by Leigh Evans
He paled and looked away.
“Come home with me,” I said. “We’ll leave this world behind us.”
“You won’t be going home.”
“Yes, we will. And when we do, you can start over.”
“I can’t be a wolf in your mate’s territory.” He shook his head. “My beast will challenge Trowbridge.”
That would be very, very bad. “You can control your wolf.”
“Not without sun potion. He’s inside me. Pacing all the time. Waiting to get out again.” Lexi pulled at the sheet of moss coating the log. It came away in his hand, the size of a slice of Wonder Bread. He squeezed it, testing its density. “I only met him once—just one night—but it was long enough for me to know that he was dominant. And he’s far more aggressive than I ever remember Trowbridge’s father being. He wants to rule. He wants his own land, his own pack. He’ll risk everything, kill anyone, to get it.”
“We’ll think of something.” A very strong steel cage or a plot of land way up north far away from other people.
“Give it up, Hell.” He tried to re-place the moss. It sprung back, refusing to knit itself back into the wound he’d made. “We both know I don’t belong in Creemore. I’m like one of those antiques in Sharron’s Secret Treasures.” He got up, then limped to the stream. “Is that shop still there on Elizabeth Street?”
“No.”
Nodding, he tossed the sheet of moss into the stream’s current. “Your world has moved on. I didn’t fit much before, but now I really don’t fit. Cell phones used to be the size of walkie-talkies and only the rich and stupid had them. Now everyone’s got one. People watch movies on portable computers. Portable computers?”
“You’ll get used to technology.”
“I doubt I can even remember how to read English.” He scrubbed at the bristles at his right temple, unconsciously scraping his clawed fingers over the wolf inked above his ear. “I need to be someone. And who would I be in your world? A drifter with no land or position. If I stay here, I can start over. Once the court witnesses the power I can wield, every person who used to hide a sneer behind a smile will tremble in my presence.”
“Lexi, the Old Mage will never let you use his magic independently.”
“You do not know what he will do or won’t do.” A bead of sweat ran down Lexi’s throat, joining the dark line around his collar.
“Then prove it. Do something your own. Produce something magical just for me.”
“I’m not a knave who performs for the satisfaction of others.”
Weariness slid over me. “I’m right on this, Lexi. He’s too possessive of his skills, too vain about his status as Old Mage, mage to the Royal Court, to ever allow you to wield his magic as you wish. Your mage will never let you have full control.”
“Don’t forget that I made the ward over Daniel’s Rock.”
“With or without the old geezer’s permission?” I didn’t wait for an answer—I thought I knew it already. But there was a concrete test for my hypothesis.
Please, Lexi. Let me be wrong.
Merry covered territory as she ate, frequently moving higher to graze on tender shoots. It took me a moment to find her in the elder tree.
“Are you finished feeding?” I asked.
She answered by lazily untwining a golden tendril from the twig she’d entwined herself around. A food-satiated Merry is a temporarily benevolent person, though I probably had minutes before her bonhomie began to erode. I offered her my palm. She hooked my thumb and dropped gracefully onto my offered platform.
Her supple chain spilled over the edge of my hand. I stared at its swaying length for a second, thinking of all the times her golden links had warmed my neck. Once, my only friend. I couldn’t have shouldered the isolation of my existence without her friendship.
I stroked her stone, and she spoke back, her amber depths turning gold-red with affection.
“Did you hear any of that?”
Her answer was a curious blip of yellow light. Feeding is a noisy business and her hunger had been pressing. She hadn’t caught the conversation.
“Lexi says he’s got autonomy over his actions, and that he’s got almost as much power as Helzekiel. If that’s true, he should know how to unbind you from the curse that’s kept you captive.”
Merry’s temperature rose to near blistering. Her stone pulsed purple.
“You’re mad at me for waiting!” I hissed, my finger curling in pain. “I should have asked him to do this right away. Before we left the rock. But I wasn’t sure if I was going to be asking a favor of the Old Mage or my brother. I’m still not sure, Merry.”
A grudging pinch.
I’d received worse from her.
“It’s time for the big question, Merry,” I whispered. “Are you ready?”
The points of her golden leaves turned pricker sharp. She lifted a thin arm and pointed it to the nearby tree. Ralph had morphed into a stick figure, and he stood upright on the tree’s limb, arms akimbo, his stone shining brightly in the muted shade.
“Him too?” I asked.
A blip of hot red from the center of her amber belly.
I brought both hands together. “Hop on, Ralph.”
With a marked swagger, the Royal Amulet swept his chain up and tossed it over his stick arm. Then he leaped, landing neatly on my left palm. He stalked over my life line, jumped the seam between both hands, then kept going, pushing Merry up on to the Delta of Venus below my right thumb.
I shook my head. “Ralph, no one’s ever going to call you smooth.”
Chapter Nineteen
Lexi’s brows rose when I called him.
I scanned the ground for beetles, found none, and placed the amulets on a patch of tamped earth where once—ten or twelve days ago judging from the remaining musk—a small mammal had spent the night.
Prey, said my wolf.
Merry rose to her feet first. Ralph took a fraction longer—pausing to redistribute some of his gold so that his legs were a half inch longer than hers. The reallotment of his finite gold resources made his head proportionally smaller than Merry’s, but I guess the whole point was to appear taller, not brighter.
Lexi joined me. “What is it?”
My twin needed to understand what our mother’s amulet had grown to mean to me. “The first time she ever spoke to me,” I said, my gaze focused on Merry, “I was trying to smother my tears into a pillow. A leaky kid really pissed off Aunt Lou.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “I was doing a really lousy job of crying quietly. I kept thinking that she was Mum’s sister; she had to share some of the qualities our mum had. She didn’t, but it took me some time to convince myself of that.”
I’d kept challenging her in those early days.
Merry’s amber took on a definite orange cast. She remembered too.
“Anyhow. Merry must have gotten tired of my tears. She pinched me under the chin.” I rolled my eyes, shaking my head. “You’ve got to remember I was alone in bed and Merry had never so much as twitched an ivy leaf before. Goddess, Lexi, I sat up so fast you would have thought the headless horseman had knocked on my window.” I slanted my eyes at my brother. “Do I have that right? When Mum wore her, did Merry ever move or talk?”
Lexi thought about it. “I don’t think so.”
“That’s what I thought.” I shook a finger at my amulet-friend. “Your sudden animation scared the crap out of me and you know it.”
Two throbs of orange from her lion-heart.
My eyes burned. “She’s not an amulet. Or a piece of jewelry. She’s a person. She once had a voice, and use of her arms and legs. She had free will, and a life, and all that was stolen from her the day she was cursed to live the rest of eternity as a speck inside a hunk of amber.”
“I don’t see what this has to do with us.”
“You know exactly what it has to do with us. There’s only three amulets of any note in the Fae realm. Merry, Ralph, and the Gatekeeper’s. It’s pretty obvious to me that only a very powerfu
l mage could have worked the spell to enchant an Asrai. If it was a garden-variety conjure every Fae from the Royal Court to a farm peasant would have an amulet. So, it takes a great mage or a great mage in training to entrap a living being.” I raised my accusing eyes to his. “Which are you? You say you have free will—you say the old goat will let you use his magic at your will. If you won’t perform a party trick, then do something important, something right. Prove to me that you have magic of your own when he’s not at the wheel.” I waved my hand at Merry and Ralph. “Undo the spell that holds them in this prison. Give them their freedom.”
Red flags high on Lexi’s cheekbones. “It’s not as easy as that.”
“Could Helzekiel do it?” I spat.
And bingo. I may not have conjuring skills to match my brother’s, but I sure knew the magic words. The air fairly crackled between Lexi and me as he sank down to my level. He settled his weight on the backs of his heels and cleared his throat.
Ralph edged close to Merry, whether to protect her from any further evil or to get first in line for a stint of spell breaking I couldn’t tell. But both amulet hearts—one golden, one icy blue—tilted upward toward my brother as his long hands began to move in a circle over their heads.
I leaned forward, excitement tightening my gut, as my brother’s lips parted.
Do it. Release them.
I don’t know how long it was supposed to take or how hard he was supposed to work for it. I could only report that Lexi tried harder than a kid with a painful stutter to get those spell-breaking words out. His throat strained; his mouth grimaced.
But he couldn’t push a single syllable past his tongue.
Not for seven “Mississippis.”
On the eighth, my twin’s shoulders sagged and his gaze grew unfocused and I knew that he was speaking to the wizard who lived inside him.
Merry cried out—a flash of vermilion. And Ralph’s arms lengthened into sharp points—twin rapiers ready to pierce flesh.
I saw all that. Peripherally. Just like I was aware that Mouse had edged closer and the Gatekeeper had struggled to her feet. I was aware of everything and nothing. My gaze was locked on Lexi’s. I was looking straight into his eyes when his soul dimmed and the hot emotion that had twisted his features into a mask of frustration began to melt away.
“Don’t go,” I whispered.
I doubt he heard me, for his soul had already flown away on battered wings.
Gone.
Ralph surged forward, into the valley of death, his small swords flashing.
* * *
The Royal Amulet took an unexpected solo flight into the unknown as the Old Mage’s countermeasure against amulet charges hit him dead-on.
The mite-sized balyfire threw sparks as it impacted with Ralph’s jewel. He flew, a blue comet with a long golden tail. He met the earth face-first, then torpedoed through a heavy layer of mulch, his progress unchecked until he burrowed into a tree root. I heard the clunk and saw the thatch of compost light up as if someone had hidden a string of LED lights under it.
“Ralph? You okay?” I asked.
A leaf twitched and then lifted, pierced by a needle-sharp strand of gold. The Royal Amulet sat up groggily, disdaining Merry’s help.
I spun around to give the old man a glare. “Was that really necessary?”
The Old Mage shoved Lexi’s sleeves up, his movements fast and irritated. He inspected the scratch marring my brother’s wrist with a puckered mouth. “You and your ‘friends’ are vexing creatures.”
“Then bugger off.”
Evidently that suggestion required no thesaurus. He drew himself up to my brother’s full six feet, except Lexi never stood as if he had a poker up his ass. “I am here to offer you terms for a new agreement.”
Said the devil to the dimwit. “Go away, old man,” I replied.
“You desire the Asrais’ freedom.”
Of course. Nothing came for free with the Fae. I lifted my narrowed gaze.
The wizard smiled faintly. “Though I cannot break the spell surrounding the one you call Ralph, I can easily destroy the enchantment that holds the female Asrai. With one pass of my hand, and a few short words, I can break the conjure that has long held her captive.”
Suddenly I felt heavy. Like I’d become hollow when I’d watched my brother’s soul flit off and now that void was being filled by liquid that was neither life sustaining nor pure.
Ugly water. Fouled and spoiled. I could taste it on the back of my tongue.
“Let me guess,” I said woodenly. “All I have to do is agree to release you from your vow. Merry’s soul for my brother’s.”
“Precisely.”
Merry stepped closer to Ralph, her body suffused in a horrendous orange-red. “Why isn’t Ralph part of the offer?” I asked on her behalf.
“The enchantment holding the Prince of Asrais is far superior to that restraining the female. Breaking the spell holding him would result in an explosion that could be heard and seen for miles.”
“It would kill him?”
“No. He is an Asrai.”
Nice to know, except I didn’t have the faintest idea of what constitutes being an Asrai. Except for the attitude. Both Merry and Ralph had plenty of that. Though the latter’s fell more into the “I’m entitled” category. Wait a minute …
“Ralph’s really a prince?”
The old man lifted both shoulders in a supremely dismissive shrug. “Of the Asrais.”
I studied his self-satisfied smile, feeling a sick curl in my gut. “Who set the enchantment down on Ralph?”
“I did.”
No wonder Ralph reacted so violently to the Old Mage.
“What about Merry? If you break the conjure holding her, won’t there be an equally big kaboom?”
“No. Her prison is not a blue diamond of the greatest clarity, but a piece of common amber, riddled with air bubbles and flyspecs. It will fracture easily.”
Really? If I pried up a rock, could I use it on Merry? One smash and she’d be free?
All I needed was blunt force. I scanned the area for a suitable hammer and spotted one near the edge of the stream. It was half-buried in the earth, but the general outline of it looked promising. It was substantial enough to deliver a shattering blow but not so large that I couldn’t pick it up with two hands.
I started digging it out.
“It is a pity about your friend Merry,” the Old Mage said with a thoughtfulness that sounded wholly manufactured. “While the prince waged war against those he shouldn’t, her mistake was trivial in comparison.”
The mage had the pole, he had the hook, and now he was baiting it. I knew he was dangling a lure in front of me and I knew it was going to hurt like hell if I bit down on it, but just like that lake bass, I still opened my mouth.
“What did she do?” I asked, raking away the damp earth.
“She ventured too far from the safety of their sacred hollow and her path crossed that of Helzekiel.”
“That’s it?” I lifted my head. “She was in the wrong place at the wrong time? Helzekiel cursed her just because he could?”
I’ll never call myself a Fae again.
“Helzekiel performed the conjure to prove his worth,” corrected the Old Mage.
Merry was a freakin’ merit badge?
I swallowed down the snarl rising in my throat and bent my head again. “Is that part of your basic mage accreditation?” I gouged at the earth trapping the stone. “Screw over an Asrai and you get your wizard’s cap and gown?”
The Old Mage kneaded Lexi’s right thigh as if it ached. “Long ago, I made an error in judgment that a few viewed as a crime of treason. It was decreed that I should be punished. But as in all things, the Royal Court was divided. Half were poised to select a mild censure, as they feared losing their mage. Half were in favor of the Sleep of Forever, as they feared my growing powers. The outcome of the vote rested on Helzekiel’s potential. Could he, in time, become almost as useful as I? Naturally,
I was aware of my assistant’s ambitions, and so I never allowed him to witness a spell completed in its entirety.”
“Then how did he know how to do the nasty to Merry?”
“The court demanded that the Prince of Asrais’ punishment be performed in public as a caution to those who considered waging war against them. Unbeknownst to me, Helzekiel took secret notes of every word and gesture.”
Merry’s belly was effused with bloodred light.
“Behold the result of Helzekiel’s ability to follow instructions,” the Old Mage drawled. “Note the substantial differences between the two amulets. The Royal Amulet is a blue diamond set in a meaningful design. Your friend Merry’s setting resembles a robin’s nest. The knave could not follow a simple sequence without erring.” He clucked his tongue against my brother’s teeth. “Fae gold shouldn’t be squandered so.”
“Yeah, I feel real bad for the Fae gold.”
Now that I’d dug around all the margins of the rock, I realized it was both heavier and larger than I’d thought.
The old man lowered himself into a squat beside me. “She has suffered,” he said.
Tell me something I don’t know.
“If you use brute force in an attempt to break her loose from that which holds her, you will not be freeing her. She will not be her true size, nor will she have all her talents.”
I’d seen her shape under a magnifying glass. She was no bigger than a piece of rice. Unless that’s the true size of an Asrai? Maybe they truly were mite-sized? The Old Mage was as adept at lying as I was.
What if she really was smaller than the i at the end of my name? Would I be freeing her to live the remainder of her life as a shrunken tiny version of herself?
“No one truly loses,” he continued. “In return for this Asrai’s freedom, I can give your twin a life such that you could never provide him in Creemore. I can place him at the highest table of the court, giving him prestige, power, and influence. He will live a very long life—and never again will he threaten the longevity of your own, or that of your mates.”
With the Fae the devil is in the details. For instance, “I can” does not mean the same thing as “I will.” Perhaps once my twin would find himself seated at a place of honor. But soon enough Lexi would start spending more and more time in Threall. Awash in his new addiction, he’d hardly notice as the length of his “not-here” moments stretched to eternity and beyond.
