“How long was I out?” I asked.
“Just the night. You used up all of your energy. When we found you looking like a horror movie, I just thought the worst.” Seth rubbed his arms against the cold, even though he wore a jacket. “It felt like I lost you all over again. In my past life, when I waited for you the day we died, I thought we were going to have a life together. When you didn’t show up, I thought you tricked me.”
I opened my mouth to interrupt, but he went on.
“I thought you had got me away from the village so that you could sacrifice yourself and keep me safe,” Seth said. “I should have had faith in you. Imagine how things would have been different if I would have just had faith in the person I loved.” He buried his face in his hands. “Then when I got to the village and saw you weren’t there … I don’t know what I thought. I didn’t think anything. You appeared, and it was like I wanted to live again. Then I died.”
I didn’t know what to say. Seth raised his face and eyed me with an intensity I had rarely seen in him. I had been so focussed on my own past I hadn’t considered his side of it. The look reminded me of Kian and I marvelled at how I hadn’t seen it earlier.
“Just don’t die again,” he told me. “Okay? It was hard enough to find you again the first time.”
I nodded, smiling.
“Why did he leave without saying goodbye?” I asked, taking a seat next to Seth. My gaze followed his onto the grey horizon.
“I don’t think he could have said goodbye to you,” Seth replied.
“Not even a note?”
“Nope.”
Disappointment invaded. “Did he say where he would meet us?” I asked.
“Home,” came the reply.
I chewed my lip. “I don’t know what that means,” I admitted. “I don’t know where that is.”
We sat quietly for long moments, staring out into the white expanse. I would find him, but our task was not over. The magicians had revealed a lot in their attempt to take my power and enslave my soul. I didn’t want any of my friends to go through that. As if sensing where my mind was, Seth spoke.
“We’re too strong for them,” he said. “They need to collect more magic, but we might not be worth the trouble anymore.”
“Well then it looks like we have a mission,” I said. A small smile found its way to my lips, even though my heart was in despair. I felt vulnerable without Kian, but a sense of purpose helped to fill the void. At least for now.
“And what’s that?” Seth turned to me, his curious eyes holding a glint of excitement.
“We find the others before the magicians do,” I replied.
We had stormed the castle together, side by side. I remembered it as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. I had seen the faces of my kind. Seven in total.
Acknowledgements
I want to thank everyone whose support and encouragement allowed me to turn this idea into a reality. My friends and family who shared my excitement and enthusiasm about magic — no matter how ridiculous, and never told me I was crazy. In particular, a big and overdue thank you to Ann Dooley and Anne Connon at the Celtic Studies department at the University of Toronto. You were the first to show me the reality in the stuff of legends — and continued to patiently entertain my wild and unfounded hypotheses about the past, encouraging me to keep at it. Thank you to Allister Thompson, my editor, who was the first person in the world to read this story and the last one to see it before it got packaged into the book you are holding.
Thanks to the Ontario Arts Council’s Writers Reserve Program for assistance in bringing this project to fruition.
I also want to thank every reader, since without you there would be no point in putting the stories in my head and heart down on paper.
There’s a wink in this book for every one of you.
Copyright © Lucy Leiderman, 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.
All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Editor: Allister Thompson
Design: Courtney Horner
Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy
Leiderman, Lucy, author
Lives of magic / by Lucy Leiderman.
(Seven wanderers trilogy)
Issued also in print formats.
ISBN 978-1-4597-0848-8
I. Title.
PS8623.I37L59 2014 jC813’.6 C2013-902951-6
C2013-902952-4
We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and Livres Canada Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.
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Lives of Magic (Seven Wanderers Trilogy) Page 29
