by Nash, Layla
And yet... My breath hitched, stumbling out of sync with the water droplets, and it took a minute of concentration to realign myself. Somewhere in the network close by was a bump, a spur on the blade. A problem or a distortion, something that was throwing off the rest of the ley magic as it traveled. Slowing it down, maybe, or tying it up or siphoning it off. It felt like an itchy grain of sand under my eyelid, scratching and gouging but too small to be easily gotten rid of.
The cave navigated me back to that spot again and again, until I knew I could find it again from the surface, and then the network faded from my immediate awareness. The chill air of the cave returned as my body came back and I could open my eyes, as uncomfortable in my skin as if it had shrunk two sizes.
My elbows rested on my knees and I breathed deep and even, staring down at my hands as I debated what to ask. Already the amount of time I’d spent down there felt heady and euphoric, promising simple solutions to impossible problems. I needed to leave, to drag myself up those stairs and face Lincoln and the daylight, but no part of me wanted to move.
“I have a problem,” I said, and kept my voice quiet and respectful. Any of the ancestors could be listening; not all of them were generous with their time or praise, and some were more helpful than others. All were prickly when it came to asking favors. “There are werewolves in the Crossroads, and we do not know where they come from. There are also... strangers, with strange powers, who have come to town. I do not think they are a threat, but I do not trust their intentions. I serve the Crossroads, and the ancestors, but I ask some assistance in learning the correct way to handle both.”
Silence. Only silence, not even any drips of water.
After waiting a respectful amount of time, I took a deep breath and tried again. “I need help. I don’t know what to do. And it’s only the three of us left—if we can’t handle whatever this is, there are no more Lucketts to protect the town. We don’t know how to handle this.”
The cave sighed, and the air moved faster, almost a breeze even underground. The magic stirred. The magical lights flickered and dimmed throughout the cave, save for two that remained steady and bright next to one of the glamoured crevices. I pushed to my feet and paced to where the break in the rock rippled behind a magical curtain. Unlike Lincoln, I could see beyond the glamour to the truth and a crack just wide enough to wedge myself through. As I sucked in a breath and inched my way through the long break, I said a quiet prayer that it wasn’t a trap from one of the trickier ancestors.
The small room contained shelves hewn into the rock, though the floor and ceiling were far rougher than the main chamber. Clearly it hadn’t seen much traffic in the generations since the Lucketts occupied the cave. I’d never been in that particular part of the cave, and took a moment to study the contents with my hands in my pockets. Ma always made me keep my hands in my pockets when she worked magic, since I’d had the habit of touching things I shouldn’t when I was a little kid. The habit persisted into adulthood, unfortunately.
Several books occupied various shelves, along with trinkets that looked perfectly innocuous but oozed latent power that gave me the shivers and set my hair standing on end. I avoided the objects, even the ones that begged me to look at them. Especially the ones that wanted to be paid attention to. There was what looked like a Faberge egg, nearly hidden behind a musty tome between wooden covers, that glittered with rubies and other gems and could solve all of our financial problems if only I picked it up and maybe...
I’d taken a step toward it before I caught myself, shoving my hands back in my pockets before I touched the damn thing, and retreated back to where I’d entered the small room. Focus. Concentrate. Where were the answers?
Four lights glowed around the room, but gradually three dimmed until only the western side of the room remained illuminated. It had one shelf, and one book, and it was that one I eventually went to. I waited for it to speak to me or tempt me, but instead it remained a small rectangle, wrapped in a ratty maroon cloth. Touching the cloth revealed nothing; neither did moving the cloth and touching the smooth leather cover.
But it was unmistakably the book I was supposed to take; some of the pressure of the air inside the cave changed, as if to exhale that I’d finally gotten the message. I also got the sense I’d exasperated the ancestors, not just with my inability to anticipate their guidance, but for bringing strangers and being such a poor steward of the Luckett legacy that werewolves had camped there for the Bell only knew how long before I showed up to deal with them. I lifted the book and said, “Thank you,” to no one in particular, then tucked it into the front of my shirt, near my heart, and began to edge my way through the crevice to the main chamber.
It was not my imagination that the crevice had shrunk considerably while I’d been fishing around for the book, and I left a good deal of skin and even some of my jeans behind by the time I dragged my leg through. Irritated but without anyone to yell at, I brushed myself off, shoved down my temper, and gathered myself in the center of the chamber to perform the rites to cleanse the air and purge the magic that gathered there.
The book felt heavy and warm against my chest as I faced east, then south, then west, and finally north, and thanked the ancestors at each point for their wisdom and guidance. I could feel the anchoring point for each of the massive ley lines that ran into the cave. More than one felt clogged and a little buckled, so I took the time to pull off enough magic to even things out, and sent the power back into the cave and then into the air and earth and the spiderweb of smaller ley lines that radiated out from that center spot. I exhaled again, ceremoniously wiped my hands, and bowed to the small alcove that held the symbolic Bell, Book, and Blade.
“Thank you, mothers and sisters, for your assistance. I will make you proud.”
I got the distinct sense that they didn’t believe me, but there was nothing I could do about that.
I still muttered under my breath as I started to climb the thirty-three stairs back to the surface. “There’s only three of us left, so maybe if you all had procreated more or stopped running people off or maybe—I don’t know—figured out a way to cut us free from this damn town, we wouldn’t be in such dire straits. But what do I know, I’m just one of three Lucketts who still bother to defend this little slice of heaven in the coldest fucking place you could possibly have picked.”
Grumbling and griping didn’t usually get me anywhere, not with my sisters for damn sure, but it made me feel a little better.
Chapter 29
I expected to have to shield my eyes from the sun by the time I reached the surface, but instead the near-dark of sunset surrounded the mouth of the cave. My eyebrows climbed to my hairline as I paused at the top stair, looking around in the darkness, and found that the others had made camp already. Definitely within shouting distance but not close enough that the mess the horses left behind would remain close to the cave.
Lincoln stood from where he’d sat only a few feet from the entrance, his expression pinched with worry. “There you are. I was about to go in after you.”
“How long was I down there?” I glanced around, puzzled. It hadn’t been nearly long enough for the sun to set and the stars to come out. Damn ancestors.
“Hours,” he said. His head tilted as he studied me, then he reached out to touch my shoulder, squeezing my arm as if to reassure himself that I was still solid and real. He immediately pulled his hand away, shaking it, and frowned as he looked at me closer. “Did you... Did something happen down there? Some big magic?”
“Nothing particularly big,” I said, though I didn’t know why I wanted to guard the book from him. It still rested against my chest, on the same side as the shoulder he’d touched. I just knew that it was the type of book that was only for Lucketts. I might like Lincoln a whole lot, but that didn’t mean I could trust him with the family secrets. “Why?”
“You’re... drenched in magic.” He managed something like a genuine smile though, and gestured at the small fire the boys
had set. “Come on and show yourself, before Hazel talks Eddie into letting her storm into that cave.”
I made a mental note to ask Eddie what the witch had asked about and if she’d said anything interesting. I’d always wanted to know what other people saw and felt as we worked magic inside the cave, but there’d never been anyone to ask. But I gestured for Lincoln to go ahead. “I have to cover it back up. It might take a second.”
And I didn’t want to flat out say that I didn’t want him around as I was doing magic.
“That’s fine,” he said. He remained unmoving, hands shoved in his pockets. “After what it felt like earlier, I’ll wait here while you finish up. In case something else goes wrong.”
I tried not to smile too much. “Nothing went wrong.”
“When the magic reached for me in the cave…” he started, then his eyes narrowed and his voice trailed off.
“The ancestors were curious about who you were and what power you had, and they wanted some of that to include in their... library.” I shrugged, turning to face the stone. “And they weren’t sure of your intentions, so they tried to figure out if you were a threat.”
“What was the verdict?” His tone sounded a little sour, as if he really didn’t like being judged by the ancestors, or anyone. Maybe even me. Although he hadn’t seemed to mind my suspicions all too much a few days before.
I focused on rebuilding the net that would conceal the cave, casting it over the structure in a smooth motion so there weren’t any kinks or snarls to give away its location. “You’re still alive, aren’t you?”
Lincoln looked thoughtful more than irritated as he folded his arms over his chest and watched me, his attention on the magic and how I moved my hands. “Why? They didn’t think me a threat?”
“I spoke for you,” I said. I adjusted the net once more, then stepped back to assess it with a critical eye. It would work. It wasn’t as smooth and flawless as Lucia’s work, but it would do. “Well, not exactly.”
“What do you mean?” He waited as I dusted my hands off and bent to touch the earth, to thank it for carrying the ley lines and all of our magic. He walked along beside me as I headed for the camp, my stomach growling with hunger. “The ancestors wouldn’t take your word for it?”
“I claimed you.” I didn’t look at him as my cheeks heated a little, even though I figured he couldn’t see me through the dark. “I claimed your magic and you and everything about your presence here, so if you bring ill tidings or negative repercussions on the family and the Crossroads and Rattler’s Run... it falls on me. It’s my debt to repay.”
“You claimed me,” he repeated, soft and slow and thoughtful. So damn thoughtful. He was the thoughtfullest man I’d ever met. “And that protected me?”
“Yes and no.” I stopped at the edge of the firelight, raising a hand to wave as Eddie caught sight of me and full-on relief raced over the man’s face. I felt a little bad about making him worry, and a very tiny iota of guilt over making Hazel worried, but mostly I appreciated that she’d kept her word and stayed out of the cave and my business. “They took some of your magic to add to our knowledge, and left a mark on you as well, so they could find you again. You’ll feel it eventually, somewhere in your magic. It’s…blueish-gold, mostly.”
“What?” Lincoln looked truly puzzled, even glancing down at himself as if he would see the magic marking him on his pants or boots or arms.
I shivered just a touch, wishing I’d brought heavier clothes, and glanced up at the rising moon. “When you work magic, you turn green. Your magic is all green, maybe some streaks of gold or silver. Mine is more blue-gold, so some of that is now with you. It’s not much and it won’t change your way of doing things—at least I don’t think it will. But it’s there, and the ancestors will know you again if you cross them.”
“I’ve no intention of that,” he said under his breath, then ushered me toward the fire with his hand at the small of my back. “You’ll have to explain more of this blue-gold magic to me, Luckett.”
“Another time,” I said. I took a bottle of water from Eddie with a grateful smile and chugged nearly half of it before I felt like I wasn’t parched. “Sorry to keep you all waiting. I didn’t realize it took so long.”
Mason offered me a bowl of oatmeal. “Funny how time works out here. I could swear we should have covered more ground in the past two weeks than we actually have, but some days it feels like we ride forever and get nowhere, or we ride nowhere and get halfway across the state. I’m not surprised you walked into a magical disappearing cave and half the day slips away. Is it always like this?”
I shrugged, taking the oatmeal even though the thought of it made my stomach stop growling. I’d kill for a juicy burger or some fried chicken or anything that wasn’t oatmeal or pasta or rice and beans. I settled near the fire next to Eddie, stretching my legs out so I could warm my feet. “Sometimes. It affects people differently. I don’t notice it, mostly. I think Eddie and the rangers have a bad time of it when they come out here looking for hikers gone astray.”
“Only if Luckett isn’t with us,” Eddie said. He gnawed on what looked like a smashed power-bar, giving the oatmeal a wide berth. A pile of pitiful beef jerky looked to be the rest of his meal, resting on the dusty fabric on his thigh. “Otherwise time is completely unpredictable, and the weather will be worse than anything we plan for. Locusts and frogs will fall from the sky, and wildfires...”
I laughed and elbowed him, studying my oatmeal as I shook my head and tried to brush aside the complications of Lincoln and his team knowing more about how the Crossroads worked. What if their agency decided the Lucketts had to stay in the Crossroads for the safety of the state or whatever, and we became true prisoners? Not just beholden to our family’s sense of duty and honor, but actually no-kidding prisoners? Or—maybe worse—what if they decided we had to go? What if they dragged us away from Rattler’s Run and put us in some institute to study our weird-ass magic, or they banished us for doing all the things we did? Like killing eleven werewolves…
Unease unsettled my stomach more than any half-cooked oatmeal ever could, but I choked down another bite so no one would see how much I wanted to crawl away and barf all over my boots. “It’s not that bad and you know it. Just because you send greenhorns out without any experience or the right gear doesn’t make it my fault they end up frostbit and lost and gibbering with fear because they couldn’t tell the difference between a coyote and Grady’s sheepdogs. You just want to make me fetch them back for you so you don’t have to file the report.”
“That doesn’t sound like me at all,” Eddie said, but his eyes twinkled. The rascal.
Nelson raised his eyebrows, though he didn’t seem particularly surprised. “How many new rangers do you get per season, usually?”
Eddie chewed another chunk of protein bar for quite some time before he swigged water and managed to swallow it down. “We tend to go through them faster than the average park. I’ve been here four years and I’m the longest-serving ranger for this area. In some other locations, you’ll have rangers there for decades. Most rangers come out here and stay a year or two, sometimes less and sometimes more.”
“How often does their early departure have to do with this?” Hazel gestured around us at the darkness and the Crossroads, and the last of her pointing very nearly took me in, too.
“About half the time,” he said. Eddie didn’t look at me, as if he didn’t want to admit it in front of me, even though I already knew. “Rattler’s Run is kind of a quirky town, with some unique residents. Sometimes the rangers fit in, sometimes we don’t. It’s not always easy to know the personalities that will make it out here. I’ve selected a few guys to move on to other assignments after a few months, when it’s clear that they’re having a hard time, and sometimes the town requests that they move on. We had one handsome devil that was making his way through the town’s young ladies, breaking hearts and... well. After the third or fourth pregnancy, the town fathers made it c
lear either the young man moved on or he’d end up tied up and castrated with that year’s geldings.”
Mason snorted, shaking his head. “Regrettable, but not surprising when there are so many lovely ladies in this town.” And he waggled his eyebrows at me, as if he meant to include me in that assessment.
Which only made me snort right back, laughing in his face. “What was regrettable was he skedaddled before the fourth pregnant girl found out he’d already moved on to number five, since Olga is a championship rodeo rider. Specializing in the calf-tying event and roping as well, wouldn’t you know. Would have been a good Friday night, watching that little conversation go down.”
Eddie laughed, a full-body guffaw that made me smile right back. “I’d forgotten about that. She was fit to be tied herself.”
“A championship rodeo rider, you say,” Nelson said, looking thoughtful and a little intrigued, and it only made me laugh more.
“She’s married now and has two more kids,” I said, shaking my head. “So that ship sailed, friend. Although her husband gets on her bad side often enough you could probably open up a space there, but only if you’re interested in taking on that many rugrats.”
Lincoln shook his head, frowning down at his own oatmeal. “Nelson has never had good timing.”
Eddie leaned back against his saddle, looking relaxed for the first time in a while. “He should meet Lucia, Luckett’s older sister. That... would be funny.”
Both Mason and Nelson sat up, bright-eyed, and Hazel opened her mouth to encourage or condemn them, but I got there first. “No. Hard no. Not even going to go there.”
“The bartender, right?” Mason hardly acknowledged my scowl, instead pinning his hopes on Eddie’s willingness to spill. “Dark auburn hair, ready to get in a fistfight with the redneck who called Luckett a witch?”
