by Mindy Klasky
The dog’s whine was the first clue that something was wrong.
The sudden stillness in the woods around them—not a single bird trilling on a branch, not a solitary bustling squirrel—was the second clue.
The black shadow lying in the ditch beside the path was the third.
In the patchy moonlight, David thought he saw a child. The girl’s face was white against her jacket, snowy against the loden green of her collar. Pushing back Spot’s concerned muzzle, David was vaguely aware of a tailored shirt that matched the jacket, of trousers in the same dark shade.
He expected the girl’s brow to be icy, but he was surprised to find she burned with fever. Peering close in the moonlight, David could tell her lips were chapped. Her hair was damp with sweat.
And he could see that she wasn’t a child.
She was a sprite.
David had seen a few of the woodland creatures before. As a race, they were shy and elusive. They avoided contact with humans; even the most gregarious among them limited exposure to other imperials.
Sprites were water creatures. They were bonded to flowing water—creeks, streams, rivers, and the like. Now that he knew what to search for, David could see that this one had buried her hands in the damp ditch searching for a healing flow. She’d smeared mud on her sleeves, on her knees, on the ruined toes of her shoes.
Spot whined in the darkness, dancing back a few steps as if begging David to move away. But David couldn’t abandon a feverish sprite in the woods he was bound to protect.
Feeling as if he should apologize for the familiarity, he worked one arm under her shoulders and the other under her knees. He braced himself for the dead lift, but he needn’t have worried. The sprite felt as light as dandelion fluff—raging, fevered dandelion fluff.
He could carry her up to the house and get her into the light to see if she suffered any visible injuries. He could wash her and force some food down her throat, some drink.
But the sprite hadn’t been dragging herself toward the house. She’d been working her way toward the spring-fed lake, the clear, fresh water that had been David’s own destination.
He made his way down the rest of the path, the sprite cradled close to his chest. Spot stuck close, not sparing an ounce of attention for squirrels, for sparrows, even for a sibilant slither that might have been a snake winding through fallen leaves.
It was harder to kneel with the sprite than it had been to stand. Her head lolled at an improbable angle, and one arm dropped into the water at the edge of the sandy beach. Her legs splayed.
David dug out his handkerchief. The square of white cotton gleamed in the moonlight as he soaked the cloth. He bathed her burning forehead first, letting water trickle into her colorless hair. Again, he soaked the handkerchief and let cool, clear water trickle onto pale flesh, washing over her muddy hands.
As David worked, Spot circled around to splash in the lake. The dog’s whined concern made David look up, made him see another possibility, another chance. He shifted the sprite’s closest arm, making sure her hands rested in the lake. The loden jacket turned black as it soaked up water. The weight of the fabric pulled the sprite onto her side.
Spot pranced closer, sending up a cool spray. David started to call the dog off but before he could speak a command, the sprite stirred. Her eyelets fluttered as droplets of fresh lake water fell on her lips.
David splashed her face again. One more time. And then the sprite was pulling herself into the water, submerging her head in the cold lake for longer than any human could have survived.
Her legs twitched. Both hands scrabbled at the sandy bottom. She pulled herself even deeper, ignoring the man, ignoring the dog.
David made a single curt hand gesture, summoning Spot to shore. The dog obeyed reluctantly, keeping his attention on the creature who lay face-down in the water. David let his fingers stroke the dog’s velvet neck; he needed his own assurance that he wasn’t watching a sprite drown.
Just as David resolved to rescue the creature, water-spirit or not, she finally rolled onto her back. It took a moment for her eyes to focus and even longer for her to plant her elbows in the sand and push herself up on one side. Finally, she sat, one hand braced in the lake, the other wiping water from her face.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice breaking on the second word.
David nodded. “Is there something I should get you? Someone I should call?”
“No, Montroseson.”
David shuddered at the name. This sprite knew him. She hadn’t arrived at the farm by accident.
He watched her fingers trail through the lake water, growing straighter, stronger, as if she sucked sustenance through her fingernails. “I’m Bourne Morrissey,” she said at last. “And I owe you my life, Montroseson.”
He answered the sprite’s declaration with a touch of formality. “You have me at a disadvantage. You know my name, and I know yours. But what brings you to my land? How far is your stream?”
Bourne’s face tightened. “I have no stream.”
David waited, recognizing a story in her hesitation.
She didn’t disappoint. “The humans diverted my stream. It was in their Howard County, near their city of Baltimore. They built houses there and destroyed my home, so I took to mundane roads.”
“But that’s thirty miles away”
Bourne nodded. “Flowing water is scarce between here and there. I found two streams, but they were home to other sprites. I could not steal my siblings’ beds.”
“What brought you here?”
“I knew the Montroseson before you.” Bourne knew David’s father. “He called upon my aid once, decades ago as you warders count time. In return, he offered me sanctuary at his croft.”
Croft. That was the old term for a warder’s territory. Now most warders didn’t bother with land at all. They guarded their witches and lived in cities.
But this farm had been George’s croft before David’s mother insisted on moving to DC. David couldn’t remember the last time James or Tommy had come back to the property. George either, for that matter. But to David it had always been home—the house and the barn and all the land around them.
The lake too.
“I’ve never seen a sprite around here,” he said.
Bourne looked across the water. “There was one, long ago, tending the stream that feeds the lake from the north. He faded away seven, no, eight of your decades ago.”
David shivered. A breeze had picked up, cutting through his wet pants. He glanced at the soaked sprite. “You must be freezing. Come up to the house and get something to eat.”
Bourne tore her gaze from the far shore. “I need no food. Not tonight.”
David’s first instinct was to argue. He was in charge here. He was supposed to protect the weak, to nurse the ill.
But Bourne didn’t look weak any longer. Her limbs were clean and straight. Her lips were smooth in the silver light of the moon, as if they’d never been rough and chapped. “You’ve given me life, and yet I ask another favor. May I hold your stream?”
Hold.
The sprite was asking to take up permanent residence. She wanted to claim the ancient waterway, to nurture it, to tend its needs.
David was charged with protecting the croft. The sprite’s presence could only make the stream stronger—the stream, and the lake, and the land that surrounded it.
“I’d be honored,” he said, inclining his head.
Bourne laughed, and the sound was like a river rolling over stones. She held out her hand, water dripping back into the lake. “The honor is all mine, David Montrose.”
As the sprite spoke, Spot tossed his head toward an ancient oak that nestled on the lake’s edge. Following the dog’s gaze, David looked up until he saw a flash of white surrounded by night blackness. An osprey, he realized—one of the great fisher-hawks that nested on the edge of the water.
The birds approved of the sprite’s arrival. And that was good enough for him. He clasped h
ands with Bourne and shook on their new bond.
17
Back in the farmhouse, David found himself too restless to settle down. He should take a seat on the grey couch in the living room. Pour himself a drink. Read a book. Watch a movie.
But too many distractions spun through his head.
He wondered how Bourne was doing at the stream, if she’d settled in, what it meant for a sprite to settle in. He wondered how Connor was faring back at Seymour House, whether any of the wolves had come home with steak or ribs or some other verboten food. He wondered whether Apolline Fournier was destroying another link of the Collar, if she was going to keep poking and prodding the shifters until open warfare was the only option.
He wondered about Jane.
She’d denied any witches in her family tree. Sure, it was possible she was the first wild witch in three centuries. But it was a hell of a lot more likely she just hadn’t mapped the tree properly.
His interest was more than personal. Wild witches stood beyond Hecate’s Court. He could never watch over Jane if she were a wild witch. And more and more, he wanted to watch her powers develop.
He needed to impress the goddess, and he might just do that by determining Jane’s lineage. Surely Hecate would reward a man who brought a long-lost line of witches back into the fold.
His first step would be talking to Jane’s mother. Well, maybe not her mother. Jane had made it perfectly clear her mother wasn’t part of her life. With her grandmother, then.
The court maintained access to thousands of databases, magic and mundane. He used his official login to track down Jane’s grandmother in a few keystrokes—Sarah Smythe at a staid DC address in a pre-war apartment building near Rock Creek Park with a 202 phone number.
In fact, it took him longer to debate whether he wanted Pitt to know what he was doing. But Pitt would find out anyway. He always did.
He glanced at the clock on his phone. 9:37. Too late to call a stranger, especially an elderly one, even on a Friday night.
His palms itched. He couldn’t wait till morning.
One ring.
Two.
He couldn’t trust his message to an answering machine.
Three rings.
He prepared to end the call.
“Smythe residence. Sarah speaking.”
At least it didn’t sound as if he’d woken her. “Mrs. Smythe,” he said, trying to swallow his gratitude. “My name is David Montrose. I’m a security specialist for the District Court, and I’m calling about a security clearance requested for one…” He paused, as if he were shuffling papers on a desk. “Jane Madison. I understand she’s your granddaughter?”
“Yes?” The answer came out sounding more like a question.
He pushed his advantage before she could think to ask for more details. “In order to complete our clearance process, we need to speak with at least one direct relative of the applicant. Due to the sensitive nature of our inquiry, we prefer to conduct our meetings in the privacy of our interviewees’ homes.”
“Oh dear, I don’t think—”
“Of course, you’re more than welcome to have someone else present. Perhaps another relative?” He loaded the words with just a little warder’s magic. If she were a mundane or a registered witch partnered with her own warder, his tone would have no effect at all. But if she carried magic in her blood and was unpaired, his glamour might reach her. She might feel safer, more relaxed.
“My daughter will be coming over tomorrow morning. You could stop by then.”
He tried to smother the excitement ignited by her words. Focusing on spinning out a little more of his warder’s magic, he said, “Excellent, Mrs. Smythe. What time should I be there?”
“Why don’t we say nine o’clock? You can join us for a bite of breakfast. Let me give you the address. Do you have a pen and paper?”
“I’ve got the address, right here,” he said. “On Jane’s application form.”
He hoped his answer dispelled any lingering doubt in the old woman’s mind. Hanging up, he glanced into his kitchen. Now, he could pour himself that drink—and spend the rest of the night planning his fact-finding mission to the satisfaction of the goddess he longed to impress.
18
Please, Mrs. Smythe,” David said. “You shouldn’t have gone to all this trouble. And on a Saturday morning, too.”
“What trouble?” she asked. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.”
David could see where Jane got her irrepressible attitude. Sarah Smythe reminded him of some sort of bird, full of energy and excitement. She perched on the edge of her chair, head tilted to a curious angle, bright hazel eyes taking in his slightest movement. Her snow-white hair was held off her face by a pair of combs that looked like genuine tortoiseshell. Her hands fluttered toward the array of plates and bowls displayed on the coffee table. She seemed unaware that her knuckles were swollen, with her fingers twisted into delicate claws.
“Please, Mr. Montrose,” she insisted. “Help yourself.”
He leaned forward and put a small clump of grapes on his plate.
She sniffed in disapproval. “I said, Mr. Montrose, help yourself.”
Hoping to build further rapport, he added three cookies to his plate. When Mrs. Smythe still looked disapproving, he picked up a slice of pecan-laden banana bread. She finally nodded, appeased.
Then she filled her own plate. A fistful of grapes. Three walnut-stuffed dates in tiny gold cups. A hefty slice of cheddar. Cookies, banana bread, and a chunk of sugar-laced coffee cake that filled the room with the smell of cinnamon.
As she settled back on her throne, her daughter came in from the kitchen. Clara, David reminded himself. Clara Smythe. Jane’s mother.
The woman balanced three teacups with matching saucers on a tray. David sprang to his feet to help, but she laughed at the attention, tossing back a mane of hair tinted a red that could never have been found in nature. “Here you go, Mother,” she said, passing a cup of mud to Mrs. Smythe. “Decaf for you. Full test for our visitor.” She nodded toward David’s cup before picking up her own. “And tea for me.”
He got a whiff of smoky oolong—a preference she shared with her daughter—but the brew in her cup was nearly the color of rainwater. As David eased back into his chair, Clara helped herself to a single grape, popping it into her mouth as she settled into a lotus pose in the middle of the couch. She had her mother’s hazel eyes, the same as Jane’s.
“So,” Clara said. “Mother says you’re here about a security clearance for Jeanette.”
“Jeanette?” he asked.
Clara’s laugh sounded like she’d found it at the bottom of a bottle of cheap whiskey. “I keep forgetting. Jane. She doesn’t go by the name I gave her.”
He wanted to learn that story, but he had more important tasks that morning.
He took a sip of coffee. Instant. He fought to keep from grimacing as he returned the cup to its saucer and searched for the right words. “I might have been a bit misleading over the phone,” he said. At the alarmed look on Mrs. Smythe’s face, he hastened to add, “But I only have Jane’s best interests in mind.”
“I knew it!” Clara exclaimed. “I knew you were lying the minute you walked through that door!”
“Clara, dear,” Mrs. Smythe murmured.
“Just look at his aura, Mother! Can’t you see how muddled it is?”
Hecate grant him patience. Clara was a New Age believer. The type of aura she claimed to see didn’t exist. And the type of aura he was trained to detect—the after-image of a magical working—would never be visible to a non-warder.
“Mr. Montrose,” Mrs. Smythe said, obviously discomfited. “My daughter is quite interested in esoteric studies.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” he said, trying for a sincere note. “Because what I’ve come to tell you might be difficult to believe. The more familiar you are with…auras and esoteric studies, the easier this will be.”
Clara leaned forward
on the couch, drinking in his every word. At the same time, Mrs. Smythe started to worry the edge of her napkin.
Time to lay his grimoire on the table. “Mrs. Smythe,” he said. “Clara. I have reason to believe that Jane is a witch.”
He was ready for almost anything. Furious denunciations and demands that he leave the premises at once. Hysterics and palpitations and collapsing to the floor. Stunned denial and the need to repeat his declaration multiple times until the impossible words were processed.
But he wasn’t prepared for laughter.
Mrs. Smythe threw back her head. Her silver hair shook. Her eyes watered. She fought for breath.
David leaped to his feet, barely rescuing her over-full plate before those dates rolled to the floor. “Mrs. Smythe?” he asked, when she finally came up for air. “Did you hear me? I said your granddaughter is a witch.”
“Of course she is!” Mrs. Smythe said, wiping tears from her cheeks.
David passed her plate back to her. “You already knew?”
“All the women in the Smythe family are witches.”
“Mother!” Clara said. “You never told me that!”
Mrs. Smythe reached across to pat her daughter’s arm. “Believe me, dear. You didn’t need any more excuses to be odd.”
If Clara were insulted, she recovered quickly. “What magic can we do? Are all Smythes attuned to the Vortex the way I am? Can we all read ley lines? What about auras, and horoscopes and—”
David interrupted the catalog of claptrap. “Do you know your lineage, Mrs. Smythe?”
“Not precisely,” she admitted. “But we’re descended from Abigail Somerset of the Massachusetts Somersets. She had the good sense to leave Salem thirteen years before all that nonsense started. Changed her name to Windmere and said she was a widow to avoid hassles on the road. She married Theophilus Carroll, bought a farm in Connecticut, and never looked back.”
David wondered if he looked as stunned as he felt. Hecate’s Court tracked every descendant from Salem. The court had gone back ten years before the witch-hunting madness exploded, tracing the bloodlines of anyone who’d fled Salem as accusations bubbled to the surface.
