet and melodic and eerie in a way he couldn’t describe, and the longer he listened, the more it captured his senses. The flowing, perfect tune buried itself in his eardrums and sunk into the depths of his brain, each note clinging to him for a moment before melting into the next. Then the chime-like tinkling was joined by a voice so soft and pure, it would have reduced a hardened criminal to tears in no time.
Before he knew what he was doing, he found himself following the sound of the music, the sound of the mysteriously angelic voice. His feet drew him toward the lake. There was brief tingle of magic and the shock of the icy water encasing his ankle as he stepped one foot into the lake, and then he was moving through the water toward the voice, trying desperately to catch snatches of words, but they were in another language, one too fluid and crystalline to be anything of human origins. No, this was a language born from the blazing sunset and breathing flowers and the depths of the endless seas. It was as natural as air and earth and water, and it was calling him…pulling him…caressing him…
And then it was gone, and he was standing in the middle of Onyx Lake, and Ricky was shouting at him like he thought he’d gone crazy. “Reid, what the hell are you doing! Jesus, are you mad? Did you hear a word Ember said, you idiot? The wardings are back up and sizzling to fry some supernatural ass, and you just wander out into the lake like…like…Christ, Reid, are you trying to get yourself killed? Don’t answer that. Just get out of there and let’s go. You’re lucky the wardings don’t hate you, for whatever reason, and you’re even luckier Ember and Brandon aren’t here to see you, otherwise you would wish the wardings had fried you, you crazy tosser!” But he was laughing the kind of breathless, only-half-surprised laugh that came from being more amused than concerned.
It had been a long time since Reid had heard Ricky laugh like that; These days, he was usually more serious than amused but apparently the lack of a direct threat to their lives had loosened him up a bit.
Startled and confused, Reid hesitated, standing in the lake for a few seconds more while he tried to work out why precisely he was thigh-deep in ice-cold water and how exactly he’d gotten there without being zapped by the wards. Apparently, whoever had set these wards up had left a special hole in the net just for him – again, the how and the why of that befuddled him, but he figured he’d have an easier time thinking about it when icy water wasn’t trying to crawl up his legs and freeze his manly parts. He shivered once and began trudging back through the water, carefully attempting to move fast and not get himself any more soaked than he was – he failed. By the time he reached shore, the water had splashed and crawled up his body so that the bottom of his jumper was a darker black at the bottom. He frowned down at himself, at the heavy denim clinging to his legs and his soggy trai
ners squeaking on the grass. He sighed, momentarily distracted from his guilty conscience. “Grungy lake water and cashmere do not go,” he muttered, tugging at the edge of his damp jumper.
“Come on, Reid! We’re going and unless you want to walk back like that, you’d better stop fussing about your clothes and get moving,” Ricky called as he began walking away with his arm looped around Sherry’s waist. He made a clicking sound with his tongue like he was trying to coax a dog to follow him.
Reid scowled, but shuffled along after them to Ricky’s seldom-used car, a shiny black Audi TT. It was a nice car and Reid never understood why Ricky disliked driving it – The younger boy always said it was too flashy and conspicuous. Reid’s reply was the same every time he said that: “A car like that is meant to be flashy, it’s meant to be driven because it’s flashy, and it’s meant to make all those sad sods out there in Ford Fiestas weep when you overtake them at seventy miles an hour in a fifty mile an hour zone.” But that wasn’t Ricky’s view. The boy was hopeless in some respects, Reid thought.
But then again, Ricky was smart enough to glide through the sticky parts of life and have an intact and perfect relationship with the girl he loved the whole time…Maybe Reid needed to take a page from his book.
*****
** Ember **
I will not kill her, I will not kill her, I will not kill her. Ember repeated it over and over in her head as she stood outside Liandra’s door in the dorms, ready to go and have a little chat with the man-stealing slut behind door number three – Well, the gold numbers screwed onto the door actually said 235, the 5 a little crooked from missing a screw. Breathing steadily, briefly touching her teeth to ensure her fangs were staying hidden in her gums, she raised her hand and knocked on the door. Part of her really didn’t expect Lia to be here – Hey, why would she be when she could be out trying to nick someone else’s boyfriend? –so she was mildly surprised when the door swung open to reveal Liandra, all bright hair and white teeth and boobs. The instant she saw who was knocking on her door, the toothy smile disappeared and turned into a glower hard enough to cut diamond. She adjusted her shoulders just slightly, pulling them forward enough that she was no longer presenting her chest like a toad swelling before a croak.
